Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome this important Bill, which will introduce new counter-terror-style powers to identify, disrupt and smash the people smuggling gangs. I take this opportunity to commend the Home Secretary on the work the Government have already done to remove foreign criminals and immigration offenders at the highest rate since 2018. By restarting asylum processing to clear the backlog and redeploying 1,000 staff to work on immigration enforcement, the Government have been able to deport more than 16,000 people, while the previous Government deported just four volunteers.

I want to focus on an extremely important aspect of the Bill that has gone largely overlooked, and on which I have been campaigning for change. Clauses 43 and 44 will introduce new offences to clamp down on the rise of 3D-printed firearms, which is a serious threat. Such firearms present a new challenge to law enforcement because they can easily be made at home and are untraceable and undetectable by magnetometers in places such as airports and courthouses. While the UK has been successful in policing gun crime, law enforcement agencies have warned that they are underpowered to tackle this rising threat, so I am glad that the Bill addresses it.

Birmingham, the city I represent, has regrettably become the gun capital of the United Kingdom, with nearly 600 firearm offences recorded in the West Midlands police area last year. In 2023, a local man was convicted of possession of a range of home-made assault rifles manufactured using a 3D printer in his home. That is why last year I introduced my Firearms (3D Printing) Bill, which would make it an offence to possess and share the blueprints to build these deadly weapons and to possess part of a 3D-printed firearm.

I worked with Channel 4 and Middlechild TV on a documentary about this issue, and I was shocked to learn that files containing IKEA-like step-by-step guides to 3D print firearms at home can be downloaded from the web in as little as three clicks. That is putting the public at risk. I am therefore delighted that Ministers have wasted no time in closing this loophole, introducing much-needed legislation and backing my Bill.

The horrors of the Dunblane massacre in the 1990s mean that the UK has got much right on gun control. Our constituents see mass shootings in other countries and are thankful for the strong gun controls we have here. However, that has never been a reason to be complacent, and the rise of 3D printer technology in recent years has presented a novel threat. Someone can buy a 3D printer for £150. As we saw in the Luigi Mangione case in the United States, 3D-printed firearms are not toys, but deadly weapons. Some might look like Nerf guns, but 3D-printed weapons can kill.

In the United Kingdom, 3D-printed firearms are growing in popularity, with several cases in recent years. In 2023, a man from Bradford was held in possession of a FGC-9 home-made automatic sub-machine-gun, magazine and bullets. In May 2023, two men from Bradford and Hull were convicted of plotting to build and supply home-made weapons to criminal gangs. In the same month, National Crime Agency officers uncovered a factory in south London that was converting blank-firing guns into lethal weapons using 3D-printed parts. Earlier this year, an Islamist extremist was jailed for seven years after being found with instructions on how to build 3D-printed weapons. I mentioned the case in Birmingham, where a man was convicted of making assault rifles in his own home similar in size and scope to the AK47. The point of this legislation is to limit the accessibility of blueprints and prevent dangerous people using them to undermine gun control in the United Kingdom, and to send a strong message that the law will come down on those who want to do harm to our country. In conclusion, the Labour Government came to power promising safer streets. I am proud that we are taking stronger action to deliver on that pledge. In a weaponising world, legislation must keep pace with new technology and the rise of new novel threats. My call for a change in legislation has meant that those seeking to undermine our gun controls to commit criminal acts under the radar by downloading and sharing blueprints to make 3D-printed guns will now face criminal charges. I thank the Government for that.

Finally, turning to other measures in the Bill, I commend the Government for taking a practical approach to Britain’s border security. The previous Government’s efforts were a disaster. They stopped processing asylum cases while failing to deport people with no right to be here, with the result that thousands upon thousands of asylum seekers have been left to languish in hotels and B&Bs across the country, costing the taxpayer billions. Even more self-defeating was the previous Government’s decision to write a blank cheque out of Britain’s aid budget to pay for that mess, taking away funding to tackle the crisis that many people are fleeing in the first place. There is no solution to the global displacement crisis without international development. The Bill is right to focus on the smuggling gangs. We need to break the business model of the vile criminals who are still shipping families across the channel, even in the freezing cold, with no concern as to whether they live or die. The Bill will equip our law enforcement agencies with the powers they need to stop them, disrupt their supply chains and bring most of those who profit from this human misery to justice. The new counter-terrorist powers—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Knife Crime: West Midlands

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes) for securing this timely and important debate and highlighting the real-life impacts of knife crime in her constituency. Knife crime is a public health crisis. I speak as an ex-cabinet member for public health and an ex-children’s services manager when I say that it is essential that we tackle both the causes and effects of knife crime.

In July, the Office for National Statistics found that knife crime in England and Wales had risen by 78% over the past 10 years. That is a staggering increase and sets out the scale of the challenge facing the new Government in reversing that terrifying trend within a decade.

