Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman and the work of that group. Forensic science and the investment that goes into it is absolutely crucial to making sure that justice is served, and that victims receive the justice that they deserve. I would be happy, perhaps with Ministers, to organise a meeting on this, because there is a great deal of investment and work in forensic science. That is primarily because crime types evolve, and, in terms of the way in which sexual violence cases such as rape take place, digital evidence needs to be treated in a very different way, with the time that digital downloads take and the implications for forensic use. We would be happy to meet and have further discussion, and perhaps share any information and any good practice that we are experiencing in this evolving area.

The beating crime plan includes £130 million to tackle serious violence and knife crime. This complements the improved stop-and-search powers that we have given the police so that they can do what is necessary to keep people safe. This law and order Conservative Government are introducing several Bills in this parliamentary Session that will further help to prevent crime and deliver justice. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was a major step forward, but elements were frustrated by the unelected other place, urged on by Opposition Members. We will not be deterred from our duty to protect the law-abiding majority from the mob rule and the thuggery that we have seen. The public order Bill will combat the guerrilla tactics that bring such misery to the hard-working public, disrupt businesses, interfere with emergency services, cost taxpayers millions, and put life at risk.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

The public order Bill, as the Home Secretary knows, will be music to the ears of many residents in Ashfield. We have seen these eco whatever-they-ares with their little hammers smashing up petrol stations. Does she think it is a good idea to give them bigger hammers and other tools and put them to work seven days a week like the rest of us?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend, like me, believes in work, and that is effectively what we are doing in this Government—we are cracking on with the job, basically, in delivering on the British people’s priorities.

It is important to reflect on this point: the dangerous nature of these protests should not be lost on anyone in this House. We saw in particular the recent Just Stop Oil protest, and there are other sites and oil refineries where these protesters impose themselves. It really is a miracle that somebody has not been killed or injured through the tactics that are being used. To give one example, in the county of Essex, £3.5 million was spent just on policing overtime to deal with those protesters, draining the resources of Essex police so that it could not protect citizens across the county, and at the same time it had to call for mutual aid from Scotland, Wales, and Devon and Cornwall.

Despite Labour and the Lib Dems ganging up to prevent those measures from being included in the PCSC Act, we will act to support ordinary working people because we are on their side. The public order Bill will prevent our major transport projects and infrastructure from being targeted by protesters and introduce a new criminal offence of locking on and going equipped to lock on, criminalising the act of attaching oneself to other people, objects or buildings to cause serious disruption and harm. The Bill also extends stop-and-search powers for the police to search for and seize articles related to protest-related offences and introduces serious disruption prevention orders—a new preventive court order targeting protesters who are determined to repeatedly inflict disruption on the public. The breach of those orders will be a criminal offence.

Modern slavery is something that rightly exercises this House. It is a damning indictment of humanity that this ancient evil has not gone away. This Government will follow previous Conservative Governments in doing everything that we can to identify it and stamp it out. The new modern slavery Bill will strengthen the protection and support for victims of human trafficking and modern slavery. It will place greater demands on companies and other organisations to keep modern slavery out of their supply chains. The Bill will enshrine in domestic law the Government’s international obligations to victims of modern slavery, especially regarding their rights to assistance and support, and it will provide greater legal certainty for victims accessing needs-based support. Law enforcement agencies will have stronger tools to prevent modern slavery, protect victims, and bring those engaged in this obscene trade to justice.

In response to Putin’s appalling and barbaric war on Ukraine, this House passed an economic crime Bill within a day so that we could sanction those with ties to Putin. The UK is an outstanding country to do business in, in no small part because dirty money is not welcome here. An additional economic crime and corporate transparency Bill will mean that we can crack down even harder on the kleptocrats, criminals and terrorists who abuse our open economy. There will be greater protections for customers, consumers and businesses from economic crime such as fraud and money laundering. Companies House will be supported in delivering a better service for over 4 million UK companies, with improved collection of data to inform business transactions and lending decisions throughout our economy.

