County Lines Exploitation: London

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Dame Cheryl. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, and it is a pleasure to respond to this debate today, as it has been a fantastic one, with so many well researched, thoughtful and excellent contributions—not least from my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan). I congratulate her on securing the debate and continuing the discussion on this issue in Westminster Hall. She gave a fantastic and thorough overview of the exploitation and treatment of these young people—many of whom, as she said, do not feel themselves to be exploited—and of the very profitable business model that underpins the crime, which combines kidnap, child abuse, drug dealing, trafficking and violent crime.

Right hon. and hon. Members spoke from personal experience today about their own constituents, whether young victims themselves or the victims of cuckooing, which the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) spoke about. I know he has done a lot of work in this area. He demonstrated the implications of the crime on not just London but towns outside London and spoke of the victims in his constituency. He spoke of the need, as everyone did, to support victims, rather than criminalise those young people. Rotherham was mentioned as a comparator. The similarities are key here. I have spoken to many survivors of the Rotherham scandal who told me that they were treated as sluts rather than victims. I have spoken to Sammy Woodhouse, who has been campaigning for Sammy’s law, which would allow their criminal records associated with the grooming to be expunged, and Labour is very happy to support that. The situation has very strong similarities here, because those children and young people were victims, just as many of these young people are.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), who is nothing less than an expert on this issue—and has worked on it over many years, in particular on the vulnerability of looked-after children—gave some great examples of good practice in this area on criminal behaviour orders and child abduction warnings. She made the very sensible case for treatment under trafficking legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) gave a very thoughtful and emotional contribution, again distinguishing between victims and offenders, who should face the true sanctions that this horrendous crime deserves. She laid out the scale of the problem in just one borough and police force area out of 32. She made some important points about the Modern Slavery Act, which I will come on to, and the difficulties of prosecutions under that Act, and about how relevant it is for this offence, which is nothing less than slavery. I know how useful it has been as a deterrent in Merseyside, which has had some success in prosecuting offenders under the Act, because those gang members have not been treated as big kingpins in prison. They have been treated differently under the Modern Slavery Act and been isolated in prison and it has served as a deterrent for other people who could potentially be involved. We absolutely support my hon. Friend’s call for a review of that legislation.

We have heard shocking examples of the practice from around the country. We know that London is the biggest metropolitan supplier of this crime, but the National Crime Agency has found that 38 of the 41 forces in England and Wales have identified this form of exploitation taking place in their area. The Children’s Society estimates that 4,000 children are at risk from this crime every year across England and Wales.

Organised crime and its associated effects lead to hundreds of deaths every year, with figures for 2016 showing 2,479 deaths from illegal drugs alone. Though figures for deaths from the violence linked to organised crime are not specified, it is a significant factor in gun and knife violence. A total of 26 people were shot dead in the year to March 2016, and a further 213 were victims of stabbings.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

May I recommend my review to my hon. Friend, in which I talk specifically about youth crime and the disproportionality of black and ethnic minority children going into the youth justice system? We have to do more to use the exploitation legislation and understand that these young people are just as vulnerable as many of the young women that we have raised in the past.

[Louise Haigh]

I have of course read my right hon. Friend’s review and thoroughly recommend it to all other Members in the Chamber today. It is a very thorough overview of the criminalisation of black and minority ethnic young people and people of all ages in our criminal justice system and the pervasive attitudes that still exist, sadly, across elements of our criminal justice system, which lead to that over-criminalisation.

It is no surprise that as serious and organised crime grows, as we have heard today, violent crime is rocketing. The threat is growing and the police are struggling to keep up. They have suffered horrific cuts over the last seven years, which have devastated local intelligence collection. Now, in unprecedented fashion, senior officers are sounding the alarm across the UK. Unfortunately, serious and organised crime and violent crime are only one part of the picture of the demand that our police forces face, as 999 and 101 calls are up by as much as 30% on last year. Some 83% of the calls to command centres are non-crime related. They are related to mental health and missing persons—vulnerable people—and the police are not the appropriate agency to be dealing with vulnerable people. In some forces, missing persons are up by 300% in the last five years.

Violent crime is up by 13% on last year. In that time, our police forces have lost more than 20,000 officers and more than 40,000 police staff. As we have heard, the only response from this Government is to require police and crime commissioners to increase the precepts. That will not fill the gap that has been left by cuts to police forces, alongside cuts to the Crown Prosecution Service, courts and local authorities.

The chief constable of Merseyside Police, Andy Cooke, has warned that fewer neighbourhood officers make it harder to win the trust of local communities and make it more likely that there will be a wall of silence to protect local gangs and criminals. The director general of the National Crime Agency is increasingly concerned that organised crime is not being prioritised. She said that the £377 million annual funding handed to the NCA by the Government is nowhere near enough, given the severity of the threat. She said that

“we have got to recognise that it needs investment if we are going to protect the public from some of the most invasive crimes.”

There is simply no precedent in the service’s modern history for tackling the phenomenon of organised criminal gangs while so starkly under-strength. That has hampered the effort to tackle county lines, which has been referred to as a hidden crime. It took time for it to be given the recognition it warrants as a highly exploitative crime, partly because of the difficulty police have in identifying it. The runners involved can appear initially to be voluntary and often a number of red flags would need to be raised before the practice itself is identified. That requires a good deal of police work. Indeed, that was the point in establishing the more elusive form of criminality in the first place—that it would be difficult for the local force to identify non-resident dealers.

