Knife and Sword Ban

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I am pleased that the Opposition secured this debate today. It is an important debate and an emotional one for many of us, certainly for me.

Serious violence, including knife crime, is a critical issue in cities, towns and villages across the country. It is important to acknowledge that it is not just a London problem; it affects many constituencies across the whole country. Knife crime alone has risen by 77% since 2015, and the impact is felt widely—not just the devastating and all too often fatal impact felt by immediate family and friends, but the trauma and distress felt by the wider community.

In Batley and Spen, unfortunately we have felt at first hand the traumatic and life-changing impact of knife crime. Since my election, I have worked with two extremely brave local families whose lives have been torn apart by truly dreadful incidents involving horrific attacks with knives. Robert Wilson, from Birstall, was stabbed to death in January 2020 outside the factory where he worked, just doing his job; the attack was carried out by two youths wielding a samurai sword in what the judge called a “frenzied and senseless” assault. Robert’s wife, Elaine, is a remarkable woman who has shown incredible strength and selflessness following this heinous attack. She is determined to raise awareness of the horrors that knife crime inflicts on families and communities. Despite her unimaginable personal pain, she speaks to young people in schools about her experience, to help them to understand the potentially life-changing consequences of carrying a knife.

In June 2020, just a few months after Robert was killed, Bradley Gledhill, a local 20-year-old, was attacked and stabbed to death in Batley by six young men, five of whom were teenagers. This despicable attack on Bradley and on two of his friends, who were seriously injured, shook the community. It was unprovoked, robbed a young man of his future and showed the very worst of humanity. Having met his incredibly strong mum, Kelly Hubbard, and his sister, Bryony, I do not have the words to describe the trauma and devastation wrought upon Bradley’s family. Like Elaine, however, they have channelled their trauma, with incredible resilience and strength, to campaign to tackle knife crime by establishing the “Bin the Blades” campaign on social media, and working with local schools, speaking to students to convey at an early age the seriousness of this issue and the consequences of carrying dangerous weapons.

I recently worked with Elaine, Kelly and Bryony on a soon-to-be-released short film, commissioned by the BBEST group of schools across Batley and Birstall, specifically about the horrors and impact of knife crime, in which I also reflect on my personal experience of the murder of my sister, Jo Cox, in 2016. It was an extremely emotional experience for all of us, but we all felt that we had a duty to spread the message about the real horrors and personal impact that knife crime can have. This important work is having an impact, and I cannot praise these brave individuals and the schools involved in the project highly enough for what they are doing. No other family should have to go through what these families, the other families we have heard about today and my own family have gone through.

Sadly, there is no single simple solution to eliminate knife crime and remove dangerous weapons from our streets. Families and communities need national leadership if we are to tackle this most serious of issues, and I am always happy to work across parties, but the national leadership has been lacking in recent years. That is why I am pleased that Labour has a five-point plan that will deal with knife crime in a holistic, multi-agency way.

Of course we need tougher consequences for carrying a knife and of course we need more officers on our streets, but we also need early intervention in schools, including youth hubs. We need youth workers embedded in A&E units, pupil referral units and custody centres, and the establishment of mental health and mentoring programmes. We must also, finally, crack down on the availability of these hideous weapons and take action where, sadly, the Conservatives have failed to do so. We should also go after the gangs and tackle the exploitation of young people who are drawn into criminality. All of this should be co-ordinated across Government in a Home Office, Health and Education approach that addresses the root causes of the issue, not just the symptoms—an approach that will break the chains of criminality, prevent young people from getting into these groups and gangs, and, if they are drawn in, provide help and mentoring by offering a tailored and supported route out.

Like colleagues across the House, I visit schools in my constituency most weeks, as well as local community groups, sports clubs and businesses. I applaud the work they do across Batley and Spen to build strong communities, but I also hear about the fear many of them feel about antisocial behaviour and violence, including knife crime, in our communities, and their worries about young people being drawn into dangerous behaviours, or simply ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Only a tough approach, but one that is targeted and multi-agency, will succeed. It is hard work, and it will take time, resources, determination and co-ordination. It is not a gimmick. The Labour plan demonstrates how seriously we take this issue, with our mission-led approach, which has been sorely missing in recent years. Only Labour has a detailed plan to make our towns and villages safer, to restore safety to our communities and to get these dangerous weapons off our streets. We owe it to Robert and Bradley, to their families and to all the other families we will hear about today to put that plan into action. I am pleased to endorse the Labour plan today.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

On behalf of the whole House, let me say to the hon. Lady that we all appreciate the courage it takes for her to speak on this subject. We as a House, and as friends and acquaintances, will never forget the sacrifice made by her sister, Jo Cox, while she was carrying out her duties as a Member of Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr French]

The public have rightly had enough of empty gesture politics and warm words from politicians when yet another life is unnecessarily taken. They want action. They want their political leaders to get a grip on crime and make all our communities safer again. In London, the need to get a grip on crime and get back to basic policing could not be clearer. Not only are the Metropolitan police in special measures, but their leadership now faces a confidence crisis, from the perspective of both the public and many serving frontline police officers. Morale in the Met has arguably never been lower. It is little wonder, when decent, hard-working frontline officers feel that time and again they do not have the backing of the Mayor and their leaders to do the dangerous job of being a police officer in London, whether that means using stop and search to take dangerous knives off the streets, or specially trained firearms officers still having the confidence to pull the trigger in those split-second life-or-death moments when they guard us in places like this.

