Crime and Policing Bill (First sitting)

Matt Vickers Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales, and the Police Federation of England and Wales. We must stick to the timings in the programme motion that the Committee has agreed. For this session, we have until 12.15 pm. Will witnesses introduce themselves briefly for the record?

Chief Constable De Meyer: I am Tim De Meyer, chief constable of Surrey and the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for disclosure.

Tiff Lynch: Good morning. I am Tiff Lynch, acting national chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales.

Dan Murphy: Morning. I am Dan Murphy, assistant national secretary of the Police Superintendents Association.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

Q This is a huge, broad Bill that brings forward lots of measures and powers. Hopefully, it is welcomed by the great men and women you represent. Having looked at the Bill, is there anything that you find concerning? Is there anything that it is possible to improve? More broadly, are there any measures that you would like to see added to it?

Chief Constable De Meyer: The NPCC does not see any measures that have been omitted, save perhaps for the provision on begging, which was in an initial draft, but we understand there were concerns in respect of how that might be enforced. Overall, the NPCC is extremely supportive of the Bill. It seems to us that it brings a lot of laws up to date and frames the law in a way that is much more consistent with the way that a lot of crimes are now committed. It generally enables much earlier intervention and prevention on the back of the new or adapted offences that are created.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Could you comment briefly on begging, which we saw brought forward before? What would you like to see if we do include anything to that end?

Chief Constable De Meyer: The point in respect of begging is that, although we were generally supportive of the inclusion of nuisance begging in the provisions, it would require a certain amount of judgment in how to enforce that. That was the only point that NPCC colleagues noted was in the original provisions but is not here. Other than that, they are extremely supportive.

Tiff Lynch: In relation to the overarching Bill, we concur with Chief Constable De Meyer. We are supportive of new legislation that brings us up to societal issues. I do not want to sound like a broken record throughout all the questions, but our main concerns are the infrastructure that sits behind the legislation; the demand that is placed upon the officers we represent, who will be out there on the streets enacting this legislation; resourcing; and the learning, training and development of the officers who will be required to carry it out.

Dan Murphy: The Police Superintendents Association also supports the Bill and the provisions within it. With any legislation, there will obviously need to be clarity through the courts, training or the guidance that comes with the Bill. I have read with interest the debates for and against some of the clauses. On the power of entry, electronic devices and public order, some of the definitions are not defined within the legislation. There is a specific concern that I have read—it might not be a concern—about mandatory reporting in clauses 45 to 54 and whether the covert nature of policing would be dealt with through an exception or some kind of exemption with regard to that route.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Entry without a warrant is drawn more narrowly in this Bill than it was in the Criminal Justice Bill. Do you think it gives you the tools you need to do the job? Are there any concerns about that?

Dan Murphy: I think it gives you the tools to do the job, but whenever you enter private homes, you only have to look at the case law on warrants, where we have full powers, to see that they are challenged regularly. We need to make sure we are trained and get it right. As this is a new bit of legislation, I am sure there will be challenges either way as and when it is used.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Do you have any other comments on entry without a warrant being narrower in this Bill?

Dan Murphy: I think there is a role for the Government and Parliament to communicate that it is a power that has been given to policing. It is not something that policing is searching for and trying to use. The public need to understand that it has been given to us for a reason, and we are using it.

Tiff Lynch: I would go one step further in relation to the public having knowledge of the powers. That also gives our police officers confidence that the Government are behind them when they are enforcing these laws, and the knowledge that they are supported in what they are doing.

Chief Constable De Meyer: We know that the ability to track mobile devices is not sufficiently accurate at the moment for it to be relied upon without some form of corroboration. Therefore, one understands why things are more tightly framed. Where there is good intelligence for its use, this ability to enter swiftly to search for stolen goods without the need to get a warrant will mean that we are able to recover stolen property more swiftly, and that investigations are less likely to be frustrated. To ensure legitimacy in the eyes of the public, that obviously needs to be carried out carefully, but overall it will make it less likely that property, whether electronic property or property linked to rural crime, can be swiftly disposed of. Our current inability to deal expeditiously with those sorts of crimes can adversely impact public confidence. Overall, it is a very positive operational thing.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Q Thank you very much for giving evidence today. I want to follow up on the questions about allowing police to go in without a warrant to recover digital devices with tracking devices. The Bill refers to “reasonable grounds to believe”, which is the test that would have to be applied, and requires authorisation by an inspector. Does each of you believe that that is the appropriate test and authorisation level?