The successful prosecution of a leading member of a gang that used county lines in London revealed that the activity regularly brings in up to £150,000 a month for one particular criminal gang, causing incalculable harm in the process. It is the number of exploited children that truly marks out this form of crime as horrifying. One metropolitan force told me that, in one city alone, organised criminal gangs are able to exploit a pool of 20,000 to 30,000 children who are missing or absent from school or home by coaxing them into their criminal networks.

The reach of county lines is deeply concerning, and very few forces are immune. The National Police Chiefs’ Council estimated that there are 282 county lines coming out of London, and that they reach 65% of forces nationwide. The work to break those networks is onerous and costly. Intelligence collection is critical to bringing the leading figures in the networks to justice, but it is through safeguarding that vulnerable youngsters can be protected and the practice disrupted. That is why it was astonishing to learn that, last year, the Government rejected a force’s bid for funding from the police transformation fund to do exactly that kind of safeguarding work, focusing specifically on county lines and stopping the flow of vulnerable youngsters into the criminal practice. At a time when serious and organised crime is growing, it is perverse that a bid to safeguard youngsters who may fall into criminal gangs was rejected.

I want to leave the Minister plenty of time to respond to all the points raised today. I would welcome some further clarification from her about the operation of the networks and the telecommunications order, which was mentioned. I was pleased to support measures to disrupt these networks’ means of communication at the end of last year, but at the time I raised concerns about the speed and the effectiveness of the measures in taking down the networks of those suspected of dealing in county lines. I also said that criminals could easily switch phones and continue to communicate. The NCA’s most recent report seems to support those concerns. Many forces identify that criminals use more than one phone line. I appreciate that the new measures have been in place for only a month, but I would welcome an update from the Minister on how they are operating.

The NCA also said that we need a more consistent approach to capturing county lines intelligence. What role is the Home Office playing in helping to build a picture of the threat so we can assess the true scale of the practice? It has a clear definition of county lines, but a variation in its application has caused a potential blurring of the threat picture and may account for some perceived discrepancy in activity. What efforts are being made to capture and utilise county lines intelligence to ensure it can be accessed by all relevant stakeholders, not just police forces?

I reiterate my call for a review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the way it is applied to county lines. It is crucial, as all hon. Members said, that such children are treated as victims and are placed on the national referral mechanism. As the Children’s Society said, the response to child victims is too often punitive, rather than protective. We need a national response to ensure that all police forces in all circumstances understand that they are victims, not criminals.

Corrosive Substance Attacks

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I shall not detain the House for long, as the Minister has been asked many questions and I want to leave plenty of time for her to reply. There has been unified support from right hon. and hon. Members for regulation and licencing, and for acid possession offences. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) made a compelling case for restrictions on and licensing of acid, including what she said about the implications of the bonfire of the quangos in 2015, and the consequences of that deregulation. She also spoke compellingly about Katie Piper and her bravery—it was a powerful contribution—and about the importance of putting victims at the heart of all we do in response to such horrific crimes. I should be grateful if the Minister updated us on what has happened to the victims law promised by David Cameron in 2015, of which we have since seen nothing.

There has been strong support for tougher sentencing and the sending of a message from the courts and from this place about the abhorrence of the crime in question. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham on keeping the issue firmly on the agenda. She and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) have led the way and are largely responsible for the good progress that has been made by the Government so far. This is the first Westminster Hall debate that I have taken part in with the Minister in her present role, and I congratulate her again and welcome her. I look forward to working constructively with her, particularly in the area that we are considering.

I pay tribute to the brave victims who gave evidence in the most recent trial, which resulted in a man being sentenced to more than 20 years for an attack in a London nightclub, in which he indiscriminately sprayed acid over a dance floor packed with people on an Easter bank holiday. He injured 22 people and 16 of them suffered serious burns. Their courage in facing up to their despicable attacker ensured that justice was done. It is encouraging that he was charged under section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and received a significant sentence. However, sentencing in acid attack cases is inconsistent, which is probably because there is an array of selectable charges for prosecutors to consider. Acid is not explicitly considered an offensive weapon, so I echo the request for clarification on the updates and on progress at the Sentencing Council. Will the Minister’s Department work with the Crown Prosecution Service to gather data on what charges are successfully prosecuted, so that the public can have clarity as to how offenders are being punished? As my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham said, the data is incredibly incomplete, so it would be helpful to have an update on the progress of research about the motivation for attacks, and, indeed, on test purchases.

Emerging evidence is clear; individuals are making use of corrosive substances because of the difficulty of tracing them back to the perpetrator, and the looser laws on possession. The proposed offences mirroring existing knife laws, on which the Government have consulted, will have our full support, and I commend my right hon. and hon. Friends for putting the issue firmly on the Government’s agenda. I would also welcome clarification on timings.

On the matter of sales, there is not the same harmony between the Government and the Opposition. The Government’s proposal to restrict the sale of acid to over-18s is of course welcome and will gain our support, but it is nowhere near enough. I am equally interested in the proposal of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham with respect to sales to under-21s, and what is happening in Newham at the moment. First, the data return from 39 forces showed that only one in five offences was committed by someone under 18. How many of those people bought the substances for themselves is up for debate. That is a critical point, because until now the Government’s response on the restriction of sale has, I regret to say, been weak. We need a comprehensive approach to restrictions on sale, and a focus on under-18s entirely ignores the evidence and fails to consider the issue in the round. The Government need to put that right because the changes made under the Deregulation Act 2015 were clearly a mistake.

