Tackling Spiking

Sally-Ann Hart Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris]

I am rapidly doing the maths, and it looks as though the scale of the problem in Northern Ireland is at the same level as it is everywhere else in the country. I will make a note that we undertake to work carefully with that force and ensure that there is standardisation across the United Kingdom.

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on tackling this issue and my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on his persistence in bringing it to her attention. Sussex police actively helps to prevent spiking by providing anti-spiking drinks covers and stop-tops and by using a drone in Brighton, where there are four universities, to act as a mobile form of CCTV. Can the Minister provide further details on how the Home Office will work with the National Police Chiefs’ Council to target key weeks when spiking tends to be more prevalent, in order to crack down on the number of incidents and to ensure that police forces share best practice to avoid a postcode lottery?

[Laura Farris]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who has been really vocal on this issue and deserves credit for everything she has done on it. She made two excellent points. The first was about whether the Home Office would respond to flashpoint time periods such as freshers’ week. I think that that is absolutely within our purview and it is set out in the spiking report, which I hope she has had an opportunity to read. The second was about best practice, and that is an excellent point on which I hope to update the House over the course of next year. We can create as many new offences or practices as possible in this House, but unless they are being applied evenly across every force, we cannot be sure that they are working as well as they should be. I hope my hon. Friend will continue to scrutinise the Government on that issue in the months ahead.