Temporary Event Notices

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

Today I am laying before Parliament the Licensing Act 2003 (Permitted Temporary Activities) (Amendment) Order 2026. This instrument will increase the number of temporary event notices that may be given in respect of a single premises from 15 to 20 per calendar year, and the total number of days on which a premises may be used for licensable activities under temporary event notices from 21 to 26 days per calendar year.

This measure forms part of the Government’s wider approach to supporting vibrant high streets and communities. By enabling businesses, community groups and individuals to host more local events, it recognises the contribution that well-run events can make to community cohesion, local economies and the prevention of crime and disorder.

These higher limits applied temporarily in 2022 and 2023 to support the hospitality sector in dealing with the impact of the covid-19 pandemic and help communities come together during that difficult time. The benefits were clear for all to see, so we intend to reintroduce this additional flexibility on a permanent basis.

This is a targeted and proportionate change to the existing licensing framework. The important safeguards already in place to protect communities will remain, including the licensing objectives, local authority oversight, and the ability of responsible authorities to object to TENs where appropriate.

The instrument extends to and applies in England and Wales. Subject to parliamentary approval, the Government intend for the new limits to come into force on 1 January 2027. An economic note will be published alongside the instrument on legislation. gov.uk

[HCWS326]

Safety of the Jewish Community

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

It is a pleasure to close this debate, which I think has been very useful and moving. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West) on initiating it.

Before I respond to Members’ questions and to the debate itself, I have two reflections. One is to reiterate the commitment from this Government that we recognise we are on a journey to tackle antisemitism. Although I appreciate that many Members welcomed the funding that we have put in place and the changes that we are making, this will not be the end of the journey. We are on that journey to tackle antisemitism and we will do whatever is necessary for it. We have taken measures that many Members have talked about today, but that will not be the sum of everything we intend to do. We certainly do not intend to shy away from the huge challenge that we all face.

My second reflection, from listening to the MPs in this place who made such powerful speeches, is that as Members of Parliament we are all leaders of this country, and we should all ensure that we are well educated, trained and equipped to answer the call to tackle antisemitism. Whether that means going on the training days provided to Members of Parliament by the Antisemitism Policy Trust, or reading, or talking to and listening to our Jewish friends in our communities, it is incumbent on every single one of us to play a role in this debate and to be the leaders that people elect us to be. I was very struck by what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said about how people are retreating from the public space because of their fear.

[David Pinto-Duschinsky (Hendon) (Lab)]

As we heard, we face perhaps the worst antisemitism crisis certainly of my lifetime on the streets, in people’s daily lives and online. I am Jewish, and when I go to synagogue at the end of this week to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, I will walk past security guards. That should never have to happen, but it is utterly normal for the Jewish community.

We have seen a normalisation of hostility that has left many of my constituents wondering about their future in this country. Does the Minister agree that, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said so clearly, it is not just a matter of building higher walls? We must be able to build a situation where Jewish people can live proud and open Jewish lives, free from fear. Does the Minister also agree that this is an all-of-society problem that requires an all-of-society response?

[Sarah Jones]

I completely agree that the solution is not just to build higher walls. If our Jewish friends and colleagues are retreating from the public space for fear of their own safety, we have to loudly make sure that that public space is full enough with the call against antisemitism, so that we can rebuild a society where people feel comfortable speaking openly about their religion and their faith, proud of being Jews in Britain and being able to exercise their religious rights freely.

I will respond to the points made as fully as I can. Many Members talked about the Protecting What Matters commitments. We are keen for the work to expand and be done as quickly as possible, and a whole cohort of work under that banner is being done as we speak. The disruptions team, which horizon scans for extremist influence and events, is being expanded with additional resources. Efforts to stop hate preachers and extremists entering the UK are increasing as part of an expanded global visa taskforce, which is important.

Work is going on to ensure that we report back to Parliament on our work. An annual “State of extremism” report is being developed, and the first iteration of that will be published this year. Embedding the 2024 definition of extremism and the engagement principles across Government means clearer guidance and improved training. Updating and embedding the 2024 engagement principles helps public bodies not to confer legitimacy, funding—crucially—or influence on extremist groups. A whole body of work is therefore being undertaken, and the annual “State of extremism” report will be published.

Several Members talked about universities, which are incredibly important, and referred to a powerful report that I have also read. Members quoted some absolutely shocking statistics. I was privileged to be at a roundtable with members of various universities, the Office for Students, Lord Mann and several representatives from the Jewish community talking about antisemitism in our universities. I know that there is a big programme of work under way to look at training, to make sure that there is funding to support new guidance from the Office for Students, to invest in the University Jewish Chaplaincy services and to make sure we work across different Departments, which was also mentioned, to tackle this issue.

From a policing point of view, my engagement on this issue is largely on some of the smaller unplanned protests that happen in Jewish spaces and trying to work with local police in those situations as to being clear who is responsible and how those issues are going to be tackled.

[Catherine West]

On that point, may I commend the police in Barnet in the run-up to the local elections, which is always a tense time? I want to put on record how outstanding the communication, reassurance and work with our local leaders—both Conservative and Labour—on Barnet council was.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that praise. I am sure that it will be well appreciated and I absolutely endorse what she has said.

Members asked about the IRGC and the extra work being done beyond its sanctioning. We have sanctioned the IRGC in its entirety, as well as 550 Iranian individuals. Iran has been placed on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme, and we are going after the criminal networks, proxies, enablers and illicit finance networks used by the IRGC, including with sanctions against criminal proxies. A lot of work is being done.

Members also asked when the David Bell report will be published. That will be this autumn, and it is important work about tackling antisemitism in schools.

I should touch on the funding that we have put in place following the awful attacks that we have seen in recent times and an absolutely dismal story of antisemitism and violence to which we as a Government have had to respond. Last April we provided an additional £25 million, initially to fund increased officer patrols and disruption deployments. We spent time just before the summer recess having a series of meetings with Jewish community colleagues, Jewish leaders and others, including a summit in Downing Street, talking about what extra was required. Just before the summer, we announced over £250 million of additional funding for the police to tackle antisemitism over the next three years.

That includes training for police officers, which the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin), asked about. Antisemitism training will be rolled out across policing as part of that work. That work is being largely done in our big cities where our Jewish communities mostly live and £85.8 million will be allocated to the Metropolitan Police Service. It will deliver 300 dedicated personnel to support the work that the Metropolitan police have already been doing. Other areas—Hertfordshire, Essex, Northumbria, Sussex, Thames Valley, West Midlands and West Yorkshire—will also be funded.

I am aware that I have not even really begun my speech, but that I now need to end it. I will do so where I started: by thanking all Members for their contributions. This is a journey, and we are absolutely committed to ensuring that our Jewish communities feel safe where they live and proud of their religion. We will do whatever we need to do to make sure that that can be delivered.

Vehicle Theft

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) for securing the debate.

I start by thanking the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead in this area, Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Grahame, and her colleague Oli Fisher, who lead the work nationally on our response to vehicle crime. Vehicle crime soared in the 1970s and 1980s, but there was then a big fall as new technology designed out vehicle theft and vehicle crime. As the hon. Member suggested, it then increased over about the last 10 years, although it has dropped over the last two. That is partly because of some of the disruption the police have been able to do. Ridiculously, issues such as the strait of Hormuz also make a difference, because vehicles are often shipped abroad when they are stolen. Just as global trade is interrupted, global criminals are interrupted when there are big global shifts such as those in Iran. There are multiple reasons, but numbers have gone down over the past two years.

At the moment, several bodies are looking at how to solve the problem. There are local police forces; the hon. Member pointed to numbers of police officers, and we are committed to putting 13,000 more police in our neighbourhoods. In her area, there are 88 more full-time neighbourhood officers than when we came to power, on the streets and policing our neighbourhoods in the way she would expect. Large criminal gangs are driving the changing nature of vehicle crime. Cars are stolen, using the technology in the way she explained, and then shipped abroad and sold on. Neighbourhood policing is an important part of the picture, but we need to address large criminal gangs nationally.

Some bodies are doing really good work in this area. The National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service, which is financed by the private sector, does some of the work opening containers at ports, and there is more we can do in that space if cars are stolen and taken abroad. The hon. Member referred to Opal, which is the NPCC intelligence unit, and the National Vehicle Crime Reduction Partnership has been in place for about two years. We in the Home Office give it £1 million, but is funded by the private sector.

The fundamental problem with serious organised crime that is not drugs, guns or very high-harm crime is that quite often a car will be stolen in one place and taken somewhere else. It might go to a port or pass through three or four different forces, but because of the nature of the 43 police forces, the system is not joined up. Our reform programme will help with those kinds of serious, specialist crime. When we have a national police service responsible for serious organised crime, which brings together the different national agencies and oversees a more regional structure of policing, with local policing units that are responsible to their local communities at the bottom, that will enable the forces to flex those specialisms more where they need to be.

Our organised crime strategy needs to look at drugs and guns and at very high-harm crimes such as people-smuggling, but while car theft is less high harm it has a huge cost. This is a very lucrative business for the criminals, and an expensive business for us. Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Grahame will be able to tell us the annual cost, but it is something in the order of £1.7 billion. We need to look at this centrally, and the reform programme will help to tackle that challenge.

At an Interpol conference last year or earlier this year—forgive me, I cannot recall—lots of countries came together to talk about this challenge. Lots of countries have the same problem: Canada, the Netherlands and Japan are net exporters of stolen vehicles. Those vehicles are taken to certain ports in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the United Arab Emirates, for example, and then sold on to other parts of the world. There are lots of problems with that network. For example, if a car enters Russia there are no checks on who owns it and whether it is stolen or not, so basically as soon as that car gets to Russia, off it goes. Some vehicles are sent into warzones, such as Ukraine, via nearby countries, and the more high-end vehicles are sold on to be used in other countries in the normal way.

There is a pattern that we are increasingly understanding, but the question is how we disrupt it. Part of the answer is through the legislation we have introduced, which is a good first step. Some of the kit that criminals use, such as a device that logs into a vehicle, can cost £30,000 to £50,000; these are obviously serious organised criminals who have the money to buy such kit. We now have the legislation, although it has not been enacted yet; we have passed the law, but it has not commenced. Nevertheless, it will make a difference.

I noted the hon. Lady’s point about online platforms and the videos on them, and I will take that away. It was not something that I was well aware of, but I will definitely take it away as something to raise with the tech companies, alongside the very long list that we are raising with them of other dangerous things online that should be taken down.

