Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting)

Matt Vickers Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

Q42 I have a lot of history with this Bill and familiar faces to me. I am delighted to see the assault on a retail worker offence, but what more do you think we can do to protect retail workers? Do you have any thoughts on the Food and Drink Wholesale UK suggestion that we should have included a similar offence for wholesale workers?

Christopher Morris: USDAW has membership in the wholesale sector—we have recognition agreements with Booker and Makro, and Bestway—and I think there is scope for that. People have to be registered to attend wholesale, so they have a card and the wholesaler knows who they are; so initially you might think that would restrict the likelihood of threats, abuse and violence against wholesale workers, but quite commonly we find that there are still issues there. People are still abusive towards those workers, who still have to check ID and things, and enforce certain parts of the law. While those workers have those sorts of responsibilities, we think that there is a case for them to be covered by the provisions, for extending the scope of the provision to include wholesale as well as retail.

Paul Gerrard: We are very supportive of the Bill, as you as you would expect. Retail crime has risen significantly over the past few years. At the Co-op Group, we have seen a 44% rise in all forms of retail crime, a 43% rise in threats and abuse, and a 24% rise in violence. I think the offence is welcome because we have seen it working in Scotland. In Scotland, when the police attend, you get a 60% charge rate, whereas in England and Wales there is currently a 10% charge rate, so we know it works.

First, speaking as a former law enforcement officer, the statute is really important, but it has got to be implemented and it has got to be used. I very much welcome the work that Amanda Blakeman, the chief constable in North Wales, has done, because we had some improved police response. Secondly—this is probably not about the Bill, but it is about the broader issue of tackling retail crime—70% of retail crime and much of the violence is committed by a relatively small number of prolific offenders. When you look those prolific offenders, there are very often vulnerabilities in there—it could be substance abuse, it could be gangs and so on. If this clause becomes law and those individuals get in front of the courts, what the courts do needs to be the thing that stops the behaviour. Sometimes, that will be a custodial sentence.

I was talking to a colleague whose leg was broken when they were in the wrong place when a thief was leaving a store, and another colleague just last Saturday who had seven stitches on their head because they would not give someone change that they were not entitled to for an ice-cream. We need to make sure that the criminal justice system takes the right action to stop the behaviour. Yes, it could be a custodial sentence, but it could be rehabilitation orders, restorative justice, community orders—whatever stops the behaviour. That is the key for me. This piece of legislation is great because it will get them into the criminal justice system more quickly and easily, but we must make sure that we take the right action at that point.

Graham Wynn: Paul is one of my members, so to some extent I defer to him, but yes, we are totally supportive of the retail elements of the Bill and we look forward to its being enacted. You ask about expanding it to include wholesale. Obviously, I am here to promote the interests of retailers, not to support others who need protection also having some sort of protection. Wholesale, as Chris has said, is a similar situation in many ways; but the one unique thing about retailers is that they have to enforce age-restricted sales, and in some respects they are enforcing the law themselves, so they are in a slightly different position from many others. The violent offences often occur in the context of refusing a sale or asking for ID and someone not having it.

Two more things. First, if you want to extend the Bill, we would like it extended to drivers, making sure that people who deliver to people’s homes from supermarkets and other places are also protected: there is quite a strong desire for that. Secondly, it is important that the statistics are gathered for retail crime. One of the things this offence does is to ensure that we have better statistics at the official level. It is important that we do not extend it so far or in such a way that we do not still get the statistics for the retail element. That is one of the key plusses, if you like, of the offence, because statistics can be debated, to put it that way, between official ones and the ones we gather.

[Matt Vickers]

Q As part of the Criminal Justice Bill there was a proposal that anybody responsible for three incidents of assaulting a retail worker or shoplifting should be mandatorily subjected to a curfew, a tag or a ban. Do you think there is a role for curfews, tags and bans in dealing with this problem?

Paul Gerrard: As I said before, I think whatever intervention will stop the behaviour is important, and the things you just described could easily do that. A custodial sentence could do it too, but so could things like rehabilitation orders. Over the last couple of years, we have worked in specific partnerships with 19 police forces managing 700 offenders, less than 7% of whom received a rehabilitation order. Any retailer will tell you that substance abuse is a real driver of much of this behaviour. It cannot be right that only 7% are getting rehab orders, because you are not tackling the root cause. On the things you describe, absolutely, but I think there is a range. It is about what will stop the reoffending behaviour. It could be custodial, rehab, curfew or tags.

Christopher Morris: There are two ways to look at it from the retail worker’s perspective. When someone has been into the store and committed serious violence or posed a significant threat to a retail worker, that retail worker still has to go back to that same place of work and carry on performing the same task and will be constantly worried that that incident could happen again. Where there are significant incidents and issues, a ban or a curfew might well be appropriate in certain situations, to ensure that the retail worker is protected and stop mental health impacts from the initial incident.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Earlier we heard legal opinions about the fact that moving offences under £200 into triable either way could lead to significant delays. On prolific offenders coming time and again, it was suggested earlier that speedy justice is effective justice. Do you think it is important that justice is dealt out speedily in these cases, and should that play a part in our decision making?

Graham Wynn: Yes, it is important. If not dealt with speedily, the people who could give evidence in the trial or to the court might well have moved on, or they might no longer recall the offence or work for the same retailer, especially when there is a violence issue, so speedy and swift justice is worth while and makes the point. In terms of the types of sentences, when we were in the EU the Commission always used to say in its directives that the sentence must be “dissuasive”. I think that is a good term: the penalties must be dissuasive. On exactly what the range should be, it is for the Government and people to place it in the context of other offences and evidence of what works best.

[The Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)]

Q Thank you very much for giving evidence today. How do you think shop workers will feel about the new provision on assaulting a retail worker? Will they feel reassured that there will be action if they are assaulted in the workplace?

Christopher Morris: From the evidence that we have in Scotland of some of the provisions and the feedback that we have received from members, they do feel more reassured, on the basis that they know there is a specific offence there to protect them. As was mentioned before, they are quite often involved in law enforcement, and they feel that they should have the right of law enforcement there.

Such a provision also sends a slightly broader message: it sends a message to perpetrators. We were pleased that Police Scotland did a significant amount of work before the Scottish provisions came into force to educate the police force on the use of the provisions and where they could be used. As Paul was saying, we have seen a drop in violence, and it is the police using those provisions that has helped to lower violence among perpetrators. When cases reach the courts and judiciary, the provision also sends a clear message that this is a significant issue for them to deal with. So I think it helps retail workers, but it helps right along the chain of making sure that the issues are tackled and dealt with.

Paul Gerrard: I say with the greatest respect to this place: do not underestimate how, over the last 10 or 12 years, retail workers have felt completely abandoned by law enforcement. This account is a couple of years old—I think the police have made great strides in the last 15 months—but when you ring to report an armed robbery with three masked men with machetes, and you are told to ring the non-emergency line, that tells you as a shop worker how to feel.

I was with a colleague this morning, one of our Nisa partners. Ben, from Freshfields in Croydon, is the owner of three small shops. He told me that he and his staff know about this provision and are genuinely pleased that someone is looking out for them. Do not underestimate the impact it will have. We have 55,000 colleagues in the Co-op. My colleagues absolutely know about this and welcome it, because they feel, alongside the improved police response that they are beginning to see, that someone other than the Co-op and their families care about what happens to them at work.

