Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group: Annual Report

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Written Statements

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

My noble Friend the Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) has today made the following written statement:

 I am pleased to announce the publication of the 4th annual report of the Biometrics and Forensic Ethics Group on 20 July 2021. The group provides Ministers with independent advice on matters relating to ethical issues in forensic science and biometrics and considers issues in data ethics.

 I would like to thank the group for their advice concerning the use and retention of biometric identifiers and for their advice on the development and testing of biometric technologies.

 The BFEG has published two reports this year; on the feasibility of using genetic genealogy techniques to assist with criminal investigations by UK law enforcement; and on the ethical issues arising from public-private collaborative use of live facial recognition technology. The group has also updated its ethical principles for the development and use of biometric and forensic technologies and the use of large datasets.

 The group continues to provide valuable advice and guidance: on policy changes relating to the use of the National DNA Database; in support of the Home Office Biometrics programme; and for projects involving large data sets or machine learning applications. The group also provided advice on a leaflet for arrestees explaining their rights regarding deletion of custody images.

 The Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group annual report can be viewed on the website of the group at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/biometrics-and-forensics-ethics-group

and a copy will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS210]

Deaths in Police Custody

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Written Statements

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

On 23 July 2015, the Home Office announced a major review into deaths and serious incidents in police custody, to be carried out by the right hon. Dame Elish Angiolini, QC. On 30 October 2017, Dame Elish’s review was published, alongside the Government’s substantive response. In December 2018, a progress update was published focusing on three main themes: supporting families, strengthening accountability and preventing deaths.

The ministerial board on deaths in custody has continued to oversee and drive progress work resulting from the recommendations in the Angiolini Review. Today, as co-chair of the ministerial board on deaths in custody, I report on the progress made in delivering this work programme since the last update.

There has been significant progress made in response to the recommendations made by Dame Elish. Of the 110 recommendations, 65 have been completed fully, with a further 20 completed in part. The Government update addresses in detail each of Dame Elish’s twelve thematic areas covered in her report: restraint, custody environment, health and wellbeing, funding for families and family support, communications, investigations, coroners and inquests, accountability, training, learning, statistics and research.

Since 2018, the Home Office has substantially reduced the use of police custody as a place of safety for people undergoing a mental health crisis and introduced a major package of reforms to improve the effectiveness of the police complaints and discipline systems in order to increase accountability and help reduce delays. The Department for Health and Social Care has rolled out NHS England and NHS Improvement-commissioned liaison and diversion services to ensure when vulnerable people are in custody that their needs are identified and addressed and introduced the Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018 (Seni’s law) to increase the oversight and management of the use of force in mental health units, so that force is only ever used as a last resort.

The Ministry of Justice has undertaken a range of work to make inquests more sympathetic to the needs of bereaved people, including updating materials to aid families throughout the coronial process, publishing a protocol on how Government will act when it has interested persons status and encouraging local authorities to provide areas in coroners’ courts that are suitable to family needs.

The College of Policing has published guidelines on conflict management, including de-escalation and negotiations to promote safer resolutions to conflicts, updated its training to cover acute behavioural disturbance and introduced guidance on the role of a safety officer to monitor the use of restraint. Agencies, including the coroners’ services and Independent Office for Police Conduct, are continuing to ensure the voices of bereaved families and victims are part of their training, harnessing their knowledge to ensure they receive appropriate support and that no one else endures the same experience.

Since becoming Policing Minister, I have met a number of key stakeholders to develop my future priorities to tackle deaths in police custody in line with the spirit of Dame Elish’s recommendations. These include supporting police chiefs and police and crime commissioners to continue to drive forwards a zero-tolerance attitude to deaths in state custody, to treat each death as a serious tragedy and to learn quickly from deaths that do occur; ensuring detainees receive the response most appropriate to their needs as soon as possible and that appropriate health and social services are available; improving data collection to fully understand the extent to which protected characteristics impact detainees’ experience and use of powers within police custody and consideration of support for detainees judged at risk of post-custody suicide.

I am committed to keeping our work in this vital area transparent, and will ensure that regular updates on work to prevent deaths in police custody will be included in the published annual progress updates of the ministerial board on deaths in custody.

Every death in police custody is a tragedy. The impact is devastating on their loved ones. Dame Elish Angiolini’s report has been and remains a catalyst for change, and I am determined that we continue to prioritise preventing deaths in police custody and, in the tragic instances that they do occur, holding organisations to account and improving support for families to demonstrate how seriously we take these incidents.

I am placing a copy of our progress update in the Libraries of both Houses and on www.gov.uk.

[HCWS206]

Tackling Knife Crime

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. Apologies for my tardiness at the start, coming in a bit late. I had made the schoolboy error of going to Westminster Hall itself, but of course we are not there.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) on securing this debate and on her speech. I congratulate everyone who has spoken on the knowledgeable and thoughtful way in which they approached a difficult topic. It is easy to have a sense of moral panic, which does not lead to solutions. I hope that the Minister has listened to everything that has been said by Members today on what needs to be done.

Practical measures, for example, include what my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) said about bleed control kits. I have heard about and seen that campaign, and I have talked to Emily Spurrell about the great job that she will do and about the support that she needs. My hon. Friend and all Members present are doing an incredible job on behalf of their constituents, trying to reduce violence. That has to be the first job of us as politicians, to keep people safe. What more important job do we have?

We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) and for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) who, like me, are from south London constituencies and have particular issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East talked about relationships with the black community. It is of course incredibly important to understand that although I might feel that if something happens to me I can go to the police as my place of safety, there are communities that do not feel that. That needs to be fixed.

I pay tribute to my police force in Croydon. Every single week on Friday morning, the community and the police meet. They have built relationships ever since the death of George Floyd, to the point where there is a new trust and respect on both sides and a much better approach to things like handcuffing during stop and search. On that front, some brilliant activities by the police are going on. We need to harness and replicate those.

I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall, who now chairs the APPG, which I founded and was absolutely my baby for three years; these things are so important. She is doing a brilliant job keeping up the campaign.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made an interesting speech. He was talking about what I was talking to some police officers about the other day: people who are in the Scouts learn how to use pocket knives. People should learn how to use knives and what the implications might be, the knock-on impact, of using them wrongly and stabbing somebody. Many young people I have met have no concept of what might happen if they stab someone in the leg. They think, “They will be fine”, but of course they are not—the chances are, they will die. If we had more uniformed organisations teaching people how dangerous those things are, but how to use them safely, we might have a slightly different approach to some of the issues.

The spokesperson for the SNP, the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans), talked about the Scottish approach, which I know well. I visited and spent a long time with people from the violence reduction unit in Scotland and with others in America who have done similar things. The public health approach is absolutely the right one. There is plenty of evidence, which the Government are yet to pick up or act on, sadly.

Yesterday, I was with a senior police officer who said to me, “We are in a perfect storm. We have had years of cuts to services.” My hon. Friend the Member for Luton North, I think, said that the children who suffered the cuts 10 years ago are now the teenagers who are involved in knife crime, and that is exactly what the police officer was saying to me yesterday. He added that, on top of that, we have had a year and a half of covid restrictions with people in lockdown. Now potentially we face a summer of violence.

Knife crime reached its highest level on record in 2019-20, at more than 50,000 offences. That is an extraordinary number, which has doubled since 2013-14, when there were 25,000 offences. Between 2010-11 and 2019-20, knife crime rose in every single police force in the country. Since 2014, there has been a 72% increase in the number of 16 to 18-year-olds admitted to accident and emergency for knife wounds and the most common age group for victims of homicide recorded in the year ending March 2020 was 16 to 24-year-olds. That was followed by 25 to 34-year-olds. While the effects of lockdown saw a fall at the beginning of the year ending September 2020, there were still 47,119 offences: an average of 120 knife crimes a day.

Last week, the UK’s anti-slavery commissioner found that for the first time more children than adults were identified as potential modern slavery victims last year. The commissioner’s annual report found that of the 10,689 potential victims referred to the national referral mechanism, 4,849 were children. The unrelenting rise, which Members have discussed today, in county-lines drug dealing, where criminal gangs exploit children, is fuelling violence. and the Government are simply not doing enough to stamp down on criminal drug gangs. The Minister for Crime and Policing said last November:

“Back in the early part of the previous decade, we thought we had beaten knife crime, but unfortunately it is back.”—[Official Report, 9 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 595.]

He may be good at acknowledging that there is a serious problem with serious violence in this country, but not so good at actually doing something about it.

More than 20 teenagers have been killed in London this year and many more have had their lives cut short across the country. How many children will die before the Government recognise this as the violent epidemic that it is? I came into the House in 2017 determined to tackle the scourge of rising levels of serious violence. I set up and chaired the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime, and it is very sad to be speaking in the House today when yet another young life has been lost in my constituency. Two weeks ago, a 16-year-old boy called Camron Smith was murdered in his own home in front of his mother in a horrific murder that could have been avoided.

Last week in the Chamber, I asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), whether the Government would commit to helping every vulnerable child this summer. She replied by saying that they were doing that through increased investment through the Department for Education funding over the summer, but that funding is limited. It amounts to a few pennies per child and excludes a large number of children who might otherwise need safeguarding support. The Government’s education recovery proposals are one tenth of Labour’s offer and, unlike Labour, contain no money for breakfast clubs or extra-curricular activities. The Under-Secretary referred to the Youth Endowment Fund, which is welcome, but it is £200 million over 10 years. Again, statistically, if we look at the number of children we need to help, that sum is small fry in comparison with what is needed.

I do not need to repeat the level of cuts to youth services that we have seen over this period of government, as well as the cuts to local government, policing, police staff, domestic-abuse risk officers and forensic officers. We have not just lost police officers on the beat; we have lost the whole apparatus behind that of people who actually help prevent and solve crime. We have 8,000 fewer police staff now than we did 10 years ago and more than 7,000 fewer police community support officers. We know that PCSOs were a key link between communities and the police: people we know, see and understand, and we and know their names. We have a relationship with them and they might talk to someone’s mother if that person got into trouble. That has been decimated by the Government.

We have heard many solutions and I think we would all be happy to sit down with the Minister and talk about those further. We know it is possible to reduce violence. As the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans) says, violence is not inevitable. We know that things can be done. We know that knife crime goes in peaks and troughs and when there are interventions, violence goes down. However, those interventions need to be long term and rooted in communities.

It is important that the Government, local authorities, the police and the voluntary sector are able to join together to prevent, recognise and respond to violence. Central to that is the need to prevent the criminalisation of children, as well as early intervention to prevent young people from becoming involved in violence in the first place. So many cases of youth violence tell the same sad story in which the victim and the young person inflicting violence have both had adverse childhood experiences.

We need to look to authorities such as Lambeth Council. Over the summer, Lambeth has taken the approach of identifying the most vulnerable children—the 100 most vulnerable, say—who are at risk of getting involved in crime or who are already involved in crime. The council has a plan for what each of those children will be doing over the summer and where—for example, this week, that child will be going to this activity; the following week, they will go to that one, and so on. That is a really interesting and important approach, and one that we can look at replicating. The amount of money that we spend on interventions with our young people— social care, council and police interventions over the years—is probably absolutely extortionate, but all those interventions do not actually amount to the protection we need to give those children so that they are not getting involved in crime.

