Town and City Centre Safety

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I want my constituency, where beauty surrounds and health abounds, to be a place where everyone feels safe on the high street. There is still work to be done, but I am committed to doing that work alongside our local partners.

Central to that is the Government’s plan to put 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables into neighbourhood roles by 2029. Those officers will be embedded in our communities, building relationships, preventing crime and responding quickly when crime occurs. Locally, there are some fantastic initiatives such as Safe Morecambe, which brings together the police, the business improvement district, the local authority, the community safety partnership and my office. Through funding from the police and crime commissioner, we are putting in place a street warden to help reassure residents further.

A key part of making our streets and town centres safe will be tackling the antisocial behaviour that people suffer, from vandalism to noise, and drug use to harassment. Those are the everyday issues that really upset people, quite rightly. To combat that, the Labour Government are bringing in respect orders, and local authorities are getting powers to issue higher fines and to seize those damned bikes and get them off the road. We are also cracking down on shoplifting and violence against retail staff. It is horrendous that people are going to work in fear of being assaulted.

However, it is not all doom and gloom. There have been some real successes in London under Mayor Sadiq Khan, where crime is at its lowest level since comparative records began. This shows that it can work.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

Does the hon. Member acknowledge that total crime figures are actually up over the last 15 years in London—from 87.1 crimes per thousand people in 2023-24 to 106.4 in 2024-25? Is she happy to correct the record and say that overall crime levels in London are up under Sadiq Khan?

[Lizzi Collinge]

I would welcome the hon. Gentleman sending me those statistics, but they go against all the other pieces of evidence I have seen, particularly for serious crime. Obviously there are spikes in particular crimes. Phone theft, for example, has been a real problem in London, as it has been elsewhere because they are now very high-value items. Online crime, as I discussed with one of my hon. Friends earlier, is becoming more prolific—people are being scammed and defrauded. The nature of crime has changed. I am very happy to look at all the evidence. All the evidence I have seen shows that serious crime in London is going down, and that is the result of co-ordinated policing efforts and public health measures because, in some respects, crime is a public health problem.

Visible policing, backed by good community relations and street-level intelligence, can work. It reassures communities and deters crime. That is the approach we need in Morecambe and Lunesdale and across the country—neighbourhood policing, targeted funding and practical local initiatives, such as Safe Morecambe, together with national action, such as the creation of a specific offence for an assault on a retail worker. We owe it to all our constituents and communities to make sure they feel safe in our town centres.

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[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Dowd. I also thank the hon. Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) for calling this important debate. No one can live freely live under the fear of crime. Across London and in boroughs such as mine in Sutton, that freedom begins and ends with residents feeling safe to use their town centres and high streets. It is where people come together and shop, and in this day and age, it is one of the last truly public spaces left.

When our constituents cannot see police on their high streets, they do not feel protected and are left feeling powerless. Their sense of security slips and changes how they live their daily lives. High street footfall drops, shops close earlier, parents worry, and women are forced to plan their routes home with keys clenched in their fists. Londoners should feel safe in their everyday routines without being threatened by an illegal e-bike tearing across the pavement, the fear of their phone being snatched from their hand, or being forced to put up with antisocial, disrespectful behaviour.

Let me be clear: no matter what certain right-wing politicians say—fortunately, they are absent today—London is largely a safe city. Figures for serious crime in the capital are falling, which should be celebrated. The murder rate is at the lowest level in London since 2014 and violent crime in the city is down by 12% compared with 2024, though up by around 30% in 10 years.

Improving figures for the most serious crimes contrasts with an increase in more visible crimes such as shoplifting, up 19% in London this year. The same is tragically true for sexual assaults, which are up by more than 10,000 in a decade, from 16,100 in 2016 to 26,800 in 2025. All crime reporting in London is up from 87.1 per thousand in 2016 to 106.4 in 2025, all under Mayor Khan’s watch and Government funding deals decided by Conservative Ministers.

Those are sobering reminders that crimes that make life miserable—or, in the case of sexual assault, terrifying—are up despite the positive headlines. The lived experience of my constituents tells a far more uncomfortable story than the picture that the mayor and the Government want to paint. It is particularly heartbreaking for women and girls, who have faced under-reported violence on our streets for decades and had hoped that, as society finally begins to shine a spotlight on gendered violence, visible and proactive policing would finally rise to meet the challenge. Instead, they have to bear witness to the erosions of such policing.

Between 2015 and 2025, the number of Metropolitan police officers stayed almost static at around 32,000 full- time equivalents. As our cities become more complex, new crimes and dangers have developed and the population has grown by more than 500,000 people, the Metropolitan police has not. Just last year, under Sadiq Khan’s leadership and a Labour Government, the Metropolitan police lost more than 1,400 officers and staff—a cut of over 4%.

I expect the Minister will talk about decisions made by some of my predecessors up to 16 years ago as a reason for Labour’s failure properly to fund the Met this year, but the responsibility sits squarely on the shoulders of a Labour Government and a Labour mayor. For Londoners, those cuts are a kick in the teeth. Police officers should not seem a novelty. They should be spotted on the street and not thought unusual.

[Dr Arthur]

Does the hon. Member agree that if we are serious about making London safer—as we all want it to be; we all spend a lot of time here—supporting the use of facial recognition to identify known criminals would make a difference? His party opposes that.

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[Luke Taylor]

I genuinely thank the hon. Member for his contribution; he must have read my next paragraph.

CCTV cameras and facial recognition tech watching and monitoring us going about our business cannot replace a friendly face with a welcoming smile and advice on getting assistance for a lost phone or mislaid keys. I fear that as funding for the Metropolitan police continues to be stretched thinner and thinner, that reassurance will begin to all but disappear. Having walked the streets of Sutton with my local police unit, I have seen at first hand the strain caused by falling officer numbers. My high street team has been cut from 11 to four. They are doing extraordinary work, but they are being asked to cover more ground and respond to more incidents with fewer colleagues by their side.

Sometimes I fear that there is a dangerous strain of make-believe in this debate: the belief that police capacity can grow without the financial backing to support it. No one has been clearer about that than the Metropolitan police commander, Sir Mark Rowley. Last year he warned of severe consequences as the Met faced a £260 million funding gap. Even after emergency support reduced a much larger deficit, the pressures have not gone away, and policing capability in the capital continues to be eroded as we speak. Within the Met’s specialist teams, the flying squad, firearms teams and the Royal Parks police are all set to be cut, to say nothing of school liaison officers, who do some of the most important work in restoring and embedding trust in the police in the next generation and stopping the dangerous spread of youth violence at its root. Those units form the backbone of serious crime prevention in our capital.

