Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

If the hon. Gentleman has a particular case, I have been speaking to other hon. Members—[Interruption.] No, please send it to me. There has been a problem with Teleperformance, the company that runs the helpline on this, but I would be happy to address his points. There is a great deal of work taking place operationally with Her Majesty’s Passport Office in dealing with passports and applications, and we are about to have yet another record month of passport delivery.

The fourth round of the proven safer streets fund is worth £50 million and will help to reclaim spaces so that people across our communities and streets are safe. Alongside that initiative, the Government have worked assiduously to combat issues such as drugs and county lines. While we know that Opposition Members are weak on combating drugs, this Government have overseen the arrest of 7,400 people as part of the county lines drug programme, and 1,500 lines have been closed. Drug seizures by police officers and Border Force in England and Wales in 2020-21 increased by 21% on the previous year. The 10-year drugs strategy is underpinned by £30 million of new investment to tackle that scourge.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 backs the police with improved powers and more support for officers and their families in recognition of the unique and enormous sacrifices they make. It means tougher sentences for the worst offenders and modernises the criminal justice system with an overhaul of court and tribunal processes.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act. When I brought to this House the Desecration of War Memorials Bill, she immediately picked it up and ran with it and included it in the policing Bill, despite the mocking from the Labour party, including the Leader of the Opposition, saying that we were trying to protect statues rather than war graves and the war memorials to our glorious dead. Thank you, Home Secretary.

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support in making the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill an Act of Parliament. It is through that work that we are now able not only to protect and stand with our officers and back the police, but to have tougher sentences for the worst offenders and to modernise the criminal justice system. The most serious sexual and violent offenders will spend longer in prison. The maximum sentence for assaulting an emergency worker has doubled, and whole-life orders for those who commit premeditated murder of a child will be extended. Those are all key features of the Act.

This Government are also investing £4 billion to create 20,000 additional prison places by the mid-2020s, and the GPS tagging of 10,000 burglars, robbers and thieves over the next three years will deter further offending and support the police in pinning down criminals at the scene of their crime. That is why this Government will not stop. The beating crime plan is exactly the plan to cut rates of serious violence, homicide and neighbourhood crime.

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[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Mr Deputy Speaker for being so understanding regarding my need to be absent from the Chamber for a period of time and then allowing me to come back to speak. That is very gracious of you.

It is always an honour to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), who has a flair for theatrics. He is a gentleman I certainly enjoy conversing with. I am sure that his audition just now for the Christmas panto in Brighton will get some phones ringing for him.

The people of Stoke-on-Trent, Kidsgrove and Talke were delighted with this Queen’s Speech, because it talks about the very places that they are proud to call home, and about the very issues that they raised with me on the doorsteps when I was out knocking doors in the recent local elections. Today’s theme of safer streets is clearly one of those. They were delighted that the Government are pushing forward with the measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which will see child killers receiving a whole-life sentence, killer drivers being given longer sentences, and an end to the automatic early release of violent and sexual offenders.

We will also see the adoption of the Desecration of War Memorials Bill, which I brought to this House after the shameful acts of vandalism upon our Union flag at the Cenotaph in London over a year ago now. When I looked into that, I noticed that it was happening not just in London but across the country, and sadly even in Tunstall, where a war memorial to our glorious dead was graffitied. Thanks to two fantastic young girls who went along to clean it, that really brought to people’s attention the importance of making sure that war memorials—and war graves, which the Government rightly added—have special protection. While the monetary value of war graves, for example, would require 10 or more to be damaged for any offence to go to a magistrates court, we now have an offence that reflects the emotional damage done to a community. These war memorials and war graves are in every village, town and city of our United Kingdom, and our glorious dead should always have the respect that they rightly deserve. It was just a shame that when I brought the Bill to the House Opposition Members ridiculed it as somehow being protection for statues rather than what it was clearly about—protecting war graves and memorials to our glorious dead. I hope that their jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, as the Opposition frequently like to do, will be a lesson learned and they will now come out and say that it was absolutely right to make sure that those memorials have full protection.

I am delighted to hear that we will have the draft victims Bill, because giving rights to victims is so important. It is sometimes easy, in the criminal justice system, for us to focus on the offenders and forget the victims. It is vital that we ensure that victims not only have their day in court but receive extra support and welfare after any sentence is given so that they can rightly feel recompensed for the crime committed against them.

