Draft Police Act 1996 (Amendment and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2022
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
In what will probably be my final act as Policing Minister, I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Police Act 1996 (Amendment and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2022.
The draft regulations were laid before the House on 9 June and will change the name of the Hampshire police area, in my own fair county, to Hampshire and Isle of Wight. That will better reflect the make-up of the police area and the communities it serves across the counties of Hampshire and Isle of Wight.
I thank in particular Donna Jones, our brilliant police and crime commissioner in the two counties, for her campaign and representations on this important local matter. There is significant local support for the change, with 82% of local residents indicating their support in a consultation carried out by the commissioner. The standout reason cited was the simple fact that Hampshire constabulary serves two counties: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Respondents also noted that those on the Island sometimes feel forgotten, and it was felt that a more inclusive name would help to address that. Key local leaders are also united in their support for the name change, including the leader of Isle of Wight Council, my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) , the force’s chief constable and the district commander based on the Island.
Parliament’s approval of the draft regulations will therefore respond to the specific requests of the people of the Isle of Wight, recognising their strong sense of identity. It will also better reflect Hampshire constabulary’s full geographical coverage and bring the force into line with the corresponding fire service, which rebranded as the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service following the recent merger of the Island and mainland fire services.
Police area names and the power to amend them are set out in the Police Act 1996, section 31A of which allows for the Secretary of State to amend those names by regulations subject to the affirmative procedure. This draft instrument will amend schedule 1 to the Act, which sets out the names of all police areas in England and Wales, with the exception of the Metropolitan police district and the City of London police area. Furthermore, articles 34 and 35 of the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections Order 2012 makes provision in relation to election expenses in police areas. Those articles include references to “Hampshire”, which these regulations will substitute with “Hampshire and Isle of Wight”.
Should the amendment be approved, the Government intend to make a further statutory instrument, subject to the negative resolution procedure, to come into force at the same time as the draft regulations, to reflect the name change in other secondary legislation. Together with the strong local support, I trust that I have made a clear case for enacting this important local change.
The Chair
Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
When people have broken the law, and when it is safe and proportionate for them to do so, they should serve their sentences in the community. It is important for them to be seen to be paying back to the communities to whom they have caused harm. We are investing £93 million in community payback staff over the next three years so that we can increase the number of hours worked to a record-breaking 8 million a year.
Jerome Mayhew
Justice needs to be seen to be done, not just for victims but for the wider community, so that they can be confident that offenders are not getting away with it. Community payback projects allow for offenders to make reparations to the communities whom they have harmed. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that he will be working to expand such projects across the country?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is right: people do want to see justice being done, in a visible way, in their communities. I hope that he saw some of the 300-odd gangs of offenders who delivered about 10,000 hours of community work across the country, particularly on environmental schemes, during the recent Keep Britain Tidy spring clean-up week. However, Members of Parliament can also play a part in this project. We do need to increase those hours to 8 million a year, and we need Members’ help in nominating schemes on which we can put offenders to work, so if Members feel like it, I ask them please to go online and look at the Ministry of Justice website. They can nominate a scheme, and we will send some people to do some cleaning up.
Alun Cairns
Fonmon castle park and gardens, in my constituency, provides a first-class day out for visitors, but will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating those who run it on the partnership that they have established with HM Prison Parc? This offers new opportunities for offenders, while also resolving some of the labour shortages in the area.
Kit Malthouse
I am, of course, happy to celebrate the success of Fonmon castle and its partnership with Parc prison. As my right hon. Friend knows, we believe that employment for offenders is critical to moving them into a better life. Building partnerships of that kind between businesses and prisons is key for the future, and I am pleased to tell my right hon. Friend that Parc prison is in line, in the next year, to have one of our new employment advisory boards, which will bring such partnerships to life across all the UK’s geographies.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Offenders are unlikely to be able to give back to their communities if they find themselves homeless on their release from prison, as I have discovered when supporting people in that situation in my own community. Will the Minister undertake to bring to the House a report indicating the extent to which homelessness among ex-offenders is a fact—which it clearly is—along with an action plan to help constituency Members in all parts of the House to support people when they leave prison so that they can lead a stable existence in their communities and therefore give back?
