Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kate Osborne and Suella Braverman

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

16. What steps her Department is taking to help tackle antisocial behaviour.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Suella Braverman)]

We are committed to tackling antisocial behaviour and to recruiting 20,000 additional police officers, which will take us to our highest number ever. We expanded the safer streets fund to include the tackling of antisocial behaviour as one of its primary aims, and last year we published the ASB principles to establish a strong and effective partnership response to antisocial behaviour.

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[Suella Braverman]

I am pleased that those in my hon. Friend’s constituency are starting to draw up plans for the next round of the safer streets fund. He will know what a difference safer streets has made to Stoke-on-Trent, with neighbourhood crime down by 26% since 2010. I cannot give him a precise date on the next round, but I can assure him that we hope to be able to say something more about safer streets in the near future.

[Kate Osborne]

Government austerity measures led to Northumbria police losing more than 1,100 police officers and to a huge increase in antisocial behaviour in my constituency, with thefts in local shops in East Boldon and Hebburn, and off-road motorbikes in Wardley and Boldon. The incident levels are so high that this week I am having a specific surgery with the police and crime commissioner in Wardley. When will Ministers allow recruitment to vacant policing posts, invest in our communities and tackle antisocial behaviour?

[Suella Braverman]

I am pleased that Northumbria’s police and crime commissioner has received just under £3.9 million from the Government through safer streets to date. That has included £3.5 million in the current round to fund projects such as community engagement, target hardening and guardianship interventions. Those are measures where Government funding targeted in local communities, in response to input from local leaders, is making a difference to safety in our communities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kate Osborne and Suella Braverman

Thursday 26th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

I regularly visit CPS teams around the country, and there is a huge amount of dedication and commitment to improving performance. No one is under any illusion about the scale of improvement needed. However, we are seeing huge measures, with investment and resources being ploughed into the system nationwide—whether that is Operation Soteria, or the pilots in the south-east and in Avon and Somerset. All around the country, we are seeing better practices, focusing on closer collaboration between the police and the prosecutor, earlier investigative advice and more support for victims. We now have some changes to the disclosure guidelines, which are going to focus on supporting victims. I think that, cumulatively, we are going to see improvements and the early data gives me grounds for optimism.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

2. What steps she is taking to increase the number of prosecutions relating to violence against women and girls.

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[The Attorney General (Suella Braverman)]

I have seen at first hand the horrendous damage that these crimes do to victims, particularly when I was honoured to visit the Havens, which is a sexual assault referral centre, and that is why tackling violence against women and girls is a central mission of this Government. Supporting victims from the report to the police right through to trial and sentencing is a service that all victims deserve. I am working very closely with the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary so that we get a whole-system response to this challenge. I am very pleased to see that there has been a notable change in the volume of prosecutions, which has increased by more than 10% from quarter 2 to quarter 3 in 2021-22.

[Kate Osborne]

I thank the Attorney General for her response. In 2020, one in 20 victims of sexual assault reported being drugged or spiked by the perpetrator responsible for their assault, and that was before the terrifying reports last year of young women being injected. Given the scale and seriousness of this spiking epidemic, does the Attorney General regard it as acceptable that just 102 people were convicted for spiking offences in the whole of 2021? What more is being done to tackle this?

[The Attorney General]

I know that the Home Office is looking very closely at the issue of spiking. There will be movement on this because we take it very seriously, and we are very concerned about the increasing number of incidents relating to the spiking of victims as a way of attacking and sexually assaulting them. In the data we are beginning to see on how the system is responding—whether that is the number of referrals the police are making to the CPS, the number of charges that the CPS is passing on to trial and for prosecution, or the actual conviction rate—we are seeing improvements. We want to go further, of course, but we are seeing early signs of improvement.