I am sad to say that the West Midlands police force area is responsible for 10% of knife-enabled crime in the whole of England and Wales; only the Met police have more cases. However, the statistics alone never tell the real story and, as the MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, I have been witness to some horrific cases in recent years. Jordan Moazami, who was 18 years old and described as a “role model” by his peers, was stabbed and killed on Tennal Road in my constituency in 2019. Muhammad Hassam Ali, 17 years old, was followed and killed by a 15-year-old after a four-minute conversation in Birmingham city centre. And in 2021, Dea-John Reid, my constituent, 14 years old, was hounded by a gang of five boys and grown men before being stabbed in the chest and dying.

I cannot do justice in words to the horror of those cases. In every one, what struck me immediately was the senselessness of it. And in many ways that is where we need to start when thinking about finding meaningful solutions to the epidemic of young boys taking each other’s lives. Prevention has to be our watchword.

Understanding the root causes of knife crime is complicated. It is often a picture of poverty, drugs, gangs, exploitation, school exclusion, domestic violence, adverse childhood experiences and being in care. One of the two 12-year-old boys who killed Sean Seesahai in Wolverhampton in 2023 had experienced significant trauma in his life and been at risk of child criminal exploitation. According to the defence, he had been groomed, exploited and trafficked by men in the community, so there is a complicated story to tell there.

One of the questions we ask ourselves is, “Who is looking out for these boys?” I think child criminal exploitation is often misunderstood by professionals, which prevents the early identification of child victims. Too often, child victims of exploitation are criminalised rather than safeguarded—something that exploiters and organised criminal gangs anticipate and utilise to their advantage. The services that might identify them as at risk—schools, youth services, mental health services—are all under strain: youth mental health services are in crisis, school exclusions have been at a record high and youth services have been cut to the bone. The tragedy is that sometimes it is that absence of a safe space that is putting children at risk.

Some of the stories we hear are absolutely bleak. A Barnardo’s practitioner at a service dealing with child exploitation shared evidence that, during winter, groups of children often gathered outside a leisure centre and sat by the air vents, as that was the only place they could feel warm and safe. That became a spot for exploitation, described as

“a hotspot for adults or older teens with cars driving by and offering lifts…and McDonald’s”.

Of course, that is how the dynamics of exploitation start: the favours, the debts, the escalating patterns of criminality.

I was struck recently by a comment by Martin Griffiths, a consultant trauma surgeon in London and NHS England’s national clinical director for violence reduction—an incredible practitioner who has done some amazing work through his charity. He said:

“County lines drug carriers are all being exploited, whether it’s knowingly or not, by individuals or organisations who utilise them because they are impressionable. They are mentoring these kids to do bad things. These are children who are low on support, self-esteem and resources.”

It is precisely that lack of spaces and opportunities that is part of what puts children and young people at risk. Research by YMCA in 2021 found that, in England, local authority spending on youth services totalled £379 million, a £1.1 billion cut in youth services on 2010. I am hugely relieved that, in Birmingham, despite the current challenges for the council, all youth centres will now remain open and be retained by the council or partner organisations. It is a huge testimony to the importance that residents and young people place on these services in our city, and I want to thank everyone who made their voice heard in the recent consultation.

Communities and families have solutions, and they need to be part of the plan for change. I am really excited about the 10-year Young Futures programme the Home Office is working on, as it has the potential to do great things in my city. The creation of a new network of youth hubs is exactly what we need, and I should be grateful if the Minister would meet with me to discuss the provision in Birmingham.

There were 50,000 knife-related crimes in the year to March 2023 across England and Wales, around 5,000 of which were in the West Midlands police force area. I am heartened by the Home Secretary’s categorical commitment that every youngster found carrying a knife will trigger a rapid intervention, including a prevention plan, to stop them reoffending. Identifying those young people before it is too late is half the battle, and when the signs are there, we must act on them. Can the Minister say more about the plans laid out in our manifesto this summer to place youth workers and mentors in A&E and pupil referral units?

I want to pay tribute to brilliant charities, such as Redthread in my patch, which has been working at the Queen Elizabeth hospital for several years. I mentioned Martin Griffiths, a surgeon and clinical director; the work he has pioneered at his A&E as a trauma surgeon is extraordinary. Young people that he had seen many times before would often turn up on his operating table. He realised that A&E admissions were a critical opportunity to intervene. He has a multidisciplinary team at his hospital, based in A&E. Instead of just patching up children and sending them on their way, the team help them to get education, work or somewhere to live. There is mental health treatment and advice on special educational needs, and the police provide protection and support for those who want to get out of a gang. The hospital allows the patients to stay there until it is safe for them to be discharged. The results have been incredible: readmission rates have dropped from 30% to 4%.

Redthread has a similar model and has demonstrated similarly remarkable results. Some 90% of the young people supported by Redthread did not return to hospital for a violence-related injury in the following year, and six months after the intervention 100% of the young people supported said they felt as safe or safer than they did before the incident. Young people who engaged in the full programme were 51% less likely to reattend than those who did not. A cost-benefit analysis showed that for every £1 spent, there was £4.90 of economic and social benefit. Can the Minister say more about the multidisciplinary and multi-agency work to address violence or exploitation?