It is time that we looked at the justice system and sentencing. That is a really difficult area because we are talking about children. We know that prison is not the answer, but the police would say that if a vulnerable and exploited child becomes involved in a criminal gang, and he carries a knife, no one will tell the police, so they do not know. If he stabs someone in the leg as part of the criminal activity, that person will go to hospital, but no one will tell the police, so they do not know. If he then gets caught with a knife, the police know, but there is no intervention to take him out of that situation. He will be referred to the youth offending team and there might be some kind of intervention.

This is very difficult, but I know of cases where young people have been caught carrying knives and, because there was no intervention at that point, they have gone on either to commit murder or to be murdered themselves. This conversation is very difficult because they are young children. Of course, we need to do all the prevention and intervention, but we also need to think about when we do it. I know of a case where somebody was caught carrying a 3-foot zombie knife and nothing happened as a result. I think the Minister needs to look at that.

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

That is exactly what knife crime prevention orders are for.

[Sarah Jones]

As well as prevention, at some point, we need to think about wrapping our arms around those people. I do not think that knife crime prevention orders are the answer, but they are being piloted. [Interruption.] The Minister talks about them from a sedentary position. He announced them with great fanfare in the middle of the knife-crime panic a couple of years ago, but nothing has actually happened yet. They are being piloted now, two years after they were talked about as the answer to everything. I am just saying that we need to have a conversation about the pathway and about exactly what happens to young people when they come to the attention of the police.

As I said in the Chamber last week, our summer holidays should be full of opportunities, including youth work, mentorship programmes, sports clubs, mental health support, as well as good neighbourhood policing, of course. In the medium term, we need proper wraparound support for at-risk children, including different housing when it is needed—moving people away from the area where they are susceptible to violence is a huge issue—people to talk to, mentoring, and proper youth services. In the longer term, we need to completely change the way that we tackle violence. The Government need to do more work in schools to better detect, prevent and eliminate violence, and they need to work with the NHS to properly treat the epidemic and immunise our society.

Under this Government, criminals are getting away with it, pathways to crime are wide open, and our children are being exploited by criminal thugs and groomed into violence. Our justice system is not taking the right response, and our Government are not taking the problem seriously. My question to the Minister is: where is the emergency summer plan to stop our children fighting and murdering one another over the summer holidays, and how does he plan to stop riots over the summer? Knife crime prevention orders have not been piloted yet; the education recovery plan is one tenth of what it needs to be; the Youth Endowment Fund is spread super-thin over 20 years; and the summer activities fund amounts to pennies per child. We need action. The scale of the problem needs to be matched by a proper response, because at the moment, drug use is rising, crime is rising, and the Government have no summer plan.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I should begin by recognising the important reason that the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) referenced for raising this particular issue in debate, and expressing my condolences to the family of Humza Hussain on that horrendous event, recognising that his family are sadly going through something that too many families have gone through. Like the hon. Lady, I have sat with too many of those families over the years and seen the devastation that is wrought by these terrible acts, within the family, among friends and loved ones, and in the wider community that is affected by these events.

It is clear from today’s debate that this is an important issue to lots of Members from across the country, as indeed it is to me and to the whole Government. It should come as no surprise that it is an issue of importance, given that the Prime Minister was previously Mayor of London and dealt with a similar knife crime epidemic in the capital, which was reflected across the whole of the country, and he dealt with it successfully over that period, if I might say so. It is not enough, but we managed to get the number of teenagers stabbed and killed in the capital down from 29 in 2008 to just eight in 2012, and kept it at a low level. That is obviously eight too many, but nevertheless we learned a lot during that period, and we are trying to put that learning into effect as we do our work now.

We are taking significant steps, and I had hoped that they might be recognised across the House, because a number of Members here represent areas of the country that are particularly affected by knife crime—areas where we have been both putting in significant extra resources and galvanising effort to try to achieve a step change in the response of all the partners who are required to tackle knife crime: not just the police, or indeed the Government, but everybody else as well. That has involved personal effort as well as investment across the piece, not just with the police but in local government.

I will begin by reflecting on the police. As Members know, we are recruiting a huge number of police officers at the moment: the latest published figure is approaching 9,000. We are well ahead of schedule on getting 20,000 extra police officers, with many parts of the country back to where they were pre-2010 in terms of numbers. In important parts of the country, of course, police-officer numbers have remained high. For example, in London—we have three Members representing London here today—the number of officers in the Metropolitan police has been consistently higher than it was at the all-time low for murder in the capital, which was 2014. That number has been consistently higher ever since; much of that has been down to Government funding, and obviously, that number will go higher still. We believe that those police officers will make a big difference—including the 74 in Bedfordshire so far, with more to come—and that by having a significant police presence in a focused way, we can do an awful lot of preventive work tonight.

The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans) has referenced the experience of Glasgow. I met Karyn McCluskey, who was leading the charge in Glasgow all those years ago. It is often forgotten that police enforcement played a very significant role in the fight against knife crime in Glasgow. Certainly in the early years, it was the use of heavy police enforcement, identifying and removing knives from the street, that created the space for some of those other, more supportive, therapeutic interventions to take place, and police enforcement still has a part to play. Although Scotland has had success on knife crime, sadly it is still plagued to a certain extent by this offence: we have seen machete gangs openly attacking people in the street in recent times, as we have across the rest of the United Kingdom. The experience of Glasgow is obviously something that we would love to learn from and benefit from across the whole of the country.

Critically, we are rolling out significant resources to police forces across the land as we speak. Over the past couple of years, there has been a surge fund focused on those 18 forces in whose areas knife crime and violence is most prevalent, and that funding has been used to good effect by the police. We are bringing a sharper focus to it this year, with the allocation of what we are calling GRIP funding, which is looking at hotspots where we want police to take a very targeted, analytical, data-driven approach towards dealing with violence in particular parts of their geography. That is now embedding and will be in place during the summer. It is part of our plan to deal with a possible resumption of violence, post release from lockdown.

The hon. Lady is right that we saw a significant reduction during the past year, with a spike in August as we were released from lockdown. We have put in place comprehensive plans with the police to ensure that we stay on top of any such repetition over the summer. That funding is rolling out now. I am personally driving that programme, and I have met lots of those forces to talk about how they are going to put that funding into place.

We are now in year three of violence reduction units, which similarly received significant funding as part of our £130 million package this year. In my experience of year three, we are seeing a much greater sophistication in violence reduction units, and a much greater level of partnership in areas that receive that funding. For example, I sat down with representatives from Greater Manchester this morning, to go through their plans and look at their violence reduction work. It was very powerful and a sign that those units have matured in terms of the identification of individuals and what they are going to do to support and assist them in turning away from knife crime.

That is a critical part of our architecture in 18 parts of the country. Bedfordshire has a unit that has received funding of £2.6 million. It is a valuable hub for the co-ordination of work that is needed to fight violent crime. We have now funded eight interventions across Bedfordshire, reaching about 12,000 young people. I hope that that will have an impact in the hon. Lady’s constituency, as it will across the rest of the county. A number of Members made the point that, at the same time as looking towards the police to help with enforcement immediately—tonight, because we know there are people out there carrying knives—we must also do the long-term work that targets the crime at its root. That will be done, as the hon. Lady said, by investing in prevention and early intervention.

The hon. Lady disparaged the amount of money that is being invested through the Youth Endowment Fund, but that misunderstands what the fund is there to do. It is investing in transforming our understanding of what works, ensuring that it sits alongside other organisations, funding grants and evaluation programmes, so that they can maximise their spending, whether that is local authorities, police and crime commissioners, police forces or health services, many of which will have to work alongside one another in the fight on serious violence, once the serious violence duty comes into place later this year.

We want to ensure that every pound spent has significant impact. In my experience of talking to many of the groups working with young people to prevent crime, although they are often well meaning and committed, there is often a paucity of evidence, a lack of an investable proposition that what they are doing is working, beyond the anecdotal. There are some programmes that we are investing significant amounts of money in, which we know have an effect, and where there is evaluation.

For example, there is our investment in programmes that look at teachable moments, where young people have a moment of crisis that allows us to get into their thinking and steer them on to a different path, either in police custody or accident and emergency, hopefully the former. Investing in that holds enormous promise and the evaluation shows that it is a strong way to get people out of violence and, in particular, out of gangs, and to move them on to a better life.

We want to ensure that all the money we spend is spent on trained, professional, therapeutic intervention. There are other funding pots that can look at the more general provision around youth services, and I recognise what has been said about those over the years. We want to ensure that our crime prevention focus is sharp and targeted, to ensure that we can exactly target the young people the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) pointed to in Lambeth, to ensure that they head towards a life of truth and light.

Alongside that, there is a lot we can do from a legislative point of view.

Alongside that, there is a lot we can do from a legislative point of view. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill has been referenced. As I mentioned, that contains the important serious violence duty, which for the first time will put a statutory obligation on all partners in an area to come alongside the police and work to prevent violence, plan, understand the data, look at what the funding streams might be and leverage off each other.

[Jim Shannon]

In my contribution, I referred to the need for a strategy or partnership between the Minister’s Department and education. Is that part of the strategy? If it is, I believe that is core to changing the mindset but also to improving the situation. I just ask the question.

[Kit Malthouse]

That is a good question. It is certainly the case that violence reduction units, which are led locally, include wider education programmes, and I have seen good examples of that. They are there to generally educate young people about the dangers of carrying a knife, and the fact that someone carrying a knife is more likely to be a victim than to protect themselves. I have seen some imaginative use of such programmes. I was in the west midlands a couple of weeks ago, where a virtual reality set-up was used with schoolchildren to indicate to them the best way in which to continue their lives.

I know that the hon. Gentleman has taken a strong interest in the Bill. It contains serious violence reduction orders, which give the police the power, as the hon. Member for Croydon Central pointed out, to stop those individuals who are known knife carriers, and are known to have been convicted in the past and to have shown a proclivity to violence. They are designed to discourage and deter people from carrying weapons, given the increased likelihood of getting caught, and to protect offenders—to give them an excuse to move away from being drawn into exploitation by criminal gangs.

[Florence Eshalomi]

On the serious violence reduction orders, can the Minister confirm that there will be a full evaluation before they are rolled out across the country?

[Kit Malthouse]

They have been through significant scrutiny. Obviously, they will be rolled out subject to evaluation, as we are doing with knife crime prevention orders. As the hon. Lady said, we are piloting those at the moment in London. Those orders have both a positive and a negative impact. For example, somebody subject to a knife crime prevention order can be stopped from going into Croydon town centre, but at the same time in the same order be required to attend an anger management course or some kind of training course—some positive activity that would steer them in the right direction. We will look at any innovation that comes forward and pilot it and try it. Such is the urgency of the problem that there is no monopoly on ideas; we should be willing to try everything.

We can also do more to remove knives. Last week, we commenced the provisions of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, bringing in a ban on a range of knives and other weapons: specific firearms; cyclone knives, which are a sort of spiral knife—Members may have seen those deeply unpleasant weapons for sale online—and rapid-fire rifles. Anyone who possesses these weapons could now face up to 10 years in prison. We think that this ban will help save lives and get more weapons off the street. Certainly, as part of the surrender programme, enormous numbers of these weapons have been surrendered to us.

