Draft Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (Offensive Weapons Homicide Reviews) Regulations 2022

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 General Committees

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. Knife crime obviously rose significantly in recent years, peaking in 2017-18. We are now seeing a reduction in knife crime overall, but there is still a real problem with very serious knife crime and serious violence. Today’s proposals, which we supported during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, are one part of the picture of how we understand what is happening and what lessons we can learn. We welcomed the provisions in the Bill, and we welcome the pilots being rolled out.

It is incredibly important that the pathways that lead people to a homicide, whether as a victim or perpetrator, are understood. In my patch in Croydon a review of 60 cases of serious violence was incredibly insightful about the situations people found themselves in. Huge themes emerged around exclusion from school, domestic violence in the home, the addictions of parents and the absence of parents, from which we can learn lessons about prevention. I am grateful that the Government have set out the pilot scheme. In the Bill Committee, I asked for more information, and that is contained in the draft regulations, but we have some questions.

The Minister said that he wants things to be done in a way that is light-touch, concise and brief. I understand the constraints on funding, but I stress the importance of doing things properly; we cannot cut corners. I push back on the language that he used; we have to do this properly, which will cost money, and we have some questions about the funding.

The explanatory memorandum says that an estimated 72 homicide reviews will take place across the pilot areas throughout the 18-month pilot. I am interested to know how that figure has been arrived at. The Home Office estimates that the cost per review will be

“£1,222 to each of the three relevant review partners (totalling £3,666) and £8,688 for an independent chair.”

Again, I am interested in how those figures have been calculated, and how this will be funded. Is the assumption that the review partners will cover the costs, including the staffing costs, or will extra funding be forthcoming? Do the Government plan on looking to local government or policing to increase the funding?

I am also interested to know how we will collectively learn lessons once the review has happened and the various recommendations that might come from it have been made. Will there be a unit in the Home Office that looks at the reviews and learns the lessons from a national perspective? I am interested to know what the membership of the oversight board is likely to be. The Minister said that there are already homicide reviews for a range of other situations—under-18-year-olds, domestic violence and the like. Do we know how we will decide which homicide review will be picked if there is a crossover? What is the order of priority in terms of whether it would be an offensive weapons review or a domestic homicide review? How will we decide?

Finally, I stress the budget issue. The local safeguarding partners that will have to fund this—whether it is local government or local police—will have to find the funding somewhere, and we know that there is great pressure on budgets. Anything the Minister can say about that, bearing in mind the need to protect the integrity of the reviews, would be helpful. We are, however, happy to support the draft regulations.