Metropolitan Police Service

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for her question. As she will know, we are in the middle of an inquiry by Dame Elish Angiolini into the first stage of the employment of Wayne Couzens and then more widely into the culture of the Met. Once we have seen that and digested the urgent work required to correct the situations we see presented in this report, we will have to consider what if any further measures may need to be taken to ensure that, as the right hon. Lady says, not only national but international confidence in the Metropolitan Police as our lead force is maintained.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the thousands of police officers who do a great job in providing service to Londoners, but they need robust and focused leadership, and I think it is clear that we are still in need of that. We are now on our third commissioner in six years, soon to be fourth, but we have had the same Mayor of London and the same deputy mayor for the past six years. Does my right hon. Friend think that there should be more political accountability and that perhaps one of those two characters should think about their role moving forward?

[Kit Malthouse]

The creation of police and crime commissioners was designed to provide a focused point of accountability for the electorate. They replaced police authorities, which were opaque organisations in which no one person could be held responsible at the ballot box. As I said, if I had been in that job—I had the privilege of holding the post of deputy mayor for policing for four years—and I had had it for six years when this situation occurred, I would consider my position.

Public Order Bill

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

As is seen week after week, my constituency of the Cities of London and Westminster tends to be the epicentre of political protest in this country. That is hardly surprising, as it is home to the Government, to Parliament and to the UK’s financial heart in the City of London.

I am sure that many hon. and right hon. Members can imagine that the effective management of protests, particularly the most disruptive, is of interest to my constituents. They have first-hand experience of having to negotiate their daily lives with the rights of others to protest.

In the hundreds of letters and emails that I have received from constituents highlighting the disruption that they have suffered during the days and weeks of organised protests, not one has called for the right to protest to be curbed. When it comes to public order, it is especially important to ask ourselves why the measures outlined in this Bill are proper and necessary. What has been made clear to me by both the Metropolitan police and the City of London police is that existing legislation has not kept pace with the evolving tactics of modern-day protesters.

Specifically, the lack of a lock-on offence makes it almost impossible for the police to balance lawful protest and basic civil rights. Provisions in this Bill will change that. Clauses 1 and 2 will allow police pre-emptively to stop highly disruptive, and in some cases dangerous, lock-ons. Clause 1 is of particular importance, as it will make locking on an offence where such an act,

“causes, or is capable of causing, serious disruption”.

That is absolutely right. We have seen individuals glue themselves to vehicles or use lock-on devices on the public highway.

Last August, those tactics were used on Tower Bridge by protestors who brought parts of Central London to a standstill for hours. Protestors have encased their arms in tubes filled with concrete and locked themselves to makeshift structures at huge heights. We have even seen reports of protesters inserting nails and blades into those pipes in an effort to make removing them more difficult and dangerous for our police officers.

We cannot overlook the very real concerns of thousands of ordinary people who are disrupted by demonstrations that go well beyond what is necessary. I utterly disagree with the suggestion that just because we agree with a cause, the disruptive activity is right. It is not. Protest tactics using lock-on devices are not just inconvenient for many, but can have real-life consequences—emergency vehicles unable to attend 999 calls, missed hospital appointments or someone unable to get to a dying loved one to say goodbye.

It also frustrates me and many of my constituents that police officers involved in policing those protests are taken away from policing their neighbourhoods and concentrating on their local policing priorities. It is not just Westminster and City of London police officers being taken away from their daily duties. During a number of major days-long protests, I have seen officers from the home counties and Bedfordshire policing central London. I have even come across police vans in Covent Garden with the word “Heddlu” on them, which is Welsh for police.

Removing lock-on devices safely requires specialist policing teams to be deployed in what can be high-risk environments, which takes time and significant resources. Just one protest group, Extinction Rebellion, had a total of 54 days of protest between 2019 and 2021, costing some £1.2 million a day. I therefore welcome clause 2, which would allow officers to act on reasonable suspicion that satisfies visual and intelligence-based qualifications to prevent the use of highly dangerous lock-ons.