Graham Wynn: It sends a message to potential offenders and, indeed, to retail workers. They can see it as part of a package that includes these proposals, the Government’s action on neighbourhood policing, with specific mention of taking action on retail crime; and the retail crime action plan from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, with its desire to have better police attendance for violent crimes or where the person is detained and there is clear evidence. Last, it is part of a package leading to better and improved statistics, so that everyone can feel more confident that the police will attend and that something will happen to those who commit these offences.

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[The Chair]

I apologise in advance for the fact that we have some interesting lighting effects. We will work through it, one way or the other.

We are now going to hear oral evidence from the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. We have until 3.10 pm for this panel. Could the witnesses please identify themselves for the record?

Baroness Newlove: I am Baroness Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales.

Suky Bhaker: I am Suky Bhaker, chief executive of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Having read the Bill, is there anything that concerns you, anything you think we should be doing a bit more of, or any things that you would like to see in the Bill that are not in the Bill?

Baroness Newlove: I only have 15 minutes, so I will not drag on. I welcome what is in the Bill, there are some issues on mandatory reporting, police vetting and the antisocial behaviour case review.

Suky Bhaker: The Suzy Lamplugh Trust specialises in stalking and harassment, so speaking to the specific introduction of new clauses on stalking, we welcome the introduction of statutory guidance on additional protection for victims, on the right to know. and the additional measures around stalking protection orders, but some details need to be caveated within those clauses.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Are stronger provisions needed to ensure that police and victims are informed when a sex offender changes their name?

Baroness Newlove: Yes. I have looked at what is in the Bill, and it is something I have worked on for quite a while with the Safeguarding Alliance. Sarah Champion MP was involved when we were working on the Victims and Prisoners Act. I still have a problem, because the clause does say that the offender who comes out must inform the police. For me, it is always been about trust, and I just think it is wrong that we rely on the offender to inform the police and probation. That is what has gone wrong in the first place. To agree that a prisoner can change their name in prison is utterly unbelievable; and to rely on and trust the offender will notify the agencies—it still worries me that it is not the other way around.

[Matt Vickers]

Q You said you had concerns, in particular about antisocial behaviour. Will you give us a bit more on that?

Baroness Newlove: Antisocial behaviour, as everybody knows, is an issue I really champion. I have an issue with the ASB case review. I welcome what is in there, but it is the small print. I know you are going to create a police body review for the ASB case review, but there needs to be more support as people go through the process. Communication is a huge issue for victims. While I say I welcome this body doing it, I still think they need what we call a single point of contact, a SPOC—which sounds like something from “Star Trek”, so I call it an advocate—or a victims’ advocate to support them right through. While they are waiting for all these procedures to go through, they still have the impact of the antisocial behaviour. An advocate would ensure that they get one-to-one contact, which helps them to understand the process. Also, I welcome having that response, and that if they do not like the response or the way the process has gone, they can appeal it, but in all that, they need support right the way through.

[The Chair]

Suzy Bhaker, do you want to comment?

Suky Bhaker: I will defer to Baroness Newlove on issues relating to anything that is not stalking.

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[Matt Vickers]

Q Having read the Bill, is there anything that concerns you or that you think we could improve upon, and are there any measures in this area that you would like to see added to the Bill?

Sharon Maciver: The measures outlined in the Bill are a significant step forward in providing a legal framework that specifically tackles the criminal exploitation of children. We hear first-hand through the services that we deliver across Scotland, England and Wales the devastating impacts that exploitation has on children, on their families and on communities.

We published a report in 2024 that analysed safeguarding incidents that had occurred for 140 children. Within those incidents we found that 50 children had been stabbed as a result of criminal exploitation, and a further 48 children had been harmed with weapons, including acid, dog chains and metal poles. We heard that a number of those children who had been physically harmed had not attended emergency services when they needed it.

For me, there was an issue there when we think about the current system and the trust that children have in accessing the system, which should be there to safeguard and protect them. As a starting point, we welcome the introduction of the new offence and the preventative orders in sanctioning those who choose to exploit children.

In terms of the risks that we see, we welcome the new offence but we have some concerns around the wording in relation to how the offence would be applied to those children who are seen to be under the age of 18. The wording refers to an offence being committed if it is reasonably believed that the child was under 18.

Last year, we had a review into the criminal exploitation of children chaired by Professor Alexis Jay. Within that, we heard significant evidence and concerns around the adultification of children, recognising that these children too often do not acknowledge their own exploitation, and as such they receive a justice response as opposed to a welfare-first response. That is a consideration we need to make in terms of language, first and foremost.

Secondly, we welcome the prevention orders in the Bill, but we need to think about the potential impacts on children and how we feed back information to safeguard and protect them. If we think about a prevention order or an offence being placed on an individual who chooses to exploit children, we need to think about whether that child is named as part of the offence, and the potential repercussions that that could cause for them. However, if we choose not to name a child, how do we ensure that sufficient information is shared among the agencies that safeguard them, making them aware of the measures that might be imposed as part of this order? That, for us, is of critical importance.

In terms of the protection of children, I could go on to talk about measures we would like to see in the Bill, but I appreciate that you may want to come in. Or would you like me to continue?

[Matt Vickers]

We would welcome anything you write to us.

[The Chair]

I should explain that the first question is often an opportunity for witnesses to make a brief opening statement. Mr Sexton, if you wish, you are most welcome to do so.

Dan Sexton: IWF is very supportive of the measures introduced to tackle AI-generated child sexual abuse material. I want to outline why this is important, and the evidence that we have for seeing this harm manifesting. The legislation is already robust in the UK for the content. Whether it is real, generated, synthetic or hybrid, child sexual abuse material is illegal regardless of how it is created. However, the tools that have been released recently to enable you to create content are not, and that has created a loophole that we have seen exploited. At the point when you use that technology to create an image, the image is illegal and you have committed a crime, but the tooling is not. That means we have seen offenders train and create models, manuals and guides. The model is just a file that has been trained on child sexual abuse material, so the training process would have been committing crimes because you are accessing it using child sexual abuse at that point.

The file itself that comes out at the other end is not illegal, and neither is the guide. So those two things can be shared freely on the internet, effectively giving people a do-it-yourself child sexual abuse generation tool, which they can download to create their own content. The hope is that these clauses will first give us some ability to ban, remove and take down this content, but also, crucially, remove some of the ambiguity that there is online about what is legal and what is not. That ambiguity itself causes people to sometimes commit acts that they perhaps would not have done had they known it was illegal, so we are very supportive of those measures.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Are there any gaps that you can see in the legislation, or anything that needs tightening up to hit that need and that objective?

Dan Sexton: There are many, many things that we could do to improve online safety, and many things that could be done to improve the safer use of AI tools. However, in the context of this Bill and the criminalisation of things, we think that it has done a good job of blocking these particular loopholes. I think the other stuff is better suited to things like a future iteration of the Online Safety Act and AI safety Bills. So we are very much content with these clauses.