Kit Malthouse
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the provision of a home—of accommodation—for those leaving the secure estate is critical. We believe that there are three pillars to success: a job, a house and a friend to put people on to the straight and narrow. I do not have to publish a report to underline that, because there has been plenty of research to prove that it is the case. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that we do have an action plan, with some challenging targets, to ensure that all those leaving the secure estate can access the accommodation they need to get them back on to the straight and narrow.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Unpaid work gives offenders a chance to give back to their communities, but huge workloads and staff shortages in the probation service mean that in some areas there is a backlog of up to 100,000 hours owed by offenders, and some have even had their hours wiped because they have not been completed in time. Is this not just another example of our broken justice system—a system that lets offenders off while victims pay the price? When will the Government get serious and fix this?
Kit Malthouse
It is very sad that the hon. Lady is not celebrating the achievements of the probation service, which is expanding. We are recruiting 500 new community supervisors so that we can get on top of some of the covid-related backlog in unpaid work. We have to hit 8 million hours and we have thousands of offenders out there in high-vis jackets doing the work, particularly environmental work with organisations such as the Canal & River Trust. When the Prime Minister promoted that scheme, the Opposition condemned it, saying that it was somehow inhuman. Actually, all our communities across the United Kingdom, day in day out, are seeing justice being done by these offenders, and that is set to grow.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
Community sentences are robust and increasingly command the public’s confidence, not least as they can see more and more offenders in high-vis, brush and shovel in hand, in their streets.
Sir Desmond Swayne
It is reported that the penalties can be discharged by working from home. Please tell me that is not true.
Kit Malthouse
My county colleague can always be relied on to emerge from the forest and ask the most challenging questions. He is correct that independent working projects, while not ideal, were introduced during the pandemic to allow offenders to discharge their sentence with robust and rigorous projects done at home, such as manufacturing personal protective equipment or, more recently, clothing items for Ukrainian refugees. It is our intention to reduce the proportion of sentences that can be done under home working, although for those who cannot handle a brush and a shovel there may well still be a place for it in the future—
Mr Speaker
Order. I call the shadow Secretary of State. That is too long an answer.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
We have heard a lot of complacency from the Government Benches on this issue. According to the Minister’s own Department, community payback offenders now carry out 75% fewer hours of unpaid work compared with five years ago. On average, 30,000 offenders get away without completing their community sentences every year, and now we hear the Government are letting criminals finish their unpaid work sentences at home. Why have they gone so soft on crime that they are letting those criminals get away with it?
Kit Malthouse
It is not the case that community sentences can be completed using those hours, but I am sure the hon. Gentleman will understand that, during the pandemic, with the restrictions placed upon us, we had to find a way to allow offenders to complete their sentence in a satisfactory way. We have systems in place to make sure the jobs are done rigorously to time and, as I have said, we will be winding down that project.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
The Secretary of State will be aware that police officer numbers play a key role in reducing crime and reoffending, so what plans does he have to increase England’s officer level of 23 officers per 10,000 people to bring it closer to Scotland’s of 32 per 10,000 people?
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
Mr Speaker, as you know, the Government are in the middle of a huge recruitment drive of police officers. We have, happily, increased the number by 13,500, and I am confident that by the end of the financial year we will have hit our 20,000 target.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
The Government will deliver a presumption in favour of offering offenders the chance to work in prison, on release on temporary licence, and on release.