I am genuinely sad to say that I was not surprised to learn that the Met was the only force in the country that had failed to hit its recruitment target, despite millions of pounds in support being provided directly by the Government. That is yet another failure on the part of the Labour Mayor and police and crime commissioner, and one that has cost London more than 1,000 police officers—1,000 extra police officers could be walking the beat, actually attending burglaries or helping to stop what feels like a never-ending rise in knife crime. Seriously, what chance do ordinary Londoners have when criminal gangs roam the streets of London targeting their next victims, with the only questions normally being whether a watch, a car or a phone has been stolen this time, and whether the police will even bother to investigate the crime?

True to form—and this is what Labour Members are trying to do here today—the Labour Mayor of London continues to deflect all of these failures on to the Government, rather than taking any accountability as the police and crime commissioner for London. In fact, I understand that the Office for Statistics Regulation recently had to correct Sadiq Khan’s misinformation on knife crime, stating that it had “significantly increased across” his tenure and not declined, as he had claimed.

Quick to plead poverty at every opportunity, the Mayor always manages to find money for his mates or money to waste on his latest pet projects rather than more funding for frontline policing. All that is paid for, of course, from the wallets of Londoners, including a staggering £200 increase in the Mayor’s share of council tax and his continued hammering of motorists across London. And look how he spends taxpayers’ hard-earned money, with £30 million for his union mates despite a record number of strikes—

[Kim Leadbeater]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr French]

He has spent £29.5 million on additional staffing costs, including a 57% rise in Mayor’s Office costs and a 33% rise in press office spending; and let us not forget the £10 million for Met officers to learn what colour their personalities are. Now I do not know what colour my personality is, but what I do know from my experience of life is that when you see red ahead, you should follow the warning signs and stop. When it comes to crime and transport, the Great British public should look very closely at the sorry state of our capital city to see the big bright red warning sign highlighting what to expect if another left-wing, human rights London lawyer were ever in charge of our United Kingdom.

As the Leader of the Opposition has said himself, London highlights what Labour can do in power. With taxes up 70%, with London now officially the slowest city in the world in which to drive—that is, if your car has not already been stolen—and with more than 1,000 people tragically killed under this Labour Mayor, a Labour-run United Kingdom is a scary prospect indeed.

Town Centre Safety

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I will do my very best, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am going to follow the lead of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and focus on the reality of the situation on the ground for my constituents in Batley and Spen. I also thank her for her one-woman crime-fighting endeavour when she was in my constituency.

Our town centres are the lifeblood of our communities. In my constituency, people are incredibly proud of where they are from and often identify, first and foremost, with their immediate locality, whether that is Batley or Spen. The Spen valley is made up of a fantastic collection of towns and villages, all with their own strong local identity. I know how important that is because I was born and brought up there and have never lived anywhere else. There is Heckmondwike, where I went to school; Mirfield just down the road, where I had my first full-time job; Gomersal and Liversedge, where I have both lived and worked; and Birstall, Birkenshaw, Oakenshaw, Cleckheaton, Scholes, Roberttown and many more. All of them are special, but sadly all of them are also too often ignored by a Government who over 13 years have shown themselves to be totally out of touch with the day-to-day reality of the lives of so many people I represent.

I have worked closely with West Yorkshire police to tackle the scourges of dangerous driving, crime and antisocial behaviour in Batley and Spen, and they tell me how the cuts to police numbers and resources over the years have left them unable to serve the community as they would wish. They all want to do a great job, but it is increasingly difficult to do it as they would wish. Members should not take my word for it: the chief constable of West Yorkshire police, John Robins, made the point very clearly on BBC Radio Leeds in June. He is not political; he just wants to do the best for his officers and for the community. As John Robins said:

“We are able to deal with the most serious incidents in policing, from terrorism to serious organised crime, homicide and serious violence, but as you go down the list of issues, when you get towards visibility, engagement, patrols and neighbourhood policing, that’s the one that comes under the most pressure.”

He added:

“The saddest thing for the people of West Yorkshire and the UK is that’s the one the public see most and want the most of.”

Before the Conservatives try to claim credit for the most recent recruitment of officers, which of course I welcome, they need to recognise the serious damage already done by all those years of neglect, and acknowledge that they are simply giving back a few of the officers they have taken away. The chief constable compared the situation to people’s household budgets, and he is right. He said that

“through cost of living and mortgage increases people haven’t got the money that they want to live their life with… Since 2010 that’s what it has been like for policing. We’re 2,000 less officers and staff, £140m less—I can’t deliver what I want to deliver as a professional police officer.”

I met the Police Federation in Parliament last week, who also spoke candidly about the challenges faced by officers on the ground as a result of reduced numbers, retention and recruitment issues, and the impact on the mental health of their officers and their ability to do their job as they would wish to do it—adding again to the mental health crisis that has already been spoken about in this debate. I thank the fantastic neighbourhood police team in Batley and Spen for everything they do to keep our communities safe, but I know from the many conversations I have had with them that it is an uphill battle.

