Nick Thomas-Symonds
Main Page: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)Department Debates - View all Nick Thomas-Symonds's debates with the Home Office
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberSadly, the amount of abuse that we are seeing is increasing year by year. There was a 23% increase in all child sex offences in the year to March 2018 and a 206% increase since 2013. The good news is that much more work and effort is going into this; each month there are around 400 arrests and 500 children safeguarded.
Tackling online crime needs to be cross-border, yet the Government have failed to get the Schengen information system, or SIS II, and the European Criminal Records Information System included in the political declaration. They have also not identified exactly what our relationship with Europol and Eurojust will be going forward, and we have only vague promises on maintaining the benefits of the European arrest warrant. When will the Government act to stop this diminishing of our ability to tackle crime?
The hon. Gentleman will know from the information we have already published that we have reached a good agreement with Europe on future security co-operation, for example on passenger name records, DNA and other important databases. He mentioned the SIS II database, and there is also the criminal records database; we will continue to work together on those issues, and I am sure we can reach an agreement.