Knife Crime
Sarah Jones Excerpts(3 days, 3 hours ago)
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The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I echo the comments that Members made about David Amess; we are all remembering him today. He was very kind to me, and he was a very good man, and we miss him very much in this place.
It has been a really good debate, and I thank Members for their contributions. I will pick out three that were particularly powerful. My hon. Friend the Member for Swindon North (Will Stone) brought his personal experience and history to the debate, which was very powerful. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) talked about working-class boys being written off, and whole communities not being given the intervention and support they need. The hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) talked about families and the need for our young people to understand what it is to be a man; that is so important and powerful, and I was pleased to hear it.
I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing the debate. There is much that I agree with him on. He made the point that if we cannot reduce knife crime and save lives, what are we doing in this place? I 100% agree. As the new Minister for Policing and Crime, tackling knife crime is an absolute priority for me.
Last week I met Pooja Kanda, the mother of Ronan Kanda, who in 2022 was fatally stabbed with a ninja sword. He had no involvement of any kind in crime. He was stabbed and ran to try to get home but collapsed a few doors away from his house. His mother has been campaigning ever since. She asked the Prime Minister to change the law on knife crime to stop a situation like this happening again. The Prime Minister listened to Pooja, and we are changing the law, because this Government believe in action, not words. We are introducing tougher rules for online retailers selling knives, with a penalty of two years’ imprisonment if they sell to a minor, and we are changing the age verification system, which is incredibly important, so that under-18s cannot get access to a knife.
It is our great mission in this Government to halve knife crime, and we will use action, not just words. Since taking office, we have reversed the trend on knife crime, and we will continue to work to do so. Where overall knife crime was rising, it is now falling. There has been clear, measurable progress: knife-enabled homicides fell by 23% in the year ending March 2025; hospital admissions for sharp object assaults dropped by 10% and are now 26% lower than pre-pandemic levels; and police-recorded knife-enabled assault dropped by 4% in the year ending March 2025.
Knife crime affects the whole country, but if we look at the statistics, we see that knife crime is most acute in certain areas, and that is where we are putting our resources. In the top seven police force areas, we have established a taskforce to attack knife-enabled robbery in particular. We have released new statistics today which show that those seven police force areas have turned a 14% increase in offence levels at the outset of the taskforce into a 10% reduction, which is an incredible achievement.
In London, which has been much discussed today, violent crime leading to injury has fallen in all 23 boroughs. We can all produce statistics—the hon. Member for East Wiltshire is right that there are statistics that show progress, and there are statistics that do not. I gently ask that we all interrogate those statistics. I want to highlight one particular statistic: although it is correct that the number of stop and searches has fallen in London, the number of stop and searches for offensive weapons has increased. There has been a 27% increase in the number of searches for offensive weapons, as opposed to other stop and searches, which tend to be drug-related. We need to investigate statistics and use them wisely, to make sure we are reaching the right conclusions.
I want to highlight a couple of policies that we are introducing that I have been particularly impacted by. I have had the honour in the last four weeks of being Policing Minister of attending two police raids where we arrested some nasty criminals. I am very proud of our police for what they did. The first involved a huge gang network in London that was taking stolen phones and selling them to China and Hong Kong. This huge operation undertaken by the Met has taken out a gang that is responsible for up to half of all the phone thefts in London, which is quite extraordinary.
The second involved county lines, which the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) talked about. We took off the streets a nasty, violent criminal who has been running a county line. We are investing significantly in police resources for county lines because the connection between knife crime and drugs is clear. In the areas where we have invested and supported the police in tackling county lines, there has been a 23% reduction in stabbings. Focused policing works, and it is absolutely the right way to go.
We are also changing the law to help the police to tackle county lines. We have three new offences: child criminal exploitation, cuckooing, and plugging, which is—I do not really like to speak of it—when people are forced to put drugs inside themselves to hide them from the police. It is increasingly used with children and we need to stop that. There is some evidence of our intervention in county lines having an effect: the age of those exploited is rising because the criminals have realised that we will come for them if they exploit children. That is a good thing, but the criminals will try to find other vulnerable people to exploit, so we need to keep on top of that.
I am aware of the time, but there was a lot of talk about sentencing. I agree that we need to make sure that sentencing acts as a deterrent and that it needs to be swift, clear and consistent. We inherited a situation where around 1,000 young people a year caught in possession of a knife received no meaningful intervention. That cannot be right. We are changing that rule and introducing sentences around knife crime that will ensure that people are given the right punishment. We are not abolishing short sentences—I need to be really clear about that. Judges will always have that power.
I am paying close attention to a new policy in Thames Valley, where if a person under 18 is caught in possession of a knife, they are referred to a youth offending team for interventions, and over-18s are remanded straight away, before they are charged. There is evidence that that is starting to have an effect. We need to watch that and make sure that we are following the evidence in terms of sentencing, but it is a reasonable point to make.
I am aware that I need to give the hon. Member for Ashfield time to respond. There are many more things I could say. I have not responded to his points on migration, but I can talk to him afterwards. I have some things to say, but I know that he needs a couple of minutes to respond. I would like to finish by saying that this Government’s mantra is “Action, not words”. I absolutely support the police in what they are trying to do. I will ensure that we reduce knife crime. It is the mission of this Government to do so.
Home Office Science Advisory Committee: Renaming
Sarah Jones Excerpts(1 month ago)
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The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
The Minister of State at the Home Office, my noble Friend Lord Hanson of Flint, has today made the following written ministerial statement:
I am pleased to announce the formal name change of the Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group to the Science and Technology Ethics Advisory Committee.
The name change has sought to accurately encompass the full remit of this scientific advisory group, which works to provide Ministers with independent advice on matters relating to broad ethical issues in science, technology and data.
I would like to thank the group for its ongoing advice across many sectors of the Home Office, and I am pleased that this name change reflects both the breadth and depth of expertise held by all the members of the group. Continuous support has been provided to the Government by our members in matters ranging from the national DNA database to ethical advice on using large datasets and machine learning.
For a list of publications and information regarding the ongoing advice that this group provides, please see its website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/science-and-technology-ethics-advisory-committee
[HCWS929]
Police: Professional Standards
Sarah Jones Excerpts(1 month ago)
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The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
I thank the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) for securing the debate. As he knows, I am a week into my new role as Policing Minister, but I did the shadow role for several years while we were in opposition. During that time and in the last week, I have spoken at some length and in some detail about these issues.
I pay tribute to Adam and Gregory, the police officers who he mentioned, for the work that they do. I also pay tribute to Lisa and Kye for the campaigning that Lisa has been forced to do because of the situation in which she has found herself, which must be devastating for her as a mother. The hon. Gentleman described Lisa’s frustration very well, and I think that we all felt it too.
The topic of professional standards in policing in the widest sense is enormously important. The hon. Gentleman was right to make the point that confidence in policing has been tracking in the wrong direction in recent years. It is always worth having the humility to accept that politicians have a substantially lower level of trust, but we have seen levels of trust in policing go down over recent years. The latest figures in the crime survey for England and Wales show a small increase in trust levels, so maybe there are shoots of improved confidence, but that has followed several year-on-year declines.
When we came into Government, public trust had been shaken by some very high-profile cases, as the hon. Gentleman will know. The visible reduction in neighbourhood policing had also badly eroded that sense of trust. At the same time, crime has become more complex: there are intense investigations into long-standing crimes, an explosion of fraud and online crime, and a high expectation, rightly, from the public that crimes will be dealt with, although there may not necessarily be the resources available to do that.
I am keen to carry on the work of the previous Policing Minister to ensure that standards are as high as they can be. We owe it to the vast majority of excellent police officers who are doing a brilliant job that we ensure that those standards are high. Last year, the previous Home Secretary announced some reforms to police standards, leading to a raft of legislative changes that strengthened the misconduct, vetting and performance systems. New regulations were laid to enable chief constables to dismiss officers who failed to maintain vetting. I understand that is separate to the issues raised by the hon. Gentleman, but having a force where the leadership drives standards, whether through vetting, recruitment or valuing the work of professional standards teams and ensuring that their work is in the front of police chiefs’ minds, is part of the same picture.
We have already made some changes on that front, and we will continue to do so. We will put the vetting standards on statutory footing through regulations that we expect to lay this year. The Crime and Policing Bill that is currently going through Parliament also contains measures to strength misconduct and performance systems, so, for example, when officers fall seriously short of the high standards expected of them, they will be swiftly identified and dealt with robustly, including through a new presumption of dismissal for proving gross misconduct. Those measures will change that landscape.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned some very upsetting crimes: we have to work harder and do better when it comes to violence against women and girls. Last year, the former Home Secretary announced plans to strengthen the requirement on forces to suspend police officers who are under criminal investigation for matters such as domestic abuse or sexual offences. Strong progress has been made, and I expect new legislation later this year.
