Crime and Policing Bill (Fourth sitting)

Keir Mather Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Of course we keep all such matters under review. I am just pointing out that these are exactly the same clauses that the shadow Minister voted for in the Criminal Justice Bill.

On the point that the shadow Minister made about the reasonable grounds for suspecting, which a police officer must have in order to seize the weapon, the knife or bladed item, there is not an unlimited power for the police to seize any article they may wish to take away from the property. They will have to provide reasons why they are seizing the article and, as I said in my remarks, they will have to return the item if a court determines that they have seized it in error.

On the shadow Minister’s final point, this of course is only one measure. There is a whole range of other things that we need to do, particularly in the preventive space, to deal with the issue of knives. However, this measure will give the police, as I am sure he would agree, one of the powers that will help in dealing with the problems we face with knife crime today.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 12 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

[Keir Mather (Selby) (Lab)]

rose—

Crime and Policing Bill (First sitting)

Keir Mather Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I am afraid this will probably have to be the last question to this set of witnesses.

[Keir Mather (Selby) (Lab)]

Q Chief constable, I have a question referring back to the issues you raised about rural crime. It is becoming a particularly pernicious issue for communities, especially when it comes to things such as off-road bikes, fly-tipping and the theft of farm vehicle equipment. Can you speak to how the provisions in the Bill will allow police forces to better tackle rural crime as a whole?

Chief Constable De Meyer: I agree entirely with the point in respect of rural crime. We need to acknowledge how important the rural economy and the custodians of our countryside are, and policing needs to do more to bring offenders to justice.

If I am not mistaken, one provision in the Bill relates to the point about the swift recovery of electronic devices. I think that that enables us to act more swiftly in respect of the proceeds of some rural crime offences as well. This is a category of crime where the proceeds are often disposed of very quickly to other parts of the country and, indeed, overseas. Very often, of course, those pieces of equipment or devices have a tracking capability, so anything that enables us more swiftly to respond and recover that property gives us a much better chance of bringing those offenders to justice than has been the case in the past. It is also likely to have a considerable deterrent value for organised crime groups, and opportunistic criminals too.

Dan Murphy: There is provision for seizing vehicles without giving notice. Without going into detail, I think that that will definitely assist.

[The Chair]

We can probably squeeze in one more quick question.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

If he can keep it to a quick minute, I call Keir Mather.

[Keir Mather]

Q Sir Robert, you have vast experience in understanding that large crime and policing Bills such as this one need intense co-operation between the criminal justice system, frontline officers, the prison service and the courts. From your experience in Government, do you have any lessons about how we can better improve that co-operation?

Sir Robert Buckland: Well, we do not have all day, Mr Mather, but there is a lot I can say. The Bill is a relative minnow compared with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which was the combined Bill that I worked on with the then Home Secretary.

The important thing is to make sure that legislative and political intent do not run too far ahead of operational reality. I will give the example of when we changed the law on stalking. This is going back a bit now, when I was still a Back Bencher. Dame Diana was certainly involved; it was a cross-party achievement. We did it in record time and got the law changed within months—it was an incredible achievement—but the police were not operationally ready. I still see evidence even now, 10 years on, of a lack of training about and awareness of the tell-tale signs of stalking.

The message I give to you all—particularly the parliamentarians who are cutting their teeth on this Bill—is to make sure that you read the impact assessments, that Ministers can answer your questions about operational reality, and that the police chiefs, the CPS and all the agencies that have the job of doing this are ready and resourced to make the legislative intent a reality. Otherwise, your constituents are going to be coming back to you in a few years, saying, “Why haven’t there been any prosecutions under this new offence?”

[The Chair]

Order. That brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions. On behalf of the Committee, I thank our witnesses for their evidence.

Examination of Witness

Colin Mackie gave evidence.

Draft South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (Election of Mayor and Transfer of Police and Crime Commissioner Functions) Order 2024

Keir Mather Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2024 General Committees

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (Election of Mayor and Transfer of Police and Crime Commissioner Functions) Order 2024.

As always, Mr Dowd, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. The draft order was laid before the House on 7 February. If approved, it will transfer the police and crime commissioner functions from the South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner to the Mayor of South Yorkshire. It will also bring forward the next scheduled mayoral election in South Yorkshire from 2026 to 2024, with elections then taking place every four years thereafter, so that the South Yorkshire mayoral election cycle is aligned to the existing PCC election cycle across the rest of the country.