Previously, the most dangerous substances could only be sold by a pharmacist in a retail pharmacy business, and sales had to be recorded on a register. Substances in part II of the poisons list could only be sold by retailers that had registered with their local authority. Under the previous system, acids could be purchased only from registered retailers, usually hardware or garden stores. According to the Government’s explanatory notes, the Deregulation Act 2015 intended to

“reduce the burdens on business. The Poisons Act 1972 and the Poison Rules 1982 were highlighted as adding burdens to businesses”.

The Minister at the time, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), referred to retailers being unable to sell “perfectly innocuous” substances because of red tape.

We also know that the Government rejected the views of the now abolished Poisons Board during the 2012 review, which suggested tighter controls on the sale of corrosive substances. Those changes mean that “reportable substances” such as sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid and ammonia can be bought by any person in any retailer, and that that retailer does not even need to register. Answers to my parliamentary questions have shown that at least 69 attacks have been from ammonia and therefore from “reportable substances”.

We would like the Government to go much further in this area. We would like the reform of individual licences, so that where there is clear evidence that an acid is causing harm, it is designated as a regulated substance that will require retailers to enter the details of any sale. That would include substances such as sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid and ammonia, which have no place on general sale.

Some have said that such a measure would be excessive, but it has been proposed by the British Retail Consortium, whose members have agreed voluntarily to stop selling sulphuric acid products. It points out that under the Control of Poisons and Explosives Precursors Regulations 2015, which are intended to restrict the supply of items that could be used to cause an explosion, sulphuric acid is covered but it is found under the lesser “reportable substance” category. The consortium proposes that sulphuric acid be promoted to the “regulated substance” category. Regulated substances require an explosives precursors and poisons licence, and a member of the public needs to show a valid licence and associated photo identification before making a purchase. That proposal is also supported by the Association of Convenience Stores.

I was extremely concerned to read in an update letter from the Minister’s predecessor that the limit of the Government’s action for retailers was to consider a series of “voluntary commitments”. Will the Minister update Members on what those voluntary commitments will be, and what use they will be?

I have been out with Operation Venice, which is a team in Islington and Camden that tackles moped crime. It is a real credit to the Metropolitan Police. One issue that the police and the Police Federation raise with us consistently is the current law on pursuits. I know that the Home Office is looking into that, and the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) made a compelling case yesterday in a ten-minute rule Bill. I would appreciate an update on that review.

Finally, the Opposition will take a constructive approach to this issue. Where the Government warrant our support, they will have it, and where we feel they should go further we have been clear about what changes we would like to see.

Law Enforcement Co-operation and Border Control: Schengen Information System

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

I confirm that the Opposition support the motion before us, and I echo the Minister’s thanks to the European Scrutiny Committee for bringing forward this debate, because the motion raises some important questions about our national security and the consequences and potential implications of Brexit.

Our security, and the apparatus on which it rests, is utterly dependent on co-operation with our European partners. The UK should be rightly proud of the role it has played in establishing and developing our shared security through Europol, the European arrest warrant and the Schengen information system. As the Minister says, SIS II is already proving its worth, helping to underpin the operation of the EAW and delivering 12,000 hits on suspected criminals and terrorists since its introduction in 2015. It has been a game-changer for policing leaders and for day-to-day policing.

We know what the Prime Minister makes of the SIS II system from what she told the House of Commons in November 2014, the month in which she also said that support for it is vital

“to stop foreign criminals from coming to Britain, deal with European fighters coming back from Syria, stop British criminals evading justice abroad, prevent foreign criminals evading justice by hiding here, and get foreign criminals out of our prisons”.

However, without an agreement and a commitment that this will be foremost in the Government’s negotiating priorities, this apparatus will all fall away the second we Brexit.

Quite frankly, it is astonishing that the Government have given no guarantees that we will seek to retain full access to SIS II on our departure from the EU. Despite underlining its importance in the position paper earlier this year, in a letter to the European Scrutiny Committee, the Minister said it was “too early to say” whether SIS II will be one of the measures that the Government will seek to include in a new post-Brexit agreement. The Committee has noted that

“there is no justification for this reticence.”

Our security depends on it, but we know why Ministers are showing such reticence. It is because of the role of the European Court of Justice and the EU charter of fundamental rights.

The Prime Minister has made it abundantly clear that there will be no permanent role for the ECJ, and the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill has explicitly dumped the EU charter. However, there is no precedent for a country to operate within SIS II—nor to operate the European arrest warrant, for that matter—without accepting that the ECJ will play a leading role. Indeed, the regulations before us explicitly prohibit third-country access to SIS II data. In his letter to the European Scrutiny Committee, the Minister attempted to suggest areas where countries do not submit directly to the jurisdiction of the ECJ, but in the case of SIS II, the precedent is clear: whether direct or indirect, the determinations of the European Court are final.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making some very important points. Does she not agree that this puts paid to the crazy suggestion of having no deal, because getting a deal on a security treaty will be absolutely crucial to the safety and security of this nation?

