Knife Crime Awareness Week

Sarah Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Edwards (Tamworth) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) on securing this incredibly important debate.

When I speak to constituents in Tamworth, I hear how worried they are about increasing antisocial behaviour. I recently attended a town centre forum in St Editha’s church, meeting people from local businesses. They told me how their experiences of antisocial behaviour and crime in the town centre are impacting the local economy. Reports of knife crime continue to rise. In the last couple of months alone a serious stabbing took place in a Tamworth nightclub in the early hours of the morning.

With resources under strain, I am pleased to see Staffordshire Police’s DitchTheBlade campaign, as well as knife banks being located across the constituency in places such as St Editha’s church, St Martin’s church and Sacred Heart church. However, with cuts to the police it is becoming increasingly clear that such initiatives cannot succeed without a greater focus on tackling knife crime from a number of angles.

I am proud of organisations such as Changes Tamworth. This provides a lifeline to those in a mental health crisis and at risk of suicide but also, via referral from the police, now offers anger management courses and mental health support to recent offenders on their last strike. In doing so, it helps to reduce the levels of violence and reoffending in our community. They need support. Not enough is being done at the national level to combat what is becoming an epidemic of knife crime, with some of the steepest increases in towns and suburbs just like my constituency.

Since 2015, knife crime has risen by 77% and the Government have failed to act. I urge the Government to adopt Labour’s bold plan to tackle knife crime by rebuilding security on our streets and building confidence in the criminal justice system. This includes putting youth workers in our A&E units, as well as re-invigorating a national network of youth hubs to bring local services together and deliver support for teenagers. We could be building on the work done by groups such as Mercia Boxing Club, which successfully won funding to convert a community centre in Tamworth that had been left derelict by the Conservatives, leaving our young people with nothing to do. We could be making sure that groups like Tamworth Table Tennis have a long-term base, so ensuring that we have a wide range of activities for young people.

Labour will clamp down on knife sales and create a new law on the exploitation of children and young people by criminal gangs. It will also establish a new cross-Government coalition to end knife crime, bringing together those political and community leaders with a role to play in tackling knife crime and keeping young people safe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Edwards Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

It is fair to say that such an approach would make a mockery of our legal migration system and people playing by the rules, lodging applications and paying the appropriate fees. It is right that where people are granted asylum, we support them to be able to move on as quickly as possible. Work is a key part of that. I just wish the hon. Gentleman had the same energy to try to help more of our people domestically to be able to take on these roles, rather than saying that we should resort to migrant labour all the time.

[Sarah Edwards (Tamworth) (Lab)]

14. What recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of neighbourhood policing levels.

[Chris Philp]

Figures for local policing started to be published in 2015, with 61,083 roles at the time. The most recent figures for March last year show that the number had increased by 6,000 to 67,785.

[Sarah Edwards]

With a growing number of my constituents not even reporting crimes because they do not have access to a public police station, will the Minister reconsider additional funds to ensure that local police stations, such as Tamworth’s, are reopening public-facing police desks?

Town Centre Safety

Sarah Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Edwards (Tamworth) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) for his contribution on knife crime and its effects on the community. Only last week, in my maiden speech, I paid tribute to my predecessor, Sir Robert Peel, who pioneered the leading principles of policing, which ring as true today as they did in 1829. Central to his philosophy was the integral role of rooting the police force within the community. Tamworth no longer has a police station with a front desk to report crimes, and many have raised with me their dismay at the town centre suffering from increased antisocial behaviour, but it is high-street shoplifting that I wish to raise specifically in the debate.

High-street retailers are struggling with the increased costs of their bills and their business rates, reduced profit margins and worries that footfall will reduce due to concerns about safety in town centres. To add to that difficulty, under this Government they are having to absorb up to £200 every time someone steals from their shop. That is simply not good enough. My constituent Onkar, who runs a convenience store, raised his concerns with me about how damaging shoplifting is to his business. He has reported shoplifting on many occasions but has not seen a single conviction in 13 years. That also means that he cannot recoup the costs of those lost goods.

Coupled with that, retail workers face unprecedented rates of violence, abuse and aggression while doing their jobs. Last year, survey data from USDAW of more than 7,000 shop workers—it has been cited many times by colleagues during the debate, but I will repeat it because it is so stark—reported that 70% suffered from verbal abuse, 49% received threats of violence, and nearly 8% were actually physically assaulted during the year. The report called for:

“Investment in community-led policing initiatives, which recognise the invaluable role that retail workers play in our communities and deliver locally-led programmes to guarantee worker safety.”

That is exactly what Labour’s community policing guarantee will do.

Labour will put police on the beat again, with a major expansion in neighbourhood policing, including putting 13,000 more PCSOs on the streets. Just as Peel professionalised the police force in 1829, Labour will professionalise neighbourhood policing, working with national bodies such as the College of Policing to create bespoke problem-solving skills that support communities. Labour will also introduce a new, specific offence against the assault of shop workers, which will protect people like Onkar and the shop workers of USDAW to ensure that everyone who works in retail can feel safe.

Finally, I pay tribute to the serving members of the police force, who still do the best they can despite consistent underfunding and under-resourcing over the last 13 years. I join colleagues in calling on the Government to take action and back Labour’s community policing guarantee.