Since the publication of the Bill, I have listened to the argument that the offence is not necessary, and that the offences of wilful obstruction of the highway and aggravated trespass cover these actions. To an extent, that is true. However, they are only applicable after assembly of the structure, by which point we will have seen a chain of events that will ultimately lead to serious impositions on the surrounding area, businesses and local people.

The sticking point in the Lords on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 was provisions specifically relating to noise or limiting freedom of expression. I recognise that, and I accept that, for this kind of legislation, we need to reach an agreement that satisfies both this and the other place. However, I stress that clauses 1 and 2 of this Bill are absolutely necessary to rebalance lawful protest and civil rights. After all, in non-violent protests, the duty of the police is to take a balanced and impartial approach towards all those involved in or affected by the protest—an approach that is consistent with both human rights law and domestic legislation. We must ensure that both lawful protest and everyday life can continue without the basic rights being infringed in respect of either. I believe that the Public Order Bill does exactly that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call SNP spokesman Anne McLaughlin.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I am sadly fully aware that my constituency holds potentially the largest matryoshka doll of Russian-owned investments in the UK. Dirty money is an issue with deep Kremlin-linked roots. As the Member of Parliament representing the Cities of London and Westminster, I support the Government’s objectives to cut the financial and professional arteries to the Kremlin.

Clearly, one of the biggest barriers to tackling money laundering has been the inability to track funds overseas. The Bill undoubtedly raises the bar for transparency globally and may also prove to be a watershed for global economic crime enforcement, given the increase in international collaboration between law enforcement agencies across the world. Broadly speaking, the register of overseas entities is most welcome but, like other hon. Members, I would like it to be implemented in a shorter timeframe. On that note, I welcome the amendments that will see the register updated annually and those that work to fortify our long-term defences against illicit finances.

Of course, I would like the Government to go as far as possible and even consider strengthening our compulsory purchase order laws to allow local authorities to sell long-term empty properties that do not comply with the proposed new register. Indeed, I am sure that council leaders in Surrey and central London would not argue if they were allowed to sell one or two £10 million-plus properties and invest the proceeds in building more affordable homes. Equally, we must ensure that buyers, conveyancing solicitors and estate agents play their part when involved in the sales of prime properties on the register.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I welcome the Bill and I share the desire to look carefully at the enforcement issues that have dogged previous legislation. As my hon. Friend represents such a multicultural constituency, does she agree that it is important for us to be careful about the anti-Russian message not being against all Russians and about comments about Russians being made to go home, because the law-abiding citizens who live here should be made welcome and continue to be so?

[Nickie Aiken]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We must remember that many Russians are living in this country because of Putin and because they have escaped his clutches.

To return to the register, I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on whether it could be made law that, on day one of its coming into effect, nobody could sell a property that may be on it unless it had been registered. I am not talking about six months ahead, but from the day that the law comes into force. That could close the loophole of there being six months.

In a similar vein, strengthening the use of unexplained wealth orders will be a valuable tool in our arsenal. I have spoken to Charles Begley, the chief executive of the London Property Alliance, at length on that issue. Billions are settled in Westminster property alone. Most are under shell companies and very few are ever lived in. I have lost count of the number of times that I have knocked on doors when canvassing in Belgravia, Mayfair, Knightsbridge and other places to be met by housekeepers who tell me that sir or madam does not live there very often.

I am relieved to see that the Bill encompasses property and land, is tied together with reasonable retrospective clauses, and formally recognises complex ownership structures such as properties held in trust. All of that will create a potentially significant compliance burden for relevant entities, with breaches causing serious criminal liability. I hope that the Bill, soon to be an Act, will mean that Londongrad is finished and that the severity of the sanctions is the beginning of a new London.

Right now, oligarchs enjoy the grandest lifestyles that money can buy: they shop in Selfridges and on New Bond Street, they eat in the Michelin restaurants of Mayfair, they easily move money through shell companies, and their children benefit from being privately educated in the UK’s world-renowned public schools. No doubt this Bill, and the one that will follow, are the first step in cleaning up dirty money in our capital once and for all. I commend the Bill.

