Antisocial Behaviour Action Plan

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Suella Braverman

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

The more I listen to the right hon. Lady, the more confused I am about what Labour’s policy is. She criticises our plan while claiming that we have stolen Labour’s, so I am not sure which it is. In the light of the embarrassing efforts of the shadow Policing Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), to explain her own policy on television last week, I am not sure that any Labour Members really know what their antisocial behaviour policy is. Let me tell the House one big difference between the right hon. Lady’s plan and ours: unlike her, we call tell the public how much ours will cost and how we will pay for it—a big question that Labour is yet to answer.

The shadow Home Secretary talks about policing cuts. Never mind that we are recruiting 20,000 extra police officers—the highest number in history. Never mind that we have increased frontline policing, which leads to more visible and effective local policing. Never mind that by the end of this month, we are on course to have more officers nationally than we had in 2010 or in any year when Labour was in government.

The shadow Home Secretary wants to talk about safer streets. Well, let us compare our records. Since 2019, this Conservative Government have removed 90,000 knives and weapons from our streets. Since 2010, violence is down 38%, neighbourhood crime is down 48%, burglary is down 56%, and overall crime, excluding fraud, is down 50%. What does Labour’s record show? That where Labour leads, crime follows. [Interruption.] I know it hurts, but it is true. Under Labour police and crime commissioners, residents are almost twice as likely to be victims of robbery, and knife crime is over 44% higher. In London, Labour’s Sadiq Khan wants to legalise cannabis. In the west midlands, a Labour PCC wants to close police stations. Labour opposed plans to expand stop and search. Labour Members voted against tougher sentences for serious criminals. They voted against the increased powers for police in our Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. So we should not be surprised that, while this Conservative Government are working to get violent criminals off our streets, Labour is campaigning to release them. The Leader of the Opposition and some 70-odd Labour MPs signed letters—they love signing letters—to stop dangerous foreign criminals from being kicked out of Britain. One of those criminals went on to kill another man in the UK, and we learned this week that many others went on to commit further appalling crimes in the UK. Shameful! Outrageous! Labour Members should hang their heads in shame!

The truth about Labour is that they care more about the rights of criminals than about the rights of the law abiding majority. They are soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime. The Conservatives are the party of law and order. Our track record shows it, and the public know it.

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

As the Home Secretary pointed out, crime is now at half the level it was when Labour told us that there was no money left in the coffers to continue the fight. I congratulate her on bending her elbow and putting so much effort into driving the number down even further. I particularly commend her on the publication of the plan today, which builds on the focus on antisocial behaviour that we published in the beating crime plan not so long ago.

May I urge my right hon. and learned Friend to examine carefully the routes of supply of nitrous oxide? We need to avoid a situation in which the substance moves from the legitimate market into the illegitimate market and becomes another hook for drug dealers to draw young people into their awful trade. How can she restrict supply to those who genuinely need it without it necessarily becoming an illicit substance that drug dealers use for their business?

[Suella Braverman]

Let me put on the record my admiration for and gratitude to my right hon. Friend for all he has achieved and led—not just when he was at the Home Office but before that, when he worked for City Hall on the frontline of policing and crime fighting. He talked about our plans to ban nitrous oxide. We are clear: there needs to be an exception for legitimate use. It is used in a vast array of circumstances that are lawful, commercial and proper, and those will not be criminalised.

Metropolitan Police: Casey Review

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Suella Braverman

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Discriminatory attitudes and homophobic, racist or misogynistic behaviour have no place in policing. All the case studies and references in the report make for shocking reading. The ability of the police to fulfil their duties is essential, but what we have seen is a real impediment preventing chief constables from dismissing and getting rid of officers who are not fit to wear the badge, for a host of reasons. We in the Home Office are currently consulting on the dismissals process, and if necessary I will change the law to empower chief constables to better control the quality of the officers in their ranks.

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

For anyone who, like me, has worked with the Metropolitan police over many years, this is a dark if not catastrophic day. While our thoughts are primarily with the many victims who have been let down and failed by the force, obviously we all reserve a huge amount of disappointment for the officers who do a startlingly good job every single day. Many of us who have visited the Met will have seen their work over the years.

I hope the Home Secretary will agree that key to turning the force around is ensuring that this becomes a joint enterprise between City Hall and the Home Office. There has clearly been a failure of local accountability—and I speak as someone who has urged the Mayor, both in public and in private, to lean into the governance of the Metropolitan police during his time in office. On that note, would it be possible for the Policing Minister to sit on the new board that Baroness Casey wants to be convened to supervise changes within the Met, and will the Home Secretary discuss that with the Mayor?

I hope that the Home Secretary will also agree that key to turning around policing in general is the professionalisation of the workforce. She recently decided to cancel the policing education qualifications framework route into policing, although it held out the promise of the kind of continuing professional development that many people believe police officers need during their careers to keep them on the straight and narrow, in terms of values and operational practice. Will she reconsider her decision to cancel that project?

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Suella Braverman

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

We are aware that people have been detained, and we have very high numbers at Manston. That is why we are taking really exhaustive steps to ensure that we can procure alternative sites. We are looking at the dispersal mechanism and at sites in other local authorities around the country. We are looking at hotels—unfortunately, we have no other choice at the moment—and we are looking at other immigration detention or removal centres. So we are looking at a wide range of alternative places at which we can safely accommodate migrants.

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

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. Importantly, she says that everybody who arrives illegally undergoes essential security checks before they are released. Can she confirm that that applies not just to those who claim asylum, but also to those who land and do not claim asylum and are, in effect, arriving without a visa and are therefore eligible for temporary release from which they may not return?

[Suella Braverman]

My right hon. Friend is right. The processing is as follows: people arrive and go first to Western Jet Foil where they get dry clothes and are looked after on their immediate arrival on to the territory. They are then taken to Manston for the biosecurity and security checks of the type he has just talked about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Suella Braverman

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman (Fareham) (Con)]

According to Hampshire police, every town in our county has been targeted by county lines drugs gangs, and in Fareham we had some recent arrests of drug dealers. Will the Minister reassure me that Fareham will not get overlooked in the allocation of police officers as part of the new recruitment wave?

[Kit Malthouse]

In her usual manner, my hon. Friend fights hard for resources for her constituency and I do not blame her, but, as she knows, the allocation of police officers—not least, new police officers—in a specific force area is a matter for the chief constable. However, as a Hampshire MP myself, with a town that has also been preyed upon by county lines drug dealers, she can be assured that how we as a county, and indeed, as a country can combat this scourge is at the front of my mind.