Stephen Metcalfe
Does my right hon. Friend agree that getting offenders into employment is vital to reducing reoffending? Will he therefore outline to the House what steps his Department is taking to refocus on the key performance indicators that it measures, to ensure that offender employment is a priority for this Government?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend, in his usual manner, has put his finger on the button of part of the solution to the reoffending cycle. We firmly believe that there are three pillars for success in rehabilitating offenders: the first is a home, the second is a job, and the third is a friend. We are committing to providing all three to those who leave the secure estate. With all other Departments, we will publish our outcome delivery plan in the new financial year. I can reassure my hon. Friend that our right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is setting extremely challenging and ambitious targets for the Department, particularly in regard to housing and employment.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I am pleased that my hon. Friend recognises that dozens of teams of offenders are fanning out across England and Wales and doing fantastic work, paying back into their community by improving the environment. My hon. Friend has been a persistent campaigner on the antisocial behaviour that quad bikes bring to his constituency and I know he will have conversations with his local police and crime commissioner about what the police can do to catch the individuals responsible. When they do catch them, it is absolutely appropriate that they pay back into the community through the kind of work that we now see on a daily basis. It might also be appropriate to GPS tag offenders so that we know where they are moving at speed off-road.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
If, as the Secretary of State said earlier, he is concerned about the oppressive use of litigation costs in SLAPP cases, will he look into the same problems in respect of media cases? Will he consider introducing—perhaps in his Bill of Rights—the type of low-cost arbitration recommended by the Leveson inquiry?
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend the Minister recently met me and my constituent Donna Mooney to discuss imprisonment for public protection sentences. Will he update the House on the progress of his thoughts on the matter and whether he plans to bring forward any plans for reform?
Kit Malthouse
I had a useful and informative meeting with my hon. Friend and his constituent. As he knows, we have in place an action plan for IPP sentences that we are prosecuting with, I hope, some verve and energy to drive down the numbers. My hon. Friend will know that the Justice Committee held an inquiry into IPP sentences; we await its conclusions before we look at the next steps.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituent Huw Davies is struggling to regain control of a home that he has owned for many years and is wondering when there will be tougher action to prevent lasting powers of attorney from being taken out fraudulently. Will Ministers set out what they are doing to toughen up the law and to toughen up the enforcement activity in respect of lasting powers of attorney?
Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
Before I begin, may I associate myself with the spontaneous expression of fealty by the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) towards Her Majesty? We do a lot in our Department at Her Majesty’s pleasure and I know that my hon. Friend’s remarks will have added to her good humour this morning. Before Christmas, we published a 10-year drug strategy that will reduce overall illegal drug use across the whole of the country, with a huge investment in treatment and recovery. Making sure that all prisons have a zero-tolerance approach towards drugs is critical to our success in that regard.
Simon Fell
I thank my right hon. Friend for his response. Drugs are responsible for about half of all acquisitive crime, burglaries and robberies in the UK, so if we hope to give people who are leaving the prison estate a chance in the future, we have to drive down drug use within that estate. With that in mind, does he agree that the only way we are going to drive those figures down is through improved security measures and abstinence-based treatment?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend has put his finger on the button. Too often in dealing with drugs we imagine there is a silver bullet, whereas in fact we need a suite of tools to attack both demand and supply. He is right that increased security in prisons is critical, making sure we have a ring of steel to ensure it is very hard for drugs to penetrate the secure estate, but also that we invest in treatment and rehabilitation, not least as prisoners leave the secure estate. You will be pleased to know, Mr Speaker, that last year we secured funding, and ongoing, that will ensure everybody who does need a treatment place on exiting a prison will secure one. He is right that it is totally critical for our assault on acquisitive crime that we get that approach correct. I would just point him towards a new development in this area, which is the roll-out of what is called depot buprenorphine. That is, effectively, a new inoculation against heroin and opium addiction, which we think holds out enormous promise.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Just look at the state of our prisons: drugs up 500% in the last 10 years; violence up by more than 100% between 2010 and 2020; and almost 12,000 frontline prison officers leaving the service since 2016. With prisons in crisis, it is no wonder that reoffending rates are, staggeringly, over 40%. The Government are failing to keep the public safe. When are they finally going to get to grips with this?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady, as usual, gives a partial picture. She will know that reoffending rates now are lower than they ever were under the Labour party and we continue to make inroads into that number, pushing hard—critically, between the two Departments, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice—to get the number down. She will know, of course, that since the last quarter of 2018, assaults in prisons are on a downward trend. Look, we are not pretending that the picture of the prison estate is entirely rosy—there is still lots more to do—but the Government have recently announced enormous investments, not least in drug rehabilitation and treatment both within and outside the secure estate, and we believe that will make a huge difference.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)
Two excellent support providers in Loughborough, the Exaireo Trust and the Carpenter’s Arms, look after people who have been repeat offenders and/or suffered from addiction for many years. As one resident put it, they were
“lost, broken and with no hope”.