The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 is exactly what the people of Stoke-on-Trent, Kidsgrove and Talke voted for when, back in 2016, 73% of them voted to leave the European Union because they wanted us to take back control of our borders. They wanted to send a very clear message that while they have absolutely no issue with people coming to this country legally—people, for example, who they can see are coming from Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine fleeing persecution—they do have an issue with people choosing to come across as illegal economic migrants from safe mainland European countries such as France, putting tens of thousands of pounds into the hands of people-smuggling gangs and fuelling an industry that is causing misery and turning the English channel into a watery grave. Let us not forget that 70% of those making that journey are men. My constituents see that queue-jumping and it does not sit right with them. That is not because they are not compassionate: Stoke-on-Trent is the fifth-largest contributor to the asylum dispersal scheme. They are happy to do all they can to support those who are most vulnerable and most in need, but they want fairness. If someone is coming from Ukraine, Syria, Hong Kong or Afghanistan, that is fair. People choosing to make that journey unnecessarily is simply not right. It is jumping the queue, and the British public were delighted to hear, when I was out in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, that we are taking action. They are just waiting to see that first flight take off and that policy come to fruition.

The Public Order Bill is another fantastic piece of legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) was absolutely correct to say that it is simply not right that the crusty woke warriors who are busy gluing themselves to pavements or roads, or standing on top of trains, meaning that they cannot leave—people who are preventing others from going out to earn their money—are allowed to take that action without feeling the full force of the law. There are plenty of ways for someone to demonstrate their feelings about wanting to solve the climate change crisis without having to go to those extremities where they damage people’s lives, particularly when we are suffering with rising inflation and a rising cost of living. They are asking people potentially to lose out on a day’s pay, and that is simply not right. Those people need to be held to account, especially when—the Policing Minister has said this from the Dispatch Box—they are taking extremely dangerous action on motorways, risking the lives of men, women and children, as well as their own. That is simply not appropriate, and it is therefore correct that we take action with this Bill.

Then we have the Government’s fantastic ambition of 20,000 extra police officers, of which more than 13,500 have so far been recruited, with over 201 in Staffordshire alone. What is important—I know that the Policing Minister gets this—is that we do not just have these numbers, but that we see them transferred on to the streets. We are very lucky in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire to have got rid of the absolutely pathetic former chief constable, who had no ambition, no drive and no understanding of what the people wanted or expected. We have now brought in the fantastic new chief constable, Chris Noble, who has already drawn up a completely new plan for neighbourhood policing in our local area. It means Newcastle-under-Lyme will have a new policing hub based there, with dedicated officers for the Kidsgrove and Talke area. The plan will also look at how the Stoke-on-Trent North policing area, which I also cover, will work. That will be extremely well received. The plan has bobbies on the beat and bobbies engaging with local businesses, schools and communities, but also makes sure that those response times are met. Those are all the types of thing that people want to see.

Finally, there is the safer streets fund, which I fully support. In Stoke-on-Trent, we have had a whopping £2 million or more from four successful bids. My only gripe is that none of that money has gone to Stoke-on-Trent North. It has all gone to my friends in Stoke-on-Trent Central and Stoke-on-Trent South, and I am greedy. I want my own pot of money for places such as Cobridge, Tunstall and Smallthorne, which rightly want alley gates, more CCTV and new back doors and front doors. The blight of antisocial behaviour and fly-tipping is something that Members in all parts of this House will experience in their constituencies. We need to ensure that all the measures that can be taken are taken to prevent that as best as possible. I therefore look forward to lobbying the Minister, Stoke-on-Trent City Council and the Staffordshire police, fire and crime commissioner Ben Adams to make sure that those bids go to the right place.

We also need to look at the consequences for those who are responsible for antisocial behaviour. It is easy to blame the Government, and it is easy for the public sometimes to moan at the police, but personal actions are someone’s personal responsibility, and those individuals should be held accountable for their poor choices. In the case of someone under the age of 18 who is constantly having the police knock on their door, and whose parents or carers are taking no action to back the police, the school or a social worker when they say, “You need to have stricter controls on the young person you are in charge of”, perhaps we should look at making sure that those high-vis chain gangs are not just for those who commit ASB. Perhaps the household should be made to go out and tidy up the community and clean up the streets. If they have to suffer the consequences of that delinquent’s poor actions—that feral youth who is acting in such a poor way—perhaps the whole household will take much more seriously the need to back our police, our teachers, our social workers and our care system when they say, “You, as a parent or carer, have a responsibility to bring up your child or young person in care in a responsible way.”

It is about holding people accountable. Boundaries are important. I know that, because I spent eight and a half years as a teacher before coming here. As a head of year, I was in charge of attendance and behaviour, as well as being—I am sure Opposition Members will be shocked—a trade union representative on the shop floor, proud to represent the NASUWT for all that time.

