Assisted Dying

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley]

I am not for one moment saying, and I do not think that I can be accused of saying, that those who look at assisted dying do not care about palliative care. I do not think anyone is—are we really that heartless?—but I think we have to give hope to people. We need to turn this debate around into a debate about palliative care and helping people when they are at their lowest.

It is a fact that our health service is struggling; it is a fact that our cancer waiting lists are the worst in western Europe; and it is a fact that we need to do much more when it comes to giving care and carrying out research into rare and unique diseases, so that people can find a way out.

It is also very important that the statistics are not with this blasé view that says, “This is where Britain stands. They want to see a law change.” First of all, in the Republic of Ireland the assisted dying law was rejected overwhelmingly by Dáil Éireann, because it did not believe that it was a way that could bring satisfaction.

The threat to the disabled and the vulnerable has been raised by Disability Rights UK, Scope and the United Kingdom’s Disabled People’s Council, all of which say that this debate on assisted dying causes them great concerns. The British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Physicians do not support moves towards assisted dying.

I think there has been some—

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Paisley]

No, I do not have injury time.

The hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) touched upon the issue of Oregon. It is not a debate that is widely discussed and we should say that within 10 years we could see times fifteen—I repeat: times fifteen—the number of people wanting to explore and use assisted suicide. There is something seriously wrong when that is where this debate takes people.

We need to focus on things that will give people hope and the opportunity to find a better way. When we walked into this Chamber today, we walked under a portrait of Moses. That portrait carried with it a biblical and, indeed, faith inspiration that we can make good laws. We can make the best laws. Changing the law on this would be the wrong choice, and if it ever comes to a debate on the Floor of the House, I will vote against it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I support a change in the law—a change that will impact only a few of those who are terminally ill. It is not normalising assisted dying: it is giving choice and some element of control to those of sound mind. Many terminally ill people will not make that choice, but I and 200 of my constituents who signed the petition support a law change with a full set of safeguards. On the issue of palliative care or assisted dying, a useful statistic is that 86% of people in California and 82% of people in Victoria who had assisted deaths—two jurisdictions that have changed their law—were already enrolled in hospice and palliative care.

As many speakers have said, some people with terminal illnesses across the UK are currently being forced to make awful decisions about the end of their life—decisions that also have an impact on their loved ones. Some people may think our current, outdated laws stop those appalling issues from arising, but they do not. People with funds are forced to travel to Switzerland, often before they would need to if they did not have to travel. Those people often travel alone, as they risk their loved ones being arrested. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) described how too many people are not only making the choice to die alone, but have to plan their death alone, in secret. His speech brought home to me the fact that those people and their loved ones could not say goodbye to each other. The ban on assisted dying is causing those traumas. This is an issue of personal choice, and we as legislators must ensure that the law reflects the need for that choice.

To provide some history about legislation, the ban on abortions until the 1960s did not stop abortions; it simply banned safe abortions. That ban sent women to the trusted aunt, the neighbour, or the doctor running a backstreet clinic—too often in unsafe and dangerous conditions, too often while terrified or alone. Similar feelings have been expressed today. We cannot prevent assisted dying from happening, but we can condemn decisions and actions to take place in darkness, alone; to involve journeys abroad while in pain; or to risk criminalising loving family members or friends. We place those issues out of mind and pretend they do not happen here, but they do.

Only by reforming the law and introducing safeguards to address the concerns that hon. Members have raised can we address this situation, which is about personal freedom and morality. Only by doing so can we step out of the darkness, and only Parliament can make that change. The significant majority of British people support a change in the law on assisted dying. Our history of law change on issues of personal conscience or moral issues shows that Parliament is too often behind the curve of public opinion. The laws on divorce, on blasphemy and obscenity, and on homosexuality and same-sex marriage are just some of the examples that occur to me. We are beholden to the people to respond to that change in public opinion, and change the law to give people who are terminally ill a choice about whether they end their life—if they want that choice—and control over when, where and how they do so. Seven years ago, I voted to change that law. I hope we get another opportunity to do so before too long, but after thorough consideration, including that of the Health and Social Care Committee.

Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Next Tuesday is International Women’s Day, when we could be celebrating the progress and achievements that we have made not just in recent years, but over decades to protect women and girls. I sadly feel, however, that we have gone backwards in so many areas, especially violence against women and girls.

Some 40 years ago, us young women marched the streets chanting, “Whatever we wear, wherever we go, yes means yes and no means no!”. Just over 30 years ago, as a young councillor, I led on a local strategy to bring the council, police and voluntary sector together to ensure that we had proper support for rape victims and a police suite that was staffed by women who had been raped. Gradually, particularly in London over the ’80s and ’90s, improvements were made and funding was made available. We saw improvements in schools, in the curriculum, in the police force and in local councils, and we saw the establishment and growth of many community-based organisations that built expertise and served the needs of victims of different forms of violence against women and girls. They had proper funding.

Today it feels as though we have not progressed much in 30 years—in fact, we have gone backwards. There are still not enough women officers to properly support raped women; police officers are sharing obscene comments and propositioning victims; and those specialist sensitive support services—the rape and serious sexual offences units and the community organisations—are closing.

There is a pattern in the experience of constituents who have come to me recently—victims of all ages, women experiencing domestic violence, stalking and serious sexual violence targeted by men—which is that they have been let down when they have done the right thing and reported their cases. Some 30 years after the strategy I worked on, the police, the probation service, the courts and others are frankly not working together. When one does act and raise an issue, it is not being taken up across the others. In the Minister’s opening speech, she mentioned the new stalking protection orders, but it is pointless having them in place if they are not enforced, if police officers cannot pull up the relevant data when a victim asks for immediate help or if a victim has to repeat the same information in the order again and again.

Breaches of those orders are not being acted on by the police. The police are not aware when a dangerous stalker or domestic abuser is released from custody, and police forces are not sharing information with each other. Of course, such crimes do not all happen with the victim and perpetrator within a particular police force area, and in London each basic command unit is the size of many police forces across the rest of England and Wales. Stalking protection orders—a piece of paper—are not an adequate shield for victims of violent, obsessive men.

The Opposition have called for multi-agency public protection arrangements to include serial domestic abusers and stalkers. We cannot continue with a piecemeal approach and with different agencies not talking to each other. The Government should heed our call and make street harassment a crime, as in France. They can also require police forces to record misogyny as a hate crime. We do not just need RASSOs to be established in every police force, but what about the four forces that have closed theirs? It is not surprising that 40% of victims are dropping out of the criminal justice process before their cases even get to a charge.

There should never be any question that a raped women should be seen by women officers who are properly trained in the care and support of rape victims. As I say, 30 years after we first established that in our London police stations, it is still not the norm.

Time is short, so I cannot cover everything, but I will mention one other aspect of violence against women and girls, which is so-called honour-based violence and abuse. Such crimes have not stopped, but the specialist support that those victims need has all but disappeared.

Over the last year, we have talked more in this place about violence against women and girls than in the past, which of course I welcome, but we need to go beyond talking and we need to see action. I wish we were building on the achievements of the past, not reinventing the wheel. We need action from the police, the probation service and the Government and we need proper support for victims.

There is no point having strategies and pilots, which the Minister mentioned in such detail, without support services for victims, proper criminal investigations and convictions for perpetrators. Nothing changes—the feeling of being beholden to somebody for a lift or of walking with our keys clutched between knuckles; the ever-growing fear that somebody is walking behind us at night; and the day-to-day acts of harassment that still plague the lives of many women. We deserve better, and we deserve change.

IOPC Report on Metropolitan Police Officers' Conduct: Charing Cross Police Station

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I recognise that media coverage has the tendency to compress time. It is worth pointing out that the issue came to light in 2017 and the unit was disbanded in 2018. Charing Cross police station was merged into a wider borough operational command under new leadership, which is committed to driving out this kind of appalling behaviour. Whether that culture persists, and the vigour with which the Met is pursuing it, will be revealed, we hope, by both the Angiolini inquiry and the work of Dame Louise Casey. I urge the hon. Lady to wait for those conclusions.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

This cultural problem does not just apply to Charing Cross, or even, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) said, to the Met. It also does not just apply to middle-ranking and junior officers. As a councillor and now a Member of this House, I worked with Chief Superintendent Paul Martin and Chief Inspector Ricky Kandohla, who were both found guilty last week of gross misconduct and dismissed without notice for a series of offences. The chief superintendent led the three-borough basic command unit and was found to have committed bullying and discriminatory conduct towards a female police officer, misuse of a bank card, and impropriety over a promotion. Will the Minister assure the House that any reviews will address the cultures within our police forces right to the top of senior levels?