Sharon Maciver: In terms of inclusion and what we would want to see in the Bill, we would like to see greater protections for children. We feel that in order to have an end-to-end response to tackling the criminal exploitation, we need to have not only measures that sanction exploiters, but measures that protect children, recognising that children who are criminally exploited will be victims of abuse while also being in conflict with the law. In terms of building trust in the system, as I reference in terms of children’s trust, there is also a requirement for agencies working in this space to feel confident that the system can respond to the issue. Often we see children, as I have described, being significantly harmed. Also as a result of exploitation they cause significant harm to others, and that is a really complex dilemma for agencies to try to manage. So we feel that having increased protection orders that specifically address the duality of a child being a victim as well as in conflict with the law would be helpful, as well as ensuring that children have access to a statutory defence.

We also believe that a definition of criminal exploitation would be helpful in understanding the scale and extent of the problem and how many victims there are across the UK. Of course, the new offence will ensure that data is captured on the number of perpetrators. Equally, we would want to make sure that we understand how many victims there are, and ensure that the response we have is that agencies feel confident in what that system does for children.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q Mr Sexton, the Bill introduces a number of new offences banning child sexual abuse imagery. One of the new offences is a specific offence targeting the administrators and moderators of CSA sites and groups. How prevalent are those groups,? Will the new criminal offence actually deter offenders from even establishing those sites?

Dan Sexton: We see sites coming up frequently. At any given time, we have around 200 websites dedicated to sharing and hosting child sexual abuse material on our list, and that rotates. We often see those sites moving. It is the same administrators and the same site, and every time they get taken down in one place, they move to another, which suggests that the administrators and the people behind them are not getting caught or being prosecuted. I am unsure of the effect the Bill will have, considering that those administrators are already clearly committing crimes based in this country, and in many countries, and are not getting caught.

I would like to see whether the new clauses extend beyond just the site administrator to everyone else in the chain. A website does not just appear out of nowhere. It is not just the administrator; a lot of parts are required for a site to appear. If there are greater obligations on everyone else in that chain, those administrators may find it much harder to create and run their sites in the first place. A lot of our work is about introducing friction and making it harder to create and share child sexual abuse material. One part of that is arresting people, but there is a lot of other stuff that could be done to make it harder for the crime to happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from the Local Government Association and the leader of the Conservative group on the London Assembly. We have until not later than 4.10 pm for this panel. Could the witnesses please identify themselves for the record—ladies first?

Councillor Conway: I am Councillor Sara Conway, here on behalf of the LGA.

Councillor Garratt: I am Neil Garratt, leader of the Conservative group on the London Assembly.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Having read the Bill, is there anything that particularly concerns you? Is there anything you think we could improve on? Are there any measures that you would like to see in the Bill that are not there as it stands?

Councillor Garratt: At the London Assembly, a big part of our work is scrutinising the Met police, including people’s concerns about policing and particularly around protests—we have had quite a lot of disruptive protests recently in London. There are some concerns about finding the balance between the way that the police and the courts interpret the powers that the police have to police protests, and how the general public, as expressed to me, interpret those powers. That goes in two directions; it is not all one-way traffic.

My perception is that there is a gap in the Bill, or perhaps an opportunity, to do something about disruptive protests. If you look at section 12 of the Public Order Act, it sets out the gap between substantial and minor disruption to the community. On the face of it, that seems a perfectly reasonable and sensible way to distinguish between significant disruption, which the police ought to act on to remove protesters, and minor disruption, which is just a normal part of life. We have challenged the commissioner on his officers not acting to remove, for example, people who park themselves in the road, glue themselves to things or lock on to things. His challenge to us is that his officers are enforcing the law as it exists and as it is being interpreted by the courts.

In particular, the Ziegler judgment essentially sets a high bar for what constitutes substantial disruption. For example, when people park and block a road, it is not considered substantial disruption. I would like to see some thought in the Bill as to how the police can be empowered to make sure that people can still protest in the way they would like, because it is an important democratic freedom, while other people are not prevented from just going about their life or their day.

In the other direction, I also see a challenge—again, it is not addressed in the Bill, but it could be—around what I think of as an emerging de facto blasphemy law, which is quite concerning. People who wish to protest are almost always annoying somebody in some way with the issue that they want to protest about. Rarely do people protest in favour of or against things when everyone agrees with them.

I have a concern about when the nature of that protest touches on religious or cherished beliefs, and people often react very negatively to that. You then see the police, and seemingly the courts, viewing the person who is reacting angrily to the protest as, in some ways, the victim, and the protester as, in some ways, the protagonist or cause of the problem. I think, having removed the blasphemy laws in 2008, the will of Parliament seems to be that you are allowed to offend people’s religious sensibilities.

We saw the example in Manchester with the burning of the Koran, and there was an example at the Turkish embassy in London. There are numerous examples along those lines, where section 4A of the Public Order Act seems to be used to determine that if you are causing harassment, alarm or distress, that is enough to block somebody from being able to carry out what otherwise would seem to be quite a peaceful protest. There is scope for the Bill to address both of those problems.

Councillor Conway: I was not going to comment, but I will on the bit about protest. We really welcome the Home Secretary’s amendment to the Bill that was announced last night about intimidation at places of religious worship. As a Barnet local councillor, that has obviously been a key area of focus for our communities, in particular during the past year and a half. I think that balance between intimidation and the right to protest has been very fairly dealt with, and it is a very welcome introduction to the Bill.

I am pleased that we are here today to represent local councils. Local councils, councillors and our officers are at the frontline of delivering community safety, and of keeping everybody safe and protected in our boroughs, district councils and all the areas across the country. Every point on my list that I want to make focuses on resources. There is some really good stuff in the Bill, but it needs careful working through so that there is no obligation or statutory duty without the resourcing to properly deliver it on the ground.

On training, I can give specific examples as we go along. With regard to collaboration, that is something that people in local government, as leaders of place, are very good at. However, we need the resourcing to do it. I know that at the moment, we in local government talk about resources in every space, but they are essential. That is particularly the case in areas such as social services, for example, with some of the duties there.

Broadly, we welcome the Bill overall. It has some really important measures in terms of cuckooing and child protection. As someone who leads on community safety on the ground, I think that those things are vital. There are measures in the Bill that will save us from having to try to find different ways around things so that we can directly go to the heart of the problem.

It is key that you keep talking to local government—particularly about fly-tipping. You cannot see the word “fly-tipping” as a local councillor and not have something to say. It would be great for the LGA to have further in-depth discussions with the Government as to how that is delivered locally and effectively. We are absolutely vital for doing that.

[The Chair]

Before we proceed, for my benefit and that of the Hansard reporters, could you please speak up a little? There is a certain amount of background noise coming from outside, which makes it quite difficult to hear.

[Matt Vickers]

Q You beat me to it—I was about to talk about fly-tipping as there have been huge costs to local authorities across the country. What do you think of the Bill’s proposals? How could we go further and improve on it? At one point, there was a suggestion that you might give people penalty points on their driving licence if they use vehicles to dump things. What is your view on all of that? What do you think of the measures and how can we make the Bill stronger?

Councillor Conway: We at the LGA think that we really need to sit down and go through all of that thoroughly. It would be very welcome to have that conversation. We also want to have in place the long-term funding and the ability to work together, because some of this sits with the Environment Agency as well. We need to do that properly together and understand more about it. Solutions to fly-tipping need to be delivered locally, and local government is key to that, so we would welcome a detailed conversation on that issue.

