Metropolitan Police: Misogyny and Sexual Harassment

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. I too congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this important debate on International Women’s Day. I want to start with a quick reflection on our meeting yesterday with some of the families of sisters, mothers and daughters who have been murdered at the hands of men. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) brought them to Parliament. What struck me was how many different errors had been made across the system in many of those murders. There was a woman who had a history of domestic abuse, but who had had two glasses of wine, so the man was tried for manslaughter not murder because there was an assumption that she was in some way responsible for what happened to her. There was also somebody who was pushed out of a high block of flats and killed, but the man has not been charged, even though, again, there was a history of domestic abuse, because the assumption was that she may have had some drugs and it was all her own fault.

What strikes me about today’s debate is that when we talk about misogyny and sexual harassment in the police force, it affects not just those who were affected immediately by that incident, but the way we do policing across the board. There are so many cases where assumptions have been made about women because of ingrained misogyny and sexism and where that has led to them being murdered by their partners, when those partners should have been locked up years before. People are getting away with murder when they should be locked up, because of how the police are thinking about things and approaching their investigations. This is therefore an incredibly important debate.

We have seen a series of issues in the Met police over the last year, which sadly do not just touch on misogyny but go wider. Obviously, we had the events of last year and the horrific murder of Sarah, and others have spoken of what happened in the case of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman. We have had the Daniel Morgan inquiry, which suggested institutional corruption in the Metropolitan police, and the Stephen Port inquiry, which, although inconclusive, certainly showed unconscious bias against people who are gay, and where assumptions were again made about their deaths. There are clearly cultural problems in the force.

Others have made the point that the problem goes beyond the Metropolitan police, and that is important because if we focus just on the Met, we miss problems across the country. There have been instances of misogyny and sexual violence in other forces, such as West Mercia and Dorset. We have seen the inappropriate use of social media in Sussex, Hampshire, Leicestershire and Police Scotland, so these issues are not confined to the Met. There is also a wider problem of violence against women and girls, which hon. Members have touched on today, including the very low level of prosecutions for rape and the number of women who just walk away from the system because they cannot cope with the delays and problems we have seen.

I want to focus on some of the solutions, and a lot of them come from Operation Hotton, which we have talked about. What is interesting is not just how it identified bullying, aggressive behaviour, discrimination, toxic masculinity and the banter used to excuse offensive behaviour, but its focus on the way the force was structured, which enabled that misogyny to occur. It focused on the nature of the work—the shift patterns, the isolation and this business of people acting up in an unofficial capacity, so that behaviours were completely unchallenged, which is key to some of the reforms we need to see.

We also heard of demeaning and intimidating actions towards police officers on probation, such as beckoning them with a bell or threatening to cut their hair or take their belongings; officers being shouted at; and women being sexually harassed or treated as the “weary female” when they raise issues. These things are all to do with leadership and management within the force, as well as the misogyny. I know we are talking about misogyny and sexual harassment, but the report also showed horrific racism and homophobia. It was the culture that enabled horrific behaviour across the board, and that is what we need to look at.

My questions for the Minister are therefore around what is going to be done about this. I think that everybody here thinks that something needs to be done. The Government have set up a couple of inquiries, which I am sure the Minister will talk about, but we need to go further and faster, and act more. With policing issues, the Home Office sometimes has a tendency to say, “This is a terrible thing and must not happen,” but it has a key role in leading a change in approach from the top, to make sure that these things do not continue.

We need to look at how we vet police officers. The 250-page document on how we vet them shows that they are vetted for their propensity to be blackmailed: do they have problems with their finances, or problems that would allow them to be blackmailed? The vetting is not good enough on who they are, what they have said on social media over the last five years, what they think and whether they should be with vulnerable people. Our vetting needs to be looked at.

Police training needs to be overhauled. Officers need ongoing training throughout their careers, including on anti-racism and on tackling violence against women and girls. When officers are first trained, they are not specifically trained on violence against women and girls, and we think they should be. We also need to end the inappropriate use of social media, which has come up time and again in all the incidents in the Met. The Government should look at taking action against those private WhatsApp messages.

We have the Dame Angiolini inquiry. The Labour party has called for it to be on a statutory footing, so that it has the powers it needs to go everywhere it needs to go. I ask the Minister to look at that.

[Ms Abbott]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it should be clearer to serving police officers that engaging in misogynistic or racist behaviour will be a bar to recruitment? Of the officers involved in the Charing Cross scandal, two have already been promoted.

[Sarah Jones]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I have talked to the police about that issue and about whether misconduct proceedings, which I was about to come to, need to be improved.

Swift action needs to be taken. When there is misconduct, there are quite a lot of delays in the process. We need to make sure that there are clear management processes to stop misconduct being seen as “banter”. If someone is misogynistic—if it is clear from their social media what their views are—they have no place in the police. We hold our police to higher standards than other professions—quite rightly. That is what the police want; they want to be held to those standards, because they want policing by consent. They need the public to trust them, and that is what they would call for, too. We also need to look at whistleblowing procedures. I have spoken to police officers who say, “We have quite a good whistleblowing procedure, because some people come forward.” Actually, it is not working as it should, and we need to look at it again.

There are wider issues that would help the culture of the police, such as having specialist rape and sexual assault units in each police force, so that the force is more expert. We need to look at the number of women in policing. Only a third of Metropolitan police officers are women, and that changes the culture. As we know, and as hon. Members have said today, having more women in Parliament means that we have better debates, better policy making and better laws. In the same way, the Metropolitan police and other police forces would be better with more women.

There are many other issues we could talk about. My main point is that there are a series of practical actions that need to be taken—not just in the Met, but beyond—and it is the Government’s role to look at those. I thank all the women who have contributed, and our honourable male contributor, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I am honoured to be in a room of very powerful women whom I admire hugely and who have all made, in their own ways, excellent contributions today. They reflect how the House of Commons is shifting towards more powerful women and a better conversation. We need to make sure that the Metropolitan police and the wider police force do the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my right hon. Friend for pressing me on that matter. Again, I will just add to my comments that where possible we expect those hearings to be held in public. And let the message go out from this Chamber that we expect transparency from the police in dealing with these issues.