Steve Darling
I alluded to the fact that we have sadly lost an awful lot of police officers with deep knowledge, and many of our police officers are relatively new to the position. Will the Minister reflect on how we can build that long-term knowledge back into the police force, because that can drive better standards where services are being provided, rather than looking for where things have already fallen over?
Sarah Jones
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We saw a collapse in the numbers of police then huge recruitment under the last Government, which meant that we lost a lot of officers and gained a lot of new officers. The turnover of officers is higher than I would like it to be, for lots and lots of reasons; there is a whole other debate about keeping our workforce where it is. We have to have people with experience and expertise, and we want to try to develop that through our neighbourhood policing plans, for example. We want an increased number of people working in those neighbourhood roles, and we want them to stay in position.
In previous years, neighbourhood policing was very much a turnaround profession in which people would work for a short period of time then move on to something else. We want neighbourhood policing to be seen as a brilliant thing to do in the long term as a police officer, and I hope that will help. It is very much our intention that those officers will be better police officers as a result of the expertise they develop about their communities—the people who they are there to serve. The hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) makes a good point. I do not have all the answers, but it is absolutely key that we try to get that expertise and to get people to stay in the force for their whole career.
As I was saying, the Angiolini inquiry is considering a range of issues in policing and the safety of women. We are already working to deliver the recommendations from part 1 of the inquiry, and we will look very carefully at part 2 when it comes out.
The hon. Member for North Cornwall mentioned the challenges in Devon and Cornwall police in recent times, and we all know about them. I acknowledge the significant progress that has been made by the force under the leadership of Chief Constable James Vaughan. The force has recently come out of the “engage” stage of monitoring by the inspector, which is a clear indication of progress, and I hope that the professional standards team is also on that journey of progress. When I meet the chief constable, I am sure that I will raise today’s debate.
Regarding the complaints system, the hon. Gentleman quite rightly talked about his constituents’ frustrations. People who are dissatisfied can apply for a review to the police and crime commissioner or the IOPC, but whether the case gets reviewed or not depends on its nature. I was interested in the suggestion of other forces policing each other, as it were, and the White Paper on police reform considers some of these things; we are looking at that at the moment and hope to publish it in the autumn. We can learn lessons from local government and elsewhere about how we ensure our policing is done in a way that means that where there are problems, there are good and effective ways of trying to resolve them.
I also hope our police are available to Members of Parliament, have good relationships with them and speak to each other, because that in and of itself is important. I would not undervalue the important role of Members of Parliament in raising these cases, and I hope that everybody has good relationships with their local police.
Police and crime commissioners have an important role in this space as well. They are the ones who are directly elected and responsible for holding their chief constable to account for the force’s performance, and they are also responsible for the appointment, suspension and removal of chief constables. They have the ability to determine which officer is best placed to lead the force.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I am an MP from Sussex. We are about to go through local government reorganisation and see the creation of a Sussex mayor, and as part of that process, the role of the police and crime commissioner is going to become redundant. How does the Minister think that new mayoral responsibility is going to work in practice? Is it going to be exactly the same as it currently stands with PCCs, or will it be different?
Sarah Jones
The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. We are moving to a system with an increasing number of mayors, and the functions of police and crime commissioners will roll into the mayoral authority. The responsibilities vary from place to place—the larger devolved mayoral combined authorities are more developed and have bigger teams. We will see these systems develop over time, but it is an interesting development, and one that I think can work. I have worked with mayors who have that policing function who have had a deputy mayor who has the police and crime commissioner role. That works very well—it can be a powerful thing—but of course, people do not like the changeover. If the hon. Lady identifies particular problems or challenges, I am happy to have conversations with her and pick those up.
I should conclude, or we will run out of time. I thank the hon. Member for North Cornwall for securing the debate and for remembering his constituents, on whose behalf he has brought these issues before Parliament. I would like to think that as we move towards the reform of professional standards across the whole of policing, we will recognise that a lot of the challenges we face are matters of resource. It is not that the people who are doing the policing are not great people; it is often a matter of time and resource. However, it cannot be right that people have to wait such long periods of time and feel such frustration. Of course, I will look at the case that the hon. Member has raised—if he writes to me with more detail, I will be happy to look at it in more detail—but I thank him again, and thank everybody else for their useful contributions tonight.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Jones Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
It is clear to us that visible policing is essential to restoring public confidence in our police, which is why there will be 3,000 more neighbourhood police on the beat by April next year under this Labour Government. The Metropolitan police will receive up to £3.8 billion in 2025-26, a £262 million increase in funding through the settlement.
Munira Wilson
May I, as a London Member, begin by paying tribute to the brave police officers from the Met and many other forces who were policing protests on Saturday, a number of whom were injured in the line of duty as a result of abhorrent attacks? I am sure that the thoughts and prayers of all Members, in all parts of the House, are with them.
Last week we discovered that Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, had admitted that he had known as long ago as November that the Met planned to close a number of police front counters across London, having promised just six months earlier in his election manifesto that not a single borough would be left without a police front counter. The decision to close Twickenham’s counter means that Richmond upon Thames will be left without one. Does the Minister agree that, given the importance of police counters in maintaining trust in and accessibility to our police, this decision needs to be reversed? Does she also agree that the Mayor of London has broken his promises, and that the Metropolitan police should be funded properly?
Sarah Jones
May I associate myself with the comments made by the hon. Member at the start of her question? As she would expect, we have been in close contact with the Met throughout the weekend. Our thoughts are with the officers who were injured, some of them seriously, and we must of course ensure that justice is done for them: they run into danger for us every day.
It is clear to me that the Mayor of London is making the right decisions on policing across London. Of course Members will feel that their particular police stations are important, and of course visible policing is important. What our communities are saying—what my communities in Croydon are saying to me—is that they want to see police on our streets tackling crime, not sitting behind desks doing the jobs that unwarranted police officers could be doing, and that is why we are putting neighbourhood policing at the heart of our policies and putting those 3,000 officers back on our streets by April next year.
David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)
A constituent of mine tried to act as a good samaritan by handing in a handbag that they had found in the town centre, but they could not do so because Hemel Hempstead police station’s front desk had been closed under the last Government. They were told that they would have to travel to Hatfield police station, which is half an hour away. Does the Minister—I welcome her to her place—agree that the Hemel Hempstead front desk should be reopened so that the police can be even more accessible to our constituents?
Mr Speaker
Order. I am not sure that the Minister has responsibility for matters such as this.
Sarah Jones
I am of course happy to talk to my hon. Friend about the situation in his local community so we can ensure that the police are doing all they can to tackle all the crimes that were not considered a priority under the last Government, from antisocial behaviour to low-level threat. That is extremely important to our communities.
Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)
Let me begin by welcoming the new Ministers to their places.
The last Conservative Government recruited a record number of police officers, but earlier this year we discovered that despite Labour’s promise of more police, the headcount had already fallen by 1,316 since it came to office. Both the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner have warned that we will lose even more officers. When will the Minister restore police numbers to the levels they were at under the last Conservative Government?
Sarah Jones
I thank my opposite number for his welcome. Let me also use this opportunity to thank the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), who did a brilliant job as Policing Minister over the past year.
Under the last couple of years of the Conservative Government, shoplifting soared: we saw a 70% increase. Street theft rose by 60% in two years, and the Conservatives ignored antisocial behaviour. Violence and abuse against shop workers was at epidemic levels, and the yo-yoing of the police numbers did not help; the hon. Gentleman may remember that the Conservatives cut them by 20,000. We are prioritising neighbourhood policing. We will ensure that the police have the resources that they need, and we will use new technology to ensure that we are tackling crime as much as we can. Those 3,000 neighbourhood police officers will be in place by next year, and the 13,000 police officers that we have pledged in our manifesto will make a real difference to people’s lives.
Mr Speaker
May I gently say that the question is about the Mayor of London and police closures? We have allowed a little bit of leeway. Let us see how we go from here and try to stick to the questions before us.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
The United Kingdom boasts a fantastic array of cities, each of which has a unique character and appeal. In order to thrive, our city centres must be safe. That is why this Government are putting policing back on the beat and bringing in stronger powers to crack down on shop theft and antisocial behaviour.
Jessica Morden
I was pleased to see Newport city council announce last week £300,000 for new CCTV in our city centre, and I commend the work of trading standards, whose efforts have seized almost £2 million of illegal cigarettes and vapes. While trading standards and the police are working really hard to tackle this issue, the time-limited nature of shop closure orders means that the shops often quickly reopen. What more can the Government do to strengthen powers to stop this?