Our towns and villages deserve better than they have received under the Tories in many ways. The cost of living crisis has hit individuals and businesses alike, with inflation, rising interest rates and spiralling energy costs making life incredibly difficult. Labour’s plans for economic stability, growth, green investment, a warm homes fund, the abolition of business rates and reform of the NHS and social care sectors, all on the basis of strict fiscal responsibility, will make a huge difference.

First and foremost, though, people have a right to feel safe and to know that the police will be there when they are needed. I have received countless messages from constituents about speeding and reckless driving, selfish and dangerous parking, when pavements should be for people, criminal activity, including drug dealing, going on openly on the streets, and antisocial behaviour of all kinds, including the use of off-road bikes. It is not right that people should be expected to put up with such a state of affairs. It does not have to be like this.

That is why I am incredibly proud of the Labour party’s plans for a new community policing guarantee, announced by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition at conference, which means guaranteed town centre patrols with 13,000 more neighbourhood police and PCSOs on the streets. Local people will be involved in setting local policing priorities and we will have tough new sentencing guidelines for assaults on retail workers, as already discussed—something that USDAW and many others have campaigned for brilliantly—and stronger police action on shoplifting.

Local councils, the police and the courts will be empowered to introduce zero-tolerance zones in town centres to help to crack down on antisocial behaviour. I was horrified to hear the stories from staff at Tesco in Cleckheaton recently about the dreadful abuse and attacks they face on a day-to-day basis. We cannot have small business owners and shopworkers feeling unsafe at work, and we cannot have local people feeling scared to go into their local town centre or village to do their shopping or to socialise.

As well as the many fantastic shops in my constituency’s towns and villages, they also have brilliant community centres, pubs, restaurants and cafés. They are places not only where people come together with family and friends, but where many fantastic community events take place and people have a chance to meet others from different backgrounds. That is really important for community cohesion and for addressing loneliness and social isolation.

However, many of those venues are struggling. I pay tribute to the chambers of trade up and down the country for the fantastic work they do in building strong towns and villages, including in my constituency, where we have the Birstall chamber of trade, Batley Business Association and the Spenborough chamber of trade and commerce. They are often run by volunteers and amazing local businesspeople who are at the heart of our communities.

A future Labour Government will offer individuals, businesses and communities not only a promise of financial security, but the physical security that we all need to be able to rely on as we go about our daily lives. The people of Batley and Spen deserve more, and the sooner the Conservatives admit that they have sadly failed our towns and villages, and make way for a Labour Government who understand the needs of our communities, the better.

Antisocial Behaviour and Off-road Bikes

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Matt Vickers]

The hon. Lady is entirely right. For all the reasons that hon. Members have raised and that I have outlined, we need a national strategy for dealing with these vehicles so that we can share learning and best practice, and empower our local authorities and the police to get a grip on this issue.

People across Stockton are sick of the misery, harm and distress caused by a small few mindless youths misusing vehicles. All too often, my constituents are unable to see the work authorities are doing to tackle the issue.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech, and I agree with pretty much every word of it. It certainly applies to my constituents in Batley and Spen. Does he agree that there is a correlation between antisocial behaviour with off-road bikes and the cuts to our police forces over the past decade?

[Matt Vickers]

Resource is part of it, and part of it is about learning the lessons and making the best use of the resource. In my part of the world, there are 267 more police officers on our streets, and we are feeling the impact of that, but I fear that, due to the frustrations of the public, someone will try to take the law into their own hands, stand up to these yobs and find themselves on the wrong side of the law. I urge the Minister to ensure that the law is on the side of the many law-abiding citizens in my constituency, who want to be free to go about their lives without the fear of feral yobs on bikes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for securing this important debate. In the two years that I have been a Member of this House, antisocial behaviour and dangerous and inconsiderate driving have been perhaps the two biggest issues raised with me by constituents. Hardly a week goes by without people getting in touch about the risk to pedestrians and other road users, and the intimidating behaviour by what are, for the most part, teenagers and young men showing a total disregard for the safety of others.

I have held numerous meetings with the police, the council, the deputy mayor for policing and others to look for solutions to these problems—solutions that require a multi-agency approach. [Interruption.]

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. I will suspend the sitting for the Division, and we will carry on the debate when we return. I understand there will be a lot of votes back to back, but I ask colleagues, particularly the Minister—or a Minister—and the mover of the motion, to get back very quickly after the last vote.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Kim Leadbeater]

I will return in a moment to why trying to make progress towards those solutions is so frustrating for me and, more importantly, the residents affected. Just last week I held a roundtable on antisocial behaviour at my office in Heckmondwike, and later this week I will be holding another on road safety. I find such opportunities to get everyone together to address problems very powerful. Although we have made some progress locally, I will not pretend that there is not a much bigger piece of work to be done to get enforcement, and the political and cultural changes we need, to change behaviours and bear down on offenders.

The contributions of the various agencies involved are valuable in setting out what is being done and what more could be done if the resources were available. For me, the most important voices are those of the victims of this hugely disruptive and damaging antisocial behaviour, on whose lives it has a significant impact.