[Kit Malthouse]

That is our intention.

Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend, and Westminster City Council and the City of London, who have done an amazing job in looking after so many people so well. I will refer her very good suggestion to the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), who is responsible for employment. The DWP is working up plans and we are very keen to get people who are able to into jobs as quickly as possible.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Having had long experience of the delays and injustice meted out by the Home Office to my constituents seeking leave to remain or naturalisation, what is the Minister doing, in her cross-departmental role, to ensure that similar delays and injustice are not repeated for Afghan citizens applying for these schemes?

[Victoria Atkins]

The first families have already been granted indefinite leave to remain. The caseworking exercise continues and many thousands of people are being worked through at pace. But we are clear that anyone who is in this country under the ARAP or ACRS schemes will be eligible for indefinite leave to remain.

Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. Not being a lawyer, I will try and stick to your time limit; it should be a bit easier for me. It has been interesting to follow the Justice Secretary, but a pleasure to hear the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). It was an honour to be on the shadow Justice and Attorney General’s team until a few weeks ago.

The Conservative party traditionally prided itself on being tough on crime, but its record of delay in tackling crime is nothing to be proud of. The central theme of our criminal justice and courts system has now become delay, delay, delay. A backlog of over 54,000 Crown court cases means a four-year wait for justice, and justice delayed is justice denied. That impacts not only on the victims of crime and their families, who often cannot move on with their lives, their work and often their mental health. A delayed and failing justice system also fails the accused and those eventually convicted and sentenced. We cannot hope to address the causes of crime without giving those caught up a realistic timescale for a court hearing and a decision, and for those convicted, a quick start on work to cut future reoffending. A slow justice system costs us all—failed trial dates or the financial and human cost of remand in custody and, for our communities, a lack of faith in the whole criminal justice system.

The fault of those delays does not lie with our courts or those working in them. I know, from visiting Isleworth Crown court, how tirelessly they are working to ensure that the courts run smoothly. No, despite the Secretary of State’s explanation, he cannot get away from the fact that the Government brought a sledgehammer down on our legal system, and have done since 2010. By 2026, half of all our courts will have closed. There are 27,000 fewer sitting days now than in 2016, there has been a 15% cut in the Courts and Tribunals Service, and, despite agency recruitment, a shortfall of 1,400 staff still remains. We have had cuts to legal aid, to policing, to specialist support, to the Director of Public Prosecutions and others.

The Government may say that court delays are due to the coronavirus, and that the Government are moving heaven and earth to fix them, but it is not, and the Government are not. At the start of 2020 there was already a backlog of 39,000 Crown court cases, with a backlog now of over 53,000. The Government need to be honest about the cause of the delays and then start to address the backlog. Labour is proposing a guaranteed 33,000 extra sitting days and more Nightingale courts.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham said, the Conservatives are failing to protect women and girls in the criminal justice system, with record low conviction rates for perpetrators of sexual violence and an epidemic of misogyny that makes women and girls feel unsafe. Victims are losing faith that the justice system will be there for them. The Government’s rape review was announced over two years ago and we are still waiting. Meanwhile, rape prosecutions have fallen to the lowest level on record and domestic abuse prosecutions have fallen by nearly 20%. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) pointed out that for every victim there is a cost. These are not statistics, and that is why Labour has put gender-based violence at the top of our agenda, and why we published a green paper on ending the epidemic of violence against women and girls.

Finally, I want to address the issue of how the justice system can better serve those killed and injured on our roads. The issue concerns Members across this House and is an issue for the all-party parliamentary group for cycling and walking, which I co-chair. So I ask, will the Government consider using the opportunity of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to address some of these issues, including the lack of clarity over the distinction between careless and dangerous driving offences and the inadequate sentences for fatal hit-and-run offences, as well as for serious hit-and-run and car-dooring offences—and, finally, end the courts’ routine acceptance of exceptional hardship pleas from offending drivers who are seeking to avoid driving bans?