These two organisations completely transform the lives of those residents in their service. What is my right hon. Friend doing to work with local providers and support these organisations financially to help people into work?
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I congratulate my hon. Friend and those organisations on their fantastic work. She is right that, if we are going to get ahead particularly of acquisitive crime, we have to look at the root causes of people’s offending and so often that is drug addiction. As part of our 10-year drugs strategy, we are committed to binding together coalitions of organisations, including the kind of organisations she described, to make an assault on this kind of crime and addiction in every area of the United Kingdom.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Later this month, the best new prison will be opened in Wellingborough, on the site of the old prison. It is a strange time that we live in, because the same Department that is opening that prison wanted to close it years ago. A young councillor in my constituency, who represented the Croyland ward, put a community group together to save it. I wonder whether the Under-Secretary has any knowledge of that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
There are no plans to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The principle remains that drugs are dangerous and need to be controlled appropriately.
Chris Law
I am not surprised by the reply we have just heard from the Minister. However, in Germany, the incoming Government have agreed to join Canada and many US states in legalising cannabis, while across Europe drug consumption rooms are operating with positive results. As countries around us move forward, what message does the Minister think it sends to the rest of the world to see the UK stuck in the last century on drugs policy?
Kit Malthouse
I refute the claim that we are stuck in the last century. In fact, we launched a world-beating strategy just last week, if the hon. Gentleman was paying attention, that proposes a three-pronged approach on drugs, which we believe will have some success over the next decade. I understand that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues often push for the legalisation of cannabis, but I point him to the mixed experience of various parts of the world that have done so, not least California, where it is widely agreed to have been a disaster.
Alison Thewliss
I visited a drug consumption room in Geneva, right next to the central station in that city. Has the Minister visited a drug consumption room? It is important to make Government policy on the basis of evidence and what actually works in other countries.
Kit Malthouse
I have not visited a drug consumption room, although I did have a very illuminating meeting with Ruth Dreifuss, the former President of Switzerland who has been promoting the policy, to discuss the issues they have faced in Switzerland and elsewhere. While I understand that repetition is not uncommon in this place, the hon. Lady will not elicit from me an answer that expands on the ones I have given to her previously.
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
Foreign-born criminals have long used human rights legislation to avoid deportation to their country of origin. Can my right hon. Friend confirm whether recent announcements to reform human rights will include the introduction of a British Bill of Rights?
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
The Minister, as every Minister does these days, describes the strategy announced last week as world-beating. I suggest we maybe wait to see how it works before we make those claims. I also suggest that he also looks at what is actually working in the rest of the world. Can he explain why this world-beating strategy still insists on putting the medical and health needs of drug users in second place at best to treating them as criminals to be ostracised and punished, rather than sick people who desperately need to be helped?