One man from the Fieldhead estate in Birstall told me how seriously his whole family has been impacted. He said:

“The estate is currently plagued with nuisance motorcycles and quad bikes. I have sent many photos and videos to the police and have called them numerous times. Three this week alone. It’s not just the noise, that scares my children to tears, it’s the fact that they ride them around at speeds in excess of 60-70 mph, wear no helmets, ride on the pavement and between the houses and have absolutely no consideration for other residents around, including children that are playing in the streets.

The bikers nearly hit my daughter as she was walking home. On another occasion one guy on a moped almost hit my step mother as she got out of her car. He was speeding and pulling a wheelie as he flew passed.

I am at the end of my tether with it. The police have little to no power and when they do remove the bikes from the riders, they have a different bike in a matter of days.”

A constituent from Gomersal described

“young lads on trial bikes who are riding round our area wearing balaclavas and no helmets. They have no regard for anybody on the road, footpaths or anybody crossing the roads.”

He added:

“I really do believe it is only a matter of time before these people kill somebody.”

I am pleased to say that, in response to the issues raised with me, the police have stepped up patrols, and a number of bikes have been seized. They really want to do more, but it will come as no surprise to hear that they simply do not have the resources or the manpower. John Robins, chief constable of West Yorkshire police, said just last week that the cuts mean that he simply cannot deliver what he wants to deliver as a professional police officer. Since 2010, West Yorkshire has seen cuts to its budget of £165 million and the loss of 2,000 officers. At the same time that police numbers have fallen, there have been cuts to child, youth and community services. Too often, the voluntary and private sectors have to step in to try and fill the void. I want to pay tribute to local charities and organisations that do a fantastic job providing activities for young people to give them a focus and help to keep out them of trouble. Jack Sunderland and his team at the Training Cave in Birstall encourage young people to put their time and energy into boxing, while BUMPY, also in Birstall, offers on and off-road motorbiking sessions and qualifications to young people and adults, including some of the most vulnerable, in a safe environment.

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

The hon. Lady said a moment ago that police numbers in—was it South Yorkshire?

[Kim Leadbeater]

West Yorkshire.

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Lady said that police numbers in West Yorkshire had fallen. I gently say this: in March 2010, West Yorkshire had 5,856 police officers; in March this year, there were 6,160. Far from being cut, there are now 300 more officers than there were in 2010. I am sure that was inadvertent.

[Kim Leadbeater]

I am happy to be corrected if that is the case, but the deputy mayor for policing in West Yorkshire gave me those figures.

[Chris Philp]

Well, she is wrong.

[Kim Leadbeater]

I am happy to check and apologise if that is the case.

Going back to organisations in my constituency and across the country, Sustrans does a fantastic job of looking after the wonderful Spen Valley Greenway. However, like many charities, it is struggling for funding, and next year it will no longer be able to fund Rob Winslade, our dedicated warden. I am seriously worried about the impact that that will have on the greenway’s safety.

There are many other groups in Batley and Spen, as in all our constituencies, which do similar excellent work. They are keen to be part of the solution to tackling the problems of antisocial behaviour and specifically off-road bikes. However, the truth is that without a systematic, Government-led strategy to properly resource and fund our police force and to provide a proper range of community services, including sport and physical activity provision for young people, we will continue to have the kind of problems we have discussed today. Leadership at a political level is required, with the aim of helping as many people as possible to feel fit, healthy and fulfilled, and of building communities that everybody can feel proud of and want to protect.

We need a shift in culture, but that will not happen by itself. I recently proposed a health and wellbeing strategy that would bring together all Departments of Government alongside local authorities, charities and voluntary organisations, as well as the private sector, to help produce a happier, healthier and safer nation. It will not happen overnight, but the current Government are not doing anywhere near enough to make that happen. I finish by thanking everyone in my constituency and across the country for their fantastic work on this important agenda.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Pritchard; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I will probably not take all the time that we have—you might be pleased by that.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on securing this important debate. I thought that he spoke a lot of sense. We have been here before, talking about this issue. He asked the Government to get a grip of the problem in his speech, which the Minister who is now present, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), missed. I am sure that the Minister will respond to all the points that hon. Members made.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) is worried about the antisocial behaviour that will arise in the summer months, and the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) raised similar issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) is so active in her community that she had an event last week on this issue and is having one next week, which shows her commitment to her constituents. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) gave a harrowing story of how people feel when antisocial behaviour is rife, and how they think that they cannot report it because there will be reprisals. Such things are often completely hidden because those crimes never get to the point of the police being involved and are therefore not covered by the statistics.

In both this Chamber and the main Chamber, Ministers have described antisocial behaviour as low level, and the Government have not taken the issue seriously to any degree for a long time. It was only after Labour Front Benchers put forward tough antisocial behaviour plans earlier this year that the Government published their underwhelming and unambitious strategy, with lead responsibility transferred from the Home Office to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

We know there is huge underreporting of antisocial behaviour, but the latest stats are awful. There were 1 million incidents of antisocial behaviour last year—more than 2,700 every single day—but that is just the tip of the iceberg. We know that criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling has risen by 20%, and “arson not endangering life” is up by 21%. Over a third of people say they have personally experienced or witnessed antisocial behaviour in their local area, and 72%—nearly three quarters of the population—think that crime has gone up in the past few years.