We all hold it to our hearts that it is unacceptable that women and girls continue to face fear, violence and abuse. Crimes such as domestic abuse, rape, stalking and so-called honour-based abuse and harassment are far too common. That is why we published our Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls strategy last July—to drive a step change in our response.

Regarding the work we are doing, a number of structures, led by the Home Secretary and a number of Ministers across Government, are involved in driving the work of those structures. We have discussed that work on multiple occasions with Members who are here today and with others, and I think we will discuss it again this afternoon.

In the time that I have left, I will just highlight some of the work we are doing, because this is a landmark moment and we have stepped up to act in response to it. We appointed Maggie Blyth immediately to ensure there is co-ordinated action nationally across the police forces, and we amended the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to make it clear that the serious violence duty can include domestic abuse and sexual offences.

Last week we launched Enough., a national communications campaign. It is a multi-million-pound and multi-year campaign in response to the calls of campaigners—both in Parliament and outside Parliament, on the front line—to say that we have to tackle this issue at source and that we have to make it clear that it is not okay; we have had enough of being harassed on the streets. We want to take the onus away from it being on the woman or girl to call harassment out and stop it from happening in the first place. That is why we are driving this campaign and investing significant amounts of cash in it. Many Members were at the launch event for Enough. and they welcomed the campaign. It has also been widely applauded by campaigners across the country.

We have spent significant amounts of money on various schemes, investing in measures to keep women safe at night in the night-time economy, on public transport and in public spaces—issues we have discussed many times in Westminster Hall. We have also awarded significant funding to police and crime commissioners across the country for programmes to tackle perpetrators of domestic abuse and stalking.

The major point that I will take a moment to reflect on—again, this was called for by many Opposition MPs and campaigners—is that we put violence against women and girls on a par with national threats to the country, such as homicide, serious organised crime, terrorism and child sex abuse. That is why we made the announcement just last week that we will add violence against women and girls to the strategic policing requirement. That sends a clear and unequivocal message that these crimes must be a priority for forces and must be taken seriously, and that the full effort and resources of the police—indeed, the whole criminal justice system—must respond in an appropriate fashion.

There is a lot more that we are doing in this space.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I just wanted to draw to her attention a major report that is being published this morning by Sir Michael Barber and the Policing Foundation, which is considering police reform. I know that the Minister has listed actions she is taking in relation to violence against women and girls, but in terms of police reform Sir Michael Barber and the Police Foundation are suggesting that police officers should have a licence to practise that is renewed every five years, and that if someone is not good enough they cannot remain in the police. I am not suggesting that that is anybody’s policy yet, but there are some interesting structural reforms that the report’s authors are considering. It has taken them two years to do this big piece of work. It is really excellent and it will contain some sensible things that perhaps the Minister could look at.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing that to my attention. I have a lot of respect for Sir Michael Barber and the work he is doing, and of course I will take time to study the report. If there are sensible proposals in it we will look at them, because we all want the police to fix these issues. We cannot go on with the situation in this country where the police force does not command the respect or the trust of over half the population. Nowhere is it more appropriate for me to say that than here, in this place, on International Women’s Day, with a passionate group of female and male MPs, although the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has left the Chamber.

HMICFRS Recommendations

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her statement, a copy of which we received 15 minutes before it was made. You might think, Mr Speaker, that with the machinery of government at their disposal Ministers could follow the normal practice and give the statement to us a little sooner than that, but I thank her for the statement in any case.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Have I heard the shadow Minister correctly that she got the statement only 15 minutes beforehand?

[Sarah Jones]

It was at 12.15 pm, and we thought the statement was starting at 12.30 pm.

[Mr Speaker]

That is not acceptable. I say to the Minister and to the officials in the box: why has this happened? It totally goes against the rule. Copies of statements should arrive at least 45 minutes before they are made. I cannot understand. If we were told that this statement was due, there must have been enough time to make sure that the Opposition could, quite rightly, hold the Government to account. Back Benchers also need to hold the Government to account, but the statement should be led equally by both sides of the House.

[Rachel Maclean]

Mr Speaker, may I offer my full and wholehearted apology for the failure to follow those processes? There has been a failure. I apologise to the shadow Minister, I apologise to you, Mr Speaker, and I apologise to the whole House. I will personally take it upon myself at the highest levels of the Department to find out what went wrong in this instance, and I am very happy to answer questions at any time.

[Sarah Jones]

May I say that that was an exercise in making a very good apology? I appreciate it very much.

On so many measures around violence against women and girls, we are sadly going in the wrong direction. Confidence in the police to tackle violence against women and girls is falling; the rape charge rate is staggeringly low and going backwards, at just 1.3%; the police recorded a total of 845,734 domestic abuse-related crimes in 2021, and we know that domestic violence skyrocketed during the pandemic, with 260,000 abuse offences between March and June alone. More and more victims are dropping out of the system, unable to cope with the intrusion and the delays.

The damning report of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire & rescue services into the police response to violence against women and girls should have been a wake-up call. Zoë Billingham told us clearly that we cannot stand aside and let violence against women and girls continue, and it must not be left to women and girls to make that happen.

We welcome the Government’s saying today that they will make tackling violence against women and girls a strategic police requirement—but why on earth have they waited until now to do it? They could have done it straight away when the report was published. The scale of the response is still far too small. Nothing the Government are saying does anything for offender management. The Government must set out a plan for how exactly perpetrators will be interrupted.

The inspectorate’s report was clear that far more needs to be done to identify and manage high-harm and serial offenders against women and girls. Some of the offenders in cases reviewed by the inspectorate had offended against eight or nine different victims. That is completely unacceptable. Far too many dangerous perpetrators are being allowed to offend again and again; criminals are being let off and the victims are being let down. We welcome the expansion of Operation Soteria, but why not do that for every force—why only 14?

