National Crime Agency

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

CEOP will continue to do the work that it has been doing, but it will be able to be even more effective because it will be part of that wider agency. The CEOP brand will continue to exist, and we have made it absolutely clear—we have talked to CEOP and to Peter Davies about this—that CEOP will continue to operate as it does at the moment, because an important part of its work is its links with the private sector. It will be able to continue to do that work within the National Crime Agency, but on top of that it will have the advantage of access to intelligence capability, of access to that prioritisation of work and of working with those other commands.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I congratulate the Home Secretary on her statement. I am comfortable that the National Crime Agency will be able to deal well with serious and organised crime, but what about serious but not organised crime? What about serial killings, rapes and issues like that, which the NPIA currently deals with? It still seems unclear where its injuries database and all its other services in relation to serious but not organised crime will sit. What will happen to all that?

[Mrs May]

Of course, one of the difficulties in all such issues relates to the definitions that one uses for those types of crime, but serious crime that is not undertaken by organised crime groups is predominantly dealt with by individual police forces. As a result of the National Crime Agency being set up, however, I believe that it will be possible to share intelligence on serious crimes of that sort. It will encourage greater regional co-operation among police forces, so it will be possible to deal better and more effectively with serious crime that is not related to organised crime groups.