There is a big problem with antisocial behaviour statistics, because the Government do not do proper data collection. The freedom of information requests that I have submitted show huge variety across the country in how antisocial behaviour is reported and dealt with, and data on the use of new powers is not centrally collected. The Government could choose to address that if they wanted to, but they do not, so will the Minister look again at how antisocial behaviour is recorded? Will he recognise the impact of antisocial behaviour?

Our colleagues have been debating the Victims and Prisoners Bill in Committee over the last couple of weeks, and one of the amendments put forward by Labour Front Benchers was designed to treat victims of antisocial behaviour as victims in law. The Government voted against that proposal, which is a real shame, because until we recognise the impact of antisocial behaviour and that it involves victims too, we will not start to get serious about dealing with the problem.

People across the country raise the issue of off-road bikes, which has a pernicious impact on communities. The vehicles are loud and driven at great speed, causing great danger to other people and to those riding them. They spray mud and dirt, upset communities and ruin green spaces. It is a problem in the north-east, which I visited with Joy Allen and Kim McGuinness, Labour’s excellent police and crime commissioners there. There are also real problems with stolen bikes, and the police are concerned that not enough is being done to help them attack that crime. It appears that off-road bikes are easy to steal, and police tell me their frustrations about the fact that claims on off-road bikes are paid out even if the key is in the ignition. It is quite a niche, technical issue, but if people can leave the key in the ignition and get paid the insurance, it is quite easy for people to steal the bikes, which seems to happen in a lot of areas.

We have seen examples of good work. Simon Foster, the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, has funded three additional off-road bikes for the police—they now have six—and he is increasing the number of trained off-road officers in Northumbria. Kim McGuinness has had great success in clamping down on stolen motorbikes, including by using overhead drones.

[Kim Leadbeater]

In Batley and Spen, police officers have received the off-road bike training that they need to chase perpetrators, but I was informed recently that officers are now being told that if we want to get more of them trained, they will have to pay for their own licences, which seems wrong. I wonder whether the Minister could look into that and get back to us.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for her helpful intervention. I am sure the Minister will address that in his speech.

If the people are good enough to put their trust in us, the next Labour Government will put 13,000 extra neighbourhood police and PCSOs on our streets as part of our neighbourhood policing guarantee.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I find myself in the Chamber slightly unexpectedly—you will have noticed that a younger and better-looking Minister has appeared than the one who was here at the beginning—[Interruption.] I hear some sceptical gasps rippling around the room. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Security is making a speech somewhere far less august than this. I have therefore come to conclude the debate. The matter is part of my portfolio, so it is probably appropriate that I am here in any event.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on securing the debate on this extremely important topic, which is a Government priority and always has been. We have heard some commentary about resourcing, and it is important that the police have the resources that they need to keep the public safe from antisocial behaviour and crime more widely. To put the record straight on police funding, therefore, the police settlement for the current financial year is £17.2 billion. That is higher than it has ever been at any time in history. Police and crime commissioners specifically, who fund frontline policing in our constituencies, have £550 million—more than half a billion pounds—more this year, compared with last year.

Let me take a moment to comment on police numbers. I am sure that what the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) said about the police in her county was inaccurate only inadvertently, because her county has record numbers. In fact, England and Wales as a whole have record numbers. To be precise, as of 31 March, we now have 149,472 police officers in England and Wales. That is more than we have ever had at any time in this country’s history, and it is about 3,500 more than in March 2010, when there were 146,030 police officers. These are record police numbers.

We also heard a little about crime recording, data, peak crime and whether crime is going up or down. Perceptions of crime are sometimes different from the actual figures, however. There are two sets of crime figures, which apply to any criminal activity, including ASB. There is the crime survey for England and Wales, which is a large-scale survey recognised by the Office for National Statistics as being the only accurate measure of crime over the long term, and there is police recorded crime, which is when people report things to the police. That is a function of people’s propensity to report to the police and how good a job the police do in recording the crime. Until about five years ago, the police did not always do a particularly good job. The inspectorate has clamped down in the last few years, and the police are now much better at recording everything that is reported to them. It is for that reason that the ONS says that the crime survey is considered the most accurate measure of long-term crime trends.

In that context, I have some figures on changes in crime since 2010—I pick that date arbitrarily, of course. Criminal damage is down by 65%, and vehicle theft is down by 42%. On antisocial behaviour, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), mentioned that according to the crime survey, which she has obviously seen, 35% of people had experienced antisocial behaviour in the year ending September 2022. What she neglected to mention is that that was a substantial decrease of 12% when compared with the last year before covid.

On police recorded crime, which has its limitations, the hon. Member for Croydon Central said that 1.1 million ASB offences were recorded by the police. Again, she forgot to mention—no doubt for reasons of time and space—that that this is a 21% reduction since before the pandemic.

[Kim Leadbeater]

I know the Minister likes his statistics, and I have always admired his ability to get those statistics out there, but will he not take on board the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) about the reluctance of people to report antisocial behaviour? Sadly, I know from my own experience in Batley and Spen that there is a feeling that nothing will be done so there is not any point in reporting it. That creates more statistics, but they are not visible to us.

[Chris Philp]

What the hon. Lady is saying is that there is limitation in the police recorded crime figures. That is why the crime survey is considered the authoritative source of data. It does not rely on the public reporting a particular offence; it is essentially a public opinion poll on an enormous scale. The methodology has been the same over many years, which is why the crime survey figures are considered the most reliable.