In recent weeks, we have been told that structural reforms will save the day. There have been proposals for mergers to create mega-forces, which apparently will do more for less. Police reform without proper funding is not fixing the problem; at best, it is delaying it and at worst, it is putting greater pressure on the cracks that are already showing. The changes set out in the police reform White Paper must be done right. I want to press the Minister for clarity on what the reforms will mean, particularly for the Metropolitan police.

At a time when visible policing is so hard to achieve, we would expect priority to be given to those last vestiges of accessible law enforcement—police front counters. But no: having already lost police officers and stations and with a £260 million shortfall to plug, Londoners are now being asked to stomach the closure of counters across the city, leaving most of London a police access desert. The 12 complete closures and the loss of 24-hour counters in 25 other locations touch every part of London. A 24/7 counter in every borough gone—another broken promise from Mayor Khan.

When those counters close, people lose the sense that police officers are present and accessible in their community. We can all see and agree on that, so it beggars belief that just last week, both Labour and Green assembly members voted against Lib Dem proposals for a funded moratorium on these closures. How can they expect Londoners to put their trust in them if they will not back us on this most basic of campaigns? The Liberal Democrats across London are calling not just for this to be stopped, but for more properly funded police front desks in every community based in local hubs such as libraries, shopping centres and town halls. That would allow people to report crimes and share information with the police face-to-face in convenient locations.

To conclude, I simply ask the Minister this: when can our police forces expect to see the investment they deserve? What assessment are the Government making on an ongoing basis of the impact of below-inflation funding increases on the viability of community policing? Why, when the Government claim to want to restore community policing, will they not intervene when their own party’s mayor is driving policing in the opposite direction in the capital?

Violence against Women and Girls Strategy

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

Far be it from me to make policy and commissioning decisions for the council in my hon. Friend’s area—although I would quite like to just say yes to her. Absolutely, there is extra money coming from this Government that can be used to expand refuge provision, and I am sure she will take the recommendations to her local council and push for what sounds like a much-needed refuge in Scarborough.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

I thank the Minister for coming to the Chamber to clear up concerns following the statements by the Home Secretary yesterday. The Met police are expected by March 2026 to have 2,508 fewer officers than they had at the time of the May 2024 election. Fewer officers means more space for men to commit crimes against women and girls and fewer police liaison officers in schools. We see the lack of confidence on our streets, where Sutton’s high street team has been cut from 11 to four officers. Part of the response for that is by Reclaim Sutton’s Streets—a group set up to stand up for women’s rights in the area.

My question is about funding. Will the Minister ensure that Thursday’s announcement will provide full details of the funding for the programmes in the plan, and ensure full funding in the police settlement next year, so that we do not see further erosion in police numbers, especially in the Met police?

[Jess Phillips]

Throughout the building of the strategy, we have worked very closely with the Metropolitan police and police forces across the country. It would be pointless for me to put something in writing that could not be delivered. I understand the angle the hon. Member is coming from and the commitments in the strategy will be costed, but it is not for me to say what police funding will be next year. The violence against women and girls strategy is not the place for that.

Violence against Women and Girls: London

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) for securing this important debate and sharing her tragic experiences for the benefit of others. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) on launching the APPG for the survivors of Fayed in Harrods, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain)—a huge scandal that affects women across the country.

There has been lots of talk in recent years, and indeed in the Chamber today, about changing social attitudes—educating men to stamp out violence against women and girls at its root. We have all heard the terrifying statistics that seven out of 10 women have experienced some form of sexual harassment in public. Each London borough faces more than 2,000 domestic abuse offences and 4,000 incidents annually. Even in the context of known under-reporting, the Metropolitan police recorded an average of 24 reports of domestic violence per day in 2023. It is important that we also bring into sharper focus the crucial fact that we have a role—not just as legislators gathered here today, but in the wider public sector and its various arms of governance and jurisprudence—and a responsibility to lead from the front. I echo the call by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) for us to become the first White Ribbon Parliament, which would make a small step in that direction.

Although it is true that, far too often, changes in this place happen because of a changing world beyond our gates, it is also true that, in many ways, society looks to the state to take the moral lead on the fundamental issues of equality and justice. When the state is failing in its duty to take that moral leadership, we do not just compound the problems; we actively undermine efforts happening across society to tackle them. Sadly, in the case of violence against women and girls, I fear that that is exactly what we are at risk of doing, if we do not redouble our efforts to stamp it out.

Perhaps nowhere is that more pressing and concerning a matter than with the Metropolitan police. It can no longer be denied or ignored that there are elements in the force who hold views entirely incompatible with the state taking this issue seriously. Although commendable work has been done by Commissioner Rowley, who I have met and I trust is treating the historic mission with the gravity required of it, recent events have underlined that this is still a serious, systemic problem. The recent revelations broadcast by the BBC’s excellent and sobering “Panorama” investigation about officers based at Charing Cross station, leading to the dismissal of four officers, was shocking and profoundly depressing. To reference just one particularly demonstrative example of the unacceptable behaviour that was uncovered, Police Sergeant Joe McIlvenny, an officer with nearly 20 years’ service in the Met, was dismissive about a pregnant woman’s allegation of rape and domestic violence after a colleague raised concerns about the decision to release the accused man on bail. He replied, “That’s what she says.”

The station had been the focus of an investigation by the police watchdog—the Independent Office for Police Conduct—into bullying and discrimination nearly four years ago. It found that some officers had discussed hitting their girlfriends, shared offensive and discriminatory comments, and joked about rape in a private group chat, and yet nothing changed. Those are not isolated incidents, nor am I latching on to the most recent example for ease. We know there is a systemic problem in the Met: the Casey review in 2023 told us that one in three female officers had experienced sexism at work, and that around one in ten had experienced sexual harassment or assault. Four years on from the death of Sarah Everard, we are left asking whether work is really happening at the pace required to root out those men from the force.

Fundamentally, this is about trust. We would always encourage any woman fleeing violence, or looking to report an assault or harassment, to find a police officer and seek their protection. That is a fundamental tenet of a free and fair society. However, like many men across London, I simply cannot provide them the total guarantee that doing so will mean they are met with the support of someone who understands and respects the problem they are facing or, more importantly, who understands and respects women themselves and all the manifold challenges they face. That is an awful place for society to be.

The uniform of the Met should be a symbol of trust, not a shield for misogyny, hatred and racism, but too many officers have broken that trust. Policing is done by consent, and trust in the police is essential for the safety of Londoners. Incidents such as the ones I have mentioned undermine that trust.

The Home Secretary has a responsibility to intervene and work with the Met to tackle this behaviour, owing to their unique role in its governance. I invite the Minister to tell us in more detail what the Government are doing not only to tackle the misogyny that spurs violence against women and girls across society but, crucially, to address it closer to home—in the arms of the state directly under the purview of the Home Office.