I look forward to hearing from the Government on the issues of road safety justice, on the backlog of court cases, on their victims’ Bill, and on their rape strategy, and I hope that they will vote for the Opposition motion today.

Feltham A Young Offenders Institution

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of mental health, and healthcare more broadly, for offenders and particularly young people. The levels of self-harm are deeply concerning, and we need to do more to drive them down. More broadly, we are seeking to have better liaison and diversion services, which divert those who genuinely have a mental health need and, where that can be better treated in the community, to have that option. We are also working on our health and justice plan, which is about improving the mental health and physical healthcare pathways for all those who enter custody.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I thank my fellow Hounslow MP my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) for asking this question today. I visited Feltham as the Hounslow lead member for children’s services in around 2003, not long after another murder there. The Howard League has today re-released its July 2018 report on Feltham. For 30 years, there have been critical inspections of the regime at Feltham and nothing has got any better over those 30 years. Does the Minister not agree that to lock up in a prison environment 15, 16 and 17-year-olds, who are children, is fundamentally wrong? We are the only equivalent country that does this. Yes, some of them have committed terrible crimes, but they are children with mental health problems or addiction problems, or they may be neurodiverse or have learning disabilities. Should we not learn from other countries and provide a better therapeutic regime to support these children to turn their lives around?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady takes a keen interest in this issue, not just as a local MP but from formerly serving on the Justice Committee, and she highlights the important point that a large number of the young people—female offenders and others—who end up in custody are victims as well as perpetrators of crime and that, as well as justice taking its course, we must make sure that the help they need is available to them, whether mental health help or a range of other interventions, to tackle the underlying trauma. We have seen in the past 10 years roughly a 70% reduction in the number of under-18s being sentenced to custody—the figure is down to about 700 at the moment—so liaison and diversion work. However, it is right that the courts still have the option of sentencing to custody, especially for very serious assaults, violent offences and sexual offences, but the current Government’s approach to this policy is to move towards secure schools: moving away from essentially a prison with some education to an environment that is a school with a degree of security, which is necessary given the nature of some of the sentences and some of the crimes committed. So we are seeking to address this with a cultural change in how we approach dealing with young people who commit these crimes.

Assisted Dying

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee; the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who brought forward this debate; and those Members who have described in moving terms their personal experiences. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), who has just spoken in moving terms about the importance of good quality palliative care, because she is absolutely right. As far as I am concerned, this is a “both”: we need better quality, better informed palliative care and we need to change the law on assisted dying.

On Monday morning, I listened to Ann Whaley’s moving account on Radio 4 of the decision her husband Geoff took to die at Dignitas. Last night, I read Annabel Dixon’s blog in which she described, in such loving terms, her sister Jemima’s life and also her death at Dignitas. Both Geoff and Jemima decided, with their different but in both cases degenerative conditions, that the only way to have a good death—in control, a simple act, taking the medicines oneself, with their loved ones around them—and to get around UK legal restrictions was to die in suburban Zurich.

What struck me about both Ann’s account and Annabel’s account was the difficulty of having to go to Zurich, with the logistics of the journey and the pain of travelling as someone who is very sick, as well as the fear of prosecution, and then there is the cost of fees, travel and accommodation for everyone so that loved ones could be with them at their end. Geoff Whaley and Jemima Dixon, and others who have taken the journey to Zurich, had the capacity and the funds to make the arrangements. As others have said, the cost of going to Zurich is beyond the means of most people.

However, we have heard today of other deaths that were not happy—that were not with loved ones present, and where people could not, because of fear of prosecution, discuss their plans with their loved ones—and particularly the account of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield).

Clinicians often feel that they have to take control, and they cannot discuss what they do with anyone else. Very often that is about upping the dose of morphine until the person slips away or, as in the much more tragic story mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), about removing the drugs that were keeping a loved one pain-free and alive. Those actions also removed the possibility of that person and their family discussing their end, which was going to be soon but needed to be pain-free and calm.