Councillor Garratt: You asked me specifically about fly-tipping. I think you would probably get almost universal agreement that fly-tipping is too much of a problem and more needs to be done about it. On my reading of the Bill, all that seems to be proposed is that, essentially, the Secretary of State would write to councils and remind them of their powers. If I went back to my local council officers and asked them what they thought about that, they would probably think it is quite patronising. They would probably say that a better remedy would be more resources or possibly more powers, but they probably know what powers they have. That is my experience of senior council officers.

[Matt Vickers]

Q On powers specifically, is there anything you need that you do not have that we might be able to provide?

Councillor Garratt: Resourcing is an issue, and I suppose I am bound to say that prioritisation can be an issue. We have seen councils change control and a new administration decides that it is more of a priority and makes it more of a focus.

The one area where there is a gap between the law and public perception would be when you have private land that is adjacent to a highway. If it is on the highway, it is the council’s responsibility, and the council can use its resources and deal with it. However, if it is adjacent to the highway, councils, particularly with their resource constraints, are not enthusiastic about spending their resources on someone else’s property. These places might look as though they are part of the highway, but actually they are not. You get these little bits of land, often on corners and things, that are technically private property, and that makes them the property owner’s responsibility. That is an area where there is a question mark at the moment.

Councillor Conway: Just to note, councils do not have the powers to take enforcement action against large-scale fly-tipping, which has been a focus recently, or where criminal activity is involved. Any statutory guidance would need to be clear on that point. We do a lot locally to target fly-tipping. We as a local council actually announced today some very successful work that we have been doing, but there are gaps that need to be resolved together.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Turning to the measures on the antisocial use of vehicles and being able to seize them without notice, the council and the police in my part of the world face a huge problem. What is your experience of that? Do you think we need to be doing more than we are doing in the Bill? I realise that this is not the only power that police and local government have to act on it, but what more can we do in that space?

Councillor Garratt: It is a problem. The measure would allow the seizing of a vehicle, effectively on one action rather than two actions. As the law stands, the problem is that the police officer would have to witness it happening, speak to the person to give them a warning and then wait for it to happen again. If they just drive away, they have obviously got away with it, so the measure in the Bill to potentially allow the police officer to seize it at that first instance is useful.

You sometimes see cases of what we are talking about around London or streamed live on social media: people meeting up and doughnutting around car parks and driving up and down, with huge crowds of people very close. It is overwhelmingly a public safety issue, so being able to simply seize those vehicles at that point would be a very useful power.

[Matt Vickers]

Q There are limitations on the ability of the police to seize them from places including private dwellings. Do you have a view on that?

Councillor Garratt: In terms of vehicles, I think that is positive. Another thing about private dwellings or properties, which is not related to vehicles, is the provisions on GPS-tracked devices. You can stick a GPS tag on all kinds of things, including mobile phones and bicycles. That is an extremely useful power that we would welcome, but it also requires the police to decide that it is a priority to track those things. Dr Newport, who I believe is coming later, chained his bike outside Scotland Yard, which definitely has the power to look at its own CCTV and chose not to. That challenge will remain.

I produced a report a couple of months ago showing that every six minutes a mobile phone is stolen in London. That is increasing year on year. We did some polling and the majority of Londoners are now wary in the way they use their phone. You see people turning away or going into doorways, essentially because the criminals who are stealing these phones are operating in a fairly risk-free environment. Anything that introduces some countermeasures to that is very welcome, and making it easier for the police to track and apprehend those people is also very welcome.

Councillor Conway: We welcome the provision on cars to help to create a peaceful and respectful environment. I am very aware of the issues that can happen locally with that. Obviously, increased collaboration between councils and police may require further resourcing, but I note, again, that we are already delivering that collaboration on the ground. We do that quite a lot, but it would be very welcome to have an increased focus and more resourcing.

I wanted to pick up on phones. I was fortunate to represent the LGA at the mobile phone summit that the Home Secretary organised—the Minister was there—and that summit was very welcome. I note, again, that through a proactive relationship with our local police force, really effective action is happening. Local councils have a real role to play in how we work as leaders of place, and how we tackle the crimes that affect people’s everyday lives.

As a Barnet councillor I should add that we are fortunate in Barnet to have funding from the Mayor for London for a specific violence-reduction-unit project over the next two years. That is designed exactly to tackle the mobile phone issues, with a whole range of after-school activities, and we enable people to mark their property and so on. There are solutions to things, and we really welcome the framework that the Bill will provide, but local government needs resourcing to deliver effectively on some of the obligations that are coming in.

Councillor Garratt: Can I make an additional point closely connected to that? New powers are proposed in clauses 78, 80 and 81 on SIM farms and electronic devices used for vehicle offences. They are good measures and we welcome them. I have a useful suggestion. In 2023, an additional power relating to lock-on-type offences was added to stop and search, to allow police to stop and search someone on the basis that they were looking for equipment that would be used for a lock-on-type protest. With the new offences relating to SIM farms and electronic USB devices that plug into a car and allow people to steal it, it would potentially be useful to add an additional stop-and-search power so that the police would be able to stop and search people they believe are equipped for those crimes. Otherwise, there is potentially a gap, whereby a new crime has been created but it is difficult for the police to enforce it.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Q It is worth reflecting on the fact that there has been a lot of public order and protest legislation in the last few years. The previous Government agreed that they were going to have post-legislative scrutiny of the 2023 Act, which will happen from this year, as well as of some of the other public order legislation.

I want to ask the Local Government Association specifically about antisocial behaviour, the respect orders in the Bill, and the strengthening of some of the powers in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. What are your reflections on how increasing the respect orders and those other powers will help local authorities to deal with antisocial behaviour?

Councillor Conway: Anything that can help local authorities to deal with antisocial behaviour is very welcome. It is welcome that breaching a respect order will become a criminal offence. It is important that that will set off a different process. Again, though, there are pressures on local authorities.

I note two caveats. One is the new ASB data reporting requirements, which may cause pressures in certain areas. There needs to be dialogue with Government about how to do that really effectively. Also, on the new duty for police and crime commissioners, which will bolster the role of the Victims’ Commissioner in ASB case reviews, we want to caution that that should work okay with the Victims and Prisoners Act. It should not set up two different systems and there should be consistency on the ground.

On ASB itself, I will again speak from a local perspective for a minute or two. We have been fortunate to be London’s first pilot of the Clear, Hold, Build strategy. We are nearly two years into that, and overall crime is down 20%, year on year, across the board. It has also taken a collaborative approach into our policing and partnership. In my particular ward, which had a lot of issues, ASB is down by 65%, which is extraordinary. Burglary is down by 67% and violence against the person is down by 59%. Those results do not just happen. With all this, an effective and proactive local government, partnership with the police, and everyone working together are really vital.

We really welcome the proposals, but it is about how we implement them in practice on the ground. Local government obviously has a very strong story to tell, and dialogue through the Bill, and once it is introduced, will be really important to demonstrate how it is working on the ground. Thank you for the powers to, hopefully, be able to do more.