Finally, we need to crack down on the criminals and routes into serious violence and crime. It baffles me that we still do not have a specific statutory definition of child criminal exploitation. There have been multiple definitions, resulting in a confused, fragmented response by authorities, and investigators have to use laws on modern slavery to punish those coercing or forcing children to move drugs. A new offence of criminal exploitation of children would allow us to go after the gangs that are luring young people into violence and crime. I look forward to working with the Government on their plans to introduce this new law in due course.

I am proud of the swift action the Government have taken to tackle knife crime so far: banning zombie-style blades and machetes, which were used to kill Ronan Kanda in Wolverhampton, setting an ambitious mission to halve knife crime in a decade, and launching a new coalition to tackle knife-enabled crime working together with technology companies, sports organisations and the health service. But there is undoubtedly a lot more to do. When does the Minister hope to bring forward the crime and policing Bill, so that we can move ahead with the Young Futures programme and strengthen those laws?

The message we need to send to young people is one of hope and opportunity—that our society cares about them and that we are invested in them and their futures. Tackling knife crime has always been about prevention and protection as much as prosecution. After 14 years of abject failure by the previous Government on this issue, I am looking forward to working with the Labour Government to deliver change that saves more lives.

Crime: Birmingham, Edgbaston

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to speak on behalf of my constituents in this debate on crime in Birmingham, Edgbaston. I am pleased that I have been able to secure it, as it comes on the back of a spate of issues that constituents have raised with me in the past number of years, which appear to be getting worse.

In the west midlands, neighbourhood crime has been steadily rising since 2020. Although the title of this debate covers Birmingham, Edgbaston, I know that the experiences and challenges that we face in my constituency are felt across Birmingham and the whole of England. My constituency covers the wards of Edgbaston, North Edgbaston, Harborne, Quinton and Bartley Green.

Let me start by focusing on an issue that has been an absolute stain on the lives of so many of my constituents in recent years: the rise in car-related crime. As the Minister will no doubt be aware, this is one of the many areas of crime where outcomes have steadily worsened over the past 14 years.

By 2010-11, when Labour last left office, vehicle thefts in England and Wales had dropped to a third of what they were 10 years previously. In the years since, numbers have risen again by a third, to over 130,000. But while thefts have risen, the number of cases solved has not. Home Office data for the outcomes of reported crimes show that only 2% of car thefts recorded led to a suspect being charged or summoned. In total, this figure amounted to 3,378. A total of 76% of car thefts were not solved last year.

However, what I really want to talk about today is not the headline statistics, as bleak as they are, but some of the real stories behind the statistics, because debates about crime are not abstract. The experience of my constituents cannot be described by lines on a chart. The result of crime is often a life shattered, confidence shaken and a trail of devastation in its wake, with the victim forced to pick up the pieces.

A recurrent issue that is causing misery for many residents is car stripping. In 2022 one of my constituents had her Toyota Aygo stripped at a parking bay in her residence. In a matter of 17 days, her replacement car was once again stripped. On that occasion another car on the same compound was stripped at the same time. My constituent’s neighbour was a witness to the latter incident and called the police as she watched someone pick apart the cars in real time, but was apparently told by the police that they were far too busy. As my constituent put it:

“I am on a state pension, and I live alone, this has caused me financial problems. But more than that it has left me emotionally and mentally exhausted. I feel if I was to buy or borrow a car that the same would happen. The police had a great opportunity to catch the criminals and at least send a message to others.”

I received another similar case from a member of a street watch group in Harborne:

“A constituent had their car targeted 4 times in one year and swapped to another car as their Toyota Yaris was uninsurable. Their new car was stripped in less than a week.”

A constituent from the same area contacted me to say that a resident on their road had seen one of these incidents taking place in broad daylight. She immediately rang the police but, despite informing them that she was witnessing the incident happening before her eyes, and despite there being a police station around the corner, she was told simply to log the incident online.

The impact that these crimes have on people’s lives should not be understated. I want to share the story of another of my constituents, who works within the NHS at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham in my constituency. She says:

“Last Thursday afternoon on my return to my vehicle after a long day in clinic, I discovered that my new car of only 4 months had been stolen. Although my insurance is fully comprehensive, I am not entitled to a courtesy car as it has not been involved in a smash or been vandalised, and funds to cover the cost of the vehicle will not be paid out until at least 30 days have passed—in case the car is recovered. As you can imagine, I am devastated, and this will impact my working day as well as my life outside massively.

In our department alone, a small team of 11, we have personally experienced, break-ins, stolen belongings, vandalism, damage, a stolen catalytic converter from my previous car 6 months ago, and now vehicle theft. We have all been witnesses to multiple cases of car cannibalism to the cars of other QEHB staff too. The only members of the team who haven’t been directly affected are those who arrive very early and as a result are able to obtain on-site parking. There has also been multiple cases of car theft and vandalism amongst the wider department staff.”