Members across the House will have read about the tragic case of a woman killed by her ex-husband in Maida Vale. She had reported multiple incidents of domestic abuse and a stalking prevention order had been put in place, but the lack of proper perpetrator management meant that she lost her life. At least two fifths of police forces in England and Wales do not have specialist RASSO—rape and serious sexual offences—units, even though specialist support and advice to victims is vital in reducing victim drop-out. The Government are refusing to back Labour’s calls to require RASSO units in every police force area. Will the Government now commit to putting a RASSO unit in every police force area, and if not, why not, when we know that they work?

The joint thematic inspection of the police and CPS’s response to rape says that the provision of victims services varies wildly throughout police forces and CPS areas. Rape victims should be given a legal advocate who sees the victim through the whole process so that fewer people drop out. What are the Government’s plans to ensure that victim support is consistent across the country? Will the Government commit to giving rape victims a legal advocate? The Government should be doing everything at their disposal to raise the priority of the police and CPS’s response to violence against women and girls.

The Government have the power to act and make this period one of profound change, and to lead a transformation to make our streets safer for women and girls. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) has repeatedly asked when the Home Secretary will implement the recommendations of Zoë Billingham’s report in full, so we welcome the fact that the Government have finally committed to accepting the report’s recommendations, but why did it need to take this long? Will the Minister commit to coming back to this House to provide a timeline for the report’s implementation?

The time for warm words has long passed. Now is the time for Government to work together, across Departments, to tackle this epidemic of violence wherever it arises, be it in the criminal justice system, in schools, in our homes or on our streets.

[Rachel Maclean]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s response to the fact that we have made this momentous change and added the issue of violence against women and girls to the strategic police requirement. I think she has broadly welcomed this very important step. It is vital to point out to the House how significant it is: it is putting crimes of violence against women and girls on a par with terrorism, serious violence and drug offences. That is an enormous change to the policing operation in this country. Members across the House will, I am sure, reflect on the fact that policing in this country is independent from Government, so it is vital that we work across the entire system to make sure that the police have the funding, the resources and the legal powers they need to do their job. This Government have put record funding into the police, supporting them with an uplift programme of £15.9 billion and recruiting additional officers to be able to tackle these crimes wherever they occur. We are absolutely focused on driving out these crimes from our society.

I noticed that the hon. Lady did not refer to the communications campaign that we launched last night. That is a shame. I would be grateful if she could confirm, as I think she is doing, that she will share that widely with all her colleagues. In that room last night, there were charities, campaigners, victims of extremely serious crimes and people who have worked on the frontline, and they told us that they have been calling for exactly such a campaign for decades. Education is vital. We need to make it as unacceptable to be calling out and harassing women and girls on the streets as it is to drive without a seatbelt. Today we are taking the first step to doing that, and I know that everybody in the House will welcome it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

With the greatest respect, I think the hon. Lady completely mischaracterises the Government’s comprehensive, sweeping, serious and well-funded response to violence against women and girls, which she has heard me and the Home Secretary refer to earlier in this session. On the specific issue she raises, I highlight the fact that the police are recording more crimes of violence against women and girls, and there is an increased willingness of victims to come forward because of the work we and the criminal justice system have done. There is always more to do, but crime reporting in the VAWG sector is up by 12% to September 2021 on the same period of the prior year.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

We have heard lots of words on strategies, taskforces, roundtables and action plans, yet many victims will never see justice, and more and more criminals are getting away with it. The House of Lords has voted to introduce a new crime of sex for rent, which Labour Members support and will be voting for tonight. Will the Minister back us?

[Rachel Maclean]

My colleague the Policing Minister will be speaking to that amendment later, and we will be consulting on this specific issue. However, I want to highlight that there are already offences on the statute book to tackle this particular abhorrent form of behaviour.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

Obviously the Bedfordshire police and crime commissioner is doing a fantastic job. He won a resounding victory in the recent election, and I know he continues to enjoy significant support in that county. As I hope the hon. Gentleman has heard me say in the past, we are committed to coming up with a new funding formula for policing. The formula we use at the moment is a little bit elderly and creaky. He will be pleased to hear that I had a meeting just this morning with the chair of the new technical body that is putting that work together. We hope to be able to run the formula before the next election.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

The Minister has brushed off criticisms from the Labour Benches, but is he aware of the disquiet on his own Benches? Only last week, Conservative MPs lined up in Westminster Hall to describe a broken system that is

“stacked in favour of the perpetrators rather than the victims.”—[Official Report, 12 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 258WH.]

One said:

“Across the UK there are people afraid to leave their homes after dark, scared to go to the shops…That cannot go on…The police quite simply do not have the powers or resources.”—[Official Report, 12 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 257-8WH.]

We agree. That is why neighbourhood policing is at the heart of our new proposals. We will put a police hub in every new community, create neighbourhood prevention teams and fund a next generation of neighbourhood watch. I wonder whether the Minister has anything new to say to his own disaffected Back Benchers, or is crime simply not “red meat” enough for the “big dog”?

[Kit Malthouse]

Hilarious. I understand the hon. Lady is playing catch-up on policing, and she may have missed the 11,000 police officers we have recruited so far. She may have missed the significant falls in knife crime, acquisitive crime and all neighbourhood-type crimes, as we have seen recently. Policing and fighting crime are a challenge, as I know more than most. It is always two steps forward, one step back. It is right that hon. Members on all sides should be anxious and concerned about crime in their constituencies, but that is why we are recruiting 20,000 police officers, why the Prime Minister has made crime a priority and why he wants to roll up county lines and deal with youth violence. This is a fight that we can win, but over time. While we are having some success as it stands, there is always much more to do.

Youth Crime and Antisocial Behaviour

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Robertson; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on securing the debate, which has been interesting; I agreed with virtually everything he said. Antisocial behaviour has been trivialised, downplayed and dismissed in recent times. He said that we have a moral obligation to ensure that every child gets the opportunities they need to make the best of their life, that this is about more than just policing—it is about schools, local authorities and youth work—and that enough is enough. I think he will get a shock when he realises that his party has been in government for the last 11 years and has caused significant cuts that have driven a lot of the problems we face today.

