Community Payback

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Andrew Gwynne

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

As I have said, the baseline was at or around 5 million hours a year for quite a period. It fluctuated from year to year because of a number of factors, not just the delivery but also whether magistrates were giving community sentences in volume, which is not something we can influence. But I am more than happy to write to the hon. Lady with the hours as we see them. [Interruption.] I do not have them to hand, but I am more than happy to write to her about those hours. Look, the number fluctuated at about 5 million-odd, and we want to get it to 8 million. We have been given £93 million and 500 more supervisors have been recruited to get us there. I hope that Opposition Members will acknowledge that community payback was impacted, and had to be, by the pandemic. I know that the Labour party would not seek to make political advantage out of the impact of that awful disease when we had to bear in mind the safety of Ministry of Justice staff.

The Opposition have submitted their own proposals on improving local engagement and participation, which the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge referred to. However, I am afraid that her quango-tastic response to the issue is both unnecessary and, I am afraid, overcomplicated. In reality, community payback is already delivering for local communities, and the Government are only strengthening our engagement with key stakeholders. We recognise that local engagement is an integral part of the community payback offer, and the probation service already works closely with local authorities, police and crime commissioners and voluntary organisations to identify demanding placements that benefit communities. We also encourage members of the public to take part and nominate community payback projects in their areas via an easy-to-use form on the gov.uk website. I urge you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to make some nominations in your own constituency.

Furthermore, we have just introduced a new statutory duty via the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that requires the probation service to consult with key community stakeholders on the delivery of community payback in local areas. The duty will encourage greater collaboration with key partners such as PCCs and ensure that projects benefit communities and are responsive to local needs. The new statutory duty will cement and formalise existing relationships and create a consistent consultation process across England and Wales. That in turn will guarantee that local people have a say in the types of projects delivered in their areas, ensuring that our placements are responsive to the community’s needs.

The impact of such collaboration was evident during the community payback spring clean week, which was delivered in support of Keep Britain Tidy’s campaign in March. Between 25 March and 1 April, community payback teams were mobilised across England and Wales to deliver clean-up projects that visibly improved local areas and green spaces. More than 1,500 offenders collected 2,200 bags of litter, removed eyesore graffiti and cleared vegetation from public spaces. They delivered 10,000 hours of hard and productive work at about 300 projects. The initiative was widely supported by many hon. Members and PCCs who visited projects. The spring clean week is a superb example of the impact that meaningful and robust community payback can have on local areas.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I want to take the Minister back to the 8 million hours of community payback that he set out. We all support more hours of community payback, particularly on meaningful projects such as some of those that he has just listed. He skirted over the fundamental problem, though, which is that in June 2011, 185,265 community sentences were handed down—13% of all sentences—but by June 2021 that had fallen to 72,021, which was just 7% of all sentences. He said that there is little that he can do to make the courts award community sentences, but, if he is to make those 8 million hours a reality, he will have to do something to encourage them. What is he doing to ensure that more community sentences, where appropriate, are given out to perpetrators of crime?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that the decision on a sentence is a matter for the magistrate or for the judge at the time. It is for them to decide what is a fitting punishment and, indeed, what is likely to deter the offender from reoffending. The fall that he pointed to will be entirely down to judicial discretion.

We can do a certain amount of marketing to judges and sentencers. In promoting my own pet project of alcohol abstinence and monitoring orders—the new sobriety tags that have been brought in—I have been attending judicial training courses to explain to sentencers how the sentence works and its effectiveness. In the end, a judge or magistrate wants to know that a sentence is effective, and if we can demonstrate through our work that it is effective, punitive and satisfies the public interest, and the local community sees value in that sentence, I am sure that magistrates and judges will step forward with much greater enthusiasm and help us to fulfil that 8 million hours target. The hon. Gentleman identifies the interesting point—no doubt it will be embarked on with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge)—of explaining to those who give out sentences the growing importance of this work across the whole of the country.

I hope that all hon. Members in the Chamber will become my Twitter followers. One of the great pleasures of my day is to tweet my “payback of the day”. Pretty much every day, I put out “before” and “after” pictures of a project taking place somewhere across the country showing the fantastic work that offenders have done. We seem to specialise in cemeteries—a lot of work is going into cleaning them and smartening them up. Some of the transformations have been extraordinary. I visited a project in Eastleigh, near my constituency, and what struck me was the value that the offenders themselves saw in the work. Local residents had been over to congratulate them, thank them and understand what they were doing—the offenders all wear high-vis that has “community payback” written the back—and the offenders felt a sense of pride. They had been working in a churchyard, making it look very smart and tidy, and in fact a couple of them said that they were interested in a career in landscape gardening as a result.