Many constituents have written to me supporting a change in the law, and in 2015 I voted to support that change. I assure hon. Members who are concerned about such a change that this debate is not about disabled people, those with life-limiting conditions, or those considering suicide due to depression. It is not about frail elderly people who are worried about being a burden, and it is not about vulnerable people who are at risk of being exploited on their death.

Reading Anna Dixon’s blog gave me an understanding of the level of assessment and scrutiny that was required over several stages before the assisted death in Zurich was permitted. The change to the law under debate today is relevant only to people of sound mind with a terminal illness—those who can predict the rough timing, but also the nature of their own natural death, which will be undignified, painful, and traumatic if they cannot take control. It is relevant to those who want to choose when to end the suffering that they know they and their loved ones will experience.

As we have heard, public opinion is moving behind a change. People of faith are also changing their views. Yesterday I spoke to a colleague whose faith background would generally oppose assisted dying, but who is now minded to support a change in the law. The medical profession is also coming round to support a change, or at least move to a position of neutrality

I understand the concerns and worries raised by hon. Members today, but we can learn lessons from other jurisdictions that have already implemented the right to an assisted death, and ensure that those concerns are addressed as the law is drafted. We can learn from 20 years of experience in Oregon to ensure that people’s fears are addressed. The UK can, and must, learn from the experience of those states.

I support the proposal to task the Law Commission with looking at this issue. We have to change the law. We owe it to those who know what their final months hold without assisted dying, and who wish to choose the time and place of their passing, and who is with them at their end. We must remove the grey areas for those people and their families.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

I am very aware of this issue, which I have been discussing with various people at the top end of HMCTS. It is important that we recruit sufficient judges, on which we need to do better. I will happily discuss it with my hon. Friend and provide a fuller answer when I appear before his Select Committee next week.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

T5. Is the Minister concerned that figures released in March show that prosecutions for rape are now at a five-year low? Victims could be reluctant to come forward because they have lost faith in the justice system. Will he commit to working closely with the Home Office and the Law Officers to look into this worrying situation?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. She alludes to the fact that this falls more directly within the remit of the Attorney General’s office but, of course, it cuts across a number of Departments. I have already had a number of meetings with my opposite number in the Home Office and with my new colleague, the prisons Minister, when he was Solicitor General. I look forward to further such meetings to get to the bottom of exactly what the hon. Lady highlights.

Knife Crime

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 233926 relating to knife crime.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. The petition, which was created by Mr John Perrins, has attracted 104,271 signatures and specifically calls for people

“found with a knife to get 10 years and using a knife 25 years in prison.”

At the outset, I would like to pay my respects to all the victims of knife crime and their grieving families. As we know from the tragic murders of 17-year-old Jodie Chesney in London and 17-year-old Yousef Makki in Manchester, the victims more often than not are younger people, and knife crime is often associated with that demographic. I would also like to take this opportunity to pay my respects to the family of Kelly Franklin, who was stabbed to death aged just 29 on 3 August last year in Hartlepool.

The Government responded to the petition on 14 March, stating in particular:

“Conviction of a knife or offensive weapon offence—threatening or possession—is now more likely to result in some form of custodial sentence, and for longer than at any point in the last ten years.”

They went on:

“In 2015, we introduced minimum custodial sentences for repeat knife possession and offences that involve threatening with a weapon. Adults face a minimum of 6 months’ imprisonment whilst young people aged 16 or 17 face a minimum 4 month Detention and Training Order. Since the introduction of the minimum custodial term people caught carrying a knife or offensive weapon for a second time are now more likely than ever before to go to prison—in the year ending September 2018, 82% of offenders received a custodial sentence for repeat possession offences. These offences carry maximum terms of 4 years’ imprisonment.”

The knife crime statistics for this year alone speak volumes. We are only in March, yet those statistics show there have been 39 fatal stabbings in Britain since the beginning of the year. Since last Friday there have been three more, including of another 17-year-old.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for introducing the debate and I congratulate John Perrins on organising the petition, as well as all those who signed it. A 17-year-old died in my constituency on Friday night after a spike in violent attacks in Isleworth. Does my hon. Friend agree that, although there may be a place for stronger sentences, there is a lot that all agencies can do, and funding is needed for schools, youth provision, police support and so on?

[Mike Hill]

I absolutely agree, and I will come to those points later.