The Online Safety Bill will tackle fraud and scams by requiring large social media platforms and search engines to prevent the publication of fraudulent paid-for advertising. It will address the most serious illegal content, including child sexual exploitation and abuse, much of which beggars belief and is utterly sickening. Public trust will be restored by making companies responsible for their users’ safety online. Communication offences will reflect the modern world, with updated laws on threatening communication online, as well as criminalising cyber-flashing.

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[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend makes a really important point, and we will pay the price if the law against economic crime is not enforced. The system just is not working. Everybody will know what a nightmare it is to try to report fraud; they may be passed from pillar to post, and sent between Action Fraud and the local police force. She is right, too, on some of the more serious issues, where this is also about the relationship between the police, the Serious Fraud Office and other enforcement agencies that need to take action. I hope this will be debated in our discussions on economic crime.

It is a really damning picture: crime rising while there is a shocking drop in prosecutions and action. But what is the Home Secretary’s response? Soon after she took up the job, she said:

“let the message go out…To the British people—we hear you… And to the criminals, I simply say this: We are coming after you.”

Well, to the Home Secretary I simply say this: “You’d better start running faster, because they’re all getting away.”

To be fair to the Prime Minister, yesterday his main Home Office focus was anger at the Passport Office, and that is probably something all of us can agree on, including the newly-weds who are having to cancel their honeymoon, and the hard-pressed families who face losing thousands of pounds that they had long saved up for a well-deserved holiday. Ministers told us the issue was being sorted out, but most of us can say from our constituency casework that it is getting worse. People are being badly let down, so the Prime Minister was right to be angry yesterday, although who does he think has been in charge of the Passport Office for the last 12 years?

The Prime Minister now says he wants to privatise the Passport Office if this is not sorted out. However, the immigration Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster)—told us:

“The private sector is already being used in the vast majority of the processes in the Passport Office.”

He also said:

“The bit that is not…is the decision itself.”—[Official Report, 27 April 2022; Vol. 712, c. 767.]

That leaves us back with the Home Office failing to get a grip on private sector contracts and failing to take basic decisions. It is part of the pattern of Home Office failure and the Prime Minister casting around to get someone else to step in. Ukrainians fleeing war have been waiting weeks on end for visas because the Home Office added long bureaucratic delays. So many desperate families have given up because they could not afford to wait; they have found somewhere else to live, and others to give them sanctuary instead. There have been 80,000 applications to Homes for Ukraine, but only 19,000 people have arrived.

[Lee Anderson]

The right hon. Member is being very generous with her time. She made a point about Ukrainian refugees; a family moved in next door to me two weeks ago. I would like to thank the Home Secretary personally: the family got in touch with me, and within minutes of my contacting the Home Secretary about them, her team had got back to me. The family is now in our village of Kirkby-in-Ashfield. They thank the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and the people of Great Britain.

[Yvette Cooper]

The people of Great Britain have shown that they want to help desperate families who are fleeing Ukraine. However, the facts are clear: there have been 80,000 applications, but there are only 19,000 people here. The Home Secretary says that is because they are staying where they are. Yes, a lot of them are; they gave up because it became so difficult.

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[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

Nobody should feel unsafe on the streets or in their home, which is why preventing crime is probably the most important part of this Queen’s Speech. Each time we debate the subject in this place, the Labour party seems to side with the criminals. I am not sure why that is, but it seems to happen every single time. The Queen’s Speech serves as a reminder to everyone that the Conservatives are the only party that is serious about law and order in the UK.

The vast majority of decent, hard-working people in this country will welcome the new public order Bill. Every week we see mindless people who have nothing better to do than wreak havoc on our streets, motorways and petrol stations. Frankly, the hard-working people of this country are fed up to the back teeth of these people disrupting lives and destroying property.