Although I understand the desire of Members present to push the Government to ever greater efforts, I would like to reassure everybody that there is an enormous amount of effort and commitment going in, both at the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, and more widely at the Department for Education and among all those partners who are required to drive down this problem. I know that there has been a lot of challenge this afternoon about the amount of resources going in. I just point out that when I was deputy Mayor of London dealing with a knife crime epidemic back in 2008, that was when spending under Gordon Brown was at an all-time high. Police officer numbers were similarly high and there were youth groups all over the place. Yet still our young people were stabbing each other in great numbers. The connection between knife crime and social structure is not as simple as people sometimes portray.

[Sarah Jones]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kit Malthouse]

No, because I am running out of time.

I finish by posing a question. We think this is a priority and we are putting enormous effort into it, but the challenge has been made that the issue is very much about poverty. What if it were the case that violence causes poverty, not poverty, as a number of Members have alleged, that causes violence, and that our job, in order to create prosperity in Luton, Vauxhall and everywhere else, is to clear that violence out of the way so people can build the lives for themselves and their children that they deserve?

Oral Answers to Questions

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

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

Fire and rescue professionals work tirelessly to protect their communities. Currently, the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services is responsible for negotiating the pay and conditions of fire and rescue authority employees, and central Government have no direct role in this process. The Home Office will be launching a consultative White Paper on fire reform later this year.

[Ian Lavery [V]]

This Government should salute the courageous men and women of the fire and rescue service, who are the envy of the world, not constantly attack them. It is universally recognised that trade union membership and collective bargaining rights for workers are among the most effective ways to reduce inequality. “Brexit will not be used to reduce labour standards” was the constant cry from Government Ministers. Prove it, Home Secretary. Commitment after commitment has been given to protect and promote collective bargaining. Deliver it, Home Secretary. Stand by your word and confirm that the collective bargaining rights of firefighters within their chosen trade union will not be diminished in any way.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman has a long association with the trade union movement, which I know he has found rewarding in every sense of the word. As I said, we are not, as a Government, involved in pay bargaining for the fire service. There is a national joint council, where the Fire Brigades Union is represented 50:50 with employers. As I am sure he will know, the FBU has accepted a pay offer for the coming year that will be payable from the 1st of this month. There will be a White Paper looking at reform in the future and we will see what comes out of that consultative process.

[Mr Speaker]

I do not think it is on good terms for the Minister to be sneaky in the way that he approached the answer. The underhand in there was a bit leading and I hope that we have a better relationship on all sides of this House.

[Kit Malthouse]

I apologise, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you for that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to help dismantle county lines drugs gangs.

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

Since 2019, we have invested over £65 million to tackle county lines and drug supply, including £40 million committed this year. Through our county lines programme, we have become smarter in our activity against these ruthless gangs, resulting in more than 1,000 lines being closed, more than 5,800 arrests and more than 1,500 vulnerable adults and children safeguarded.

[Antony Higginbotham [V]]

Drug dealing is a despicable crime that preys on the vulnerable, damages communities and causes misery to so many. Locally, the Burnley and Padiham neighbourhood policing team has set up a taskforce to tackle this issue. Will the Minister confirm that local police forces will continue to have the resources and support they need really to tackle this issue and rid our communities of it? Will he meet me and our police and crime commissioner, Andrew Snowden, to see what more we can do?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am always happy to meet police and crime commissioners and their Members of Parliament to talk about fighting crime, and I am very pleased that my hon. Friend is so embedded in the collective mission to reduce crime in his constituency. He is quite right that we are having enormous success with county lines, and that is off the back of significant Government investment. I am hopeful that police and crime commissioners can see the wider benefits of that programme in suppression of violence in their areas and will supplement the work that we are doing, but he should be assured that we will be making a very strong case in the spending round for continued investment. The one thing I have learned about the Treasury over the past few years is that it likes investing in success, and we are certainly having that with county lines.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the Minister for his reply. He mentioned that the Home Office and officials are getting smarter, but so are gang members. They are getting so smart that even during lockdown they had the sheer audacity to use our young people to carry drugs up and down the country dressed as key workers. They are always one step ahead. They will continue to exploit our children until we have a clear definition on child criminal exploitation. It is estimated that over 4,000 teenagers in London alone are being criminally exploited. What additional steps will the Minister be taking to ensure the Government put their full weight behind addressing this real and serious issue?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady rightly highlights one of the truly despicable aspects of county lines, which is the horrible exploitation and often victimisation of young people who are driven into the awful activity. She might be interested to know that we are very focused not necessarily on them but on those who control and victimise them. Much of the activity taking place in the three big forces we are funding—Liverpool, London and in the west midlands—is in targeting those line controllers who drive that exploitation. Interestingly, more and more of them are now not just being prosecuted for drugs importation or distribution, but for modern slavery or under child grooming legislation. That means that when they are convicted, they are put behind bars in the sex offenders wing, which is something not even they see as desirable. It is proving to be a very strong deterrent.

One of the key aspects of our work is gripping the transport network, in particular rail. We are finding that where we shut down their ability to use rail and they divert to roads, their likelihood of using young people, who cannot drive and are more likely to be arrested, is dropping. All our effort is being focused not just on restricting the supply of county lines across the country, but on rescuing and preventing young people from getting involved.

[Jack Brereton]

There have been a number of illegal cannabis farms busted recently by Staffordshire police. Many are in derelict and abandoned buildings, including the empty former Woolworths building in Longton, which was raided for the second time in under two years recently, finding 1,500 marijuana plants. Will my hon. Friend look at what more can be done to tackle the use of empty and derelict buildings by organised gangs to cultivate drugs?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is known for his innovative approach to policy and he certainly raises something that merits further investigation. He is quite right that we have seen a growth in the number of cannabis farms across the country in all sorts of buildings. Notwithstanding the drugs they produce, there is very often disgusting oppression and victimisation taking place inside—people who are trafficked across the world to tend the plants—and we need to do something about that as well. He might be interested to know, however, that in their off-hours when police helicopters are not dealing with other crimes, one thing they do is circle around using thermal imaging cameras to find houses that are strangely heated to full blast in the middle of summer, indicating that there may be something afoot. That has been a very rewarding way of investigating those farms. I will look at his idea and pursue it further.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

What steps she has taken to help ensure that Border Force staff are trained on exemptions from requirements for covid-19 testing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to tackle scam callers.

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

The Government will not tolerate criminals lining their pockets while causing serious financial and emotional harm to victims. We are working closely with the industry, regulators, law enforcement and consumer groups to crack down on scam callers. Additionally, since its launch last year, the National Cyber Security Centre has shut down over 50,000 scams and taken down almost 100,000 websites.

[Neil Parish]

Since the onset of the pandemic, many of my constituents have been contacting me to report an influx of fraudulent or scam telephone calls. The fraudsters behind these malicious enterprises often target elderly or vulnerable individuals, posing as Government agencies, telecom companies, banks or pension providers. Sadly, too many of these cases result in the scammers convincing, or indeed coercing, individuals to part with their hard-earned savings. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must clamp down on this dreadful criminal activity and ensure that there is somewhere that victims can go to immediately to get help?

[Kit Malthouse]

As our lives have moved increasingly online, so has crime, as my hon. Friend rightly says. Can there be any Member in the Chamber who has not received a dodgy email or text or even a recorded message on their telephone, which is becoming increasingly frequent? It is typical of my hon. Friend to point out the particular vulnerability of elderly people, who are often coming to grips with technology—many have had to do so over the past year or so for the first time in their lives—and being taken advantage of. He is right to say that we need to do all we can to help them, and through the economic crime victim care unit we are doing exactly that. We are working with the banking sector to ensure that victims are not left out of pocket through no fault of their own. Critically, we can all help the fight by reporting these emails and text messages, and I want to take a moment to say that anyone who gets a suspicious email should please forward it to the email address [e-mail] and anyone who receives a similarly suspicious text should please forward it to 7726. The police and other services will be collating the texts and emails, and when they come from the same source, as they do on many occasions, they will act swiftly to shut it down.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

What estimate she has made of the number of people who are eligible for the EU settlement scheme but missed the application deadline of 30 June 2021.

Windrush Day 2021

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for calling this debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for his co-sponsorship. I also thank colleagues from across the House for their insightful and passionate contributions to this vitally important subject.

Last Tuesday, on Windrush Day, we came together to celebrate the Windrush generation. Events were held all over the United Kingdom and the sight of the Windrush flag flying above so many buildings, including here in Parliament—and, as we learned, Luton town hall—was a splendid illustration of what Windrush means to this country. The arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks 73 years ago was a signal moment in our history. It has become a symbol of the rich human tapestry that makes this country great. The passengers on that ship, their descendants and those who followed them have made and continue to make a unique and enormous contribution to the social, economic and cultural life of the United Kingdom.

As someone who was brought up in the constituency of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) and who has spent many years in city and local government in central London, I have shared triumph and tragedy, hate and love with the descendants of and members of the Windrush generation, and seen what an enormous contribution they make to our national life. As the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) and others noted, many have been at the forefront of the fight against covid, working in the NHS, our emergency services and in other key frontline roles.

The Windrush generation have helped to shape our country. This is their home. Without them, we would be immeasurably diminished; and yet, despite all that, some of them suffered terrible injustices at the hands of successive Governments of all flags. The fact that so many people were wrongly made to feel that this country was not their home is a tragedy and an outrage. I know that the scars run deep. This sorry episode will not be forgotten, nor should it be. This Government have done and continue to do everything in our power to right those wrongs. I will set out some of the steps that we have taken.

In April 2018, the Home Office established a taskforce to ensure that individuals who have struggled to demonstrate their right to be here are supported in doing so. Since then, we have provided documentation to over 13,000 individuals, confirming their status. In April 2019, we launched the Windrush compensation scheme to ensure that members of the generation and their families are compensated for the losses and impacts that they have suffered because they were unable to demonstrate their lawful status in this country.

I reassure Members that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that everyone receives the maximum compensation to which they are entitled. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe mentioned a cap of £100,000. There is now no cap on the amount we will pay out. Since April 2019, we have offered more than £32.4 million, of which £24.4 million has been paid across 732 claims. They have been accepted by the individuals and, as I say, paid. I reassure Members that everybody who accepts and receives a payment also receives a personal letter of apology from the Home Secretary.

We are determined to get this right and that means taking action to improve our approach, where necessary. In December, in response to feedback from members of the community, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary overhauled the compensation scheme so that people would receive significantly more money more quickly. The changes have had an immediate impact. Within six weeks, we had offered more than we had in the previous 19 months. Since the end of December, we have offered an average of £5.2 million a month and have paid more than seven times the total amount that had been paid out before then.

Despite this progress, as a number of Members have claimed, a number of people would rather see the compensation scheme moved from the Home Office to an independent body. However, taking such action at this stage would risk significantly delaying payments to people. The first stage in deciding a claim for compensation is to confirm an individual’s identity and eligibility. This is linked to their immigration status. It would be difficult to decouple that from the Home Office without increasing the time taken to process an individual’s claim and issue payments. There would also be considerable disruption to the processing of outstanding claims while the new body was established and made operational.