I congratulate all hon. Members on their speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) talked about the impact of covid, which is really important in how we look at this issue. The hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) talked about youth workers and how important they are, and we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) just now about the impact of cuts to youth work across the country. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) is such a fantastic campaigner on county lines and has been for a long time, and I add to her plea for the Government to look at the issue of defining child criminal exploitation. As it happens, an amendment calling for a definition is going through the House of Lords as we speak, so there is an opportunity in the Lords for the Government to support my hon. Friend’s cause, and we would welcome that.

The hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) represents an interesting area; some good progress has been made on county lines in East Anglia. It is one of the only areas in the country where there has been some progress, but there is still a lot to be done. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) spoke about the wonderful police and crime commissioner, Kim McGuinness, and the work she is doing. I was up there just before Christmas and worked with her; I went to St James’s Park and saw the wonderful youth work the football club is doing to try to ensure that people have opportunities. The hon. Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) represents an important part of the country; a lot of the problems that are being debated now existed 20 years ago when I was working for Mo Mowlam.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) spoke movingly, as always, about the really big challenges we face with youth violence, which I have in my constituency as well. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) talked about those massively long waiting times. We cannot expect our young people to understand justice when the justice system does not work; it makes no sense and it cannot be done. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about council workers and the importance of tackling antisocial behaviour through local councils. Of course, our local councils have been absolutely decimated, so that is very difficult. Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby told a personal story about how important youth work is. I think we all collectively agree with all of that.

I am pleased to follow so many good speeches. Since becoming an MP, I have spent five years campaigning against knife crime, and in my role as shadow Policing Minister I have been around the country in the past few months, looking at antisocial behaviour and seeing a lot of the issues. We can see how antisocial behaviour, which is defined as low-level but which I do not think is low-level at all, can spread and become more serious crime over time, exactly as hon. Members have said.

Everyone has a basic right to be safe in their community. Sadly, after the past 11 years our streets have become less safe. We have talked about prosecution rates; criminals are literally getting away with it under this Government. Only 6.5% of all crimes—a little over one in 20—lead to a prosecution, and the charge rate has halved over the past five years. Those figures are extraordinary. Criminals can pretty much get away with it.

[Ms Lyn Brown]

They have never had it so good.

[Sarah Jones]

Exactly. Whether people live in the city or in the country, they worry about their kids going out on the streets and getting into drugs. People can go online and buy any drug they want; on the “Today” programme only this morning, Claire Campbell spoke about her son, who died of an overdose after buying drugs online. There is a whole world of problems. Police struggle because they have to become social workers due to the impact of mental health cuts and the like. Serious organised criminals have got a real grip, and the UK is Europe’s largest heroin market—I think that statistic is extraordinary and shows how much work we have to do.

Antisocial behaviour is up 7% in the past year, with 1.8 million incidents recorded. To say that it is ignored by this Government is an understatement. There is no way of measuring the problem because it does not form part of the statistics under the Home Office’s counting rules. The way local authorities treat antisocial behaviour varies: some areas are good, while some are hopeless. I have made a series of freedom of information requests; I will not go into them all now, because they will come out shortly, but one council had 248 recorded incidents of antisocial behaviour and did 150 investigations, which resulted in no enforcement action whatever. Some boroughs really are struggling to do anything, and some are doing good things.

When I was going around the country, I saw a lot of good activity on antisocial behaviour. Rhyl was a particular favourite: for a start, there are more police community support officers on the street there, because the Welsh Government have funded more PCSOs over and above Government funding and they are crucial to preventing antisocial behaviour. There was a wonderful project with people you would describe as hoodlums out on the street, doing whatever they were doing. Youth workers went out to where they were, got involved with them and got them involved in sport. They took them up Snowdon, which was completely out of their comfort zone—they had not done anything like that before—and now they are doing their Duke of Edinburgh’s award. It was a complete transformation—how wonderful.

I went to see the Peel project in Hull. A park had become a horrible place for antisocial behaviour, with drug taking and kids hanging around, but the police gave a local organisation some shipping containers. It put a load of sports stuff in and based a little office in the park, and now the park is now a lovely place where people do sport and come together because there are adults, some structure and some things to do. It is not rocket science, but in so many places it is simply not done because the funding is not there.

Let me move on to youth crime. A 15-year-old boy, Zaian, was murdered in my constituency just before new year’s eve in the park I used to play in. On the same day, another boy became the 30th teenager to be murdered in London last year. Research from the organisation Crest shows that between 2014 and 2019 there was a 56% rise in knife possession offences for 10 to 17-year-olds, which is extraordinary. The organisation says that those who commit robbery and use weapons before the age of 18 are much more likely to have long criminal careers than young people who commit less serious crimes. Arrests of 10 to 17-year-olds make up a growing proportion of arrests for robbery—the statistics go on.

Anne Longfield, who was such a brilliant Children’s Commissioner, brought out a report this week that shows that spending on early intervention has reduced by almost two thirds over the past 10 years. What can we do with a third of what we had before? We know that these problems start young, and the Sutton Trust tells us that 1,000 family centres closed over the same period. Youth services were cut by about 40%—and by much more in some parts of the country—and the number of children given treatment by child and adolescent mental health services was massively reduced and they had to wait for long periods. We know what the problems are.

On top of that we can add the fact that we have so few police officers compared with what we need. Some 50% of PCSOs have been cut, and the Government have no plans to bring any of them back. We are still 10,000 short of the number of officers we used to have and, as was pointed out, a lot of officers are spending time doing other roles because of the cuts to police staff.

Labour says that there is nothing more important than keeping people safe, and we have a plan to provide new police hubs that will be visible in every community as a place where the public can go and talk to the police and other agencies in person. We will have new neighbourhood prevention teams to bring together the police, community support officers, youth workers and local authority staff to tackle crime. These teams would prioritise being visible and would pursue serial perpetrators of antisocial behaviour.