Chief Constable De Meyer: The requirement of belief is obviously a relatively high bar; for example, it is above suspicion. I think that that reflects the need to ensure that a new power such as this is applied carefully and with appropriate corroboration. Crucially, an inspector is going to be readily operationally available for an officer in this sort of dynamic circumstance, so the officer will be able to make contact with and get the authorisation from them. It seems to me that the thrust of the power is very much towards enabling the police to recover property quickly, so belief is a good safeguard and the inspector is appropriately senior and accessible. I would agree on those two points.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Bishop]

Q May I take a moment to thank the panel, and your colleagues, for your service and continued efforts in making our communities safer? It is important to recognise that. My question is on the measures that we are implementing to provide more protection against retribution for authorised firearms officers who are facing criminal proceedings for offences committed during their duties. Do you think the measures will reassure firearms officers that the Government value the unique and dangerous work that they do? Will the measures give them more confidence moving forward than the CPS has given them recently?

Chief Constable De Meyer: It is important to point out how rare it is in this country for a firearms officer to discharge their weapon; reassuringly, it is rarer still that someone dies as a result. Obviously, it is right that there is a proper investigation wherever that happens, but I do not think it is in the interest of public safety for an officer doing such an important job to feel inhibited from doing what might be necessary, and what they are trained to do, in rare and extreme circumstances, because they are concerned that their name will be made public in a subsequent investigation, with all the risk to them personally that that entails. I cannot say for certain, and colleagues here would give a better indication as to the extent that such a measure might assuage their concerns, but it seems to me to be a necessary and sensible move.

Tiff Lynch: Without repeating what Chief Constable De Meyer has said, certainly we were pleased with the Home Secretary’s announcement on the granting of anonymity to firearms officers in those situations, particularly with NX121 and the case that followed.

Our firearms officers are volunteers. That is key and it really needs to be noted. They put themselves and their lives at risk to protect society. In these cases, for their families and their own wellbeing, and because of what may follow, it is absolutely right for them to be granted anonymity for a required period of time. To answer your question specifically about reassuring our firearms officers out there today, there is some reassurance, but again, it is a matter of time passing until they actually feel that that will continue.

Dan Murphy: It is definitely a step in the right direction. Firearms officers, like all police officers, are interested in actions rather than words. They would like to see a difference, so once they start seeing that difference, it will make a difference to them. I know that there will be some announcements on the accountability review soon. I think Dame Diana is involved in that, and I know the Government are looking at it. We are really encouraged that there may be some more positive steps that will lead to actions that support officers who put themselves in those more difficult situations.

[Matt Vickers]

Q We know that a small number of people are responsible for a huge volume of the crimes we are discussing. Do you believe there are sufficient powers to deal with hyper-prolific offenders and to imprison them? Do you think we should be doing anything in that space? I would also be interested in the views of the other two panel members on the 18, 16—whatever it might be—question.

Tiff Lynch: In relation to the powers, this is something that I find myself repeating not in this forum but in other interviews: you can bring in many laws and powers, but we need to have the infrastructure and the resources to use them. We have officers out there with casefiles that are getting longer and longer. There is only so much that can be highlighted as a priority, because if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Yes, we support the laws. It is for Government to make the laws and for us to carry them out. We will do so, but it is about managing expectations not just from policing but from society.

[Matt Vickers]

Q In terms of hyper-prolific offenders, obviously a lot of time is being taken by a small number of people. Is there anything we can do in that space to make the job easier?

Dan Murphy: If you have someone who is a prolific offender, and the police are constantly dealing with them and there are constant victims, the best place for that person is in prison. Getting them into prison is sometimes not easy, but I think that is the answer.

[The Chair]

Just a reminder that we need to keep things really short if we want to get everybody in. It may not be possible to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Thank you. You have given us lots of food for thought.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Is there anything in the Bill that gives you cause for concern? We would obviously be interested in Robert’s views on that £200 threshold as well. Are there any measures that you would like to have seen in the Bill that you have not seen in it?

Sir Robert Buckland: There are a couple of things, Mr Vickers. First of all, just to build on Mr Sells’s point on clause 16, I understand the huge concern about shoplifting and the perception among many shop proprietors in our towns and cities that, in some ways, it was almost becoming decriminalised and that action has to be taken. But the danger in changing primary legislation in this way is that we send mixed messages, and that the Government are sending mixed messages about what its policy intentions are.

Sir Brian Leveson is conducting an independent review into criminal procedure. We do not know yet what the first part of that review will produce, but I would be very surprised if there was not at least some nod to the need to keep cases out of the Crown court, bearing in mind the very dramatic and increasing backlog that we have. I think that anything that ran contrary to that view risks the Government looking as if it is really a house divided against itself.

It seems to me that there was a simpler way of doing this. When the law was changed back in 2014, there was an accompanying policy guideline document that allowed for the police to conduct their own prosecutions for shoplifting items with a value of under £200, if the offender had not done it before, if there were not other offences linked with it, if there was not a combined amount that took it over £200 and if there was a guilty plea.