How do we work with manufacturers to design out vehicle crime and how do we ensure that the legislation is in place to disrupt vehicle crime as much as possible? In addition, there is a question about ports and how easy it is to get vehicles out of the country, which we need to look at. There is also the international picture and ensuring that we share information with police forces around the world, where we can. There is the central capability that I think we need as part of the national police service to ensure that we treat this crime with the seriousness it deserves.

The hon. Lady talked about the impact that vehicle theft has on individuals and communities, and she is right. There are some similarities with the theft of mobile phones and how the police respond to that, which is evolving. For an extended period, more and more people had their phones stolen, with each theft being dealt with by a local police force individually as an individual crime. The Metropolitan police in particular put some of this information together and realised that organised criminal networks were taking these phones, wrapping them in silver foil, putting them on a plane, sending them to China and selling them on from there. We understood the criminal network involved, and the police are now targeting and trying to disrupt them in various ways. There is a similar picture with vehicle theft, and we need to respond to it in a similar way. As I have said, I think the reform programme will help with that.

Of course we need to keep looking at new technology, new legislation and other things that we can do. I am very grateful to the police, who are already tackling this challenge, and I am particularly grateful to ACC Sarah Grahame, who is leading this work and pushing us in the Home Office to go further and do more.

With the reform programme, we in the Home Office are trying to design a structure that not only enables the police to do their job but enables us to step back and not have to provide small bits of funding for each individual crime type, and instead give the police the resources in the right place to tackle the problem. There is some evidence—not lots, but some—that the criminals stealing cars and sending them abroad also take part in other organised criminality of a more dangerous kind, involving guns and drugs. We need to gather more intelligence on that, but it is often the case that criminals do not stick to one type of crime; they do lots of things all at the same time. There is probably a network of organised criminals we should target who are not only stealing cars and moving them abroad but doing other things that are more high harm.

This debate has been a timely conversation on an issue that we in the Home Office are very alive to. We want to enable the police to respond to it. It is part of the changing nature of crime. People see a spate of car thefts in one area because the cars are stolen to order by serious and organised criminals who know what they are doing. They come into an area, they steal the cars there and they move on somewhere else, in part because they know that different police forces will not be joining up with each other, in the way that I described.

I thank the hon. Member for Eastleigh again for securing this debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Sureena Brackenridge) for raising the issues that her constituents are facing. Hopefully, what I have said today will reassure the hon. Lady that we are taking this issue very seriously, and I appreciate all suggestions and ideas as to what more we can do.

Question put and agreed to.

Dover and Portsmouth: Protests

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

With permission, I will make a statement on public order following the protest activity seen on the south coast this weekend. I know many in this House, and outside, will have been concerned by the events of the past two days, and I welcome the opportunity to set out what happened, as well as to update Members on the action that the Government are taking to address the issues at the heart of the protests.

It is right to begin with the facts. At around 7.30 on Saturday morning, around 150 individuals descended on the port of Dover, many of them wearing face coverings. Kent police deployed rapidly to the scene of what the force has described as a “no-notice” protest. No arrests were made and the crowd eventually dispersed some hours later, at which point full access to the port was restored. Nevertheless, the impact was felt by local residents and workers, for whom the scenes will have been unnerving, as well as by ferry passengers and motorists who faced delays as a result.

Let me turn to the second incident in Portsmouth. In the early afternoon on Sunday, a boat carrying approximately 120 people reached British waters near the Isle of Wight, which is considerably further west than the majority of small boat crossings. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution, under the direction of HM Coastguard UK, met the boat and directed it towards Eastney marina in the wider Portsmouth area. At around 8 pm, a group of more than 200 protesters arrived at the harbour, intending to block three coaches that were due to take the arrivals for processing. Many of those protesters were dressed in all black and wearing face masks. Hampshire and Isle of Wight constabulary, with the support of other neighbouring forces, used a dispersal notice to ensure public safety. Officers were forced to use batons and PAVA spray to maintain order in the face of some aggression. They worked through the evening and into the early hours of the morning, and at around 4 am, protesters began to disperse and the coaches eventually set off. Again, no arrests were made on the night, but investigations are ongoing, and where criminality is identified those responsible should expect to face the consequences.

These types of incidents require careful handling by the police, and I place on record my thanks to all those who were part of the operational responses in Dover and Portsmouth. I am especially grateful to those on the front line whose efforts were essential to bringing the demonstrations to a conclusion. I have today spoken to key policing partners and, as the House would expect in the wake of such incidents, work is ongoing to establish any lessons and ensure that relevant intelligence is shared at pace across our law enforcement system.

Peaceful protest is a fundamental part of our democracy and must be defended, but so too is the right of other citizens to go about their lives without undue interference. There can be no excuse for threatening behaviour or serious disruption. Let me therefore make clear to the House and the country that disorder of any kind will never be tolerated, and those who cross the line from peaceful protest into illegality will face the full force of the law. This Government condemn the intimidating and thuggish behaviour shown by some of the protesters this weekend. We are working closely with the police in Kent and Hampshire, alongside the National Police Co-ordination Centre, all of whom have our full backing in taking any necessary step to uphold public safety and maintain the peace.

None of that is in any way to minimise the very valid concerns of law-abiding people when they see vile criminal gangs exploiting our nation’s generosity, and people making illegal and unnecessary journeys to reach this country. Let us never forget that the frustration we see in our communities today is a product of chaos and crisis in the years that preceded the general election of 2024. Since then, this Government have taken action to fix the broken system we inherited and bear down on the people smugglers. We have doubled the number of National Crime Agency officers tasked with dismantling organised immigration crime, system-wide arrests are up 70%, more than 1,100 boats and engines have been seized, and in partnership with French law enforcement we have prevented over 48,000 attempted crossings. We are now taking that partnership further with a landmark new deal, which was signed in April, securing a 40% increase in French boots on the ground and taking the total to more than 1,000, as well as enhanced surveillance technology and new specialist units.

At the same time, we are removing the incentives that draw people here illegally in the first place. Since the election, we have made over 6,000 small boat returns—a 64% increase on the last two years of the previous Government—and we have removed more than 80,000 illegal migrants and foreign criminals from these shores. As a result of the action this Government have taken, this summer saw the lowest number of small boat arrivals since 2020. So far this year, the number of crossings is down by over 43% on last year.

Progress is being made, but we are not complacent. We must and will be unrelenting, not least in response to any shift in tactics by the gangs. The use of larger boats, with over a hundred people crammed on board, is a clear cause for concern, and we remain alert to the potential for crossings on less frequently targeted stretches of water off our coastline. The gangs are never going to go quietly. They are responding to the impact our work is having, and we will adapt in turn, both in terms of our enforcement, in partnership with France, and our response here.

Our priority will always be the safety of the British people. As such, we will continue bearing down on small boat crossings and the criminal gangs behind them, as we deliver the strong, secure borders the people of this country expect and deserve. At the same time, we will keep working closely with police forces to maintain order on our streets. While we must protect our ancient right to free speech, what we will never tolerate is the disruption of people’s daily lives or the intimidation of our communities. I commend the statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I thank my constituency neighbour, the Minister for Policing and Crime, for advance sight of her statement.

I am sure that we all agree that the right to protest is a fundamental part of our democracy, but the right to protest should never be violently exercised or cause serious disruption to other people. I am sure all of us would equally condemn any form of protest where those guidelines are abused, and support the police in ensuring that protest, where it occurs, is lawful and peaceful. However, these events should be a wake-up call for the Government. It is not just the protesters in Dover and Portsmouth who feel so angry about large-scale illegal immigration. Millions and millions of people up and down this country feel angry as well.

Since the general election, over 80,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the channel, all illegally and all unnecessarily, because France is a safe country—nobody is fleeing persecution in France. Almost 20,000 have crossed this year alone, and 625 crossed yesterday, with more coming in the early hours. Every day when the sea is calm, hundreds of illegal immigrants cross the channel. The numbers this year would have been higher, were it not for rough seas in the past few months. The Government should not be complacent at all. This problem is not solved and I do not think the plan is working, if indeed there even is a plan.

I was on the beaches of northern France just a few weeks ago, waist deep in water as one such dinghy embarked with about 100 illegal immigrants on it, while 10 members of the French gendarmerie nationale, who we pay for—who the Home Secretary pays for—with £660 million of our money, almost all of it unconditional, stood by and did nothing. They could easily have stopped the boat embarking in knee-deep water. After that happened, I asked one of the gendarmes why they did nothing, and he said they were under orders not to intervene. Almost all the French officers are prohibited from preventing embarkations in the water and they do not prevent the migrants getting to the water’s edge either. As long as that continues, the crossings will continue as well.

The Minister mentioned return numbers, but what she did not mention is that the return of 6,000 small-boat migrants in the past two and a bit years amounts to only 8% of illegal immigrants crossing the channel. That is to say, 92% of illegal immigrants crossing get to stay. There is no deterrent whatsoever in that. The people who cross illegally are costing billions and billions of pounds to accommodate in hotels and apartments, and then costing even more once they get asylum and start claiming welfare.

The people are angry—not just because of the numbers and the expense, but because of the crime being committed. A few weeks ago, I met Siobhan Whyte, the mother of Rhiannon Whyte, who was brutally murdered by a Sudanese illegal small-boat migrant called Deng Majek. Rhiannon was stabbed 23 times, including in the neck. Numerous rapes have been committed by small-boat illegal immigrants, including the rape of a girl in Nuneaton aged just 12.

The Government are using sleight of hand. They are moving illegal immigrants from hotels into apartments, then granting them asylum on an industrial scale. Just this afternoon, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—hardly a bastion of right-wing extremism, I am sure the Minister will agree—said that Home Office asylum decision making meets its own standards in only half of cases. The UNHCR, no less, said that many illegal immigrants being given asylum do not deserve to be granted that status under the Government’s own rules.

A whistleblower in The Times today said that only 1% of asylum claims are really genuine. I cannot give all the many examples, in the interests of time, but they cited one example in which apparently hundreds of Pakistani men claimed to be gay, based on a letter from an individual claiming to be the sexual partner of all of them. That is quite clearly fabricated with the assistance of immigration lawyers. When the system is being abused on that scale, it is no wonder that people get angry.

