Oral Answers to Questions

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to help reduce the level of theft of tools from trades people.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

Stealing someone’s tools is a particularly rotten kind of crime. Not only does it deprive them of their belongings, which is bad enough, but it also often deprives them of their livelihood, notwithstanding the inconvenience that it causes to them and their employers. We are determined to do something about this, which is why I recently convened a group of people from the industry and from policing to look at what more we can do to help. We are spending £25 million on our safer streets fund to drive down exactly this kind of acquisitive crime.

[Bim Afolami]

I thank the Minister for his response. Will he join me in championing the use of modern technology to combat tool theft such as the ToolWatch app designed by Harpenden residents, Denise and Alan Brett? This technology makes each tool traceable and can help police fight this crime. Will he take this opportunity to champion ToolWatch and help to spread its use in police forces throughout the country?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is one of the most original thinkers in the House and therefore it is no surprise that he champions innovation in all things, including crime fighting. Yes, he is absolutely right, there is lots more we can do in harnessing technology to fight crime, and I would be very interested, when we get back to normal, to visit his constituents and see ToolWatch for myself so that we can take it and promote it to the industry more generally.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

If her Department will introduce a cap on the number of immigrants permitted to enter the UK each year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

24. What steps her Department is taking to increase the number of police officers.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

The Government are of course committed to delivering an extra 20,000 police officers over the next three years and to putting violent criminals behind bars for longer. That is why we are giving the police literally wheelbarrows full of cash, with £700 million this year to help with the recruitment of 6,000 additional officers by the end of March 2021; 3,005 of those officers have already been recruited.

[Rob Butler]

May I first ask the Minister to join me in congratulating all of Aylesbury’s police on ensuring that the Black Lives Matter march in the town on Saturday passed off peacefully? Thanks are also due to the organisers and the community partners for their co-operation. Having recently been on a socially distanced patrol with the police superintendent in Aylesbury, I know the increase in officer numbers and the cash my hon. Friend mentioned will be greatly appreciated. Can he assure me that the process of additional recruitment be sustained, despite the undoubted pressures on the public purse due to coronavirus?

[Kit Malthouse]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating his local police on the peaceful passing off of the protests in his area on Saturday, and I thank him for taking the trouble in his first few months as a Member of this House to spend some time with his local police. It is always informative, and I urge all Members to do the same.

Of all the promises made at the general election, I know that delivering Brexit and delivering 20,000 police officers are the two closest to the Prime Minister’s heart. With confidence, therefore, I can say that we will complete that task in the time allotted.

[Paul Howell]

I want to take the opportunity to place on record my thanks to Jo Farrell, the chief constable of Durham and Darlington police force, for the calm and controlled conduct of her force and, in particular, for her excellent weekly cross-party virtual briefings to make sure that local MPs and council leaders are up to speed. In recent calls, one point of concern has been frustration with delays in restarting court proceedings. Will my hon. Friend further encourage the Ministry of Justice to do everything possible to find a safe way to make as much progress as possible in reopening courts, so that all our police forces’ work results in criminals being dealt with?

[Kit Malthouse]

I join my hon. Friend in offering congratulations to his local police force and chief constable for the work they have done throughout the lockdown. Police across the entire country have done a fantastic job and remained remarkably resilient throughout the last few difficult weeks. He is right that the impact of the crisis on the courts has been profound and has resulted in the workload—the case load—rising quite significantly. Double-hatted as I am between the Home Office and the MOJ, I have a ringside seat on creating a recovery plan for the courts. On Friday, I held a meeting between the courts service, the Lord Chancellor and chief constables from across the country to start to outline the recovery plan to them, and I am confident that it will be put in place quite soon.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

As the shadow Home Secretary said earlier, issues around the horrific killing of George Floyd and the protests at the weekend will be dealt with in a statement later this afternoon. Now, I would like to ask the Minister about his “wheelbarrows full of cash”. With many police and crime commissioners, we wrote to the Home Secretary in early May, responding to a letter from the Minister for Crime and Policing to a PCC suggesting that funding for recruitment of the first tranche of the 20,000 additional police officers promised by the Prime Minister be repurposed to fund the response to covid-19 pressures. Will the Minister categorically confirm today that that letter was incorrect and that funding for recruitment of those desperately needed additional staff will not be diverted, and that the wheelbarrows full of cash will continue to be used to recruit those 20,000 police as promised?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to clear up what is obviously a misunder- standing. Throughout the crisis, I have held weekly calls with police and crime commissioners across the country to talk to them about the issues they are facing. One issue brought to us relatively early was cash flow, as a number of forces have faced additional costs during the crisis and they felt that their cash flow—not the absolute cost, but their cash flow—might come under pressure. We therefore agreed to a number of measures, not least advancement of the pension grant and the early delivery of half of the ring-fenced funding for recruitment, to ease that cash-flow pressure. That is a separate issue from the overall cost, and our discussions with the Treasury about that cost and with PCCs are ongoing.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

What steps her Department is taking to enforce social distancing measures during the covid-19 outbreak.