Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Lyn Brown and Philip Davies

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

This is a substantial Bill that has been published only relatively recently. After today’s debate, I shall continue to look into some of the points that have been raised with me about the Bill, as clearly some need further investigation, particularly those in relation to guns, as we have heard from some of my hon. Friends.

There is clearly a problem with violent crime, knife crime and the horrific acid attacks that we have all heard about. There are many things that I would like to see us do to curb those terrible crimes. The shadow Minister knows that I totally agree with her about police numbers. That would be a good place to start. We could also stop releasing prisoners automatically halfway through their sentences, and then giving them scandalous 28-day fixed-term recalls when they reoffend. We could stop faffing around and interfering with the police on stop and search and let the police get on with their job. We could also ensure that much tougher sentences are handed down by our courts in the first place to persistent and serious offenders.

This Bill is clearly the Government’s attempt to do something. I just hope, as I do with all Bills, that there are no unintended consequences. One thing that strikes me as a possible example of that is the intention to prevent online and remote retailers being able to deliver knives to residential premises. That means that people will have to pick up knives themselves, and in an age of increased internet shopping, this will reverse that trend, forcing the general public to collect their own knives and somehow get them home. I sincerely hope that ordinary, decent, law-abiding people do not get caught up in any possession charges for, for example, forgetting to remove the knife for a few days after purchase, and finding that they have no legal, lawful authority to be in possession of the blade.

The present situation is that if the knife is being delivered, it goes from the shop or warehouse straight to someone’s home, so this is currently not an issue in these circumstances. Conversely, it also seems to me to be a very handy possible excuse for someone caught in possession of a blade: a person just needs to buy a knife every day, and if they ever get stopped they can say that they have just bought it, as they could not buy it online, and then, presumably, they have a legal defence for carrying it.

Knives are very difficult to control, because they are everywhere. How many knives are in each and every household? That will not change. Knives will always be very accessible indeed. There is not really any need for anyone under the age of 18 to buy an average knife, as they will already easily be able to get hold of one if they so wish. What we can and must do is crack down on those who think that it is a good idea to carry them around with a view to using them in an attack, or defending themselves from an attack. On this point, I have some rare praise for the knife crime sentencing guidelines, which, as I understand it, have been amended recently and will increase the starting point for possession of a blade to about six months’ custody.

Bearing that in mind, the sentences proposed in the Bill for actions that are currently perfectly legal—in relation to traders for non-compliance after this Bill becomes law—also range up to 51 weeks. Although I appreciate that that is a maximum, I am not sure that these offences are in anything like the same league. Perhaps more pertinently, we were told, just the other day when we were discussing the sentences for those who attack emergency service workers, that it was right that the maximum should be set at a year. Therefore, giving 51 weeks to a trader for posting a knife to a residential address and also to someone for attacking an emergency service worker does not necessarily sit well with me.

Let me turn now to threatening offences with knives and offensive weapons. I should say in passing that the House should realise that, in terms of sentencing on knives, 40% of knife possession offences attracted a prison sentence—therefore 60% did not—and 62% of offences of threatening with a knife resulted in custody. Again, many offences of threatening someone with a knife—38%—do not result in a custodial sentence. In 2016, somebody with 14 previous knife offences was still not sent to prison for committing a further knife offence.

[Lyn Brown]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I know that he will hear me when I tell him that, in my constituency and in other similar constituencies, some young people carry, unfortunately, because they are afraid. Simply brandishing a knife does not necessarily mean that that person wants to use it, or that they are anything other than terrified by the situation in which they find themselves. I am pleased that our courts are showing some discretion. I urge him to consider carefully where he is going with this.

[Philip Davies]

Where I am going is to make this point: somebody who had 14 previous knife offences and who was then convicted of another knife offence should be sent to prison. The hon. Lady might not agree with that—that is her prerogative—but she will find herself in a minority on that particular view.

I hope the Minister will listen carefully to my next point. Serious offences with knives and offensive weapons, not necessarily trading offensive weapons, should come within the unduly lenient sentence scheme. Perhaps that is something that could be addressed in this Bill. I also wish to support an extension of the principle that committing a subsequent similar offence means a mandatory sentence. I would like to see a sentencing escalator, which means that every time a person is recommitted for the same offence they get a higher sentence than they received the previous time.

