Calais Children and Immigration Act

Robert Flello Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

Yes, indeed. Much of that dreadful trade is fuelled by the fact that the people traffickers seem to have no regard for people’s safety. During the summer, I was in Nigeria talking to the authorities there, and they are very concerned about the way that people are putting their children’s lives at risk by putting them into the hands of people traffickers. If and when the children arrive in Europe, the nightmare continues, particularly when they are pressed into modern slavery, or even worse in the case of some of the girls.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

In the run-up to the closure of the so-called Jungle camp at Calais, there were reports of a thousand or more people disappearing from the camp and melting into the countryside. What work is the Minister doing with his counterparts in France to ensure that when the French authorities identify people who melted away from the Calais jungle and who have vulnerable children, they too can be included in this programme?

[Mr Goodwill]

I certainly received reports of some people leaving the camps as the clearance started. I also received reports of people coming back into the camps as they saw how that clearance was taking place. Indeed, some children who had been elsewhere in France arrived at the camps, hoping that they would be part of the scheme and could be relocated and considered under the Dubs and Dublin regulations. Unfortunately, those late arrivals were not considered in the same way. The advice that we always give to people is to claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach, and if not so, then to claim asylum in France, where they can be adequately processed.

Police Officer Safety

Robert Flello Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Fire crews, which attend emergencies and save people’s lives, are also coming under attack. It is outrageous that our police, fire and emergency ambulance services, which are all on the frontline, are being discussed not because of the positive work that they do, but because people think that it is fair game to attack them.

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend must be clairvoyant, because the next thing I was going to say was that fire crews in the UK have come under attack 1,000 times in the past two years, and attacks on ambulance workers are also on the rise. Although the main purpose of this debate is to discuss violence against the police, I could not let it pass without referring to other blue-light services with similar issues. All assaults on the police are unacceptable, and we will discuss how to address them. The sad thing is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) said, there is no clear, reliable evidence of the number of assaults on the police, because the data are still recorded in a haphazard and irregular fashion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There are a few areas where Opposition Members might want to look at some of the facts and figures, and not confuse them as much as they seem to be doing.

The tremendous fall in crime I have mentioned already this afternoon was achieved while bearing down on budgets. Central Government funding for the police has fallen in real terms, and we and the police should be proud of the fact that it has saved £1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money.

I am aware of some great examples, such as the strategic alliance between Warwickshire and West Mercia Police. The alliance can now more effectively surge resources to deal with unexpected demand; 24-hour cover is available across more policing functions; more officers and PCSOs are based in safer neighbourhood teams than in pre-alliance days; and a wider pool of expertise and experience can be tapped to respond effectively to policing challenges.

[Robert Flello]

The Minister paints a rosy picture, but what about the families who have lost loved ones because of drivers using mobile phones at the wheel? The Minister clearly does not read newspapers, but quite a few papers today are carrying pictures of drivers using mobile phones. Drivers are killing people, and they are not stopped because there are no traffic police out there to stop them. What does the Minister think of that? Is that somebody else’s responsibility as well?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman should check his facts and have a look at what I said earlier. What I said was I do not read The Mirror and I have not read it today. That is not quite what he was saying. He is right, however, that people who commit an offence of any description against an officer should be feeling the full force of the law. That is why I am working with colleagues across other Departments. We have sentencing guidelines, and an offence against a police officer is an aggravating factor. Even with the sentencing of youths, the fact that it is an offence against a police officer is taken into account. The difference in the sentencing systems does not mean that such issues are not taken into account.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Flello Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I highlight to my right hon. Friend that the vast majority of legitimate passengers pass through the border control at Stansted quickly, and Border Force is increasing staff numbers at Stansted, maximising the use of e-passport gates and improving its approach to staff rostering. I can also say to him that I will be meeting Manchester Airports Group, the operators of Stansted, next week, when no doubt we will be able to go into this in more detail.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the register of interests. Given that many commercial drivers coming in through Calais are now not checking the loads as they come through because they fear they might be attacked, what guidance has the Minister given to police and border agencies on the UK side to deal with commercial drivers who have allowed somebody to come through, or will he at least review the situation?

[James Brokenshire]

I know the hon. Gentleman has taken a close interest in this matter for some time. There is clear guidance. It was one of the issues that came up in my meetings last week. Our accreditation scheme sets out in clear terms those hauliers that are part of it and the guidance that is in place, but we will certainly continue to look at what more can be done.

Border Management (Calais)

Robert Flello Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Taking action on this matter has been discussed at the European level, but action against the boats setting forth from the Libyan coastline has to be done in discussion with the Libyan authorities. Those discussions are taking place. The United Kingdom is also playing a leading role within the UN in looking to see whether a resolution can be brought forward that would enable action to happen.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, particularly in respect of transport logistics. The Home Secretary has rightly explained that this is not a recent issue—indeed, it has been an ongoing problem. She also rightly identified that Coquelles and Calais should be the border. Many commercial drivers, however, are stopping much further away from the port on the French side and are being targeted by highly organised criminal gangs, sometimes in places more than 100 miles from Calais. Can she reassure us that the conversations she is having take that issue into account and are aimed at enforcing the rule of law, so that commercial drivers are protected all the way through their journeys?

[Mrs May]

Yes, we are absolutely looking at that issue. There are two aspects to it. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration is having discussions with the Road Haulage Association to talk about its point of view, and the National Crime Agency, in tandem with other law enforcement organisations, is working with law enforcement bodies elsewhere in Europe to identify the routes and where the potential attempts at incursion can take place and to take appropriate action.

Home Affairs and Justice

Robert Flello Excerpts

Thursday 28th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have the chance to speak about the contents of the Gracious Address, on what it is likely to mean to my constituents, on what should have been included, and on what my constituents need from this Government. Of course, the speech contains a lot of warm, but ultimately hollow, words. It talks about one nation, opportunities for those who are disadvantaged, boosting the economy and bringing the country together, but warm words often hide harsher realities, and sadly this legislative programme is no exception. The speech refers to boosting economic productivity and living standards, but were these not problems during the past five years? The last Government wasted more than three years presiding over flat growth and painful austerity, and the truth of the matter is that the economic situation is only marginally better now than it was in 2010.

The speech refers to the Government providing full employment with a requirement to report on the economy, on jobs and on apprenticeship creation. But all too often over the past couple of years I have heard about employers using apprenticeships as an excuse for cheap labour, with apprentices taken on, discarded when the apprenticeship is finished and forced to make way when a new batch is hired to replace them. That is not an entry to a career; it is exploitation. We can interpret the plans to reduce the legislative burden on small businesses to create jobs as code for a bonfire of health and safety protections for workers—something I have already seen happen under the most recent law changes.