This Government repealed most of the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which prohibited illegal immigrants from ever getting citizenship. If the Minister wants to create a deterrent, I strongly suggest that she reinstitutes that measure. This Government cancelled the Rwanda scheme, which would have seen illegal immigrants getting deported, before it even started. If the Government are serious about fixing this issue and ending public anger, they need to get serious about the measures, leave the European convention on human rights and deport illegal immigrants as soon as they arrive—then people will not be so angry.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the shadow Home Secretary for the start of his remarks; I think we would all agree that the right to protest should never be violently exercised. We all agree that it is not just protesters who feel angry about the current system, and we are doing all that we can to bear down on it and change what we inherited.

I know that the shadow Home Secretary was in France—we all saw and enjoyed the videos over the summer. He claims that the weather accounts for the improved situation we find ourselves in. The 43% cut in the number of people coming across on small boat crossings this year compared with last year cannot be accounted for by the weather; that is just a fact, and I hope he accepts that. I also know that he spoke to some land officers, who were not maritime officers—the officers who can enter the water. We have footage, which he has hopefully seen, of maritime officers going into the waters and doing exactly what he wants them to do. I hope he can learn a bit more about what our deal is and what responsibilities we are paying for.

The shadow Home Secretary said that we are just giving the French money without results. He knows that the new deal we have done with the French introduces payment by results for the first time. Under his Government, there was nothing; we were throwing money with no payment by results. Some £110 million of what we give to the French is dependent on their delivering results, which is why we are seeing an improvement. We are also funding more than 1,000 French police—a historic level of funding—and working in partnership with them to ensure that we are doing the things we need to do to stop the small boats from coming and to strip the criminal gangs of their armoury. Germany, for example, where a lot of the boats were being warehoused, has just passed a law to make it an offence to sell them for use in this kind of smuggling activity in another country. We are doing every single thing that we can and pulling every single lever, and the results speak for themselves.

Sadly, I think the shadow Home Secretary is the only person in this place who thinks that the Rwanda scheme would have worked. The rest of us—including, I suspect, people on his own Opposition Benches—have come to the conclusion that it was a gimmick and would never have worked. The numbers and the results we have seen over the last two years speak for themselves. In partnership with French law enforcement, we have prevented over 48,000 attempted crossings. That is substantial.

Of course, we have a lot further to go, and the shadow Home Secretary is right to have met the family of Rhiannon Whyte. What happened to her is horrific—nobody would claim anything else—and it is in her memory, and the right thing to do for every single one of our constituents across our country, that we take control of our borders and make sure we have a fair migration system. The Government are doing the hard work of restoring control at our borders. We are seeing progress. We are not complacent—we will continue to work—but I will end where I began, which is by agreeing with the shadow Home Secretary that we must allow the police to exercise the powers they need to exercise to stop thuggish and violent protest behaviour. That is what we are looking at, and if we need to learn lessons from what happened over the weekend, we will learn them. I am working closely with the police, as the shadow Home Secretary would expect, and we will make sure they have the resources they need to do their job.

[Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her extremely important statement. As we know, on Saturday, hundreds of masked men, dressed uniformly in black, travelled from around the country to Dover, blocked key roads around Britain’s busiest port, intimidated my constituents and caused disruption. This has been described as a “dummy run” by the group. It was not spontaneous; it was well organised. Will the Minister please ensure that the intelligence picture is strong enough that the police can respond accordingly to future incidents? Will the Government also look again at whether the law on face coverings at protests goes far enough?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I was pleased to be able to talk to him earlier today, and we were in touch over the weekend as well, as the House would expect. As the Member of Parliament for that area, it is absolutely right and proper that my hon. Friend should lead the way in asking for the right lessons to be learned from what happened.

I spoke to Deputy Chief Constable Peter Ayling and Assistant Chief Constable Nicola Faulconbridge today, and they took me through the order of what happened and how it happened. It was a no-notice protest—with a lot of a protests in this country, the police are told in advance, and can then think about whether they want to impose conditions and what those conditions should be. This was a no-notice protest, in the sense that the police were not told about it. Clearly it was planned, and clearly it was people from outside the area coming in and causing chaos.

Of course, we need to learn whatever lessons we need to learn when it comes to intelligence. Since the 2024 riots, we have beefed up the structures around the national co-ordination of protests and intelligence sharing, giving us a stronger capability to look across the internet and see what we can find out there. There is more co-ordination, and the offer of mutual aid worked very well this weekend, as it always does. However, I will of course listen to any intelligence that my hon. Friend has, and we will make sure we learn the lessons.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

How is that far-right thugs in balaclavas were able to close Britain’s busiest port without the police receiving any prior intelligence? How is it that an apparently separate group with some commonalities was then able to blockade another site the next evening? Will the Minister tell the House whether she will review why the police were caught off guard? More shockingly still—or perhaps just as shockingly—no arrests have been reported. People have drawn comparisons this weekend with the hundreds of sign-holding protesters who have been arrested since July 2025 on other protests. Can the Minister understand why people are confused by the difference in approach? Can she also answer questions from Portsmouth Liberal Democrat council leader Steve Pitt about the lack of local consultation on identifying appropriate landing sites? That is a key question that needs answering, because it clearly caused problems in Portsmouth.

Britain’s transport infrastructure cannot be left vulnerable to far-right mobs. It is a disgrace that this weekend, Reform MPs took to social media to fan the flames alongside people like Musk and Robinson. It is a disgrace that Members of this House support such vigilante action. It was the decision to leave the European Union, championed by those Reform Members and their allies in the Conservative party, that created the small boats crisis in the first place. We will only get a safe and controlled asylum system in line with British values if we join the EU migration and asylum pacts. That will also save taxpayers’ money. The Government are paying at least £500 million for a three-year agreement with France. More money will follow when the agreement is struck with Belgium. The UK’s contribution to join that pact, which would bring order and safety to the asylum system, would be significantly less than what we are currently pledging to pay in those agreements. Joining the pact must be top of the agenda when the Prime Minister meets EU leaders later this year.

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Gentleman asked about the lack of intelligence. It would not be appropriate for the Government to comment on specific intelligence matters in these cases, but we are of course looking at all decisions that were taken, and we will learn any lessons. The two events happened on consecutive days, and there was crossover in the online activity, but they were very different. One was clearly organised by a group called the South-East Patriots, which I think is part of Patriot Platform, which is a kind of far-right racist platform. That was clearly organised, whereas what happened in Portsmouth was a response to a series of events that led to this boat having to dock at Eastney marina. It will have been a mix of local people who were concerned and bad actors who were whipping up activity online and responding in kind. They were two separate events, but we will learn any lessons that we need to.

The hon. Member asked about the landing site and why it was picked. We are making sure that we understand what exactly happened, but taking a step back, Members will have seen a bit of a trend towards people leaving France further to the west. We are looking at what that means and making sure that we are responding in the right way and that enough resource is going into that. We have pushed some of that resource from the French police down the coastline, but we will be monitoring these things.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

This is a sad day for Portsmouth. My city saw peaceful protests turn into disorder last night with people coming from outside the city, some wearing face coverings, to intimidate those working on land and sea and to damage police vehicles. This morning, I spoke with residents, including one elderly resident who attended the protest because she felt so strongly about it. She and so many others are angry and worried about small boat crossings into the UK. They are now on our doorstep, and that resident has every right to protest peacefully, but she and I agree that that cannot extend to criminal behaviour.

I have heard the Minister’s statement today, and I welcome the Government’s progress, but more must be done, and the emergence of these new routes in larger boats is deeply worrying for my city. What more are the Government doing to stop the boats and tackle the vile criminal gangs behind them? Will the Minister come to Portsmouth to listen to residents and stand firmly against those who come to our city to cause trouble, intimidate communities, stir up hatred and put our emergency services at risk and further pressure on our borders?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work that she is doing, and I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), who is in his place today, but cannot speak as he is a Minister. I have spoken to him about the conversations he has been having with local businesses, local individuals and the local police. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) is absolutely right that there were people who were concerned about what they are seeing, but they are very different from the kind of racist, far-right thugs that we also saw over the weekend. It is important that we distinguish between the two.

My hon. Friend asked what more we are doing, and I have listed the improvements we are making in terms of the National Crime Agency, the intelligence we are gathering, and our ability to go after the criminal gangs. We also need to do more to reduce the incentives for people to come into the country. The asylum grant rate, which is a statistic that I have not mentioned yet, has fallen from 77% in 2022 to 38% this year. That is another marker of progress, and we are reforming the asylum system more widely. Last November, the then Home Secretary set out the reforms that we are working through. We have had a consultation on the standard qualifying period for most migrants. All these things are all part of trying to create a fair system that does not incentivise people to come here from France.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

If the centre does not take action, nasty extremes will take over. The fact is that we are in acute danger. These people can now launch from anywhere on the north French coast and are escorted to our shores. Frankly, we are being invaded, and the public are completely fed up. There is only one solution, and that was put to the Minister by the shadow Home Secretary. There is no deterrent. They know they will not be deported. We have to get out of these outdated conventions, detain immediately and deport immediately. Will the Government take action?

[Sarah Jones]

With the greatest respect, I do not know if the right hon. Member was saying, “Frankly, we are being invaded” when his Government were in charge, when the number of people coming into this country was at an all-time high. When the shadow Home Secretary, my neighbour from Croydon, was in the Home Office, net migration was at an all-time high. The boats are down by 43% from last year to this year. [Interruption.] The Father of the House shakes his head, but that is just a fact.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

They are still coming!

[Sarah Jones]

They are still coming, but they are coming at a 43% lower rate than they were, and the action we are taking is ensuring that we will keep going and keep building on the success we have had. We have the increased police resource in France, the changes to the asylum system and the way we are getting through the case backlog so that we can remove people from this country who have no right to be here or are foreign national offenders. All those things add up so that when the criminal gangs are looking at where they can make the most money, they think, “No, the UK is not somewhere where we can easily make money. We will not do this crime, and we will move on to something else, somewhere else.” We are pulling every single lever that we can. With the greatest respect, we are having a lot more success than the right hon. Gentleman’s Government.

[Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Prime Minister will be glad to hear that the good weather is now attributable to a Labour Government. I pay tribute to the brave men and women of the RNLI who put themselves out to sea to save lives without fear or favour. The Isle of Wight salutes them all, unlike the masked bullies in Portsmouth. Lots of misinformation has happened over this weekend regarding the Isle of Wight. As we do not have the infrastructure, and cross-Solent transport is an issue for us, can the Minister confirm that there are no plans for an asylum centre on the Isle of Wight?