Kit Malthouse
As usual, SNP Members mischaracterise what we are trying to do. The key feature of the strategy is twofold. First, we are ramping up restrictions on supply, building on our success thus far, particularly on dismantling county lines, which will have a direct impact on drug supply in Scotland. The reason we are doing that is that by restricting supply we believe we can create more space for the £780 million we will be spending on therapeutic interventions, particularly with heroin and crack users, to have an impact. Critically, the two have to go together. If we are dealing with a heroin or crack addict, very often they will leave a therapeutic intervention—I am sure hon. Members see this in their own constituencies—and walk straight back out into the hands of a drug dealer. We need to make that less likely if we are going to ensure those therapies stick and have an impact. As far as criminalising addicts is concerned, large numbers of them do commit crime. They commit crime from which there are victims. Those victims deserve to see justice done, too.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Will the Minister be supporting my new clause to the Local Government (Disqualification) Bill, which is coming up for debate on 14 January? My new clause would make offences against the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 a ground for disqualification from being able to serve as a local councillor.
Kit Malthouse
It is unusual that the doings of my hon. Friend pass me by in this House, but sadly that amendment has. It is an interesting proposal, but I hope he will give me a moment to consider it before I give him a response.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
Since October 2016, band 3 to 5 prison officer numbers have increased by more than 4,000 from 17,955 to 22,325 full-time equivalents. In the year to March 2021, we recruited more than 1,000 trainee probation officers and we will recruit a further 1,500 by the end of March next year.
Mary Glindon
The prisons White Paper concedes that attrition rates among prison officers are too high,
“causing an unsustainable level of turnover in the system… contributing to a vicious cycle of staff dissatisfaction and lack of retention.”
With even the Prison Service’s new retention framework conceding that low wages are key driver of attrition, when will the Minister stand up for both prison officers and probation officers and give them the proper pay rise the Government’s own experts recommend?
Kit Malthouse
We do recognise that attrition among prison officers is an issue, which is why we have put in place retention toolkits in prisons, providing governors with the support and tools that they need for employee retention. As far as pay is concerned, the hon. Lady knows that the economic ravages of the pandemic meant that there did need to be a pause in pay, but now that the Department has received a three-year spending settlement, it means that we can commence more coherent conversations with unions and others about what pay might look like in the years to come.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I welcome the Government’s plans to recruit 5,000 new prison officers, but recruitment of prison officers and their retention would be made easier if the number of assaults in prison were to come down. In the 12 months to June, there were 7,612 assaults on prison officers, one third of which were categorised as serious. What is being done to prosecute and extend the sentences of each and every convict who assaults a prison officer?
Kit Malthouse
Obviously the issue of assaults against our staff in all its forms is one that we take extremely seriously. My hon. Friend is quite right that we hope and expect that prison governors work closely with their local police forces to ensure that any crimes that are committed against prison staff are appropriately pursued and prosecuted, and that sentences are handed out where appropriate. He will know though that much of the violence in prisons is driven by drugs, and I hope he will recognise and welcome the work that we are doing as part of the prevention approach to reduce drug consumption and therefore abuse within the secure estate.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
The number of children and young people in custody is at a historically low level, falling from around 2,600 in 2008-09 to 515 at the end of October 2021. Although welcome, this has resulted in a concentrated cohort of children with particularly complex needs. Fifty-five per cent. of children in custody last year had been sentenced for violent offences. We are clear that levels of violence within the youth estate are too high, which is why we are taking a number of measures to reduce it.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister for that answer, but the reality is that youth offenders institutions and secure training centres are not safe places for children. Two have closed after children there suffered significant harm. At the two remaining institutions, violent assault on children has reached 70%, resulting in admissions to accident and emergency. Children are locked in their dilapidated cells for up to 22 hours per day. Ofsted described one institution as barely meeting
“minimum standards of human decency”.
This is state-supported and state-sanctioned child abuse. Why has he not put a stop to it yet?
Kit Malthouse
We do acknowledge the problems within the secure estate, although I hope the hon. Lady will also acknowledge the difficulties faced in handling the remaining cohort of young people. We have put in place steps to try to improve the situation—for example, allocating a member of staff to every child to support them with weekly therapeutic interventions. I know that, as one of her first acts on getting the job as Prisons Minister, the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), engaged with a number of providers in the secure institutions to outline to them that their performance was not acceptable.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
We are working to deliver a transformed prison education service that will improve numeracy and literacy of all prisoners. Prisoners will be assessed on entry and a personal learning plan will be created to monitor and track progress against starting points and resettlement goals. This will include learning in workshops, kitchens and sports activities.