Across the House, we agree on the value of community payback. I hope it is agreed that the service suffered during the pandemic because of the nature of this group-based work, but that the staff at the probation service and the community payback supervisors were innovative in inventing solutions to help us deal with the backlog. Nevertheless, we all need to put our shoulder to the wheel to get us from 5 million hours to that target of 8 million hours, by which time I hope there will not be an area of the country that is not clean, scrubbed and free of graffiti and litter.

While I realise that the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge is trying to use the debate to confer some kind of political advantage, I know that she recognises—she is generally a fair-minded individual—that the staff were struggling during the pandemic, as were so many services. Now that her party has happily reversed its position, we share the view that the community payback is an incredibly valuable part of our criminal justice system, and I hope that we will all work together to promote it. I look forward to receiving a nomination from her for a scheme that she would like to see done in her constituency. Perhaps she and I could visit it together and congratulate the offenders on their work.

As for the hon. Lady’s overall claim that somehow the Conservatives have gone soft on crime and are no longer the party of crime and order, I gently remind her that she voted against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and its measures to put rapists and other serious offenders behind bars and to deal with a variety of other criminals. Until the Labour party becomes more action and less talk, I am afraid that it will not be able to aspire to the crown, which we currently proudly hold, of being the primary defender of law and order in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Andrew Gwynne

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, Cambridgeshire police has expanded quite significantly, in terms of pure police numbers, over the past couple of years, but I hope he will also have noticed the work that is being done by the national retail crime steering group, which I chair, to look specifically at crime in this area. Given what he has mentioned about ramraiding in his constituency, I will go away and look at whether a pattern is emerging across the east of England and hope that I can encourage the police to address it.

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

The Minister has just said that there is an unprecedented expansion, but back in the real world, antisocial behaviour increased by 7% last year: it is a growing problem across so many communities in my constituency and around the country. Although the new officers are beginning to come on-stream, does he even begin to understand the damage that the cuts not only to police numbers but to services such as youth services have done to communities like the ones I represent?

[Kit Malthouse]

Year on year, last year and the year before, we actually saw a fall in police-recorded incidents of antisocial behaviour, but we have seen fluctuations in that crime type over the past few months as the variations in covid lockdown regulations have changed. We are keeping a close eye on it. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that in our “Beating crime plan”, published in July last year, we encouraged police and crime commissioners—I hope he will encourage his to do this as well—to form their own antisocial behaviour taskforces so that they can really pinpoint and address this most local of crime problems very effectively.

Metropolitan Police: Stephen Port Murders Inquest

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Andrew Gwynne

Monday 13th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

For the avoidance of doubt, let me say that these were very obviously horrific gay murders, targeted against men because they were gay and driven by who knows what—homophobia or some kind of depraved sexual practice; I do not know. Some monster perpetrated these awful acts against these poor gay men. I am happy to say, without reservation, that obviously they need to be investigated and we need to get to the bottom of this. As I have explained, there are inquiries ongoing into the culture of the Metropolitan police, and I would like to see how they land before we seek to duplicate them by some other means.

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

We should not, ever, underestimate the very real concerns of the LGBTQ+ communities across this country about these dreadful failings by the Met police. Is the Minister satisfied that police forces across the country, not just the Met, have sufficient time, resources and leadership to ensure that the complete breakdown of oversight described by the jury in this hearing cannot ever happen again?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I said, much of my work over the past two years has been devoted to bringing the focus of the whole of UK policing and, in particular, its leadership on to murder as a specific issue. That means improving processes, improving forensics, improving their investigation techniques and improving their prior identification. Crucially, it means improving the leadership, and that is what I was doing last Thursday with the police chiefs from across the country.

Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Andrew Gwynne

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[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.

Police National Computer

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Andrew Gwynne

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

Yes. It is the hope of all Government Members that Opposition Members will work constructively with us. I had a very constructive briefing over the weekend with the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds); the shadow Policing Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones); and the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). We are committed to as much transparency as the House requires, because with a large, complex database, when human error is introduced, these kinds of issue need to be exposed so that we can all learn from them, whatever situation, political or otherwise, we are in.

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

The Home Secretary likes to talk tough on crime, but the shocking loss of 400,000 records is a major failing on her watch and she is incapable of facing up to it. She should be here before the House today. The Policing Minister talked in his statement about mitigation. Can he give the House an absolute guarantee that no investigation has been or will be compromised because the deleted information could not be cross-referenced?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman again casts aspersions on the Home Secretary, who is one of the hardest-working politicians I have come across in my 20-odd years in politics, and I think it is deeply unfair to make that claim. As he knows, it is perfectly usual for Ministers of State to take urgent questions or indeed make statements in this House, and we are doing no different from what a Government that he supported did in the past.