We can see that these are not just isolated incidents, but a pattern of worsening, more frequent and more brazen crime. For the victims, such as those hospital workers, it is devastating; it turns ordinary people’s lives upside down and takes them away from otherwise contributing to society, whether through working in the NHS, looking after their families or supporting their community. However, particularly when so many crimes go unresponded-to and unsolved, crime also has a poisonous impact on our society as a whole, because it shakes our confidence in the very people and institutions we are meant to trust to keep us safe. Take Katy, who also found her car stripped. She said:

“Reporting to the police, for reasons that might be resource related, has been inconsequential and thieves seem to know that, given their increased audacity and frequency of such incidents... This is simply a call for help since my neighbours and myself are growing increasingly hopeless.”

All these things contribute to a growing sense of despair that nothing in this country works any more.

Burglaries are another increasing issue; it is bad enough to have one’s car stripped or stolen, but it is uniquely disturbing to know that strangers have broken into and stolen from one’s own home. There is a unique sense of violation and fear that many victims share with me when they find they have been burgled. One constituent who contacted me told me:

“My wife was home when miscreants broke into the house and since then we don’t feel safe in our own home. During this week as many as 3 more burglaries have taken place. No house which is locked even for a few hours during the day is safe... Police officials come and do the formalities of paper work and rest we don’t know...”.

In Quinton we have faced a spate of burglaries, even as families are at home eating dinner and during the day. Residents say they have noticed how much more brazen criminals have become: they do not care if one person is in, or even if whole families are at home. That has left residents terrified in their own homes. Almost all of them have Ring doorbells, but they do not seem to deter the culprits.

The point I am making is that the fear that crime puts into victims lasts so much longer than the time taken to experience and report the crime. As we can hear in these testimonies, there is a sense that in this country certain forms of crime simply happen without any consequence. That feeds a sense of isolation, hopelessness and powerlessness that is corrosive to the society that we surely want to create. That is why I applied for the debate and am raising these stories in the hope that the Minister can give my constituents some reassurance that the Government are taking the matter seriously and that the perpetrators of these crimes will see justice.

On car cannibalism especially, we know that parts are often stolen to order and passed on for the valuable materials they contain. Ministers have suggested previously that they would consider a review of the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 if necessary. Will the Minister consider it? What additional funding have the Government made available to tackle illegal unlicensed operators in the metals recycling sector and launch a wider campaign to tackle that crime? I appreciate that he may mention the National Police Chiefs’ Council metal crime steering group, but what actions have been implemented as a result of that group’s recommendations, and how are the outcomes measured?

The National Crime Agency has referred to

“an overall increase in organised acquisitive crime”,

including car theft. That was evident in the shocking 30% rise in car theft in the most recent year, according to the Home Office’s own statistics. Why does the Minister think his Government have failed to prevent serious organised crime groups from taking hold across Britain’s towns and high streets?

A concern that my constituents raise frequently is that they do not feel that police are adequately resourced to handle the crimes that they report and have to deal with, and, what is more, that the reassuring community police presence needed to deter criminals in the first place is not there. Given that 4,500 police community support officers have been cut since 2015, and only 12% of officers are assigned to neighbourhood policing teams, my constituents have a point, don’t they?

Over the past 14 years, the Government have overseen a litany of broken promises on policing across England. The decision to cut 20,000 experienced police officers, before trying to replace them with vastly less experienced officers, was just one of a catalogue of errors that have had a lasting impact on people’s trust in the police. I have heard colleagues talk about the glory days when they had five or six police officers and police community support officers in every ward, while I am having to fight to get numbers increased. Meanwhile, the number of arrests has halved, prosecutions have almost halved and the number of crimes solved has halved. More crimes are being reported, but fewer crimes are being solved. Criminals are getting away with it on this Government’s watch.

Those figures are accompanied by cuts to youth services and other institutions that were set up to support young people and reduce the causes of crime in our communities. After years of Tory austerity, youth services in Birmingham have been starved of the resources they desperately need. The total core budget for youth services last year was just £2.1 million, and there are currently just 25 full-time equivalent youth workers providing services to around 120,000 teens across the city—one youth worker for every 4,600 teens.

Young people in my constituency deserve better. They should have the same opportunities to develop and thrive as every other child across the country. That is why the next Labour Government will launch Young Futures, a new national cross-Government programme aimed at giving Britain’s young people the best start to life. A specific strand of activity will be targeted at the young people most at risk of being drawn into violent crime, and will deliver support for young people struggling with their mental health.

In my patch, the high number serious violent offences has become a persistent problem. Everyone has the right to feel safe and secure in their communities but, heartbreakingly, many of my constituents do not. In 2021, our city was shaken to its core by the murder of 14-year-old Dea-John Reid. His attackers chased after him in a car, yelled racist slurs at him and then hunted him down—a child—like a pack of animals. Dea-John’s death was horrifying. He was a much-loved young boy with so much ahead of him. To lose him in such a sudden and brutal way is heartrending. Dea-John was a victim of knife crime—and he is far from the only one.