Sarah Jones
I welcome the actions in Newport city; it is good to hear. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill will strengthen enforcement and crack down on rogue retailers, and a raft of other measures in the Bill will crack down on these pernicious crimes. I look forward to talking more with my hon. Friend about this.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
Sometimes crime wears a suit, as happened in Brechin in my constituency, where Mackie Motors had equity in their vehicles stolen by a French bank based in London. Then, through mendacity or incompetence or both, the bank turned off the oxygen for that business of 50 years. I have met with Home Office and Treasury Ministers to try to get around this. My constituent has been to the Financial Conduct Authority, who told them to go to the police, who then told them to go back to the FCA, who then told them to go to Citizens Advice—you could not make this cluster-fankle up. Is it not the case that in the UK today, if a small or medium-sized enterprise is in dispute with a bank, the FCA will demonstrate that it is neither use nor ornament?
Sarah Jones
I cannot comment on the specific details, as I am not aware of that case, but I am very happy to have a conversation with the hon. Member. Some SMEs in my constituency have had similar issues, so I am very happy to take that forward.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
Antisocial behaviour causes untold distress and misery across our communities. Under the previous Government, the response to this menace was weak and ineffective, and visible neighbourhood policing declined dramatically. This Government are putting that right by rebuilding neighbourhood policing and introducing respect orders to tackle persistent perpetrators and stronger powers to seize dangerous and deafening off-road bikes.
Peter Swallow
I thank the almost 500 constituents who responded to my summer road safety campaign. One of the top issues raised is the use of antisocial off-road bikes. I warmly welcome new measures in the Crime and Policing Bill to allow the police to seize these bikes without warning. Will my hon. Friend also look at the sale of off-road bikes to see what can be done to restrict them at source?
Sarah Jones
I think the number of constituents who responded to my hon. Friend’s survey shows that this is really important for our communities and something that we have to get a grip of. There has been a worrying increase in such crimes. As part of our safer streets mission, this Government are cracking down on the crimes that make people feel unsafe in our communities, including snatch, theft, pickpocketing and robbery. Our safer streets initiative has been running this summer in town centres, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency, I think. We aim to prevent crime and antisocial behaviour, and the sale of off-road bikes is at the heart of that.
Andrew Ranger
In Wrexham, North Wales police is doing very important work to tackle persistent antisocial behaviour and low-level crime, but local people are, quite rightly, seeking further reassurance that these issues will continue to be dealt with and tackled head on. Will the Minister please update the House on how police recruitment and training is progressing in north Wales and beyond so that communities like mine can feel safe and secure in the place they call home?
Sarah Jones
As part of our commitment to restore neighbourhood policing, the neighbourhood policing programme career pathway developed by the College of Policing is creating a structured training pathway to professionalise neighbourhood policing, benefiting communities across England and Wales, including in Wrexham. In terms of recruitment, North Wales police has been allocated just over £2 million to support its projected neighbourhood policing growth over 2025-26, which is made up of 26 additional police officers and 15 police community support officers.
Alex McIntyre
In Gloucester, thanks to the Government investing £1 million in neighbourhood policing and a further £1 million in its safer streets initiative, we have seen more police on our streets this summer, leading to an increase in arrests and seizures of illegal e-bikes and vapes. Some of that funding is to come to an end this autumn. Will the Minister please update me on how she will ensure that Gloucestershire constabulary builds on the great work it has done this summer to make Gloucester a safer place to live and work?
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. It is encouraging to see the work going on in his constituency. It is our intention to ensure that the police have the resources they need to do the jobs we need them to do, whether in hotspot policing, neighbourhood policing or tackling anti-social behaviour. We will change legislation here in Parliament to ensure they have the powers as well as the resources they need to act locally in the interests of our constituents.
Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)
Local youth provision goes hand in hand with a decrease in antisocial behaviour committed by young people, with even something as simple as a ping-pong table in a closed shop able to make a difference in a community. Will the Minister outline what work she is doing with the Department for Education and the Treasury to ensure that we solve this problem once and for all and we do not just move it on and move people around the place?
Sarah Jones
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: if we want to ensure that people are not getting into crime, we need to ensure they have activities and things to do. We are working closely with both the Department for Education and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to ensure we have a programme of activities for our young people that gives them things to do and a purpose in life, including mentoring and support so that they can take the right path.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
Residents of Long Hanborough in my constituency have described to me a summer of misery characterised by antisocial behaviour in the local playing field. I understand that the local rural policing constabulary does not have sufficient vehicles for all its officers to be out at any one time. Is the Minister satisfied that Thames Valley police has sufficient resources in its rural community policing forces to deal with antisocial behaviour in our villages?
Sarah Jones
Antisocial behaviour is pernicious wherever it happens. Of course, we need to ensure that the police have the right resources. As the Home Secretary said, police allocation decisions will be made in the autumn, but I am happy to have a conversation with the hon. Member about the particular issues he is facing in his constituency to ensure that, when it comes to issues such as police cars and vehicles, we are making the most of taxpayers’ money and making as many efficiencies as we can on that front.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
In line with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds) about how we best tackle antisocial behaviour among young people, does the Minister agree that it is really important that outdoor education is integrated in the Government’s youth strategy? The first draft made no reference to outdoor learning whatsoever, yet it is proven to broaden people’s horizons, give people things to do with their lives and make them much less likely to fall into antisocial behaviour.
Sarah Jones
I am happy to take that question on board. I have spoken to the heads of all the violence reduction units across the country today, and it is clear that some of the most important work they can do is in partnership with other agencies and other bodies, whether in education, our youth services or others. We need to pull the resources we have together, use what works and follow the evidence.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
The Government are committed to tackling bureaucracy and are investing tens of millions of pounds this year in technology to get officers on to the frontline. That includes working with police to reduce admin, using tools such as automated redaction and artificial intelligence, and deploying cutting-edge technology such as facial recognition and video response to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of policing.
Dr Evans
I recently met the chief constable of Leicestershire, and he explained some of the red tape that his force faces. Between April 2024 and March 2025,
it used 14,769 “use of force” forms. These are for when people go into handcuffs. Some 6,500 of those were for people who were complicit and were happy to be handcuffed. Each time that happens, it takes an average of 23 minutes to fill in one of those forms. If that could be taken away, it would save the force about £50,000. Will the Minister look at this, and will she meet me to discuss some of the other red tape that we could remove to make policing much more streamlined?
Sarah Jones
We need to ensure that the police are doing what we need them to be doing, and that they are out on the streets solving crime and not tied up in red tape. That is absolutely certain. The way to be tough on crime is to be smart on crime, and I am happy to look at the hon. Gentleman’s suggestions.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
I recently met a police officer in Cambridgeshire who told me that that force had a policy requiring all footage from stop and searches to be reviewed by a more senior officer. Due to this, they feel discouraged from doing proactive patrols due to the extra work that it adds for already stretched supervisors. Will the Policing Minister write to Cambridgeshire’s Conservative police and crime commissioner and urge him to be more proactive on challenging these issues so that our frontline police can spend as much time as possible out in our communities?
Sarah Jones
I am sorry that my hon. Friend’s police and crime commissioner is not doing what is needed. We need to empower the police to be out doing what they do best, not creating barriers for them to do so.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
Shop theft hit a record high in the last year of the previous Government, but our Crime and Policing Bill will remove the effective immunity for shop thefts under £200. We are investing over £7 million to support police efforts against retail crime over the next three years, including supporting a specialist team to target organised gangs and offenders. We also back the Tackling Retail Crime Together strategy, in which industry and police are collaborating to better target perpetrators.
Ben Goldsborough
As a proud member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and formerly the youngest deputy store manager for Halford’s in the east of England, I know at first hand the fear that shoplifting causes to retail workers. What action is my hon. Friend taking to ensure that the police have the powers they need to use the full force of the law to tackle those who steal from our shops?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Every Member of Parliament hears about this issue, and knows how distressing it is. The intimidation of shop workers must stop, and the thieves who target shops and are stealing to order must be targeted. We are repealing the legislation that makes shop theft of and below £200 a summary-only offence, which will send a clear message that we will not tolerate this crime.
Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)
Recently, A. C. Models in my constituency was targeted by a series of thefts that cost the owners, Annette and Clive, thousands of pounds, yet the shoplifter was ordered to pay them just £240 in compensation. With retail losses due to theft at record highs, what measures are the Government taking to support small businesses that are preyed on by shoplifters?