It is not just in policing that these issues rear their ugly heads, but across other arms of the state too. The Crown Prosecution Service, perhaps most notably, is failing victims of violence against women and girls so frequently that it undermines the confidence of women everywhere that they can ever truly seek justice. I know this quite vividly. When I met Claire Waxman in her role as Victims’ Commissioner for London, I heard about women left waiting for months, even years, with their lives on hold while cases crawl through the CPS. I have also listened to the stories of many of my constituents who have had to retreat from seeking justice, despite the awful things that have happened to them.

One constituent was kept waiting for two years while her abuser was released on bail, only to be told that, even though what had happened to her constituted common assault, a charge of actual bodily harm could not be pursued due to the time that had elapsed since the incident. That is despite the fact that several lawyers, during that period—while she was waiting powerlessly for the CPS to move forward—agreed that the incident met the threshold for ABH.

Colleagues, I sincerely invite you to consider the scale of that Orwellian, Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare: the powerlessness, anxiety and exhaustion it wrought on my constituent, and the distance we have allowed ourselves to travel as a society from the promise of justice for all by allowing the CPS to become so gridlocked. It is so backed up and broken that it is telling female victims of crime that they cannot seek justice through the state system because of the system’s own failings.

In case anyone doubts that those failings are not serious or speak to a lack of evidence, let me tell the House about another constituent of mine who was assaulted in broad daylight on public transport during rush hour, in full view of CCTV cameras, and who is still waiting now, two years later, for the CPS to move forward with charges. The situation beggars belief. It is utterly unacceptable.

I ask the Minister to outline in significant detail—and I strongly underline the word significant—what exactly the Government will do to sort this mess out. To return to the point on which I began these remarks, just as the state often looks to society for guidance on social change and progress, so too—and perhaps more powerfully, or at least more meaningfully for those of us in this place with our hands on the levers—does society look to the state for an exemplification of the kind of society we want to live in. We have a moral obligation to lead from the front.

The state will never be the active, positive player in the field that it ought to be—an ally to all those who seek to root out the misogyny that plagues us and sprouts the poison of violence against women and girls—until it is absolutely committed, acting seriously and with pace, to getting its own house in order.

The vaccine against the epidemic of violence and abuse that women face in our society will be administered in our schools, our youth centres and the hubs that remain, in our homes and community groups, in the mass media, but critically, too, on social media. It will also need to be inculcated in our police stations, court rooms, hospitals and many arms of the modern state—and, indeed, here in this Palace, which sits at the heart of the state. Only then will we see the revolution in safety that is needed for women and girls in London, and put an end to the horrifying statistics and stories that we have heard today.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer.

First, as everybody else has done, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) who, at some personal cost to herself, always speaks up on these issues, and does so with clarity, brilliance and bravery. She always approaches the issues with solutions in mind. People across the political divide want to see solutions and to work with the Government, and that is what we should seek to do. I will go through every one of the issues raised by my hon. Friend, and then cover as many of the others as I can. I cannot promise to be completely detailed, but I can follow up with a level of detail.

I suppose I should start with the criticism that has come to me around the delay to the violence against women and girls strategy. Last week, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam) asked me in the main Chamber about the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) writing to me to ask when the strategy will be published. My answer is simple: it will be out imminently. About now, I am satisfied that the strategy is as good as it could possibly be. That has taken lots of detailed work across every Government Department. It is not just tokenistically saying, “Enough is enough.”

But I did not need to wait for a piece of paper or something to be published on a Government website. Since I have been in this position, and since this Government have been in power, we have announced that we are providing £53 million in funding over four years to roll out the Drive project across England and Wales. We are introducing a range of measures on sex offender management and stalking through the Crime and Policing Bill. We are investing £13.1 million in a new policing centre for VAWG and public protection.

We have launched the new domestic abuse protection orders—raised by a number of Members—on which the previous Government passed the legislation then did nothing for four years. We are investing nearly £20 million for frontline support to victims and in other projects, including increasing investment to organisations such as Southall Black Sisters, who have been mentioned, and specific increases to ensure that women can remain in refuge if no recourse to public funds is an issue.

In 2024, we announced a funding increase of £30 million, making a total investment of £160 million for the domestic abuse safe accommodation grant. As others have said, we have also banned strangulation in pornography and made fundamental changes to the family court—something that many in this Chamber, including myself, campaigned for a decade to get across the line. I apologise for the delay in ensuring that every Government Department was doing absolutely everything it possibly could to get to where it needs to, but that did not stop me from cracking on with as much as I possibly could in the meantime.

When I had the job of the hon. Member for Weald of Kent, sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, I spent my time, almost week in, week out, with the then safeguarding Minister—the previous Government did not call it VAWG—looking at solutions and at different places. As I said in my letter back to the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford—and I say this to the hon. Member for Weald of Kent now—my door is always open. Not once since I have been in this role has anyone from the Opposition Front-Bench team come to talk to me about possible solutions or things we could work on together, but I absolutely send out that message.

I have met with Lib Dems and Conservative Back Benchers. I feel like I see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) more than my husband, such is our life in this place. I have met Members of every different political hue on my own side. On this we are united. The hon. Member for Weald of Kent is welcome in my office with solutions, ideas about the frontline and detail. I extend that offer with great respect, and I truly mean it. I had great relations with my counterpart before, and I never ever sought to make headlines rather than helping the frontline. As someone who has been in her position, I offer that advice.

My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse spoke clearly about the need to go beyond the criminal justice system. She and other Members, including the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor), mentioned the Charing Cross incidents. What can I say? It was absolutely horrifying. I do want to speak up for some, though: a female officer featured in that documentary was trying to fight for the remand of a violent offender. It is easy to forget that some brilliant people were shown in that documentary—brilliant police officers who were trying to fight for the right thing. We need to make sure that those are the people who rise to the top of the ranks in our police forces.

To do that, the Government plan to lay out, I think at the beginning of next year, a whole-systems reform of policing. Much of that will be about violence against women and girls because, for example, for the last 10 years or however long the police have never been asked to have any performance framework on violence against women and girls. We can talk about collecting data and which metrics we will use; well, based on the last decade the starting point is zero. We will take an overarching measure from the crime survey, which has been undertaken for the first time this year. The hon. Member for Weald of Kent might know that the data on which we will measure the metric was released earlier in the year.

On stalking, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse talked about the review by Richard Wright, who I met this week. He was the prosecuting barrister in the case of Alice Ruggles—a very tragic and famous stalking case. I very much look forward to his work in respect of the legislation, which I imagine will be relatively quick. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam and I have spoken before about what is currently wrong with the legislation for a section 2A stalking charge. I very much hope to come back and talk about that.

