Illegal Off-road Bikes: North-east

Lewis Atkinson Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lola McEvoy (Darlington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered police powers for tackling the use of illegal off-road bikes in the North East.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank all the Members who have come to support the call for more police powers, police resources and a multi-departmental approach to tackling the scourge of e-bikes, battery-powered bikes and off-road bikes on our streets. Since I was elected with this Labour Government in July 2024, it has become increasingly clear that battery-powered bikes are the getaway vehicle of choice for those who do not respect the rule of law.

I alert the House to my constituent Julie Francis, who is in the Public Gallery today. Her mother, Gloria, was killed in Sunderland by a teenager illegally riding an off-road bike. Julie is as determined as I am to get more resources, and to get justice for Gloria, herself and the family.

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Gloria Stephenson was my constituent, and her tragic death in Ryhope really affected our community. Does my hon. Friend agree, as the number of Members present suggests many of us do, that we need swifter action to prevent such tragic deaths in future?

[Lola McEvoy]

I absolutely agree that we need more powers, more action and more police on our streets to tackle this. I have some points on powers and resources that I ask the Minister to address in her remarks. She and I have previously met to discuss this. It is a cross-departmental issue, and as a group we will be meeting the Department for Transport to address some of the licensing issues, but this debate is about what the police need now.

Police Funding: North-east England

Lewis Atkinson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on securing this important debate.

We have heard from colleagues representing constituencies covered by the Northumbria, Durham and Cleveland forces about what a huge issue this is for the north-east. That is because our forces, collectively and individually, have been asked to do more with less for longer than anywhere else in the country. There is a clear case for the north-east to be prioritised in responding to this challenge, for example, in the same way that Mission North East has prioritised schools in the north-east.

For my own force, Northumbria, between 2010 and 2019, central Government funding fell by more than 31% in real terms. No force was hit harder. It lost a quarter of its officers and we know that when budgets are cut, it is unfortunately the neighbourhood teams that often go first. Today, Northumbria has 255 fewer officers than in 2010. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham said, that was a political choice by the previous Government which skewed funding formulas and completely ignored deprivation and the need for places like the north-east to be policed appropriately.

We know that demand is higher than elsewhere. In the Office for National Statistics’ figures, the north-east records 98 crimes per 1,000 against 85 per 1,000 nationally—the highest of any region. In Sunderland we saw 27,000 recorded crimes last year, which is down 3%, but still above the national rate. However, recorded crime only tells us a small amount. Recorded crime is not all crime; it only shows what is reported. The ONS survey suggests that about a third of crimes people experience are reported to the police. The gap between what people live with and what they report itself tells us about the confidence in policing. Of course, police deal with much more than crime. Mental health incidents in Northumbria have risen by 152% since 2017—demand that never shows up in any crime figures.

As other hon. Members have already done, I want to also express my thanks to our officers. The range of what we ask them to do is extraordinary. I was three weeks into being elected when officers placed themselves in harm’s way in Sunderland city centre as thugs threw bricks and stones at them. They stood protecting our community and places of worship. Just two weeks ago, we had a terrible tragedy on the River Wear in Sunderland. Again it was police officers along with other emergency services responding and not just doing the search and rescue and the investigation of the incident, but liaising in the most difficult circumstances with the bereaved families. Every day, officers are on our streets, with people in crisis, tackling crime.

Our constituents tell us that police visibility is crucial, and it is probably what constituents raise with me more than anything else. When I am out on walkabouts with officers in Hendon, Pallion and the city centre, I see the response of the public to visible policing. I can sense that residents and shop workers feel safer, and that potential troublemakers are thinking twice. People stop to talk and share intelligence with the police about what is going on.

Too often, of course, residents do not see the police. When they do not see an officer and when they wait too long for a response to a call or an online report, they stop reporting and their trust and sense of security reduce. We need to boost visibility as a way of boosting confidence and reporting. Nowhere is that clearer than with antisocial behaviour, which is absolutely not low level. It is drunken, intoxicated behaviour; e-bikes and off-road bikes around estates or parks; yobbish behaviour. It wears down our communities night after night, and it is not good enough.