Last month, it was reported that the West Midlands police are has the highest knife crime rate in England and Wales. Last year, Birmingham was named the gun capital of the UK, having overtaken London to have the highest gun crime rate in the country. Gun crime has emerged as a problem that increasingly haunts my constituents. Just last September in Quinton, residents were terrorised after a drive-by shooting took place on a residential street in broad daylight. A north Edgbaston constituent wrote to me after robbers jumped into her garden and tried to break into her home. After failing to enter her property, the gang held up her neighbours, who were only students, at gunpoint. What is the Minister doing to tackle the surge in gun crime in Birmingham? How does he expect my constituents to feel safe and secure in their homes and communities when neighbourhood police forces have been decimated and crime continues to rise?

I would also like to raise the catastrophic effects of dangerous driving, speeding, car cruising and off-road bike usage that many of my constituents repeatedly experience. Just yesterday morning, a child in my constituency was taken to hospital after being hit by a car during rush hour on a road in Bartley Green. The road where that poor child was hit is notoriously bad for speeding, and I have raised my concerns multiple times with the council and the police, but have repeatedly been told that it is not a priority for speed-calming measures. That shines a light on how speeding impacts people’s lives in my patch and how scarce resources are for tackling this blight on our communities.

Residents in Quinton write to me regularly about the scale of street racing, speeding and dangerous driving on their roads. Last year, two young girls aged four and two were hit by a car on West Boulevard. The year before that, two young boys were injured after a minibus they were passengers in crashed with two other vehicles. Pedestrians do not feel safe with so many crashes happening on our roads.

Off-road bikes have also been a cause of serious concern for my constituents. Recently, a constituent wrote to me to say that the issue of people riding off-road vehicles in his neighbourhood is escalating, as the offenders with illegal off-road motorcycles are now carrying offensive weapons. He said,

“I am now regularly reporting the incidents…But still at this stage nothing is happening to seize these bikes.”

I have taken this matter to the top of Government, asking the Home Office what assessment it has made

“of the adequacy of the (a) powers and (b) resources available to the police to deal with the illegal use of quad bikes.”

In reply, the Government said:

“The police have adequate powers under the Road Traffic Act 1988 and Police Reform Act 2002 to seize vehicles being driven illegally”.

Of course, though, what matters are resources and officer numbers, which I raised with the Government last year when I wrote to the Home Secretary asking when our region will see investment in resources and officer numbers. What exactly are the Government doing to tackle dangerous driving on our roads? Does the Minister accept that the police might not effectively have adequate powers to combat speeding and seize vehicles being driven illegally if resources have been, and continue to be, slashed? Average speed cameras, again, are a resource issue.

I will close my remarks with the comments of another of my constituents:

“I have lived here in Quinton most of my life and can honestly say I have never seen crime so bad to what it is now. There is constant racing on the West Boulevard and up/down”

my constituent’s road

“including near the school where a young child was run over. There has been a stabbing on the road. There have been several cannabis farms and the road always seems to smell of cannabis. There was a serious assault in the early hours Saturday morning with the offender residing in the HMO… There is a vulnerable adult residing at the bottom of the road where the local drug dealers use his property as a ‘hang out’”.

There are similar stories across Edgbaston, Bartley Green, Harborne and North Edgbaston. My constituent also said:

“I know in other areas the police assist with CCTV or mobile cameras to assist with catching offenders. Can this not be an option for”

my constituent’s road

“in a plea to catch local offenders and make residents feel safe again.”

That is a direct plea from my constituent.

Despite the repeated calls from families across Birmingham, Edgbaston and throughout the country, criminals are not being caught or paying the price. Some 90% of crimes are going unsolved, and 2 million crimes—including a shocking 74% of burglaries—were dropped with no suspect being identified. That is the shameful Tory legacy on criminal justice; we simply cannot afford to carry on like this. Labour has made a really important pledge to get neighbourhood policing back into communities with 13,000 extra police officers and PCSOs, to guarantee patrols in our town centres, and to tackle knife crime as part of our mission to halve serious violence.

I put on record my thanks to my local police officers for everything they do with the limited resources they have. I am also grateful to our new chief constable, who has agreed to prioritise neighbourhood policing, but the west midlands has had 2,200 police officers cut and we are still 800 short. Fundamentally, people do not feel safe, and do not feel that they get justice as victims of crime on this Government’s watch.

--- Later in debate ---

[Preet Kaur Gill]

The testimonies that I shared were so powerful because they are people’s experience of being victims of crime. Those people say that given that the West Midlands police are still 800 police officers short, the resource is just not there, so they are given a crime reference number, and that is it. That does not make people feel safe. The Minister is talking about youth crime and various initiatives, but youth services have been decimated. There is nowhere for young people to go, and there are no opportunities for good jobs or training, so they get exploited. Those are the kinds of things that young people need. They need hope and aspiration.