Sexual Offences (Pardons Etc) Bill

Debate between Lyn Brown and Philip Davies

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I was not aware that the hon. Gentleman’s Bill applied only to people who had been chemically castrated and tortured. Is he now saying that that is the case? The point that he is making is a complete nonsense, and he must know that. I was responding to an intervention from the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), who asked whether there were any examples of victimless crimes committed by people who had a criminal record and had not been pardoned, and I gave him a perfectly good example. Moreover, he was nodding in agreement when I gave him that example. [Interruption.] The Scottish National party has become so dominant in Scotland that SNP Members are not used to hearing alternative opinions. I am sorry that they are so intolerant of anyone who holds a different opinion from theirs. It does not reflect well on them.

My point is this. I think that the Bill would have been easier to justify if it had included all past offences and all past convictions for crimes which are no longer crimes, and which were victimless. That would have been a perfectly logical thing to do. I think it is very difficult to pick out only certain crimes to justify the Bill, rather than including all convictions for offences of that kind.

[Lyn Brown]

I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. At the beginning of his speech, he informed us that we might not be listening to one of his lengthy contributions, and said that he would sit down shortly in order to enable the Front Benchers to present their arguments. May I ask how long he thinks he might be? I ask simply because I want to put on record, very forcefully, the support of the Opposition Front Bench for the Bill, and I am worried that I shall not be able to get to my feet in order to do so.

Tenancies (Reform) Bill

Debate between Lyn Brown and Philip Davies

Friday 28th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is an honour to be here today and to follow the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) and to discuss the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather). I congratulate her on securing such a high-profile place in the ballot, which I envy, and on her choice of Bill, her excellent speech and her approach to the subject. Her choice of Bill is important for two reasons. First, it is limited in scope. It recognises the importance of addressing the needs of millions of private renters, a matter of which I am very conscious, given the size of the private rented sector in my constituency—40% of all households in my constituency are in the private rented sector, a massive increase over recent years. That is surely, and very clearly, reflected in the support for this Bill outside this House shown in the large number of e-mails I have had from my constituents urging me to be here today, and the very strong campaigning efforts of various groups at national and local level. I pay tribute to Shelter, which has campaigned on this issue for many years and worked very closely with the hon. Lady on producing the Bill.

Generation Rent must also be congratulated on its vigorous campaigning efforts at national and local level. The Home Sweet Home campaign has been working on the ground in Brighton for many months, backed by Labour’s excellent parliamentary candidate and by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who is in her place; I agree with much of what she said earlier. It is heartening to hear of tenants and residents taking action, influencing this place, and actively seeking to improve their families’ quality of home, education and life chances. Labour has been clear that for too long their needs have been totally ignored. That is why we have set out ambitious plans for reform of the sector, and I will come to those later.

The second reason this Bill is so important is that the issue it seeks to address—retaliatory eviction—is completely unacceptable and must surely be brought to an end. That is why the hon. Member for Brent Central has our support for its passage through the House.

In recent years, the private rented sector has grown massively in size, but also beyond recognition in terms of the demographics and the character of those who rent from private landlords. Nine million people now rent privately—more than those who rent a social home. Over a third have families with children, and nearly half are over the age of 35. Many people who are renting privately are doing so not out of choice but because they cannot get on the housing ladder or secure a socially rented home. Yet private rented accommodation is not the cheapest option—far from it. It is, in effect, the most expensive type of housing. On average, people who rent privately spend 41% of their income on housing. For those in the social rented sector, the figure is 30%, and for owner occupiers, it is 19%. However, the extra expense does not buy greater stability or higher standards. Someone who rents privately is more likely to live in a non-decent home than someone in any other tenure, yet they are spending 41% of their income to do so. A third of privately rented homes fail to meet the decent homes standard.

Two issues are at the heart of these proposals—standards and stability. For too long, renters have had to put up with a choice between keeping their home and accepting the poor conditions they are living in. As we have heard, there is currently no protection from eviction for renters who report poor conditions to their landlord or local authority. Shelter has estimated that over 200,000 renters have been evicted or served notice in the past year because they complained to their local council or their landlord about a problem in their home.

This kind of unacceptable action can have a really damaging impact on renters. It can damage the lives of families and the fabric of communities as people are uprooted from their homes with as little as two months’ notice, disrupting schooling, support networks of family and friends, and even access to health care. It means that renters feel unable to complain and are forced to put up with awful conditions.

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Lady was bandying about some rather exotic figures earlier. Can she verify those figures in the context of the English housing survey, which goes into detail as to why people are evicted?