Visible policing matters. That is why I welcome the Government’s decision to replace the previous headcount target with a neighbourhood policing target, because Northumbria could hit the previous Government’s headcount target and still not have on-the-ground policing in Fulwell in my constituency. Northumbria is adding 54 neighbourhood posts by next March, which is a good first step, but those posts must be protected. We must have more and they must reach the estates and villages, not just city centres.

The Government have talked about structural reform of the police alongside funding formula reform. I will not speak for colleagues, but I am open to regional reorganisation. We already have a north-east regional organised crime unit, which does effective work across our forces. Where there are capabilities such as firearms, or potentially drones, we have seen a significant amount of mutual aid, particularly in recent months following events in Cleveland.

There is a reasonable case that moving to a north-east-wide regional force, if that is what the Hogan-Howe review recommends, would strengthen resilience and potentially produce some efficiencies in those areas, but people will only accept a bigger force with two guarantees. The first is to ensure that local policing areas are strong and protected, and that local officers still know Sunderland and have a local commander who we can hold to account. The second, crucially, is funding reform. Merging three underfunded forces would give us one large, underfunded force. We have to move on both together.

I will finish by asking the Minister a couple of questions. As she considers police force reorganisation, and if a north-east force is proposed, can we move faster than others? Others have also mentioned the funding formula, and there could be transformation funding as part of a move to a regional force, if that is helpful to the Home Office and considered necessary. There is clearly a case for the north-east to be treated differently—

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Order. We have to move on to the Front-Bench spokespeople. I call the Lib Dem spokesperson, Max Wilkinson.

Policing in Cleveland

Lewis Atkinson Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in providing reassurance to his local community. It is particularly difficult when you have a personal connection to somebody who has lost their lives in these circumstances, so I pay tribute to him for the work he is doing in what are very difficult circumstances for local representatives and all members of our emergency services in the area. I reassure him that the work that we will do on police funding is a very real part of the wider police reform programme. I hope that when we discuss these matters, as we will when I meet local Members of Parliament for the area, we can see how this fits in with the wider programme of police reform.

This incident shows, in a very horrifying way, why we need to reform policing structures so that we have the right level of policing in each of our areas, such that we can respond to shop theft and antisocial behaviour on our high streets, ensure that we can deal with local organised and serious crime, and ensure that specialist investigation and public order are not left to be looked after by mutual aid arrangements. The case for reform is made out; as a necessary part of that reform, we will of course look at the funding formula. I look forward to discussing that with my hon. Friend very soon.

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

The deaths of PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough have, of course, been felt acutely in Cleveland, but they have also been felt more widely across the whole north-east and the policing family. I pay tribute to colleagues across the House, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), who has spoken with dignity as a local representative in the light of those terrible events.

As the Home Secretary said, some of the officers stepping forward to provide mutual aid are from neighbouring forces, such as Northumbria, Durham and others. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that three of the four forces that have had the highest fallen officer numbers from 2015 are north-east forces. That makes the Home Secretary’s point about the need for fundamental change in the funding formula. Those officers are, despite the cuts, putting themselves back into duty and providing mutual aid at enormous personal cost. As she reviews the funding formula, will she ensure that officers have ongoing access to wellbeing and mental health support to help them respond to communities as they have been?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. I assure him that the usual arrangements on the engagement of the national police wellbeing service have been activated and support is being provided. We will obviously monitor that to ensure that it is adequate and can rise to the challenge of what we are seeing in Cleveland. His point is incredibly important because, at the end of the day, police officers are human beings; they are still running towards danger, working very long hours and helping people in their local community, but they do need support. When you have lost two of your own in such terrible, terrible circumstances, the case for that support is more than made out. That is being provided, but the Policing Minister will continue to talk to the chief constable and others to ensure that our officers are being supported and looked after.