That is not to say we are operating without external scrutiny—far from it. For those dissatisfied with their compensation offer, an independent review can be conducted by the Adjudicator’s Office, a non-departmental public body that is completely independent of the Home Office. The scheme was set up and designed with the independent oversight of Martin Forde QC in close consultation with those affected by the scandal. Our approach was informed by hundreds of responses to a call for evidence and a public consultation. Earlier this year, we appointed Professor Martin Levermore as the new independent person to advise on the Windrush compensation scheme and ensure it is easy to access, fair and meets the needs of those affected. We continue to listen and respond to feedback about the scheme to ensure it is operating effectively.

We are not complacent, however. We recognise the need to resolve claims more quickly. Some people have been waiting too long for that to happen and that is not acceptable, as the Home Secretary noted in her letter.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

In two years and three months, the Home Office has resolved 687 claims. Does the Minister seriously think that any other system properly set up would be that slow?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I outlined, the current total is actually 732 claims, but it has been too slow. That is why, as I said, the Home Secretary took direct action in December last year and we have seen a significant acceleration in payments thus far. We hope that that progress will continue.

As a number of Members mentioned, the death of 21 individuals before we were able to offer them compensation does weigh extremely heavily on all of us and is a source of sorrow and regret. We are working with their families to ensure that compensation is paid out, while recognising that doing so can never provide adequate consolation. Now we have completed the implementation of the December changes I referred to, we are committed to reducing the time between submission and decision over the coming months. To do that, we are recruiting additional caseworkers and directing resources to maximise final decision output, as well as improving the evidence-gathering process by revising our data-sharing agreements with other Departments on our forms, guidance and processes.

We also continue to do all we can to raise awareness of the Windrush schemes and encourage all who are eligible to apply. Last year, we launched a national communications campaign and the Windrush community fund, which was designed to reach further and deeper into the communities who were affected. We have now held 180 events, reaching 3,000 people.

Last year, we also published the Wendy Williams “Windrush Lessons Learned Review”, to which a number of Members referred, which laid bare the failings and mistakes that led to the Windrush scandal. Each of the 30 recommendations has been grouped into different themes that are being delivered across the Home Office to ensure the lessons from the review are being applied across the Department. Despite what was asserted, Ms Williams did not say that the Home Office was paying “lip service” to her review, and she will be returning to the Department in September to review our progress. Alongside that, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the permanent secretary are also leading an unprecedented programme of change to ensure the Home Office is representative of every part of the community it serves. Our ambition is to transform the Department into one that puts people before processes, an organisation that has fairness and compassion at the heart of all it does.

The Windrush scandal is a stain on this country’s conscience. We owe it to those who suffered as a result to deliver lasting and meaningful change, and to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. I am happy to say on Windrush Day, as we celebrate that generation today and hopefully in the years to come, that the Department for Transport is currently investigating whether the anchor from the Windrush can be recovered and restored to become a fitting memorial to that generation, in the hope that we will all aspire to the aspiration of my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) that in the future the colour of our skin will matter no more and no less than the colour of our eyes.

Misuse of Drugs Act

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) for calling this important debate. Indeed, I am grateful to Members from all parts of the House for their commitment and passion in what has been, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) rightly pointed out, an interesting and thought-provoking debate.

There are obviously a wide range of views on the best way to tackle drugs and the harms they cause, and I remain open to listening to those views to ensure that our approach is both balanced and evidence-based. I recognise the importance of a balanced approach with tough enforcement against the right people in the right way, alongside treatment and recovery support for those dependent on drugs.

On the issue of drug controls, I think it is important that we come at it from the perspective of what keeps the public safe while enabling healthcare and legitimate business and research to flourish. Controls on harmful drugs continue to be adjusted in the light of new evidence and information, including, for example, the changes over recent years to allow specialist clinicians to prescribe, where appropriate, cannabis-based products for medicinal use.

Members should make no mistake: drug misuse has a profound and tragic consequence that is felt right across society, and that can occur even in the official and regulated sector, as we have seen sadly in the United States with the opioid crisis. It devastates lives, communities and neighbourhoods, with the most deprived areas facing the highest prevalence of drug-driven crime and health harms.

The Government recognise that this problem demands a whole system, cross-Government approach, and that is exactly what we are pursuing. The Home Office is working extremely closely with partners, including law enforcement, the Department of Health and Social Care, Public Health England and others right across Government. Our activity in this area of policy is necessarily broad, but there are two key elements of the strategy that I would like to emphasise: first, the use of targeted enforcement to restrict supply; and, secondly, our focus on providing truly effective treatment and recovery services. This approach responds to the evolving threats and challenges that continue to emerge from drug misuse, including changing drugs markets, changing patterns of use, and an ageing and more complex group of people who need wide-ranging support to recover.

[Grahame Morris]

On that point, is the Minister willing to commit to working with police and crime commissioners to try to ensure that in all force areas there is a treatment-first approach to offenders with a history of substance misuse?

[Kit Malthouse]

I do not have to commit, because that is exactly what we are already doing in five parts of the country. As the hon. Gentleman may know, I instituted a series of projects going by the acronym ADDER—addiction, diversion, disruption, enforcement and recovery —in five areas of the country to build a new modus operandi on drugs, bringing police and crime commissioners and enforcement alongside health, local authority, housing and other therapeutic providers to see if we can shift the numbers in Blackpool, Hastings, Middlesbrough, Norwich and Swansea Bay.

If we are to refine and improve our response, we must have a comprehensive picture of what is happening on the ground. That is why part one of Dame Carol Black’s review on drugs—a number of Members mentioned it; its findings were published in February last year—was such a valuable and insightful contribution to our understanding of the problem. The report underlined the impact of the so-called county lines criminal business model, where illegal drugs are transported from urban areas to be sold in smaller towns and villages. That is one of the most disturbing and pernicious forms of criminality to emerge in our country in recent years, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington mentioned. We are making significant progress, which I will talk about shortly.

In July last year, the Department of Health and Social Care commissioned part two of Dame Carol Black’s review on drugs, focusing on prevention, treatment and recovery. It will build on Dame Carol’s work to ensure vulnerable people with substance misuse problems get the support they need to recover and turn their lives around. It will look at treatment in the community and in prison, and how treatment services work with wider services that enable a person with drug dependency to achieve and sustain recovery, including mental health, housing, employment and the criminal justice system.

In 2019, the Government appointed Dr Ed Day as the Government’s recovery champion to provide national leadership around key aspects of the drug recovery agenda and to advise the Government on where improvements can be made. His first annual report was published in January. When I have spoken to Dr Day he has talked passionately about the importance of recovery and the work he is doing with a huge number of fantastic advocates in the sector, including people with lived experience of drug misuse who are celebrating being in recovery. It is very motivating to hear their stories and the extent to which recovery can provide hope and help people to turn their lives around.

We also continue to work closely with the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure drug misuse is tackled as a UK-wide problem. Following the UK drug summit, which I called in Glasgow in February last year, the Minister for public health and I jointly hosted a meeting in September, bringing together academic experts and Government Ministers from across the home nations of the UK to discuss topics such as drug-related deaths, treatment and recovery services, and the impact of the pandemic on illegal drug taking. The Government remain committed to tackling the harms caused by drug misuse on a cross-UK basis and I will, I am happy to confirm, be holding another such meeting in the autumn for all the home nations to discuss these matters further.

[Rachael Maskell]

I welcome that the Minister is talking about the impact of harm. What is his assessment of the harm-reduction model, particularly that deployed in Portugal?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am just coming on to what we are doing about harm reduction. As I said in my opening remarks, I think that should be at the forefront of our mind. Opinions may differ across the House on the balance between enforcement, and treatment and recovery, in the mix of dealing with this pernicious social problem. My view is that they have to be balanced. I am not sure that experiences around the world on decriminalisation, for example, necessarily give us quite the silver bullet that Members have suggested, but I will come on to that in a minute.

In January this year, we announced £148 million of new investment to cut crime and protect people from harms associated with illegal drugs: £80 million for drug treatment services, the biggest rise in funding for 15 years; £28 million for the ADDER projects across the UK that I have already outlined, building a new modus operandi for tackling drugs and creating a foundation from which I hope we will expand; and £40 million to tackle drug supply and county lines. As the hon. Member for St Helens North illustrated, we are surging our activity against those awful groups, focusing on them as businesses as much as groups of criminals, and we are seeing significant success.

Although some have expressed the opinion during the debate that enforcement does not work, I would point out that our new approach—the new tactics that we have agreed with the police—is resulting in significant results. In Norfolk, for example, 16 months ago there were over 100 county lines; that is now down to under 20. Bangor in north Wales was declared county lines free, along with Swale and Tonbridge. Kent has halved the number of county lines moving drugs into that part of the world. There is a lot that we have done: over 780 lines closed; 5,100 arrests; £2.9 million of cash seized; and, importantly, 1,200 vulnerable young people safeguarded. That funding demonstrates our commitment in this area and the effect that we can have when we focus.

If I may crave your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to deal with one or two particular issues that have been raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate and I have been in ongoing correspondence and conversation about the impact of the legislation on research and the business that may come from it, and he raised that during his speech. As he will know, there are clinical trials already under way into the use of the compound psilocybin, and I am hopeful that they will produce positive results. If they do—if there is a proven clinical and medical use—then obviously, as we have in the past, we will have to adapt to that as we go. I have commissioned the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to look more widely at barriers placed in the way of clinical research in all sorts of areas of narcotic and other drugs, to ensure that we are getting the balance right to enable that legitimate form of research, and the health benefits that may come from it, to be pursued.

My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), in a very thoughtful speech, raised the issue of cannabis. There have been quite a lot of calls for legalisation of cannabis. I point him to the Canadian experience. As he rightly identified, rather than legalisation producing a reduction in the illegal sector or its elimination, that business, like any other, has adapted to competition, producing a stronger product more cheaply, provided more conveniently, and it still exists in Canada. Obviously, we will be monitoring closely Canada’s experience and those of other areas that have legalised. However, as was pointed out, in Amsterdam, where consumption has been liberal, shall we say, for some time, I am not convinced that criminal gangs are not still pursuing their trade.

We have had a strong showing from the various factions of Scottish nationalism this afternoon, which is no surprise given the truly appalling number of drugs deaths that Scotland has seen over the past few years. I am not a man moved to anger very often, but I found my blood boiling at being accused of intransigence, dereliction of duty and ignorance when I literally went to Scotland 18 months ago to beg the Scottish Government to do something about this issue and to spend more money on health. The whole point of my immediately starting to convene a four nations drugs summit when I came into this job was to focus on the real tragedy—the scandal, the emergency—that there was in Scotland.

I was amazed that the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) had the gall to say that she imagines the number of people who might have been saved if the UK Government’s actions had been different, given the number that could have been saved if the SNP had not sat on its hands for 10 years while the numbers mounted. Only a looming election saw it step up to its responsibility. I ask it, please, to look to the log in its own eye before it looks to those in others’.