[Chris Philp]

Youth unemployment is of course a great deal lower today than it was under the last Labour Government. On resources and police numbers in the west midlands, as I mentioned, the police and crime commissioner in the west midlands has £51 million more this year than last year, so the hon. Lady ought to ask him, ideally publicly, what he is spending that money on, and why he is not addressing the issues that she raises.

I agree that car crime and other crimes affect the victim terribly. That is why police across the whole country, including of course in the west midlands, have committed to always following reasonable lines of inquiry where they exist, including in relation to car crime. A big technological change that we are already exploiting is retrospective facial recognition. If the victim has an image of an offender—a Ring doorbell image, a mobile phone photograph of someone taking a car, closed circuit television footage from a shop where shoplifting has occurred—even if the image is blurred or partially obscured, it can be run through the police national database for a match. The facial recognition algorithm is now extremely accurate. That is a way in which we are already catching a lot more criminals, including some involved in car crime.

I encourage victims who have a picture of a suspect to please give it to the police, because they have committed to always—not sometimes—running it through the facial recognition database; and they have committed to always—again, not sometimes—following up reasonable lines of inquiry where they exist. That is for all crimes, even crimes that some people would historically have considered minor. That commitment was made last September, and it is vital that the police deliver on it and support victims, for the reasons the hon. Lady set out.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Will the Minister give an example of where that technology has been used, because I have never known that to happen? When residents send images that seem to be blurred, the police are very clear that they cannot do anything with them. Can the Minister tell me how many forces are using the technology, and when there has been a conviction?

[Chris Philp]

I wonder how much longer I have, but the technology is being used across the whole country. This year, over 100,000—

West Midlands: Transport

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Henderson, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), or Redditch and the villages, on securing this debate on transport in the west midlands.

I will speak today about buses. In the past year, trains have undoubtedly dominated headlines in my region after the bungled scrapping of HS2. Buses might not be as glamorous as trains and might not justify expensive taxpayer-funded trips to Japan for the Transport Secretary, but for many of my constituents buses are the lifeblood of the community. They are indispensable for connecting people to jobs, opportunities, education, public services, and friends and family. They also disproportionately serve the more deprived in our society; half of the poorest fifth of families do not own a car.

As I have argued many times before, poor bus services are one of the key reasons why Birmingham underperforms in productivity when compared to similar-sized cities in Europe. I have received complaints about buses from many of my constituents; whether they are looking for work, meeting with family, or simply want a day or night out in the city, the public transport is not there to connect them.

In my time as the MP for Birmingham, Edgbaston, I have lost count of the times that routes on which my constituents rely have been reduced or axed altogether. I also use buses to get around, so I have first-hand experience of that. The directors of National Express West Midlands and Diamond Bus are probably fed up with my letters, but as we are hearing, it is not just us in Birmingham, Edgbaston. Across the country, thousands of services have been axed since 2010. In the west midlands region, the total length of our bus routes has dropped by over 30% since 2010. Since 2021 alone, when the Government announced their bus revolution, over 2,000 routes have disappeared across England.

I want to wish the outgoing Mayor of the west midlands well in whatever he does next, and I thank him for his support and for working with me. However, I must say that I have been underwhelmed by his record on transport; I am thinking not only of his public spat with the Prime Minister on HS2. While our economy is 24/7, our public transport system in the west midlands simply is not. The people of the west midlands voted for change this week, and with Richard Parker I am confident that they will get it. Everyone should have access to a bus route that takes them where they want to go, and they should not have to limit their life choices based on where they live.

[Tahir Ali]

For the record, West Midlands Combined Authority’s medium-term finances represent a significant challenge to the authority, as a deficit of £29 million is forecast for this year, rising to £50 million for the year 2027-28. That will not be the responsibility of the incoming Mayor; that clearly sits with the outgoing Mayor and this Government. For the record, does my hon. Friend agree that the deficit proposed for this year, and up to 2027-28, will have nothing to do with the incoming Mayor?

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Clearly, that is something I have expressed already in working with Andy Street when it came to the cuts to a viability assessment taking place in my constituency, which would have a Sprint network, for example. A lot of the finances from central Government and the delays directly impacted what he could deliver in the region and clearly what the next Mayor will be able to.

Richard Parker’s plans are to bring the bus network into public control, allowing us to design routes that people need and making buses more affordable, more reliant, more frequent, greener and better connected. Crucially, he has pledged to work with communities to help design a bus network that works for them. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Richard Parker on his victory last week, and can he say whether he will support him in his plans to take buses back into public control? Can the Minister promise that he will not face the same six-year slog that Andy Burnham had to put up with in Greater Manchester due to the unnecessary barriers imposed by central Government?