[Sarah Jones]

The RNLI does an incredibly difficult job in dangerous circumstances, and we are grateful for the work that its people do. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point in this House. As for any of the plans going forward, we are reducing the numbers and we are reducing the hotels, which are massively down. We are reducing the incentives for people to come here, and we are making sure that we are removing people as quickly as possible. I am sure that the Minister responsible would be happy to have a conversation with him, but our direction of travel is to reduce the numbers to a much more manageable level, so that we have control of our borders.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

Yesterday afternoon, MPs across the Solent region were scrambling for reliable information with complete radio silence from the Home Office. As a result, we were not in a position to calm fear and tension. We still know very little about this extraordinary mega-dinghy turning up on our shores. This is not just west a little bit from Dover; this is halfway down the south coast. Will criminal gangs launch more small boats in the direction of Hampshire? Will the Minister share that intelligence with coastal MPs? Where was the intelligence on this incident? Can she also answer claims that the police were not properly resourced? More than 140 officers were dragged away from our communities and from communities as far away as London to police and deal with this incident. Can she please assure us that such incidents will be dealt with better in the future and that she will be doing everything to ensure that it does not happen again?

[Sarah Jones]

I appreciate that the hon. Lady will have been concerned over the weekend, as a local member of Parliament. I am always there, if she wants to contact me, and if she is struggling to get through to anyone, I am happy to give her my number and to have another chat about this. Obviously, this was a moving picture, and it is not always possible for the police dealing with an incident to respond in a way that one might want.

The hon. Lady asked whether attempts to land further down the coast were an emerging problem. We are aware that, partly because we are making it harder for people to launch boats from “traditional” places, they are starting to launch them further west along the French coast. There is no evidence to suggest that they particularly want to land anywhere that would not enable them to get to Manston, which is where they would normally go, but we will of course totally keep all this under review.

The force was given the mutual aid that it asked for. There were several forces around, and in the end, the people causing the problem were dispersed. It is not uncommon for forces to offer mutual aid. For instance, when problems arose in Cleveland in recent weeks, 600 officers went in, through mutual aid. If I may make a slightly wider point, I think that makes the case for reform—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Not that Reform; reform of policing. If there was a national police service, which we are introducing, agencies would be working together much more closely, because they would be part of the same organisation. Rather than relying on mutual aid from other forces, everyone would be joined up and sharing intelligence, which I think would be a better system.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. Given that we have such a tight schedule tonight, could the Minister shorten her answers a bit?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is right: we cannot normalise this kind of behaviour, nor will we. It would not be right for any Government to do so. What we saw in Dover involving Patriot Platform, a far-right group engaging in a lot of racism and thuggery and disrupting people’s daily lives, cannot be tolerated. Of course, we will always ensure that the police have the resources that they need. We recently legislated for new powers for the police to insist that people remove their face coverings at protests, but, of course, when people are going about their daily business, it is absolutely fine to wear them for religious reasons, and that will continue.

[Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

No small boats arrived on Hayling island or in any other part of my constituency yesterday. Nevertheless, residents are concerned, and agree with me that anyone who enters the UK illegally should be deported within a week and banned from claiming asylum. Does the Minister also agree, and will she and the Home Secretary meet me, and other Members on both sides of the House, to explain the police and Home Office responses, and why Labour has lost control of our borders?

[Sarah Jones]

As I have said, Labour is doing the hard work of restoring the control at our borders that was lost under the last Government. We have made progress, and we will continue to do everything we can to ensure that we have that control and have a fair system, and to ensure that those who are genuinely claiming asylum are given a safe haven on our shores, as we have done for many years. However, we will also reduce the incentives for people to claim asylum here, rather than in other places, and we will make sure that we regain that control.

[Sojan Joseph (Ashford) (Lab)]

The protest on Saturday caused widespread disruption across east Kent. It affected not just Dover residents and people travelling to the port, but communities further along the A20 and the M20, including those in my constituency. Some Opposition Members have failed to condemn the mob mentality. Does my hon. Friend agree that while we should always uphold the right to lawful and peaceful protest, the intimidating and unacceptable behaviour that we witnessed over the weekend was completely un-British, and should be condemned by everyone who genuinely values freedom of expression and the rule of law?

[Sarah Jones]

Of course disruption was caused well beyond the immediate protest, because of the nature of the roads and the protest on the A20 and the surrounding roundabouts. That had a huge impact; a great many people wanting to go about their business were unable to do so. The police response, however, was good. The protest started at 7.30 am, and well before midday the protesters had been dispersed. The police established a gold command structure, as they do in such cases, declaring a major incident and ensuring that the protest was stopped. However, this behaviour is very disruptive, and the wearing of masks is clearly intimidatory. We will do everything to ensure that the police have the powers that they need to stop such protests.

[Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Reform)]

I was in Portsmouth harbour this morning, near Eastney marina, speaking to local people in Fareham and Waterlooville. This is the message that they wanted me to send the Government. They are terrified, furious and desperate. They are not far-right racists. Only last week, a migrant man was arrested on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old boy in the area, and what are the Government doing? They are handing out leaflets to illegal migrants, asking them not to rape British girls and women. The Government’s response has been, frankly, pathetic.

Given that these are unlikely to be the last illegal migrants in Portsmouth, I have two questions for the Minister. Will she give the House a guarantee that in no circumstances will a migrant processing centre, temporary or permanent, be established in Portsmouth? What assurance can she give me that the national security of the naval dockyard in Portsmouth will be maintained, given that the invasion has now reached Hampshire?

[Sarah Jones]

Of course people are scared and angry about the fact that, as they see it, the borders are not secure. As the right hon. and learned Lady will know from her time in the Home Office, we have come some way since then, and have improved the system significantly. More than 1,000 boats and engines have been seized, system-wide arrests are up by 70%, 48,000 crossings have been prevented, there has been a 40% increase in French boots on the ground, and we have increased surveillance technology. There has been a huge 42% drop in the number of boats coming over, and we have removed more than 80,000 illegal migrants and foreign criminals. People are right to express a view, and it was disingenuous of the right hon. and learned Lady to suggest that I was calling those people racist, when I had made it very clear that there were people in Portsmouth who were concerned, and that local residents were coming out because they were angry. We have heard about that, and the actions of those people are very different from those of the racist thugs we see in other places—and who were there as well—and from the whipping up of hatred online. We will continue to bear down on illegal boat crossings.

Let me pay tribute to Kent and Hampshire police. Kent police dealt with 1,300 calls to 999 on Saturday, and Hampshire police dealt with 1,000. While these incidents were going on, a lot of work was being done to keep us safe across the counties.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

We should be opposed to gangs wherever we find them, whether they are gangs of smugglers or mass gangs in Southampton and Dover, and I wish that this House was a little more united in its resolve to oppose both types of gang. Peaceful protest strengthens our democracy; what weakens our democracy is intimidation and the abuse that we have seen. This Government passed the Crime and Policing Act 2026 because we wanted to tackle concealment linked to criminality. Those powers apply in police-designated areas where protest is happening under certain conditions. In Southampton and Dover, we clearly saw concealment linked to criminality in non-police-designated areas. Will the Government consider extending the parameters of the 2026 Act to tackle that?

[Sarah Jones]

We keep all legislation under review when it comes to public order, and there is a big piece of work that Ken Macdonald—Lord Macdonald—has done for us, which we are considering. There are other powers on face coverings in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, but we will always look at these things.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

May I pay tribute to the brave lifeboat volunteers from Bembridge, on the Isle of Wight, who responded to the migrant crossing yesterday?

The Isle of Wight is more than just a little bit west of Kent. This is a really concerning development, a potential failure to contain the geography of small boat crossings. The Minister likes to talk about the reduction in numbers, but what assessment has she made of this potential new development in where people smugglers are willing to operate from? In this case, they travelled across 80 miles of open water. What is she doing to ensure that resources are targeted properly not only in France, but on the south coast, so that local communities like those on the Isle of Wight and in Hampshire can respond to this, which is something that they have not seen at scale before?

[Sarah Jones]

We are keeping all these things under review. There is no intelligence to suggest that people who leave France from further west want to land anywhere other than where they normally do, but we keep all these things under control. Today I have spoken to multiple people at the National Police Co-ordination Centre and in Border Force, and to the police more widely, and these things are kept under review. There is no evidence of what the hon. Gentleman suggests, but the criminals are being disrupted over here, and we know that they will try to change tactics. However, there is no evidence at the moment about where they are trying to land.

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)]

The far right and the British fascists reared their ugly heads on the streets of Dover and Portsmouth this weekend. The protests were allegedly spontaneous, but hundreds of people were mobilised. They were dressed as fascists of the past, hiding their identity. Their behaviour was not just thuggish and intimidatory; it went far beyond that. Their protests were about hate, division and racism. Even though the police had powers, the protests went largely unchecked. Can the Minister tell us why there appears to be a two-tier system? If people sit quietly with a banner, they get arrested, but if they are masked up and attack the police, no arrests are made.

[Sarah Jones]

There was no two-tier policing in this situation. My hon. Friend is right to say that if people hold banners supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation, they will get arrested, and she is right to say that the protests were not spontaneous. The Dover incident was obviously planned, and was obviously a tactic by a nasty organisation called Patriot Platform or South-East Patriots—I think it calls itself various different things. No notice was given to the police—that is why it was described as “spontaneous”—but it was clearly planned and intended to be intimidatory. I have talked to the police today, and I know that they are reviewing the closed-circuit television footage, the automatic number plate recognition data and all the evidence to see where criminality has occurred, and they will take action where it has occurred.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

The sight of massed far-right thugs causing mayhem and disruption on the English south coast was as nauseating as it was frightening, and it was so reminiscent of a dark period in our history that we thought was long behind us. Does the Minister agree that the growth of the far right is the most dangerous development in our politics, and if so, when will the Government start to take it seriously? There were no arrests at all over the weekend, and there is no real challenge to the disinformation that the far right puts out to all our communities to cause this disruption and division. When will this Government stop pandering to this right-wing agenda?

[Sarah Jones]

We are not pandering to the right-wing agenda at all. The police will come down hard on criminality, as we would expect. No one was arrested in Dover on Saturday, or in Portsmouth, but as I just said, the police will review all the evidence from the weekend. Where crimes have occurred, they will make the appropriate arrests.

[Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)]

At the weekend we saw masked men, dressed all in black, block roads, block a port and intimidate people in Dover and Portsmouth. We know that a large proportion of the people arrested at other disorderly anti-migrant protests had already been reported for domestic abuse. In fact, the leader of this weekend’s protest, Danny Thomas, spent two years in prison for trying to kidnap someone at knifepoint. Does the Minister agree that this is not about a legitimate policy debate? The men who decide to come out in balaclavas are not driven to thuggery by political passion; they simply like violence and intimidation, and they should not be given the fig leaf of political legitimacy that some people in this place wish to give them.