Mr Baker
I am glad to hear it. Should core skills not always be part of the prison regime for everybody who needs them? Will the Minister continue to take steps to make sure that people’s employability is enhanced by their stay in prison?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is exactly right. Education is very often the solution to so many of society’s problems. It is a stepping stone towards employment, which, in itself, reduces reoffending very significantly. He will be pleased to know that as part of our plans we will establish a literacy innovation scheme to incentivise new providers to work with us to deliver these kinds of improvement programmes. We will also introduce specific measures of progress to track how successful each prison is at improving prisoners’ English and maths, with governors held to account for poor performance. We agree with my hon. Friend that these basic building blocks of education are key to future success.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
The reduction in reoffending rates is marked where the furtherance of numeracy and literacy skills is ongoing in prison, such as in my constituency in Magilligan prison. Will the Minister, in any discussions that he has with the relevant devolved Justice Minister in Northern Ireland, re-emphasise the need for support for prisons that offer such facilities?
Kit Malthouse
This is obviously an issue that affects all the home nations, and I will be more than happy to work collaboratively with counterparts across the whole of the United Kingdom, as we do on so many issues with great success.
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
Our landmark cross-Government drugs strategy sets out an ambitious long-term vision and includes £780 million of additional investment in treatment and recovery—the largest ever single increase. This will increase and improve treatment services, including providing 950 additional drug and alcohol criminal justice workers. The specialist drug and alcohol workers will give the police, courts and probation the facilities that they need to assess offenders and give sentencers confidence that they can make greater use of community sentences, because they will know that the treatment will be available.
Simon Baynes
The police in Clwyd South and Wrexham deserve great credit for their work in breaking up county lines in north Wales. Will the Minister please provide more information about the other main aspect of the Prime Minister’s 10-year drug strategy, the £780 million devoted to new approaches to treatments, and how that will be put into effect in Clwyd South and elsewhere in the UK?
Kit Malthouse
I am pleased that my hon. Friend is seeing the impact in his constituency of the remarkable work that his police force have been doing, mainly with Merseyside police, who are the chief exporter to his part of the world of that appalling practice of county lines. We have indeed been remarkably successful in driving the numbers down, but if we are to make that a permanent reduction we need to reduce the demand for those drugs, particularly from heroin and crack addicts. So we will be spending significant amounts of money, as he outlined, on treating their addiction, as well as making sure that they face the consequences of their crimes. That money will be channelled through local authorities. It will take time for them to rebuild and retrain the people required to deliver those services, but I am confident that over the next 10 years we will make a significant difference.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I do understand the concerns of the hon. Gentleman and obviously of the victim’s family. It was a dreadful crime, and I am obviously pleased, although it took some time, that the right person was put behind bars for it. As he will know, release at the halfway point is automatic. However, I am happy to write to him to outline what steps will be put in place to manage this individual in the community.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government have closed nearly 300 courts since 2010. One of them was Runcorn magistrates court, and two weeks ago the police found criminals using it as a cannabis farm. While 60,000 cases are still waiting to be heard because of a lack of court capacity, can the Secretary of State tell us how many other former courts are now in the hands of criminals, and does he regret that, under the Conservatives, courts that used to hand out justice now hand out spliffs?
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend’s regard for his constituents who work in the secure estate is very welcome. As he will know from the prisons strategy White Paper, we are taking a zero-tolerance approach to drugs, we will be spending about £100 million, and I hope he will have seen that we recently rolled out 74 X-ray body scanners, which have resulted in more than 10,000 positive scans. All of that will reduce the amount of drugs, and therefore violence, in prisons.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
The brilliant news on unemployment rates means that businesses in Broadland are crying out for staff. Bernard Matthews has been working with HMP Norwich to provide jobs for ex-offenders immediately on their release, and it tells me that there have been great results from that. Other local businesses have told me that they want to do the same, so what can the Government do to encourage such practices?