Domestic abuse protection orders have been hailed today in the newspapers—the photo they used of me made me realise I need to get a haircut. I cannot stress enough how I am often a bit cynical, including when we were writing domestic abuse protection orders into the law under the previous Government, who wrote nice words on goat skin. I have been a cynic about all protection orders, as a person who has them, and as a person who has worked with them and watched breaches not be followed up by policing. That leads to some of the issues everybody has spoken about in terms of confidence in policing. If an order is breached and no one does anything, you do not call the police the next time, and that might be the time you get murdered.

So I went into it trepidatiously when we came into government. The orders are now used in both the Metropolitan police area and in Greater Manchester, and they have already started to roll out to three other police forces. The plan is absolutely to roll them out across every area—I certainly want them for the women where I live. I am seeing cases of a breach of an order leading to nine months’ imprisonment within a week of the incident happening, and with the woman never having to step inside a courtroom. That is what I want to see from an order regime.

[Luke Taylor]

On that point, will the Minister give way?

[Jess Phillips]

Oh yes—the pilot is in the hon. Gentleman’s area.

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[Luke Taylor]

The feedback from the local police force in Sutton, which is part of the trial, is that they find them incredibly helpful. There is a ringing endorsement for the orders and we look forward to seeing them rolled out more broadly.

[Jess Phillips]

Honestly, police officers in the Met and in Greater Manchester, where I have visited them undertaking these orders, are so very grateful. Some tweaks have come out of the pilot, which is the reason for doing a pilot. Some of them are legislative, some are about resources and some are about offender management. The fundamental thing is that they allow the police to do proper, good old-fashioned policing. It means they are responding. We are not waiting on a victim to say, “This person breached it.” They are going out, talking to them and finding out if the order has been breached. I really want to see the state taking the administration off the woman.

It was shared with me that in just one part of the Greater Manchester pilot—I will definitely get the colloquial thing wrong if I say which bit of Greater Manchester—there had been a 76% reduction in repeat offences just in the cohort that had been given domestic abuse protection orders. Anyone who looks at the Government’s mission and who knows anything about domestic abuse and violence against women and girls will know that we cannot halve anything unless we stop the repeat. The repeat is a massive problem, so seeing a 76% reduction in that cohort already is very good.

People have spoken about employers and the need to make sure that they are included in the strategy. There was a great mention of the brilliant work done by USDAW, and organisations such as Lloyds giving staff two weeks’ paid leave. There are brilliant examples. We cannot keep saying that this is everyone’s business and not expect employers to take part. I have to say, actually, that there is quite a lot of enthusiasm—my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) said that the businesses in her area really want to take part.

On the ringfences in respect of refuge accommodation, part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 created a ringfence for housing-related statutory support. This Government have increased the amount of money in the last year by £30 million. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse gave a good example of it being done well in London, and some of the money being used for specialist “by and for” services. She identified the fact that we really need to bottom out where services are commissioned well and where they are not. It is a different story across the country, so it is nice in this debate about London to be able to say that I have seen good practice undertaken in London in this regard, through the Mayor’s office working with local councils. I have seen bad practice elsewhere. We need to make sure that there is a standard in the country, no matter where someone is. It is the same for policing and for the CPS.

As I said, I see the hon. Member for Strangford more than my husband; I feel like he has always been in the room. I have a special place in my heart for Northern Ireland and will continue to work with the devolved Administrations over there.

Many people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) very clearly, mentioned the issue of David Carrick, and other issues of trust in the Metropolitan police. The first part of the Angiolini review has already reported, and reporting on the second part is imminent. The Metropolitan police promised to follow up on the Louise Casey review. I speak to Mark Rowley many times—he is actually from Birmingham—and the Home Office is making sure that the Metropolitan police is following up on all those things. More broadly, we need to change the regime and reform police vetting and standards, and disqualify people when they commit some of these crimes.

Apologies that I did not respond to everybody, but I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse her minute to wind up. I promise I will answer all questions in writing—to which everyone behind me thinks, “I wish she had not said that!”

Immigration Reforms: Humanitarian Visa Routes

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for securing this important and timely debate.

Like so many of my constituents, I was delighted to hear last week that Hong Kong BNO passport holders will keep their five-year route to settlement. The Liberal Democrats have fought hard for that, so I am pleased to see the Government finally respond to our campaign. Britain and Hong Kong share a special relationship, and nowhere is that clearer than in my constituency of Sutton and Cheam, and across Sutton borough. Thousands of Hongkongers have built their lives, raised families and grown thriving businesses in Sutton. They are part the very fabric of the borough that I am proud to call home.

Although I welcome the Government’s decision, my inbox and social media have been flooded with messages from BNO holders who are rightly demanding further clarity. I therefore call on the Minister to answer their three most pressing concerns. The first relates to the new requirement for earnings. Will the new earnings requirement for settlement status above £12,570 be applicable to BNO visa holders? Many Hongkongers are retired, studying full time or caring for children or loved ones. That requirement will cut directly against the humanitarian intent of the BNO visa. Any new sustained and measurable economic contribution test or minimum income rule risks permanently excluding those entirely legitimate residents. Those Hongkongers are already fully integrated in their communities and contribute to British society in non-financial ways. Earning less does not mean contributing less; their contribution might not always show on a payslip.

The second concern relates to the English language requirement. Will the new English language requirement of B2 be applicable to BNO visa holders? For many families, that will be a huge and unexpected hurdle. Tens of thousands of BNO visa holders will reach the five-year point and become eligible for settlement in 2026. A sudden increase to B2 level without adequate notice or transition would throw many vulnerable residents off balance and deny permanent status to people who have lived, worked and put down roots in Britain for half a decade.

Thirdly, on the 20-year route protection, I am extremely concerned that the combination of the new 20-year baseline for refugees on the core protection routes and the suggested additional 20-year extension for anyone who entered as a visitor will apply to Hong Kong political exiles who have no access to the BNO visa scheme. Many young activists, particularly those born after 1997 or whose parents never registered for BNO status, have no safe and legal route to the UK. They are compelled to travel to the UK as visa-free visitors and only claim asylum once inside the country. They fear that declaring an asylum intention at the border would lead to detention or being refused entry and returned to Hong Kong. They are often subjected to surveillance and oppression by Chinese authorities while in Hong Kong, and have needed the time in the UK to prepare adequate evidence to present to the Home Office. These are political refugees fleeing persecution in Hong Kong at the hands of the CCP. Imposing a 40-year wait for settlement on brave young dissidents would be wholly disproportionate. In refusing to consider Hongkongers for this type of exemption, we do not simply adjust a policy; we threaten the humanitarian corridor that has long connected two nations through history, culture and a shared belief in freedom.