Ukraine

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady can send in the case and we will pick it up.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. It is clear that this is not a business-as-usual immigration exercise or mass economic migration; this is women, children and elderly people fleeing for their lives, and not knowing if they will see their fathers, sons, brothers or husbands ever again. I welcome the compassionate set of measures that my right hon. Friend has announced today. Does she agree that as well as providing safe haven for refugees fleeing the conflict, it is equally important that we throw every single economic and diplomatic sanction at the Russian regime and send the very clear message to Putin that he must withdraw his troops and peace must be restored in Ukraine?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is not a moment for making flippant remarks or anything of that nature, which has obviously taken place in the House in some quarters today. This is a collective effort. Putin must fail. There is no equivocation here, and no ambiguity whatsoever. My hon. Friend speaks with great passion, and she is absolutely right about the implications and consequences. None of us can fail to be moved not just by watching what we see on our screens, but by some of the conversations—I have had some very harrowing conversations with my counterparts—that will concentrate people’s minds as well as some of the wider implications we are seeing. We need Putin to fail. We have to be united. We have to apply every single economic, diplomatic and military measure, in a consistent and united way.

Foreign Interference: Intelligence and Security

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

It is important to say that the Elections Bill covers a whole range of aspects, such as protecting democracy and electoral reform. It is important to recognise the work that is taking place across the board with the Cabinet Office. I know that Cabinet Office Ministers will speak much more about that later.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I start by paying tribute to our outstanding security services, which keep us safe day in, day out. I have been astounded by the eye-watering sums that some individual parliamentarians received from Christine Lee and organisations connected to her. Does my right hon. Friend think that those individuals should pay back those sums, if not to the people who donated them, perhaps to a charity connected to human rights in China?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend raises some tantalising recommendations, it is fair to say, for consideration. It is important that anyone who has been in contact with the individual or who has received anything from the individual continues to co-operate with our intelligence and security services.

Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for those points. I was not familiar with the teaspoon campaign, which is clearly valuable and important; Members on both sides of the House will find that intervention informative and useful. I would be delighted to receive more information from her or have a conversation about that work separately after the debate. On the point about teaching, I will pick that up with colleagues in the Department for Education and make sure that she receives a full answer.

I touched on the tackling violence against women and girls strategy in my earlier remarks. I will say a bit more about it and the work that is going on through it to tackle forced marriage and other forms of honour-based abuse. We will seek out community advocates who can talk to community audiences and explain why forced marriage and other honour-based abuse crimes are wrong. We will provide them with resources to back up their messages.

The College of Policing will also produce advice for police officers on honour-based abuse, so that first responders and investigators know how to deal with cases. The product for first responders will be published soon. We will also produce a resource pack on forced marriage for local authorities, the police, schools, healthcare services and others, similar to our existing one for female genital mutilation.

The Home Office will explore options to better understand the prevalence of FGM and forced marriage in England and Wales, given their hidden nature and the lack of robust estimates. We will work to criminalise virginity testing and will bring forward legislation when parliamentary time allows, which will be accompanied by a programme of education in community, education and clinical settings to tackle the misperceptions and misbeliefs surrounding the practice.

The Department for Education will work with a small number of local authorities as part of the children’s social care covid-19 regional recovery and building back better fund to identify the challenges and barriers in effective safeguarding work addressing FGM and to develop and disseminate good practice to other local authorities. Various other general commitments are relevant to tackling forced marriage such as our £3 million programme on what works to prevent violence against women and girls and the appointment of Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth as the first full-time national policing lead for violence against women and girls. That is all important.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) for an excellent private Member’s Bill. I am delighted that the Government are favourable to it.

Given what the Minister has said about the violence against women and girls strategy, does he agree that it is important that local authorities play a massive role and that, as part of that, perhaps there should be some training for local councillors? Perhaps the Home Office could work alongside the Local Government Association to ensure that there is training for best practice, so that local councillors who are not from communities involved in practices such as marriage under 18 for their children can understand the cultural differences, be more understanding and protect our children.