When I have been out and about, I have seen people gluing themselves to property, digging up lawns, throwing paint and performing zombie-like dances in the middle of the road with no regard for the decent, hard-working people of this country. [Interruption.] Zombie dances, a bit like Strangers Bar at night with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). These people have no regard for the decent, hard-working people of this country, and their guerrilla tactics are disrupting emergency workers and putting lives at risk. The public have had enough.

We were pretty good at handing out fines during lockdown. We dished out big fines, some justified and some not, and I hope the Government will consider handing out bigger fines to these public nuisances who think it is a good idea to damage petrol stations. I suggest a £10,000 fine, going up to 20 grand. That will teach them. Going back to their mum and dad with a 10 grand fine might be the deterrent they need.

Let us remind ourselves of what the Conservative party has been up to in government. We are recruiting 20,000 new police officers, and there are already more than 13,000 new police officers on our streets, making our streets safer. We have enshrined the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 in law, giving the police extra powers to prevent crime and keep dangerous criminals off our streets. The Act stops the automatic early release of dangerous, violent and sexual offenders, widens the scope of police powers such as stop and search, and places a legal duty on local authorities to work together with fire and rescue services, the police and criminal justice agencies. Labour voted against the Act, and I will tell the House what else Labour voted against: everything in the Act.

In Ashfield we are really benefiting from a Conservative Government. We have just had £550,000 from the safer streets fund, with which we are putting up CCTV in some really dodgy areas of my town. This will make women and young girls feel safe. There will be safe hotspots where they can reach out for help. It is wonderful news for one of the most deprived areas of my constituency. We are using the fund to put up new security gates to secure alleyways, which are antisocial behaviour hotspots. The funding is making residents feel safe in their own home. It is real action. On top of that, we have new police officers in the Operation Reacher teams in Eastwood and Ashfield, which are going out to take the most undesirable people off our streets and lock them up.

The police had always been a little frustrated that the sentencing has not been enough for these criminals, but we have sorted that with the 2022 Act. People will be locked up for longer, and so they should be. It makes people in Ashfield and Eastwood feel safer, it makes me feel safer and it makes my family feel safer. When these criminals are arrested and taken through the court system, it is only right that they should be put away for as long as possible to make us all feel safe.

Labour also has no ideas about the illegal crossings by dinghies and boats coming over the channel. Labour Members seem to be confused, as they do not know the difference between an economic migrant and a genuine asylum seeker, which is a shame. My constituents in Ashfield would put them right. If Labour Members come up to my Wetherspoons in Kirkby, my constituents will tell them the difference—they are pretty good at it.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

If, as the hon. Gentleman says, Opposition Members do not know the difference between economic migrants and, as he calls them, genuine asylum seekers, the Home Office does not, either. The Home Office has concluded that the vast majority of people in those boats are refugees and should be recognised as such. What does he have to say to the Home Secretary?

[Lee Anderson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I think that what she describes is the fault of the old, failing asylum system; when people get here, they know how to fill the forms out and they have these lefty lawyers who say, “Put this, this and this.” So they fill the forms out and, hey presto, about 80% get asylum status, and it is wrong. It is a burden on the taxpayer, these people are abusing the system. It is a bit like some benefit cheats—they do it, don’t they? They abuse the system, saying that they are disabled when they are not. [Interruption.] Yes, they do. Come on, let’s be right about it.

Make no mistake: if that lot on the Opposition Benches got in power, perish the thought, this Rwanda plan would be scrapped within five minutes. They want to see open borders. They want to let anybody in. [Interruption.] However, I welcome the sensible comments on food bank use made by the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), who is not in his place. I would welcome any Opposition Member coming to visit my local food bank in Ashfield, where I help out on a regular basis. We have a great project in place at the moment.

[James Sunderland]

My hon. Friend will know that there are two elements to most sentences: rehabilitation, which is important because we can rehabilitate criminals in prisons and put them back on the streets as, we hope, reformed characters; and deterrence. Does he agree that deterrence is an important function of any sentence and that longer sentences may well have the deterrent effect of saying to people, “Think twice before you commit that crime”?