Knife Crime

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

This is my first opportunity to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I welcome the chance to talk again about knife crime in this place and I will outline the ways in which this heinous crime is marring communities and claiming too many lives. Although I wholeheartedly disagree with the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) on most topics, this is an important debate. I hope for the sake of all victims that we can make constructive suggestions to improve the situation. I think we can all agree, across the political divide, that young people in every corner of the country should not be growing up in a climate of fear.

I have outlined the Liberal Democrat approach several times, because, unlike the Reform party next to me, we believe in evidence-based policymaking. The public health approach to knife crime, which has worked in Scotland and has also shown signs of success in London, holds the most promise. I reiterate that the Liberal Democrats are clear on the need for a proper joined-up approach to youth diversion, making it a statutory duty with proper funding, so that every part of the country has a pre-charge diversion scheme for young people up to the age of 25.

I am increasingly conscious that over the past year or so figures on the extreme right of British politics, seemingly with the backing of a stream of American malcontents who reach from the mad fringes to the White House, have chosen to weaponise the issue of crime in London. They paint a picture that few Londoners recognise of a city rife with violent crime on every corner. It is as though we have all descended into lawlessness, scared to walk the streets because of a mad, feverish crime wave, driven by liberal, middle-class squeamishness.

As a proud Londoner, I totally reject that nonsense. Violent crime fell in London by 6% in the year to last March. The following three months saw a 19% fall in knife crime compared with the same time last year. Knife-enabled offences have dropped in each month of 2025 from the same months in 2024; I invite the hon. Member for Ashfield to correlate that with the reductions in stop and search over the same period. I have been to Scotland Yard with colleagues and heard that the Met’s action in recent months has been modestly successful. I believe that, given the Met’s increasingly limited resources, it is affording the issue the priority level it deserves.

To avoid the risk of being misrepresented, I will be clear that I do not wish to minimise the issue, for two reasons. First, looking further back in time, knife crime has gone up dramatically since 2016 under the Labour Mayor’s watch, as Conservative Government cuts to local government and the police obliterated the community support networks that the public health approach relies on. The hon. Member for Ashfield was happy to be part of delivering those cuts as a Conservative MP. Secondly, every childhood snatched, every pavement stained in blood, every family with one too many chairs at the dinner table is one too many.

Policing alone cannot and does not pretend to effect the culture change we need. For that, we need to deliver the public health approach properly. In London, the growing funding gap for local councils after years of austerity is about to be made worse by the Government’s unfair funding review and the risk of new Labour austerity. That means that the cracks in the system are now chasms.

For too many young people in Britain, feeling unsafe is not an occasional fear; it is part of the everyday fabric of their lives. I have met young people in London and in my constituency of Sutton, Cheam and Worcester Park for whom that sense of vulnerability sits in the background of everything they do. What we too often fail to recognise is that, when young people start to believe that no one else will protect them, they ask themselves a simple but devastating question: “If no one is going to keep me safe, how do I keep myself safe?” For some that is a turning point, when anxiety stops being a feeling and starts becoming a plan. Far too often, that plan involves carrying a knife.

We cannot wait until a child reaches that point. We have to intervene before that fear hardens into a decision to carry a weapon. Last May, 60% of young people surveyed told the Ben Kinsella Trust that they feel worried about knife crime. A 2009 study by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies showed that 85% of young people who carry a weapon say they do so for self-protection. Many of the knives they carry are not the exotic or illegal zombie knives that attract headlines, nor weapons smuggled in on small boats; they are kitchen knives. That is not organised criminality; that is the tragic banality of a deteriorating everyday experience.

[Jim McMahon]

I understand the hon. Member is still developing his argument, but does he accept that one place young people should feel safe is in their own home? With the online world and messaging platforms, any intimidation, abuse and threats that might take place in school or on the street follow them 24 hours a day. Many parents, sometimes in the next room, have no idea what threats and intimidation their children are facing.

[Luke Taylor]

I agree that ensuring protection online is important, but as we have already heard, the loss of officers who most closely support children outside the home, such as those in schools, is equally important. The loss of those in London will be devastating to our communities.

Tackling knife crime cannot just be about enforcement; it must be treated as a health issue. It must be addressed early, consistently and systematically, and it must bring together a range of services that deal with young people, such as early intervention schemes, councils, NHS workers, carers, police officers, teachers, community leaders, social media influencers, parents, mental health workers, restorative practice advocates, and the various arms of Government that young people interact with, all under serious, mission-driven violence reduction units. That needs political buy-in, rather than meaninglessly aping its language without funding its tenets—a mistake that the former Government made with their serious violence strategy in 2018, and that the Mayor of London has made by not giving the violence reduction unit in London the tools it needs to do its job as effectively as possible. If we married that up with other key steps, it could be utterly transformative, turning good public policy into a vision for wider social renewal for young people.

The Minister may be aware that I met her predecessor to discuss that approach in more detail earlier this year, and I ask whether she would be willing to meet me to continue that discussion and see where we can work together on this vital issue. Surely in 2025 we have grown beyond the two-dimensional approach to the causes of crime, or the response to knife crime that the hon. Member for Ashfield presents. Surely by now we should be able to recognise that violence spreads among the most vulnerable like a virus, but it can be stopped in its tracks by good interventions acting as a vaccine to stop the spread. Surely by now we have learned that we cannot punish or scare away violent crime, and that good deterrents are not enough to stave it off when it has already buried its roots far too deeply in our neighbourhoods.

Not so long ago, a leader of the Labour party pledged to be

“tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”,

and all I ask is that the Government recognise that we have done far too much of the former, and far too little of the latter. They must show that they recognise it is finally time to properly adopt a public health approach to save lives, save communities and save futures.

Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 11th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The hon. Lady is shaking her head, but that is in Baroness Casey’s report—she finds that there was a lot of drunken behaviour and evidence of drug taking. Those are criminal offences. The expression on the hon. Lady’s face makes it seem as though either she believes that Baroness Casey’s findings were incorrect or she has some other reason for disagreeing with that.

I think that bringing the criminal law into this narrow and specific field when there are already a host of other criminal offences covering these issues is the wrong way forward, but I am obviously in the minority on that.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

We will soon find out.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Of course I will give way.

[Luke Taylor]

I have no interest in intervening.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Pardon?

Crime and Policing Bill

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

I have researched the experiences of disabled people in the criminal justice system over the past 14 years, so I know that this opportunity to legislate to strengthen the law on hate crime offences must be seized. Disabled people enrich our society. New clause 122 would foster respect and equality for all by ensuring justice for disabled victims of hate crime.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

Let me start by highlighting my support for new clauses 85 and 86, which deal with neighbourhood policing. They would ensure that police forces are required to practise community policing

“at a level necessary to ensure effective community engagement and crime prevention”.