Voters have seen what they get under a Conservative-run Government: paying more while getting less—whether that is 14 years and £16 billion wasted on HS2 before scrapping it anyway, or whether it is Avanti West Coast’s executives bragging about free money from the Government while cutting routes and running the worst-performing rail line in the country. Labour’s plan to bring buses back into public control could create and save up to 1,300 vital bus routes and allow 250 million more passenger journeys per year. In the west midlands region, that would amount to nearly 160 bus routes created or saved, and 40 million more passenger journeys. I am delighted that we have a west midlands Mayor who wants to match my constituents’ ambition. I hope that soon enough we will have the opportunity to vote for a Government who back him to do that, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

As we said when we debated this issue in the House last week, the Government are very proud of the amazing response from people across this country who have opened their homes to Ukrainian refugees. There will continue to be an out-of-country route through the Homes for Ukraine scheme to facilitate people being able to come here from Ukraine. Ukrainian refugees here in the UK will be able to extend their visas. We gave that certainty way ahead of the curve, when compared with our international partners. Ukrainian nationals who would have qualified under the Ukraine family scheme will still be able to apply under Homes for Ukraine.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of steps taken by his Department to tackle transnational repression by hostile states.

[The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She is aware that the Government are continually assessing the potential threats to individual rights and freedoms and to safety across the United Kingdom. I thank her for the efforts she made to represent her views to me in a different forum.

Whenever we identify such threats, we will always use every measure at our disposal, including our intelligence services, to mitigate any threat to individuals. In the first instance, I urge anyone concerned for their safety to contact the police. The hon. Lady will no doubt be aware that the National Security Act 2023 includes measures to tackle foreign interference, including transnational repression. The defending democracy taskforce is reviewing the UK’s response to develop our understanding of the issue and ensure a system-wide response.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Transnational repression to silence dissent in democracies is extremely serious. In recent months, Five Eyes nations have raised concerns about the actions of agents with links to India targeting Sikh activists in the United Kingdom. Most disturbingly, there have been alleged assassinations and foiled assassination plots. The US and Canadian authorities have taken the lead at senior levels to publicly call out this challenge to their sovereignty, the rule of law and their democratic values. Given the reports of British Sikhs facing similar threats, what steps are the Government taking to secure their safety? Will the Minister show the same strength as our partners do in publicly defending their democratic rights?

[Tom Tugendhat]

Let me be completely clear: if there are any specific threats against any British citizen by any foreign power, we will take immediate action. The Sikh community should be as safe as every other community in the United Kingdom. All British citizens are equal, whatever their colour, creed, faith or political allegiance. The reality is that we have taken all the action we believe is appropriate at this stage. We of course maintain a very close relationship with our Five Eyes partners, and we are absolutely clear that if the situation changes and we need to take action, we will do so.

Points of Order

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you very much.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Could you please advise on the description by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) of protesters outside the Indian high commission as “terrorists” during business questions last week? We condemn the violent behaviour outside India House—violence is never acceptable—but language is important, and to describe protesters as terrorists is inappropriate. Many of them would have been justifiably concerned about what was happening in Punjab and about how to contact their families while mobile, internet and SMS were shut down. Sikhs and Hindus have lived peacefully alongside one another in the United Kingdom for decades, and the current situation in Punjab does not require this kind of inflammatory language. As Members, we need to set an example. Can I ask that the Member correct the record?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Member for her point of order and for forward notice of it. I assume that she has informed the Member concerned.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

indicated assent.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Good. Members have freedom of speech in this Chamber and they, not the Chair, are responsible for their comments. That said, Mr Speaker has repeatedly reminded the House of the need for “Good temper and moderation”, as “Erskine May” puts it. I would encourage all Members to follow that advice, particularly on sensitive issues.

Illegal Migration Update

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Joanna Cherry]

rose—

Children and Domestic Abuse

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

The most common thing that women in refuges or community services have said to me is that they wish that there was something for their children—somewhere that their children could go to speak to somebody about what was happening at home. Although many of those women appreciated the support that was available to them, there was a hole for at-risk children, whether in classrooms or even in social services, with zero therapeutic support or play care support, or even just somebody at school who they could speak to and who would understand.

If the women of this country who have suffered domestic violence had written the Domestic Abuse Bill and had picked a single thing to ask for, they would have asked for their children to be supported. Across the country, support for children who are victims of domestic violence is patchy at best. Sometimes it is done well. The organisation where I used to work has a huge team of children’s support workers, funded as a pilot project through the Home Office. Unfortunately, however, such things are often pilot projects that do not extend to everywhere in the country and often go to those places that are best at writing bids. As the bid writer, I am delighted that we had that project, but the reality in most parts of the country is that if a teenager who was suffering abuse stepped forward at school, or if a child in a primary school stepped forward to say something about what was happening at home with his mum and dad, there would be nowhere to send that child.

I am fairly well versed in the local domestic abuse projects where I live, and I have most of their mobile phone numbers, but I would not know where to send a child who needed therapeutic support in Birmingham, the second biggest city in the country. If provision is patchy where I live, I cannot imagine what it is like in Blaydon.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend, whose background is in this area, is making a really good speech. As a former children’s services manager in Birmingham, she is absolutely spot on when she says that there is nowhere to refer children, especially when even children on child protection plans are not given support. Does she agree that it is wholly inadequate not to recognise children in the definition?