I will be quick about the other things in the Queen’s Speech because I do not want to be cheeky with time. The Mental Health Act reform Bill is personal for me; I shared my story in The Daily Telegraph about my struggles with mental health. I am proud to be part of a campaign called No Time to Wait led by my friend and former Government adviser James Starkie, which calls on the Government to ensure that we have a mental health nurse in every GP surgery across the country to help to triage. We know that 40% of GP cases are specifically for mental health, so we need action on that. I am delighted to have support from Labour Members, such as the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), who is not in her place, and Liberal Democrats Members as well as the Royal College of Nursing, The Daily Telegraph and Mind, which is an important charity.

I was also delighted that the Chancellor hosted a reception for us yesterday at No. 11 Downing Street to share the campaign’s aims and raise awareness of it. I hope that that is something that the Government will take up. I see the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), on the Treasury Bench and I am delighted that he has had the chance to hear that. I look forward to meeting him and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to have those further discussions. It is something that we simply must come to terms with and deal with quickly.

I am delighted that the Online Safety Bill is coming forward, because we need to tackle those vile online sites that coerce and advise people on how to take their own lives. In Stoke-on-Trent, a young man called Brett Stevens was sadly a victim of that type of crime. His mother Angela brought that to my attention and we have been engaging with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is vital that the legislation creates a new offence so that anyone who encourages or assists self-harm is held accountable by the law, as the Law Commission recommended. It is not right that those websites can do such things.

Then we have our places and the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill: this is what the Government were elected on and what Stoke-on-Trent has been long overdue and waiting for after 70 years of Labour neglecting it and forgetting where it is, because the assumption was that it would automatically vote Labour at every general election. It took Labour losing Stoke-on-Trent for its party members to find where it is, although that was a bit of a journey—they thought it was in Stoke Newington at first, but they finally made their way to Stoke-on-Trent on a couple of occasions. Every time they have come, the Conservative gains have increased in the local elections and by-elections, so I thank them very much for all the campaigning that the Opposition are helping us with.

With the planning reforms that are being undertaken, I want the Government to go further than just compelling landlords on the high street to fill their shops after a year. I want them to strengthen planning enforcement to make sure that if a landlord’s window is broken or dirty, if there is poo muck, as there sadly is outside some of my shop fronts, or if the signs are hanging half off, the landlord is held responsible and tidies it up. It is not appropriate for a private landlord to allow the high street to become neglected and ruined. The state should give the power to local councils to hold those responsible to account.

I also want the Government to adopt my ten-minute rule Bill, which I introduced more than two years ago and reintroduced in the previous Session—I will be doing that again this time—about section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It would increase the current fine of a maximum of £1,000 on a rogue or absent landlord, as we have at Price and Kensington, to make it unlimited to allow a judge to determine the seriousness of the fine. The Bill would also increase the daily fine after that from £100 to £500 so that rogue landlords can be held accountable and responsible for their actions.

On education, we have the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022, which is brilliant because it is about time that we have a focus on technical education and apprenticeships. We need to make sure that apprenticeships work, which is why we need to reform the apprenticeship levy. Members across the House will agree that it is not working in the interest of business and is not enticing businesses to take on apprentices. We need to ensure that that lot of money, which is sitting in a pot somewhere not doing anything, is doing what it should be doing and helping those young people or adults who are looking to reskill and retrain. I am delighted to have Jess from Talke Pits as an apprentice in my office, who is doing a fantastic job. We will soon advertise for our new apprentice from Stoke-on-Trent College, because I want to make sure that I am leading the way. If I am calling for businesses to do it, I need to set the example.

The £4 billion that is going into those skills through the lifetime skills guarantee is also superb. The higher education Bill with the lifelong loan entitlement will reap benefits for those people who need to reskill or retrain, or who want to have a change, which is exciting. The Schools Bill banishes the lazy culture of low expectations and poor aspiration, which is also important, especially the increase in literacy and numeracy to 90% in young primary school students.

There are two other points. It is good that we are going for full academisation by 2030—it is about time that we do this—but there are some rotten multi-academy trusts in our system, as I know from my time as a trade union rep. We want a Bill to make sure that the board of trustees of a multi-academy trust faces an Ofsted inspection to look at its governance structures, its accounts and how it is applying its policies across the board. I want these to work, and if they do not work Labour Members will say that these are just more unaccountable and less transparent local education authorities. I do not want the Labour party to be right, which is why I want to make sure we get this policy right. I therefore hope that the Government will adopt my ten-minute rule Bill. I will be reintroducing it in this Session and seeking the cross-party support for it that I got in a previous parliamentary Session, because it is about time that boards of trustees are held to the same standards as the teachers who work within their profession.