It is a shame that the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) is not in his place to intervene for a definition on that. It is about engaging with local communities and ward panels to define the appropriate levels in their areas—which I am sure he would support— rather than taking a top-down view. The new clauses would compel the Secretary of State to produce an annual report on the state of community policing.

We have outlined a way of funding that too: 20% of future police grants would be ringfenced for community policing activities, literally making crime pay—in the reverse of the manner in which that phrase is normally used—by allocating funds recovered from the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to community policing. That is important, because commitments to policing numbers mean little without serious action to reverse the scale of forthcoming cuts, such as the cuts of 1,419 officers and staff that we in London are about to experience this year. Indeed, as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner recently told the BBC,

“ambition and money go alongside each other”.

I urge Members across the House to support those new clauses.

I will now turn to my new clauses 95 and 96. It is good to see the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), in her place to continue a conversation that we have had many times on stalking. Stalking is a heinous crime: it throws lives into chaos, leaves victims in life-changing and near-constant terror, and too often goes unpunished. The current legislation forces too many victims to meet an improbably high bar of evidence, forcing them to jump through hoops to be a perfect victim, just to prove the scale of the threat against them.

I have heard from victims in my Sutton and Cheam constituency who have had their lives completely upended by their stalkers, and who are completely at their wit’s end after facing so many obstacles to getting justice. It is clear that the two relevant sections of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 are the root of those obstacles. The distinction between a lesser section 2A offence and a more severe section 4A offence is failing victims and fails to recognise the total scope of stalking.

Successful prosecutions of section 4A offences are far too hard to achieve. The burden of proof is placed so heavily on the victim.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

Even celebrities such as Emma Raducanu, and others in the public eye who have been affected by stalkers, feel unsafe and unprotected by existing legislation. Does the hon. Member agree that is clear additional evidence that the law needs strengthening?

[Luke Taylor]

The hon. Member provides a clear and visible example of how the legislation is not working, if somebody with such a high profile and with additional security protection cannot be protected from stalkers. I thank him for his apt intervention.

The burden of proof means that many victims withdraw from the process completely and give up on gaining justice. My new clauses would compel the Secretary of State to publish a review into the two clauses within six months of the Act receiving Royal Assent, and to make time for that review to be properly considered in the House upon its completion. They would also compel the Secretary of State to launch a review into the effectiveness and adequacy of the stalking awareness guidance provided by public bodies in England and Wales, and to make similar provision for proper consideration and debate in this House. I know that aim is supported by the Minister, so I would like to hear how it is being brought forward.

New clause 43, tabled by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin), is incredibly important and deserves the support of the House. The new clause automatically commences the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023 when the Crime and Policing Bill receives Royal Assent. That he has managed to corral together such luminaries in this House as the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), and the hon. Members for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry) and for Clacton (Nigel Farage), to support the measure is a triumph in itself.

We spoke about new clause 130 in Committee, and I very much support its measures on tool theft. It would add the theft of tools from tradesmen to the list of aggravating factors in the Sentencing Act 2020, and present a way forward towards more sensible regulations of temporary markets, where too many stolen tools are often sold out of car boots. I recently visited the Kimpton industrial estate in Stonecot in my constituency, where I heard more about the awful impact of that kind of theft from tradespeople, who too often are left with their livelihoods wrecked and very little proper recourse to getting their lives back on track, other than to fork out huge amounts to buy new tools, which in many cases are later stolen again. It is a horrible cycle, which I also heard about at the Stop Tool Theft rally on the streets outside this Chamber earlier this year.

The measures set out in the new clause provide a good path forward but will not solve the issue alone. Without the kind of commitment to restoring community policing that I mentioned in reference to new clauses 85 and 86, police forces will remain too overstretched to mobilise the resources to investigate these crimes in the first place.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

My hon. Friend talks about community policing and getting police officers back into the community, so does he support my new clause 157, which seeks to streamline the way police case files are prepared and submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service? It is a common-sense approach that would reduce red tape and, most importantly, get police back out supporting victims and building the community trust that they need?

[Luke Taylor]

My hon. Friend’s words have convinced me and hon. Members across the House about her new clause.

The Met police recently responded to a freedom of information request about tool theft, which revealed that nine in 10 tool thefts in the last five years in London went unsolved, which shows the scale of the problem and the importance of supporting new clause 130 today.

I would like quickly to draw attention to some other amendments. New clauses 87 and 88, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove, would hold water company executives to account properly for the first time, and that would mark a huge step forward in tackling the sewage crisis we face in this country. Those individuals should be held liable for their carelessness and fixation with raising bills, while running companies into the ground and ruining our rivers. I wish I had more time to outline my reasons for supporting the clauses, but I refer the House to my many prior contributions on the subject.

New clause 44, tabled by the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), would mark a step forward in providing support to victims of honour-based violence and murder.

New clause 122, tabled by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor), would strengthen the law on hate crimes directed at disabled, LGBT+ people, and rightly seeks to protect people who are victims of hate crime because of their association with individuals in those groups, and I wholeheartedly support it.

In contract, new clause 7, tabled by the official Opposition, would weaken hate crime legislation in this country, and I fear it is motivated by a complete lack of respect for the decades of progress we have made in recognising the types of discrimination faced by people the length and breadth of this country. For this Bill to push us forward, and not drag us backwards, that new clause must be rejected.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a proud member of the trade union movement.

No one should go to work with the uncertainty each day that their safety might be put at risk. We as a Government clearly support that for emergency workers, and of course we are legislating for retail workers too. New clause 48, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley), addresses delivery workers, and today I stand to speak for my new clause 11, which would do the same for transport workers.

Every day, transport workers face verbal abuse, sexual harassment or physical assault, whether on bus, tram or ferry. Transport workers, alongside their trade union, the RMT, are calling for new measures to protect them at work: first, the introduction of a specific offence of assaulting or abusing a transport worker; and secondly, an extension in the maximum sentence, from six to 12 months—not least if sentences are now to be served in the community.

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Liberal Democrat new clauses 85 and 86 would help to restore community policing—the visible, trusted bobbies on the beat. These new clauses would guarantee minimum levels of neighbourhood policing and require every local authority in England and Wales to have a dedicated team assigned solely to community-based duties.

[Luke Taylor]

Was my hon. Friend as surprised as I was to hear the contribution from the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), who seemed to ridicule the concept of having a minimum level of policing for communities, which would surely protect them and help to prevent thefts of farm equipment, which was the example he gave in his speech.

[Lisa Smart]

I do not know why anybody would be against a minimum level of neighbourhood policing. It was in this Government’s manifesto that they wanted to see a proper restoration of neighbourhood policing. It is the model that has the most trust and the most support from my community—and, I am pretty sure, everybody’s community—and it seems daft, frankly, to oppose such a measure.