Sarah Jones
We need to protect retail workers, and we need to do more to tackle shop theft. As I have just outlined, we are doing just that. I am very sorry that the hon. Lady’s constituents have had to suffer this terrible crime. We need to ensure that the message is loud and clear that we will not accept it.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
The process of selecting a respected and independent chair for the national inquiry into group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse is under way. A dedicated victims and survivors panel is supporting the process. The inquiry’s terms of reference will of course follow, shaped by a public consultation. The inquiry will be trauma-informed and time-limited, as recommended by Baroness Casey, ensuring accountability, truth and change.
John Cooper
It beggars belief that the inquiry inches along at such a dreadfully slow pace. With the Scottish Government ruling out an inquiry there, will the Home Secretary please commit to fast-tracking a thoroughgoing inquiry into the grooming gang scandal, for the sake of the victims?
Sarah Jones
For the sake of the victims, who we all think about today, we must ensure that we get this right. There were multiple issues with the chair at the start of Baroness Jay’s inquiry, which took many years. We want to do what Baroness Casey has recommended, do this right and properly, and do this alongside the victims, whom we are talking to. We must, of course, lead the way on this. We will ensure that we get the right strategy; it is for Scotland and the Scottish Government to decide on whether to have a similar strategy. It is important to say that, alongside having this important national strategy, we are putting in place lots of other policies to tackle this kind of crime.
Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
The Conservatives raised the issue of a national statutory inquiry in January. The Government attempted to block our calls for an inquiry until they were forced into a U-turn in June. On 2 September, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), said,
“this Government will not lose any more time in pursuing truth and justice for victims and survivors,” —[Official Report, 2 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 160.]
yet here we stand today—no start date, no chair announced, and no terms of reference agreed. The victims need actions, not words, so will the Minister please tell the victims of these abhorrent crimes when the national inquiry will begin—or will this Secretary of State have to be forced into action, just like the last?
Sarah Jones
I will not take any lessons from the hon. Lady, given that the previous inquiry was not implemented in any way, shape or form by the previous Government. Through the Crime and Policing Bill, we are putting in place Baroness Jay’s key recommendations, which is the right thing to do. It is so important that we make the right decisions about the chair, the terms of reference and the process for this inquiry, which has victims at its heart. We are following Baroness Casey’s advice, and as the hon. Lady will hear soon, we will ensure that we have the right chair and the right approach for the victims. We can do no less.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
This year, £200 million has been made available to forces to kick-start the delivery of 13,000 more neighbourhood officers across England and Wales. I would be very happy to talk to my hon. Friend about the issues that he is facing. We must tackle antisocial behaviour.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield Heeley) (Lab)
Earlier this year, 15-year-old Harvey Willgoose was murdered by a fellow pupil when attending school. His murderer has now been convicted and a national child safeguarding review panel set up, but time and time again such panels make the same recommendations and we fail to implement the kind of learnings and culture change that would ensure that another tragedy like this does not happen. Will the Home Secretary reassure Harvey’s family that she will ensure that those panel recommendations are implemented and that we can avoid any family like Harvey’s suffering that same tragedy again?
Sarah Jones
We offer our sympathy to the family of Harvey, whose death is a heartbreaking tragedy that has devastated the entire community. Our thoughts remain with his family and friends. Of course we recognise that pattern—I have seen it, too, in my constituency. That is why we are creating a child protection authority, as was recommended in a previous inquiry, to provide effective national oversight to ensure that lessons are learned.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
Sarah Jones
That is a concern that many Members in the House share. The Crime and Policing Bill will give the police powers to seize vehicles being used antisocially. I am happy to have a conversation with the hon. Lady about what more we need to do.
Carolyn Harris (Neath and Swansea East) (Lab)
Last year, a report by the charity Justice and Care highlighted that a lack of regulation allows unscrupulous business owners to exploit vulnerable people. Nottingham Trent University showed that 90% of hand car wash businesses operate in a way that makes them high risk for forced or compulsory labour. Will the Government consider licensing sectors such as hand car washes to improve compliance and prevent illegal workers and modern slavery?
Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)
Ensuring that our town centres are safe, vibrant and welcoming is hugely important in Clwyd North. I warmly welcome the Government’s safer streets summer initiative in Rhyl and Colwyn Bay. From walkabouts I have done recently with local police, it is clear that a strong community police presence is crucial to tackling antisocial behaviour where it arises. Will the Home Secretary ensure that North Wales police have all the resources they need all year around in Rhyl, Denbigh, Abergele and Colwyn Bay to help build back our town centres?
Sarah Jones
So far, we have had really good feedback from over 500 town centres that have taken part in the safer streets summer initiative. That initiative finishes at the end of September, so we will have proper analysis then, but it is our priority to ensure that our police have the resources they need all year round.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
Sarah Jones
As we were discussing earlier, targeting shoplifting is an absolute priority for this Government. We have a raft of interventions and we are taking legislative action to protect our retail workers, who have been particularly affected by a massive increase in abuse as well as a rise in crime.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the new team and welcome them to the Government Front Bench. A week is a long time, but I had a promise to meet the previous Minister to discuss the immigration system, because one of the challenges that the Home Secretary has inherited is a broken processing system. As one of the Home Office’s largest customers for my constituents, I know where the gaps and the problems are, so I would welcome a meeting with the Minister about that, if the Home Secretary agrees.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
In an earlier answer, the Minister referred to the increasing use by police of live facial recognition. While that may well have some effect on tackling crime, it is being used without any legal framework and no national instructions. Will she say when those will be put in place?
Sarah Jones
Facial recognition is being used in a controlled way for high harm individuals. There is guidance about how it should be used, but I am happy to have a further conversation with the right hon. Gentleman about that, as I am aware that Members from across the House have raised the issue of the framework within which it operates.
Jonathan Hinder (Pendle and Clitheroe) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my former colleagues for the way that they professionally policed the protests over the weekend, and I wish those who were injured a speedy recovery. Police officers cannot join a union and they have only one staff association—the Police Federation—to choose from, the chief executive of which reportedly took home over £600,000 last year. Will the new ministerial team commit to reviewing whether that monopoly can really serve the interests of our brave police officers?
Sarah Jones
We need to ensure that our police officers are given the best support that they can be given through the Police Federation, which is the vehicle by which they are supported through any incidents they have. I will be working very closely with it to ensure that it is doing the right thing on behalf of its members.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
I would not be here today without Wimbledon police station; in 2014, two brave officers from that station saved me from a murderous attack. Wimbledon police station is now under threat, with its front counter due to close. Does the Home Secretary agree that local police stations such as Wimbledon’s are critical to neighbourhood policing and community safety?
Sarah Jones
I am very sorry to hear about the hon. Gentleman’s incident; that must have been absolutely terrifying. We need to ensure that our neighbourhood police are responsive and are there when we need them most, which is why we are targeting the resources we have to ensure that we have neighbourhood policing. The response teams must be there when we need them through any means of getting in touch with them, whether it is on the phone, online or in person, and we need to ensure that they are there.
Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)
When police officers up and down the country—like my former colleagues—reach 20 years of service, they receive a long-term service medal, but police community support officers do not seem to receive any recognition for long service. Will the Minister agree to look into providing similar recompense and recognition for the service that PCSOs provide?
Sarah Jones
I hesitate to announce new policy in week one, but I certainly think there needs to be some kind of recognition for our PCSOs, who do such an incredible job across all our communities.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
Is the Home Secretary aware that 20% of officers in the Metropolitan police are currently either suspended or on restricted duties, with senior officers warning that the situation is unsustainable? Does she agree that we need urgently to review both welfare and disciplinary processes in our police services so that towns such as Romford can get more police actually patrolling our streets?
Sarah Jones
I agree. We need to ensure that resources are targeted in the places where we need them. We have made significant reforms to police standards already, ensuring that officers who fail background checks, for example, are sacked and that gross misconduct leads to dismissal, but we need to ensure that that is right, proper and appropriate and that our police are out on the streets where we need them to be. I am very happy to have a conversation with the hon. Gentleman about how these incidents are being operated; I will be having that conversation with the mayor, and I have already had it with the commissioner.
Alex Brewer (North East Hampshire) (LD)
People in my constituency have raised with me problems of hare coursing, thefts, speeding and fly-tipping. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can tackle the wide range of crimes in rural areas?
Draft Data Protection Act 2018 (Qualifying Competent Authorities) Regulations 2025
Sarah Jones Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Department (Sarah Jones)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Data Protection Act 2018 (Qualifying Competent Authorities) Regulations 2025.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. This instrument, which was laid before the House on 7 July, specifies the qualifying competent authorities that will be able to apply for a designation notice under section 89 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. Section 89, when commenced, will insert sections 82A to 82E into the Data Protection Act 2018. Although those provisions have already been debated and passed by Parliament, during the passage of the parent Act, in order to place the regulations in context I will briefly summarise their purpose.