[Lee Anderson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, as he makes a perfect point. Not only is it a great deterrent, but the longer those people are locked up in prison, the longer they cannot commit these horrible crimes.

As I was saying, the hon. Member for St Helens North made some great comments about food banks. My invitation is to every Opposition Member: come to Ashfield, work with me for a day in my local food bank and see the brilliant scheme we have in place. When people come for a food parcel now, they have to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget; we can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Can the hon. Gentleman answer a simple question for me: should it be necessary to have food banks in 21st century Britain?

[Lee Anderson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, as he makes a great point. Indeed, it is exactly my point, so I invite him personally to come to Ashfield to look at how our food bank works. He will see at first hand that there is not this massive use for food banks in this country. We have generation after generation who cannot cook properly—they cannot cook a meal from scratch—and they cannot budget. The challenge is there. I make that offer to anybody. Opposition Members are sitting there with glazed expressions on their faces, looking at me as though I have landed from a different planet. They should come to Ashfield, next week or the week after, and come to a real food bank that is making a real difference to people’s lives.

I will end now, because Opposition Members are not listening; these are a generation of MPs who never listen. The bad news is that this Labour party is out of control and out of touch, but , thankfully, it is out of power. That is me done, Mr Deputy Speaker.

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[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

I was going to confine my speech to the Public Order Bill, but I will follow up on a few comments that the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made. The more I listen to him, the more I think he speaks a good deal of common sense. I would like him to know that I for one, and a number of my colleagues, agree with much if not everything of what he says, and we have a steely resolve to make sure that we are one United Kingdom. That is what we voted for when we voted for Brexit.

My daughters, for some unfathomable reason, sometimes describe me as a grumpy old man. I really do not know why. However, there are a few things that can make me a little bit miserable, and one thing that has really grated on me in recent years is the minority of protesters who have pretty much used guerrilla warfare to disrupt the everyday lives of the vast majority of our constituents—not just mine, but everybody’s.

The good people of Dudley North are ordinary folk, working hard to make a living, a living that is increasingly harder to make in the current climate. I cannot fathom how the privileged and entitled few think it is acceptable to stop our carers and nurses from being able to get to work to care for our sick and elderly, or to blockade a fire appliance from getting to a serious fire burning a local business to the ground—or, more tragically, perhaps preventing people inside the burning building from being saved. Of course, that applies to any blue light service, not just the fire service. That minority of criminals truly disgust me. They have no concept of the real world out there. They have no concept of the misery they bring to those less fortunate than themselves.

I hope that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and those on the Front Benches will join me in making working here more bearable for our staff, myself and my colleagues. I will not dignify his existence by tarnishing Hansard with his name, but there is a noisy man outside who dresses up as a clown and harasses and chases Members of Parliament and our staff from his little camp on the crossing island on Parliament Street. He is someone else who serves no public benefit whatsoever.

[Lee Anderson]

I know the character my hon. Friend alludes to, and I have witnessed some ferocious verbal attacks on my hon. Friend from that character, who patrols Whitehall like a public nuisance. May I suggest telling him that, if he is interested in changing things in this country, he should come to Dudley North and stand against my hon. Friend at the next general election?

[Marco Longhi]

In fact, that invitation has already been made. I am going to print off a set of nomination papers, but I wonder about the 10 people this person might need for the form to be valid.

My staff cannot hear distressed constituents on the phone through the awful racket he causes. All our staff who have offices in 1 Parliament Street suffer considerable stress and anxiety from the disruption he causes to their, and our, work. I doubt that staff in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the buildings opposite, would say anything different—[Interruption.] Is someone wanting to intervene? I do not know. I heard some noises. It is like a Hoover—an irritating thing in the background. I do not know what it is.

This person needs to have his loudspeaker system confiscated and to be moved on. Personally, I would like to see him locked up in the Tower with a loudspeaker playing “Land of Hope and Glory” on repeat at maximum volume. The Met Police really should deal with him. He is causing misery to hundreds of staff, he is intimidating many—