Crime and Policing Bill

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)]

In the interests of time, I will skip through the many amendments I want to support, but there are a few that will really make a difference to people in Milton Keynes Central.

First, I reiterate what my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White) said on street racing. Unfortunately, we had a Formula 1 driver who said that his success was based on practising on the grid roads of Milton Keynes, which really encouraged loads of people to decide to race there.

In terms of stalking and spiking, the most egregious bit of spiking for me is the premeditation—sourcing the materials, bringing them to the venue then using them on a person. That is not a crime done on the spur of the moment: significant premeditation comes into it.

One of the major issues we have had in Milton Keynes is organised begging outside our shopping centre. It is organised by gangs. People often look like they are homeless, or they are assumed to be homeless by caring residents in Milton Keynes, but in reality they are housed by the council, and they are exploited. They have a rota for which corner or which shop they can each sit in front of during which period of time, and the majority of the proceeds that people donate go to an organised crime network. Those individuals are being exploited in other ways as well. New clause 53 is so important in addressing this issue as the real, true crime that it is—not the crime of the people begging but of those organising the begging.

I also rise in support of new clause 55, which is on special measures for witnesses, particularly around youth justice. That is very important. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling), many people who experience sexual abuse do not come forward for years and years, so new clause 59, which would remove limitations, is really important.

Let me address a couple of other things in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) made such an important speech considering domestic abuse, and she explained it very well. New clause 71 is about barred persons not having employment in law enforcement. We must recognise that, following the case of Sarah Everard, confidence in law enforcement is at an all-time low. When people call law enforcement because they have experienced domestic abuse, sexual harassment, rape or stalking, they are at their most vulnerable and they need to know that the people responding to those incidents—no matter which law enforcement service—will treat them according to the law, and not with some of their own natural biases, as we have seen.

That brings me to my final point. In terms of confidence in policing, we need to ensure that all law enforcement is done with clarity of law, not because of particular campaigning, as we have seen with the enforcement of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which we will debate later.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

I was incredibly fortunate to sit on the Bill Committee considering this legislation. It is clear that, although opinions differ on details, we all share a common goal of tackling crime in a meaningful way, so that we can make people feel safe in our communities again.

As a community-focused liberal, I have stated many times that keeping people safe and instilling safety in our neighbourhoods are some of the most powerful ways that we can foster strong communities and improve the quality of life and freedom of opportunity that everyone in our country should enjoy. I am grateful to the Government for their willingness to engage with the points that we all made in Committee, particularly to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), and the Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson). Despite several productive conversations, it is frustrating that several important additions to the Bill were rejected by the Government in Committee.

For that reason, I rise to speak in favour of several new clauses before us. Although several of the measures closest to my heart—those regarding community policing, knife crime and stalking—are not before the House today, there are several pressing new clauses that I feel I must speak to. They pertain to what should be fundamental rights in our country: the right to freedom from oppression, and the right of access to proper healthcare for women. I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) on the courage he demonstrated in his speech earlier, and encourage the Government to consider the measures he spoke to if they come back from the Lords, if not to consider them beforehand.

I start by expressing my support for amendment 19, which deals with spiking and was tabled by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson). Spiking is a horrendous offence—a deeply violating act of harm and potential exploitation that must be treated with the utmost seriousness. In Committee, we heard evidence from Colin Mackie, who is the chair and co-founder of Spike Aware UK. Colin gave important evidence for the Committee to consider, indicating that spiking offences can often be intended as pranks, rather than intended to cause harm. His son Greg died in a suspected drink-spiking incident in a club, and Colin has since campaigned alongside Greg’s mother Mandy for a change in the law to stop similar incidents from occurring.

I also thank the hon. Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) for raising broader concerns about spiking. I agree that further measures need to be introduced, including A&E awareness, so that testing takes place, further evidence can be gathered and a conviction can be secured. Amendment 19 is a sensible and necessary clarification of the law. It makes clear what seems painfully obvious: that what matters in spiking cases is not the nature of the intent, but the recklessness and callousness of the act itself. I encourage Members across the House to support the amendment when we vote.

I am also pleased to support amendment 160, as well as related new clauses 92 and 93, which we will discuss tomorrow. Taken together, these amendments create vital safeguards around the right to protest; they would subject facial recognition technologies to the proper scrutiny of a regulatory framework for the first time, and would enshrine the right to protest. From many people in my constituency of Sutton and Cheam and from campaigning groups such as Liberty, I know that these measures are long overdue, and will provide much-needed clarity to police forces as they use new technologies to fight crime. Police forces themselves are asking for these measures, and I am looking forward to a briefing later this month from the Minister on that subject. In particular, I remind the House that Hongkongers in my community are deeply worried about the impact of unregulated use of facial recognition technology on our streets. They fear that, if compromised, such technology could provide a powerful tool to the Chinese Communist party in its transnational oppression of Hongkongers here on our streets in Britain.

We know that facial recognition technology can be a powerful tool for police forces as they try to keep us safe, but as with any new technology with great capacity to infringe on our liberties in daily life, it must be properly regulated. Liberal Democrats have a proud tradition of standing up for those civil liberties, arguing that we must never throw them away or sleepwalk into surrendering them. Amendment 160, which the Liberal Democrats have tabled, is rightly in that tradition. It would make sure that facial recognition technology cannot be used in real time for biometric identification unless certain conditions are satisfied, such as preventing or investigating serious crimes under the Serious Crime Act 2007 or public safety threats such as terrorist attacks, or searching for missing, vulnerable people. It would also make the use of such technology subject to judicial authorisation, with a judge needing to approve its use and appropriately define its scope, duration and purpose. These regulations would allow for safe use of this important tool, protecting our civil liberties while keeping us safe from crime.

[Freddie van Mierlo]

In the time remaining, I will speak to amendment 9, which has been tabled by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and is supported by many Members across the House, including myself. I welcome the Government’s provisions to limit sex offenders’ ability to change their name, and I know that many other Members also welcome them. I pay tribute to tireless campaigners such as Della Wright, who have campaigned for such provisions for many years and who I had the privilege of meeting at an event organised by Emma Jane Taylor, another tireless campaigner and a constituent of mine.

Emma Jane is a survivor, and has spoken very bravely about the lifelong impact of child sexual abuse. Like many survivors, she has channelled her pain into campaigns such as this one and has set up a charity, Project 90-10. That charity is based on research showing that 90% of child sexual abuse is carried out by persons known to the victim.