Now I have to admit that, at the time of the speech, I saluted the headline-grabbing promise that workers on the minimum wage would not pay tax, but sadly even that nugget of good news has been watered down to the less appealing promise that if someone works for 30 hours on the minimum wage they will not pay any income tax. Thirty hours on the minimum wage is not enough to live on, so someone working a typical 40-hour week on the minimum wage will see a quarter of their income liable to tax. Call me cynical if you will, and many do, but let us see what tax cuts the richest in our society get in the same legislation. During the election campaign, the Chancellor ducked time and again the question about cutting the top rate of tax.

There is a very long list of what is wrong with the measures announced in the Queen’s Speech, and I hope to catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, in the forthcoming Second Reading debates so that I can go through them in more detail. Today we are highlighting the home affairs and justice elements of the address. While I welcome in principle the proposals to ban so-called legal highs, there is sadly little else to be welcomed in these two policy areas. Tackling illegal working by seizing the wages of the worker, who has probably been paid a pittance anyway, seems to me to target the wrong person. It is the employer who should face the harshest of penalties for exploiting the illegal worker. With measures to bring forward the snoopers charter, combined with the ability of the state to declare someone an extremist and severely limit their ability to work, we may face the sort of scenario normally reserved for dystopian movies.

At face value, plans to stop mentally ill people being held in police custody are very much to be welcomed, but when, as in Stoke-on-Trent, there just are not enough beds in secure units, what choice will police officers face? Will they have to put mentally ill people at risk because the resources simply are not there?

I add my voice to those defending the Human Rights Act 1998.

Looking more widely, perhaps I missed it during the Speech, but where was the announcement on freezing the amount of education funding per pupil? And what of the proposals that would create chaos for secondary schools if the manifesto commitment were kept to make secondary pupils re-sit SATS when they got to secondary school? Has that been sensibly dropped? Where will the £30 billion of austerity cuts fall? Who will face the axe? Will carers be in the front line for those cuts?

I hope that I am wrong, but I foresee a grim five years ahead. At the end of the next five years, our NHS will be unrecognisable, and not for the good. Private companies will have cherry-picked the most profitable parts, with the remaining core being delivered by the public sector and paid for by an ever-squeezed budget. Waiting lists for non-emergency surgery will go the way they did in the 1980s, with patients waiting years to have a hip or knee operation or forced to suffer the rationing of expensive medicines. Some might say that I am too sceptical, but the evidence is already there. In north Staffordshire our cancer and end-of-life care is about to be sold off on a 10-year, £1.2 billion project. In the running for the contracts are the likes of CSC Computer Sciences, which was paid billions of pounds to design an NHS record-keeping system that never worked, or United Health, also known as Optum, which is embroiled in the so-called hospice packing scandal in the US, or Virgin Care, which was warned by the Care Quality Commission about the operation of its other NHS services, or indeed Interserve Investments, the PFI provider that refuses to disclose the role in securing bids of Lord Blackwell, the former Conservative policy chief. I am afraid that all this talk of legalising euthanasia plays straight into the hands of a cash-strapped NHS. We are already hearing evidence of that in other countries.

During the last five years, my constituents have time and again seen draconian cuts to their welfare needs, punishing the poorest and those with disabilities. I have seen people with profound learning disabilities being sanctioned for “not trying hard enough” and people with terminal cancer told that they are fit for work. Indeed, it has almost become a sick joke that the Department for Work and Pensions will say that someone is fit for work provided that they are breathing. The massive level of success at appeal proves the truth behind people’s claims. People who find their benefit cut from one day to the next are increasingly having to fall back on charities such as the Trussell Trust. I worry that many on the Government Benches share the view of my Tory opponent in the general election, who disputed the number of people relying on food banks and said that he hoped to see more of them in future.

I fear that by 2020 we will have a society where people are almost literally starved into taking minimum-wage, zero-hours jobs and where people have to give up their family home or take in lodgers, or simply go hungry because of the bedroom tax—although of course by then it will be rare to have a council or housing association home, because, rather than the Government building more homes, by 2020 we will have seen the end of social landlords through an enhanced right to buy. Sadly, I believe that by 2020 we will also be back to 1980s standards of education, with a riot of free schools, many opening and closing to get round bad reports from Ofsted. We will see large class sizes once more and another generation lost, with no future, in a job market that benefits the unscrupulous employer.

But it need not be like that. Our NHS could still be saved. Instead of a mad rush to privatise everything for the benefit of Cabinet Ministers’ mates in the private health sector, we could invest £8 billion in a proper, joined-up health and social care system, where mental health is finally put on an equal footing with physical care, raising standards up, not pushing them down. We could reform welfare by ensuring a culture of targeting the very small number who abuse the system, while helping those who need help, and by supporting those with debilitating conditions and genuinely ensuring skills and training for those who need to be supported back into the workplace, rather than having these schemes that are just about money making for the training provider without giving any genuine help to people.

By making the minimum wage a living wage, we could end the need for working tax credits, which subsidise poverty pay from employers who know they can get away with it. We could have a tax system that ensures that there is no tax to pay on the basic level of income needed to pay for expenses such as accommodation, food, heating and lighting, while progressively taxing earnings so that those with the most pay the most. On immigration, we should have a properly staffed border system that ensures that those who come here to work can do so, provided they do not undercut pay and conditions for those working here, while also ensuring that those who want a free ride simply cannot have one.

I want to see our country grow and be strong in a self-assured way that does not need to victimise or be jealous of what others might have. But sadly, after another five years of Tory misrule, I fear it will be everyone for themselves and a justice system that lets the Government get away with it.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Flello Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

15. What recent discussions she has had with the chief constable of Lincolnshire on the budget of the Lincolnshire police.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)]

The Home Secretary and I meet all the chief constables regularly and I personally met the chief constable of Lincolnshire very recently.

[Robert Flello]

With more than 8,000 front-line police officers out of 16,000 cut already, is not the Lincolnshire chief constable right to warn that the loss of a further 6,000 front-line officers, along with other cuts, will simply mean that police forces across the country will collapse? They will go and there will not be any need for PCCs because there will not be any forces.

[Mike Penning]

I am sure the residents and constituents of Stoke-on-Trent South will be interested to hear about the hon. Gentleman’s interest in Lincolnshire. At the end of the day, it is for Lincolnshire and its chief constable to decide what they want to do and we will support them in those decisions. They do not have to be about a reduction in police officers; actually, we have seen an increase in the number of police officers on the ground in Lincolnshire.

Passport Applications

Robert Flello Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. It is unfair on British citizens across the country who have been asked to pay more money in order that they can go on holiday simply because of the Home Office’s incompetence. Carla McGillivary and Dean Anderson applied for a passport for Dean more than six weeks ago. He cannot get an urgent upgrade because his is a first-time adult application. They paid for their holiday to Portugal out of Carla’s redundancy pay. Her new job is a zero-hours contract, so she does not know when she will be able to book a holiday again. They have been looking forward to this holiday, even arranging for their son to go swimming with dolphins. They fear now that they will have to cancel their holiday or risk losing all the money—they are supposed to pay the remainder of the deposit today. They have not got Dean’s passport and they do not know when it will arrive. Carla said:

“This is our first family holiday. I have no idea when we will be able to go on holiday again. I just don’t know what to do.”