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[The Chair]

That is excellent—we can hear you. Thank you very much.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Having read the Bill, does anything concern you? Could anything be improved? Are there any measures that you would like to see in it that do not currently feature in it?

Emily Spurrell: I suppose the first thing to say is that there is a lot in it that we welcome. There is a lot in it that, as PCCs, we have been calling for for a long time—for example, the extra protection for retail workers and the recognition that they should not have to face assaults while doing their job; the measures to strengthen the ownership for businesses and sellers to crack down on the sale of knives online; the greater powers in relation to the ASB case review to achieve more consistency across the country; and the police appeals measure, because currently we do not have the ability to appeal the outcome of the police tribunal. There is lots in the Bill that we welcome, and I think it will go a long way to support some of the issues that we face locally.

The one thing I would highlight, which will come as no surprise and I imagine you have heard it from many others today, is resource and our capacity to deliver on some of these issues. We welcome all the actions—there is a lot to welcome—but there is some anxiety, particularly among police forces, about being able to meet the demand and about not raising the expectation of the public that, because these powers now exist, suddenly there will be a huge swathe of activity in the area. It is all about resourcing and being able to deliver on the new activity.

Matthew Barber: A lot of the measures in the Bill were in the previous Criminal Justice Bill. A lot of that work is welcome, and there is some consistency. For me, a lot of the provisions fall into two categories. Some are closing loopholes. As far as the public are concerned, certainly, there are some really welcome moves on allowing the police the ability to enter premises without a search warrant where electronic devices with location detection are available. That has been a huge frustration for the public—they expect the police to be able to do that and do not understand that the current law prevents it. There is some tidying up of those elements.

There are some other very welcome areas, such as drug testing on arrest—the Thames Valley force has been rolling out one of the pilots—but that falls into the second category of provisions: ones that will need significant resources. In this case, that means resources not just for police forces to provide the kits and the testing, but for our local authority and health partners to provide the treatment that will come as a result of drug testing on arrest. Several measures in the Bill will require potentially significant resources.

One of those measures is the monitoring of sexual offenders—those on the sex offenders register. Again, some welcome moves are expected by police forces, but that will put additional resource burdens on policing. I think it is worth noting for the record that police forces do an awful lot of work in protecting the public from predatory sex offenders, which often goes on behind the scenes—it is not seen by the public, but it is vital and needs to be properly resourced.

If Parliament were inclined to go further in that area, it could allow the police to interrogate the digital devices of those on the sex offenders register. At the moment, that only happens if there is a sexual harm prevention order in place specific to that offence. Given the proliferation of online grooming and the proliferation of people on the sex offenders register, that additional power could be helpful in detecting other offences.

Roger Hirst: In common with my colleagues, I very much welcome the provisions in the Bill. I echo Matthew’s comments about the additional costs related to drug testing on arrest. I will also bring it to the Committee’s attention that there have been real problems with the industry providing the equipment for that. It is under-resourced at the moment. There is some investment that needs to be made, probably via us, in helping the industry develop. At the moment, we are not doing anything like as much as we would like to do, simply because of the constraint of materials. It is probably single-digit millions, but it is a substantial investment that needs to be made.

I particularly welcome the provision to make spiking a separate offence. That is certainly something that we in Essex are seeing in our night-time economies; sadly, it is a growing area and one where we need to be able to provide better protection. Being able to point to it as an individual item and make some noise about it will be really powerful to prevent it from happening. I think that plays into the overall Government ambition to reduce violence against women and girls.

There is an opportunity in the Bill to pick up on some other items that we have been looking for for quite a long time. We PCCs and PFCCs are very much victims’ mouthpiece in our areas, and we are in contact with many victims’ groups. I consistently get feedback that victims would very much like provision for convicted offenders to be required to attend their sentencing hearing. There is a feeling of a lack of justice when that does not happen, and a feeling that they as victims are not seeing justice exercised in the way they would wish to.

I also get feedback that victims would very much like to see mandatory life sentences for the worst categories of homicide. There are some homicides that are egregious enough to mean that it is fairly obvious that the person is unlikely ever to be able to be released without at least creating the risk of harm to the public.

Following up on what Matthew said about dealing with sexual offenders, there is also the opportunity to ban sex offenders from changing their name. There is nervousness among the public that sexual offenders are not always known, are hard to track and can evade the monitoring that is supposed to be there for offender management, so that would be extremely welcome.

The last thing would be bringing in an offence of aggressive begging. We have that in our city centres in Essex and it can be very disruptive. There is certainly a lot of feedback from traders and town centre operators about aggressive begging. Whether it is Southend, Colchester or Chelmsford, we certainly see the centre of town being disrupted.

[Matt Vickers]

Q On resource, there is a small number of people who commit a huge volume of crime —often low-level stuff. Could we do anything more to tackle the problem of those hyper-prolific offenders?

Emily Spurrell: A big part of it for me is understanding what is driving their offending. We see the greatest success when you invest in diversion and intervention. We know there are prolific offenders, particularly in relation to retail crime, where they are struggling with drug addiction or alcohol addiction, there might be mental health issues going on, and there might be poverty, in some cases. I think we need to get much better and invest much more heavily—lots of us as PCCs do already, but we need to do much more in this space, and we could if we had the resource—in diverting people away and putting them on to the right intervention to stop the things that are driving their offending in the first place.

Matthew Barber: I broadly agree. There is a huge amount, particularly around drug treatment and diversion, that needs to be done for some of those prolific offenders. We also need to recognise that there are those who operate in the organised crime space who are not necessarily the victims of drug abuse themselves, but the spreaders of that drug abuse, and we need to look at the sentencing and other preventive orders that can be put in place. At a lower level we have the criminal behaviour orders, which I am pleased to see included in the retail element of the Bill, but for a number of other prolific offenders, who will seek to commit a wide variety of crimes, we need to look at sentencing and at some of the provisions in the Bill that I do think will help to bring those individuals to justice where at the moment they may well evade justice. For example, procuring, handling and trading in some of the electronic equipment used in the pursuit of theft of vehicles is not an offence at the moment. That change in legislation will help to tackle some of the organised crime element.

Roger Hirst: I think similarly. One of the provisions that is very much to be welcomed is the doing away with the £200 minimum on shoplifting. So often these are prolific offenders, but each offence is treated by the court system as a single offence—effectively a de minimis offence—when, in actual fact, if you are doing that number of relatively small shoplifts in one day, you can be making quite a lot of money out of it. That improvement is definitely positive.

That does mean that we have to appeal to you—perhaps not in relation to the Bill, but overall—to ensure that the criminal justice system is properly funded. There is undoubtedly an additional burden on the criminal justice system that will come out of the Bill. It is all well and good for us to ask for more resources for policing, and for PFCCs and PCCs, but it is really important that the criminal justice system gets to grips with its backlog. In Essex, we are currently having cases listed for 2028. That is an extremely painful situation, and it can be the case for very serious crimes. That needs to be worked through, please.

[Matt Vickers]

Q I realise that different areas are affected very differently by the antisocial use of off-road bikes and e-bikes. My area is absolutely battered by the issue. The Bill makes changes to the Police Reform Act 2002, introducing the ability to seize a bike without notice, and there are obviously other powers, but what more could be done in that space, specifically on the ability to go into a private dwelling to seize one? When these bikes have been seized by the police, they are sometimes sold online to the people who were making use of them in the first place. Is anything else we could do to tackle that problem?