I was going on to say that even though those ASB figures are going down, whether measured by the crime survey or by police recorded crime, this is a serious issue, as the hon. Lady and Government Members have said. People feel that more needs to be done and that there is too much ASB, and the Government agree with that assessment. That is why, just a few weeks ago, the Government launched their antisocial behaviour action plan, which included £160 million of new additional funding.

Among other things, that extra funding pays for antisocial behaviour hotspot patrols, which will target areas of particular antisocial behaviour. Those hotspots could be in town centres, but they could also be in areas where there is quad biking or trail biking going on. That is being piloted in 10 force areas. I think Lancashire is one of those. I was in Chorley, in Mr Speaker’s constituency, last week, out and about with the very first ASB hotspot patrol in Lancashire. There are going to be 14 other hotspot patrols in Lancashire as it rolls out, as well as in 10 other force areas. In April of next year, every single police force in the country—all 43 of them—will have ASB hotpot patrols funded with over £1 million per force.

We are also funding immediate justice, where those people caught perpetrating antisocial behaviour, including on quad bikes and trail bikes, will within 48 hours be made to do some kind of restorative activity—it could be cleaning graffiti or cleaning up the streets—in branded, high-vis jackets, to make clear to the public and the perpetrators that there are consequences when people commit ASB. Again, there are 10 pilot forces, and by April next year every single police force in the country will have about £1 million each to deliver immediate justice.

The plan has a lot of other elements. It strengthens the provisions in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. There will also be a statutory instrument shortly to ban nitrous oxide, which is a driver of ASB and a serious matter.

Illegal Migration Bill

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes]

I will not because time does not allow.

The amendment I tabled in Committee, which has now been brought forward by the Government, will put in place scientific tests to establish beyond doubt the age of claimants.

Almost 90,000 people have come here in small boats in recent years. It costs £6 million a day to accommodate them in more than 300 hotels. The Government and this House must re-establish the faith of the British people that we understand their concerns. It is as simple as this: we must deliver the legislation because we must stop the boats.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I am interested to know whether I am part of the liberal establishment. As a working-class girl from Yorkshire, I am struggling a little with that concept. I wonder whether the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) is part of the liberal establishment that has been spoken about.

We on the Opposition Benches are clear that the tide of illegal migration to this country must be stemmed. We are also clear that the appalling rise in the number of people risking their lives in small boats to cross the channel is a damning indictment on this Government’s failure to secure our borders. Deflecting blame for their failure on each and every person who gets in a boat, at great risk to themselves, because they have no other option, is shameful and wrong.

I rise to support amendments 2 and 3, in the name of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), in the hope that Ministers will recognise the inherent injustice in this blanket approach and that they will reflect on the need to address the issue on the basis of what works, not what they believe will reverse their poor poll ratings on immigration.

The truth is that people are sick and tired of hearing from successive Tory Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries that they are finally going to get tough and sort out the mess that they themselves have made of our immigration system. If we want to address the growing cynicism in the country about promises made from the Dispatch Box that turn out to be hollow, Ministers have to give up their addiction to divisive and dangerous language and headlines, and get serious about the issue of illegal migration.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Is my hon. Friend as dismayed as I am by the Minister’s comment earlier today about cannibalism, referring to refugees?

[Kim Leadbeater]

I agree wholeheartedly. I sometimes worry, on many levels, about the language used in this place and its impact on the outside world. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) has made that point very well. We all need to think about the language we use, the words we say and the impact that they can have on people outside this House.

What we need is a thorough, workable and deliverable plan. That is what the Opposition have put forward, as the shadow Immigration Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), has articulated brilliantly this afternoon. What distinguishes Labour’s plan is not only that it is practical and tough on the real criminals, but that it is rooted in justice and fairness.

I note that the Minister has described the Bill as

“the morally just thing to do”.

I beg to differ. There is absolutely nothing fair or just about detaining children, and nor will the Bill do anything to deter the criminal gangs. Equally, as we have heard, imprisoning pregnant women and those with dependent children undermines the moral basis of the policy without achieving any benefit. That would be true whether or not the Government had a good record of protecting vulnerable people, either in detention or in Home Office accommodation, which clearly they do not.

Justice and fairness cannot be cast aside lightly. They are at the heart of what makes us all proud to be British. They underpin our values. They should be the guiding principles behind everything we do in this House. Unless the system is both just and fair, it will fail, like every other so-called crackdown that has done nothing to stop the boats. Not only will it fail to work, but it will fail to convince the public that the Government are serious about stemming the flow of illegal immigration. I therefore urge the House to support our amendments.

[Vicky Ford]

As I said on Second Reading, I support the premise of the Bill. Too many people’s lives are put at risk on small boats, and it is important to break the model of the people traffickers. We are also spending millions of pounds—indeed, billions—of our aid money on hotels for tens of thousands of people in the UK. That money should be spent on helping millions of people elsewhere in countries such as Sudan. I have just met representatives of Save the Children from South Sudan, who told me of their expectations that children who need help will be coming across the border. Without help, such countries will become even more unstable. More people will be forced to flee their homes, so more people will try to get on the small boats.