One family had to leave their young son behind with his grandparents, because his passport did not come in time. One man missed his brother’s wedding in Greece because his passport did not come in time, despite his applying weeks in advance. People have saved up, worked hard and looked forward to a precious holiday for months. People have weddings, funerals, family events abroad, business trips, conferences, meetings and deals to make. Some people who are living abroad are keen to come home or just want to make sure that their visas are still valid.

Today we need to know whether the Home Secretary yet has control of the problem, whether she knows when things will be back to normal and whether she understands what went wrong in the first place. We also want to debate the new policies that she has announced. Are they working and are they enough to solve the problem? So far we have had little reassurance that the Home Secretary has been on top of the problem. Just last week she and the Minister for Security and Immigration were saying that there was no backlog. Now we know that it is hundreds of thousands. Last week the Home Secretary said how pleased she was that the Passport Office was meeting the service standards and that 99% of passports were being sent out within four weeks. Yesterday we learnt from the Passport Office chief executive that tens of thousands of passports every week are missing those service standards.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I did some quick calculations on the cases in my office at the moment, and the average wait is eight weeks.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to say that people are facing long waits. The Home Office simply does not seem to know what is going on. My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), the shadow Immigration Minister, has asked countless questions to try to get to the facts of what is happening. A typical answer from the Minister reads, “The Home Office has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.” The Home Office cannot even answer questions, never mind get people’s passports to them on time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

These are the kinds of difficulties faced by British citizens across the world, many of them working hard in jobs abroad, including families who want to return home, but are unable to get the papers they need to return with their young children.

The Home Secretary outlined some measures to deal with British residents overseas. They are belated, but she has announced some measures to respond and we welcome that. However, there are still questions about those measures. She has said, for example, that British citizens overseas can now simply extend their existing passports and that children abroad can get emergency travel documents. However, people who have applied and are already in the system have been told that if they want to do that, they will have to withdraw their existing application, that that might take two weeks and that they will have to wait for their existing papers to be returned before they can apply for the emergency provisions and emergency travel papers instead.

[Robert Flello]

My right hon. Friend is being extremely generous in taking interventions. I have a constituent in Abu Dhabi waiting for children’s visas who is being charged on a daily basis until the problem is sorted out. Therefore, in addition to waiting, my constituent is also being penalised financially.

[Yvette Cooper]

I think that goes to the heart of the problems faced by a lot of families, who are experiencing stress and delay, but also having to pay for it.

The Home Secretary has said that British residents will be able to get a free fast-track upgrade if they are due to travel. Again, that is welcome, but even that is causing problems. One family who drove to Durham told us:

“My husband queried the fee and they said it’s not true about the fee waiver and it was just a rumour.”

Another was told that if they wanted to fast-track, they would have to cancel their existing application and that that would take 14 days. People who submitted their application online are being told that they cannot get a free upgrade. Even for a fast track, people have to make an appointment. One family were told that the only appointment in the next three weeks was in Durham.

According to the helpline today, the soonest that anyone can get an appointment anywhere in the country is Friday in Durham or Sunday in London, and even then it could take them an extra week to get their passport. Anyone who wants the premium service—to get their passport the next day, because they are about to travel urgently—will still have to pay. According to the Home Secretary, only the fast-track upgrade is free, not the premium service, despite the fact that some people applied for their passports many weeks ago and are now right up against the line.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

It is very good to follow my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn).

Like many Opposition Members, I want to speak up for my constituents who have incurred such difficulty and expense, but I will also speak for my constituents who work in the Newport passport office, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West, who is a strong advocate for the office. The staff have warned repeatedly over the past four years that the cuts to Passport Office staff would hit the service and affect customers. They and the Public and Commercial Services Union have been proved right. The Minister should at least acknowledge today that some of the decisions that have been made over the past few years have led to the backlog and the chaos. It is important that we have a chance to put that on the record today.

The Government did not foresee the increase in the demand for passports. They should at least have foreseen the effect of giving the responsibility for overseas passports to the Passport Office, because that was their decision. As has been outlined this afternoon, we are all dealing with many cases of people’s travel plans being put in jeopardy.

[Robert Flello]

I have done a quick tot up. I have been an MP for nine years. In the past two weeks, I have had nine times as many cases that involve passports as in the previous nine years.

[Jessica Morden]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It was a good point, well made. I am sure that the same is true of the cases in my office.

Like other hon. Members, I will outline the cases of a couple of my constituents whose travel plans have been put in jeopardy. One woman applied for her son’s passport at the beginning of April, believing that she had plenty of time. According to the website, it would take three weeks. Eight weeks later, after numerous interventions, she was finally one of the lucky ones and received the passport. However, that was only after she had paid for the fast-track service and been told to go for an interview in Durham, which is 290 miles away. After we intervened, she did not have to go to Durham. However, by that stage, she had spent £42 on the initial application, £87 on the one-week fast track, £15 on a replacement birth certificate and £95 on a flight to Durham that she did not need. I know that the Home Secretary has offered some concessions, but we need many more and they need to be backdated.

Another family, after an intervention from the office of the Minister for Security and Immigration, received their passport by courier. Finally, after contacting the helplines repeatedly, they got the passport specially delivered from London four hours before they were due to get on the plane at 11 o’clock. Like other hon. Members, I thank the Minister for the effort that he put into that case, but that is hardly the way people should receive a passport.

In the majority of the cases that have been dealt with by my office, people have effectively been forced to pay for the upgrade. The message seems to be, “If you can afford to pay for the upgrade, you can get your passport; if you can’t afford it, that’s tough.” It would be interesting to know how much money the Government have made from upgrades over the past few months.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West said, the Home Office tried to close the Newport passport office in 2010, which would have meant the loss of 300 jobs. After a strong campaign by the staff, the PCS union and the South Wales Argus, which had the support of local politicians, the office remained open, but lost the postal processing service. It retained the counter service and the customer complaints service. Some 150 people lost their jobs, which was a huge hit to the local economy. I believe that it also caused the biggest hit of any of the cuts at that time to the service across the UK.

The then Minister for Immigration, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), talked repeatedly in our debates about excess staff in the service. Today, the Home Secretary talked about excess office space. However, almost immediately after the redundancies, overtime was offered in other offices around the service. The staff felt that that added insult to injury.

As the unions and hon. Members have pointed out repeatedly to Ministers, after the postal work was taken out of Newport, management had to close customer counters early or for one day a week to deal with the backlog. The Identity and Passport Service filled the gaps with staff from other departments and agency staff. Higher grade staff were working overtime to deal with straightforward applications, which is four grades below their normal work.

In April 2012, we wrote to the Minister to ask why, a month after the staff in Newport were made redundant, the agency announced that recruitment was necessary. That showed a complete disregard for the staff who had lost their jobs.

