Crime and Neighbourhood Policing

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that what has happened on serious violent crime is among the most troubling. Since 2015 there has been a huge increase in knife crime and serious violence, and we have seen some criminal gangs change their model to be able to groom more children and draw young people into crime and, as a result, into violence. It is our young people who we see paying the price for the way in which criminal gangs have been operating. That is why we put forward proposals to strengthen the law by outlawing child criminal exploitation, to make it easier to crack down on criminal gangs. I urge Ministers who voted against that proposal to accept it and to take a much tougher line on the criminal gangs who are exploiting our children.

The problem is that from policing to courts, our NHS, social care, our trains and our economy, after 13 years of the Tories it just feels like nothing in Britain is working any more—that is the damage they have done.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Welsh Labour Government’s Commission on Justice in Wales recommended that policing and crime policy be devolved to Wales, to be aligned with social and health policy, but some Labour MPs resist that, even though it is Mark Drakeford’s policy. Policing is devolved to Scotland, to Northern Ireland and even to Manchester. Could the right hon. Lady tell me whether it is likely that a Labour Government or Labour in Westminster would ever recommend the devolution of policing to Wales?

Papers Relating to the Home Secretary

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. There has been a real sense over many years now that the respect for standards in public life from the Government and the Conservative party has been deteriorating and has been undermining standards in our important institutions. The Prime Minister promised us that there would be something different. Instead, what we have is more of the same.

The Cabinet Office has already recognised that the Home Secretary broke sections 2.1 and 2.14 of the ministerial code. There are further serious concerns that she may have broken it a third time and also ignored legal advice that the Home Office was breaking the law. Yesterday morning, her successor and predecessor, now the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said that he had had clear advice—legal and policy advice—about dangerous overcrowding at Manston, about being in breach of the law, and about the need to take emergency measures, which he then took. We have deep concerns about how the Government could have allowed this situation to develop in the first place, why they badly failed to crack down on the criminal gangs that have proliferated in the channel and why they allowed Home Office decision making to collapse, so that only half the number of decisions are being taken each year compared with six years ago and only 4% of last year’s small boat arrivals had their claims determined, so that there is now a huge backlog of cases that has led to overcrowding and the last-minute use of costly hotels in inappropriate locations.

However, there is also a serious question whether the Home Secretary has just made things worse by ignoring legal advice and allowing dangerous overcrowding, leading to even more last-minute inappropriate procurement and running up substantial legal liabilities when she should have an alternative plan to cut the backlog and cut hotel use instead.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Plaid Cymru supports this motion. The context here is the reappointment of the Home Secretary, and the appointment of a Minister without Portfolio despite bullying allegations against him—and all that after one Prime Minister was brought down by scandals and another due to ineptitude. Is it not the problem not just those specific individuals, but the fact that the very systems of accountability here in Westminster are fundamentally unfit for purpose, save for maintaining the thinnest pretence of competency from this Tory Government?

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Lady makes an important point, because the standards in our public life and public institutions have depended on people respecting them and on people across public life believing in them and taking them immensely seriously. That is why it is so corrosive when, bit by bit, they are undermined, and why it is so damaging when a new Prime Minister who promised us he would be so different from his predecessors is simply reinforcing the same problems and the same damaging situation.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Bill

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Yvette Cooper

Report stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the Minister’s statement. I am keen to pursue this and to work with her on it, as we have cross-party support. I really do want to see progress and I hope we can achieve that in the House of Lords.

This is, once again, about the blind spot where the legal system does not recognise the reality of violence against women and girls. There may be many reasons why a six-month time limit is appropriate for summary offences about altercations between acquaintances in the pub or tussles in the street, but it is not appropriate for domestic abuse—for the experience of violence against women and girls that is, too often, being missed out in the criminal justice system, where thousands of cases a year may be affected in this way. We have support for changes in this area from the domestic abuse commissioner of Refuge, Women’s Aid, the Centre for Women’s Justice, and West Yorkshire police.

On new clause 31, the Select Committee has conducted a detailed inquiry into violent abuse against shop workers. We have recommended a stand-alone offence because we need to strengthen the focus on this escalating offence and to have the police take it much more seriously. It is simply unacceptable that shop workers should face this escalating abuse over very many years. The new offence of assault against emergency workers has made a difference and increased prosecutions, and we need to increase prosecutions in other areas as well.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way? [Interruption.]

[Yvette Cooper]

No, because I am very conscious of Madam Deputy Speaker’s coughing to remind me not to.

I also hope that the Government will accept amendments that provide greater safeguards for freedom to peacefully protest and strengthen the law on kerb-crawling, but I particularly hope that we will continue to work on much stronger protection for victims of domestic abuse and those who suffer from violence against women and girls.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I have five new clauses in this group. New clause 64 would ensure more timeliness of investigations of complaints against police officers and allegations of police misconduct. On new clause 70, at the moment a police officer has the power to tell somebody to stop their car, but not to shut off the engine. My new clause 70 would give them the power to shut off the engine as well, because not having the power to do that can put police officers in a dangerous position, and this would deal with that anomaly. New clause 71 would remove the word “insulting” from section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986. People should not be guilty of an offence for using insulting language, in my opinion. It would still keep threatening and abusive language as an offence, but the word “insulting” really should have no place in the law. New clause 72 would criminalise commercial squatting and squatting on land. The Bill addresses the issue of trespassers on land, but misses the opportunity to expand the current residential squatting offence to cover village halls, churches, pubs and so on, and is much needed in many local communities. New clause 84 would mean that non-crime hate incidents could not be recorded on the national police database. The police should be focusing their efforts on tackling crime, not non-crime incidents. I hope, by the way, that the Government will respond in detail with why they are not accepting my entirely reasonable new clauses, because I would be very interested to know why they cannot accept them.

I also want to talk about new clauses 31 and 90. As somebody who spent 12 years working for Asda before I became an MP, I feel very strongly about the issue of violence against shop workers. These are often very low-paid people who are expected by the Government, in effect, to enforce the law—whether it is on age restrictions or, in recent times, about covid rules and restrictions, face mask wearing and social distancing—and the only thanks that many of them have had for keeping the nation fed during the covid restrictions, and for going out to work every single day to make sure that happened, was to see the number of assaults on them double over that period. It is an absolute disgrace.

The Government say that the courts can already use this as an aggravating factor if necessary, but the law to charge people with assaulting an emergency worker was introduced even though that could already be used as an aggravating factor if necessary. New clause 90 is better because it covers not just shop workers, but all people who are on the frontline and providing a service to the public. I hope the other parties will reflect on that and support new clause 90.