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend is a distinguished former council leader in her own right, and she brings an awful lot of experience and knowledge to the proceedings in this House by virtue of that experience at Westminster City Council. I think her point is well made, and it is one that I am very happy to share with the safeguarding Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean)—who I know looks at these matters very attentively and is always mindful of them.

As someone who has just come into ministerial office, one of the points I have regularly made in the many conversations I have had with officials over the last two months is that cascading best practice is often so important. I always want to be satisfied that we are doing everything we can to cascade best practice where it exists. There are lots of examples out there in lots of different areas of policy, and we do not always need to reinvent the wheel. What we need to do is pick up what is done well, cascade that throughout the wider system and drive forward improvement. My hon. Friend’s point is well made, and I will gladly ensure that it is flagged up.

Pedicabs: Women’s Safety

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the safety of women and the regulation of pedicabs in London.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, for what I consider to be a very important debate for my constituency. It is a truth well known that cities such as London attract people looking for opportunities for education, culture, work and a vibrant community. In London, we are blessed with a huge volume of spaces to do that. However, the way that public spaces are used and experienced in our capital differs for women and men. As the local Member of Parliament, one thing is clear to me: women have the right to use space in the same way as men and should feel safe in doing so. Since the devastating murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, many people have contacted me to highlight concerns about women and girls’ safety on our streets. For a multitude of reasons, their deaths have become a watershed moment. Women understood the vulnerability of walking home alone at night. The Government have made incredible strides in recent years on the issue, and I commend the Home Office ministerial team on its work. I note in particular the Government’s strategy on tackling violence against women and girls. I know the Minister’s work in the Department for Transport on this area and I pay respect to that as well—brilliant work.

The violence against women and girls strategy is a significant step in the right direction, but there is still an enormous piece of work to do around making sure our cities and, in particular, our capital city leave no stone unturned in ensuring the safety of women and girls on our streets. In recent years, a great emphasis has been placed on ensuring that modes of public and private hire transport meet standards of safety so that passengers can move around our capital with a sense of security. For women in particular, I know this is a great relief. It is therefore of huge concern that we still have unregulated private hire vehicles in London. Here I speak about the issue of unlicenced pedicabs.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

On that point, does the hon. Member agree that any private hire vehicle, including pedicabs, should be regulated and licensed?

[Nickie Aiken]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. I absolutely agree, and I know that the local authority in her Vauxhall constituency, Lambeth, also agrees with us that pedicabs should be regulated.

Anyone who has come to central London has seen and most likely heard pedicabs. They are loud, they often block roads, and many intimidate and harass London visitors, particularly women. Currently, they are the only form of public transport in the capital that is unregulated. Due to a legal loophole, Transport for London is unable to regulate pedicabs, which means that neither drivers nor vehicles are licensed. I know that there are pedicab firms that undertake their own voluntary vehicle and driver checks and have the right insurance. I have met them and I have worked with the pedicab drivers’ association. I fully support those pedicab companies that want to do the right thing. However, as noted in the official impact assessment of the Pedicabs (London) Bill, there are still too many rogue pedicab drivers who do nothing to ensure that they and their vehicles are safe or insured, and they work at the moment without any legal repercussions.

This is a particular issue around the west end in my constituency, with its major theatres, nightlife venues and tourist locations, and in the backstreets of Soho and Covent Garden, which are so vibrant. Every day I see and hear about the impact of rogue pedicab drivers on local people, local businesses and visitors. Touting can be extremely aggressive, with amplified music and shouting into the early hours and throughout the night. As Amanda Jane, a Soho resident, said to me only last night:

“When you have your children woken up at midnight by these things, it is incredibly stressful and upsetting.”