The Welsh Affairs Committee warned in its report in 2010:

“The Newport Passport Office has a reputation for excellent customer care. The closure of the Newport Passport Application Processing Centre would result in the loss to the service of skilled people with significant experience… The Government must guarantee that the same high level of service will continue to be provided”.

Clearly, that has not happened.

I do not understand why the current delays have come as a surprise to the Home Office. The signs have been there for years, but it has insisted on pursuing the cuts, with little regard for the effect that they are having on customer service and on the staff who do a great job in Newport and at other offices, and who are under immense stress. As the Government try to solve the problem, they should look to restore the 150 jobs that were lost in Newport. We have the space and the experience for that to happen. That is important if customers are to get the experience that is advertised to them, and it is important to our city.

Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Robert Flello Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

We have said very clearly that we would have reduced the policing budget by around 12% rather than 20% over the course of the current spending review. That would not have led to the reduction of 15,000 police officers over the course of this Parliament. I would also say to the hon. Gentleman that he promised to increase the number of police officers by 3,000—it was in his party’s manifesto. That is what he called for, and he has done the absolute opposite. Government Members have not only reduced police officers on the street; they are making it more difficult for them to fight crime.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

On that point, when I talk to police officers in Stoke-on-Trent, who are doing a fine job in extremely difficult circumstances because of all the cuts, and not just to their positions—[Interruption.] I wish the Minister of State, Home Department, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne) would stop chuntering while I am trying to ask a question. Police officers already find themselves in difficult circumstances, yet they also tell me that the toolkit of the various powers available to them is being reduced at the same time. How can that help?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Looked at across the board—whether it be what is happening with DNA or CCTV—Government Members are making it harder for the police to do their job.

After the London riots, CCTV helped to secure huge numbers of convictions. We all know from our constituencies of communities and estates that have worked hard to get CCTV and how it has helped to provide security in those areas, cutting down on antisocial behaviour and abuse. Yet the freedom of information requests put in by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) have shown that one in five councils is now cutting CCTV under a Home Secretary who is wrapping CCTV in a whole load of new red tape. There are already safeguards for residents’ privacy, but the Home Secretary wants a whole load of extra checks, rules and administration just to make sure. The impact assessment produced by the Home Office has found that these new regulations will cost the police and councils £14 million to comply with—and it could be as much as £30 million at a time when resources are so stretched. The Home Secretary, who has already wasted £100 million on the November police and crime commissioner elections now wants to waste up to £30 million making it harder, not easier, to get CCTV. The Home Secretary welcomed extra CCTV in her own constituency three years ago; she should stop making it harder for everyone else to get it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that ACPO, like chief constables across the country, will make the best of the approach put to them, but many practitioners across the country have raised the concern that, with changing case law, it will take some time to be able to use the powers as effectively as the previous powers were used.

The Bill does nothing to make sure that community remedies and resolutions are focused on low-level crime. It does nothing to ensure that proper restorative justice, putting victims at the heart of the process, will be pursued or guaranteed. Instead, it risks creating loopholes to let offenders off because overstretched councils and police have not had the resources to sort the problem out.

[Robert Flello]

Does it not send a worrying message to the families of the, on average, two women who die every single week as a result of domestic homicide when 2,500 cases of domestic violence will be treated in this way? Does that not somehow suggest that their loved ones do not count? What sort of message does that send?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Community resolutions and the purpose of the restorative justice approach, which can be valuable in dealing with antisocial behaviour, are about getting offenders to say sorry to the victims and make it up to them. Yet that is exactly what we do not want in domestic violence cases. We do not want a police-sanctioned process of the perpetrator somehow apologising and making it up to the victim, who will then be expected to accept and go along with the apology, as if that makes it all right. Community resolutions should not be used for domestic violence cases. It is still a serious matter of concern that they continue to be used, despite ACPO’s guidance to the contrary. This is an area where the Home Office needs to step in and make sure that stronger guidance is sent out to chief constables and police forces across the country to make it very clear that community resolutions should not be used for domestic violence.

There are many cases in which ASBOs are not appropriate, but it must also be said that in some of the most serious examples of repeated abuse, they have made a significant difference. For example, an aggressive thug who had repeatedly intimidated residents and shopkeepers in a town centre, had repeatedly ignored warnings from the police and the courts, and had breached his ASBO was taken to the criminal courts and given a custodial sentence, but under the new system he would only be served with an injunction. The council would have to pursue expensive civil action to enforce the injunction, and there would be no criminal offence.

Nor will the community trigger solve the problem. The Home Secretary has made the grand promise that

“The trigger will give victims and communities the right to demand that agencies who had ignored a problem must take action.”

However, the trigger is not strong enough to help. For a start—as I pointed out to the Home Secretary earlier—although the Bill specifies that there must have been “at least three…complaints”, the number could be far higher. Police and crime commissioners could decide on five, 10 or 20. The Home Secretary said that it would be a matter for local discretion, but that local discretion already exists. If it were simply a matter for local discretion, she would allow people to choose to set up community triggers, and she would not be legislating. Either she thinks that this is a matter for local discretion and it is up to those people to decide, or she thinks that there should be minimum standards, but something as weak and wishy-washy as “at least three…complaints” is not really a minimum standard at all. This is a con. Even if the magic threshold is passed, what are residents entitled to? A review. How reassuring.

In the five areas that have piloted the community trigger, where there have been 44,000 incidents of antisocial behaviour, the trigger has been successfully activated 13 times—in response to not just less than 1% of complaints, not just less than 0.1%, but 0.03%. This measure will not have a big impact on the antisocial behaviour problems that persist in communities throughout the country.

When the Home Secretary made her speech on antisocial behaviour three years ago, she said:

“The solution to your community’s problems will not come from officials sitting in the Home Office working on the latest national action plan.”

That is certainly true. If the Bill is the nearest that the Home Office gets to its latest national action plan, it will make it harder, not easier, to solve community problems.

There are two respects in which the Bill has missed the opportunity to deal with some serious problems, and I urge Ministers to look at those again. The first is the problem of dangerous dogs, a subject on which a series of interventions were made on the Home Secretary’s speech. We support the measures that will extend the law to private property, but that is not enough. As the Home Secretary will know, the number of attacks has been rising, and there have been tragic fatal attacks. In the last two years, we have seen killings such as those of 18-month-old Zumer Ahmed and 71-year-old Gloria Knowles, who was mauled by dogs. Last week I met the family of 14-year-old Jade Anderson, who was tragically killed in an attack by dangerous dogs. I pay tribute to Jade’s family, who are campaigning for the strengthening of the law.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, a number of charities, and the families of victims killed in dangerous dog attacks want dog control notices to be introduced. I listened carefully to what the Home Secretary said, but the problem is that experts have not been convinced by her argument that wider powers can be used, and that it will not take long to build up case law and make it easy for those powers to be applied. Of course dog control notices will not stop every attack, but they could make it easier for earlier preventive action to be taken. They are working in Scotland, and I urge the Home Secretary to consider the issue again during the Bill’s passage.

