Safe Streets for All

Miriam Cates Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

The first duty of any Government is to keep their citizens safe. I welcome the measures announced in the Queen’s Speech that will strengthen our UK security protections, including the Telecommunications (Security) Bill and the counter state threats Bill. However, we must also protect citizens from internal threats from criminals in our own country who seek to cause harm. I therefore welcome the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will increase punishments for the most serious crimes.

Even less serious crimes can blight people’s lives. Over recent weeks, I have had numerous reports of antisocial behaviour in the areas of Stocksbridge, Deepcar and Ecclesfield that is causing residents significant anxiety. It was reassuring to meet our outstanding local police officers to discuss their plans to tackle these crimes. The additional £636 million boost to police funding this year and thousands of new recruits will have a big impact on local policing, including reinforcing Deepcar police station in my constituency.

The measures in the Queen’s Speech will improve the detection, prosecution and punishment of crime, but we also need to increase our efforts to stop people from becoming criminals in the first place. The emergence of the Everyone’s Invited platform has highlighted the frightening number of sexual abuse crimes being committed against women and girls. The Government recently released a report on the relationship between pornography use and harmful sexual attitudes and behaviours, and it concluded that there was “substantial evidence” of an association between viewing pornography and harmful behaviour towards women. Women and girls in this country will not be safe until our children are protected from the destructive effects of pornography.

I welcome the laying out of the online harms Bill in the Queen’s Speech and its publication in draft, but even if it passes swiftly through Parliament, realistically we are perhaps two or more years away from the protections being enacted. Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, which would enforce age verification for access to pornography sites, is ready to go, so I urge the Government to implement that legislation now. Even if doing so is only a temporary measure until the passing of the online harms Bill, can we really wait any longer to provide protection for our children?

Family breakdown is another factor in criminalisation. A quarter of all prisoners have been in care and 76% had absent fathers. If we really want to take crime seriously, we must reform family policy to strengthen family life, so I am delighted by the Government’s commitment in the Queen’s Speech to give every child

“the best start in life”.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) for her outstanding and persistent work in that policy area.

I welcome the proposals in the Queen’s Speech. They will make my constituency of Penistone and Stocksbridge and the whole UK a safer place to live, work and raise a family.