Under the 2018 Act, authorities processing for law enforcement purposes and intelligence services are subject to two separate legislative data processing regimes for processing personal data. This precludes a joint controllership between the two entities and makes working together more difficult, especially in the context of public safety and national security. For example, an intelligence service and a police force working together on a joint investigation could not work from a single shared dataset setting out individuals of interest and related intelligence. Instead, each must have their own copy of the data, sharing data back and forth between one another and across data protection regimes to allow each to update their intelligence. This obviously decreases efficiency and reduces joint working capabilities.
There is a clear public interest in enabling closer joint working between law enforcement bodies and the intelligence services in matters of national security, as highlighted by reports into the Fishmongers’ Hall and Manchester Arena terrorist attacks. Once the provisions are in force, qualifying competent authority will, together with at least one intelligence service, be able to apply for what is called a designation notice from the Secretary of State under section 82A of the 2018 Act, where it is required for the purposes of safeguarding national security. This designation notice will allow the intelligence service and qualifying competent authority in question to form a joint controllership for that processing activity.
This change will align the legislation with the position under the Data Protection Act 1998, before the adoption of the GDPR. Under the 1998 Act, joint controllerships between the two organisations were permitted. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 inserts section 82(2A) in the 2018 Act, which introduces a power to make regulations specifying which competent authorities are able to apply for a designation notice alongside an intelligence service. Competent authorities are defined in section 30(1) of the 2018 Act as
“a person specified or described in Schedule 7”
to the Act, or “any other person” who has a statutory function for a law enforcement purpose and is therefore capable of processing data under the law enforcement regime.
The Home Secretary is exercising that power by introducing the draft Data Protection Act 2018 (Qualifying Competent Authorities) Regulations 2025, which specify 23 qualifying competent authorities. The regulations have been drafted in consultation with the partners operating in the area of national security. The regulations include competent authorities involved in areas where national security is a consideration. Given the sensitivities involved, the Government cannot go into detail publicly on the rationale behind the inclusion of individual authorities in the list. However, the authorities that have been included are those where there is reasonable potential for a joint controllership to be formed for the purpose of safeguarding national security. The list includes UK police forces—both territorial forces and other branches such as counter-terrorism police and military police—prison and probation services, and other bodies involved in law enforcement and offender management. The Information Commissioner’s Office was consulted on the proposed qualified competent authorities, and confirmed that it was content with those included.
As the threat to the UK’s national security evolves and changes, competent authorities may be added or removed from the regulations. The legislation requires amending regulations to be subject to the affirmative procedure. The UK and its citizens continue to face a wide array of threats from a diverse range of actors. The provisions within this instrument will strengthen the ability of our law enforcement and intelligence services to work more closely to protect our national security. I therefore commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Sarah Jones
I thank hon. Members and hon. Friends for a detailed inspection of this SI. It is right and proper that that inspection should happen; that is the point of democracy and I welcome the questions. To start with, I want to set out the principles to respond to some of the broad themes. First, there is a national conversation about data. We all worry about what happens to our data, where it goes and how it is held. There are three vehicles through which data flows that we are looking at. One is GDPR, which we all know and talk about often; one is part 3 of the DPA 2018, which applies to the police, the CPS and the courts; and one is part 4 of the DPA, which applies to GCHQ, MI5 and MI6. We are enabling sharing between the latter two.
The principle I want to stress is that it is not the case that somebody will ask for this data sharing and it will be given randomly. They will have to make the case and demonstrate that they need continued real-time data sharing. At the moment, one authority can ask the other for data, and they might need that data as a one-off. This instrument is designed to be used for continued real-time access to data where that data needs to be shared. It has come from what we learned from incidents such as Manchester Arena and Fishmongers’ Hall, where real-time sharing of data is needed. That is the principle.
I want to reassure colleagues that much consideration has been given to how this will operate and to make sure that data sharing is done correctly. As I said in my opening remarks, the Government consulted the Information Commissioner, which has confirmed that it is content with what we are laying out today. I hope that gives reassurance.
The right hon. Member for North West Hampshire asked whether this instrument will come to the Intelligence and Security Committee and about being satisfied that the Department was overseeing in an appropriate way. I am happy to write to him with more information. He will appreciate that a detailed debate on this took place prior to my arrival, but I have studied and talked with officials at length on the premise of this piece of legislation and I am very satisfied that the checks and balances are there.
I was asked whether there was a consultation with the bodies listed; there was. There was a question about what the provost marshal is. He—I say “he”, although I do not know whether it is a “he” or a “she”; I suspect it may be a “he”—is the head of the military police for each service. That is from the Police Act 1997. Again, I am happy to share more information on that with the right hon. Gentleman.
Another thing that might be reassuring to Members is that the notices will be made public. It is not that there will be no controls once the data is shared—the ICO oversight remains, so there will be a regime within which that data is controlled. Members should be reassured about that.
On the question why some of the bodies are on the list and others are not, as I said in my opening remarks we cannot comment on the rationale behind each individual authority included on the list, but I hope that my explanation of the premise from which we have approached this satisfies hon. Members. However, of course there is no restriction—this being a democracy—on Members’ continuing to ask these kinds of questions and making sure that we are doing everything that we need to do.
Kit Malthouse
The Minister said that these notices will be published; will these bodies be general powers or specific powers? Will the Government say, “We’re going to grant a notice on this for six months for a specific purpose,” or will it be just, “We’re going to let the Army share it with whoever, in perpetuity”? So, are the powers time limited?
Secondly, while I understand that the Minister cannot explain to us why, who or what regarding these organisations, as the hon. Member for Newton Abbot said, all of these organisations will be processing that data on third-party software, much of which will be owned by private corporations, many from overseas. Does this power extend to them, by proxy, because they are contractors to the primary organisation—which is, necessarily, by its nature, public sector—or will there be firewalls and controls therein as well?
Sarah Jones
I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. As a couple of Members have asked about it, I was just coming to the point about the duration of time that these powers are given for. The duration lasts for up to five years, but it is subject to annual review by the Secretary of State.
The right hon. Member asked about the number of organisations under a notice. There is no specification on the number; it simply must be at least one competent authority and one intelligence service wanting to share the data. I should have said that the Intelligence and Security Committee is able to request information from the intelligence services under its purview, so these arrangements would not be excluded from that. I hope that is reassuring to the Committee.
To re-emphasise, there is a process here: the ICO will remain with the oversight and have the relevant security clearance, and it already oversees UK intelligence agencies. I can reassure Members that the right checks are there to ensure that this data is not given more widely than it should be.
I hope that that reassures hon. Members that these regulations are needed, and that they respond to our need to be able to act in real time in moving situations to protect the public, which is the fundamental principle behind our doing this. I hope that Members will understand that. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Police Act 1997 (Criminal Record Certificates: Relevant Matter) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2023
Sarah Jones Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship on our first day back after the summer recess, Dame Angela. I thank the Minister for her remarks. I will not keep the Committee long, because the Opposition support the draft order.
We have heard an interesting debate about some of the wider challenges. It is important to note that rehabilitation rates are pretty poor under this Government. We want people to rehabilitate themselves, but many do not because they are not given the support they need.
As the explanatory notes set out, the draft order will align the rules determining what criminal record information is automatically disclosed on basic DBS checks and what is disclosed on the higher level standard and enhanced DBS checks. The House of Lords debate on the instrument, which was also relatively brief, concluded that it seems to be a sensible and straightforward measure, although concern was voiced about the wider picture. Organisations including Unlock—a charity that deals with people leaving prison—talk about the very complex picture of criminal records processes, which is confusing for individuals and organisations. There is still work to be done to unpick that complexity. The Minister in the other place said that it was a fair point that the rules are unclear, and that needed to be looked into. I hope the Minister will look into whether some of the rules need to be reformed.
It is important to get the balance right. We must not create further confusion, but we must ensure that the right information is disclosed at the right time. On this occasion, the Opposition are happy to support the draft order.
Metropolitan Police: Stephen Lawrence Murder Investigation
Sarah Jones Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies.
May I start by echoing everybody else in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) for giving such a detailed and harrowing list of all the failures in the way that this case was investigated, from the start right to the present day? There are some parallels with other cases, such as the Stephen Port murders, where four young men were murdered and multiple others were raped, and the Daniel Morgan inquiry, following his murder in 1987. There are similarities in terms of professional curiosity and not being interested in following leads, unconscious bias and structural bias—the structures of the institutions themselves not being equipped to solve these murders—and the conclusion, in some of those cases, that it was down to incompetence rather than corruption, when it is hard to see how there was not corruption.