[Sarah Jones]

I agree that we should not give them political legitimacy. Of course, there are well-known connections between violent men and the types of violence they inflict, and it is not always in one area; it can be across lots of different behaviours—sexual violence, domestic abuse and the rest. We have no truck with these awful groups, and the gentleman to whom my hon. Friend refers seems particularly awful. Of course, the police will do what they need to do. They need to disrupt and remove the protesters so that people can go about their business, and in both cases that is what they did. We will ensure that we learn lessons and that arrests are made where they need to be. From the conversations that I have had today with the police about their response, it is clear that they were proportionate and managed to get the result that we wanted, which was the removal of the protesters and enabling people to go about their business.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

I am grateful that it is the Policing Minister who is making this statement. I have spoken to North Yorkshire police, and there is a proposal for RAF Linton-on-Ouse to be made into an asylum centre. The trouble is that calling it an “asylum centre on a military site” does not paint what it is. It is just a mass hotel, because people are free to come and go, and they will all be men. The Home Secretary said in a statement that she would not allow an asylum hotel anywhere near a primary school or a nursery, but within 300 metres of the entrance to the base is a primary school and a nursery. North Yorkshire police have made it clear that they would find it exceptionally difficult to constantly police protests, and these protests are coming from far and wide. Given the change to the way that protests are happening, the fact that North Yorkshire police would find it very difficult to police them, and the fact that there is a primary school and a nursery close to what would be a mass hotel for 1,500 people, can the Minister confirm that it is still the policy of the Home Secretary that she will not open such hotels near schools and nurseries?

[Sarah Jones]

I suspect the right hon. Gentleman has already had conversations with immigration Ministers about this particular case, and I suspect he is making the same arguments to them. I would not want to get in the way of that, and I am sure the relevant Minister would be happy to have those conversations. We need to bear down on the overall number of arrivals, which is what we are trying to do. We are not just closing the hotels, but reducing the number of arrivals and reducing the incentives for people to come in, which is why we are introducing the raft of policy interventions that I spoke about earlier.

[Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)]

I commend the Minister for managing to handle two really difficult challenges that are facing the country at the moment. First, the small boats crossings are obviously very concerning to people in Sittingbourne and Sheppey, as they are to many people in Kent. It has not escaped my notice that the protest in Dover at the weekend happened at a time when the boat crossings are falling. The second challenge is the increasing far-right activity. We have had uniformed thugs on our streets who have been organising relentlessly behind the scenes and publicly on Facebook, and we have to come down hard on it.

I would like to ask the Minister two things. First, we have seen this before—this is not the first time that the country and other countries have faced this. In the 1930s we banned uniformed political parties and uniformed political activists. Obviously we now wear slightly different clothing from what was worn back then, so has the Minister looked at how we can update the law to address these thugs and make sure that it is fit for purpose in the modern world?

Secondly, the local independent news outlet Kent Current reports that these thugs were mustering in nearby villages the night before the incident in Dover. Local people picked this up and had been reporting it, but that seems to have been missed. Can the Minister look at that and make sure that intelligence from concerned people on the ground in Kent is also factored in?

[Sarah Jones]

As I said earlier, I cannot comment on the intelligence situation of what happened with these two incidents, but we will of course learn lessons. What we knew in advance, and what was or was not done about that, will be a very important lesson for us to learn. As well as the intelligence that the local police are able to gather, we now have the national co-ordination of the NPCC, which has extra resources for things such as internet intelligence investigations. We can reach further and co-ordinate better than we could before, but I am sure there will be lessons to learn. I will take away my hon. Friend’s question about the uniform of political parties.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Over the past year or so, Poole has seen planned protests by groups calling themselves patriots that have been travelling to the town and specifically targeting the RNLI headquarters because they, like firefighters and other emergency crews, rescue those at sea without fear or favour. Concerns have been raised with me that no arrests were made this weekend, despite serious intimidation, injuries to the police and criminal damage, in sharp contrast to the treatment of elderly people holding placards. What message does it send to our brave RNLI rescue crews if the police stand aside during these events while they put their lives at risk day and night?

[Sarah Jones]

As I have said, any lessons we need to learn from these cases will be learned. However, I know from conversations I have had that the police were dealing with an emerging problem in quite a difficult geographical area, particularly in Portsmouth, with one road going in and out. The police had a lot of vulnerable people—I am speculating about their physical health, because I have not yet had a full briefing, but I suspect they were having to deal with hypothermia and all kinds of issues—and they were having to deal with an increasing number of about 200 people protesting. They definitely had to use batons and other interventions, so that may not have been the right point at which to arrest those people, but there will be investigations, with CCTV. So I genuinely ask the hon. Member not to draw any conclusion from the fact that no arrests were made at that point, because there may well be arrests. The police have to do the right things at the right time and in the right order, and in that emerging difficult situation, they may have taken a decision to do those things for the safety of everyone there and to turn to investigations afterwards.

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

When a Reform UK councillor says that Nigerians should be “melted down to fill in the potholes”, and an ex-Reform councillor had to resign because they used racial slurs against a black family, I am disgusted at their overt racism. Does the Minister agree with me that the racist Reform UK and the ethno-nationalist Restore Britain are contributing to the scenes we have seen in Dover and Portsmouth?

[Sarah Jones]

Anyone who is whipping up this kind of activity and breeding racism is to be condemned. I notice that other Reform MPs are bobbing to ask their questions, so perhaps one of them could address the issue of the Reform member who wants—I am sorry, but I hate even to repeat the words—to see Nigerians melted down. Perhaps one of the hon. Members would like to respond.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

The Minister said that there was a lack of intelligence in Dover, and I am sure she was not referring to the local MP—the hon. Member for Dover and Deal (Mike Tapp)—but is she aware that, since this illegal invasion started, hundreds of young girls have been raped in our country? We have had an 80-year-old man raped, a young girl in Ashfield raped and a 14-year-old boy raped, so does she understand why people in this country are so furious and taking to the streets? Does she understand?

[Sarah Jones]

First, just to clarify, I do not think I said there was a lack of intelligence; I said I did not want to comment on the intelligence—there is a difference. In the case of Dover, the police had not been informed of the protest. That is not to say there was not intelligence that I cannot comment on or would not know about. I just want to be clear about that, as that is different.

Of course, all crimes need to be punished. We need to ensure that people who commit vile sexual and violent offences go to prison or, if they are not from this country, are deported, and that is what we are doing. The number of foreign national offenders being sent home and the number of people who have been turned down for asylum and are being sent home are significantly up on when the Conservatives—the hon. Member’s previous party—were in power. We will continue to do that, but of course that is not to say that we are not intensely sympathetic and sorry for people who have been victims of awful crimes.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Your Party)]

Will the Minister give us an assurance that the Home Office will turn its attention to the growth of far-right organisations across the country and the racist activities they undertake? The people who arrived in Dover and Portsmouth behaved in a violent, disgraceful and racist manner, including abusing RNLI volunteers. Will she also recognise that the plight of refugees all across Europe is a serious human rights disaster, and we do need co-operation between all Governments across Europe to ensure that we deal with this in a decent and humane way, and not allow people like these Reform Members sitting in front of me to just routinely abuse anyone who is trying to seek a place of safety?

[Sarah Jones]

There are of course very difficult issues of people who are fleeing war and conflict, and I say to the shadow Home Secretary and everyone else here that we in this country have an honourable tradition of being a place of safety, which must continue. The issue we have seen in recent years is that, when the Conservatives were in power, anybody who came in was not dealt with, was not turned around and was not returned. So the criminal gangs understood that when people come to this country, nothing happens and they get to stay here forever, regardless, and they make money from that vulnerability. So we are trying to improve the system, and improving the system is not a lack of compassion; it is exactly the opposite.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)]

The sight of the Government escorting illegal migrants into Portsmouth harbour, the home of the Royal Navy, was a national humiliation. Sometimes I wonder whether Members of this House have no appreciation of the level of anger there is in the country at the rapes, the murders and the billions being wasted that should be being spent on the British people. Will the Minister put the Royal Navy in the channel today to escort those illegals to France? As Reform proved on Saturday, that is operationally, legally and now diplomatically possible. It is a matter of political will.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Minister, can you please keep your answers short, and will Back Benchers please make sure their questions are short too?

[Sarah Jones]

There is absolutely nothing that the Government have said that would suggest we do not understand the level of anger about the state of the country in which the right hon. Gentleman left us, and we have a big job to do. We of course understand the level of anger, but this Government are doing the hard work of restoring control at our border and fairness in our migration system, and no rhetoric from the right hon. Member—who does not have a leg to stand on, given his own personal involvement in the situation we find ourselves in—is going to stop us.

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

I thank hon. Members who share my disgust at the sight of intimidating, fascistic gangs and squads of men in black on our streets in Dover and Portsmouth, but the roots of organised violence are political and this needs a political response. So does the Minister agree with me that it is time to start naming hard-right and fascist politics when we see it, recognise how frightening this is for people in our communities, and stand up to the racists on our streets and here in the Chamber, rather than pandering to, repeating and accepting anti-migrant propaganda and lies.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Lady for the question, but I just disagree with her analysis. I think I have been very clear in calling out the racism we have seen. I have been very clear and straightforward in saying that, where criminal activity has occurred, the police should use the full force of the law. We have named far-right actors in this place today. If others do not do so, that is a matter for them, but thank goodness they are not in government currently. We will do everything we can. We can call out racism and call out the thuggery we have seen, while also accepting the anger that individuals feel about our borders, and the two are not incompatible.

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

While we condemn any violence against the police, we cannot ignore the deep public anger, frustration and outrage over the illegal migration now seen across Britain. No one voted for this, yet the boats keep coming and they are no longer small. Will the Government finally declare a state of emergency in the English channel?

[Sarah Jones]

No one voted for it multiple times, when they elected a Conservative Government promising to stop the boats, which did not happen. The number of people coming over this year is down 43% on last year so far. That is real progress. Is it enough? No. Will we go further? Yes.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

It is a sad state of affairs when ordinary people feel compelled to take direct action against illegal immigration into our country as a result of successive Governments failing to stop the invasion of our country by illegal immigrants, aided by criminal gangs. Does the Minister not recognise the part that her Government continue to play in perpetuating the problem by housing those who come, by providing them with better health services than some people in our country can access and by setting such a low standard for asylum criteria that 92% of them stay? Would it not have been better to put the people back on the boat—

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call the Minister.