The police, local councils and Transport for London need to be able to monitor these vehicles to ensure that passengers are safe. I do not say this lightly: we are living on borrowed time. I really worry about the safety of passengers, particularly women and girls, who experience repeated antisocial behaviour from rogue drivers. I note that the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 has a useful power for councils such as Westminster City Council to use in reducing the antisocial behaviour related to pedicabs. However, that is a short-term measure that requires huge amounts of evidence, time and resources. Local authorities do not have the finances to spend on that, but closing a simple loophole would give them the powers that they need.

The turnover of riders and the locations that they use means that it is very rare for a case to be brought to court. Pedicab drivers are a transient population. As soon as they know that they are in trouble with the police or a local authority, they disappear, so the local authority’s power is useless, but local people and businesses have to put up with it.

The patchwork of issues can be traced back to the fact that a pedicab is currently defined as a “stage carriage” in Greater London under the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act 1869 and thus does not fall under TfL’s licensing powers. I say to the Minister again: we are in the 21st century and are having to deal with 19th-century legislation. For the sake of women’s and girls’ safety, it is surely time to modernise the legislation surrounding pedicabs.

It is so frustrating. We need to ensure that pedicabs in our capital city are regarded as hackney carriages and thus subject to regulation. In every other city in England, they are considered hackney carriages and can be regulated, although we do not see them in other large cities. I cannot recall seeing them in Manchester. They might be there, but they are not as prevalent as they are in central London, and there is probably a reason for that. Rogue pedicab operators know that they are not regulated and they can get away with dreadful—

[Florence Eshalomi]

On that point, the Local Government Association supports the use of the national register of licence revocations and refusals for pedicab licensing. Does the hon. Lady feel that that would provide the safety checks to reassure women that the people driving those cabs have had adequate checks?

[Nickie Aiken]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The more checks that we can have on drivers, the better. We do not know who they are most of the time. I have so much evidence in my office that I have collated over the last couple of years, and drivers have been known to be wanted by the police, not just in the UK but overseas. We are allowing women to get into vehicles with drivers who have not been checked by the Disclosure and Barring Service. I find it incredible.

I am sure the Minister appreciates that this loophole invites a whole host of issues, not least the safeguarding of passengers—not just women, but all passengers. All other private hire vehicles, including our iconic black cabs, have to satisfy a whole range of licensing requirements to protect passengers. I have had the benefit of black cab drivers’ views on pedicabs many times, and they are frustrated that it is not the same for them as it is for pedicabs. When they are at a traffic light with a pedicab, they have to jump through hoops but the pedicab does not. I thank our brilliant black cab drivers, and the nation thanks a particular taxi driver in Liverpool for his heroic actions on Sunday morning. We owe them the ability to have a fair scheme for all private hire vehicles.

Unlike the situation when someone gets into an Uber, private hire vehicle or black cab, pedicab passengers have no way of knowing where they are going or with whom they are getting into the vehicle. In London, pedicabs are able to operate with impunity, which leads to conflict and an inconsistent position with licensed private hires—we must move to a transparent safety and movement-regulated system. Transparency is key, and the perception of safety is just as important as the licence transparency scheme. As it stands, there is no accountability for any incident, which is what concerns me. As a woman, and as the mother of a young woman, that concerns me. It speaks to a culture of some pedicab operators being able to get away with unacceptable behaviour and unsafe vehicles, which are encouraged by an absence of a licensing regime, and it is unfair on pedicab operators who do the right thing.

Given the lack of regulation, there are very few powers that the police can enforce with regards to rogue pedicabs. For instance, law enforcement has no powers in relation to lack of insurance, lack of training for riders, or pedicabs that are not fit for the purpose of carrying passengers. This means that even if a police officer sees a wholly unfit pedicab, they can do very little to prevent its hire in central London or across the capital. I often walk around my constituency, and I am always shocked, frustrated and appalled by the behaviour of many pedicabs drivers who are touting for business. We really need to end this practice.