I appreciate that I need to end my speech, but I will just ask the Minister a series of questions. Will she consider bringing back the 50% of PCSOs we have lost? Will she speak to the request from the hon. Member for Stockton South for antisocial behaviour to be measured nationally in a better way? Will she address the request from my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham for child criminal exploitation to become a priority, and will she look at tackling crime and antisocial behaviour with real force from the Home Office? The Home Office too often blames local police forces and does not provide leadership, and often it is not one step ahead of the criminals but one step behind. We need real leadership from the Home Office and cross-Government working to tackle these very significant and increasing problems.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend strongly represents the views of his constituents. None of us likes to see that type of low-level disruptive crime, which has a devastating impact on communities. I thank him for championing his police force. Our neighbourhood crime plan is an integral part of tackling such crimes.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Antisocial behaviour is blighting communities: it has gone up by a woeful 70% across the country in the last year. Since the Conservatives took power, twice as many people say that they never see a police officer on the street. The Leader of the House said:

“I have often found…that a quiet word from a police community support officer can nip…antisocial behaviour in the bud.”—[Official Report, 13 May 2021; Vol. 695, c. 273.]

We totally agree. Will the Minister restore some of the 50% of PCSOs whose posts the Government have cut?

Before the Minister says that she is recruiting 20,000 officers, let me point out that we know that only 400 of the first tranche of 6,000 are in neighbourhood roles. Will she give victims of antisocial behaviour the same rights as other crime victims—if the Government ever get round to publishing the victims Bill—or do they still think that what she describes as “low-level” antisocial behaviour is not worth tackling?

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Lady has taken my words out of context. Neighbourhood crime encompasses a vast spectrum of crimes that have a considerable impact on local communities, as I made clear at the Dispatch Box earlier. Those are a range of crimes that are at the centre of the Government’s response in our beating crime plan. We have made it clear that increasing the number of police officers on the beat is a priority. We are already more than halfway through our plan to deliver an additional 20,000 police officers on the street. The neighbourhood crime plan is part of our plan. It is for local forces to determine the operational priorities in their areas.

Tackling Knife Crime

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. Apologies for my tardiness at the start, coming in a bit late. I had made the schoolboy error of going to Westminster Hall itself, but of course we are not there.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) on securing this debate and on her speech. I congratulate everyone who has spoken on the knowledgeable and thoughtful way in which they approached a difficult topic. It is easy to have a sense of moral panic, which does not lead to solutions. I hope that the Minister has listened to everything that has been said by Members today on what needs to be done.

Practical measures, for example, include what my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) said about bleed control kits. I have heard about and seen that campaign, and I have talked to Emily Spurrell about the great job that she will do and about the support that she needs. My hon. Friend and all Members present are doing an incredible job on behalf of their constituents, trying to reduce violence. That has to be the first job of us as politicians, to keep people safe. What more important job do we have?

We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) and for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) who, like me, are from south London constituencies and have particular issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East talked about relationships with the black community. It is of course incredibly important to understand that although I might feel that if something happens to me I can go to the police as my place of safety, there are communities that do not feel that. That needs to be fixed.

I pay tribute to my police force in Croydon. Every single week on Friday morning, the community and the police meet. They have built relationships ever since the death of George Floyd, to the point where there is a new trust and respect on both sides and a much better approach to things like handcuffing during stop and search. On that front, some brilliant activities by the police are going on. We need to harness and replicate those.

I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall, who now chairs the APPG, which I founded and was absolutely my baby for three years; these things are so important. She is doing a brilliant job keeping up the campaign.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made an interesting speech. He was talking about what I was talking to some police officers about the other day: people who are in the Scouts learn how to use pocket knives. People should learn how to use knives and what the implications might be, the knock-on impact, of using them wrongly and stabbing somebody. Many young people I have met have no concept of what might happen if they stab someone in the leg. They think, “They will be fine”, but of course they are not—the chances are, they will die. If we had more uniformed organisations teaching people how dangerous those things are, but how to use them safely, we might have a slightly different approach to some of the issues.

The spokesperson for the SNP, the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans), talked about the Scottish approach, which I know well. I visited and spent a long time with people from the violence reduction unit in Scotland and with others in America who have done similar things. The public health approach is absolutely the right one. There is plenty of evidence, which the Government are yet to pick up or act on, sadly.

Yesterday, I was with a senior police officer who said to me, “We are in a perfect storm. We have had years of cuts to services.” My hon. Friend the Member for Luton North, I think, said that the children who suffered the cuts 10 years ago are now the teenagers who are involved in knife crime, and that is exactly what the police officer was saying to me yesterday. He added that, on top of that, we have had a year and a half of covid restrictions with people in lockdown. Now potentially we face a summer of violence.

Knife crime reached its highest level on record in 2019-20, at more than 50,000 offences. That is an extraordinary number, which has doubled since 2013-14, when there were 25,000 offences. Between 2010-11 and 2019-20, knife crime rose in every single police force in the country. Since 2014, there has been a 72% increase in the number of 16 to 18-year-olds admitted to accident and emergency for knife wounds and the most common age group for victims of homicide recorded in the year ending March 2020 was 16 to 24-year-olds. That was followed by 25 to 34-year-olds. While the effects of lockdown saw a fall at the beginning of the year ending September 2020, there were still 47,119 offences: an average of 120 knife crimes a day.

Last week, the UK’s anti-slavery commissioner found that for the first time more children than adults were identified as potential modern slavery victims last year. The commissioner’s annual report found that of the 10,689 potential victims referred to the national referral mechanism, 4,849 were children. The unrelenting rise, which Members have discussed today, in county-lines drug dealing, where criminal gangs exploit children, is fuelling violence. and the Government are simply not doing enough to stamp down on criminal drug gangs. The Minister for Crime and Policing said last November:

“Back in the early part of the previous decade, we thought we had beaten knife crime, but unfortunately it is back.”—[Official Report, 9 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 595.]

He may be good at acknowledging that there is a serious problem with serious violence in this country, but not so good at actually doing something about it.

More than 20 teenagers have been killed in London this year and many more have had their lives cut short across the country. How many children will die before the Government recognise this as the violent epidemic that it is? I came into the House in 2017 determined to tackle the scourge of rising levels of serious violence. I set up and chaired the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime, and it is very sad to be speaking in the House today when yet another young life has been lost in my constituency. Two weeks ago, a 16-year-old boy called Camron Smith was murdered in his own home in front of his mother in a horrific murder that could have been avoided.