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree. The Domestic Abuse Bill gives us a real opportunity. We will not get the moon on a stick—the Bill will not give us everything—but the annual case load at Women’s Aid, where I used to work, involved on average 8,000 women and 16,000 children. Children’s names are written down on a form and their social work paperwork is in the file, but no one from my organisation would necessarily have laid eyes on them. A tiny fraction of them would have lived in refuge accommodation—less than 10% of the total number would have gone through that in a year—so we are talking about thousands of children in the west midlands who, every day, are without someone to confide in, to talk to, or to deal with the trauma they are feeling in their lives.

Anyone who sits for five minutes with people who have been a child victim of domestic abuse, who have grown up in a home, will tell us that that trauma stays with them in adulthood. They are likely to suffer from PTSD and from problems within their own intimate relationships. All the findings from studies of crime data on knife crime or even terrorism show links to people who grow up in traumatised households. It is imperative for the future of those children and our country that we get this right. Children must be included in the Bill, and at the same time we must take a huge, wholesale look at funding for children’s services in the country. I ask the Minister directly: how many young people’s violence advisers and specialist children’s workers are there across England and Wales? The SafeLives data shows that it would cost only £2.5 million to provide those services across England and Wales. In the greater scheme of things, what it would save would be huge.

We are moving into an era when this will be talked about in schools. All of us in the Chamber have fought—some of us literally had to fight directly on the streets—to ensure that compulsory sex and relationship education will be available in our schools. As we roll that out and talk about such subjects in schools, we must ensure that we do not open a door into an empty room. We must ensure that specialist training and specialist single points of contact are available to handle this in every school, and to handle it well.

The murder rate of women and girls were released the week before last. I have forgotten the name of the organisation, but the data was released: 144 women and girls were murdered last year. That is an increase of about 27 on the previous year. Those figures include the murder of girls younger than three. The reality is that we need to provide support for victims of domestic violence who are children, and it is also imperative that they are safeguarded. We need to start looking at where we are failing in the system of children’s social care. To look at my own city again, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) could tell horror stories about how the under-resourcing of children’s services is leading to dangerous situations for the city’s children.

I cannot stress one thing enough when it comes to the review being undertaken of the family court. All of us have been in meetings with the likes of Claire Throssell, whose children were burned in their home by a violent perpetrator who the family courts had allowed to have access to them, even though she had begged and pleaded against that. The presumption of access for domestic violence perpetrators has to end.

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady is exactly right. Thankfully, her local police force will have more police officers next year to help with this effort, and I know that one of the key focuses of all police forces involved in dealing with this awful phenomenon is the safeguarding of young people. Obviously, I will be working closely with colleagues from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education to see what more preventive work we can do. I believe that there is quite a lot more we can do around the disruption of the business model, to make it more difficult for people to deal drugs and to launder the money involved in the trade. That would make them less likely to promote it in smaller towns and villages and more likely to concentrate instead on urban areas, where we can get to work on the issue.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

4. What assessment she has made of the potential merits of making the role of domestic abuse commissioner a full-time position.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

We were delighted to announce Nicole Jacobs as our designate domestic abuse commissioner. The role was advertised as part time because we understood from advice from recruitment advisers that that would ensure the widest range of candidates. However, we have said in our response to the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill, and in the House on Second Reading, that we have an open mind on whether the role requires a full-time position. The Bill Committee will start its deliberations tomorrow, and no doubt we will look into that question in detail.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I welcome the appointment of Nicole Jacobs to the role of championing the needs of survivors of domestic abuse. As a social worker, I know that children are at serious risk of long-term physical and mental health problems as a result of witnessing domestic violence, so what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the commissioner is given the necessary powers and resources to properly support the one in seven children and young people under the age of 18 who have lived with domestic abuse at some point?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this matter. We know that domestic abuse is one of the primary adverse childhood experiences that can have such a terrible knock-on effect on a young person’s future life as well as on their own relationships. That is one of the many reasons why we are giving the commissioner powers to require information from public authorities and to oblige public authorities and central Government to respond to her recommendations within 56 days of her making them.

Crime and Antisocial Behaviour: Slade Road, Birmingham

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The irony is that, in the heat of a Conservative party leadership election, suddenly commitments are being made to reverse police cuts, including on the part of the current Home Secretary, who has presided over those cuts. The simple reality is that 21,000 posts have gone nationally and 2,100 in the West Midlands. The police are doing their very best; they do not always get it right, but they cannot work miracles with the badly depleted resources that have affected our police service.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on obtaining this debate. Benmore Avenue in my constituency has recently seen reports of open drug dealing and antisocial behaviour. Although no arrests have been made, the police are being forced to make difficult decisions about what to prioritise. Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking the police for their hard work in keeping our communities safe, and does he agree that forcing such choices on a police force is unacceptable?