The police can enforce cycle construction, use and lighting regulations, but even those are unclear with regards to pedicabs and other three or four-wheeled cargo or work bikes. TfL’s “Pedicab Safety Evaluation” notes that, as pedicabs

“are not referred to specifically”

in such regulations, they often do not comply. One resident in my constituency put it well:

“When I spoke to a pedicab driver, he told me I’d better get used to it as it was about to get worse after lockdown. He said, ‘There’s nothing the police can do about it. This nuisance is permitted as the operators are able to use a byelaw related to the power of their machines.’”

That is truly staggering. Others and I have sustained evidence that many pedicab operators not only act contrary to basic health and safety standards, but do so knowing there is little power to hold them to account.

I want to do everything I can to ensure that we send a clear message that when we see examples of poor standards and behaviour in London, we will respond with strength. Intervention is necessary to create a licensing system to improve passenger safety, particularly for women and girls, which is why I am delighted to be bringing my Pedicabs (London) Bill to the House for its Second Reading on Friday. I have received powerful testimony from local authorities, businesses and residents on the transformative effect that the Bill will have in London. My Bill is supported by Members from all parties, the Mayor of London, the Deputy Mayor for Transport, TfL, London councils such as Westminster, Lambeth, Camden, and Kensington and Chelsea, the pedicab drivers association, the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, the New West End Company, and the Heart of London Business Alliance. It is also supported by residents associations and amenity societies up and down my constituency: the Soho Society, the Marylebone Association, the St Marylebone Society, the Covent Garden Community Association, the Knightsbridge Association, and the Hyde Park Association, to name but a few. By enabling TfL to introduce a licensing system for pedicabs, the Bill would allow it to set standards for operators, vehicles and drivers. It could check whether a pedicab driver had the right to work in the UK, and allow licensed operators to provide a service to passengers that would ensure their safety.

I want to make sure that the Minister is aware that I was informed of a tourist being charged £380 for a journey from Leicester Square to Stratton Street, which is under a mile. I cannot find the charge for a black cab, but the equivalent Uber cost would be £7. There is therefore a concern about the amount of money that is being charged.

In conclusion, I know that the Minister understands this, as well as the danger posed to women and girls in public spaces; I appreciate all the work that she has done in her current and previous roles. Do we really have to see someone seriously hurt, sexually assaulted, raped or killed in order to ensure that we get more safety for pedicabs? Do we really want to have to look a family in the face and say that, actually, we could have regulated pedicabs? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend and, indeed, his constituent, Mrs Squire. We need please to get the message out from this Chamber to encourage victims, where non-contact sexual offences are being committed, and where they are able to and where they feel able to, to report those offences to the police, so that these escalating behaviours can create a pattern that the police can review. That is why I have great sympathy with the new clauses that the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North has tabled. I am pleased to reassure her that we are very much taking the point on board when it comes to developing the strategy.

In terms of other matters relating to sex offenders, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke have pressed upon me the need for a review of how registered sex offenders can change their name without the police’s knowledge. We have some of the toughest rules in the world for the management of sex offenders, but we recognise those concerns.

We do not want any loopholes that can be exploited by sex offenders to enable offending and to evade detection by the changing of names. Indeed, only last week I met the Master of the Rolls and my counterpart Lord Wolfson in the Ministry of Justice to discuss this critical issue. I am pleased to advise the House that we are conducting a time-limited review of the enrolled and unenrolled processes for changing names to better understand the scale and nature of the issue, whether current processes are being or could be exploited to facilitate further offending and, if so, how that can be addressed.

Colleagues have expressed understandable concern regarding the treatment of key workers, particularly those who keep our shops and supermarkets open and stocked, those who keep our buses and trains running, and key workers such as refuse collectors, park staff, teachers and others who perform a vital duty at any time, but particularly in the very difficult 18 months we have all experienced. We are very conscious that when our constituents are serving the public and delivering key services, they must feel safe doing so. No one should feel unsafe in their workplace. We therefore all feel anguish about some of the stories we have heard in relation to retail and other workers over the past year.