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that no deal is simply not acceptable for security or for data, which I will come on to shortly.

The Minister mentioned that four non-EU countries are members of SIS II, which is absolutely right. Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein participate by virtue of their membership of Schengen. These non-EU member states are bound to avert any substantial differences in the case law of the ECJ, and they are required to implement structures and procedures that keep pace with changes in the Schengen rulebook. If they do not do so, their agreements will be terminated.

[Robert Neill]

I understand precisely where the hon. Lady is coming from, but in fairness to the Minister, this may be a question about the direct nature or otherwise of the jurisdiction. Does she agree that the evidence to the Justice Committee was most compelling about the practical need to get the data regulations aligned so that data can lawfully be passed from EU member states to us as a third country in the same way that they are passed to the four non-EU countries she has mentioned?

[Louise Haigh]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he pre-empts my next point.

At the heart of these strictures is the issue of data. All SIS II systems operate on a hub-and-spoke model, with a central SIS II hub exchanging data from national servers in each participating member state. The European Commission is very clear that this is European data. Although the police may have some leeway on the speed at which they create an alert, once they do, the data passes to the central SIS II hub. Therefore, without an agreement on data transfers, we simply cannot participate in this critical information-sharing system. That is the insanity of having no deal.

The proposals before the House require compliance with EU data protection laws and fundamental rights enshrined in the EU charter. The EU will insist on these rights being protected in order for the UK to share information, so what exactly do the Government propose? Can the Minister reassure the House that no arbitrary red lines, on the ECJ or otherwise, will be put before the safety and security of the British public? Will he confirm that it is the UK’s negotiating aim to retain full access to SIS II? If not, can he explain how after Brexit we would track the hundreds, if not thousands, of serious criminals, foreign fighters and those who pose a threat to our national security who are flagged by the system every month? There are few areas in which the UK is more dependent on agreement than security co-operation as we Brexit. The consequences of failure are scarcely imaginable.

The regulations are necessary to maintain our membership of SIS II for the time being and for our negotiating position, but they signify the huge risk that Brexit poses to our national security and the gaping holes in the Government’s approach to negotiations. We will support the motion and any and all of the Government’s efforts to maintain access to such security systems and close co-operation with our European partners, but we will continue to hold the Government to account on their approach to negotiations that are so fundamental to our national security.

Draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigations: Code of Practice) Order 2018 Draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigative Powers of Prosecutors: Code of Practice) Order 2018 Draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Authorised Officers) Order 2018

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 General Committees

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

First, let me put on record that the Opposition fully support the statutory instruments, which is why it is baffling to see so many Members here so early in the morning.

As I say, we fully support these powers. They are absolutely necessary but nowhere near sufficient. Our biggest impediment to tackling the current terrorist threat is bodies on the ground, but police officer numbers are being cut up and down the country. I was in Norwich over the weekend; every single police community support officer post in Norfolk is being abolished. That is an incredible threat to our ability to tackle not just crime and antisocial behaviour, but the unprecedented terrorist threat we face. Our PCSOs and neighbourhood policing teams are the eyes and ears of our counter-terrorism units, and they need not just powers but resources and bodies on the ground.

The Minister referred to the right to respect for private and family life and to peaceful enjoyment of property under the European convention on human rights. Will he say a little more on the training that our law enforcement officers and financial investigators will receive, to ensure that those rights are fully respected and understood? We must ensure that the codes provide sufficient guidance on that.

I will not detain the Committee any longer. We are more than happy to support the instruments.

Draft Drug Dealing Telecommunications Restriction Orders Regulations 2017

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 General Committees

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Wilson. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I also welcome the new Minister to her place. If the reaction she had yesterday was anything to go by, she is a very popular choice to succeed the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton).

I make clear the Opposition’s support for the regulations and reassure Committee members that I will not detain them for long. I am pleased by the urgency outlined in the explanatory memorandum and encouraged to read that the regulations will come into force almost immediately.

I have met dozens of chief constables and police and crime commissioners since taking up my position in July. As well as mentioning resources, they all raised with me the issue of keeping pace with the increasing sophistication of serious organised crime. The evolution of the powers available to the police is a substantial part of that. As the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham have outlined, county lines is one of the most serious, exploitative crimes facing our police service. We know that organised crime gangs exploit vulnerable children and engage them in trafficking, forcing them away from home to sell drugs. The practice is growing in both the capacity of existing gangs and the number of gangs themselves, and it is therefore absolutely right that we give the police all the powers they need to disrupt this abhorrent crime.

I will raise a couple of operational points with the Minister. I appreciate the reasons that a consultation and a more thorough public analysis were not possible in this instance; she may wish to write to me about that, which I would welcome. The success of the entire system will be incumbent on the speed at which the restriction orders can be implemented. That will be critical in two ways. First, the use of the relay system to make illicit transactions means that it will be crucial for the police to simultaneously disrupt the entire network, or else the organised gangs may easily subvert the disconnected phone. Secondly, the low cost and ease with which criminals can buy a new phone and re-establish the network may require a fairly constant war of attrition between the police and organised gangs. For those reasons, it is critical that an order can be obtained with speed.