What seems to have happened in the ensuing years is that that has built and developed, frankly, into a culture that has moved away from the use of prosecuting as a tool in its entirety. I think that that is wrong, but I do think that it is within the gift of Ministers in the Home Office and of officials in the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice to say, “That guidance is superseded. We hope, want and expect all offences to be prosecuted.” That would then allow offences of under £200 to be prosecuted in the magistrates court. There is nothing in the current legislation that prevents any of that, by the way, and I think it would send a very clear message to the police that they are expected to do far more when it comes to the protection of retail premises.

On clause 14, which covers assault on retail workers, I was a little surprised to see that there had been a departure from what was a rather interesting amendment tabled in the previous Session to the 2023-24 Criminal Justice Bill by, I think, the hon. Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris); in fact, I think it was supported by you and others. It sought to amend the law to increase protections for shop workers, but with an important expansion: the offence would be not just an assault, but a threatening or abuse offence as well, which would encompass some of the public order concerns that many of us have about shop premises, corner shops and sole proprietor retail outlets. Yet, we have gone back here to a straight assault clause, which in my mind does not seem to add anything to the criminal code at all.

We have existing laws of assault, which was often the argument of Ministers, including me, when we debated these issues in the past. Again, it seems to me that the opportunity to widen the offence to cover different types of abuse against important retail workers is being missed at the moment. If I was advising the Government, which of course I am not, I would ask them to look again at the clause and to consider expanding it to make it much more meaningful for the people I think all of us want to protect.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Amendments were tabled to the Criminal Justice Bill that would have seen it mandate a ban, a tag or a curfew for anybody responsible for three incidents of shoplifting or assault on a retail worker. What are your thoughts on that, as something that has been taken out of this Bill?

Sir Robert Buckland: Again, it is a missed opportunity. I think that, accompanying that type of behaviour, is a natural community concern about the prevalence of people who are—well, they are worse than nuisances—real menaces to the wellbeing of the local community. An attack on a shop, in my view, is an attack on the wellbeing of the whole local community. Given how important the local shop is as a lifeline for many people, including older and vulnerable customers, any attack on it that means that its services are lost, even temporarily, is a very serious attack on the community. Therefore, using this opportunity to increase the suite of preventive measures available would seem a very sensible thing to do, and I hope the Government will consider accepting any amendments that will no doubt be tabled with that aim in mind.

[Matt Vickers]

Q Could we do anything else to tackle the problem of hyper-prolific offenders—this small group of people who are responsible for a huge volume of offences?

Sir Robert Buckland: That is a very difficult issue that I looked at carefully when I was in the Government. One of the challenges, of course, is that the offences might be prolific but the sentences they carry often do not even cross the custody threshold.

There are two ways of looking at this. First, the community-based intensive intervention solution seems to be working, particularly in the case of young offenders, and we should look at expanding it to apply to adult offenders as well. There would, of course, be a huge concomitant cost, particularly for the probation service and all the agencies tasked with the intensive supervision of, perhaps, a drug or alcohol addiction. That is the sort of work that will take them off the streets and get them cleaned up, without sending them to a meaningless short-term sentence.

At the other end, there are people committing hundreds of offences, for whom the law cannot as yet provide a cumulative answer. It is difficult for me to suggest on the hoof how we would encompass a sentencing option that allows a roll-up, so that there was a longer term of imprisonment for someone prolific. The danger is that there is always a cliff edge: if someone has committed 24 rather than 25 offences, why should there be such a differential? The long-term answer lies in prevention. I strongly endorse the intensive community-based approach, which is not currently available to the courts.

[Matt Vickers]

Q I realise I have been on my retail hobby horse. More broadly, do you have any other concerns about the Bill? Are there any measures you would like to see featured that are not featured?

Oliver Sells: Could I touch on a subject that troubles me? It is implicit in the Bill, and it is not necessarily a popular view. The trend towards sentencing inflation has created a growing prison population of particularly young serial offenders who are serving longer and longer sentences. That is causing difficulties with the cost of the prison population and with what to do with people we cannot send to prison. The courts struggle the whole time not to send people to prison unless it is absolutely necessary. The idea that we could, for instance, abolish short sentences—there is a proposal for their removal—seems to me to be very double-edged indeed. We need to be very careful.

The courts, including the magistrates court, must have the powers to move swiftly. This is one of the problems in our system, particularly in respect of the kind of crime we are talking about. When I started out at the Bar, cases were dealt with overnight, and the next day were done and dusted in the magistrates court. It was effective and speedy. Speedy justice is much more effective than slow justice. We have created a situation and a structure, over many years now, where there is almost an acceptance of delay in the system, and I do not accept that at all. If you go to a magistrates court, you will see so many cases adjourned because it is not ready. They are piffling reasons, on the whole—complete nonsense, in my view. When a case is prepared overnight, it should be in the court within a matter of days and dealt with straight away. I do not think we have really understood that in the Bill. It is not quite there yet, in my view.