We will know the full extent of the impact of this issue over the next few days, as our plan swings into action, and we are working very closely with police forces across the country, through the National Police Chiefs Council, to make sure that any operational impact is obviated or mitigated.

Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Andrew Gwynne

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I know that West Midlands police and the chief inspector will be very grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. It is always heartening when Members of Parliament know their local senior police officers by name, because it means that they have met them, talked to them, understand their job and support them. I am very pleased that he does that as well. I hope that he and everybody in his part of the world will join together in fighting the crimes that his community face.

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

Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand, and the democratic right to peacefully protest is absolute but sits alongside a responsibility to respect the law. Parliamentary time is at a premium. On the radio yesterday, the Minister’s former colleague and ex-Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, stated that no new law laws were required if the police used the substantial powers they already have. So is this partly a question of police resources, and how do we ensure that the existing laws are used?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s unequivocal support for protest but also for making sure that we investigate crime. As I understand it—obviously after every incident like this there will be a review and lessons to be learned—some of the delay that arose was around the tactics that XR used in erecting scaffolding and using glue and locks to attach themselves to the road and to other items. The police have the capability to deal with those issues, but it is largely in places like London where we see most of the protests, so we will have to review whether we need this capability elsewhere, and if so we will have to make it happen.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Relief from Non-Domestic Rates) Bill

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Andrew Gwynne

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

Absolutely. Labour would have increased corporation tax to pay for better public services, but our rates would still have been among the lowest in the G20. It is a question of priorities. We can put money where people want it—in a better NHS, in better local government and in better education—or we can have poorly funded public services and tax giveaways to those at the very top. For all its rhetoric about ending austerity, it seems quite clear that the Conservative party has not changed one iota. There was a further omission to this Bill—

[Kit Malthouse]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the reductions in corporation tax in the past few years have resulted in a massive increase in the cash collected by the Treasury?

[Andrew Gwynne]

As I said in answer to the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), it is a question of priorities. We can give tax cuts to big business, or we can invest in public services. The point is that we made a very clear choice—[Interruption.] We have differences of opinion on this. The hon. Gentleman feels that having the lowest corporation tax is a good thing, but I think that having a corporation tax that is among the lowest in the world with a better funded public—[Interruption.] It is not an anti-business rant. I am talking about being both pro-business and pro-public services. That is the choice, because our public services are on their knees. If this is the cross-party co-operation that the Prime Minister wants, I am afraid it will be a long time coming.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention, because, of course, it was not just the Government who did that. I do not know whether she was a remainer or a leaver, but it would be remiss of the House, whatever our views on Brexit, not to acknowledge the involvement of the European Commission in funding some of the roll-out of this infrastructure and technology. It has come not just from the Government but from others, and we can see the European flag stickers on boxes, cabinets and infrastructure up and down the country.

[Kit Malthouse]

rose—

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am afraid that I have upset the hon. Gentleman by mentioning the word “Europe”.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman has to recognise that there is also a downside to EU involvement. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) struggled for a long time with EU state aid rules and the roll-out of broadband and, certainly for small businesses, had to come up with a slightly Heath Robinson-esque scheme of vouchers to get around the rules. If anything, they hampered roll-out rather than assisting.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am not saying that everything was perfect with that scheme, or with the European Community and European Union. I was merely pointing out in response to the intervention from the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) that it would be remiss of us to suggest that all the funding came from central Government when it came from a variety of sources, including the European Commission, to which all those stickers are a testament.

As I have said and as the Minister has acknowledged, our rural areas need a long-term investment strategy, not just short-term subsidy, helpful though that is. I look forward to holding the Minister to account while he is in this post to ensure that he makes good on his word. The short-term subsidy will help, but we need to ensure that investment continues apace beyond the five-year deadline of this business rate relief and we need continually to update our internet connections with the latest technology.

The Opposition’s focus is to encourage investment in all communities by excluding new investment in plant and machinery from future business rates valuation, which will free up medium and large businesses to invest in any area of the country. The country needs fresh ideas to meet the emerging challenges of the new century, yet what we have seen today, in a stripped-down Bill, is the lack of a comprehensive and compelling legislative framework that supports all businesses and local authorities on business rates.