[Sarah Jones]

The proportion of people being granted asylum has shrunk massively in the last few years, and we have removed more than 80,000 illegal migrants and foreign criminals from this country. We are improving the system and making the changes we need to make, and we will continue to do so.

[Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)]

Does the Minister acknowledge the seriousness of what we are now witnessing: organised militia-like groups of masked men taking to the streets, stopping cars, confronting members of the public and leaving ethnic minority communities terrified in their own towns? Will she plainly say what action, if indeed any, will be taken against these vigilante groups? What responsibility does she believe politicians in this House bear when inflammatory claims of an invasion translate into terror on our streets, racial fear, intimidation and street vigilantism?

[Sarah Jones]

It is not appropriate for me to comment on the intelligence and the situation, and who is or who is not going to be charged with these two incidents. We do not know enough at this point. The police are operationally independent for good reason and politicians should not be involved in that day-to-day process. Are we looking at the threats that we face in this country, of which there are many? Of course. Is the Home Secretary alive to all of those threats and doing everything she can with all the levers at her disposal? Absolutely.

[Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)]

One image in 2015 changed public opinion. It was of a toddler, Alan Kurdi, a two-year-old whose frail body washed up on the shore with his face buried in the sand. That changed public opinion, because as humans—and as a nation—we are compassionate. Some 250,000 Ukrainians came into this country, and we allowed them to utilise our services, but there seems to be selective outrage in this House. Does the Minister agree that we need proper safe routes that can prevent the exploitation by criminals and allow those who are desperate and fleeing war-torn areas sanctuary in this nation?

[Sarah Jones]

On the one hand there is selective outrage, whataboutery, “let this sink in” and all the nonsense that people put on social media all the time. At the same time, there is a significant problem that we have to deal with. The two are true. We have to deal with the control at our borders, and we will bear down on that control to make sure we have what we need. At the same time, where there are malicious actors stirring up hatred and division, we have to—I would hope this House would—come together to promote the unity, solidarity and the compassion of which he speaks.

National Policing Response to Antisemitism

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

Recent attacks on our Jewish communities are completely unacceptable. An attack on our Jewish community is an attack on us all, and we must take the safety of our Jewish community very seriously. Jewish people must feel safe and Government will strain every sinew to ensure that is the case.

The rise in antisemitism is a scourge on our society. In the year to March 2025, there were 2,873 religious hate crimes against Jewish people—106 per 10,000 of population—the highest proportion for any group by some distance. In the Community Security Trust’s recent antisemitic incidents report, for the first time ever, the CST recorded over 200 cases of anti-Jewish hate in every calendar month in 2025. Shockingly, the CST also found that the terror attacks in Heaton Park and Bondi Beach triggered immediate spikes in antisemitism, ranging from face-to-face taunting to antisemitic social media posts. The Government have heard loud and clear the experiences of Jewish people in our communities in recent weeks and months.

While tackling this hatred requires a whole of Government response and a whole of society response, the police have an important role to play. This Government have already invested an additional £25 million into policing patrols and protective security to support Jewish communities.

I can also confirm today that we are providing additional funding of £251.1 million for the police to tackle antisemitism in our communities over the next three years. Alongside the investment in protective security, this brings total funding for protecting Jewish communities to £309.5 million.

This will fund:

a recognisable, permanent policing presence in key Jewish communities across the country;

a national surge capacity to ensure all Jewish communities, wherever they live, can be protected;

stronger national co-ordination and specialised capabilities to deliver a consistent approach, with specified funding to deliver antisemitism training for all police officers in England and Wales and a centralised online hate crime investigations hub; and

additional protective security and other capabilities to be deployed by Counter Terrorism Policing, in recognition of the threat from state actors and proxies to Jewish communities.

The majority of British Jews in England and Wales live in London, which has the highest concentration of synagogues and Jewish schools in the country, and this community has faced significant threat in recent months. We are therefore providing £85.8 million to the Metropolitan Police Service to fund around 300 officers to support increased policing in Jewish communities. They will increase specialised capabilities, strengthen intelligence, investigative and co-ordination functions, all of which will allow for better operational deployment in response to specific threats. This is in addition to the £18 million uplift the Government announced in April.

A further £65.9 million will go to forces outside of London with a significant Jewish population to provide a permanent presence in Jewish communities and ensure they are equipped to provide the communities with the support they need. Of this funding, £22.5 million will be provided to Greater Manchester Police to sustain the increase in policing presence in response to the tragic attack in Heaton Park last year. The £43.4 million will be distributed across seven other forces with significant Jewish communities: Hertfordshire, Essex, Northumbria, Sussex, Thames Valley, West Midlands and West Yorkshire.

In recognition of the need to ensure consistency of policing responses to antisemitism across England and Wales, £40.8 million will be provided to support national policing co-ordination and capabilities. Jewish people and communities should feel confident that antisemitic crimes will face the full force of the law wherever they live. We will fund antisemitism training for officers in England and Wales and ensure surge resources are available to all forces to protect Jewish communities, during events or times of increased threat. This is in addition to the £2 million uplift the Government announced in April.

Finally, Counter Terrorism Policing will receive a further £58.6 million over the three-year period to provide further security to vulnerable communities, places and people.

Our Jewish community is an integral part of this country. To be antisemitic is to be anti-British. We will continue to do everything in our power to protect Jewish people, communities and places, and to bring those who seek to cause them harm to justice. This additional funding aims to establish a sustained police presence in Jewish communities, provide a national response to the threat of antisemitism, and most importantly reassure Jewish communities across the country at a time of great fear and concern.

[HCWS246]

Independent Review of Disclosure and Fraud Offences: Government Response to Part One

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

Today the Government publishes “Modernising the Criminal Disclosure Regime”, setting out our response to recommendations made by the independent review of disclosure and fraud offences and the independent review of the criminal courts on the operation of the criminal disclosure regime.

We are grateful to Jonathan Fisher KC for his thorough independent review of disclosure and fraud offences which has been published in two parts. This Government response refers to part one of his independent review: “Disclosure in the Digital Age”. The Government response to part two on fraud offences will be published in due course.

Disclosure is a statutory regime that applies to all criminal proceedings in England and Wales and is central to the right to a fair trial. It governs how material gathered in criminal investigations is recorded, reviewed, retained and shared, ensuring that relevant material capable of assisting the defence or undermining the prosecution is identified and disclosed.

Part one of this review reflects extensive engagement across the system and offers a practical package to raise standards, embracing appropriate technology, strengthening case management with an intensive disclosure regime for the most complex cases, and consolidating guidance and learning so that good practice is embedded consistently.

We also thank Sir Brian Leveson for his work on the independent review of the criminal courts, which included proposals related to disclosure, set out in chapter 5 of part 2 of his independent review. Our response considers Sir Brian Leveson’s proposals, alongside Jonathan Fisher KC’s proposals, which have enabled the Government to evaluate and implement disclosure reform collectively, drawing on the findings of both reviews. The Government’s full response to Sir Brian’s independent review of the criminal courts will be published separately in due course.

The Government response to these recommendations sets out how we will improve the disclosure regime while preserving its core legal safeguards. In summary, it supports the responsible and transparent use of advanced technology to manage large volumes of material more efficiently; strengthens learning, training and consistency across law enforcement and prosecutors; and considers improved court processes, including exploring a pilot of the proposed intensive disclosure regime to support earlier, more focused engagement between the prosecution and defence in the most serious and complex cases.

Taken together, these measures are designed to reduce unnecessary administrative burden on police and prosecutors, improve the speed and accuracy of disclosure, support victims, and uphold the right to a fair trial. This will deliver a disclosure regime that is transparent, modern and fit for the future.

This response has been developed jointly with the Ministry of Justice, owners of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 and its code of practice, and the Attorney General’s Office, which owns the Attorney General’s guidelines on disclosure. I am very grateful to the Solicitor General, the Courts Minister and officials across all three Departments for their close collaboration in producing a coherent, system-wide response.

The response is being presented to Parliament today as a Command Paper (CP 1601) and will be available on gov.uk.

[HCWS241]

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)]

2. What progress her Department has made on improving the police response to domestic abuse.

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

May I associate myself and my colleagues with your remarks about Ann Widdecombe, Mr Speaker? Ann was a Minister when I was doing my politics A-level, and she has been a firm part of our political life for the past three decades. May she rest in peace.

We are rolling out domestic abuse protection orders across England and Wales, and have trebled the number of forces with domestic abuse specialists in control rooms under Raneem’s law. We have established the national centre for violence against women and girls and public protection to transform the response to VAWG.

[Lorraine Beavers]

Kiena Dawes was pushed into taking her own life by her abusive partner. Before she died, she said that he had killed her. With domestic abuse-related suicides on the rise and women in abusive relationships being more likely to take their own life than to be killed by their abuser, will the Minister commit to the Home Office working with victims and campaigners to ensure that the law fully reflects the role that domestic abuse plays in the deaths of people like Kiena?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising such an important issue, and the answer, of course, is yes. We are funding research with all police forces to better capture information and inform our response. The Law Commission is reviewing homicide law, including the use of manslaughter offences where abuse may have driven someone to suicide. The former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), was working hard on this issue, and I know that the new Minister will be too.

[Jonathan Davies]

One in five people experience domestic violence in their lifetime—around one in four women, and one in six or seven men—but it is thought that only 20% of it is reported. It is also thought that there is significant under-reporting of the domestic violence experienced by men, due to social stigma. What steps is the Department taking to understand the scale of the problem and to drive action?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. Too many victims, including men, do not feel able to report domestic abuse, and we must change that. We recognise that male victims face additional barriers, and that has been set out in a dedicated explanatory note alongside the VAWG strategy. The Home Office funds the Men’s Advice Line to help male victims access support.

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

Intimate image abuse is increasingly being used to threaten, control and exploit women and girls after relationships break down, yet the police have no power to require the deletion of those images if they were obtained consensually. What steps is the Minister taking to close that gap and better protect victims?

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Lady is right to raise that issue, and we are working hard on it. As she knows, a huge amount of work is going on with the Crime and Policing Act 2026, which has just been passed, and the violence against women and girls strategy. We will continue to do everything we can.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

One of my Horsham constituents, a victim of abuse, has seen her abuser let off with a suspended sentence after the case took too long to go to trial. She now has to live with a debilitating illness caused by her abuse, while her abuser gets to carry on with his life. Court delays are bad in any case, but for victims of abuse, they can be an extra hardship. Does the Minister think that we need to think of some special provision for such cases?

