Crime and Neighbourhood Policing

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

The data I have is that knife crime has gone up in London, and there are really serious challenges when it comes to Labour’s management of policing in London.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Despite what the shadow Home Secretary said, knife crime in London has risen by 11%. That is proven by “Crime in England and Wales” from the Office for National Statistics, dated 26 January 2023.

[Suella Braverman]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification. We have made £130 million available over the financial year 2022-23 to tackle serious violence, including murder and knife crime. Take our violence reduction units, which have reached over 260,000 young people who are vulnerable, preventing them from falling into a life of crime in the first place. Our Grip police enforcement programme is supporting the police in the crime hotspots most affected by serious violence. Together, Grip and violence reduction units have prevented an estimated 136,000 violent offences.

We went further. Our Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act introduced the serious violence duty: a new legal requirement for agencies to work together to prevent and reduce serious violence locally. What did Labour Members do? They voted against it.

Everybody deserves to feel safe everywhere. I am proud of our safer streets fund, which was launched in 2020 by the Government and has supported 270 projects around the country designed to cut neighbourhood crimes such as theft, burglary and antisocial behaviour as well as violence against women and girls. In Humberside, improved communal entrances to flats are helping to prevent drug dealing, and new storage units are stopping bike and motorbike theft. In Northampton, funding has supported improvements to the security of thousands of homes that were vulnerable to burglary with alleyway gates installed to prevent an easy escape for offenders. In Essex, the use of public space protection orders has resulted in a significant reduction in nuisance and antisocial behaviour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Unsurprisingly, I rise to speak against the motion this afternoon. Before I explain why, I wish to pay tribute to my local policing team led by William Rollinson. I was out with them last week, seeing the selfless work that they do on our behalf, even during this difficult time for policing in general.

I am against the motion because it does not address the full range of actions on which this Government are focusing in relation to policing and crime, and because it does not acknowledge the Opposition’s failure to back any measure that has been taken by this Government in making the population of this country safer.

Earlier, the shadow Home Secretary said that she did not know what the Home Secretary was doing. Well, I know what the Home Secretary is doing—she is leading by putting more police on the streets in my community and communities around the country. I also know what the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Front Bench are doing—they are consistently opposing everything. They opposed the Public Order Bill, which gave our police more powers. They oppose the National Security Bill, which gives the security services and law enforcement more powers. They have always talked down the increase in police numbers that this Government have brought forward, and that undermines the role of policing and neighbourhood policing in this country, because they are consistently saying that there are fewer police on the streets than there were when we came into government. As the Minister outlined, there will be more police on the streets once the 20,000 uplift has happened.

Labour Members needs to take their responsibilities as an Opposition very seriously. They have consistently opposed any actions that this Government have taken. When I was a parliamentary private secretary at the Home Office, following some very good colleagues who are currently Parliamentary Private Secretaries on the second Bench, the shadow Home Secretary consistently opposed without putting decent policies forward herself. She just opposed all the time, to try to make this Government look weak, when this Government have addressed policing in the strongest terms that we have seen for decades.

That plays out in the fact that 16,500 police officers have been recruited ahead of time for our 20,000 target, requiring an extra £540 million. I am pleased that in Hampshire that equates to 500 more officers, who will be keeping my constituents safe, and sometimes me as well. That is because of the leadership of the former Home Secretary, the former Prime Minister, the current Home Secretary and the Policing Minister in delivering that.

Those increases in police numbers have meant that crime has been reduced. Since 2010, overall crime has reduced by 50% and the number of young people assaulted with sharp weapons has dropped by 23%. I have found it extremely irritating during this debate to hear shadow Ministers consistently criticising the policies of this Government, but not taking into account their own elected politicians who run policing in this country, such as Sadiq Khan in London, where crime has gone up by 11%. In Manchester, a force has gone into special measures. Not once did the Labour party call out its own politicians for their failures in office; Labour just wants to be opportunistic in this debate.