Matthew Barber: It is certainly an issue in Thames Valley. The proposed change in legislation is welcome, both for cars, where we see antisocial behaviour with four-wheel vehicles, and for bikes. The change to remove the warning is particularly useful for bikes, because we are talking about vehicles that are not always registered, so identifying the owner of the vehicle to follow up on a warning is incredibly difficult. It is much easier with a four-wheel vehicle, but even in those circumstances the public generally expect the police to be taking action, and a warning that lasts for only a 12-month period is inadequate. I would be very supportive of the disposal of those vehicles—generally by crushing—following seizure. For people to have their vehicles removed and crushed if they are using them in an antisocial fashion seems to be an effective deterrent.

Emily Spurrell: I echo what Matthew said. One of the challenges that we have, depending on the vehicle, is when police officers are in pursuit of or trying to stop a vehicle. Particularly with off-road scramble bikes, which have proper engines, that can be a real challenge, in terms of what powers the police have and how comfortable they are to try to follow without creating further risk to the public or the individuals on the bike. That is a constant challenge. I am not sure what the obvious answer is, but it is something that police forces have to contend with.

The other bit, on e-bikes in particular—again, I do not know what the answer is—is whether more engagement could happen with the companies. In Merseyside, organised criminal gangs use them because they are quieter than scramble bikes and so easier to navigate around. They are able to adapt the speedometer, or the mechanism, which means they are going faster than they are designed to go. That is obviously incredibly dangerous for them as well as for the public around them. Anything that can be done to make that more difficult, and keep them to what they were designed for, would help.

Roger Hirst: I would differentiate between e-scooters and e-bikes. From the evidence that we have in Essex, e-bikes seem to be like any other powered two-wheeler. I would simply recommend that they are treated like any other powered two-wheeler: they should be registered with registration numbers; there should be an obligation to wear a crash helmet; and they could be used on the roads in the same way as any other powered two-wheeler.

There is a big difference, though—certainly for us—with e-scooters. Two young people on one e-scooter were very sadly killed last month in Basildon—a nine-year-old and a 15-year-old. It very sadly ended their lives and ruined their family’s lives and the lives of the people who hit them. It is very hard for us to see in Essex how e-scooters are compatible with our road system. I have to say that, having been to Bristol, I was very impressed with how they work in the old docklands there, but we do not have anywhere like that in Essex.

That was not the first fatality that we have had. E-scooters are very risky vehicles. It is very hard to see how they will ever be able to be used on either the road system or the footpath system. From my perspective, either they should be restricted to very small areas where they can be used safely, or we do not need them, because, in terms of the deaths per kilometre travelled, they are very dangerous indeed.

[Matt Vickers]

Q The Bill makes a change to the Police Reform Act 2002, but my understanding is that there are no nationally compiled figures showing which powers are being used to seize bikes, and that the Road Traffic Act 1988 is actually allowing many people to seize bikes without the notice set out here, and probably more quickly, easily and efficiently. Does your force use the Police Reform Act, the Road Traffic Act or an array of all the above?

[The Chair]

This will be the final answer on this subject.

Roger Hirst: We use both. We use what we can. We have crushed hundreds of e-scooters so far.

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[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from Dr Lawrence Newport. We have until 5.05 pm for this witness. Dr Newport, could you identify yourself briefly for the record, please?

Dr Newport: I am Dr Lawrence Newport and I run the Crush Crime campaign.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Having read the Bill, is there anything that concerns you or anything you think we could improve, or are there any measures that you would like to see in it Bill that do not currently feature in it?

Dr Newport: There are some points that might be helpful to bring up in broad terms. One of the chief issues that I have heard from the police since starting the campaign a few months ago is that there are a bunch of barriers to things they are trying to do. Some of them have said it that is becoming more and more difficult just to do the basics of their job, so the more things can be streamlined and the clearer we can make what is going on to the public, the better.

Many of us have CCTV, Ring cameras and so forth on our houses. I think there should be an opt-in national database to which homeowners can upload their footage and be paid a nominal fee of some amount annually. At the moment, officers go door to door to collect footage when something happens. At Christmas, everyone on my road had their tyres slashed, and the police had to go round to try to get footage from everyone’s Ring cameras individually. That obviously takes a lot of time, and on Christmas day there are not many police around, so things become very complex and take a long time. If there were a national database, I am sure many homeowners, like me, would simply upload the footage. It would be there, and the police could download it straightaway.

Connected to that, homeowners sometimes require planning permission to mount CCTV on their home in case it oversees a public area. If there were exemptions to that, neighbourhood policing would become a lot easier and a lot of burglaries and petty crimes would be easier to solve. If people are attacked in an alleyway, it would be possible to easily get hold of footage that otherwise might be very difficult. That is just on the CCTV side.

I have also heard a lot of complaints from officers about their computer systems. They say that the old systems are very difficult to use, take a lot of time and crash frequently. On some of the newer systems, I have heard a lot of complaints from officers who say that they find the Met system extremely difficult and that it breaks all the time. There is some evidence to suggest that arrests dropped significantly when the new system at the Met was introduced, but it has been very difficult to get any information on that. Freedom of information requests are not successful, and in fact Chris Philp asked in Parliament about it and did not get an answer. A clause to ensure much more transparency about procurement and the effects of different systems would go a long way to helping the public know what is actually going on inside. It would also help the police explain to the public why there are so many problems—for instance, why so many crimes are simply falling through the net.

[Matt Vickers]

Q You did a very good job of illustrating the need for the ability to enter a house without a warrant. That proposal has been drafted in this Bill more narrowly than in the previous Bill. Do you think it will still meet that need?

Dr Newport: I certainly support it. The previous wording was encouraging, and it is good to see this happening now, although I would prefer it to go much further. There is an epidemic of phone theft and snatch thefts in general. We now have better and better technology, and of course it will only get better, faster and cheaper. Given that, we should be able to actually use that information. The longer we wait for this and the more difficult we make it, the more detailed these pipelines will become.

My sister-in-law’s phone was stolen—it was actually two weeks after I launched the campaign, and only a week after the bike theft video that I did outside the Met—and within a week it was in China. These are very established networks. There is obviously a massive industry that has been allowed to take hold, so we need to give the police the best powers while keeping this in line with people’s expectations for their own home life and so on. I supported the previous wording, and I would like the Government to go as far as they can on this.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Do you have any views on the approach to hyper-prolific offenders and how to ensure they are properly sanctioned?

Dr Newport: I think there should be provision in the Bill to ensure that, particularly for career criminals—people with 15 previous offences to their name—the more offences they commit, the longer they spend in prison for their current offence. That is technically in the current guidelines, but there are a lot of exemptions in the way they are drafted by the Sentencing Council. It should be put into statute that that is a direct, clear statement that the Sentencing Council should follow, and we should make sure it is super clear to judges.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Q More generally on antisocial behaviour and some of the provisions in the Bill, do you support what respect orders could help to deliver in tackling antisocial behaviour in our communities?