We are right in the House to focus—as we have in the past—on online abuse and abuse by strangers, but we should not forget that 90% of child sexual abuse is carried out by someone the victim knows. Work by Project 90-10 raises awareness of good safeguarding practices. Emma Jane brought to my attention the loophole that allows sex offenders to change their name and, potentially, continue to offend untraced. Amendment 9 would strengthen the name change provision in the Bill by requiring sex offenders to notify the police of their intention to change their name seven days before submitting an application to do so. Even if the Government do not adopt amendment 9, either here—I know that it will not be voted on—or in the other place, it is important for them to monitor the success of the changes that are in the Bill, and, in particular, the number of sex offenders who do, and do not, come forward to comply with the rules. I hope that the Government will monitor developments closely, and will introduce new legislation if the loophole is not closed, as they intend it to be.

Child sexual abuse is a wicked and despicable crime, and the Government are right to introduce these measures, as well as the others about which Members have spoken so eloquently. I ask the Government to follow up on the Bill’s implementation, and to monitor that extremely closely, as this matter is important to many Members of this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I do agree, and it takes me to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley. She talked about how, over many years, women have been denied access to the healthcare, advice, guidance, childcare and other infrastructure that is so critical to a woman’s quality of life. We need to end that, full stop.

That takes me to another point, which relates to new clause 106. I listened to the mover of new clause 106, the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), and to those on the Opposition Benches making cases in support of it. I am afraid I do not agree. There is nothing in the clinical evidence available to support the new clause. As somebody who ran a domestic abuse and mental health charity for five years before I was elected, I am very painfully aware of the trauma and difficulties that women who have been domestically abused will go through, and I do not want them to feel, on top of that, shame and trauma about trying to access abortion services. It is important that we think about those people.

I forget who it was on the Liberal Democrat Benches, but they made a really important point about poorer people who are unable to access transport links to access clinics. There was a really important point about our infrastructures being broken down, such as bus connectivity. That is the legacy of the past 14 years, but it is a legacy we must none the less contend with or women will be impeded in their access to abortion services as a consequence.

[Luke Taylor]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the advice from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare and the British Medical Association, who all know much more than we do about the issue, to vote firmly against new clause 106, because it makes women more vulnerable?

[Tom Hayes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I agree with those bodies and I agree with him.

Finally, the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez) made an argument about a bogeyman of American politics somehow being conjured up by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow. I represent Bournemouth East. In my constituency, we have BPAS Bournemouth, which was targeted by US Vice-President J.D. Vance when he made his point about buffer zones and abortion access. I have spoken with the people who work at that clinic since that speech was given, and they are scared. They want to support women’s reproductive rights and women’s health and safety, but staff members’ vehicles are being tampered with, and women seeking the clinic’s support are finding their access impeded. They want us to be sensitive in what we say and how we say it, because there are people across our constituencies who are deeply concerned for the welfare of women, and who look to us to send the right signal through how we conduct our politics.

I was a signatory to new clause 1 and new clause 20. I recognise that there will be a vote on new clause 1 first. I will vote in favour of it, and I call on all Members across this House to do the same.

Draft Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) (Relevant Public Authorities and Designated Senior Officers) Regulations 2025

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 General Committees

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

As always, Dr Murrison, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. We are very supportive of the approach taken in the regulations, but will the Minister briefly explain what roles or tasks the ambulance services that are retaining the powers are undertaking that those that have confirmed that they do not require them are not? Why would some be performing those tasks and others not? I think that would help to explain why this change—and this specificity—is required.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Jarvis]

I genuinely welcome the challenge offered by the right hon. Gentleman; he is right to press us on this. I assure him that there are specific operational reasons why ambulance trusts may wish to retain and use this power. One reason why we have proceeded in the way that we have is that removing public authorities that did not respond to the Home Office’s correspondence from schedule 4 could risk operational errors—for example, ambulance trusts, unaware that they were no longer listed in schedule 4, could continue to make requests for CD without the necessary authorisation. I broadly agree with his points, and I accept that there is a case for further tidying up. I assure the Committee that we will continue to do that, and ensure that the right public authorities, which are using the powers for genuine operational reasons, are listed in schedule 4. I assure him that there are genuine operational reasons—if he will forgive me, I will not go into specific detail—why an ambulance trust might want to exercise these powers. However, I accept his basic point that we will need to look carefully at this and do any further tidying up of the four.

[Luke Taylor]

Does the Minister agree that there is, if not a red flag, potentially a question about why only one ambulance service made a specific request to retain the powers, while others did not respond, or potentially do not have the correct procedures in place to deal with requests of this type and manage the data? That would be a concern for me. Are those that specifically requested to be removed not utilising a power that may well improve their operations, and their ability to serve their residents?

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I certainly hope that that kind of comment might be a joke. I wonder whether that kind of arbitrary treatment of people who are in this country would become the norm for Reform, if we came out of the European convention on human rights, as the hon. Member wants. We are a law-abiding Government. The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has a complete right to his opinions and a complete right to express them, from whichever side of the House he sits. I have personally worked with him and have a great deal of respect for him, so I am shocked that the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) thinks that an appropriate thing to say in this place.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

On a slightly more constructive point, does the Minister agree that calls for the process to allow asylum seekers to work after they have been in the country for three months would allow them to integrate more closely with their communities and to earn money to support themselves? A measure to change the arrangement from 12 months to three months would make a massive difference to asylum seekers, reduce the bill for hotels and allow people to contribute to the communities they want to be a part of.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We will come to these debates when we get on to debating the new clauses to which the hon. Gentleman is referring. We have been clear from the Government Benches about the balance between respecting work visas, which people have to apply for if they are coming to work here, and allowing asylum seekers who have not applied for work to come and work at that sort of length. The change that he suggests would risk undermining the system. We have a disagreement about timing. The answer to his question is that at the moment an asylum seeker can work if their case has not been heard after 12 months, if that is through no fault of their own. We are talking about time here, and the balance between not undermining our work visa system and having a pull factor for more people to come across illegally.

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New clause 21 would give Mohi and so many like her a chance to contribute, grow and begin their lives in this country with dignity. Britain lags behind our international friends. Countries like Canada and Sweden allow asylum seeker to work within weeks. The Refugee Council and the Lift the Ban coalition estimate that the change proposed in new clause 21 could generate over £100 million a year through tax revenue and savings. Given that this is a country that prides itself on being sensible, I have to question why, for 14 years, the Conservative Government refused to see sense on this issue. We have the opportunity to bring change, improve lives, and unlock so much potential, both human and economic.

[Luke Taylor]

My hon. Friend has given three fantastic reasons that my hon. Friend has given for lifting the ban, but such a move is also popular with the public: 80% of people polled backed the right for asylum seekers to work. Moreover, 45% of asylum seekers would be classified as critical workers. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are, in fact, four fantastic reasons why the Government should lift the ban?