Last week in the Chamber, I asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), whether the Government would commit to helping every vulnerable child this summer. She replied by saying that they were doing that through increased investment through the Department for Education funding over the summer, but that funding is limited. It amounts to a few pennies per child and excludes a large number of children who might otherwise need safeguarding support. The Government’s education recovery proposals are one tenth of Labour’s offer and, unlike Labour, contain no money for breakfast clubs or extra-curricular activities. The Under-Secretary referred to the Youth Endowment Fund, which is welcome, but it is £200 million over 10 years. Again, statistically, if we look at the number of children we need to help, that sum is small fry in comparison with what is needed.

I do not need to repeat the level of cuts to youth services that we have seen over this period of government, as well as the cuts to local government, policing, police staff, domestic-abuse risk officers and forensic officers. We have not just lost police officers on the beat; we have lost the whole apparatus behind that of people who actually help prevent and solve crime. We have 8,000 fewer police staff now than we did 10 years ago and more than 7,000 fewer police community support officers. We know that PCSOs were a key link between communities and the police: people we know, see and understand, and we and know their names. We have a relationship with them and they might talk to someone’s mother if that person got into trouble. That has been decimated by the Government.

We have heard many solutions and I think we would all be happy to sit down with the Minister and talk about those further. We know it is possible to reduce violence. As the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans) says, violence is not inevitable. We know that things can be done. We know that knife crime goes in peaks and troughs and when there are interventions, violence goes down. However, those interventions need to be long term and rooted in communities.

It is important that the Government, local authorities, the police and the voluntary sector are able to join together to prevent, recognise and respond to violence. Central to that is the need to prevent the criminalisation of children, as well as early intervention to prevent young people from becoming involved in violence in the first place. So many cases of youth violence tell the same sad story in which the victim and the young person inflicting violence have both had adverse childhood experiences.

We need to look to authorities such as Lambeth Council. Over the summer, Lambeth has taken the approach of identifying the most vulnerable children—the 100 most vulnerable, say—who are at risk of getting involved in crime or who are already involved in crime. The council has a plan for what each of those children will be doing over the summer and where—for example, this week, that child will be going to this activity; the following week, they will go to that one, and so on. That is a really interesting and important approach, and one that we can look at replicating. The amount of money that we spend on interventions with our young people— social care, council and police interventions over the years—is probably absolutely extortionate, but all those interventions do not actually amount to the protection we need to give those children so that they are not getting involved in crime.

It is time that we looked at the justice system and sentencing. That is a really difficult area because we are talking about children. We know that prison is not the answer, but the police would say that if a vulnerable and exploited child becomes involved in a criminal gang, and he carries a knife, no one will tell the police, so they do not know. If he stabs someone in the leg as part of the criminal activity, that person will go to hospital, but no one will tell the police, so they do not know. If he then gets caught with a knife, the police know, but there is no intervention to take him out of that situation. He will be referred to the youth offending team and there might be some kind of intervention.

This is very difficult, but I know of cases where young people have been caught carrying knives and, because there was no intervention at that point, they have gone on either to commit murder or to be murdered themselves. This conversation is very difficult because they are young children. Of course, we need to do all the prevention and intervention, but we also need to think about when we do it. I know of a case where somebody was caught carrying a 3-foot zombie knife and nothing happened as a result. I think the Minister needs to look at that.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

That is exactly what knife crime prevention orders are for.

[Sarah Jones]

As well as prevention, at some point, we need to think about wrapping our arms around those people. I do not think that knife crime prevention orders are the answer, but they are being piloted. [Interruption.] The Minister talks about them from a sedentary position. He announced them with great fanfare in the middle of the knife-crime panic a couple of years ago, but nothing has actually happened yet. They are being piloted now, two years after they were talked about as the answer to everything. I am just saying that we need to have a conversation about the pathway and about exactly what happens to young people when they come to the attention of the police.

As I said in the Chamber last week, our summer holidays should be full of opportunities, including youth work, mentorship programmes, sports clubs, mental health support, as well as good neighbourhood policing, of course. In the medium term, we need proper wraparound support for at-risk children, including different housing when it is needed—moving people away from the area where they are susceptible to violence is a huge issue—people to talk to, mentoring, and proper youth services. In the longer term, we need to completely change the way that we tackle violence. The Government need to do more work in schools to better detect, prevent and eliminate violence, and they need to work with the NHS to properly treat the epidemic and immunise our society.

Under this Government, criminals are getting away with it, pathways to crime are wide open, and our children are being exploited by criminal thugs and groomed into violence. Our justice system is not taking the right response, and our Government are not taking the problem seriously. My question to the Minister is: where is the emergency summer plan to stop our children fighting and murdering one another over the summer holidays, and how does he plan to stop riots over the summer? Knife crime prevention orders have not been piloted yet; the education recovery plan is one tenth of what it needs to be; the Youth Endowment Fund is spread super-thin over 20 years; and the summer activities fund amounts to pennies per child. We need action. The scale of the problem needs to be matched by a proper response, because at the moment, drug use is rising, crime is rising, and the Government have no summer plan.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Minister, it is your opportunity. You have lots of issues to respond to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

They have been through significant scrutiny. Obviously, they will be rolled out subject to evaluation, as we are doing with knife crime prevention orders. As the hon. Lady said, we are piloting those at the moment in London. Those orders have both a positive and a negative impact. For example, somebody subject to a knife crime prevention order can be stopped from going into Croydon town centre, but at the same time in the same order be required to attend an anger management course or some kind of training course—some positive activity that would steer them in the right direction. We will look at any innovation that comes forward and pilot it and try it. Such is the urgency of the problem that there is no monopoly on ideas; we should be willing to try everything.

We can also do more to remove knives. Last week, we commenced the provisions of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, bringing in a ban on a range of knives and other weapons: specific firearms; cyclone knives, which are a sort of spiral knife—Members may have seen those deeply unpleasant weapons for sale online—and rapid-fire rifles. Anyone who possesses these weapons could now face up to 10 years in prison. We think that this ban will help save lives and get more weapons off the street. Certainly, as part of the surrender programme, enormous numbers of these weapons have been surrendered to us.