The Lord Chancellor and, indeed, the Government, completely understand the sentiments behind the new clauses tabled by the Leader of the Opposition and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), and I hope that Members have heard the indication that we gave earlier in the debate. There is a range of existing laws, with significant penalties, that cover assaults and abuse of all public-facing workers. Sentencing guidelines already require the courts to consider as an aggravating factor, meriting an increased sentence, an offence that has been committed against a person serving the public. However, I make it clear that we want to assure my hon. Friend and Members of all parties that we are not complacent about the matter and that we are actively considering tabling an amendment, if appropriate, in the Lords.

Our genuine concerns about the new clauses relate to technical issues with some of the drafting. There is vagueness about the nature of the assault offence. It overlaps with existing offences and there seems to be reference to Scottish provisions, which we believe to be unnecessary. I say to the House in an open-hearted, open-handed way that we are looking at the matter and that we want to work not only with hon. Members with but the retail sector to improve the reporting of those offences and the police response.

I turn now to the public order provisions. There has been much debate about those measures. Some of it has been informed by fact, but some has been informed by misunderstanding. The measures have been developed in consultation with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Metropolitan police to improve the police’s ability to better manage highly disruptive protests. Such protests have brought parts of London in particular, but also elsewhere, to a standstill. There have been instances of ambulances being obstructed. Protesters have disrupted the distribution of national newspapers and, given that we are discussing freedom of expression and freedom of speech, I hope that colleagues will understand why we are so concerned to ensure that newspapers can be produced.

Protests have prevented hard-working people from getting to work and drawn thousands of police officers away from the local communities they serve.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

As the Member for Cities of London and Westminster—Westminster experiences 500 protests every year—I ask my hon. Friend whether she agrees that the human rights of protesters are absolutely important but so are those of local people who live just yards from this place?

[Victoria Atkins]

That sums up the balancing exercise that the Government are drawing on the advice of the independent police inspectorate. The Bill does not stop the freedom to demonstrate; it balances it with the rights and liberties of others. The existing laws are 35 years old. We want to update them and also implement the recommendations of the independent Law Commission.

It will continue to be the case that the police attach conditions to only a small proportion of protests. To put that in context, in a three-month period earlier this year, the assessment of the National Police Chiefs’ Council was that of more than 2,500 protests, no more than a dozen had conditions attached to them: 12 out of 2,500.

Cyber-Fraud in the UK

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) for securing this timely debate.

The scale of fraud and cyber-crime is remarkable, affecting more people more often than any other crime. It represents more than a third of all estimated crime, with 6.1 million incidents in England and Wales in the year ending September 2020. Eighty per cent of reported fraud is facilitated by the use of digital technology and the coronavirus pandemic means so many more of us are using online services to shop and invest and for leisure. As our habits change, so do those of criminals.

I believe that life on the internet should be as safe as our lives offline. If being exploited on the high street is unacceptable, the same must apply to vendors who operate online. I am proud that the City of London Police, based in my constituency, is the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for economic and cyber-crime and the national lead force for fraud. It works to investigate serious, complex and cross-border fraud, which is beyond the capability of a local police force, and provides training for such police forces and private sector workforces through its Economic Crime Academy. With the support of the City of London Corporation and stakeholders, including UK Finance, the City of London Police has consistently shown how it can harness and work with the private sector to tackle cyber-fraud, providing a bridge for law enforcement into financial institutions and, importantly now, into the FinTech sector.

I welcome the draft Online Safety Bill announced in the recent Queen’s Speech, which I hope will do much to tackle cyber-fraud. Indeed, the inclusion of fraud within the legislation will provide much needed encouragement for online service providers to take responsibility for protecting users of their services and implementing counter-fraud strategies to prevent malicious content. That is essential in a time when we have become even more dependent on making our digital defences robust and capable of dealing with the volume of fraud that we are now seeing. By the same token, if we are seeing cyber-fraud more often replacing traditional crime, we must allocate the relevant resources to reflect this new significance.