I hope that the Home Secretary will think again about firearms as well. As she will know, last year Susan McGoldrick, her sister Alison Turnbull and her niece Tanya were murdered by Susan’s partner, Michael Atherton, with a shotgun that he was licensed to own. Michael Atherton had a history of violence and abuse towards Susan McGoldrick, and he should never have been allowed to own a gun. Alison’s son, Bobby Tumbull, is campaigning for a change in the law.

The Home Office has rightly strengthened the guidance for gun applications, but it does not go far enough. It relies on interviews with family members who may still be living in fear of abuse. Why should anyone with a history of domestic violence be allowed to own a gun? Why should that guidance not be underpinned by legislation? We cannot legislate in Parliament to prevent every tragedy or every terrible crime, but we can seek to learn lessons when tragedies happen. We can listen to victims and their families, and we can work with them to make things safer in future.

We will not vote against the Bill’s Second Reading, but we think that it needs to be stronger. People want stronger action against antisocial behaviour, rather than the watering down of powers. They want more protection for victims, not just delayed reviews and loopholes for offenders if police resources are tight. They want more action against domestic violence, and more action against dangerous dogs. That requires more action from the Home Office, and more action from the Home Secretary. They need to do more to support communities, and they should do so in this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marsden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I do not disagree with him on the powers, which are already there. What is important is enforcement by councils, and the resources that are available to them. Sadly, Blackpool council’s ability to do the stuff it would like to on alley gates has been severely hindered over the past couple of years by substantial cuts in funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Police and community support officers are crucial, particularly now, when we have problems not just with houses in multiple occupation, but with houses that are bought at low prices when owner-occupiers move out, and landlords rent them out to problem families. I have many examples of that. I pay tribute to the activities undertaken in our town by the police and the community together. I am thinking of a group, ably chaired by Mr Dave Blacker, who are concerned about their PCSOs. Issues of funding and what might be available from Government have come to the fore.

Other really important issues are vandalism—Stanley park and other parts of the town have been badly affected by it recently—metal theft, the protection of war memorials and dumping. Those are all issues on which PCSOs can make an important contribution. That is why we need to look critically at what the Government are doing in the Bill. The crime prevention injunction—the proposed replacement for an antisocial behaviour order—is significantly weaker. A breach of the new injunction is not a criminal offence and will not result in a criminal record. Other proposed measures against antisocial behaviour also appear weak. The Government’s proposed community trigger has seemed weak in the areas in which it has been trialled, as my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary made clear earlier. As her colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) said, breach of ASBOs was a criminal offence; breach of injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance is not. Nor does the Bill guarantee a response from the police or the council. It guarantees a review. In my region, the north-west, police in Manchester recorded nearly 26,000 cases of antisocial behaviour in 2012-13, but the trigger was activated a mere four times.

When it comes to tackling antisocial behaviour, the elephant in the room is the way the Government have cut the police budget. Police community support officers, who are so often at the forefront in tackling day-to-day antisocial behaviour, have been hit particularly hard. That has led to Lancashire losing 9% of our front-line officers in the first two years of this Tory-led Government, and 500 police officers.

I shall touch briefly on knife crime, which has been a key issue in Blackpool. The Government have, to be fair, introduced a new crime of “threatening with article with blade” in public or on school premises, but the Prime Minister told MPs in recent months that the Justice Secretary was reviewing the powers available to the courts to deal with knife possession, and the Lord Chancellor has said he is revisiting the whole topic of knife crime. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary rightly said, this is a Christmas tree Bill. It is unfortunate that the outcome of those reviews has not informed the detail of the Bill.

The topic of firearms has been touched on. I entirely associate myself with the comments that have been made about the dangers presented by people with a history of domestic violence. We know that only too well in Blackpool from the Justice for Jane campaign, which concerned the case of a young woman who was tragically murdered by her partner, who had a history of domestic threatening and violence. Such ticking time bombs need monitoring, and the Government should be monitoring some of them far more carefully and providing the legislation that would make that possible.

Lastly, I return to the subject of dangerous dogs. I have not been convinced by what the Home Secretary said. Many other organisations—not just the RSPCA, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, Blue Cross and the Select Committee—feel that the proposals, rather like my 15-year-old Jack Russell-Chihuahua cross, are somewhat toothless. Dangerous dogs are a real problem and they need a special and specific remedy. I know that only too well from my former colleague in the House, Joan Humble, who almost lost the tip of her finger when canvassing in Blackpool in 2012. These Government measures, as has been said, are simply too weak. Instead of these piecemeal proposals, the introduction of dog control notices would be wide ranging and enforceable in the sorts of areas that have been discussed.

[Robert Flello]

I am enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech immensely. Does he agree that there is a need for a much wider look at issues such as dog breeding? A raft of related issues needs to be addressed properly. Does he agree that taking all the dog-related measures out of this Christmas tree Bill and consolidating them in a single piece of legislation would be a better way forward?

[Mr Marsden]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. In an ideal world he would be correct, but unfortunately we heard from the Home Secretary this evening her extreme reluctance to admit that anything other than the general and mixed powers presented in the Bill would do the business. I hope that in Committee and on Report, some of the issues can be addressed far more forcefully than they were by the Home Secretary this evening. In particular, the public spaces protection orders are too sweeping and vague in many respects to deal with what is proposed. The Battersea Dogs and Cats Home briefing makes these points far more eloquently than I can. It also makes the point that dogs that pose no danger to public safety should remain with an owner of good character while an application to the court for an exemption takes place.

About 5,000 postal workers every year are attacked by dogs. Seventeen people, including children, have been killed in dog attacks since 2005, including one in Blackpool in 2009. I welcome, as do Members in all parts of the House, the Government’s proposal to extend prosecution and to extend responsibility to private property, but given what has been said in the House this evening I wish the Government would take the opportunity to think more carefully and substantially about the broader range of dog control measures I have mentioned. They might also consider what many people see as a good—or should I say poor?—example of what happens when we legislate in haste: the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.

I mentioned my dog earlier. Sadly, her partner died earlier this year. She was a Staffie-Collie cross, and I am sure she would have agreed, as I do, with what the Communication Workers Union said: that we should be legislating for deed and not for breed. I hope the Government will take the opportunity to remedy that, if not in the Bill, then at some point.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

I am delighted to contribute to this Second Reading debate, primarily because, as a number of speakers have highlighted, antisocial behaviour blights the lives of our communities and our constituencies. One of the things that strikes me when dealing with constituency matters relating to antisocial behaviour is that it prevents blameless and innocent victims—citizens—from feeling safe not just in their own homes and their own streets, but in their own communities, which is why I welcome the broad thrust of the Bill and wholeheartedly endorse the Government’s approach to supporting victims and preventing antisocial behaviour.

For many years under the previous Government a vast number of measures were introduced, some of which were well-meaning, but were profoundly ineffective in tackling some of the problems that we have heard about today. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, mentioned the death of Fiona Pilkington a few years back, which shocked the nation. The horrific story and her plight demonstrated how bad antisocial behaviour could become and the distress that it cause to victims. That tragic case highlighted the fact that the authorities let this family down and failed to do enough to bring an end to the torment that the family suffered.

