Debate Excerpts: Natascha Engel vs Kit Malthouse

Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Natascha Engel and Kit Malthouse

Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th April 2016

(8 years, 7 months ago)

Commons Chamber

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Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)

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I call Kit Malthouse.

Kit Malthouse

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What an honour it is to be called before all these august Members!

In respect of amendments 11, 12, 13 and 10, I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) on manfully—or indeed womanfully—arguing what seems to be a lost cause; Conservative Members eloquently made the case that the proposals are nonsense.

Fundamentally, the hon. Gentleman is saying through his amendments that he does not trust a chief police officer to get right the architecture around volunteers used in their organisation. He is saying that a chief constable cannot be trusted to organise and train volunteers correctly—but if they cannot be trusted to do that relatively simple task, how can they be trusted to handle some of the risks that they face on a daily basis, even with their warranted force? As he considers these matters over the next couple of hours, I urge him to think about withdrawing his amendments and simply to vote against the Government’s amendments if he believes that to be right. His would be Heath Robinson legislation, as I said, and the House has a duty to keep things simple.

I am extremely supportive of new clause 1. As the hon. Gentleman said, the proliferation of knives, particularly these unpleasant zombie knives, has caused a huge problem, particularly in urban areas and especially in London. We have seen some tragic cases over the last two or three years. A while ago, as people will remember, there was some alarm about air rifles and air-powered weapons; as a result, the legislation on purchasing air rifles was changed so that they could not be bought other than face to face. Now, when someone buys an air rifle online, it has to be delivered by the firearms dealer, who has to verify, face to face on the doorstep, that the person is who they say they are and of the correct age, and that the weapon can be sold to them lawfully. Alternatively, there is a mutual network of firearms dealers operating in such a way that someone can buy from one and pick up from another, who will verify that person’s identity and age.

I am 6 feet 2 inches—nearly—and quite a big chap. I am much more frightened of zombie knives than of air rifles, so I urge the Government to look carefully at new clause 1. It would be a valuable addition to our armoury as we try to keep these weapons out of the hands of people who should not have them. Having said that, I do not think it would be a silver bullet—not much we do in the House is; many of these knives are bought on the dark web, where things are a little more amorphous, identities more difficult to find and things are often posted illegally. Many firearms are bought on the dark web and sent to the UK through the normal post, but the police are becoming quite sophisticated at picking them up, and the same could be true of knives. I therefore urge the Government to adopt the new clause.

I am similarly supportive of new clause 19, on flares at public events. They are not allowed at football matches any more, but elsewhere they often cause injury and terror—people, particularly children, are frightened of them—so it would be sensible to outlaw their use in those circumstances.

Finally, I will speak briefly—we are pressed for time—to new clause 17, which stands in my name. This is a probing amendment, as they say, and I have no intention, at this stage, of putting it to a vote, but I will give Members the back story because it might well appear in the other place.

Members might remember that three or four years ago City Hall ran a big campaign to get a disposal on to the books called “compulsory sobriety”, which manifested itself as alcohol abstinence monitoring orders made against people who have committed a crime where alcohol was a contributory factor. Essentially, an offender, rather than going to prison, which would mean losing their job and contact with their family, is sentenced to wear an alcohol-testing tag or bracelet that, for three, four or six months, tests their skin every 30 seconds to make sure they are not drinking. If they drink and the tag detects it, a signal is sent, the police apprehend them and they go back into the criminal justice system and might well get a custodial sentence. Effectively, the offender is in charge of their own custody.

These orders have been hugely successful in the United States. In South Dakota, where they started, there has been massive compliance and a drop in the number of people arrested for drink-driving and dying on the roads. I learned this morning that there has also been an increase in life span because there is less drinking. South Dakota is a big, flat state; there is not much to do except drink a lot and beat each other up, as in parts of this country. That was happening an awful lot, until these orders were introduced by the now famous prosecutor, Larry Long. They have changed the alcohol environment there entirely.

We managed to get the orders on the statute book here, and a pilot in Croydon over the last couple of years has resulted in a 93% compliance rate among offenders fitted with a tag and an extremely good reoffending rate—once someone has had three to six months off the booze, they do not tend to go back but instead learn the error of their ways. However, there is one aspect of the scheme in the states that we did not adopt but which they think is critical to its success: the ability to charge offenders for their own testing.

In the United States, when somebody is put on this disposal and they go to be tested, more often than not they appear twice a day at the police station, blow into a breathalyser and pay a buck, or a dollar, a test. Effectively, that is money that they would otherwise have spent on booze. From the point of view of the criminal justice system, that makes the scheme self-financing.

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