Kit Malthouse
At last, a Christmas story to warm the heart. I am sure that all those tucking into their Bernard Matthews turkey this Christmas will not only find it delicious and a celebration of their family, but recognise that they are playing their part in a better future for all those individuals who are working with Bernard Matthews, which is to be congratulated on its work. My hon. Friend is quite right that there is an enormous amount that can be done with the private sector to help get ex-offenders back on to the straight and narrow. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recently held a summit with employers to do exactly that, and we will be building a network of business partnerships across the country where businesses and prison governors can sit down together and talk about how to get ex-offenders into employment in exactly the way that Bernard Matthews has done with remarkable success.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
If we are to get prosecutions of child abusers, we need the support of victims and survivors, so I am really angry that this Government have cut £500,000 from children at risk of child sexual exploitation. What is the Minister doing to make sure, through the forthcoming victims Bill, that the resources are in place to help those at risk?
Kit Malthouse
I am always more than happy to visit Members’ constituencies, as the hon. Lady knows. In fact, just 18 months ago, I held a home nations drugs summit in Glasgow to deal with exactly these issues. The hon. Lady consistently and persistently badgers me on these issues; I just wish she would apply the same persistence and badgering to her colleagues in the Scottish National party, who have been in government in Scotland for many years now and have presided over the worst drugs misuse and deaths numbers in the western world. I have committed to working closely with the Minister in Scotland on trying to improve those numbers; I wish the hon. Lady would do the same.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
When we think about the family courts, we must be mindful of the experiences of not only families who desperately need court intervention to work smoothly but the families who should be nowhere near a judge and would not be if they had other support to resolve their differences. I know that the Justice team cares deeply about this complex issue and that welcome changes are coming next year, so what progress has been made on the implementation of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 ahead of April 2022?
Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
As the Minister with responsibility for cross-departmental criminal justice issues, I spend a lot of time talking to myself.
Mr Sheerman
I am sure the Minister is aware that many people in the criminal justice system are deeply worried about the state of forensic science, on which so much depends. I will not play the card that it is all the fault of privatisation; it is much deeper than that. Will he not only have a serious look at the evidence from the recent House of Lords inquiry, but keep in touch with me and with the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), my co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on miscarriages of justice? This is an urgent matter that goes to the heart of many miscarriages of justice. Will the Minister work with us to get it right again?
Kit Malthouse
I am more than happy to work with the hon. Gentleman on the issues that he raises. He is quite right that forensics are a critical part of a good and functioning criminal justice system. He will know that in the Home Office part of my job, significant work is going into the transforming forensics programme, which has received investment of more than £25 million in each of the past two years, bolstering and reinforcing the Forensic Capability Network. He will also know that the Mackey review, which was completed in April, has been looking at where forensics goes next, and that there is a jointly chaired forensics sub-group of the Criminal Justice Board that looks at the issue across both Departments.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
Contrary to the question from the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), will the Minister welcome the developments in forensic science that led to last week’s conviction of David Fuller for two murders and multiple counts of sexual abuse in mortuaries? Will he commit to ensuring that with every development in science and technology, the system routinely returns to unsolved cases so that justice can be done?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. She is quite right that as forensic science develops—and it is developing very rapidly indeed—we are able to revisit some quite elderly cases in which evidence is still available and reveal the true perpetrators of some awful crimes. What we saw last week was a brilliant result by Kent police. A matter that I have to confess that I was involved with, where exactly what my hon. Friend describes took place, was the catching of the killers of Stephen Lawrence nearly 20 years after the killing: it was driven specifically by developments in the ability to assess microdots of blood in a way we had not been able to do before. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that all police forces, through the Forensic Capability Network, need to keep all so-called cold cases under review as science leads us towards greater and greater answers.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I am happy to report excellent progress on our electronic monitoring programme. We recently expanded our world-first acquisitive crime project, GPS tagging all those released from prison who were convicted of those crimes, to cover half of England and Wales. Between April and September, more than 1,500 offenders had to wear a sobriety tag.