Dr Newport: I support a ream of measures before people get to 15 or more offences—before they get to the point where they are career criminals or hyper-prolific offenders. Early intervention is of course the absolute key, if you can get people before they enter that point. I support all measures to try to do this as fast as possible. That means tagging, and other such measures—[Interruption.] I support them, but the building does not.

We have very good evidence that the earlier we intervene—it is not just early intervention, but the speed of that intervention. We have to make sure in statute that people are seen in a courtroom very soon after their first, second or third offence. That would mean that we see meaningful change and people not entering the career criminal pathway. Once they have done, we of course need to imprison them for longer periods.

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[The Chair]

Good afternoon, Mr Durham. Thank you very much for joining us.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Having read the Bill, is there anything that concerns you or anything you would seek for us to improve? Are there any measures that you would like to see in the Bill that are not currently in it?

Sam Durham: I lead on rural crime for the National Farmers Union, and we are quite keen that the Bill is rural-proofed so that rural communities get the benefit from these changes as much as possible. Our quick view of the Bill is that the area we are particularly interested in is fly-tipping—that really blights rural communities and private landowners. We feel that there is currently a gap in local authorities addressing that. Some work very effectively on it, others rely on the police and others rely on other Government agencies. We find that it is not clear to a landowner with a fly-tipping incident how it gets dealt with. It is a bit of a lottery across the country. The improvements on guidance in the Bill are to be welcomed. We welcome that side of the legislation.

We feel that the ability to search without a warrant for electronic goods—that was mentioned by the previous speaker—could have benefit for agricultural theft. We encourage our members, wherever possible, to fit tracking devices to their vehicles and machinery. Having talked to some of the national police chief leads I have contact with, they would welcome the ability to track a stolen tractor or quad bike and then enter the premises where they believe it to be. I know that the legislation is focused more on phone theft, but we think that there could be the added benefit of addressing equipment theft. We welcome the Government pushing for secondary legislation on the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, which should help that side as well.

Finally, one thing that my members mention to me quite a lot, which is on the offensive weapons side, is that they deal quite a lot with poaching and other incidents on-farm. One unfortunate trend we have experienced in various parts of the country is the use of catapults. They are being used to kill wildlife and farm animals, as well as to cause criminal damage to tractor windows and the like. Catapults could be added to the list of offensive weapons. A criminal element is using them now, because if they are caught in possession, it is not so easy for the police to push a prosecution through. That is what we welcome in the Bill so far.

[Matt Vickers]

Q The financial penalties for fly-tipping have gone up, and changes to guidance are now coming in. Is there anything else you think we could be doing in that space? Previously, it was suggested that those responsible for fly-tipping should incur points on their driving licences. Is there anything else you think we can do in that space, and what do you think of that proposal?

Sam Durham: We have worked quite closely with the police and the Government on hare coursing legislation, which allows the seizure of items that are used. In hare coursing incidents, the dogs are valuable assets, as are the vehicles. Certainly, those kinds of measures could act as a further deterrent, but from a landowner’s point of view, it is that key issue of which authority’s responsibility it is. I think it is clear that it should be the local authority. Police have found they are having to address it, and I know police and crime commissioners see it as a priority, but that does cause confusion on the ground for the landowner about who deals with it and what happens when you have an incident. Once the tipped rubbish is there, it is the landowner’s responsibility to clear it up.

[Matt Vickers]

Q There are measures in the Bill around the seizure of vehicles that are used antisocially. Do you have any views on that, or is there anything else you think should be done in that space?

Sam Durham: Again, that works as a good deterrent in some rural criminality, so we would support those kinds of issues. We do look at food security issues as well, including the illegal import of meat. I know our president is keen to investigate whether there is the potential to seize and crush those vehicles as a deterrent measure.

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you for coming to give evidence today, Mr Durham. Rural crime absolutely blights communities across my rural North Yorkshire constituency, and a lot of the measures in the Bill will make a difference, whether they are to deal with off-road bikes, the theft of equipment from farm vehicles or fly-tipping. However, the substance of the law matters in its application, and a big challenge that we have in the Selby district is cross-border crime: criminals will perpetrate some of these acts on one side of a border and slip across to South Yorkshire or West Yorkshire and evade detection by the police. Does the NFU have a view on how we can take some of these provisions but operationalise them in a cross-border way to make sure that these criminals are brought to justice?

Sam Durham: Certainly. For a long time, while we have been working on crime, we have always pushed for co-ordination and consistency as the key. My members on any county or police force boundary will certainly say that they have the issues you mentioned. A criminal will know that they will get treated differently in one force area compared with the other, and stolen equipment can be taken across borders where there is less chance of investigation and action. We welcome some of the work the National Police Chiefs’ Council is doing now, including bringing together the national rural crime unit. The Home Office has funded that unit for the next three years, and that is positive news. Information sharing, the sharing of best practice and linking forces together is key.

We see that there is also a challenge for the Government to work across Departments. I was at the National Rural Crime Network conference on Tuesday, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Home Office were there. There are instances, such as with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and fly-tipping, in which other Government Departments can work together more at a national level and filter that down to working together on a local level.

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[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from the group Stand with Hong Kong. We have until 5.35 pm for this witness. Could you please identify yourself for the record?

Venita Yeung: Thank you, Chair and members of the Committee. I speak today as both a Hong Kong-born refugee in the UK and a representative of Stand with Hong Kong, a 100% grassroots, independent and crowdfunded advocacy group that runs the secretariat of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Having read the Bill, is there anything that concerns you that could be improved? Are there any measures you would like to see in it that are not currently in it?

Venita Yeung: I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to a grave risk posed by the public order clauses, particularly those that would criminalise the act of concealing one’s identity at protests. For many Hongkongers in the community, face coverings at protests are not a matter of convenience or anonymity; they are a matter of safety—a shield against foreign repression. This is not theoretical; it is already happening in our country.

As you may know, in the past few years, the national security law in Hong Kong and article 23 has created a climate of fear. Its extraterritorial reach means that even actions taken in the UK can result in repercussions thousands of miles away. Even community groups that meet privately with parliamentarians often ask not to be photographed or named publicly, for fear of being identified by foreign state actors.

At anti-Chinese Communist party protests, which often take place in the UK, it is very common for participants to be photographed by pro-Beijing individuals, as mentioned in the report by the Intelligence and Security Committee in 2023. Those images are often passed back to Hong Kong or Chinese authorities, or circulated on Chinese platforms such as WeChat group chats or Weibo. As a result, many protesters have been doxed and their families back home visited or harassed by the police force. It is a common tactic deployed by authoritarian regimes to silence dissidents and mobilise their members in the overseas diaspora to monitor fellow members of the diaspora and minimise or silence democratic, dissenting voices. The press has documented multiple cases of Hong Kong protesters and Chinese international students being reported by their peers for attending peaceful protests in the UK.

[The Chair]

Ms Yeung, I certainly do not wish to be discourteous, and neither do I wish in any way to make light of the very real concerns you are expressing, but could I ask you to relate your answer very specifically to the question that was asked: how can the Bill be improved or amended to address some of the issues that are of concern to you?

Venita Yeung: If the Bill is passed in its current form, it would criminalise the safety precaution that many in our community must take to avoid identification. I think that the clause that would criminalise concealing one’s identity at protests should be taken away.