Equally, the City of London Police, which holds the unique role in this landscape, must be properly funded so it can continue upholding its national responsibilities. That said, online fraud need not be as sophisticated; online threats can and do spring from almost anywhere. Last year, the City of London Police alone requested suspension of 54,000 telephone, email, website and social media accounts. Facebook, Amazon, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and LinkedIn are the platforms that feature most frequently in fraud and cyber-crime reports, and I am sure all of us in this room use at least one of those platforms every day. The challenge is immense, and online service providers must take more responsibility to protect users of their services and implement counter-fraud strategies.

The suspicious email reporting service, developed in partnership with the National Cyber Security Centre, has received nearly 6 million reports in the past year, resulting in the removal of more than 43,000 scams and 86,000 URLs, including those linked to covid-19, investment and online shopping fraud. I have used the excellent service myself, forwarding suspicious emails to report@phishing. gov.uk, and texting 7726. We all have a part to play in ensuring that those fraudsters are closed down as soon as possible.

Clearly, updating the framework by which we enforce against cyber-fraud is a priority for this Government, and I welcome their conviction on that, but the solution is not one-dimensional. We all have a role to play in fraud prevention. We know not to leave our doors unlocked, our possessions visible in our cars or our telephones on a table when we are out eating. We know that to keep ourselves safe, we have to take a degree of personal responsibility. The same needs to be replicated online. People, no matter what their age, should be taught how to keep themselves safe online.

Although there is more that can be done and, critically, is being done centrally, greater priority must be placed on fraud at a local policing level. Too few of the cases disseminated to local forces for investigation by Action Fraud have actually reached a judicial outcome. Simply increasing capability, capacity and focus centrally will not address the substantial shortfall in local police forces to take cases forward. Now more than ever, there needs to be a drive to boost local police capacity and ensure consistency of approach. I am glad to see the Government respond with strength on this issue. It is my hope that strength does not wane, but is fortified to protect our citizens against aggressive and malicious abuses of technology.

Safe Streets for All

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

There is much to welcome in the Queen’s Speech that will make our streets safer, but in the short time that I have today—although I recognise that I have an extra minute—I want to strongly welcome the focus in the Gracious Speech on online safety. Life on the internet should mirror what is and what is not acceptable offline. Very few people would abuse someone standing in the street, so why do it online? The draft Online Safety Bill signals a step change for tech responsibility, bringing fairness and accountability to the online world. Placing children’s safety at the heart of this legislation is absolutely right.

In the UK, more than 10,000 offenders are caught every year involved in grooming and downloading indecent images of children. That 50 years ago we put a man on the moon, but in the third decade of the 21st century we cannot even prevent the uploading of toddlers and babies being abused is beyond me. It is shameful that it has to be this Government to bring forward legislation to protect children from online paedophiles. It is partly because the platforms themselves pay only lip service to protection.

If left unchecked, a hostile online environment can spill into concerning real-world actions. This has been made clear in the degree of antisemitism seen both online and offline in the past week. I was appalled by a briefing that I received from the London Jewish Forum, which provided evidence of antisemitism both in professional settings and on university campuses. The current conflict in the middle east has triggered new spikes of antisemitism both online and offline in this country.

As it currently stands in the draft Bill, only the largest and most popular platforms will be required to act on content that is harmful to adults. That risks the most harmful content just moving to less prolific sites. Parliament must protect the most vulnerable and ensure that the Bill compels all platforms, regardless of their reach, to remove harmful content and include robust digital policing.

I also hope that this Bill will give Ofcom the powers it needs to hold the platforms to account. I welcome the decision to include elements of economic crime within the scope of the Bill. I am proud that City of London police, based in my constituency, is the national lead for economic and cyber-crime. Sadly, fraud is the fastest growing area of crime in the UK, with City of London police currently receiving more than 800,000 reports a year. The inclusion of fraud in the Bill will provide much-needed encouragement, particularly for online retailers and auction sites, to take responsibility for protecting users and implementing counter-fraud strategies to prevent malicious content.

Our digital safety is just as important as our physical safety. I welcome the Bills outlined in this Queen’s Speech, which I think will make us all safer and—equally importantly—make us feel safer, whether we are online or walking in the street.