Dawn Butler
The Daniel Morgan inquiry said that the police were institutionally corrupt; indeed, Cressida Dick was named in that report as somebody who stopped the investigation from continuing. Does my hon. Friend agree that every single report on the Met highlights another area of discrimination that needs to be tackled?
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is right, and one thing that Baroness Casey found in her report was a defensiveness. That is why it was first suggested in the Daniel Morgan inquiry that we should introduce a legal duty of candour, because there is a big difference between that and asking somebody for information. In that case, the Met was asked for certain information and it gave it, but it also knew other things that it did not offer. That is the difference with a duty of candour, and that came from the Hillsborough inquiry. It is one of the law changes that the Hillsborough campaigners are asking for, because, similarly, information was not willingly given and there was a defensiveness.
Janet Daby
The reason for a duty of candour—which is something that the Victims and Prisoners Bill is introducing—is absolutely what my hon. Friend has set out, but it is also to avoid corruption, and corruption has taken place. The duty of candour can stop it, and it starts from the premise that corruption on the part of the police has been known in very serious cases.
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the institutional problems is that we do not have systems in place to stop these things happening in the first place; therefore they can happen, and they do.
My hon. Friend set up the all-party parliamentary group on children in police custody and will be looking at the disproportionality of children in custody. She has a lot of expertise in that area and spoke very eloquently about it. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) gave an incredibly powerful speech and of course reminded us about the Lawrence family being tracked—which, as the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), said, is one of the most horrific aspects of all of this. My hon. Friend said that we are in this place not for show but to make things better, and that is incredibly important: we are not here to prove a point one way or the other, but to make things better. I hope that the Minister responds in that spirit.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) mentioned the murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, which are of course all wrapped up in the same issues and are, again, some of the most horrific things I have ever read about. The grace of their mother in showing leadership and behaving in the way she has—similarly to how Baroness Lawrence has behaved—is also quite extraordinary. I know for a fact that I would not behave in that way.
Dawn Butler
Mina Smallman, the mother of Bibaa and Nicole, is absolutely phenomenal. Is it not also the case that mothers who have lost their children in such tragic circumstances should not need to be so graceful or dignified to get justice for their children? But they often need to be.
Sarah Jones
That is a really important point. On that point, it is no coincidence that the majority of my colleagues on the Labour Benches who are speaking today are women who happen to be black. It should not be on their shoulders to fix these problems. They have experienced racism all through their lives, and now we expect them to fix the problems as well. That is not right. We have the same debate when we talk about the need for more black officers in policing. Yes, we need more, but it should not be on them to solve the problems of the police. It should be on all of us. We all need to take that responsibility, especially those of us who have not had to bear the burden of racism.
Janet Daby
Just to clarify, I do not see it as my job to bear that or to fix it; I see it as the responsibility of our whole community. It is also very much the responsibility of the Government, and it is the responsibility of us in the Opposition to ensure that the Government are doing what they need to do to address society’s wrongdoings, such as discrimination in the area of racism and prejudice and in other areas. Obviously, we are speaking about this issue because we know that the police have not dealt with this situation as they should have; indeed, they have protected themselves rather than protecting, in this case, the innocent.
Sarah Jones
That is a very good point, and I completely understand what my hon. Friend says.
Like everybody else, I pay tribute to the Lawrence family and to Baroness Lawrence, who is here today. They have had to fight and campaign for so long. We think of them every time there is another news story and they have to relive the trauma of what happened, which must be incredibly difficult. They have faced what no parent should ever have to bear.
The failures in this case run deep, as we have heard. It is extremely troubling that, after 30 years, information about those failings is still emerging. It is also unacceptable that the Crown Prosecution Service sat on the IOPC file—the dossier into alleged mishandling—for three years. We need an independent investigation into what happened, so that we can establish everything that has gone wrong. As has already been mentioned, Baroness Lawrence has said that she is bitterly disappointed and will be seeking a review, which limits, up to a point, what we can say about it. It is clear, and the message to the Minister is clear: the Home Office must not stand back. The Government have a role here and real leadership is needed. We need the Government to commit to engaging seriously with the issue of police reform, to avoid repeating failures and rebuild trust in communities that have lost that trust.
Other Members have talked about the journey from the Macpherson report to the Casey report. Undoubtedly some good changes were made in that period, but equally Louise Casey finds that a lot of things have not improved. I pay tribute to Baroness Casey for the thoroughness of her review. She described the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the Macpherson report as irrevocably changing the nature of policing in the UK. It changed the understanding, the investigation and the prosecution of racist crimes nationwide.
Macpherson rightly called for police forces to be representative of their communities, but we have made very slow progress on that front. At the current rate of recruitment and attrition, the Met will manage to increase its black, Asian and ethnic minority representation to only 22% of all officers to reflect the population by 2055. If the Met continued to improve its black, Asian and ethnic minority recruitment by an additional 1% each year from this year onwards, it would take nearly 40 years to reach an officer group that was proportionate. I represent Croydon Central, and I remember going out with the new recruits, who are the ones who carry out stop and search in our communities. There were 80 of them, and not a single one of them was black. There is a very diverse population in Croydon, so that does not work and it needs to be changed.
The trust that people have in policing is an important part of being able to solve crimes. If people do not trust the police, the police cannot solve crimes. In 2021-22, only 43% of black Londoners believed that the Met did a good job locally, while 33% of black Londoners thought that the Met did a good job across London. Only 46% of Londoners think that the Met treats everyone fairly, and only 14% of black Londoners think that the Met treats black people fairly. Looking at the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime surveys, we can see that those figures have fallen—rapidly, in some cases—in recent years. Things have got worse.
It has already been mentioned that Louise Casey talked about black Londoners being under-protected and over-policed. That is a really important issue that I would like the Minister to comment on. I think we are going backwards, and the approach that the Government are taking is making the issue harder to tackle. Most hon. Members present were in the Chamber recently when the Home Secretary made a statement about stop and search. She has gone further than even the previous Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), in almost denying that there is a problem that needs fixing. For example, she said:
“Suggestions that stop and search is a means of victimising young black men have it precisely the wrong way around…Black people account for about 3% of our population, yet almost a third of under-25s killed by knives are black.”—[Official Report, 19 June 2023; Vol. 734, c. 569.]
However, that implies that those figures are somehow equivalent, and of course, they are not. Something like 120 young people under the age of 25 are murdered every year, so we are talking about 40 or 50 young black people, tops, and 3% is 2 million people. So there are 2 million people who are black in this country, and a very small number of murders, so we cannot equate the two. The implication that the Home Secretary seemed to be making—that that meant it was fine that people were being over-policed—is very dangerous and sad. I do not think that even this Government have been saying up to this point.
The under-protection of black people in London in terms of crime is really acute. The figures showing evidence of that are in Louise Casey’s report. Indeed, disproportionality is not questioned by anybody—apart from potentially our Home Secretary. Whether it is the National Police Chiefs’ Council in its report on racism—which covers the whole of policing—or the inspectorate, the IOPC or the Met itself, everybody accepts that there is a huge problem. I worry that the Government are taking a line that questions that. In Wales—the hon. Member for Glasgow North East said it is similar in Scotland—there is an active anti-racism strategy led by the Government across the board, so it is much easier for the police and the leaders of policing to do the right thing. It is actively harder for them to the right thing under this Government, which is a great shame.
It is clear that we need change across the board. Labour wants a complete overhaul of the way the police are vetted and recruited. We want misconduct to be dealt with and training to be introduced. All those things need significant reform. The issue of vetting is even worse than hon. Members have said. It is not just that people can fail their vetting and still be police officers; it is not among a police officer’s powers to sack someone because they have failed their vetting.
There are problems across the board with the way that vetting, interviews and misconduct processes work, and structural racism is built into all those processes. Black police officers are much more likely to have a much shorter time in the Met and are much more likely to be subject to disciplinary proceedings. It is at every level, so we need to reform all those things.
We need to look at things such as stop and search, Child Q strip searches and adultification. There needs to be much better training, and the law needs to reflect what is right and wrong. The approach to children must be much more child-centred and safeguarding-centred.
People have asked whether we should break up the Met. Louise Casey said that we should give the new commissioner two years, and if at that point we have not seen significant reform and change, there is a case for breaking it up. An administrative change to structures does not necessarily change anything. Putting a group in a different team does not necessarily lead to change, but Louise Casey sensibly concluded that if the pace of change is not sufficient and we do not see more improvements, we need to do more.