As I mentioned, I was out with my force last week and saw police engaging with businesses and people on new housing estates, talking about issues such as antisocial behaviour, vandalism and traffic issues. That is neighbourhood policing being delivered every day because of the extra officers put forward by this Government.

I ask the Minister for reassurance on two things. First, the recruitment is happening, but I would like to make sure that retention follows. When police officers do a degree as part of the recruitment process, will the Minister keep an eye on that to ensure that they do not leave the force after they graduate? Secondly, may I lobby the Minister on a fair funding formula for Hampshire, which is often under-resourced for its demographics, with two big cities in Portsmouth and Southampton and an ex-railway town in Eastleigh? I hope that we will be able to get a speedy solution to that.

This is not a long speech, but I was horrified by the tone that the Opposition took. This Government are delivering on policing and delivering on crime. Crime is down and numbers are up. It is about time that the Labour party and the Opposition used their time to have a constructive debate about policy. So far in this debate, we have heard nothing from them but carping, without holding their own side to account where they are in charge of police.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

In West Denton last month, a big pile of rubbish was set alight by teenagers, who threw petrol bombs at firefighters when they arrived to tackle the blaze. Communities are scared of arson, and no wonder: cases of antisocial arson went up by 25% last year. In one horror home in Cleveland, a den for crack deals with Rambo knives, antisocial behaviour has made lives in the community a misery, with litter everywhere, assaults outside the property and local residents terrified, and no wonder: knife possession is up by 15% on pre-pandemic levels, with more than 6 million Brits witnessing drug dealing or drug use last year, and 3,000 reported incidents of antisocial behaviour every single day.

In Lancashire just a few days ago, young people were throwing rocks in a shopping centre and careering around the car park on quad bikes. Communities are scared of antisocial behaviour, and no wonder: more than 35% of people—more than 20 million people—have witnessed antisocial behaviour in the last year. People all over the country know exactly what this feels like. They know what broken Britain feels like. This is Tory Britain.

So what went wrong? Today’s debate has laid it bare. First, they came for our police officers, cutting 20,000 across the country. Then they came for our PCSOs, cutting half the entire workforce. Our wonderful specials did not escape—8,000 down—and police staff who do the vetting, the training and the forensics have been cut by 6,000 since 2010. Then they came for the courts, with cuts leaving victims waiting years for any hope of justice and turning away from their cases in record numbers. Now they are coming for our public services. The transport network is in ruins, hospitals are at breaking point, and our police are spending hours—days—dealing with mental health cases. In one force, mental health-related calls are up by more than 450% since 2010 because there is simply no one else to pick up the pieces.

The worst thing is that they are coming for our future, too. Support services for our kids have been decimated, with mental health, Sure Start and youth work cut, cut, cut, so our lost boys and lost girls are a lost generation. What about victims? They have simply been ignored. Charge rates have plummeted and victims are not reporting crimes; they are simply walking away.

I turn to the results. We have heard eloquently about the impact from hon. Members. My hon. Friends the Members for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) and for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) talked about the pictures in their communities of the effect of crime. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) talked about the fear that people have about going into town centres. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Simon Lightwood) talked about the number of arrests having halved nationally since 2010 and how, in his survey, only 8% feel safer than they did in 2010.

My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon) talked about the impact on neighbourhoods of the cut in PCSOs. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) talked about the police staff cuts. We need to free up officer time for them to be in the neighbourhood, but now we have warranted officers doing police staff jobs. They cost more money, and that is not what they should be doing.

The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes) might want to check some of his facts. He said that there are more police on our streets than ever before and that crime in London is up by 11%. Neither of those things is accurate. Perhaps he will want to correct the record. My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) summed it up by saying that people in our constituencies are not stupid; they know the truth.

[Paul Holmes]

In response to the shadow Home Secretary, I gave the source and figures that show that, in London, under this Mayor, crime was up by 11%. Perhaps she would like to correct the record.

[Hon. Members]

Knife crime.