[Matt Vickers]

Q The challenge for the Government is that a huge amount of money is spent managing protests in this country. In London, we spent around £53 million managing pro-Palestinian protests. Some of the measures are designed to aid the police in managing protests and protecting the public from people who would do them harm. How do you think we can best balance the need to allow peaceful protest with the need to prevent disruption and prevent people from using face coverings to avoid being detained by the police?

Venita Yeung: That is an interesting question. I can only speak from the experience of anti-CCP protests, most of which are very peaceful and do not result in any kind of arrests. To balance the needs of public order, the police could always communicate with protest organisers ahead of the protest, and improve their relationships with community leaders to see how they can facilitate a peaceful protest, instead of deploying measures that inadvertently assist authoritarian repression.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Q I listened very carefully and am very concerned by what you have said, but I want to highlight that the provisions in the Bill, specifically clauses 86 to 88, do not apply to all protests. It is not a blanket provision that says, “You can’t hide your face at a protest.” Clause 87 is designed only for those purposes where a senior police officer reasonably believes that a protest is

“likely to involve or has involved”

the commission of criminal offences. Having set that out, do you have a different view on that clause?

Venita Yeung: This is a complex issue, but I will try to summarise my view. The power is devolved into police hands to decide whether criminal offences will take place in a protest. At the recent Chinese embassy protests, where there were over 20 police cars and over 6,000 protesters, there were clashes between organisers and police where a disproportionate amount of police power was designated at those protests. For context, lots of Hongkongers who have recently settled here might not understand English perfectly, which could lead to them misunderstanding police instructions.

If more police powers are given, in that case, it could easily have led to an abuse of power, especially when the police do not understand the nuances. I believe there is a letter addressed to the Met police about disproportionate measures being applied to the Hong Kong and repressed Chinese community protests, drafted by Tom Tugendhat MP and Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP.

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[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from Ministers for the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. We have until 5.50 pm for this panel. Will you introduce yourselves briefly for the record, starting with the Policing Minister?

Dame Diana Johnson: I am Diana Johnson. I am the Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention.

Alex Davies-Jones: I am Alex Davies-Jones. I am the Minister with responsibility for victims and violence against women and girls.

[Matt Vickers]

Q We have heard lots of comments about fly-tipping, and we know it comes at huge cost to the taxpayer and local authorities. The measures in the Bill talk about guidance. The last Government increased fines and penalties for these offences. If the guidance can maximise the impact that local authorities can have and their understanding of what they can do, that is great, but will you give us a flavour of what that guidance might look like? How effective do you think it will be? Are the Government prepared to engage with or consider suggested improvements in this area during the Bill’s progress?

Dame Diana Johnson: Thank you for the question. Having heard the evidence this afternoon, and this morning as well, I am happy to reflect on what has been said. Clearly, setting out the statutory guidance that will be made available will help to provide a consistent approach. Points were made about the inconsistent way that fly-tipping is being dealt with, and about the fact that perhaps not all local authorities are using all the powers they have. I think there is merit in having that statutory guidance set out, but I am willing to look at other proposals that might come forward.

[Matt Vickers]

Q On retail crime, I was delighted to see the assault on retail workers offence in the Bill. Previously, the Criminal Justice Bill included a mandatory requirement for a ban, tag or curfew after three incidents of shoplifting or assaults on retail workers. What is the rationale behind ditching that? We have all heard about the horrors that some retail workers face, and a ban, tag or curfew would allow a bit of respite by getting those people out of stores and letting people get on with their jobs.

Dame Diana Johnson: It is fair to say that the power is already available to courts, when they convict on shop theft—and hopefully soon on assaults on shop workers—to use the full range of sanctions, which includes tagging, community service and a whole range of things. With the offence of assault on a retail worker, we are making a specific presumption that a criminal behaviour order should be attached to it. We are not, in any way, saying that it may not be appropriate to use a tag.

I have also been told that a lot of prolific shoplifters—the people who are committing these offences—have chaotic lifestyles, and tags are not always going to be the most effective way of dealing with them. That is something to be mindful of when you are saying, “That has to be part of the punishment.” That is why the court should use its discretion to apply whatever sanction is most appropriate for that individual.

[Matt Vickers]

Q We know that dispersal orders and public spaces protection orders are of huge value, and that they can have a big impact in controlling antisocial behaviour and so on. The Criminal Justice Bill liberalised the use of such orders—it made them more accessible to police officers and local authorities. Why would we want to remove some of that freedom to put them to use more easily? What is the rationale for that?

Dame Diana Johnson: On dispersal orders, we have taken the view that this is a power that should be given to the police and kept with the police. We do not think it should be used by local authorities. We think it is a serious power, and the number of hours it can be used for is going up, so the police are best suited to make those types of decisions.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Last but not least, you might know that off-road bikes are a real hobby horse of mine. They are an absolute nightmare in my part of the world, as they are in many others—they are an epidemic. They are largely non-road-legal bikes that are being used by youngsters to commit antisocial behaviour or to enable crime. We have mentioned today briefly that there are several powers available to police. You are slightly editing section 59 of the Road Traffic Act, and we talked about the Police Reform Act 2002, which you are amending to allow people not to be given notice. Are the Government willing to look further at what more we could do in that space, particularly around allowing the police access to private dwellings, what happens to these bikes when they are seized by the police and any measures that could limit the sale of these bikes and reduce the number that are getting on to the streets?

Dame Diana Johnson: It is very disconcerting when you keep being lit up and then plunged into darkness, so I apologise if I cannot remember everything you said, but we certainly think that what we are introducing to get rid of the warning requirement is important. All members of the Committee know how the use of e-vehicles to commit antisocial behaviour blights communities, whether it is motorbikes, mini motos or e-scooters. We think this is a really important tool that the police will be able to use to seize these vehicles without having to give the warnings, because we know that that frustrates the police and communities. We think that removing the warning requirement will be very impactful, but I am certainly prepared to look at other measures as well.

[Matt Vickers]

Q I have one last question on that. As we have mentioned, there are several powers in several pieces of legislation that allow police to do it, sometimes with notice and sometimes without, often based on whether or not they have insurance and where the bikes can be seized from. Am I right in thinking that there are no numbers held nationally on which of those powers have been used to seize bikes and by which police forces? I am not aware of that, and therefore I cannot decide how effective the measure would be.

Dame Diana Johnson: One of the frustrations I have found since becoming the Minister for Policing is that data is not held centrally. We have problems with data because of the changes that were introduced during the coalition years to devolve everything down to the 43 police forces, which often measure things in slightly different ways. One of the measures we will introduce will try to provide clear data to the Home Office, so that we can see what is going on with such matters, which are of real concern to communities. We want to make sure we have accurate data, and you are probably right that we do not have that now. Police forces are probably using different ways of categorising antisocial behaviour involving vehicles, so I take your point on that. There is work to do.

[The Chair]

Ms Davies-Jones, I am conscious of the fact that most of these questions are the responsibility of the Policing Minister, but is there anything you wish to add?

Alex Davies-Jones: Nothing on this part, Sir Roger. I am happy to come in on the Ministry of Justice measures.