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of court delays. We have a whole strategy, led through the Ministry of Justice, to ensure that we speed up those court cases. He is right to highlight the particular impact for abuse cases. We are ramping up the support that we give to victims and making sure that we are helping people and trying to give them information about what is happening, even when there are delays. We will listen carefully to the points he raises.

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

3. What steps her Department is taking to close asylum hotels.

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[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

8. What assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the authorisation of 1,250,687 animals to be used in 90 projects over the next five years through licences granted between January to March 2026 under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

The figure in the question represents the maximum number of animals expected to be used under licences granted in early 2026 for up to five years for the purpose of benefiting humans, animals or the environment. Animal use may only be authorised where no suitable alternative exists. The Government remain committed to accelerating the replacement of animals in science wherever possible.

[Lee Pitcher]

The statistics published just last week show that 2.45 million scientific procedures involving animals were carried out in Great Britain in 2025. That represents a decrease of just 4% compared with 2024, but a 9% increase in experiments on dogs, and a 13% increase on those using monkeys. Does the Minister agree that greater urgency is needed to accelerate the phase-out of animal testing, and will she consider the merits of a clear, long-term plan, as set out in Herbie’s law?

[Sarah Jones]

I agree that greater urgency is needed to accelerate the phase-out of animal testing, and I welcome the strategy that the Government published, which was backed by £75 million. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has committed to publishing clear timelines for specific actions, and I look forward to seeing them.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

10. What steps her Department is taking to improve mental health support for police officers.

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

I take this opportunity to pay tribute to PC Jess Turnbull, who died in the line of duty aged just 18. I attended her funeral, along with other colleagues, on Friday. It is a reminder, if any were needed, of the price that we ask of our police officers. This Government are providing an extra £2.4 million to deliver the package of wellbeing measures set out in the police reform White Paper. That includes enhanced trauma support, improved occupational health provision, and stronger leadership on wellbeing. Working with police partners, we will ensure that officers and staff can access the timely, effective support that is vital for our police workforce.

[Edward Morello]

A police officer constituent of mine reported a senior colleague for sexual assault. Separately, she was domestically abused and raped by a partner. Her domestic abuser was arrested, with bail conditions preventing contact, but in her trauma-induced state she continued to instigate contact and was subjected to a police misconduct proceeding. Despite experiencing severe trauma, including a suicide attempt, evidence about her mental health and welfare was not considered. She will never be a police officer again. What steps will the Minister take to ensure police forces adopt genuinely trauma-informed misconduct processes for officers who are victims of sexual assault, rape and domestic abuse?

[Sarah Jones]

I am sorry to hear about the situation of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, and I would be happy to talk to him about the case in more detail so that we can learn the lessons. We are looking at what happens during misconduct cases, and at the support that is given to officers. There is also a particular issue around the domestic abuse that is suffered by police officers, and we are trying to ensure, by working with women’s organisations and others, that we get our response right.

[Jonathan Hinder (Pendle and Clitheroe) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her answer to my written question confirming that the Home Office does not collect data on post-traumatic stress disorder in police officers. Does she agree that either the Home Office or police forces need to have that data, so that we can understand the scale of the problem and support our officers accordingly?

[Sarah Jones]

I agree that we need to be doing all that we can to record data. We are looking at data on suicide, for instance, as my hon. Friend knows, and ensuring that we have the right information there. We are expanding our psychological risk assessments from 50,000 to 150,000, which will hopefully also give us more information that we can use. I stand with my hon. Friend in wanting to support our officers in any way we can.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

11. When she plans to announce the number of seasonal worker visas available for 2027.

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[Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

13. What estimate her Department has made of the number of police officers in September (a) 2024 and (b) 2025.

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

In England and Wales, there were 145,550 full-time equivalent police officers as of September 2025 and 146,868 police officers as of September 2024. This Government are focused on putting officers where the public expect to see them: back on the frontline, keeping our communities safe. We have already delivered more than 3,100 additional police officers and police community support officers into neighbourhood roles.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

The Minister has confirmed that under this Government the number of police officers has fallen. It is now proposed that in Essex they will become part of a regional force that will be more remote and less accountable to the people that they serve. How does that increase public confidence in policing?

[Sarah Jones]

As part of our measures to tackle antisemitism, this morning we have announced funding for an additional 500 police officers in areas where we need them most, which I am sure that Members across the House will welcome. The right hon. Gentleman asks about forces. As he will know, a review is currently being undertaken by Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe, who is looking at both local policing units and regional-level units, as well as the national police service, which we will be introducing.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I welcome the 48 new neighbourhood officers and policy community support officers who have joined Cleveland police in the last year, but I want to see an overhaul of the national police funding formula to support the Cleveland area. The Policing Minister has committed to do that, but can she clarify the timeline for when we will see the formula changed and more officers back on our streets again?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is right that the funding formula is completely outdated. It was not updated by the previous Government, and it is almost decades old. We are going to review it, and we are working on that now as part of the reform programme. As soon as we have an announcement, we will bring it forward.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

Under the last Government, police numbers reached a record high. Labour promised to increase police numbers, but instead we have seen them fall. As the Minister was forced to confirm, they are down 1,318 in the last year. Is the Minister doing anything to protect the number of officers in response policing so that when people ring 999 in their hour of need, they are not left waiting?

[Sarah Jones]

As the shadow Minister knows—and as we replay every question time—the previous Government cut the number of police officers by 20,000. They then recruited 20,000 and put 12,000 of them behind desks, which is not where the public want them to be. We have put 1,300 officers back on to our streets. By the end of this Parliament we will put 13,000 of them back on to our streets. Let me end with a statistic: under the last two years of the previous Government, shop theft rose by 60%, and it has just fallen by 1%. We are turning the tide on the terrible crime that the previous Government oversaw.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

I understand that my hon. Friend went door to door talking to people about these issues; I appreciate his efforts in doing that. Our Crime and Policing Act 2026 is delivering new and enhanced powers to tackle antisocial behaviour. Respect orders will bear down on relentless ASB offenders, and we have ensured that every police force in England and Wales has a dedicated ASB lead and a local action plan to crack down on these thugs.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

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[James Asser (West Ham and Beckton) (Lab)]

T3.   Recently, I witnessed an attempted phone snatch outside one of my stations by three masked youths on electric bikes; fortunately, they were unsuccessful, but residents raised this as major concern at a community neighbourhood safety forum. Will my hon. Friend outline what progress we are making against tackling phone theft? Does she agree that the phone companies should do much more to ensure that criminals cannot profit from phone snatching?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Operation Reckoning is delivering the Met’s largest ever enforcement response to phone theft. In the 12 months to May, phone theft in London fell by 18% on the previous year, and it pretty much halved in the west end, where we see most of that occur. He is right that phone companies need to do more. If phone theft does not continue to fall, we will take further action.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The Culture Secretary has quit X and removed her Department from the platform, citing its descent into misinformation and abuse. Does the Home Secretary agree with her decision? What is the Home Office doing about the abuse and misinformation on X? Will the Home Office be leaving, too?

[Sarah Jones]

I think that everyone in this place is concerned about the rise of hatred and division online, not just on X but on other platforms. As a Government, led by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and other colleagues, we are looking at how we crack down on that and at how we create a society in which we try to unite people and not divide them. Members in this place have a strong role to play in that.

[Paul Davies (Colne Valley) (Lab)]

T4. Pennine Domestic Abuse Partnership is a strong example of non-judgmental, trauma-informed support for victims of domestic abuse. For many women, it is the first point of contact; however, for others, the emergency services are the first to respond. Will the Minister clarify what steps can be taken to ensure that this non-judgmental, victim-centred approach is consistently reflected in the police’s engagement with victims?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is right: a non-judgmental, victim-led approach is exactly what we need and that is what we are trying to drive through our response. We have established the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls to improve the police response to violence against women and girls, and the new trauma-informed first-line public protection programme is piloting in five forces this summer, equipping frontline officers with the skills to manage investigations and support victims.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

T5. The Home Secretary is boasting about the fact that hotel asylum seekers’ numbers are being reduced, but of course, they are being moved into houses in multiple occupation and the Government will not produce the figures of how many are going into HMOs. This means that places such as Hinckley and Bosworth are getting more HMOs. Will the Government commit to producing the data to show exactly where people are being moved from and to, so that we can see what is happening specifically around HMOs? That has not been released in the quarterly data, and I would be grateful for an answer.

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[Jonathan Hinder (Pendle and Clitheroe) (Lab)]

T8. The Police Federation is the only staff association that police officers can join to represent them, and yet the chief executive has paid himself £1.4 million over two years from members’ subscriptions. Does the Minister agree that frontline police officers have lost confidence in the national leadership of the Police Federation and should be allowed to set up an alternative?

[Sarah Jones]

As my hon. Friend knows, the chief executive is no longer in post. We are clear that the pace of change is not fast enough. We have made it clear in the police reform White Paper that we will bring forward any reforms necessary to ensure that the interests of rank and file officers are properly, effectively and robustly represented. It is important to say that there are good members of the Police Federation who are working across the country and doing brilliant work, including those who I met in Newcastle. We need to tread carefully, but he is right to raise this issue.

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

My constituents in Meriden and Solihull East are greatly concerned about abuse of the European convention on human rights, including article 8. They deem cases like that of the Albanian criminal who was not deported because his son would not eat foreign chicken nuggets to be an insult. The Home Office’s own analysis shows that abuse of the ECHR costs about £4.9 billion. I know that the Home Secretary wants to reform the ECHR, but does she accept that if this runs out of road, Britain should be allowed to forge its own way on human rights law, including by leaving the ECHR?

--- Later in debate ---

[David Smith (North Northumberland) (Lab)]

Two months ago my constituent, farmer Ian McKie, was subjected to a burglary in which his workshop was broken into and a quad bike was stolen. According to Mr McKie, such crime is happening more frequently and boldly in North Northumberland. What reassurance can the Minister give me about rural crime and the seriousness with which the Government are taking it?

[Sarah Jones]

I am sorry to hear that my hon. Friend’s constituent has been a victim of crime. We are funding the rural crime unit and we are putting neighbourhood police back into every neighbourhood, including rural areas, so that every single person, wherever they live, will have a named, contactable officer who they can get in touch with. We are also doing what we can in legislation to stop this kind of crime, and I am happy to speak to my hon. Friend about that.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

There were truly shocking and appalling scenes in Glasgow last week, fuelled by misinformation about the accommodation of asylum seekers. People were harassed in their own homes and roads were blocked. When will the Government finally take on the spread of misinformation, and will they finally recognise the real threat posed by the right wing, which is ready to take advantage and exploit these situations?