Dr Mullan
The Minister will know that it is actually a relatively small number of hardcore, prolific offenders who are responsible for so much of the misery that is inflicted on our constituents. I therefore welcome the progress on tagging and encourage him to think about other offences that we could use it on. What discussions has he had with the police about the resources that they need to bring back in people who may be breaching their tags?
Kit Malthouse
It is typical of my hon. Friend to think about the burden on policing. He is one of the primary supporters of the police in this House; I am grateful to him for that. We hope that the GPS tagging programmes—specifically, as he says, for prolific acquisitive criminals—will actually reduce the burden on policing. As he knows, something approaching 50% of offenders who have been burglars or robbers go on to reoffend. By putting a tag on their ankle so that we know where they are 24 hours a day, we essentially put a probation officer or police officer alongside them. We hope that that will be a huge deterrent. It also means that if there is a breach or somebody is identified as being at the same place that a crime has occurred at the same time, it is much easier for the police to find them because we can track them down through the tag. As we expand the programme further, from six to 19 police forces across the country, we need to monitor the impact on policing, albeit that, thus far, the police are enthusiastic proponents of the scheme.
Aaron Bell
Newcastle-under-Lyme plays host to the North Staffordshire Justice Centre, so I know that my constituents will welcome what the Minister has said. What steps will he take to invest in the latest technological advances, so that tagging will keep pace with the behaviour of offenders?
Kit Malthouse
That is a brilliant question, not least because my hon. Friend has put his finger on the button of where we need to go next. As part of the £183 million that the Treasury has now invested—with some confidence, I like to think—in the future roll-out of our electronic monitoring programme, we have £19 million to invest in future technology. In particular, I am keen to stimulate the market to find the holy grail of tagging, which would be a drugs tag that we could fit to the ankle of offenders with that kind of problem, and therefore deter them from taking drugs in the first place.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
We are investing an extra £93 million over the next three years to recruit 500 additional community payback staff, so that we can increase hours worked to a record-breaking 8 million a year.
Stephen Metcalfe
Requiring offenders to give back to their communities not only delivers a just punishment but sends out a clear signal to other criminals that crime does not pay. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that where a community sentence is given, the offender actually then serves it?
Kit Malthouse
I can assure my hon. Friend that we are investing significant extra resources, time and effort into making sure that community payback is both seen and effective. He is quite right that we want the public to see that justice is done, and we want offenders to know that their punishment is meaningful. There is a third reason why community payback is important, however, which is that offenders need to learn what the rest of us know—that we all have to play our part in building a great community and a safe neighbourhood. By this method we can almost teach them the value of contribution to their local neighbourhood.
We want to make sure that community payback is visible, and that means that there will be more people out there on the street cleaning up, improving the environment and so on. That will enable us to square the circle, with a sense of repaying a debt to society but also an ongoing commitment to it.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
We share my hon. Friend’s abhorrence at this appalling new phenomenon. To reassure him, the Home Secretary and I are in close touch with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which is co-ordinating local and national investigation assets across the country to try to prevent the crime and help protect young women.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Kit Malthouse
I understand the hon. Member’s distress at that case. As he knows, we are busy about the job of increasing police capacity. We are over halfway to the 20,000 extra police officers—we have 11,053—and a significant number of those are heading towards the west midlands.
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
The main reason for my call for a Rotherham-style inquiry into child sexual exploitation in the Bradford district is to bring justice to the victims of these offences and help ensure the safety of children across my constituency. Will my hon. Friend join me in that call so that we can tackle the issue once and for all?