My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who has unique experience in and perspective on this as both a former police officer and a doctor, showed us the truth of this very complex situation, which is that there is no silver bullet. This is a complex area where Government have a duty to listen, to look at the evidence and to consider what can be done both on enforcement and on public health to make sure that we try to minimise, reduce or remove this most pernicious of social evils from the areas of our society that are benighted by it.

Draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2021

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I remind Members to observe social distancing and to sit only in the assigned places with a tick—as everyone is doing, I think. I remind Members that Mr Speaker has deemed that masks should be worn in Committee—apart from by me, because I might need to speak at any second. Our Hansard colleagues will be most grateful if Members send their speaking notes to [e-mail].

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

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2021.

It is a great pleasure to appear under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.

The draft order was laid before the House on 25 March. I thank the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for its advice, which has helped to inform the order before the Committee for consideration. To that end, the proposed amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 follows the ACMD’s advice, published on 29 April last year, about three benzodiazepines.

The three benzodiazepines under consideration are flualprazolam, flunitrazolam and norfludiazepam. The ACMD recommended controlling all three substances under class C of the 1971 Act, owing to their potential harm and the evidence for the prevalence of the drugs in the UK. This will be the first additional control of benzodiazepines under the Act since the control of 16 benzos in May 2017; those are also controlled under class C of the 1971 Act.

Benzodiazepine medicines with specific uses may be prescribed by clinicians, but the matter before us today is the consideration of illicit benzodiazepines, with no known medicinal benefits in this country. High dependency is often associated with benzodiazepine use, together with severe withdrawal symptoms for even short-term use. When combined with other “recreational” drugs, most particularly opioids and other central nervous depressants, there is an increased risk of mortality, which has contributed to a significant number of drug-related deaths each year.

Data from the national programme on substance abuse deaths showed that there were 5,740 benzodiazepine-related deaths in England between 2006 and 2015. Just under 4% of those recorded benzodiazepines as the only compounds implicated in the cause of death, which suggests the frequency with which they are associated with poly drug use.

I thought it might help the Committee if I explained a bit more about the specific details related to each of the three benzodiazepines—in particular their prevalence in the UK, which has a significant effect on the consideration of harm. Beginning with flualprazolam, the ACMD’s report states that, as of March 2020, as recorded by regional statistical agencies, there have been 12 flualprazolam-associated deaths in the UK. The ACMD report also cites the report of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction on flualprazolam in March 2019, which outlines deaths with confirmed exposure to the compound in 24 reported cases in Sweden and two in Finland. In eight of those cases, flualprazolam was cited as a contributory or possibly contributory factor.

On flunitrazolam, the ACMD’s report states that it is likely that the potency of the compound is greater than that of flunitrazepam, otherwise known as Rohypnol, which is highly potent and controlled as a class C drug under the 1971 Act. The report goes on to confirm that between 2014 and October 2019, a small number of seizures have been made at the UK border and that small-scale seizures of a mixture of tablets and powder have been identified in Germany in 2016 and Denmark in 2017.

Norfludiazepam has been identified twice in the UK. Both occasions took place in 2017, once from a police seizure and once by TICTAC, a drug identification provider. Further afield, there were small-scale seizures in Germany in 2016, Sweden in 2017 and Norway in 2018. PostScript360, an organisation providing treatment for those undergoing withdrawal from benzodiazepines highlighted anecdotal reporting of the use or purchase of norfludiazepam.

The ACMD report recommended not only the control of these three drugs under class C of the 1971 Act, but that they be placed in schedule 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 and part 1, schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs (Designation) (England, Wales and Scotland) Order 2015, given that the drugs have no known medicinal benefits in the UK.

Should this order be approved, the Government intend that a further statutory instrument, subject to the negative resolution procedure, come into force at the same time as this order. That would be 28 days after the date when the Order in Council is made. That further instrument would make the necessary amendments for the 2001 regulations and the 2015 order. The approval by Parliament of that order would make it unlawful to possess, supply, produce, import or export these drugs, except under a Home Office licence for research. The maximum sentence for possession of a class C drug is two years in prison and unlimited fine or both, while for supply it is up to 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both.

We all know the destructive effects that illegal drugs have on not only the lives of those who take them, but their families and wider societies. The ACMD’s advice makes clear that these benzodiazepines are harmful, and I trust that I have made a clear case for their control today.

I give a real-life example. You will remember, Dr Huq, that early last year the National Crime Agency undertook an operation called Venetic, which revealed a variety of information about organised criminal gangs producing and importing drugs into the UK. As part of that operation, the NCA managed to bust open a factory in Kent, where they discovered 27 million street benzo tablets, which had been manufactured and were specifically targeted at Scotland—27 million is quite a lot of tablets for each and every Scot. The impact of the drugs, particularly north of the border, is very significant and I hope that the order today will contribute to their control.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Member for Croydon Central is nothing if not persistent in her desire to look backwards rather than forwards. As she knows, we have been very assertive in our approach to drugs over the past two years. We are having some success, particularly on county lines and in other areas, and she will have seen that in the last spending round we secured significant amounts of extra money for drug treatment. I am very pleased that she mentioned the ADDER projects as the progenitor: those were broadly my idea, along with Blair Gibbs, who was No. 10’s crime and justice advisor at the time. It is a model of operation that we hope in time to take to other parts of the country, but we first need to prove that we can shift those appalling numbers in those parts of the country.

As you will know, Dr Huq, we will have an entire Backbench Business debate tomorrow on exactly this subject—the Misuse of Drugs Act—so I do not propose to rehearse some of the issues that the hon. Lady has raised in her response. I will just say that I am grateful for the support of the ACMD in outlawing these benzodiazepines. It looked at 10 other compounds, but did not find evidence that substantiated their being made illegal, although they will of course be covered by the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, which was passed by this House just a few years ago.

Finally, given the devastating impact of street benzos—as they are called—in Scotland in particular, I am disappointed that no representative from the Scottish National party is here today. Drug deaths in Scotland are off the scale—easily the worst in western Europe, if not the developed world. The legislative control of drugs remains an important measure in the fight against this societal evil, and I am grateful to the Committee for supporting it.

Question put and agreed to.

Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans in High-rise Residential Buildings Consultation

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Written Statements

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

My noble Friend the Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh), has today made the following written ministerial statement:

Today, the Government publish a new consultation on Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans in High-rise Residential Buildings which will be open from 8 June to 19 July 2021.

This new consultation contains proposals to implement the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 Report recommendations on Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans in high-rise residential buildings. These recommendations require a change in law to place new requirements on owners or managers of multi-occupied high-rise residential buildings.

This consultation supports delivery of two of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 recommendations and is part of the Government’s package of reforms to improve building and fire safety in all regulated premises where people live, stay or work.

We are consulting on the following proposals:

Proposal 1: We propose to require the responsible person to prepare a personal emergency evacuation plan for every resident who self-identifies to them as unable to self-evacuate—subject to the resident’s voluntary self-identification—and to do so in consultation with them.

Proposal 2: We propose to provide a template to assist the responsible person and the residents in completing the plan, and to support consistency at a national level.

Proposal 3: We propose to require the responsible person to complete and keep up-to-date information about residents in their building who would have difficulty self-evacuating in the event of a fire—and who have voluntarily self-identified as such—and to place it in an information box on the premises to assist effective evacuation during a rescue by the fire service.

Proposal 4: We propose, in order to assist the responsible person and support consistency at a national level, to provide a template, most likely in a one-page format, to capture the key information to be provided in the information box.

Further details can be found in the consultation and its supportive documents available at: www.gov.uk/government/consultations/personal-emergency-evacuation-plans. A copy of the consultation will also be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS73]

Oral Answers to Questions

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to protect police officers from harm in the line of duty.

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

The Government are completely committed to ensuring that our brave police officers receive the support and protection they deserve. We have proposed legislation to enshrine in law a police covenant and to double the maximum sentence for assaults on emergency workers. We also continue to invest in direct support to the police through the National Police Wellbeing Service.

[James Daly]

I welcome the commitments this Government have made to cut crime and to get more police on to our streets. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that our police have the tools to tackle violent crime and antisocial behaviour in Bury, Ramsbottom, Tottington, and throughout the country?

[Kit Malthouse]

I know from conversations with my hon. Friend that he is a powerful supporter of the police, particularly in his own constituency, and he wants more of his constituents to meet more of the police officers who are being recruited into his local force at some rate of knots. While it is true that having the police officers will make a huge difference, so will giving them exactly the kind of tools that he has talked to me about in the past to do their job, as will the support of Members of Parliament such as him. Police officers out on the frontline doing an incredibly difficult and challenging job need to know that we stand with them in defending them and promoting them.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab) [V]]

The latest figures from the National Police Chiefs Council show that on this Government’s watch, assaults on police officers have been rising since 2015 and there has been a 26% increase in assaults on emergency workers in the months leading to April 2021 compared with the same period in 2019. There have been 30,000 assaults on police officers in England and Wales in a year. I am glad that the Government have finally listened to calls from Labour to increase sentences for people who assault emergency workers, but why are they doing absolutely nothing to stop the assaults in the first place? If I was in government, I would commission Home Office research into exactly who is assaulting our officers and why, I would tackle single-crew patrols, and I would make sure that officers have the right kit to be protected. Will the Minister do the same?

[Kit Malthouse]

You will have to advise me, Mr Speaker, on whether it is in order for a Member to speak in support of something she voted against, but I welcome the hon. Lady’s belated support for the doubling of sentences for assaults on emergency workers, which was included in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, against which the Opposition voted. She is right, though, to raise the issue, which has been of serious concern to us for some time, of the rise in assaults on emergency workers, and particularly on police officers. Sadly, during the pandemic we saw, in particular, the awful phenomenon of people coughing or spitting at police officers and claiming that they were infectious when they did so. Happily, we saw a number of significant sentences handed out for that particular offence and the courts dealt with them quickly. But there is always much more that we can do. Under the police covenant, which again the hon. Lady voted against, one of the key planks of the work that we will be doing is looking at safety, welfare and support for police officers.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to remove foreign national offenders from the UK.

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[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

What steps she is taking to reduce the length of time taken to conclude investigations into police conduct.

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

Last year, the Government introduced wide-ranging reforms to the police complaints and discipline system, including a 12-month trigger requiring the investigating body to provide a written explanation for any delays. Significant improvements have already been made, and we will continue to monitor the timeliness of investigations conducted by both forces and the Independent Office for Police Conduct through data collection.

[Jessica Morden]

Even under the new Home Office system, only around 80% of police conduct investigations are resolved within 12 months. The remaining cases linger on far longer, with a detrimental effect on those involved. Does the Minister agree with the Police Federation that we need action to fix the system now—not, as the Minister has said, allowing it to bed in—as no one benefits from long drawn-out investigations?

[Kit Malthouse]

I share the hon. Lady’s view that no one benefits from long drawn-out investigations, and it is absolutely our aspiration to shorten investigation times as much as we possibly can, bearing in mind the impact on both the officer who is under investigation and those who are making the accusation. It is worth bearing in mind that delays in investigations often happen for complex reasons, particularly in very difficult investigations, which are not necessarily within the control of the investigating body. While I understand and sympathise with the Fed’s desire to shorten investigation time, it is worth bearing in mind that our overriding interest should be in quality and thoroughness, rather than in hitting some kind of arbitrary deadline. However, I do meet regularly the director general of the IOPC and we do monitor very closely how long investigations are taking. It did inherit 538 investigations from the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which it has now managed to get down to three, and I think currently it only has 30 investigations that have taken longer than 12 months.