Although I understand the desire of Members present to push the Government to ever greater efforts, I would like to reassure everybody that there is an enormous amount of effort and commitment going in, both at the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, and more widely at the Department for Education and among all those partners who are required to drive down this problem. I know that there has been a lot of challenge this afternoon about the amount of resources going in. I just point out that when I was deputy Mayor of London dealing with a knife crime epidemic back in 2008, that was when spending under Gordon Brown was at an all-time high. Police officer numbers were similarly high and there were youth groups all over the place. Yet still our young people were stabbing each other in great numbers. The connection between knife crime and social structure is not as simple as people sometimes portray.

[Sarah Jones]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kit Malthouse]

No, because I am running out of time.

I finish by posing a question. We think this is a priority and we are putting enormous effort into it, but the challenge has been made that the issue is very much about poverty. What if it were the case that violence causes poverty, not poverty, as a number of Members have alleged, that causes violence, and that our job, in order to create prosperity in Luton, Vauxhall and everywhere else, is to clear that violence out of the way so people can build the lives for themselves and their children that they deserve?

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady rightly raises the names of those who have been murdered in her constituency, and of course our thoughts go to the families and friends affected by that. Of course, serious violence does not just affect the individual family; it affects the whole community. That is why we are taking this whole-system approach: very tough law enforcement, but critically, also trying to intervene at an early stage to help young people to avoid gangs, which will have an impact on the streets more widely. That is why the serious violence duty is so very important. I really hope that, on the next occasion the Labour party has to vote in support of the serious violence duty, it takes the opportunity to do so. Working together with schools, hospitals, other healthcare agencies, the police and local authorities is how we are going to help ensure that the sorts of incidents she describes do not happen again.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

As we have been watching the incredible achievements of the England football team, the epidemic of violence on our streets has been growing, with younger and younger boys losing their lives in horrific murders, including a 16-year-old we are mourning in my constituency. Many of our football heroes had tough upbringings and have spoken out about the importance of role models and mentors—adults in their lives who helped them unlock their talent. I want all our young people to be able to unlock their talent, including that small group of vulnerable people at risk of being gripped by crime, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) says, many of those adults—in youth work, in education, in social care, in the health service—have disappeared following a decade of extreme cuts. Our summer holidays should be flooded with youth work, mentorship programmes, sports clubs and mental health support, as well, of course, as good neighbourhood policing. The scale of the problem deserves an appropriate response, so will the Government today recognise the potential of our whole nation and commit to helping every vulnerable child this summer?

[Victoria Atkins]

May I join the hon. Lady in acknowledging the sportsmanship, the talents, the dignity and the joy that the English football team have brought so many people over the tournament? They have been the very best of us; and they have been the very best of us while facing some horrific abuse—absolutely horrific racist abuse—during the tournament, and that is not acceptable.

The hon. Lady is quite right to raise the question of role models. I know from my own son’s adoration of many of the England footballers just what powerful role models many of those footballers are to younger people. Sadly, of course, we cannot incorporate a Sterling or a Harry Kane into every youth project, but what we can do is build the structures around them. That is precisely what we are doing, with increased investment both through the Department for Education funding over the summer and through our own work in funds such as the trusted relationships fund, which is helping young people to build positive relationships with positive role models. I join the hon. Lady’s cri de coeur that we should pay full credit and respect to our footballers. They themselves tell the tale that if you have the belief and you have the talent, my goodness you can make it.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Bill

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I thank the Minister for that reassurance. The other two items I want to discuss were underlined by the points made by the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) about lining up with wokeism rather than with the hard-working people who find their lives disrupted in the workplace, when travelling to work or, indeed, in their communities. I commend the Government for the public order measures in part 3 and despair at amendments 1 to 7 tabled by several Lib Dem and Labour colleagues, which would completely remove that aspect of the Bill.

It is of course, a basic human right to be allowed to demonstrate one’s strongly held feelings. Indeed, I have been on demonstrations myself. I went on the countryside march, and I marched at the head of an opposition demonstration in Minsk, which had a slightly less jolly atmosphere. However, the Government must take action to prevent deliberate acts of vandalism or obstruction such as those associated with Extinction Rebellion and, I am sorry to say, Black Lives Matter. Yes, people have the right to demonstrate, but not in a way that prevents people from going about their lawful business: travelling to work, being taken to hospital by ambulance or, indeed, Members of Parliament being able to access this building to exercise our democratic mandate.

I am particularly pleased that we are taking action on single-personal protests. Over the spring bank holiday in May, local Labour councillor Theresa Norton sat in the middle of the street in the middle of Scarborough on the first weekend on which many of our hard-pressed tourism businesses were keen to make up some of the money they had lost during the pandemic. She caused a massive traffic jam, supposedly demonstrating in the cause of Extinction Rebellion. That sort of behaviour should not be allowed because it disrupts people’s lives and, I believe, actually antagonises people against such issues.

Finally, I am disappointed that the Labour and SNP Front-Bench teams are so out of touch with the genuine distress and disruption caused by illegal Traveller encampments. They seem to have some kind of rose-tinted view of traditional Romany lifestyles, but that is not the reality on the ground and the Government are right to take action. Communities have asked us to take action, and there is a clear choice to be made between supporting those communities or supporting people who lawlessly occupy land and cause havoc and destruction.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

This Bill contains some of the most controversial restrictions of our rights for many years. It is very long, and we have only a few hours to debate it, so I agree with the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) that we should have had more time. During the pandemic, we have seen more than 400 regulations passed through statutory instruments with little or no scrutiny—necessary, but unprecedented. Now is the time to be reclaiming our rights, not restricting them further. This Bill will do little to tackle the real problems that British people face. It will not protect vulnerable children who are victims of criminal exploitation. It will not take dangerous weapons off our streets. It will not protect rape victims. It does nothing to tackle violence against women and girls.