[Lyn Brown]

I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman, as always with his contributions here on a Friday. I know that he is going to make a fairly long speech—

Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill

Debate between Lyn Brown and Philip Davies

Friday 1st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

As ever, I want to make some progress, and it could be argued that I am being thwarted in so doing. I do not want to be distracted today. I want to get on with it, as I always do, and I hope that I will satisfy the hon. Gentleman. But to return to the thrust of the argument that because I agree with virtually all the speech of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish and some parts of the Bill, I must therefore support every Bill that has some parts with which I agree, that is not a view that I share. I agree with some parts of most Bills. An MEP once said to me that it is like having a cup of tea with some poison in it. Most of the tea might be fine, but no one would want to drink it. It is the little bit of poison that one must look for in legislation, not the general thrust.

[Lyn Brown]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I enjoy him very much on a Friday morning, and often listen to him with great interest. But I fear that I must press him on this point. Where is the poison in this four-clause Bill?

[Philip Davies]

I am still reeling from the hon. Lady’s opening remark. That is how rumours start in this place. It would probably be more damaging to her reputation than to mine if that rumour were to spread. I will try to come to the meat of the Bill and put to the back of my mind the temptation that she put in my mind about what happens on a Friday morning. For the record, it is the first I have known about it.

The reason I agree so much with what the hon. Gentleman said is that we need to go back to the purpose of apprenticeships. It is a shame that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is no longer in his place because if I am wrong about this, he would have put me right. Apprenticeships date back to the reign of Elizabeth I.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

Of course we agree on that, but I am not convinced that the Bill delivers that; if I were, I would agree with it. It could deliver false expectations and enable companies bidding for a contract to go through the motions of offering something that will not do the apprentice any good and benefit only those companies.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not want a false prospectus to be put before young people to help a big company win a lucrative contract. A lot depends on how the initiatives are described. He describes them as he does, but if I describe them as I do, people might come to a different conclusion about whether we should support them.

[Lyn Brown]

I have mostly been paying rapt attention to what the hon. Gentleman has said. However, I have still failed to hear which clause causes such offence. I would be so grateful for a hint.

[Philip Davies]

Perhaps I have been speaking in Swahili.

High Cost Credit Bill

Debate between Lyn Brown and Philip Davies

Friday 12th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I add my hearty congratulations and thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on his success in securing his private Member’s Bill, and for choosing this vital topic as its subject.

I regret to say that many people in my constituency find themselves in a situation where they have to resort to payday loans and other short-term, very expensive borrowing. Of course, in my part of east London using short-term credit is nothing new. In years past, my family used the pawn shop, as did many others in their communities. It helped out when the week’s money would not go quite far enough to meet the week’s outgoings. However, payday loans are in a different, far more pernicious league, and people are in a very different and more difficult place, with precarious unemployment, falling wages, soaring house bills, the bedroom tax, the benefits cap and rising food bills, along with heating and power costs. It is an ugly and toxic web that brings anxiety and stress to households. It makes it much more difficult to have a stable and resilient family life, and it undermines the entire community.

One of the factors in my constituency that is driving these difficulties is the proliferation of the zero-hours contract, which, in my view, takes us back to Victorian days and the days of my grandfather standing as lump labour on the dockside, hoping that he might earn enough money to feed his family. These contracts are extraordinarily exploitative and need to be regulated in the same vein as the providers of high-cost credit.

After three months of working for a company and being told regularly that he was doing a really good job, one constituent—I will call him Otis—was told to buy more work shirts, only to be told that very same week not to come back the following Monday. He was given no reason, no explanation and no notice. It is for such reasons that people feel helpless and surrender to the advertised images of a friendly, carefree, kindly world in which all is well and money is plentiful and freely given.

[Philip Davies]

I agree with an awful lot of what the hon. Lady has said so far about the cost of living and how difficult families are finding it at the moment. Does she agree that one of the better solutions would be to try to find ways to reduce the cost of living so that they do not feel the need to go to payday lenders in the first place—perhaps, say, through abolishing the BBC licence fee or voting against the Energy Bill, as some Government Members did, which is putting up the price of energy unnecessarily?

[Lyn Brown]

I was with the hon. Gentleman for at least the first three quarters of that intervention.

[Philip Davies]

More than most!

[Lyn Brown]

It certainly is more than most. I do not think we will get accord even if I take more interventions from the hon. Gentleman.