I desperately plead for the co-operation the Prime Minister has asked for. I hope that it is genuine and heartfelt, and that she looks for ideas from the Opposition, which we are more than happy to provide to the Government—ideas to improve our infrastructure in cities and in rural areas, to update our connectivity, not just physically but through the cloud and other technologies, and to use emerging technologies to benefit British business, which will be crucial if we are to keep a competitive advantage in the uncertain years ahead. As we remove ourselves from the EU and strike a new set of trade deals across the world, we must keep that competitive edge. I agree with the Minister that new and emerging technology and infrastructure is part of the mechanism to drive Britain’s economy in the face of the new challenges that lie ahead.

We will not divide the House tonight. We will look to strengthen the Bill in Committee and we will continue to challenge the Government on their wider local government finance policy until we get the answers and certainty that local government so desperately needs. Technology and infrastructure are vital to building Britain’s capacity to grow and develop in a changing world in which we look to new and emerging markets. It is incumbent on whichever party is in government in future to work constructively with others to ensure that Britain’s infrastructure is kept as up-to-date and as state-of-the-art as possible.

In that respect, we cautiously welcome the Bill. We will seek to strengthen it in Committee, but let us work together on some measures for future local government finance because, as the local government Minister knows, local government needs that certainty.

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[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure and an honour to follow my comrade and hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare).

On my first day in this House, I was told by an older Member that if I wanted to keep something secret I should make a speech about it in the House of Commons. And so it was that on 13 September last year I gave a speech on the subject of this Bill and called for 100% rate relief of new fibre networks. I even went so far as to draft an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill, not to give that rate relief but to require the valuation office to produce an annual report on the impact of the rating system on competition in the telecoms sector. Various players in the industry had presented me with the ridiculous conundrum that it was cheaper for them to rent fibre from BT than to pay the rates bill on putting in new fibre themselves. In their view, that entrenched the near monopoly of BT and gave it an enormous structural advantage, which was basically choking off competition.

I spoke on Second Reading of the Digital Economy Bill, drafted an amendment and had a fruitful conversation with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Digital, who is no longer in his place, who persuaded me that, given some of the other amendments I had tabled, I should leave my proposal to the Government to mull over for some months and that they would give it some serious thought. Imagine my pleasure and surprise, first when it appeared in last year’s autumn statement, and now, even more so, that it has appeared in this Bill. It will provide an enormous boost to competition in the sector. There is no doubt that the asymmetric deal on business rates between BT and new entrants is choking off new investment in large parts of the country. Smaller companies have very little incentive to compete directly with BT; they have to look for areas of the country that are currently unserved or un-commercial in order to try to make their networks pay. As a result, innovation is hard to come by.

BT has been helpful to me and my constituents, as I know it has been to several other Members, and I hope it will take the Bill in the spirit in which it is intended. Those of us who believe in a market economy think that competition is good. We think that it will be better not only for the consumer, but for BT, because it will drive the company to greater innovation, efficiency and, we hope, profit.

The Bill represents a welcome move towards seeing broadband and telecommunications as utilities. Over the past few months, steps have been taken in legislation towards that position. The building regulations have been changed to make the provision of broadband compulsory in new developments. Broadband will, I hope, be provided as a universal service over the next few years, and now non-domestic rates are being lifted on parts of the network. Broadband is increasingly being treated—as water, gas and electricity are—as a vital utility, which is what it is becoming. I am pleased about that development, and I hope that broadband will continue to be viewed increasingly as a utility.

In a constituency such as mine, broadband is incredibly important for a successful, vibrant countryside. If the countryside is to compete with its urban neighbours, it needs to be connected to the world. These days, that social and economic connection takes the form not of roads, dual carriageways or motorways, but of superfast broadband. My constituency, like that of my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), is peppered with enterprises that do most of their business online. Hon. Members will be pleased to know that on Saturday I attended the Amport fête and came across a brand new and very pleasing business called Test Valley Gin, a new brand of gin that is taking the market by storm. Kate Griffin, the inventor of this gin, is having some success. The 36 bottles she produces each week are selling like hot cakes, many of them online on a website called theginstall.co.uk.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My ears pricked up when the hon. Gentleman mentioned gin. Perhaps, in the interests of cross-party co-operation, he could share some around?

[Kit Malthouse]

I have to confess that I was so taken with the small sample that I tried—I was driving—that I bought a bottle. Perhaps I will bring one in. I did wonder whether the House of Commons authorities might start serving Test Valley Gin in the bars. It is an excellent drink, infused with a secret recipe of local herbs and spices, and I can recommend it.

Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Andrew Gwynne

Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a valid point. However, these people are somehow financing an alcohol habit, so they are paying for alcohol. I think my right hon. and learned Friend would be surprised at the demographic of offenders. In the US, this was more often used for repeat drink-driving than anything else. In this country, repeat drink-driving is predominantly a crime of white, middle-aged, professional men; it is they who get done most for this offence. One hopes that they would indeed be able to afford to pay the cost.