Despite all the legislation and the introduction of ASBOs, as we heard at the time and as we heard again from the Chairman of the Select Committee, the inquest into those deaths found that the calls to the police and to associated bodies were not joined up and were not prioritised, and that there were problems in gathering and processing information. That was among the most serious cases, with severe consequences for the victims. Importantly, it highlighted the wider issues of the approach taken to antisocial behaviour and the case for wider reform, which the Bill addresses.

The Home Secretary mentioned the community trigger. Although I am pleased to say that my constituency is generally considered a safe place to live, there are certain areas in the town and in the surrounding villages which, unsurprisingly, have been blighted by antisocial behaviour. These occurrences are serious and should be treated as such because they are distressing for those of my constituents who are affected. Equally distressing is the sense among those communities of the paralysis of the authorities, which seem either reluctant or powerless to act, or are bogged down in bureaucracy and therefore unable to seek prompt resolution. At the end of the day, our constituents want to know that something is being done and action is being taken.

I want to highlight some recent cases in my constituency. Families using the park in Maldon road in Witham have been alarmed by groups of young men using the children’s play space inappropriately. It is summer and parents cannot let their children play because men are drinking and behaving in an abusive, intimidating and frightening way in the park. One constituent was so shocked by what happened that she reported to me that the men had been calling over to girls, had tried to involve them in conversation, and had offered them alcohol. We have had recent cases of inappropriate behaviour involving alcohol and persuasion by men in the wrong way. What was worrying for my constituent was the response by the police. They were pretty ineffective, remarking that because these individuals were foreign, they did not understand that it was inappropriate behaviour, and that they were in the park as there was no designated area for them to drink in. That is simply not appropriate. Rather than taking action and making the area safe, the authorities were reluctant to act. Many of us here are parents, and I was disgusted by these events. I am pursuing the case with the local authority and the police because I have been left in no doubt that action should be taken.

Another constituent let me know of a further incident where at 10 pm one evening they called the police as noise from these young men in the park was causing her and her family significant disturbance. They called again at 11 pm as they were being kept awake, but it was not until 1 am that the police arrived on the scene. There are many other such incidents not just in my constituency but throughout the country. At least 2.3 million similar incidents are reported to the police each year. The introduction of the community trigger will help communities that feel let down by the authorities to compel those authorities to take their concerns seriously and to act. I would go further as a Member of Parliament and work with the local authority and other community groups to encourage them to have their voices heard, and the community trigger has an important role to play in that.

My approach to crime and criminal justice matters is to put the victim first. I have been particularly outspoken in the past about the disproportionality in the criminal justice system when victims unfairly have to fight to have their voices heard. For too long the justice system has been skewed in favour of offenders, focusing on help and support for them while neglecting those who are most affected by their crimes. Conservative Ministers deserve credit for refocusing attention on victims, and the Bill goes some way to addressing past deficiencies in the justice system. Victims want action taken promptly to protect them from antisocial behaviour, and they also want to be involved in decisions taken about how the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts deal with criminals. I therefore welcome the duty to consult victims that clauses 95 and 96 place on prosecutors who are minded to offer an offender a conditional caution or a youth conditional caution. The requirement to attach to the conditions reasonable requests made by the victim is a positive step forward. It is disappointing that this has not happened already and there is much more that we can do, but this is a welcome step forward.

The community remedy is also a welcome way to involve victims in the restorative justice process, so that it works for them. However, I seek an assurance from the Minister that no victim will be compelled to go through the restorative justice approach if they do not wish to. Victims can be retraumatised and have to go through a great deal of hurt as a result of that process.

[Robert Flello]

On restorative justice, the hon. Lady will know from the all-party victims and witnesses of crime group that we co-chair that restorative justice can mean different things to different people. Does she agree that perhaps in this Bill, but certainly somewhere, there should be a clear definition of restorative justice?

[Priti Patel]

There is no doubt that restorative justice can mean a range of different things, and there should be a much wider discussion about this. Parliament is best placed to consider this and we should make the victims groups that we work with part of this discussion.

I would welcome an assurance that where a crime has been committed and there is sufficient evidence to take the matter to court, police and prosecutors will proceed with a prosecution if that is what the victim wants. I raise this because many victims are satisfied and have closure once an offender has been brought to court and convicted, rather than have informal action taken against them.

Strong action is also needed on retail crime. Businesses, their owners and those who work in them can be subjected to quite horrific incidents of antisocial behaviour. I say that as someone who has grown up in a family business and seen at first hand how intimidating individuals and groups can be when they target a high street or independent shop and behave in an obscene way. Shopkeepers work long hours and are often under considerable stress and pressure. They need to be supported, and the community trigger will be a useful tool for them.

I urge the Government to look again at clause 133 on low value shoplifting. Owners of small shops in particular will be concerned about what they will see as a downgrading in the treatment of thefts of a value of below £200. Requiring that these be dealt with by magistrates courts and encouraging the use of fixed penalty notices and restorative justice methods can detract from the serious nature of the offence. As well as the stress and pressure, there is also the matter of the cost to the business. More often than not shopkeepers install CCTV and spend a lot of time dealing with the police and providing evidence. Small shopkeepers who may have invested considerably in security measures are already disillusioned with the police responses to crime, and theft has a serious impact on their profit margins. Shop thefts account for about 83% of crime against the retail sector, and the Home Office has estimated that there were approximately 4.1 million incidents of shoplifting in 2012 alone.

Most of the perpetrators will be serial and repeat offenders, so when they are caught, victims and businesses should expect some of these offenders to face the full force of the law, otherwise they will just carry on offending. Less than half of the fixed penalty notices issued for shop theft in 2011 have been paid in full by offenders. Average thefts are valued at £88 and the majority of these thefts are of goods valued up to £25. Introducing the £200 threshold into law will mean that it is possible for almost all of those caught shoplifting to be dealt with outside of court. What kind of message does that send out to hardworking shopkeepers and people who invest in their local economy and generate jobs and growth in their own family?

Just as the Government are giving victims a greater say in how to deal with antisocial behaviour, so we should be empowering shopkeepers and businesses on our high streets, in our town centres and on parades of shops in our estates so that they can get the full support and protection they need from the police and councils to have a say in how offenders are treated. I hope that the Government will look again at that clause.

Finally, I would like the Minister to consider using the Bill to help businesses and individuals affected by Travellers staying on their land without permission, which is a form of antisocial behaviour. There have been a number of incidents in my constituency over recent bank holiday weekends—surprise, surprise—that have highlighted the need to put stronger measures in place. Last month a number of vehicles arrived on the Eastways industrial estate in Witham. Although the police eventually moved them on within two days, they caused immense disruption to local businesses operating on the site. They left behind litter and gas bottles and caused a lot of damage and vandalism to the site. There were also reports of aggressive attitudes shown towards business managers and nuisance behaviour. Those businesses are creating jobs and growth locally. They should not be subjected to such awful behaviour and delays. It took two days to have them removed. Businesses lost thousands of pounds and incurred thousands of pounds in damages, and supplies and deliveries were delayed.