Given that the orders will be heard by county courts, which were recently subject to a punishing round of closures, can we have confidence that they will be issued and implemented with that necessary speed? The explanatory memorandum refers to resources being made available to Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and to the police. Can the Minister be a bit more specific? Given that the Government’s own impact assessment states that it is impossible to know how many orders will be made, what measures do the Government have in place to ensure that the courts are not put under considerable pressure, particularly during the first year after the order is passed?

The impact assessment also makes reference to the courts benefiting from increased court fees. However, as county courts are under considerable pressure and currently subject to long delays, what assessment has been made of the impacts on courts beyond monetary gain? As I said, I am happy for the Minister to write to me with her responses, and I reiterate the Opposition’s support for the regulations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I assure my hon. Friend that I have spoken directly to the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable in Derbyshire to get an update on the performance of the service and the demand on it. That will feed into the review that I have signalled, which will, in turn, feed into the decisions about the 2018-19 funding settlement, for which he will not have to wait too long.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

The Minister says that he wants evidence for police funding. How about the document that every chief constable and PCC in the country signed up to this month, which warned that without extra investment on Wednesday, up to 6,000 more police officers could be lost by 2020 and that usable resources are, in fact, a fraction of the figure that he keeps citing? If he thinks that the UK’s most senior police leaders are wrong, will he commit today to making no further cuts to police officer numbers during this Parliament?

[Mr Hurd]

I can confirm that decisions about police funding have not been finalised, but that that will be done shortly. An announcement will be made to the House as part of the draft grant settlement for 2018-19 in the usual way. On the report that the hon. Lady cites, I hope she understands that we have worked with that report closely, because the Home Office and the police system wanted to do a proper job of updating our understanding of the pressures that the police are under, which are real.

Community Policing

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I too congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) on securing the debate. I concur with him and with my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) that policing and tackling crime are fundamental issues of social justice and equality. People are far more likely to be victims of crime if they are poor, an ethnic minority or living in a vulnerable community.

Crime and antisocial behaviour can make people feel under siege in their community. We cannot tackle, prevent, investigate or bring to justice offenders without a robust, well-resourced neighbourhood policing presence, as we have heard clearly today. If we speak to chief constables and policing leaders across the country, as I have done, they tell us exactly that. The model for policing in this country was developed on that basis, and it makes us the envy of the world.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Is that not precisely why the very people my hon. Friend talks about—police chiefs and police and crime commissioners—write:

“The legitimacy of policing is at risk as the relationship with communities that underpins all activity is fading to a point where prevention, early intervention and core engagement that fosters feelings of safety are at risk of becoming ineffective”?

Is that not precisely why we need today’s debate, and why we need the Minister to respond to their calls for extra funding?

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The neighbourhood policing model, which I will come on to, is not just a “nice to have”. It is a fundamental component of our policing model in this country. It is therefore completely disingenuous for the previous Home Secretary, now the Prime Minister, to tell the police that their only job is going out there and reducing and attacking crime. The police do much more than that, as I will come on to shortly. Our police, and our police staff, who are often excluded from the debate around police officers, are the eyes and ears of the fight against crime and terrorism. Neighbourhood policing is an irreplaceable component in the battle to keep our communities safe and prevent crime.

Norfolk has been mentioned a couple of times. Other police forces across the country looked on in horror as Norfolk announced that it would be abolishing every single one of its police community support officers in the new year. I hope that Norfolk will look to examples such as my force in South Yorkshire, which merged neighbourhood policing with response two years ago, effectively abolishing it. It now has to divert resources away from response and restore neighbourhood policing because of the disastrous effect of abolishing it. The police chief and police and crime commissioner did that without consultation. Does the Minister think it is appropriate for such a major change to a police force, and such a divergence from a police and crime plan, to happen without consultation? It sets a dangerous precedent for changes to other forces.

As we have heard, crime is up. The crimes that most concern the public are once again on the rise: knife crime, gun crime and all violent crime are up, as is acquisitive crime. What angers us is that all of that was foreseeable and foreseen. If we look across Europe, only three other countries chose to cut their police force by proportionately more than we did. Two of those—Lithuania and Iceland—were reeling from chaotic and deep depressions. It was a political choice to preside over the erosion of neighbourhood policing, and when the police raised the alarm, it was a political choice to attack them for crying wolf, rather than listening to their legitimate concerns.

Only last week, we saw the Home Secretary castigating policing leaders for problems she had created, accusing them of not grounding requests for additional resources in evidence. As we have heard, there is a wealth of evidence. The country’s top counter-terror officer, Mark Rowley, told the Home Affairs Committee that there had been a 30% uplift in counter-terror work. He said that with the huge growth in the number of investigations,

“frankly…we have a bigger proportion of our investigations that are at the bottom of the pile and getting little or no work at the moment.”

It is not enough to say that funding has gone into counter-terrorism, because as we know, for every £1 spent on the Met’s counter-terror budget, £2 has to be spent by that police force on mobilising officers. On top of that, there is an £85 million funding shortfall in the armed officer uplift that the Prime Minister promised the Government would cover, which means that forces are picking up 50% of that cost. Is that the kind of evidence that the Home Secretary was looking for?

How about the document written by the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and the National Police Chiefs Council, which my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) mentioned, and which laid bare the perilous state of neighbourhood policing in this country? Does the Minister accept that the funding settlement means accepting “higher risk for communities” and

“a reduction in the services resilience to cope with major emergencies”?