Ministry of Justice figures released recently show that 21,484 people, including 4,686 here in the capital, were prosecuted or cautioned for knife offences in England and Wales last year. That is 2,000 up on 2016, 5,000 more than in 2013, and the highest number of arrests and prosecutions since 2009. No wonder people are beginning to describe the situation as an epidemic.

Whether or not they agree with that description, the Government have had to concede that there is a problem. Less than two weeks ago, in his spring statement, the Chancellor announced that the Government will award police forces an extra £100 million over the next year to pay for overtime and to support reductions in knife crime and violent crime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Rosindell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment, because we all have a duty to our communities—we are community leaders. I am working with local groups to fight crime. We do not have a magic wand or a direct solution, but we can play a part. I commend the youth organisations, church groups and faith organisations that are taking a lead, including the Street Pastors and Scouts. Jodie herself was an Explorer Scout—something that has been highlighted about what was a tragic, terrible crime. Community and MPs have a leadership role and it is not just down to the police and social and youth workers. We all have a part to play.

The crime prevention orders were requested directly by the police. They favour a dual approach of tough measures and positive early interventions. I often stress the importance of community policing, with police based in communities, which they know and understand like the back of their hand, as I am sure we know from our constituencies. More importantly, with that kind of policing, the community get to know the police and become familiar with them. With familiar faces of policemen in the community every day of the week, trust and recognition are built, which grow in the locality. That brings people together, with trust in their local police, and it helps to halt or at least curtail crime.

I want to make a serious point that is particularly relevant to Greater London: neighbourhood police are the ones best placed to make interventions to protect residents, when the issue is community-based. I have attempted over and over to make that point in my 18 years as Member of Parliament for Romford, yet models of policing and resources are still outdated. Instead of being based around real communities as they should be, they are based around bureaucratic electoral ward boundaries on a map that bear no relation to actual communities. They are based on electoral numbers, which is crazy and does not make sense. Communities are divided up between police teams. Instead of policing based on true, natural communities, there are lines in a road, and one police team goes to one side but not the other because it is in a different ward. Wards are not the way to fight crime. Criminals do not base their crimes on ward boundaries. They can act anywhere, and the police should police communities on that basis.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about the rigidity of ward boundaries, which is why, certainly in west London, we welcome the fact that the new basic command unit set-up has grouped the neighbourhood teams into a town base, bringing several wards together in a more logical way under a single sergeant. I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance and value of neighbourhood teams. Does he agree that the number of people in them is important? In Hounslow, their strength has been roughly halved, from five per ward to three and a bit per ward. Is not that regrettable, and a result of the cuts imposed by the Government on the Metropolitan police?

[Andrew Rosindell]

I agree. I made it clear a moment ago that I do not agree with what the Prime Minister said about cuts in police having no link to crime. However, I do not want to get into a battle today about resources from Government, or whether Sadiq Khan has not allocated as much as he should and the rest of it. We can argue about that but today is not the day. I hope we can agree that both the Government and the Mayor have a duty to allocate as many resources as they can to fighting crime, particularly in inner city areas, but also in outer London areas where crime has recently been rising. We should work together, because the public are losing patience. If we turn the matter into a political football they will not thank us. They want all of us to work together.

The week before last I raised with Sophie Linden my idea of getting rid of bureaucratic, inflexible ward boundaries and creating proper community police, with understanding. Unfortunately she did not say she would go down that route. I said, “Well, can Havering be an experiment, at least?” She did not agree, so I am disappointed, but we need to look at ways to channel resources to the best possible effect.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

Various changes were made as a result of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we are undertaking a significant review. My Department has met with more than 100 organisations or individuals to discuss the changes that were brought in and my Department will be reporting in the new year.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State commit to implementing the recommendations of the independent Mental Health Act review to reform mental health tribunals and will the Government commit adequate resourcing to the recommendations?

[Edward Argar]

As the hon. Lady will be aware, the Government have welcomed the independent review of the Mental Health Act and have rightly committed to reform mental health legislation. Some of the review’s recommendations, as she alludes to, have particular implications for civil justice and particular reforms to the Mental Health Tribunal. My Department is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care to consider the review, its recommendations and implications in detail and we will respond shortly.