I hope that the Minister can look at ways to use the Bill to strengthen the voice of businesses and communities to prevent such incidents from occurring not only in my constituency, but up and down the country, and to take a firm and reasonable stance to individuals who behave in such a way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I know that those words will have been heard by Angela and that they will be very welcome and kindly received.

This really is an issue that transcends party politics. I have worked with many Members on both sides of the House who have campaigned on the issue. It does not discriminate between urban and rural areas; it affects all our constituencies. Many people have been campaigning on the issue for far longer than I have; I was elected only three years ago. It was actually the first thing I spoke about in the House. Many people outside the House have worked tirelessly on the issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) mentioned Dave Joyce, of the Communication Workers Union, who works so hard to raise the issue with Members on both sides of the House on behalf of his members, the postal workers who deliver our mail everyday. Claire Robinson of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals works incredibly hard on the issue. Organisations including the Dogs Trust, the National Dog Warden Association, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Blue Cross and Battersea Dogs & Cats Home have worked collectively to raise the profile of the issue with the Government and to see some urgent action.

The previous Government initiated a comprehensive consultation on what could be done to promote responsible dog ownership and combat dog attacks on people and other animals. It is regrettable that it has taken three years for the Government to respond to that consultation, which concluded in June 2010, and bring forward the measures we are discussing today.

[Robert Flello]

On that point, one thing that really concerns me is that not only has it taken that time to get to this stage with the draft legislation, but in that time we have seen measures relating to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995 introduced specifically to exclude dog attacks.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He has been working hard with the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, as have I, as a member of USDAW, to raise the profile of that issue. It is highly regrettable that the Government have chosen to exclude people who have been attacked by dogs from the criminal injuries compensation scheme. I hope that they will reconsider that.

I wish to welcome some of the measures the Government are bringing forward. As the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) mentioned, the fact that the Government now recognise that attacks on assistance dogs should be acknowledged as a very specific crime is to be welcomed. Many organisations, including the guide dogs trust and the Royal National Institute of Blind People, have been working tirelessly on behalf of the visually impaired community to highlight the fact that at least 10 assistance dogs are attacked every month. Most people do not know that a guide dog costs around £50,000 over its lifetime, and that is all charitable money because no support is received from the Government. If a guide dog is attacked, the repercussions and implications for the person the dog is there to support are far reaching, so I welcome the fact that the Government are addressing that in the Bill.

The law is also being extended to cover attacks that take place on private property. We know that the vast majority of attacks happen in someone’s home, in a front or back garden, so it is right that that loophole is being closed. We have heard from other Members specifically about the attacks on postal workers. About 5,000 postal workers are attacked every year, and they will most certainly be thankful for this measure. I had not been aware that since 2011 4,100 working days have been lost at Royal Mail owing to injuries incurred through dog attacks on our postmen and women, and that has cost Royal Mail approximately £400,000. It is not only postal workers who have been attacked on private property; so have our emergency services, social workers, telecomm operators and health visitors, many of whom put themselves at risk every day when they enter the homes of the public. I welcome the fact that the Government are going to do something to address this.

I also welcome the Government’s plans on compulsory microchipping by 2016. There is in our country a significant and growing problem with stray dogs. I meet many owners who are separated from their pets, and having a microchip helps them to be reunited. However, much more needs to be done if the horrific attacks are to be stamped out. Officials have estimated that more than 200,000 people are bitten or attacked by a dog in England every year. That is an absolutely staggering figure. Because I am involved in a campaign to raise the profile of this issue, I receive an e-mail at least once a week from someone somewhere in the country who has been affected by a dog attack. I should like to mention just one that has been reported today in the Liverpool Echo.

Theo Reynolds is three years old, and his life changed for ever just a few weeks ago after he suffered a vicious attack while out walking with his dad down a Liverpool street. The dog went for him and bit off his toe. Doctors attempted to reattach it but were unfortunately unsuccessful. Every year, our NHS spends more than £3.5 million treating injuries sustained in dog attacks such as the one that Theo suffered. What is most harrowing is that the victims of these attacks are so often children, who go on to suffer not just the physical consequences but the long-term psychological and emotional effects. I have spoken to many parents whose children are now unable to go out or enter a park or a playground because of the impact that a dog attack has had on their life.

Police Integrity

Robert Flello Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We have picked from, and are putting into place, different proposals as a result of the Winsor review recommendations. One is to have direct entry at superintendent level, where it would not be necessary for the individual to have police experience, but it would be necessary for them to go through an appropriate training period before they were able to take on their tasks as superintendent. Another is to open up the opportunities for chief constables to those with relevant policing experience—such experience would be necessary in those cases, but in a common law country. My hon. Friend asked what sort of people we might see coming in on this direct entry, and I say to him that perhaps ex-military people might be interested; I do not know, but he may very well want to forge a path.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) yesterday raised the tragic and appalling case of Frances Andrade, and the Home Secretary said she would reflect on it. To give victims and witnesses reassurance about the integrity of the police and the advice they get from the police service, will she reassure the House that she will urgently write to police forces to ensure that, in line with existing guidance, victims and witnesses can have the counselling and care they need and deserve?

[Mrs May]

Obviously, this issue was raised yesterday and I addressed it yesterday. It is important, and one thing that the College of Policing will be examining across the board of policing, in due course, is how police officers deal with, and how it is appropriate to deal with, certain types of crime and certain types of victim. A huge amount has been done in recent years to improve the way in which police forces deal with allegations of sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and rape, but of course, as I said yesterday, we will be looking at the lessons that can be learned from that particular case.

Scrap Metal Dealers Bill

Robert Flello Excerpts

Friday 13th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Whenever a Member comes high in the ballot for private Members’ Bills, he quickly realises how popular he is, but I had no doubt about what Bill I wanted to introduce, even though today is Friday the 13th. My concern over the scourge of metal theft started on a cold January morning in 2009, when the organist at Croydon parish church made a discovery of profound consequences. Melting snow was running through the roof, into the side chapels, choir vestry and straight on to the 19th-century Hill organ, causing serious damage. Not for the first time, bloody-minded thieves had targeted the grade I-listed church. On this occasion, they had stripped 200 square metres of lead from the roofs, causing more than £150,000 of damage—for metal worth little more than £4,000.

Everybody in the House has a constituency story about scrap metal theft, and to me the assault on Croydon minster highlights a common theme: the shocking disparity between the value of the stolen metal and the financial and emotional hurt and damage that the theft causes. My constituency has been hit consistently by metal theft. Public buildings, churches, schools and telecoms cables have been repeatedly targeted, and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) had the plaque stolen from his father’s grave. There was public outrage over the theft of two plaques from the Sanderstead war memorial that bore the names of 45 local people who sacrificed their lives in world war one. Two priceless plaques are lost to us for ever. Their scrap value was probably £50 but their value to the community was beyond measure.