Will the Minister confirm, as the document laid out, that proactive crime prevention policing is down 25% on the last year alone; that local policing is fading to the point where it is ineffective, due to degradation in local intelligence collection; and that emergency 999 systems are failing too often? When exactly were Ministers planning to tell the public that the funding settlement risks a further 6,000 police officers being cut over the next three years?

The Minister knows the pressures the police are under; he has exactly the same conversations as I do. We have heard this morning about a wide range of forces— from large forces to smaller, rural ones—having record 999 and 101 calls, record levels of unsolved crimes and record mental health and missing persons call-outs. I was a special constable in the London Borough of Lambeth just five years ago, and policing has already changed drastically from what I experienced on the frontline.

As hon. Members have said, the facts have changed since the last budget settlement was agreed. It is time for the budget to change as well. Before the Minister responds and tells us that the police are sitting on reserves of £1.6 billion, £1.7 billion or £1.8 billion—it depends on which side of the bed he gets out of in the morning—will he take this opportunity to correct the record and confirm that, for all 43 forces across the country, just £363 million is genuinely usable and is not earmarked for capital spending? Will he also take the opportunity to tell us what models of local policing he has seen work across the country, and how important he sees neighbourhood policing as being to the fundamental British model of policing?

As I have said, neighbourhood policing is not just nice to have; it is vital to our policing system. It underpins the police’s ability to police by consent. It is almost wholly responsible for building and maintaining relationships with communities, and if we reduce our police to nothing more than a blue light that arrives only when the absolute worst has happened, we risk rolling back all the progress that has been made in police accountability and trust over the last generation. We have heard about the erosion of trust in officers and the police if they do not turn up when something as serious as a residential burglary—one of the most invasive and intrusive crimes someone can fall victim to—happens.

Finally, I refer to comments made to the House less than two weeks ago by the Policing Minister:

“we will…ensure that the police have the resources they need to do the job”.—[Official Report, 25 October 2017; Vol. 630, c. 132WH.]

We have heard categorically that the police do not have the resources they need to do their job. Will the Minister finally take this opportunity to announce that we will see an end to real-terms funding cuts, which have left our communities exposed?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hurd]

I could not have been clearer in my remarks; demand on the police has grown. We have two sets of data, which is sometimes confusing. We track people’s experience of crime through the crime survey. That shows a long-term decline in people’s experience of crime, which I hope every Member will welcome. In terms of police recorded crime, which is trying to capture something different, we are seeing an increase. Part of that is a genuine increase in crime, which I totally accept, as the Office for National Statistics does. Part of it—I know the right hon. Gentleman will welcome this—is people feeling more comfortable to come forward about crime, particularly in some of the murky, difficult, complex and often tragic areas, and police getting more effective at recording crime. It is confusing. People’s experience of crime is down, according to the official survey that has run for many years, but recorded crime is up. There are two sets of data trying to do different things.

I want to address the point about stretch. Whenever I visit a police force, I have a meeting with frontline officers, and the message from those officers could not be clearer: they feel extremely stretched. They are working very hard under very difficult circumstances indeed. As I say, the fact that that message is coming out of a can-do organisation means we have to listen to it.

That is why we are conducting a demand and resilience review, led by myself. I will be visiting or speaking to every single force in England and Wales. The review will update our understanding of demand and how it is being managed, the implications of flat cash force by force and the strategy for reserves, which are public money. The last audited numbers in 2016 showed reserves of £1.8 billion. That figure is now down a bit, to perhaps around £1.6 billion, but it is still public money, and we need to know the plans for it.

[Louise Haigh]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hurd]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not, because I want to finish my remarks.

That review will be assessed in parallel with the fair funding review that colleagues will have tracked and that is of particular interest to Suffolk, Bedfordshire and other counties that feel they have been on the wrong end of the allocation in recent years. It will come together as a piece of analysis and work with the provisional grant report and provisional settlement for 2018-19, which I expect to come to the House before the year end.

I would like to assure colleagues who are concerned about whether the Government are listening to the messages from their local police chiefs and police and crime commissioners that we feel strongly that we have to take decisions based on evidence, not assertion, and that is feeding into the review. We owe that to the taxpayer. We are determined to ensure that the police have the resources and the support they need, without giving up on the challenge we have to give them to ensure they are using that money in the most effective way.

For this Government, as for any Government, public safety is the No. 1 priority. I assure the House that in the work we are doing, we are determined to ensure that hard-working police forces up and down the country doing incredibly difficult work under very difficult and often dangerous circumstances have the support they need. With that, I close, in order that the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton can conclude.

Draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2017

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 General Committees

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

I add my congratulations on your appointmen, Ms McDonagh. I know you will be a fantastic Chair—it feels strange to call you that—and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

The official Opposition are happy to support the statutory instrument. We have heeded the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which found that MPA has no known medicinal, commercial or industrial benefits. The Government and the Opposition—everyone in this place—have a duty to ensure that the law is coherent and consistent as the temporary order on this drug expires.

As the evidence suggests, MPA has often been marketed as a legal alternative to cocaine, often in concoction with other stimulant drugs. Its side effects of predominantly include tachycardia, chest tightness, anxiety and nausea. We accept the conclusions of the ACMD that it is a high-risk drug, with known deaths related to its use.