The small boats route is also extremely unfair. No country has an unlimited capacity to support asylum seekers. Those who arrive by illegal routes reduce and limit our capacity to provide the safe and legal routes that will help the most vulnerable. As I said on Second Reading, the introduction of new safe and legal routes needs to go hand in hand with closing down illegal routes. I am extremely grateful to the Government for listening to that point, and I have co-signed new clause 8.

On the issue of how children should be treated, I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration for meeting me and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and listening to our concerns. I know that the Minister takes the welfare and safeguarding of children very seriously. I understand that we must be careful not to create perverse incentives for people traffickers that force them to target even more children and send them on small boat crossings, but depriving a child of their liberty is a very serious issue.

We have very strict rules in this country regarding the protection of children. I am very proud of those rules, many of which were introduced by this Conservative-led Government. Depriving a child of their liberty can have a serious and long-lasting effect on their mental health, so there need to be very strict rules. That is why I am a signatory to amendment 183, which makes it clear that a child’s liberty can be restricted only for a very limited period.

I am grateful to the Minister for listening to my concerns on the subject and to those of other former children’s Ministers. I listened closely to what he said at the Dispatch Box. I thank him for his assurance that he will work with my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham to set out a new timescale on the deprivation of liberty issue. That timescale needs to be clear, and it needs to be set out in the Bill. It should be a handful of days, not a number of weeks. That is necessary to make sure that children are prioritised, because children are often those who are most at risk.

I agree that we need to be wary of the risk of creating an increased incentive for more adults to claim to be children. I recognise that some of those who claim to be claiming asylum are actually adults. However, roughly 50% of those whose ages are in dispute are children, and many of them will be very vulnerable. We need to ensure that there are short timescales for genuine, known children, but also that there is proper safeguarding for those whose age is disputed.

Another point of concern that has been put to me is that children who know they could be removed when they turn 18 may be at increased risk as they near their 18th birthday. They may be tempted to abscond from care, and may then fall into the hands of deeply worrying people and become subject to the modern-day slavery about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) speaks so eloquently. Members need to consider these risks, and to ensure that the Bill and the way in which it is implemented will not make vulnerable children even more vulnerable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I thank my hon. Friend and other honourable colleagues for their important campaigning to ventilate this issue. He speaks not only with passion, but with a deep understanding of the issue. I very much agree with him. I think that there are people from all walks of life who do not necessarily have a degree or want one who can be very good police officers. That is why I have asked the College of Policing to consider options for a new non-degree entry route to complement the existing framework. The current transitional arrangements will be extended in the meantime, and I am very clear that the police force must be open to those who neither have or want a degree.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

In Batley and Spen, we continue to face serious problems of antisocial behaviour, reckless driving and dangerous parking. Ultimately, behaviour change is key, but in the short term, neighbourhood police and local councils need the resources to catch and punish those who show no respect to our communities. When will the Government properly invest in neighbourhood policing, and when will they stop cutting already stretched council budgets so that councils can use their power to tackle dangerous parking?

[Chris Philp]

Council budgets are obviously a matter for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and they will be set out in the local government funding settlement in a few weeks’ time. When it comes to police budgets, which are the Home Office’s responsibility, as I have said once or twice already, the budget this year is £1.1 billion higher than it was last year—it stands now at £16.9 billion—and by April next year, when the police uplift programme is complete, we will have more uniformed police officers recruited than at any time in our country’s history.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Gentleman has clearly not been paying attention. I set out Labour’s plan last week. I have just told him about the returns agreement and giving more resources to caseworkers and decision makers. If he would care to listen to the rest of my speech, he may not need to make another meaningless intervention.

Fourthly, in respect of the Government failures that I touched on earlier, the Bill is emblematic of the Home Secretary’s tendency to make the challenges of our asylum seeker system even harder to overcome. She claims that the Rwanda offloading plan will solve the challenges that our immigration system faces, but her Minister for Refugees dismissed the plan as impossible just a week before the announcement, saying:

“If it’s happening in the Home Office, on the same corridor that I’m in, they haven’t told me about it…I’m having difficulty enough getting them from Ukraine to our country. There’s no possibility of sending them to Rwanda.”

Up and down the country, the British people are counting the cost of this Government—£4 billion of failed or overrunning defence contracts under this Prime Minister since 2019 alone; £16 billion of covid fraud; and a £7-a-year increase on energy bills without any meaningful support whatsoever—and now British taxpayers are told that they have to foot the bill for this pie-in-the-sky Rwanda plan, which will cost at least three times the amount we currently spend on asylum seekers, and possibly even 10 times more.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the proposal to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda is not only extremely expensive but almost certainly ineffective? It is also inhumane. The evidence from Australia shows that offshore detention often has a massive impact on the mental health of people who are already vulnerable, and can lead to self-harm and suicide if no adequate support services are available. How can we, as a fair-minded and generous nation, stoop to this?

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As we know, the Australia scheme ended up costing approximately £1 million per person. The Israel scheme on which the Rwanda scheme is based failed completely, with just about every single person who was sent to Rwanda leaving the country within days and many of them trying to come back to the place from which they were sent. It is an absolute farce.