Defibrillators in Police Vehicles

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) on securing this important debate. I am grateful to him for doing so, and to other Members for contributing. I know that if this had been a wider debate, other Members would probably have wanted to speak in it—several Members feel very strongly about this issue.

The hon. Member for Torbay talked at length about the Our Jay Foundation and about the death of Jamie Rees, or Jay, who died when he was just 18. I have had the privilege of meeting Jamie’s mum, stepdad and godmother on two occasions. I discussed what they are doing and trying to achieve, and what the Home Office can perhaps do. For someone to be able to experience the death of their child and put it to positive use, in order to try to get something positive out of their child’s death, is enormously powerful and very brave. Indeed, not many of us would be capable of doing that if we lost a child. I join the hon. Member in praising Jamie’s family for what they are doing; it is enormously powerful and enormously impactful.

As the hon. Member said, the foundation has been raising money; I think it has raised about £800,000 to fund defibrillators and it has now funded hundreds of them. It also has an evidence base, which was shared with me, showing the number of lives that have been saved as a result of those defibrillators. There is a conversation to be had here, and it is one that we are actively having.

Last year, the Home Office funded 750 defibrillators that we gave to police—that happened before I became the Minister, so I cannot claim any credit for it at all. There was no stipulation on where the defibrillators were placed. Some will be in police vehicles and some, I suspect, will be in police buildings, but we provided those 750 defibrillators. I know my predecessor as the Minister for Policing and Crime, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), met representatives of the Our Jay Foundation as well and was very moved by them. Providing those defibrillators was a step in the right direction.

As I understand it—I will write to the hon. Member for Torbay if my statistics are wrong—27% of police vehicles now have defibrillators. He cited a figure of 10%, so I will check that and write to him if I am wrong, but I think it a slightly higher proportion than that.

We are having a conversation with police. If there is a debate here—and I have talked to the foundation about this—it is because there is a slight nervousness from some parts of the police about the role of policing versus the role of other emergency services. There are also questions about the ability to train police in many different aspects of first aid, and where their role ends and that of the ambulance begins.

[Steve Darling]

I thank the Minister for allowing me to quiz her further. Can she expand on that point? Is the pushback from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, from lower levels within policing or from Government Ministers? Anyone can use a defibrillator, because it walks them through it. This is not about additional training on how to use defibrillators; it is about the availability of defibrillators where there is a crisis. Defibrillators need to be in the right place at the right time, and I cannot think of a better place than the boot of a police car.

[Sarah Jones]

It is not a comprehensive view across policing; there is a general concern about the role of policing versus other emergency services. We often have a wider debate within policing about the huge quantity of time that is spent responding to mental health issues, when other services should be doing that, so there is a general nervousness about that.

I am in the process of writing to police forces and having a conversation with them, so that we can answer the hon. Gentleman’s point and find out whether there is a concern when it comes to defibrillators. The Our Jay Foundation would say that, where it has engaged with police forces and given them defibrillators, that has been welcomed and it is useful. I want to find out what the concerns are, if they exist, and I am in the process of doing that.

I have said to the Our Jay Foundation—and I also say it to the hon. Member for Torbay and others here today—that of course we want every piece of first-aid equipment that could possibly save lives to be as widely available as possible. In police cars there are already first aid kits, and a lot of police officers carry tourniquets. It is not uncommon for police to conduct CPR on people relatively regularly; that has to be their job when they arrive before other emergency services.

The step to then funding defibs—since we are talking about the funding question here—and putting them into all response cars or a proportion of response cars is the next stage we will look at. There are two stages. The first is talking to police to see what they think. As we have already given the police 750 defibs, it would be interesting to understand what they have been using them for.

Moving on to the next stage, we are going through a very significant period of reform, setting up a national police service. That service will procure the kit we need for the whole of policing, so it presents a really good opportunity to consider what should be standard in all our police vehicles, response cars and uniforms, and to have a conversation with the police. We are going to have a national police service and make decisions nationally about what we need across the police service, and whether we want to use some of our funding to put defibs into all police cars.

[Steve Darling]

I know timescales are tricky, but can the Minister provide some rough timescales on the different steps? I understand that the new national police force and procurement are a bit more distant, but can she tell us what timescales she is working to, at least on the first steps she alluded to?

[Sarah Jones]

We will engage with policing over the next few months, so that will be done relatively quickly, and we will see what people come back with.

The national police service is not that far away. We will hopefully introduce legislation in September to set it up, and there are things that we will be thinking about, doing and working towards before we set up the establishment itself, to bring together aspects of the organisations that will become part of it. For example, BlueLight Commercial, which does a lot of the procurement now, will become part of the national police service. This is an opportunity for us to ask collectively what a good police car looks like and what kind of car we need, and to have a conversation about whether we put defibs into all police cars. There is obviously a cost, and if that money is spent on defibs it will not be spent on something else, so I want us to make the decision in the right way.

I suspect the hon. Gentleman will come back to me even if I do not do this, but I am happy to let him and the APPG know how our conversations go with policing and how we progress this work. I cannot promise that we will do what he and the Our Jay Foundation want, but I can promise that we are actively looking at it. We have already invested in defibs for policing. The Our Jay Foundation is building an evidence base from what it is doing with police forces, and we will take that very seriously.

Of course, we want to do everything we can to save lives. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) talked about bleed kits, and we are looking at those. There are campaigning organisations, also run by people who have sadly lost loved ones, putting bleed kits into police cars and many other public places, and those are also very useful when it comes to saving lives. We have decisions to make and I am actively looking at these things. I am very happy to keep talking to the hon. Member for Torbay as we progress.

Question put and agreed to.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Temporary Class Drug) Order 2026

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2026 General Committees

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Temporary Class Drug) Order 2026 (S.I., 2026, No. 613). 

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. The statutory instrument, which was laid before Parliament on 10 June, places controls on a new, highly lethal class of drug. Orphines are a type of synthetic opioid, which emerged in force in the UK drugs market last spring. In that time, they have been involved in at least 22 deaths, 14 of which were between December and March. Between 2024 and April 2026, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime received 206 reports from multiple countries of drug samples containing orphine compounds.

The report of 30 April from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, for which I am very grateful, stated that,

“the risk to the population from these recently emerging compounds is sufficiently great that urgent steps are required to protect public health.”

We have taken those urgent steps. Less than six weeks after the report was published, we enacted a temporary class drug order—the first in a decade—to control seven orphines. I will spare Committee members the complex chemical names, but they are all set out in the order and the explanatory memorandum. I confirm that three of the seven have been involved in UK deaths, and the European Union drugs agency has notified that the other four are present in the EU drugs market.

The TCDO makes it a specific offence to produce, supply or offer to supply those seven orphines; to possess them with an intent to supply; and to import or export them. Penalties are the same as for class B drugs—namely, maximum sentences of 14 years in prison. The TCDO also provides that the substances should be treated as if they were listed in schedule 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. Schedule 1 covers substances with no known medical uses, as is the case here, and requires anyone who needs to make legitimate use of them—for example, for research—to obtain a Home Office licence.

Unusually, the statutory instrument comes under the made affirmative procedure, by which it comes into force but then requires the active assent of both Houses—in this case, by next Friday. That reflects the fact that we are expanding the scope of the criminal law, but there is a pressing danger to public safety. Whatever views hon. Members may have about the harms of some drugs, I hope we can all agree that these drugs are a clear and present danger that must be quickly controlled.

We have also accepted the recommendation of the advisory council to make these substances—and some broader generic definitions of orphines—class A drugs. That is not for today. We will introduce draft legislation as soon as possible, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has urged us to do, and a different Committee from this one will have the chance to debate it. I cannot give a precise timetable for that, but I assure the Committee that we are mindful of the fact that the TCDO lasts for just one year. The statutory instrument is vital to keep our communities safe, and I commend it to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I thank hon. Members for their points and for welcoming the changes that we are making.

As I explained, we have accepted that orphines should be classed as class A, but there is a different parliamentary process through which we will make them class A. We will do that as quickly as possible. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton West, asked when it will happen. I cannot give a specific date, but two things are true. First, we will do it as soon as possible, and secondly, the order lasts for only a year, so we will have to do it within that time anyway. We will ensure that we do it well within that time. It is the right thing to do, and we have accepted what the ACMD has suggested.

When we introduce the legislation to make orphines class A, we can use a more generic definition. The shadow Minister made a point about different forms of these substances, and the generic definition will help us to cover more substances as they get made. He is right to say that as we pick up and act on certain new synthetic opioids, new ones pop up along the way.

The hon. Member for Harrow East asked where the drugs are coming from and how they are presenting themselves. There is a risk of them being made in this country and coming from abroad, but they are mainly coming from abroad. I think there have been two cases where nitazenes—similar substances—have been found being produced in Scotland. I will write to the hon. Gentleman if I have the wrong drug type, but there are two cases where production has been found in Scotland. Sadly, Scotland has much higher levels of deaths than we do with the problems that it has.

The National Crime Agency, which would happily do a wider briefing on this issue, is very good at identifying new and emerging drugs and keeping them at bay. It is much harder to manage and reduce problems with the more traditional drugs that are coming in extreme quantities, although the NCA does good work in that space, too. It has been good thus far, and perhaps better than other countries, including America, which has seen a huge increase in fentanyl. We have not quite seen that, but we are seeing significant numbers and deaths across the country. Through the National Crime Agency, we will ensure that we are keeping our borders as safe as we possibly can to stop drugs coming in while keeping on top of production.

The hon. Member for Harrow East also asked how the police are recognising these drugs. We have a partnership across Five Eyes in particular, and we have relationships with other countries. We are introducing early warning systems through which we tell the police when drugs are emerging either across the EU or in some of our partner countries, such as Australia and the US. We tell them what these things physically look like so that they know what to look out for and what to expect. We have those partnerships under way.

This is a constant battle, as all Members know, and the order will make a helpful difference as we work quickly towards making orphines a class A drug.

Question put and agreed to.

Police Leadership Commission Report

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

I refer hon. Members to the oral statement I will make to the House today, 6 July, on the publication of the police leadership commission report.

The report is available at: www.college.police.uk/police-leadership-commission

[HCWS187]