I want to use this opportunity to press the Minister on two points. The drugs strategy and policy making surrounding drugs and their classification are largely based on the crime survey for England and Wales. We are therefore concerned, having learnt last week that the Government are cutting the sample size, the response rate and the questions relating to performance, experience and attitudes to the criminal justice system. Will the Minister say how that will affect future decisions relating to drug classification? The drugs strategy is utterly reliant on crime survey data, so it is worrying that its legitimacy is being reduced. I hope the Minister will pass those concerns back to the Department and think again.

The new drugs strategy board is intended to oversee the strategy itself and, by implication, the classification of MPA. It comprises among others, Public Health England and the national policing lead. Has the full composition been agreed yet? Also, when will the Minister report on the work of the national recovery champion, who was to travel the country establishing best practice on drugs policy and the drugs strategy implementation?

Having said that, we recognise the harm caused by MPA and the importance of it being tightly controlled. We are pleased to support the statutory instrument.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right. The great success of the Psychoactive Substances Act is that, when Public Health England or police officers are worried about a new substance they see appearing on the market, immediate protection can be put in place, with a lesser burden of evidence required than for full scheduling, to prevent people from getting that harmful substance. Temporary control orders give time for the evidence base to be gathered—the full toxicology reports and the data from Public Health England and police forces—and put in the round to measure the harm in full, so that we can properly schedule substances under the 1971 Act, which is exactly what we are seeing today; the whole process is working its way through.

Stronger penalties are associated with the possession or dealing of drugs according to the schedule. We very much hope that those stronger, tougher penalties act as a deterrent and send out a clear message to young people or anyone that these are harmful substances that we do not want them to even think about taking.

[Louise Haigh]

I am a bit confused by the Minister’s answer. My understanding is that substances controlled under the Psychoactive Substances Act but not the Misuse of Drugs Act did not carry a possession offence. Indeed, the police are dealing with that problem at the moment in relation to Spice: they can control the supply but are not able to tackle possession, because that is not a criminal offence under the Psychoactive Substances Act. My understanding is that MPA was brought under this schedule because it would not be treated as a possession offence under the Psychoactive Substances Act, but it now will be.

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the hon. Lady for that clarification; I am sorry if my answer was not clear. I thought I was saying that, by bringing it across, there are those stronger penalties. She is absolutely right about that.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The short answer is yes.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

We know the pressures on police resources from a rise in violent crime, a huge increase in 999 and 101 calls, an unprecedented terrorist threat and a surge in non-crime demand because of mental health issues and missing persons. The police simply do not have the resources to respond to every report of crime. Were the Minister’s house burgled, how would he feel if the police did not show up?

[Mr Hurd]

I would feel frustrated and angry, as anyone else would. Government Members totally recognise the pressure that the police are under; in fact, I am currently concluding a process of speaking to or visiting every single police force in England and Wales, so I do not need any lectures on how pressured and stretched the police system is. We are listening and that is feeding into the work we are doing ahead of the consultation on the 2018-19 funding settlement. We are determined to make sure that the police have the resources they need to do the job, while we also continue to challenge them to be efficient and effective.

Aggressive Antisocial Behaviour

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) on his tour de force describing the growing issue of antisocial behaviour in our communities, particularly the consequences of reckless and brutal police cuts.

It is common sense that we cannot tackle antisocial behaviour and crime without a well-resourced neighbourhood policing presence. It is an irreplaceable component of the battle to keep our communities safe, and it has been steadily undermined and eroded over the past seven years. The hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) discussed the use of police dogs to tackle drug abuse. That was excellent to hear, but there has also been a massive reduction in the number of dog handlers throughout the country. Ten years ago, South Yorkshire had 54; we now have 12. Furthermore, his own police force, Devon and Cornwall, is being forced to merge with Dorset amid significant funding challenges. We welcome collaboration and efficiencies, but it is alarming to see forces taking decisions that might be harmful to police accountability on the basis of funding challenges.

[Kevin Foster]

The shadow Minister says that the two forces are being forced to merge; they are not. They have had a strategic alliance for quite some time, and it now makes sense to bring the two forces together. She would have found that out if she had spoken to any of the Members for Devon or Cornwall.

[Louise Haigh]

The chief constables, in their press release, said that the merger was brought about amid significant funding challenges and was the only way forward for the police forces involved. It was disappointing not to hear the hon. Gentleman talk about those funding challenges in his speech.

Over the past seven years, 20,000 police officers and more than 30,000 police staff have been cut. The crimes that concern the public most—knife crime, gun crime, violent crime and acquisitive crime—are all on the rise. Demand across the board, especially on non-crime issues such as mental health, is soaring. At a time of unprecedented terrorist threats, the number of armed officers is down. Yet among all those competing demands, my hon. Friend the member for Birmingham, Selly Oak painted a compelling picture of why it is so important to take antisocial behaviour seriously. Time and again, it is an issue raised by our constituents. It blights lives and can make people prisoners in their own homes.

Undoubtedly, the reduction in neighbourhood policing has left our communities at risk. Alongside the incredible quotes read by my hon. Friend from a variety of chief constables, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said earlier this year that the model of neighbourhood policing is being eroded. In calling for urgent action, HMIC warned that

“the position on crime prevention and local policing continues to deteriorate.”