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on the need for fundamental change in the way that we do the funding formula for policing. That is also tied to the fundamental change that we need on police force structures as well. He will know that Cleveland is a force of about 1,500 officers. Even before the cuts under the Conservative Government, it was around 1,700. That is very different from a force such as mine in the west midlands, which has 6,000 officers, or Greater Manchester, which has around 8,000 officers. We have a system that is very lopsided when it comes to police force sizes and, more importantly, the number of officers in each force. That sometimes limits what smaller forces can do without needing mutual aid to support them.

There is a case for structural reform, but it needs to be done in a way that ensures that the public have absolute confidence that their local forces will be highly focused on local issues and that regional forces can handle these specialist investigations and public order issues—and then there is the National Police Service on top of that. I look forward to discussing these issues with my hon. Friend; I know we will do so, because he is a member of the Home Affairs Committee.

Immigration and Asylum Bill

Lewis Atkinson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

Asylum and immigration are key concerns for my constituents, and their judgment on the asylum system that this Government inherited is clear and correct: the system was broken, lacked control and cost taxpayers too much. By that, they do not just mean illegal and dangerous crossings of the channel; they mean that it was broken post-arrival, in the extended periods of time in which people have been accommodated in dispersal accommodation while awaiting decision or appeal outcomes. They are right to expect that the amount of public money spent on that system will reduce—an amount that has increased as a result of the failings of the system that the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman) oversaw. It is on that basis that I welcome this legislation, along with the other steps that the Government are taking to restore control to the system while maintaining a proper offer of safe routes for those fleeing war and persecution.

In the two years since the election, rather than chuntering on like those on the Opposition Benches, the Government have begun to get a grip. Small boat crossings are down by 12% compared with the equivalent period in 2024; initial decisions are at the highest level on record; and removals of people without a legal right to remain in this country are increasing. That is not happening by accident, and it is certainly not happening because of gimmicks and political game-playing. It is happening as a result of hard, unglamourous work: disrupting the gangs, deepening co-operation with our European partners, and actually making decisions on applications.

Like others have said, I travelled to northern France last year with Home Affairs Committee colleagues and saw the significant UK-backed efforts to stop the boats. However, I also heard from the French a concern that we cannot dismiss—that there remain pull factors on this side of the channel, including a system that incentivises late appeals. Because of the lengthy appeals backlog, it is right that this Government take steps to reform the appeals system. I think the shadow Home Secretary said that no previous attempts to reform the system had worked. The Blair Government, faced with a broken appeals system, passed immigration Acts in 2002 and 2004. Against opposition from across the House, they ensured that, by slowly getting through appeals and making sure that decision-making was proper and streamlined, the backlog fell repeatedly. That is not glamourous work. It is not noisy work that seeks to score political points, but it is the real work of governing that my constituents expect.

Our country has a proud tradition of offering refuge to those fleeing war and persecution, and Sunderland has lived that tradition, including the many families who offered their city of sanctuary to Ukrainian refugees. As others have said, in order to maintain that proud tradition, we need a system that commands public confidence, and it is right to reform it in the way that the Government are proposing.

Knife Crime

Lewis Atkinson Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the strategy and for the work he has done. He is absolutely right: people commit knife crime offences with all different kinds of knives. Some of the knives that have been banned have a particularly pernicious impact, given the damage they do to people’s bodies. We are putting in place a whole raft of interventions to ensure there is more control over the sale of all types of knives. These includes the age verification checks in the Crime and Policing Bill, and interventions on the sale of knives generally: making sure that young people are not buying knives, and putting in place a duty on companies to report if people buy in bulk. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) also mentioned the work that campaigners are doing on the design of knives to stop them being so impactful.

The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) is absolutely right about social media. In the Bill, we are putting more onus on social media companies to do more, with a duty to report the sale of knives that are illegal. There is a lot more to be done with regard to very serious violent content online. This Government—including the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones)—have done a lot of work on this issue and are doing a huge amount to address porn, child sexual exploitation and violence against women and girls, but there is another piece of work to be done with the companies to ensure that all violent content is removed.

