Tackling Spiking

Debate between Laura Farris and Matt Rodda

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his wise observations. I hope that he was able to infer from my statement that what currently exists is a urine test that the police can roll out. On more than one occasion, the police have told me that they are sometimes inhibited by the fact that even if they do the test, it is not within the window when the drug is still in the bloodstream, so they do not obtain an accurate reading. The reason the Home Office is funding research on rapid drink testing tests—it is still at an early stage—is that, hopefully, it will be possible to test the drink on site. If someone reports symptoms, the venue will be able to work out very quickly what might have happened, using a kit, and the path to redress for the victim can begin on the night itself.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her statement but urge her to go much further in tackling this terrible crime. In particular, I ask her to look again at further work at music festivals. Thousands of vulnerable young people attend the Reading festival in my constituency, many of them teenagers. It would be good to hear that work is under way to protect them and other young people at such festivals.

[Laura Farris]

I would like to write to the hon. Gentleman —I have said the same to others—about what we are doing in relation to festivals, but the Reading festival resonates, and not just because my constituency is nearby. When I spoke to Thames Valley police about this issue recently, they said that the Reading festival was not just a festival where they saw spiking, but the festival where they saw the highest correlation with a secondary offence—namely, a sexual offence that was perpetrated afterwards. The hon. Gentleman does not need to impress on me the urgent need for us to look specifically at festivals as a particular danger zone for this type of crime.

Town Centre Safety

Debate between Laura Farris and Matt Rodda

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris]

I do not have that figure, so I will have to write to the hon. Lady.

It is right that decisions about how police resources are deployed, including the number and composition of people in neighbourhood and local policing roles, are for the determination of chief constables, who know their beat better than anyone and are accountable to democratically elected police and crime commissioners. Nevertheless, the numbers have a broader significance, and I want to draw the Opposition’s attention to four points.

First, due to the investment in the police uplift programme, the number of police officers in local policing roles is the highest since comparable data began to be collected, with an increase of 6.5% in the 12 months to 31 March. We have more female officers and more officers from minority ethnic backgrounds than ever before—something that I hope the hon. Member for Nottingham North will agree is consistent with some of the conclusions that were certainly implied, if not made explicit, on the nature of representation in Baroness Casey’s report into conduct in the Metropolitan police.

We have more officers receiving specialist training for specific categories of crime. I will give the House one example, because yesterday I visited Avon and Somerset Police, the pioneering force conducting Operation Soteria Bluestone in the investigation of rape. They made it perfectly clear to me that the increase in numbers that they have seen locally has facilitated a huge increase in the number of specialist trained rape and serious sexual offences police officers. In fact, there are 2,000 nationwide. I noted that the hon. Gentleman said that we were setting the police up to fail. That could not be more different from the information that that force gave me yesterday—and if they are incorrect, I would appreciate it if he would explain why when he closes.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I put on record my support for the police, particularly Thames Valley Police—like the Minister, I represent a constituency in Berkshire. Can she update the House on the proportion of new officers who are still in training? It seems to be a very serious issue in Reading and the surrounding areas that, while officers have been recruited, they are still in training, as opposed to the fully trained and experienced officers who were lost through austerity.

[Laura Farris]

The hon. Gentleman asks a fair question, and I will have to get back to him on that. I know that the number in my part of the Thames Valley is quite low, but that may not extend to Reading. He deserves an answer on that, and I will get one to him.

The Government have also ensured that the police have the resources they need. This year they received record funding of above £17.2 billion. That is an extra £550 million for frontline policing compared with last year. I gently remind those on the Opposition Benches that they voted against our police funding settlements every single year between 2016 and 2019.

I want to draw our attention down to community level and make a few observations. We have had a commitment from the National Police Chiefs’ Council—it was announced in August, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North will recall—that the police will follow up on all reasonable lines of inquiry and that there is no offence too small. That commitment is intended to offer huge reassurance to the public. It was also this Government who introduced the safer streets fund, which has been in receipt of £120 million already, for 270 projects covering all 43 police forces in England and Wales, and which is complemented by the StreetSafe app.

All that kind of thing can seem quite microscopic, as though it only affects individual streets or individual parks, reporting a broken light or a dark and dangerous corner of a popular area for jogging. The point is that people can report the area and action will be taken, and all that contributes to improving the fabric of communities up and down the United Kingdom.

I want to spend a moment on retail crime, which I will deal with in two parts: first I will cover shoplifting itself, and then I will move on to assault on retail workers. I take issue, very respectfully, with the suggestion that somehow the Government are being complacent in shoplifting. The Government are clear that we expect the police to take a zero-tolerance approach to shoplifting and violence towards shop workers. I want to disabuse anyone of the notion that somehow we have decriminalised shoplifting offences below £200.

I gently draw the shadow Minister’s attention to the following. In 2020, the National Business Crime Centre surveyed police forces in England and Wales, asking whether they had a policy of not responding to shoplifting if the goods were worth less than £200. Not one force in England and Wales said that it had such a policy. He will know as well as I do that the National Police Chiefs’ Council recently produced a retail crime action plan, which included a commitment to prioritise police attendance at the scene where violence had been used against shop staff.