Croydon has had the highest rate of metal theft in London. On average, London boroughs suffer five thefts a week, but in recent years Croydon has averaged 10. Twenty eight thefts were recorded in one week in April, and in May British Transport police conducted a high-profile raid on a scrap metal yard in west Croydon, recovering hundreds of crematorium and cemetery plaques. Since that raid, the number of reported metal thefts in the borough has plummeted by 38%. This backs up what the police tell us: that the scrap metal industry is the main outlet for stolen metal. It also exposes the failings of our current legislation, which was crafted more than half a century ago.

The House will be dismayed by the theft this week of a Henry Moore sculpture from the Henry Moore Foundation in Much Hadham. Metal thefts are hitting people across the UK daily. Energy networks are now averaging 16 incidents a day, and last year British Telecom received 100,000 customer reports of faults that occurred as a direct result of cable theft. In the past six years, more than a third of churches have been robbed. Insurance claims connected with such thefts have gone up by 70%, and in 2011 they reached a record high of £4.5 million, with the total cost to the Church of England exceeding £10 million.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I will not delay the House; I want to make just a quick intervention. I am told that some churches have had so many thefts that they are paying to have any remaining lead on their roofs stripped and replaced with inferior materials, simply because they cannot afford to keep claiming on the insurance or having the work done. They are therefore going to the other extreme and almost becoming metal theft vandals themselves. Let me also flag up for the hon. Gentleman another problem that is affecting many ordinary folk. A constituent of mine was outside cleaning his fridge-freezer—it was almost brand new. He popped in to boil the kettle, and when he came out it had gone, on the back of a truck somewhere. That is the level that some of these people are stooping to.

[Richard Ottaway]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in his first point. Having to replace roofs causes heritage problems. The low level of much of this crime is a point I will come to shortly.

The cost of metal theft to local authorities has shot up by 26% in a year. The latest stats reveal that nearly nine out of 10 councils across England and Wales have been the victims of scrap thieves. Road signs and drain covers are regularly disappearing. The cost to the UK economy has been estimated at more than £750 million by the Association of Chief Police Officers. In all honesty, however, the real figure is probably much higher.

What cannot be overestimated, however—it is very hard to measure—is the devastating impact that a single theft can have on the lives of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. The theft of £40 of copper can cause £500,000-worth of damage. Three times this year, thieves have taken BT copper cables from the same spot in Bexley. Each time they knocked out about 2,000 landlines for four days. An entire community of homes lost broadband, mobile signals and the internet. Pendant alarms on elderly people could not work. In an emergency, no one could call 999 or even a relative. One shudders to think of the consequences if a serious event had occurred. Llandough hospital near Cardiff suffered a similar attack in December, resulting in the postponement of more than 80 operations, including for eight cancer patients. Last August, thieves broke into a house in Hartlepool to steal copper from a gas boiler, which led to a gas leak, a fire and a huge explosion. More than 100 people were evacuated and bystanders were injured by flying shards of glass.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Ottaway]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support for this, the most controversial part of my Bill. This is the area in which the most criminality exists, and we need to tackle it head on.

[Robert Flello]

I was on one of my regular visits to parts of my constituency with the police recently, and we were sitting near a scrap metal yard that has been identified as creating a nuisance. As we watched the vans going in, the police officer I was with would frequently say, “He’s known to the police.” The drivers of many of the vehicles going into the yard were known to the police for other acts of criminality. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this reinforces his point?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Recently, a family in my borough woke up to discover that during the night lead flashing had been taken from their doorframes, bay windows and porches. The thieves had stood on wheelie bins to reach some of the lead. That illustrates the scale of the problem that the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) is seeking to address. I congratulate him on introducing his Bill. We must not make too much of a habit of my following him, however; I did so on 27 March, in a debate on a totally different subject, and I wonder whether the same situation will arise again in the near future. He is right that metal theft has become a major and very antisocial problem throughout most of the country. He mentioned the Croydon parish church, which, as he might know, is not unfamiliar to me from a prehistoric age. My Front-Bench colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), will no doubt address general matters, but I shall concentrate mainly on the position locally in the Walsall borough and in my constituency.

I recently received a letter from a constituent in which she wrote:

“Afraid life has become a nightmare here, with cars parked everywhere and vans loaded with scrap parked in front of houses. Scrap is moved from one lorry to another.

Of course, everyone is in a state of distress and I hear different reports of what is being said. All this is mixed with fear, residents are terrified of reprisals; even so, I know that the police have this on their radar.

Am I correct in thinking that this is an increasing problem for the constituency?”

Of course, the answer is yes, very much so.

Last Friday, I went to a ward in a different part of my constituency. I hold regular surgeries there, and I wanted to see the up-to-date position. I was accompanied by a local councillor, and we saw that in certain streets, although not in the ward as a whole, there were vans full to the brim with metal, all of it to be sold at a later date. There was no licensing of any kind. These activities undoubtedly cause a major antisocial nuisance in the vicinity.

It is unfortunate that it has taken so long for the House to recognise the seriousness of this problem. I would have hoped that we could have dealt with it earlier. Walsall council is not indifferent. It does not have a Labour majority, but there is no party political point to be made, and the officers are doing their best. However, they simply do not have the powers to act effectively, for many of the reasons the hon. Member for Croydon South mentioned. His Bill is therefore clearly necessary.

The local authority says that it and the police simply do not have sufficient powers to take the required action. It sent me a letter saying there is a lack of cohesion between the borough and neighbouring areas, which results in problems being passed from one area to another. It added that the penalties are ineffective in that they are not sufficiently strong to act as a deterrent, and that there are problems with enforcing laws due to slow legal processes and limited resources. It is also difficult to monitor the number and location of scrap dealers, as many of them are not registered with the council. We all hope and expect that the Minister will give the Bill his support, but I ask him to address that issue. If we are going to pass legislation, local authorities must have the powers and resources to be able to enforce the new laws.

[Robert Flello]

My hon. Friend’s comments bring to mind a situation in my constituency involving European Metal Recycling. The company and its scrap yard have been causing a great nuisance to neighbours. EMR has flouted the planning law and all sorts of other regulations. It has put up buildings and installed CCTV, and erected scrap piles that are far higher than is allowed. My local authority has tried to address the problem, but at every turn EMR has manipulated the law, and planning objections that have gone before the council will now possibly have to go through the entire court and appeal system. That serves to highlight my hon. Friend’s point that these companies will do anything to get a few quid in their pockets from scrap.

[Mr Winnick]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on being so conscientious in dealing with these problems in his constituency. We all know that he is a very conscientious Member of Parliament.

We must not have any illusions and assume that changing the law will result in everyone who is involved in this business suddenly changing their ways. Many of them will do everything they can to evade the law and continue to make a fast buck.