I also wrote not long ago about grammar schools. I know that some Conservative Members will say I am just dragging up an age-old Tory argument, and Labour Members will be going, “Oh, here we go—a bit of blue on blue!” However, I think grammar schools are fantastic. I believe they are fantastic because—as I saw with my own mother, who is the beneficiary of one, and my own brother, who is the beneficiary of one—those I have met in Stoke-on-Trent who were able to attend one say that it transformed their lives for the better. It is so important to remember that 60% of grammar schools are situated in 11 out of 150 local education authority areas, which is simply not right. A child in the north-east does not have access to a single one, and that is not appropriate. That is why I hope this Government will work with me to see how we can lift the ban on grammar schools and give parents such a choice, so that parents have the same choice for a kid in Stoke-on-Trent as for a one in Kent.

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[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The first duty of any Government is to keep its citizens safe. We heard that earlier—it was the Home Secretary’s opening remark when she started the debate—but the Government have failed in that duty over the last 12 years.

On the Conservatives’ watch, we have seen police officers disappearing from our streets, a criminal justice system in chaos and people feeling much less safe in their own communities. The Government’s record on crime and justice is utterly woeful: total crime is up, charge rates are down, and victims appear to be being abandoned. The Queen’s Speech was an opportunity for the Government to finally get tough on crime and the causes of crime, rebuild our broken criminal justice system and make our communities safer. Yet again, they have failed completely to grasp that opportunity. Once more, the Government are chasing the wrong priorities while ignoring the criminality that people face daily. There are vague promises in the Queen’s Speech to make our streets safer, but there is little detail on how they will tackle the real concerns of the people in Coventry North East, such as local neighbourhood crime and persistent antisocial behaviour that has such a serious impact on both individuals and communities in my constituency.

Over recent years, we have seen significant issues with antisocial behaviour on our streets, from problems of noise, nuisance and neighbour disputes to vandalism and the illegal use of off-road motorbikes. More and more residents are now contacting me to tell me that these incidents are leaving them feeling intimidated, threatened and fearful for their safety. Sadly, the Government’s record shows they simply do not seem to understand—or, worse still, care—how persistent antisocial behaviour like this can destroy communities and blight residents’ quality of life. That probably explains why the Government have failed to put in place a co-ordinated national plan on antisocial behaviour for a decade, which has left communities in Coventry North East feeling abandoned.

My local force, West Midlands police, has been badly let down and hamstrung by a lack of resources, with both officer numbers and budgets cut to the bone by successive Tory Governments for more than a decade. The police in my constituency do a wonderful job and I am always grateful for the regular updates they bring me. However, what is really apparent is that they cannot do more with less money and fewer resources. Worst of all, we now have what seems like a postcode lottery on policing resources. For example, how is it Warwickshire police can have a dedicated off-road bike team when West Midlands police does not and cannot? That lack of resources means there is an absence of visible community policing on our streets, with fewer officers to reassure residents, deter criminality, investigate crimes and support victims. Indeed, all too often residents tell me they rarely see bobbies on the beat any more, while the officers I have spoken to tell me there are simply insufficient resources to investigate every crime.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The hon. Lady rightly talks about off-road bikes, which are an issue in my constituency. We have section 59 notices, which I do not think are working as a deterrent. Does she agree with that, and does she think that, cross-party, we can try to find a way to toughen the law in this area?

[Colleen Fletcher]

In my constituency, off-road motorbikes are being used in a very, very intimidating way. They are almost escorting cars around. They are not doing them any actual harm, but they are intimidating people, so much so that one person in my constituency had to stop at the side of the road to gather himself to be able to drive on. That has been said to me time and again through emails and through visits in the community. I visited the police. I had a meeting with our police and crime commissioner. Only two weeks ago I had a summit meeting with the leader of the council and others, where I spoke about off-road motorbikes.

It would be useful if we could do something. The police and the police and crime commissioner tell me that there are not enough resources, and they have to put the resources where they need them. There are pots of money, such as the safer streets fund, but is that really the way to tackle those problems? This must be done far more broadly than it is now. Of all the antisocial behaviour incidents, I deal most with off-road motorbikes, and I know that this goes on across the whole west midlands. It does not happen only in my area, which is why we should look at what we are giving to police forces and say, “This is a problem up and down the country. We need to tackle it.” I would work with anybody to try to tackle it.

In a tacit admission of the damage that they have inflicted on policing, the Government introduced the police uplift programme. Although any uplift in officer numbers is welcome, let us be clear that this will still not take West Midlands police back to pre-austerity levels of policing. We lost 2,221 officers in the west midlands during the austerity years, and although the force is due to get back more than 1,200 officers through the police uplift programme, that still leaves a shortfall in the west midlands of more than 1,000 officers compared with 2010 levels.