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

What assessment she has made of the potential effect of new sentencing powers on levels of crime.

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[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

What steps her Department is taking to ensure effective investigations by the police of allegations of rape to help improve the number of cases that result in charges being made.

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

Supporting victims of sexual violence and abuse is an important priority for this Government. In the past five years, we have seen a significant decline in the number of charges, prosecutions and convictions for rape. That is why we have carried out a robust end-to-end review of the criminal justice response. The review will be published shortly and will set out clear action to reverse this trend and to ensure that victims receive the support they deserve and that perpetrators face justice.

[Rebecca Long Bailey [V]]

There is currently a backlog of 57,000 cases in the Crown court, with victims of rape and serious sexual violence often left to wait years to go to trial. Sadly, they are the minority who received sufficient support to bring a case forward in the first place. Will the Minister commit to bringing forward urgently proposals for the fast-tracking of rape and serious sexual assault cases? Will he also confirm the creation of specialist rape and serious sexual violence units in every police force to ensure that cases are brought against alleged perpetrators?

[Kit Malthouse]

Two of the key planks of the work that we will be undertaking in this area—indeed, we have started already—are, first, yes, to shorten the timeframe between a report and a case getting to court, and secondly, to develop expertise throughout the system to ensure that victims get the justice they need, but in particular that investigations focus on perpetrators.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

To follow up on what has just been said, rape prosecutions in England and Wales are at their lowest on record. One third of all the violent crime recorded by the police is domestic abuse-related, and now only 1.6% of rape cases are even being charged, let alone convicted. That is all according to the latest figures from the Home Office. This situation is untenable and it is worsening on the Home Secretary’s watch. The Government are leaving dangerous rapists and violent offenders on our streets and in our communities, so will the Minister and the Department back calls to ensure that violence against women and girls is included in the definition of serious violence in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, including domestic abuse-related violence and all sexual violence?

[Kit Malthouse]

In the urgent question that I answered on this subject not two weeks ago, I expressed serious regret about the conviction numbers that the hon. Lady mentions. It is not a situation that any of us should be happy with, and we have confirmed as a Government that we will do our utmost to turn that around. She will understand, I know, because she is from the west midlands, that we will need the assistance of police and crime commissioners and chief constables to do so. I hope that she will join us in urging them to play their part in what will be the enormous task of turning this particular challenge around.

As for the serious violence duty, that will no doubt be debated by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), during the Bill Committee, but I would hope, whether or not there is a statutory duty for everybody to play their part in dealing with this problem, that all those other organisations—whether that means health or local authorities, or, indeed, police and crime commissioners—will step forward anyway, because the moral case is strong and I know that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) will make it with us.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

What steps her Department is taking to reduce the use of immigration detention for women who have survived torture, rape or trafficking.

Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Attorney General if he will make a statement on when the Government’s end-to-end review of the criminal justice system response to rape will be published.

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

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) for her continued interest in the Government’s work in this area. Rape and sexual violence are devastating crimes that impact on victims for the rest of their life. When victims take the brave step of reporting the crime, they expose their deep personal trauma in the interests of justice. The criminal justice system needs to support those victims, believe them and ensure that their needs are met at the heart of the criminal investigation.

The Government have long recognised that the decline in the number of effective trials for rape and serious sexual offences in England and Wales is a cause of significant concern. As a result, we commissioned the end-to-end rape review in March 2019 to look at evidence across the system, from reporting to the police to outcomes in court, in order to understand what is happening in cases of adult rape and serious sexual offences being charged, prosecuted and convicted in England and Wales.

Our review represents a serious commitment to change by the Government and our partners. At its heart will be a set of actions that will drive system and culture change to ensure that the victims feel supported and able to stay engaged with their case. That, combined with updated and stronger case preparation methods, as well as increased communication between all those involved in the prosecution and new charge mechanisms, should lead to more cases reaching court and, we hope, defendants pleading guilty.

To ensure that that happens, I have been tasked by the Prime Minister to take personal leadership of the actions from the review, working with colleagues across Government to ensure accountability of operational partners for delivery. I will of course regularly update the House on our progress.

On the substantive question, I was keen to publish the rape review last year. However, following extensive feedback from the Victims’ Commissioner and the victim sector that we needed to take account of the End Violence Against Women Coalition’s “The Decriminalisation of Rape” report and the pending judicial review judgment, we took the decision to delay publication. We have used the time since that delay to carry out further research and engage with stakeholders in order to formulate an ambitious and wide-reaching action plan, which we will be publishing shortly after recess. When we publish the report, I will present it to Parliament and write to colleagues across the House to outline our approach. I look forward to working with the hon. Member and, indeed, all Members across the House to ensure that this action plan drives the substantial change we need to see.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

The failings of the criminal justice system, particularly in cases involving violence against women and girls, have been well documented in this place, yet victims of rape continue to be a last priority for this Government. Yesterday, The Guardian’s analysis of Home Office figures for rape prosecutions was published, and it makes for truly appalling reading. Fewer than one in 60 rape cases reported to the police last year resulted in a suspect being charged. In 2020, more than 52,000 rapes were reported in England and Wales, yet only 843 resulted in a charge or summons. That figure translates to a shocking rate of just 1.6%.

Like many others, I initially welcomed the Government’s commitment to an end-to-end rape review of the criminal justice system, yet we are now more than two years down the line and, after a number of delays, that vital review is still nowhere to be seen. The Justice Secretary recently announced that it would be published before the end of the spring, yet the stakeholder reference group that the Minister alluded to has not been consulted on what is in the rape review action plan. Enough is enough.

The Government have repeatedly acknowledged that they have not been robust enough in their efforts to tackle gender-based violence, but it does not have to be this way. The Labour Government in Wales passed the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015, which set out 10 national indicators of progress in tackling violence against women and girls by which the Government can be held to account. By contrast, the UK Government cannot even commit to publishing their own review in good time.

So I ask the Minister: will he now take this opportunity to apologise for this delay to thousands of rape victims, and particularly the 40% who are rapidly losing faith in the justice system and withdrawing from prosecutions? Will he support Labour’s call to introduce a similar indicator to that seen in Wales, to facilitate a transparent approach to tackling violence against women and girls? Lastly, will he once and for all confirm an exact date for when this review will be published?

[Kit Malthouse]

I completely appreciate the hon. Lady’s righteous anger about this situation. As I said in my statement, this is not a matter about which any of us are particularly pleased or proud, and it is a source of regret that the investigation and conviction of rape has been declining for some years. It is a difficult offence to deal with at the best of times, but the significant declines that we have seen in the past few years are absolutely what we wish to address.

However, against that background, I am sorry that the hon. Lady seeks to politicise what should be a cross-party issue, not a Labour/Conservative issue. There are many Members on the Government Benches for whom this has been a significant issue for some time. As Mayor of London, the Prime Minister himself published the first ever violence against women and girls strategy in this country and, indeed, in any major city around the world. This is an issue that has been close to his heart, and indeed mine, for some time.

I should also point out to the hon. Lady that, notwithstanding the fact that there is a document that requires publishing—as I say, that will be published shortly after recess—she should not mistake that for the beginning of the work. Much work has been done thus far, and we are engaged closely with the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and other partners to make sure that the action plan and the work we need to do to get more cases from report into court has begun already. As the hon. Lady will know, the Crown Prosecution Service and the National Police Chiefs’ Council launched their joint action plan in January this year, and I am pleased that that progress is being made as well.

That is against a background of significant action by the Government over the past decade in various areas of violence against women and girls, which I hope the hon. Lady will appreciate and applaud, ranging from creating the offence of coercive control to outlawing upskirting, stalking, and revenge porn and the threat thereof. We have just passed the landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 with great support across both Houses. Alongside that, we have the information and support campaigns the Government have been running, along with the very significant financial support that has gone into support for victims and witnesses of rape and sexual violence.

The document is important, and it was important to get it right—as I say, we delayed it at the request of the Victims’ Commissioner and the victims sector. Please be under no illusion: we are working extremely hard to try to correct what, as the hon. Lady points out, is an injustice.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con) [V]]

As somebody who both prosecuted and defended probably dozens of rape cases in the course of my career at the Bar, I can say that the Minister is certainly right to recognise that these are always complex and demanding cases. The difficulty of securing the same level of convictions as there is for other types of serious offence has been around for many years—it is not a recent one.

It is also right, of course, to have delayed publication until the decision of the Court of Appeal in the judicial review; otherwise, it might have materially altered the review’s conclusions. However, now that all the challenges have been dismissed on all grounds and the judgment has been handed down, on 14 May, will my hon. Friend undertake to ensure that not only is the document published but that there is proper resourcing to support the joint national plan of action between the Crown Prosecution Service and the police? Doing the same is starting to make a difference in relation to the problems experienced in the past with disclosure. Getting the thing working on the ground, surely, is what we must now tackle very urgently.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee. He is quite right that to get this complicated and difficult piece of work correct, it was appropriate for us to delay. I have to confess that I was pretty gung-ho —anxious to get it out before Christmas. But as I say, the intervention of the sector and the judicial review meant that we had to hold off because of the implications.

My hon. Friend is quite right that the key issue is not so much the document, which is an important statement and political moment, but the operationalisation of what is within it. While we are dealing with a police service of tens of thousands of individuals, a prosecution service with many people involved, and lots of other parties that take a case from report to court, getting them all to both act and think differently—the culture change as well as the operational change—will be an enormous challenge. That is what we are focused on. He will be pleased to know that I have convened a Criminal Justice Board taskforce of key individuals in the organisations involved to try to drive that operational challenge of embedding change.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The Government are letting down victims of rape and serious sexual violence on every front. Victims are being left waiting years for their day in court, with no support, no communication and no action from the Government. When I have spoken to victims, they tell me that they often feel as though they are on trial and how being left to wait years for their day in court leaves them in a form of purgatory, unable to move on from what has happened to them. Many feel that the justice system is working against them, not for them. That is a complete and utter failing of this Government.

We have been waiting for over two years for the rape review. The Minister refers to the court judgment, but that was handed down weeks ago—again, the date of publication has been kicked into the long grass, with no action from the Government. In that time, another 100,000 rapes are reported to have taken place.