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

My family sadly knows the devastating consequences of knife crime. As the Government launch their welcome action plan today, I think of my cousin David Charlton, who was killed with a knife in 2012. Reducing knife crime is a moral imperative, so that there are fewer families like David’s or indeed like the family of Connor Brown, whose bereaved parents have done excellent work in tackling knife crime in Sunderland and the north-east and were recently recognised with MBEs for that work. Their approach has focused on education, so will the Minister say a little more about the plan’s commitment to update the curriculum from September so that every child receives knife violence prevention education in school? Will she support the involvement of bereaved families where they want to be part of the delivery of that curriculum?

Immigration Policy

Lewis Atkinson Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

I follow the hon. Gentleman’s work. He always says no to large sites and no to hotels, and then proposes fantastical third countries that he is not capable of naming. Ultimately, this is the choice: do people want fantasy, more empty rhetoric and argument, or do they want change and action with this Government? I know what I choose.

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

Along with Home Affairs Committee colleagues, I spent time in northern France last year seeing the challenges of intercepting small boats. The French maritime doctrine has clearly been an obstacle to adopting the more assertive tactics that my constituents wish and expect to see. Can the Minister outline the progress in getting the French to change their tactics, and will he make the continuation of Sandhurst funding dependent on that?

[Alex Norris]

From my perspective, with regards to action in northern France, what works is what works. It is a matter of record that we have enthusiasm about maritime doctrine-type tactics, but there are other things prior to that which need to work as well, particularly our work with the French to disrupt organised crime, which is having a significant impact. My hon. Friend mentions Sandhurst, which we are in the process of negotiating. I can absolutely assure him that all of that will be seen through the prism of bringing forward effective action.

Indefinite Leave to Remain

Lewis Atkinson Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward.

Controlling our borders is a basic function of the state. The Government inherited open borders and are now undertaking the serious work required to fix them, so I welcome the Minister’s efforts. However, I think there are some tweaks we could make. I have spoken on this issue several times, in particular in respect of Hong Kong BNO visa holders, and I am grateful that the Government have committed to keeping the five-year route for that group. Today, though, I am going to focus on how the proposed changes will affect families, especially those I have been speaking with in the Morley Indian community.

Around 30% of the families I have spoken with are due to receive their ILR within the next six months, so they are understandably very anxious about what the changes will mean for them. The vast majority are high earners or work in key sectors. Many of the people I have spoken to earn well over £50,000, do not claim benefits, and contribute significantly to our economy and our public services through their taxes.

Because at least one member of those families is earning a high salary, their spouse or partner has been able to move into part-time work, often so that they can help raise and care for the children. They are very worried that, as a result, they will not meet the new criteria at the same time as their partners. They came to this country under one set of rules, which allowed dependants to move to the UK with them, and now they are very concerned at the prospect of being unable to qualify together and being broken up entirely.

Have the Government considered putting in place strong transitional arrangements that do not punish families who are already here and contributing far more to the UK than they take out? Alternatively, would the Government consider allowing a family to qualify for ILR together where the family—not an individual—meets the salary threshold?

Many of the Morley Indian families I have spoken with came over here knowing that they would pay international university fees while they were waiting for ILR. They accepted that those were the rules. However, under the proposed changes, they might wait a lot longer —and, worse still, if they went back to India, they would find that they are no longer considered home students for fees purposes there. They would find themselves trapped in a situation where they cannot pay the fees here and they cannot pay the fees back at home.

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the speech he is making. Does he agree that although the Government seek through their proposals to increase integration, by limiting ILR to those who stay beyond 10 years we are actually going to reduce integration in exactly the sort of instance that he has outlined? That risks undermining the integration that I see in workplaces, churches and community groups in Sunderland.

[Mark Sewards]

I completely understand where my hon. Friend is coming from. The people I was speaking about just before he intervened will find themselves trapped, and effectively shut out from university education altogether, even though they are already integrated into this country.