I have talked about the change that we need to see, and that sits alongside the impact on policing. The good police officers in the Met struggle to do a good job. Louise Casey said that austerity has “disfigured” the Met. There is an absence of neighbourhood policing, so police officers do not have the ability to build relationships with their communities. We have seen groups such as the Territorial Support Group go into communities they do not know and make bad judgments about who they stop and search.
Across the country, we have a shortfall of 7,000 detectives. We do not have enough good detectives who can solve crimes, be curious, ask the right questions and be trained. Although there is now direct entry into detective work—which is good and has led to more diversity in the workforce, so that a different type of person joining the police—we need to go much further. There needs to be much better training on issues such as racism and violence against women and girls. We need to change these ingrained cultures through better training.
I ask the Minister to respond to all the points that have been made. The Met has struggled to reform, but these problems exist across the country—six forces are in special measures—so what will the Home Secretary and the Home Office do to raise standards and reform policing? Does the Minister accept that there is disproportionality within the system and structural issues that mean that racism, misogyny, sexism and homophobia continue unchanged? Will she back the calls from everyone here to change the way we vet and train officers, and deal with police misconduct?
Our thoughts are with the Lawrence family and with Baroness Lawrence, who is in the Public Gallery. I am so sorry that she has had to go through this. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central said, we are here for a reason—it is not just for show. We need change, but even after so many years, it is possible. These things are not inevitable; we can and must change things. I hope the Minister sees the urgency of the task.
Miss Dines
I look forward to the work that Baroness Casey outlined in terms of having more confidence in the Met police. It is right that such work is done, that there is a little time given to do that work, and that we must expect progress.
I will try to respond to all the recommendations put forward by the hon. Member for Edmonton. In relation to scrutiny, I am aware that members of the Lawrence family have been granted core participant status in the undercover policing inquiry. The inquiry was established in 2015 to examine undercover policing operations by English and Welsh forces since 1968. On 29 June 2023, the undercover policing inquiry published an interim report for tranche 1 of its investigations. The full report is publicly available, and I am sure Members have had a look at it. Tranche 1 of the inquiry’s investigations examined special demonstration squad officers and managers, and those affected by deployments between 1968 and 1982.
The Home Office is grateful to Sir John Mitting for the report, and the Department will carefully consider its contents. It is an interim report and is restricted to the time period covered by tranche 1. As the inquiry’s investigations are ongoing, it would not be appropriate for the Government to comment at this stage, but the recommendation suggested by the hon. Member for Edmonton is very much in mind.
Miss Dines
Very briefly. There is a lot to get through and I need to respond to everything everyone said.
Sarah Jones
When the Government respond, it would be helpful for a Minister to come to the House and make an oral statement so that we can all have the opportunity to comment, because we have not had that debate.
Miss Dines
I am grateful for that intervention. I will pass that message on to the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister.
On police culture, I disagree with one thing that the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) said, which was that the Home Secretary was not leading enough in her role—I think “standing back” was the phrase that the hon. Member used. That has not been my experience of the efforts put in by the Home Secretary, who has made it consistently clear, both in public and in private to me, that the culture and standards in policing need to improve as a matter of urgency. I hope we can agree on that.
Examining the root causes of poor and toxic cultures is a key focus of part 2 of the Angiolini inquiry, which is now under way. The College of Policing is also currently updating the code of ethics, which plays a key role in instilling the right principles and standards from the start of a police officer’s career. The Policing Minister is certainly holding leaders to account in this area.
I will briefly mention that whenever, in my safeguarding role, I visit a police force that I have not visited before, one of the first questions I ask is: what is the ethnic diversity of new recruits and existing officers? That must be very much in everybody’s mind. We need a police force that reflects better the whole of society.
The Government and the public rightly expect the highest standards from our police officers. The ability of the police to perform their core functions—tackling crime and keeping the public safe—is dependent on their capacity to maintain the confidence of the public. As part of the Inclusive Britain strategy, the Government are committed to developing a new national framework for policing partners, including police and crime commissioners.
Police powers such as stop and search and the use of force must be scrutinised properly at a local level. That will help to create tangible improvements in trust and confidence between the police and the communities they serve by improving public understanding of how and why the police use their powers and will help account for any disparities. Alongside that, the Home Office is committed to seeking and removing unnecessary barriers that prevent the use of body-worn video, which will be implemented in the framework. Work is well under way on the community scrutiny framework, which we aim to publish in due course.
Antisocial Behaviour and Off-road Bikes
Sarah Jones Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Pritchard; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I will probably not take all the time that we have—you might be pleased by that.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on securing this important debate. I thought that he spoke a lot of sense. We have been here before, talking about this issue. He asked the Government to get a grip of the problem in his speech, which the Minister who is now present, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), missed. I am sure that the Minister will respond to all the points that hon. Members made.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) is worried about the antisocial behaviour that will arise in the summer months, and the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) raised similar issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) is so active in her community that she had an event last week on this issue and is having one next week, which shows her commitment to her constituents. My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) gave a harrowing story of how people feel when antisocial behaviour is rife, and how they think that they cannot report it because there will be reprisals. Such things are often completely hidden because those crimes never get to the point of the police being involved and are therefore not covered by the statistics.
In both this Chamber and the main Chamber, Ministers have described antisocial behaviour as low level, and the Government have not taken the issue seriously to any degree for a long time. It was only after Labour Front Benchers put forward tough antisocial behaviour plans earlier this year that the Government published their underwhelming and unambitious strategy, with lead responsibility transferred from the Home Office to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
We know there is huge underreporting of antisocial behaviour, but the latest stats are awful. There were 1 million incidents of antisocial behaviour last year—more than 2,700 every single day—but that is just the tip of the iceberg. We know that criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling has risen by 20%, and “arson not endangering life” is up by 21%. Over a third of people say they have personally experienced or witnessed antisocial behaviour in their local area, and 72%—nearly three quarters of the population—think that crime has gone up in the past few years.
There is a big problem with antisocial behaviour statistics, because the Government do not do proper data collection. The freedom of information requests that I have submitted show huge variety across the country in how antisocial behaviour is reported and dealt with, and data on the use of new powers is not centrally collected. The Government could choose to address that if they wanted to, but they do not, so will the Minister look again at how antisocial behaviour is recorded? Will he recognise the impact of antisocial behaviour?
Our colleagues have been debating the Victims and Prisoners Bill in Committee over the last couple of weeks, and one of the amendments put forward by Labour Front Benchers was designed to treat victims of antisocial behaviour as victims in law. The Government voted against that proposal, which is a real shame, because until we recognise the impact of antisocial behaviour and that it involves victims too, we will not start to get serious about dealing with the problem.
People across the country raise the issue of off-road bikes, which has a pernicious impact on communities. The vehicles are loud and driven at great speed, causing great danger to other people and to those riding them. They spray mud and dirt, upset communities and ruin green spaces. It is a problem in the north-east, which I visited with Joy Allen and Kim McGuinness, Labour’s excellent police and crime commissioners there. There are also real problems with stolen bikes, and the police are concerned that not enough is being done to help them attack that crime. It appears that off-road bikes are easy to steal, and police tell me their frustrations about the fact that claims on off-road bikes are paid out even if the key is in the ignition. It is quite a niche, technical issue, but if people can leave the key in the ignition and get paid the insurance, it is quite easy for people to steal the bikes, which seems to happen in a lot of areas.
We have seen examples of good work. Simon Foster, the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, has funded three additional off-road bikes for the police—they now have six—and he is increasing the number of trained off-road officers in Northumbria. Kim McGuinness has had great success in clamping down on stolen motorbikes, including by using overhead drones.
Kim Leadbeater
In Batley and Spen, police officers have received the off-road bike training that they need to chase perpetrators, but I was informed recently that officers are now being told that if we want to get more of them trained, they will have to pay for their own licences, which seems wrong. I wonder whether the Minister could look into that and get back to us.
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for her helpful intervention. I am sure the Minister will address that in his speech.
If the people are good enough to put their trust in us, the next Labour Government will put 13,000 extra neighbourhood police and PCSOs on our streets as part of our neighbourhood policing guarantee.
Chris Philp
I hear this 13,000 number a lot. Will the hon. Lady clarify whether that is a redesignation of 13,000 existing police officers, or new police officers in addition to those currently employed?
Sarah Jones
I am sure that the Minister could read our press releases, which explain where the funding will come from, but there will be 3,000 new police officers, 3,000 from the uplift, and the rest will be PCSOs and specials. But the point of our policy—it will not just be about neighbourhood policing—is that we need to have police on our streets, where people can see them. Given that half of all our PCSOs across the country and large numbers of police staff have been cut, officers who should be in our neighbourhoods are now answering phones, dealing with back-office functions and not doing the things that we need them to do.