Victims cannot wait any longer for action. The Government must urgently publish their review, which must include hard-hitting recommendations and root-and-branch reform to the CPS, Ministry of Justice and Home Office. We need to see how the Government intend to reverse the shocking deterioration of rape prosecutions they have allowed to happen under their watch and how they intend to improve the criminal justice system for victims of rape and sexual violence. What we do not need are slapdash briefings to the press about what is potentially in the review. No more pilots, no more consultations—what we need is action. We need a plan, and Labour has one. We have set out what we would do in our survivors’ support plan and in our Green Paper, “Ending violence against women and girls”. So today, I ask the Minister: will he commit to backing Labour’s survivors’ support plan? Will he introduce indicators across the Crown Prosecution Service, the Ministry of Justice and police to improve victims’ experience of the criminal justice system, as set out in our Green Paper? Will he finally commit to a date for the publication of the review, or will he continue to watch the effective decriminalisation of rape?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I said earlier, we have committed that the review will be published shortly after the recess, but as I said in answer to an earlier question, please do not believe that we are waiting for the production of the plan to start the work. Indeed, much of the work has been done already. The hon. Lady will know, for example, that Project Bluestone in Avon and Somerset police is doing fantastic work at the moment on a new model of operation for this kind of investigation and on joint close working between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. They have a joint operational improvement board. They have launched their action plan. There was significant support for that and a massive mobilisation across policing to deal with, in particular, the new disclosure guidelines that the Attorney General’s Office has issued in response to the growth in the use of mobile phones in the investigation of crime, particularly in this area.

I would be more than happy to look at the Labour Green Paper, because I do not think there is any monopoly on good ideas in this area, as I hope that my opposite number will look with an open mind at the plan that we publish and the work we intend to do. We all have a shared desire here to see better outcomes and more justice for victims in court, and we will have to stand shoulder to shoulder if we are going to make that happen.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

The devastating impact on victims from rape, sexual exploitation, sexual violence and grooming is shattering and long-lasting, and every victim must feel able to come forward with confidence that their complaint will be fully investigated and, where evidence supports, that charges and prosecutions will follow. However, not all victims have confidence in the criminal justice system, so can my hon. Friend outline what steps the Government are taking to support those victims and provide reassurance that any complaint will be taken seriously?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is right that we have to make sure in all we do that victims are at the heart of the criminal justice system, and he will have seen in the recent Queen’s Speech that we have made a commitment to bring in a new victims law. It will put the victims code, which has 12 strong rights for victims in the criminal justice system, into law and ensure that all the operational partners—the police, the CPS and the courts, which are all rightly independent of Government—see the need to take up the challenge of putting victims at the heart of the system.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

The statistics are frankly lamentable, and behind each one is a victim. There were 52,210 rapes recorded by police in England and Wales in 2020. Only 843 resulted in a charge or a summons—a rate of 1.6%. For every 10 cases the CPS prosecuted in 2016-17, it now pursues only three. We know what failure looks like: it is this. What should the figures look like to be acceptable to the Minister? How long does he think we should have to wait to get to that point?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Member is quite right. As I have said, the numbers are deeply, deeply regrettable, and he is correct that not enough victims are getting justice in court. There have obviously been significant changes in technology, not least the advent of the mobile phone and the critical part it plays in so many of these investigations. We need to get ourselves in shape, both in terms of capacity and capability, and we need the right framework around inquiry and disclosure for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. That work is ongoing. We have ambitions, obviously, to raise the number very significantly, but I would not underestimate the operational challenge in embedding this across 43 police forces. The hon. Gentleman will know that creating the structural change alongside the cultural change in two operationally independent organisations, as well as in the court system, will take time and a foundational approach to change, which we are committed to and on which the work has started already.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

What is being done to improve the collaboration between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that more cases are actually charged?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who, as usual, puts her finger on the key issue—the relationship between the police and the CPS, in their collaboration to get a case to court, is absolutely critical. I hope she saw that, in January, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Crown Prosecution Service launched their joint national action plan, with five themed areas of work that are designed to do exactly that. Those are on support for victims; casework quality and progression; digital capability and disclosure, including looking at mobile phones, as I mentioned earlier; people and expertise—critically, building knowledge and expertise—and engaging properly with stakeholders. I know that Deputy Chief Constable Sarah Crew, with whom I have met many times, and Baljit Ubhey and Sue Hemming from the CPS are leading the charge on this. They form part of the criminal justice support taskforce, which I lead, to try to drive the kind of results that we want to see.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC) [V]]

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lefarydd. The shocking drop in rape convictions demonstrates the need for urgent, radical, systemic change. Welsh Women’s Aid has stressed to me the importance of accurate, disaggregated data for Wales in its monitoring of the current duty to prevent crime and protect victims under the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015. Will the Minister commit to a regular publication of Wales-specific data relating to cases of rape, and will he acknowledge that prosecution support services will work effectively for rape survivors only when justice powers are devolved to Wales, as they are to Scotland and Northern Ireland?

[Kit Malthouse]

Data and transparency is one of the key themes that we have been looking at as part of the rape review. There will be an announcement, when the plan comes, about what we intend to do in terms of reporting. I am afraid that I do not support her call for more devolution. I think that England and Wales are stronger together on this issue, as on so many others.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

The vast majority of rape victims know the perpetrator in the first place, and the vast majority are in relationships with them, or historically have been. The key here is ensuring that once a victim of rape reports it to the police, they are dealt with not only sympathetically, but supported all the way along the line to court. This is a structural and cultural change that needs to take place. What effort is my hon. Friend making to ensure that cultural change, as well as structural change, is actually implemented?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that one of the key issues that we have to address is what they call “victim attrition”, which is a slightly depersonalised, desensitised phrase for victims not feeling that they are going to get justice and giving up along the way. I was very pleased that the Government announced a massive increase in the amount of money being given to create the posts of independent sexual violence advisers and domestic abuse advisers, who will help to support victims through the criminal justice system to make sure that they get to court in good shape and able to give the evidence that they wish to give. There will be more about this issue in the review and I hope that, when it comes, he will welcome it.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Despite the reasoning, the long delay in publishing the Government’s review of rape cases is emblematic of the chronic delays throughout the criminal justice system that are denying survivors justice and allowing rapists to walk free. The results of the analysis initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) are shocking. As a former sexual offences trained police officer, I think that what these statistics make clear is that police and prosecutors need more resources and training to bring perpetrators to justice, whether that means supporting survivors, handling investigations sensitively, analysing digital evidence or countering damaging stereotypes. The Minister talked in his response about this being part of ongoing work, so what are the Government doing now to deliver?

[Kit Malthouse]

I agree with the hon. Lady about resources and training. The development of expertise, which she obviously had in her career, is a key part of the Crown Prosecution Service and National Police Chiefs’ Council joint national action plan. We see better results from specialist teams, and often those structural issues that allow police officers to stay in post for longer, and develop an expertise in what my hon. Friend will know is a difficult and sensitive area of investigation, are critical. We must also ensure that the CPS is able to develop that specialism, and that will be a critical part of the joint national action plan.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

In South Yorkshire just 24 people were charged, despite nearly 1,600 reports of rape being made in 2019. The Minister says that the Government have taken action, but their recent Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill does not mention women once. Will he admit that through their lack of action, this Government have effectively decriminalised rape?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am sorry to hear the numbers from South Yorkshire, and I know the hon. Lady will address them with the police and crime commissioner there, who is responsible for the performance of the police. He also chairs the local criminal justice board, which is designed to bring partners together in that area to work on exactly these issues. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill includes provisions that will focus on offences that largely impact women, not least the end of the halfway release for serious sexual offenders, including rapists who, when the Bill goes through, will have to serve two-thirds of their sentence, providing greater protection and justice for their victims.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con) [V]]

Because the majority of rapes take place behind closed doors, where the victim knows the perpetrator, and in circumstances that are incredibly difficult to prove afterwards, it has always been a difficult crime for which to get a conviction. The most striking features of the current rate are the high rate of attrition, and the fact that the CPS has seen fit to update the rape and serious sexual offences guidance all the way through the year on victim behaviour. Does my hon. Friend think there is a case for specialised prosecutors, and a specialist sexual offences court to deal with such crimes?

[Kit Malthouse]

I had the pleasure of watching a talk that my hon. Friend gave last night to a think-tank about these issues, and she was very thoughtful and interesting on this subject. Across all crime types we see that specialism pays, both in apprehending the perpetrator, but also in getting a conviction. We must ensure that the police and CPS can develop those specialisms. All prosecutions are currently charged by specialist RASSO prosecutors, but a collective expertise must be a key mission for us. Alongside that, we must ensure that victims have specialist support, and expertise is key to that.

My hon. Friend is right to say that this is a particularly difficult, evidential situation, where often it is one word against another, and other circumstantial evidence may or may not lead to a conviction. I want to concentrate on the key area of recent reporting, and on encouraging people to report as soon as possible. As she will know, there is a short forensic window in such situations—normally 7 to 10 days—and there are sensitive forensic facilities where evidence can be gathered. We know that in such circumstances, the likelihood of conviction is much greater. For historical offenders it is even more difficult, which is why expertise is even more important.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Government know that rape prosecution and conviction rates have always been too low,

but they have plummeted over the last four years, dropping by 60% to 70%. Ministers were warned several years ago about the impact of cuts to specialist rape prosecutors and to specialist sexual violence teams in the police. Has the Minister done an assessment of what the reduction in some of those specialist policing teams has been, what the impact has been, and what additional capacity is now needed in those specialist teams, in both the CPS and the police, to turn this awful situation around?

[Kit Malthouse]

I thank the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee for her question, but it would be a mistake to point to one particular issue driving the drop. We know, for example, that the significant fall from 2016-17 was down to difficulties with disclosure that arose from particular cases, and the impact that that has had on both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.

I think it is sometimes a mistake to give the impression that somehow a decision was made that this should happen. It was not. There has been a pattern of decline over a number of years. Part of the reason that we instituted the rape review, admittedly 24 months ago, was to try to diagnose exactly what has gone wrong—exactly why these cases are failing to get to court, why so many witnesses are falling out before they get to court, why we are seeing difficulties with disclosure, and what we can do to improve, for example, our operation of digital forensics, in terms of both capacity and capability. All that will be contained in the review. I understand people’s impatience; there is not much longer to wait now.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) [V]]

I commend the Government for the work that has already been put in hand to improve support for rape complainants. Will my hon. Friend give an update on when the new 2017 guidance on achieving best evidence—ABE—will be published and set out how the use of recorded pre-trial evidence and the specialist input of the Criminal Bar Association are informing the Government’s next steps?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s constructive question. He is right; we do think that the use of section 28, as it is called—giving recorded evidence—will have a role to play. As he will know, we have rolled it out for vulnerable victims across all Crown courts, and we now have a number of pathfinder courts—in Liverpool and, I think, Leeds—where we are using it in cases of intimidated witnesses, not least in cases of rape and sexual violence. As for the guidance that he points towards, that is a police-owned document, and I know that they are collaborating closely with the CPS and the Criminal Bar Association to get it right. We stand ready to help them with publication once their work is finished.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab) [V]]

I have heard harrowing testimony from a number of my constituents about their experience of seeking justice after rape and sexual violence. The majority felt that they had been further traumatised by the process and felt like they were the ones on trial, whether because they were required to hand over their digital devices, because they were not able to access pre-trial therapy, or because of the myths and stereotypes that abound.

Listening to that testimony, I felt vindicated in my own decision not to go to the police—a decision that thousands of women sadly take because they understandably feel like their trauma will only be compounded by the process, with a minuscule likelihood of securing a conviction. Will the Minister therefore please commit to supporting Labour’s call for the establishment of a pre and post-trial survivor support package, including a full legal advocacy scheme for victims and better training for professionals around myths and stereotypes, so that survivors can finally have some confidence in this process?