I urge the Government to consider the full impact of the implementation of the proposed changes for people who are already here, working and contributing more than they ever take out, who came in good faith, and who have followed every rule we have set for them.

Police Reform White Paper

Lewis Atkinson Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I think that is me being told to go faster. Let me assure the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) that we are consulting on the safeguards for the use of AI in technology and live facial recognition. I assure him that I will always make sure that robust safeguards are in place, and I am sure that we will debate these issues in the House many times over the months to come.

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. My constituents expect the everyday policing response to improve, but they know the value of more specialist public order capabilities, because in August 2024 the brave officers of Northumbria police put on their public order gear to protect our citizens against disgraceful violent conduct in our city centre. Can the Home Secretary say a little more about how she envisages public order responsibilities sitting between the national body that she outlines and regional forces? Can she say a little about the funding streams for that?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Learning the lessons of what happened in 2024 is why we have already decided to bring in a national command role specifically for public order policing. He raises other issues, particularly on funding. All these reforms are fully funded to the end of the Parliament, but the specific funding streams are a matter for future funding settlements. He will know that we are publishing the funding settlement for the coming financial year on Wednesday.

Migration: Settlement Pathway

Lewis Atkinson Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Results are all that matters. It is incumbent on me to think about the way that we have to reform the system, to make a public argument for it, to win that argument, to persuade people and then to get this done. What I care about now is ensuring that we can deliver these proposals, and we will do so. Then I need to ensure that the Home Office is in a position to run a system properly, administratively and fairly in the future. That is what matters. This is a low-trust environment for the public—all of us involved in politics know that. In the end, the public have heard a lot of rhetoric from a lot of people, but this Government intend to get on and deliver and to win the trust of the British people.

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, particularly what she said about the more than 75,000 nurses working in our NHS who have arrived in this country since 2021. Those nurses and other healthcare professionals were actively encouraged to come here to fill the gaps left by the previous Government’s failure to do NHS workforce planning. Since they arrived, they have served our communities and cared for our citizens with distinction. I welcome what she said about maintaining a five-year route for those who are engaged in public service. Could she confirm that that will apply to NHS staff, such as those I have mentioned, and could she explain how she will continue discussions with DHSC colleagues to ensure that there will be no unexpected reduction in NHS workforce staffing in the months ahead?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is right about the contribution that those nurses and other staff in the national health service are making. He will know that we are consulting specifically on the element of the proposals that relates to public service and to its getting people a five-year discount on the qualifying period. No doubt he will make his own responses to that consultation, and we have heard them, too. Of course, in the normal run of things, public service would include those who work in our critical public services.

Asylum Policy

Lewis Atkinson Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

On Rwanda, no. Turning to the substance of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, I do not think he can be right, because claims are down in Europe but up here. I hope that he will approach the debate that we are having with an open mind, ditch the failed policies of his party, and maybe consider more workable solutions proposed by this Government.

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

We want to continue the UK’s proud history of offering sanctuary, while simultaneously reducing illegal channel crossings. Refugees fleeing persecution should seek safe and legal routes that are subject to full security checks and controls, not pay people-smuggling gangs to cross the channel in an uncontrolled and unsafe way. I therefore welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement that such routes will be created. How quickly does she envisage them being implemented?

[Shabana Mahmood]

It is absolutely through safe and legal routes that we should seek to bring people into our country, not through the people-smuggling route that originates in the north of France and crosses the channel. I have made an explicit policy choice to disincentivise people from coming through that route; they are paying thousands of pounds to organised immigration criminals to do so. We will privilege those who come through our safe and legal routes. As we get order and control into the system we have inherited, those routes will become more generous over time. They will start modestly—the numbers will be in the low hundreds—but they will grow. We want them to grow, because we want people seeking sanctuary to be able to find safe harbour in this country. We are proud of that position as a Government, so those routes will grow over time. I hope that Members from across the House will support that, but we have to get order and control into our system first.