Peter Gibson
I am all in favour of extra police on the streets, and I welcome the 168 extra officers we have in County Durham, but our Labour police and crime commissioner has closed the custody suite in Darlington, thereby stockpiling millions of pounds and starving the force of officers we could have had in previous years, and in effect turning our officers into taxi drivers to take people to a brand new £20 million custody suite in the centre of a gigantic county. That is a Labour decision in my county.
Sarah Jones
I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. No one wants anything to close. Indeed, it is a great shame that nearly 700 police stations have been closed under this Government. What does that do to a community? Sixty were closed by the previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, when he was Mayor of London. Extraordinary figures.
Labour will crack down on repeat offenders with our new respect orders. We will introduce new town centre patrols and a mandatory antisocial lead for every neighbourhood. We will bring in fixed-penalty cleaning notices and tough penalties for fly-tippers. We will establish clean-up squads in which offenders will clear up the litter, fly-tipping and vandalism that they have caused.
I do not want to go on too long. I ask the Minister to go back to his colleagues about not including antisocial victims in the Bill. Will he look again at recording the data on antisocial behaviour, because the picture is hard to see? What are his views on off-road bikes and does he think we should be going further in helping the police to tackle that problem? Does he support Labour’s new respect orders? And does he support our policy to put more police in our neighbourhoods and on our streets.
Antisocial behaviour is a difficult thing to measure. Our job as politicians is not to find a stat that can prove our point, but to try to make people’s lives better. It is undoubtedly the case that many people’s lives are blighted by antisocial behaviour, and it is undoubtedly the case that we can do more. I hope that the Minister responds in that frame.
Chris Philp
What the hon. Lady is saying is that there is limitation in the police recorded crime figures. That is why the crime survey is considered the authoritative source of data. It does not rely on the public reporting a particular offence; it is essentially a public opinion poll on an enormous scale. The methodology has been the same over many years, which is why the crime survey figures are considered the most reliable.
I was going on to say that even though those ASB figures are going down, whether measured by the crime survey or by police recorded crime, this is a serious issue, as the hon. Lady and Government Members have said. People feel that more needs to be done and that there is too much ASB, and the Government agree with that assessment. That is why, just a few weeks ago, the Government launched their antisocial behaviour action plan, which included £160 million of new additional funding.
Among other things, that extra funding pays for antisocial behaviour hotspot patrols, which will target areas of particular antisocial behaviour. Those hotspots could be in town centres, but they could also be in areas where there is quad biking or trail biking going on. That is being piloted in 10 force areas. I think Lancashire is one of those. I was in Chorley, in Mr Speaker’s constituency, last week, out and about with the very first ASB hotspot patrol in Lancashire. There are going to be 14 other hotspot patrols in Lancashire as it rolls out, as well as in 10 other force areas. In April of next year, every single police force in the country—all 43 of them—will have ASB hotpot patrols funded with over £1 million per force.
We are also funding immediate justice, where those people caught perpetrating antisocial behaviour, including on quad bikes and trail bikes, will within 48 hours be made to do some kind of restorative activity—it could be cleaning graffiti or cleaning up the streets—in branded, high-vis jackets, to make clear to the public and the perpetrators that there are consequences when people commit ASB. Again, there are 10 pilot forces, and by April next year every single police force in the country will have about £1 million each to deliver immediate justice.
The plan has a lot of other elements. It strengthens the provisions in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. There will also be a statutory instrument shortly to ban nitrous oxide, which is a driver of ASB and a serious matter.
Sarah Jones
Out of interest, where has the consultation on nitrous oxide got to? The Minister said that the Government are banning it, but have they gone through the process of consultation?
Chris Philp
There are a couple of stages. The first was to consult the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. We commissioned it back in the autumn and it reported in March. It actually advised us not to ban nitrous oxide, but, unusually, we decided to ban it anyway. It is about the fourth time a Government have disregarded its advice. The last Labour Government disregarded it a couple of times, and this Government have disregarded it a couple of times because we thought it was that serious. In a Westminster Hall debate a few months ago, both Conservative and Labour Members raised concerns about nitrous oxide being a driver of antisocial behaviour. It is genuinely the case that that Westminster Hall debate prompted us to get this done. I know that sometimes these debates are not hugely well attended, but they do lead to change, and that is an example of a Westminster Hall debate actually leading to a substantive change.
Having decided to ban nitrous oxide, we consulted on how to go about doing that with the ACMD and others, and we spoke to various stakeholders. We will create some exemptions for legitimate commercial use, because it is genuinely used for catering purposes and semiconductor manufacture. Clearly, if it is being used for a legitimate commercial, technical or scientific purpose, possession is lawful, but personal consumption and supply for the purpose of commercial consumption will be banned under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. There is a lot in that antisocial behaviour action plan. The Government are taking this seriously. There is money behind it, and we are determined to clamp down on it.
Off-road bikes, trail bikes and so on are obviously a scourge. We heard hon. Members earlier and more recently talk about that. The police already have powers to deal with this, particularly under section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002, which confers a power to seize off-road bikes and vehicles if they are used in an antisocial manner. The definition of an antisocial manner is quite broad, but it could include, for example, using the vehicle in a careless and inconsiderate manner contrary to the Road Traffic Act 1988 or in a manner that causes alarm, distress or annoyance to members of the public.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Jones Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Chris Philp
I agree with the approach that the hon. Lady sets out, and we have already taken action. She asks about long-term plans. She will be aware that the Youth Endowment Fund of £210 million is a 10-year programme, and that violence reduction units—called violence reduction partnerships in some places—have so far received £170 million, and receive funding each and every year, including an allocation this year. The kinds of things that we find work include diversionary activities for young people. In fact, when I asked the chief executive of the YEF what the most effective intervention is, he said that it was cognitive behavioural therapy, which gets used as well. I repeat one statistic that I mentioned earlier: since 2010, violence is down by 41% and criminal damage by 68%.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
A report today found that nearly half of women who experienced or witnessed a crime in the past year chose not to report it because they did not believe that the police would treat it seriously. His Majesty’s inspector, in his latest state of policing report, said that the police were experiencing one of their biggest crises in living memory, there were widespread systematic failings and they were simply not getting the basics right.
Having pushed our British model of policing by consent to the very brink, do the Government take responsibility, do they agree with the inspector that substantial reform is essential, and will they back Labour’s plans to restore neighbourhood policing, halve serious violence and raise confidence in every force—or is the Minister happy to keep twiddling his thumbs while the criminals get away with it?
Chris Philp
I must say, in the gentlest terms, that my constituency neighbour has a bit of cheek to talk about reducing crime, given that according to the crime survey, crime levels under the last Labour Government were around double what they are today. [Interruption.] She shakes her head, but that is from the Office for National Statistics, and it is the only statistically recognised long-term measure of crime. If she does not like the ONS figures, she can go and argue with it. She might not like them, but those are the figures.
In relation to the hon. Lady’s serious question about RASSO—rape and serious sexual offences—particularly on women, the proportion being reported is much higher than it was a few years ago, which is welcome. There is a lot more to do, which is why there is a rape review and a rape action plan. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Miss Dines), are working hard on that. Operation Soteria Bluestone was fully rolled out at the end of June, just a few days ago, and we have seen a significant increase in the number of relevant charges. They are still too low, and they need to be higher, which is why we have invested in more RASSO specialist officers, and that work is continuing.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Jones Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
The Home Secretary rightly said that antisocial behaviour brings misery and menace. As part of local antisocial behaviour plans, neighbourhood and traffic police across the country will rightly be cracking down on speeding and dangerous driving. Does the Home Secretary think that people who speed should be given the option to get private speeding awareness courses, rather than doing them with everyone else, and in her own case, what exactly did she ask her civil servants to help her with?
Suella Braverman
Hopefully we are not going to be too repetitive today, Mr Speaker. As I said earlier, last summer I was speeding. I regret that. I paid the fine and I accepted the points, and at no point did I seek to evade the sanction. But let us be honest about what this is all about. The shadow Minister would rather distract from the abject failure by the Labour party to offer any serious proposals on crime or policing. Labour Members want to talk about this because it distracts from the fact that they voted against tougher sentences for paedophiles and murderers. They want us to ignore the fact that Labour MPs would rather campaign to stop the deportation of foreign criminals than back our Rwanda scheme. They would rather the country does not notice their total abandonment of the British people. This Government are focusing on delivering a record—[Interruption.]