Sir Robert Buckland: With its wide scope, the Bill is an opportunity for the Government to act on, for example, the recommendations of Jonathan Fisher KC on the overdue reform of disclosure. The disclosure rules were created back in 1996 and are no longer fit for proper purpose. Anything the Bill can do to help to future-proof the use of assistive technologies would be a great opportunity for Ministers and officials. I am convinced that the use of assistive technology—I use the word “assistive” because it is technology not to replace the judge or the jury but to assist them in their deliberations, as well as assisting disclosure officers and the police in their investigations—is absolutely right.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Sir Robert. We have already used two thirds of the time allotted for our eminent witnesses. As time is fleeting, I request that people keep their contributions as short as possible so that we can cover the greatest amount of content and allow Committee members to ask a question.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from Spike Aware UK. Once again, we must stick to the timings in the programme motion. The Committee has agreed that, for this session, we will have until 1 o’clock. Could you please introduce yourself for the record?

Colin Mackie: Good afternoon. I am Colin Mackie. I am the chair and co-founding member of Spike Aware UK.

[Matt Vickers]

Q As you will have seen, we get lots of people in here who are very familiar with this place, and then every now and again we get people who are brave, committed and dedicated to making a change and making the world a better place. Thank you for coming and for all your campaigning on this issue. All power to your elbow.

How important are the measures in the Bill, and why? Is there anything that you think the Government should be doing beyond what is in the Bill?

Colin Mackie: I think this is majorly important. It is a giant step forward. Up until now, spiking has been a very grey area. It is charged as assault, theft, poisoning or whatever; it has been such a grey area that it has been hard to process it. That has the knock-on effect of putting victims off coming forward, because they do not know where they are going to go or what is going to be talked about, and they are unsure. Perpetrators of spiking feel, “Well, nothing’s really happening over this. I don’t hear of anybody getting charged for it, and it’s only a bit of fun; we don’t think we’re going to do any harm,” so they carry on doing it.

Having a stand-alone offence is beneficial for the victims, and I also think it is beneficial for the police. I feel that once a law is in place, you are going to get a co-ordinated response from police. Currently, victims in Newcastle are treated differently from victims in Newquay, and it is the same across the whole country. That is one of the major problems that victims tell us about all the time: some forces are great, while others are not so good. I have had one victim tell me that the police said they did not have the manpower or the time to go in and check the CCTV at the club where they were spiked. Another victim told me that uniformed officers turned up and were not sure how to deal with it, but half an hour later, the CID were there and straight into the club. We cannot have that inconsistency; we need to move forward with that.

You were asking earlier, “What can we do to help?” In bringing in the Bill, we have to involve A&E, because A&E has a big part to play in this as well. All too often, as you know, it is the job of the police to gather the evidence, but a spiking victim is likely to appear at a hospital—at A&E—unconscious or confused and not sure what is going on. They are not going to think about asking for a police officer to attend—they are not in a state to do that—so unless they have a family member or a friend there, that is not going to happen. By the time they get maybe two days down the line and think, “Yeah, this is what’s happened to me; I want to report this,” there is a good chance that a lot of the evidence has gone. We need that in the Bill as well: for A&E to play a bigger part by gathering evidence and holding it for the police. Then, if the victim wants to take it forward, it is there.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)]

Q Thank you, Colin, for coming in today and, to echo the words of the shadow Minister, for all of the work that you do on this; it is really appreciated.

You mentioned that you welcome the clarification in the Bill, which will create a specific offence of spiking by using the word “spiking”. Can you expand on why that will make such a difference for victims? You mentioned some of the issues with the police using different types of offences. Why will it make such a difference to have a specific offence?

Colin Mackie: A victim will recognise that spiking is an offence when they approach the police. Currently they are not sure if they can report it. They are nervous and they are not sure if it is an offence. That has been a big thing that we get fed to us. Away from just the girls, there is a lot of spiking going on with boys now. Males are being spiked as well. It is possible that anybody could be spiked. That is a big thing, because we find that a lot of males think it is a girls’ problem. They think it is tied in with a sexual assault or whatever. If you just say “spiking” males will think, “Yeah, I have been spiked,” and that is it—it is the fact that they have been spiked.

A lot of spiking is now taking place and nothing else is happening. People are not being sexually assaulted or robbed; they are just being spiked. It is what we call prank spiking. People are doing it because they can. I think the ability for someone to come forward and just say, “Yes, I have been spiked and there is a law on spiking,” is the way forward.