I am grateful to incumbent Mayor, Oliver Coppard, for providing his consent to the transfer and to the amendment of his current mayoral electoral term to enable alignment. The PCC for South Yorkshire will continue to exercise the functions until the end of his elected term of office in a few weeks’ time. From the point of taking office on 7 May this year, following the mayoral election, the Mayor will then act as the single directly elected individual responsible for exercising PCC powers, which include the duty to hold the chief constable and police force to account. Of course, the Mayor will be accountable to the people of South Yorkshire through the ballot box.

The functions of the PCC will include, as they do elsewhere, the issuing of a police and crime plan; the setting of the police budget, including the PCC council tax precept; the appointment and, if necessary, suspension or dismissal of the chief constable; and the addressing of complaints about policing services that are non-criminal in nature.

[Keir Mather (Selby and Ainsty) (Lab)]

Will the Minister speak a bit more about the role that a Mayor with the new powers will be able to play in co-ordinating between police forces in the region? In the village of Kirk Smeaton in my constituency, offences can happen on either side of the border between North Yorkshire and South Yorkshire, and police forces will often not answer calls if the incident is in the wrong field, making for a bit of a ridiculous situation. Does the Minister think that a Mayor with the new powers will better be able to address such cross-border issues?

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Mather]

The hon. Member has raised quite a few points about accountability. First, there will be accountability through the ballot box for an elected Mayor. Secondly, is it not the responsibility of South Yorkshire MPs to work in a spirit of pragmatic co-operation with the Mayor to allow this change to happen? If they will not, I can think of a fantastic candidate—Jake Richards in Rother Valley—who would be very happy to do so.

[Alexander Stafford]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but if we are talking about accountability, only 24% of people voted for the last Mayor. That is a fundamentally undemocratic part of it. We have accountability in this place. For instance, I had a public meeting only last Thursday with the current police and crime commissioner, and he told us, “Nobody wants police stations on the high street.” I took a vote among the 50 or 60 people in the room, and 100% of them wanted the police station open on their high street. But can we, as Rother Valley, force the police and crime commissioner? No, because in the wider Sheffield, the focus is on Sheffield. The pork barrel nature of funding for Sheffield means that we are all neglected. That is deeply concerning.

It is very upsetting that we are in a situation where more money and resources are being pumped into a South Yorkshire Mayor who then does not spend them on what we want. We are spending £12.2 million on a bike lane between Maltby and Rotherham. We are getting £6.5 million to put in the roundabouts. Who wants that? We do not want that. What we want is the bus route between Swallownest and Aston and Crystal Peaks restored, and he is not even doing that, even though he has the power. We want Doncaster Sheffield airport reopened, but he has not done that. What faith do we have in the whole system working for the people of South Yorkshire?

I have taken up enough time, but I beg colleagues in the room: we do not want this in South Yorkshire. The people in South Yorkshire do not want it. The Members of Parliament who are here—those who bothered to turn up and to represent their constituents and give them a voice—do not want it. The MPs who did not turn up today clearly do not care about this. They must be among the many thousands of people who did not respond to the consultation. They do not care about it. The people who care about the community—the people who care about South Yorkshire—are the people who bothered to turn up today to speak for South Yorkshire, for the people of South Yorkshire, for responsibility in South Yorkshire and for good spending in South Yorkshire. This SI goes against all of that. I beg you all: please, vote it down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Fletcher]

At this moment in time, considering the place that South Yorkshire is in, if we are going to have PCCs and Mayors, which is not serving South Yorkshire well, both of those positions should continue to be elected separately, rather than giving all the power to a Mayor who can then appoint somebody who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley has said, will not be elected. The measure gives too much power to an individual whose record so far has been appalling for South Yorkshire. As I have said, I urge all Members to vote against this, because it is not the right thing to do. Once again, we have three Members of Parliament here who have given up the time of day to attend, as opposed to those Opposition Members who have failed to turn up, and we need to ensure that our voice is heard.

[Keir Mather]

We have heard a lot from Government Members about democratic accountability, even the risk of dictatorship, and how nobody wants this and the will of the people needs to be respected. This provision was in the manifesto for the current South Yorkshire Mayor who, I remind Government Members, received 71% of the vote in his mayoral election. Does that not equal democratic accountability?

[Nick Fletcher]

This is why we are living in a dictatorship. I need to take this moment to encourage all the people in South Yorkshire, if this goes forward today—[Interruption.]