Ukraine Refugee Visas

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

As we have already touched on, we are now seeing the rate of grants increasing significantly on the Homes for Ukraine scheme, as we saw with the Ukraine family scheme. I have touched on the number of visas that we issued in just two days last week under that scheme. We expect to see the same with this scheme, and we will soon see a very large number of the applications that have been made granted.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of the British people, including those in my constituency of Batley and Spen, who have offered to open their homes to Ukrainian families. They desperately want to help and are ready and waiting. Can the Minister tell these good people why the Government are making it so difficult for families who are fleeing the devastating attack on their country by asking them to fill in, as we have heard, these lengthy, multiple-page online forms, often in English, and upload so many documents? What is being done to ditch this extra bureaucracy, which takes caseworkers days to review, and what is being done to speed up the whole process?

[Kevin Foster]

I certainly would not say that it would take caseworkers days to review an individual form. In many cases, the online forms are literally click-through pages to say, “No, I don’t have a criminal record”. We have touched on how the process is accelerating. We will see many more applications granted and many of the people making such generous offers getting to be able to play their part.

Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate on a deeply traumatic but very important subject, which cannot and should not ever be ignored. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for her ongoing work on CSE and for the bravery and commitment she has shown in tackling the subject over a number of years. I know that it has not been easy.

As the IICSA report states, despite receiving a welcome higher profile in recent years, some of the processes in place to identify and deal with child sexual exploitation have created an institutional hesitancy to intervene and take the necessary action to protect children and catch perpetrators. We cannot be hesitant in addressing the issue, and any denial about the scale of child sexual exploitation either nationally or locally must be challenged.

Sadly, child sexual exploitation is not unique to any part of the country or to any community. West Yorkshire police recently charged 42 people with non-recent offences—many of them from my constituency of Batley and Spen. A further 29 individuals have been arrested. I agree with detectives in Kirklees when they urge victims to come forward, knowing that they will be listened to and that the matters they report will be fully investigated by specialist officers. If we are to treat this issue with the seriousness it demands, we must provide additional resources to the police and to social services to investigate historical cases, so that that does not come at the expense of investigating current cases.

Offenders will go where they think children are most vulnerable and open to manipulation, so more national support is needed to help identify perpetrators and victims of online grooming. Justice delayed is justice denied. Currently victims have to wait too long for cases to come to trial. That adds enormous stress during what is already another hugely challenging time for them and it prevents them from getting on with their lives, so the backlog of cases must be dealt with as a matter of urgency. Once the trial is over, victims and survivors should not be left unsupported. Effective long-term post-trial resources need to be put in place within the health and social care systems.

To help communities that have been affected, and where suspects and perpetrators come from, to understand the issues, we need more education programmes and community projects to support both the survivors of CSE and the families of perpetrators and those who are accused of these crimes—an often overlooked group who face their own traumatic and life-changing experiences, though in a very different way. There have been many failings in cases of CSE, and that is simply not acceptable. Although I do feel reassured by the conversations I have had with West Yorkshire police and Kirklees Council during my relatively short time in office that they will leave no stone unturned in their investigations into CSE, we must all continue to work hard to ensure that we learn from the mistakes of the past, and build on the work of the independent inquiry and the Truth Project to find and prosecute the perpetrators and support all survivors of these heinous crimes.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous]

The British Nationality Act has been in law for the last 40 years and that provides the power to strip people of citizenship. What we are talking about here is doing it without notice.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that to deprive a person of their citizenship without warning or explanation would be a flagrant breach of natural justice and that to do so as an alternative to submitting that person to due process under the law risks undermining our national security, rather than enhancing it?

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. She is exactly right. How can it be right that somebody is able to be stripped of their citizenship without knowing about it? That is clearly a breach of natural justice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful for the fact that the welfare of this special—in every sense of the word—group of people is at the forefront of my hon. Friend’s mind. She will be pleased to know that the Government continue to fund the national police wellbeing service, which provides support and particularly post-traumatic incident services to all police officers, including special constables. As I said in the earlier part of my answer, there is more that can be done, and by making sure that all special constables are full members of the Police Federation, they will be able to access the significant support that that organisation can provide.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

13. What steps she is taking to (a) tackle antisocial behaviour and (b) support victims of antisocial behaviour.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)]

The beating crime plan laid out the Government’s commitments to working with local agencies to drive down antisocial behaviour, and we are committed to ensuring that victims of antisocial behaviour get the response they deserve. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 introduced specific measures designed to give victims and communities a say in the way that complaints of antisocial behaviour are dealt with, and this includes the community trigger—an important safety net that gives victims of persistent antisocial behaviour the ability to demand a formal case review.

[Kim Leadbeater]

Does the Minister agree with me that if her Department was fit for purpose, local councillors in my constituency from her party as well as from mine would not be forced to find the funding for neighbourhood policing after 11 o’clock at night, because Government cuts have left the hard-working officers I have met so overstretched in the fight against crime and antisocial behaviour?

[Rachel Maclean]

I am sure the hon. Member will agree that local councillors of all parties want to tackle the scourge of antisocial behaviour that affects their residents. Local areas have the powers and the funding from the Home Office. The Mayor of West Yorkshire, a Labour Mayor, is receiving up to £510.8 million of funding, which is an increase of £25.8 million on the police settlement of last year, and she has also been able to recruit an extra 619 officers to tackle these priorities.