My right hon. and learned Friend is, however, right that the proposal is that the police “may” charge. They do not have to. If a PCC believes it would be useful, they could apply to the Home Secretary to run a scheme on a charging basis and then decide on the charge. It might be 50p a day, a pound or £3—who knows? It will depend on the area and the level of offences committed.

Having this particular power adds two critical things to the scheme. First, one of the successes in the US is that the scheme gives offenders the notion that they are in control of their destiny. Every time they reach for a drink, they have to think about the consequences. That is why there is such high compliance—because people feel they are in control. At the same time, having to pay provides an even greater sense of ownership of the disposal. Offenders understand that this is a punishment; they understand that they have to take responsibility and finance the scheme themselves. It is essentially “the polluter pays”.

Secondly, although this disposal has been wildly successful in London and has spread to the rest of the capital, it took a lot of up-front Government funding to get the scheme out there. The Ministry of Justice had to put in £500,000 and the Mayor has done the same to get the facilities out and around town. If we want the disposal to spread so that other PCCs take it up, there needs to be a business case. Bluntly, I am a Conservative, and if there is a flow of income coming from this disposal to a PCC in a way no other disposal will allow, I believe PCCs would be more likely to use it and invest the money up front; they would know that the income would come in to finance it.

I realise that offenders paying for their own punishment would be a new departure for the British criminal justice system, but I think it could be useful given that alcohol abstinence monitoring orders are themselves a new departure. There may be some cultural difficulties. When I first proposed the disposal, I went to see my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who was then Lord Chancellor. His first response was to say, “Good grief, you can’t stop people from having a pint!” I explained that if these people break somebody’s jaw or cause a crash because they have been driving drunk, of course we can. If we put them in prison, we stop them drinking. This was just a way of doing that, I explained, without incarcerating people. It is much cheaper, much quicker and, if the Government are kind enough to think about this new clause—perhaps following it up in the other place—the disposal could be self-financing and help to save a huge amount of money.

[Andrew Gwynne]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). I start by saying that I have always been supportive of the police; I was brought up to be. I can remember my mum telling me as a very young child that if I ever got lost the police were my friends and that I should always seek out a police officer, who would always try to find where my mum and dad were. That is hopefully an ethic that I have passed on to my own children. That, I think, is where we must start.

In this country, there is a degree of consensus about the nature of policing, because we have developed, over a long period, the concept of policing by consent. I think that Parliament, when passing legislation both here and in the other place, must do everything in its power to ensure that we do not move away from that important concept. A number of measures in the Bill deserve to be scrutinised properly before Parliament decides whether it is appropriate to extend the powers in the way that the Minister proposes.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

I hope that we would not have to face a situation in which chief constables inappropriately use the powers that the Government are seeking to extend to them, but it is our duty to legislate for a situation where that might be the case. I do not want, at some stage in the future, a chief constable to be all over the headlines of the national press because they have done something that they should not have done but to get out of that because the intention of the Act was not clear. All I am asking for is some clarity from the Minister. If we have to wait to get this right, the Government have the power to carry over legislation. Bills do not fall at prorogation if the Government want to carry them over. Actually, the Government could easily amend the Bill and clarify the point during the remaining stages.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is making a peculiar point. If he is saying that, essentially, we should not give chief constables a particular power because, at some point in the future, they may well fall foul of it or misuse it, then there are lots of other powers that we give chief constables to which he may wish to apply that rule. For instance, a chief constable is able to license a police officer to handle a firearm. If that firearm is used incorrectly, as we have tragically seen in the past, then the chief constable faces the consequences—whether that be legal consequences or otherwise. Does he think therefore that this principle that we cannot trust these highly trained and highly experienced chief constables to use their discretion should be applied to other perhaps more critical areas of their operation?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Gentleman has, inadvertently, made my case for me. He talks about extending firearms powers to police officers. That is the difference—he is talking about police officers. Chief constables are accountable for police officers. What we are talking about here is extending the use of CS gas to volunteers. We need to be very clear in the Bill what Parliament intends and how Parliament expects that power to be used. If the power is abused or misused, it is Parliament that will be at fault because it has not been clear about the fact that these are volunteers, not police officers.

I appreciate that other Members want to contribute to the debate. I return to the fundamental point about policing by consent. If we extend to volunteers, who are not warranted police officers in the form of special constables, powers that we would expect warranted police officers to be given, Parliament must be very careful and clear about the intention and the use of those powers, so that there are appropriate checks and balances if those powers are misused or abused, which we hope they will not be.