The blame lies clearly and squarely with the Government.

The voices raising concerns do not stop there. Over the summer, one of the most senior police leaders in the country—Sara Thornton, who weighs her words carefully—said:

“We’re particularly concerned about the resilience of local neighbourhood policing...Withdrawal from communities risks undermining their trust in us, at a time when we need people to have the confidence to share information with us.”

The Government have been told time and again that police forces are increasingly unable to provide the service that the public expect. They are rationing their time, which is pushing reports of antisocial behaviour, among a host of other demands, to the back of the queue. At the Budget, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) said, the Government must get a grip. Forces urgently need a real-terms funding increase that matches their needs and that recognises the record demand they face, having lost 20,000 officers and £2.6 billion since 2010. The status quo is not an option.

If we are to tackle ASB effectively, the Government must get to grips not only with resources but with some crucial practical issues. As we have heard, people are incredibly frustrated with the performance of 101 across the country. They can wait for more than half an hour to report ASB or crime and they feel that the police will not act on the report and that it will fall into an intelligence black hole. The police can have all the evidence and intelligence they like, but that is useless without the analysts and officers to act on them. Will the Minister consider conducting an assessment of the performance of 101 and of which forces are demonstrating best practice in the area? Some forces have excellent online reporting mechanisms, but that is far from consistent across all forces.

On data analysis, I direct the Minister to the recent report by the Royal United Services Institute, “Big Data and Policing”. I recommend its suggestion for a national data strategy and policy for the police. It is deeply frustrating that expertise and practice have to be replicated across 43 forces, especially when they are struggling even to provide core response services.

On legislation, we have heard about the problems associated with the downgrading of ASBOs to civil injunctions. With CBOs, the same challenges persist that existed with ASBOs for police on the ground. A considerable amount of police work goes into preparing a CBO case but, from speaking to those on the frontline, it seems that CBOs are not respected in the round by the judiciary. I have heard many examples of the police working with councils and other services to provide individuals with interventions that have repeatedly failed. They have turned to a CBO as a last resort, only to have it thrown out of court almost immediately. Under the previous legislation under Labour, the judge or magistrates were required to explain why they would not grant an ASBO, but that is not the case for a CBO.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak pointed out, we have no measure of the effectiveness of the Government’s ASB strategy. We certainly do not measure or hold to account the wider criminal justice system’s use and implementation of ASB legislation. Will the Minister consider raising with her Ministry of Justice colleagues the need for better training and awareness of ASB measures and for putting in place a review of how and when CBOs are granted by the courts to establish whether they are being used properly?

One of the positive things about CBOs is that they require some positive action from the offender. That is fantastic in theory, but in practice the third-sector and public providers either no longer exist or do not have the funding to work with and support offenders with CBOs. Will the Minister consider commissioning research to establish how that is working in practice? For example, Durham Constabulary is doing some excellent work through the programme Checkpoint, which I recommend to her. The problem, however, is that, although the cost savings from reducing reoffending and diverting from court are felt across the criminal justice system, the police are currently footing the entire bill. That is simply unsustainable.

We have heard about moped and bike-enabled crime from several hon. Members, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), who has conducted an excellent campaign on it. It is menacing communities nationwide. Bikes are used not just to plague residents with ASB, but for much more serious crime associated with drugs and violence. A significant part of the issue is the decimation of youth services, but an effective police response is a crucial part of the solution.

We have been calling for the Government to get a grip, not least through a review of police pursuit policy. In recent months, both the Minister and the Independent Police Complaints Commission were adamant that the current Crown Prosecution Service guidance was adequate for protecting the police. It was good to hear the Government think again and announce a review recently. Pursuit and response drivers across the country will be watching with interest. Many tell me that effectively they are forced to operate under a no-pursuit policy, as they do not have the confidence that if—God forbid—someone got hurt during that pursuit, they would not be prosecuted, even if they had followed their force pursuit policy to the letter.

[Jim Shannon]

There have been incidents across the United Kingdom in which people on mopeds have removed their helmets so that police following them feel they must pull back. There are so many conditions and restrictions on the police. As the hon. Lady says, it is important for the Minister to address that.

[Louise Haigh]

That is exactly the problem. The message is out there that the police are not able to pursue, and offenders are freely removing their helmets or carrying on under that impression.

The lack of protection for the police was amply demonstrated last week by the case of PC Simon Folwell, who was involved in February last year in the pursuit of a vehicle. The car crashed into a lamp post and, tragically, the driver died. The CPS ruled no further action on the case on two separate occasions, yet the IPCC still pressed for a gross misconduct hearing. The officer was finally cleared last week after an 18-month investigation.

No one is suggesting for a second that the police be given blanket licence to pursue, but if officers have followed their training, their force policy and the law, they should not be treated as suspects. Will the Minister confirm what the review’s terms of reference will be and when she expects it to report?

In conclusion, I beg the Minister to put our case to the Treasury in the strongest possible terms ahead of the Budget. Policing simply cannot continue in its current form with this level of demand and with no additional resource. Does she acknowledge the importance of neighbourhood policing and recognise that the rise in crime and antisocial behaviour is at least partly due to cuts to that important function? I reiterate our ask that the Government properly measure their ASB strategy and review the pursuit policy, to give the police the confidence to do their job and our constituents the confidence that their safety and fears are taken seriously.