[Kit Malthouse]

It is obviously a matter of deep regret that anybody feels prevented from coming forward to report a rape, or indeed a sexual assault, to the police. That is one of the issues that we need to address—building confidence among victims that they should and could step forward, recognising at all times that it takes enormous courage to do so. Like the hon. Lady, I have sat with victims of this particularly appalling and intimate crime over the years, so I recognise the devastating impact that it can have. As to the measures that she calls for, I obviously cannot make an announcement today, but I recommend that, when the review is published, she reads it from cover to cover.

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Being believed is one of the most important things for a rape victim’s confidence. Being able to come forward and report the rape in the first instance is not easy, especially when sexual abuse survivors really fear that if they were to report the crime no one would believe them, when victims know that society can blame them for the aggression or, as is often the case, when the rape victim was known by the perpetrator. I therefore thank my hon. Friend for his assurance today that the voices of victims are at the heart of the review, but will he assure me that rape victims going forward will have confidence in the criminal justice system’s handling of rape complaints?

[Kit Malthouse]

While my primary objective will be to get more cases into court—that, fundamentally, is the problem we are trying to address—my hon. Friend is quite right that, alongside that, it is completely critical that we build confidence among victims in the criminal justice system. We have seen an increase in reported rape over the last few years, and it is quite a significant increase, so more people are confident to come forward. However, given the performance figures so far, that could easily slip away, so making sure they are at the heart of decision making—that they know when they come forward that they can access the support they need, and can get the guidance and indeed the advocacy they need; that they will be received by police officers and prosecutors who are invested properly in and are looking dispassionately at the investigation; and that the natural inquiries required as part of this sort of offence investigation are proportionate and do not invade privacy in a disproportionate way—will be critical to the mission, and I hope that that is what she will find in the report.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

The Minister has rightly highlighted the importance of data and transparency in the rape review. With some police forces reporting a rapid rise in sexual offending by women, what steps is he taking to ensure that all police forces accurately record and collect data on the sex of both the victims and the perpetrators in all cases of rape and sexual violence? Does he agree with me that, when it comes to recording crime, sex does matter?

[Kit Malthouse]

I agree with the hon. Lady that demographics of all types matter. Indeed, I forget who it was, but someone said, “If you can’t measure something, you don’t know how to change it”. One of the first questions I have asked in my initial meetings in this job, when officials come in with a particular area of policy to deal with, is: do we actually know what is happening—do we have a clear picture of what is happening out there on the streets and communities we serve? I am more than happy to go back and have a look at the particular issue she has raised to make sure that we are getting the recording right.

[Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con) [V]]

I welcome the Government’s support for independent sexual violence advisers, who we know have a profound effect in helping victims to get through the court process. However, we know that there is an issue in convictions versus acquittals in the court process as well. Could my hon. Friend please assure me that this will be thoroughly investigated in the rape review, but also that we will be looking at how we communicate the changes on a national level, so that people who might not otherwise be engaged in the political stories of the day will learn about these changes and have confidence in the system going forward?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to create a self-reinforcing story of success, where the support we give to victims and the changes in our methodology and indeed practices between the police and the CPS lead to a greater number of cases going into court, and that in turn leads to a greater number of convictions, which should build confidence among victims. I hope that is exactly the kind of spiral of success that the report will produce.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab) [V]]

Seven in 10 women say the Government’s efforts to make the UK safer for women are lacking. Does the Minister back Labour’s Bill to end violence against women and girls, and if not, does he believe seven in 10 women are wrong?

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[Kit Malthouse]

Obviously, one of the key themes that we wanted to address as a Government is a general sense of safety in the public realm. That is why we are recruiting 20,000 more police officers and working day and night to drive performance on all crime types to create a greater sense of safety and security on our streets for men and women.

I do not accept necessarily, however, that we need a Bill as the hon. Lady has outlined, not least because we have managed to do a fair amount—a huge amount, actually—on violence against women and girls over the past few years through other means, as I set out earlier. We have new offences of coercive control, upskirting and stalking, and on revenge porn. The rough sex defence has been dealt with, and we have introduced modern slavery offences, when women are often trafficked for sex. We have even campaigned on rape being used as a weapon of war around the world. Alongside that are the report we have made on refuges, the domestic abuse helplines and work that we are doing now on the rape review.

That huge package points towards the safety of women and girls. While there is much to be proud of in that, there is still a lot more to do, which is why later this year we will publish a violence against women and girls strategy alongside a complementary domestic abuse strategy.

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

The justice system is in meltdown and the victims of all crime are having their justice delayed and subsequently denied, but survivors of rape and sexual violence are also being denied vital psychological therapy and counselling, since to seek such lifesaving support can be deemed to interfere with the validity of their evidence. Will the Minister adopt Labour’s survivors’ support package as a first and immediate step to ensure that survivors may have their evidence pre-recorded and their cross-examination pre-trial, so that they may access the very help that they need?

[Kit Malthouse]

The pandemic has been extremely challenging for the court system over the past year or so, but we all have a duty not to be hyperbolic in our language—it is not in meltdown. Justice is still being dispensed in the courts, and while delay built up naturally during the pandemic, an enormous amount of work has been done to deal with it, with the opening of Nightingale courts and a massive expansion of capacity. We are seeing progress, so I hope that the hon. Lady will focus on the work that needs to be done to recover from the pandemic. We will see more positive outcomes in the months to come.

[Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)]

The military conviction rate is far lower than that in the civil system. Service personnel and veterans’ representatives are all calling for military rape to be heard in civilian courts. Will my right hon. Friend agree to discuss with his Ministry of Defence counterpart that all victims, regardless of where the assault took place, should receive the justice that they deserve?

[Kit Malthouse]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern about the low figures in military courts as well, and I will of course discuss that with the Secretary of State for Defence or my ministerial counterpart. I know that my hon. Friend is authoring, or leading on, a report on women in the armed forces at the moment. I shall look forward to reading that as well and drawing some conclusions from it for my work.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Violence against women and girls starts really young. I do not know whether the Minister saw the news today about the research done by Radio 4 and the NASUWT into sexual violence and harassment in schools, but a third of teachers had witnessed peer-on-peer sexual harassment or abuse and one in 10 see this happening on a weekly basis.

The problem we have with violence against women and girls in this country starts young and it never ends. We have a real problem, so as well as no more delays to the publication of the end-to-end rape review, will the Minister commit to talking seriously to his colleagues in the Department for Education about addressing the need for education on consent for boys and girls in schools and through youth work?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady makes an important point which, as I am sure she appreciates, is not within my ministerial ambit to comment on. However, through the work of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the online harms Bill and of the Department for Education, we are all very much aware that young people take their signals and learn their behaviour from the adults around them. We all have a duty to ensure that they grow up as right-thinking members of society.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

It is a fact that victims of rape and sexual assault are deterred from reporting these crimes. The combination of very low conviction rates, reporting requirements and a societal view of victim blaming combine to contribute against these feelings of deterrence. What can the Government do to ensure that the voices of victims are right at the heart of the review?

[Kit Malthouse]

I hope that, given his obvious conviction and commitment to this issue, my hon. Friend will volunteer to be on the Committee that considers the victims’ Bill when it enters the House. It will be a critical part of the architecture of ensuring that we build confidence in the system among victims, and I look forward to its passage through the House.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

The Minister says that justice is being dispensed in our courts. Well, in April this year a convicted rapist who named and blamed his victim on Facebook got a paltry £120 fine. We rightly give victims of rape anonymity for life. What message does he think it sends to victims when this important protection is being abused and the penalty for it is less than someone would get for fly-tipping? And if he agrees that it is not acceptable, what is he doing about it?

[Kit Malthouse]

As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, victims of these kinds of offences do have a right to lifetime anonymity. Although I have to admit that that penalty standing alone does seem derisory, the hon. Lady will know that the particular individual—I think we are talking about the same case—received a very significant sentence for the substantive offence. This is an issue that we will be keeping under review, but for the purposes of the rape review my job is to get more cases into court, and that is what I will be focusing on.

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

One of the issues in securing convictions is proving lack of consent. As my hon. Friend has said, it is often one person’s word against the other person’s. Would he consider working with the Crown Prosecution Service and the police to establish guidelines as to how to prove consent or lack thereof?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend raises a critical issue, which, as she says, is at the heart of so many of these investigations. I know that, as part of their joint action plan, the police and the CPS will be looking at exactly such issues to ensure that there is consistency and, frankly, that they can get the right kind of result in court.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]]

Can the Minister tell the House whether the rape review looks at the shockingly low figures for convictions of men who rape women and girls who have been trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation; and will this be addressed in any action plan, including the need for new legislation to protect women and girls, and to hold men accountable for their actions?

[Kit Malthouse]

As the right hon. Lady will know, thanks to this Government there are now significant penalties under the modern slavery legislation for those who traffic individuals. However, I hope she will forgive me if I do not necessarily reveal what is in the review. I hope that she will see that, whatever the circumstances of that particular offence, once the work starts—the work has started, but once we get going on the work that sits behind the rape review—we will see perpetrators of all kinds of these offences in court, where justice can be dispensed.

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

Last month, a constituent of mine sent me a very powerful account of how her case has taken nearly three years to reach court. During that time, she has been told not to have therapy; that she could have therapy as long as the notes were shared with the defence; that she should not claim compensation; that she should not speak about it; and, at one point, that she would not be able to watch the trial. Will my hon. Friend assure me that the review will look both at how we can get cases to court more quickly, but at how victims can feel more supported, rather than feeling as my constituent has felt—inadvertently silenced?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am very distressed to hear the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent; it sounds like a dreadful case. On the therapy issue, the guidelines in place say that pre-trial therapy is absolutely allowed and appropriate, and nobody should be steered away from it. I would be more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that particular case, because it sounds like one from which we can learn some lessons.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

Dame Vera Baird, the Victims’ Commissioner, has stated that the Government’s rape review team

“took the surprising decision not to seek the views of those who really matter—rape survivors.”

Will the Minister confirm today that the upcoming end-to-end review did consult survivors of rape and sexual violence? If it did not, how can he assure the House that the review is in fact end-to-end without its speaking to those directly impacted?

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[Kit Malthouse]

Of course we consulted survivors, and a number of organisations that represent survivors were represented on the engagement panel as part of the development of the review. Indeed, more than that, the Government appointed Emily Hunt, a high-profile campaigner on this issue and herself a survivor, as an expert adviser.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con) [V]]

There is a benefit to being last to ask a question: one gets to see the whole debate. Throughout these exchanges there has been one common theme, which is trust. Only this month I have written to the Minister about harassment cases, but at its worst it is rape cases. People need to believe that when they come forward they will be trusted, that the police can be trusted to do their jobs, that they can trust sentences to be punishment and, finally, that we in this House are implementing the right laws. I am not asking the Minister to comment specifically on whether this review will deliver that, but overall does he think that it will bring trust into the system so that more convictions will go forward?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that trust in the police, the prosecution service and the courts is critical to building the confidence and legitimacy on which our law-enforcement system rests. Having been involved in the development of the plan, I hope and believe that it will do two things: first, address that particular issue in what is a complex environment; and secondly, bring justice for individual victims, absent the general confidence that we should all try to instil in the system.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Minister for answering the urgent question.