Turning to part 1, we are pleased that, after almost three years of campaigning from the Police Federation, the Government have finally introduced the police covenant. I am reassured that the Government agreed with my amendment to include the whole policing family in the covenant, but why did the Government not accept amendments from my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) to support mental health when we know that suicide levels are increasing and that one in five officers has PTSD. Why did they not accept our simple suggestions for some independence and scrutiny to be included in the process? As currently drafted, the covenant could be little more than warm words—a wasted opportunity to stand with our police officers after all they have done for us.

Clause 2 relates to assaults against emergency workers. My hon. Friends the Members for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) have campaigned for years to introduce a separate offence, with longer sentencing, for assaulting an emergency worker. Following years of increasing assaults against our most valued public servants, we are pleased that the Government have finally listened to the call, but why on earth will they not now commit to extending similar protections to the key workers who have done for so much for us, such as shop workers?

On Friday, I visited a Co-op in Croydon, where I heard about the violence and abuse that shop workers suffer and that, sadly, they feel has become part of the job. I met a man in his 70s in New Addington who runs a pet shop and was punched in the face by a customer. Of our 3 million retail workers, 300,000 were assaulted last year, yet only 6% of incidents led to prosecution. Abuse must not be part of the job.

The public agree with us: a survey published on Saturday shows that 89% back the new law. Industry agrees with us: the Co-op, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and the British Retail Consortium have been campaigning on the issue for years. Yesterday, leaders of 100 brands, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, IKEA and Aldi, all published an open letter calling for greater protection for retail workers. MPs agree with us: the Select Committee on Home Affairs published a report last week, and the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) has corralled a very impressive number of Conservative MPs to support his new clause 90 on the same issue.

Tonight, the Government have a choice: do the right thing and back our retail and public service workers, or ignore the wishes of the public and give us another excuse. I hear the Minister saying that she is actively considering it, but she could commit to it tonight and give retail workers and our public servants the protections that they deserve.

Chapter 1 of part 2 introduces a duty to tackle and prevent serious violence. I have campaigned for years for the Government to tackle the growing epidemic of violent crime. Yesterday, I was at a vigil for a boy, just turned 16, who was brutally murdered in my constituency last week, in his own home, in front of his mother. Nothing is more important than keeping our children safe.

We have called for an evidence-based approach to tackling violence, and we support the intention of the serious violence duty to get every agency locally working together to tackle violence, but we have serious concerns on three fronts. First, there is no provision in the Bill to safeguard children and the Government have rejected calls for a new definition of child criminal exploitation. Secondly, we are very concerned about the data capture elements of chapter 1; the duty risks becoming an intelligence-gathering exercise with potentially ominous consequences. Thirdly, it must be made clear in the Bill that violence against women and girls counts as serious violence—it should not be an added extra. We want the serious violence duty to work, but we fear that, as currently drafted, it will not. I ask the Government to consider our amendments to protect children, to protect data and to protect women and girls.

Chapter 3 of part 2 relates to data extraction. We are asking the Government to protect victims, particularly victims of rape and sexual abuse, from painful and often necessary intrusion into their lives by the mining of their phone data. When we raised concerns in Committee, the Minister said:

“I…urge caution until the rape review is published, because there may be answers in that document.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 27 May 2021; c. 286.]

With respect to the Minister, the rape review has been published and its recommendations do not address the problems that we defined. One in five rape victims withdrew their complaints, at least in part because of disclosure and privacy concerns. The Secretary of State for Justice has apologised for failing rape victims, yet he is bringing forward legislation that would legitimise over-intrusion. The Government did not support our amendments in Committee to protect victims, but tonight they have a chance to think again.

Part 3 relates to public order. Over the past year, the police have had to enforce necessary but draconian covid regulations after little scrutiny and short notice. I have heard many times from the police that they have struggled to be the ones interpreting the law without the leadership from the Government that they needed. It is our job to define the law in a clear way so that the police are not the ones getting the blame for our lawmaking. That must be a firm lesson for us.

The public order powers in part 3 threaten the fundamental balance between the police and the people. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services called for a “modest reset” of the scales on public order legislation in its recent report. On any measure, a “modest reset” is not what this is. The new measures in the Bill target protesters for being too noisy and causing “serious unease” or “serious annoyance”. The vague terminology creates a very low threshold for police-imposed conditions and essentially rules out entirely—potentially—peaceful protest.

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Lady agree that when she talks about “the people”, that would include the people whose lives are disrupted, who cannot get to work, who experience all the points that I made in my remarks? They are the people as well and they want to get on with their lives.

[Sarah Jones]

I wonder where that stops and at what point we accept the right balance between the right to protest peacefully and the right of people to go about their business. The inspectorate called for a moderate reset and that is not what this is.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that without noise, protest will not achieve anything?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention; that is clearly the case. It is also really important to note that the police at no point have asked for these powers on the basis of noise. The Metropolitan police said that it did

“not request the legal change on noise”.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on public order told Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights that police chiefs had asked for a “lower, broader threshold” for imposing conditions, but not a law relating to noise. Inspector Matt Parr told the JCHR that he was not asked to look specifically at whether or not noise should be included. The point of protest is to capture attention. Protests are noisy. Sometimes they are annoying, but they are as fundamental to our democracy as our Parliament.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Can the hon. Lady clarify whether or not she supports protests that cause serious disruptions to people going about their lawful business?

[Sarah Jones]

I will give to the hon. Gentleman, if he would like, a list of existing police powers and laws that do exactly that. There are many different laws from different pieces of legislation that I have here that do mean the police have the powers that they need to stop serious disruption. The increasing powers in the Bill are what we have a problem with, and where they could lead, because the definitions are so broad.

The Government published last week a draft definition of what they mean by “serious disruption”. It is very broad and it gives away a bit where all this came from in the first place, because top of the list of products and goods that are included in the legislation are time-sensitive products, including newspapers.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is making a very good case on this point. Does she not agree that there is a serious danger of a chilling effect? The people who are referred to by Government Members will not stop protesting. We know that that is the case, but community groups who perhaps have a legitimate concern and want their voices to be heard will look at this and then exclude protest from their arsenal of options to move forward.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that good point and I welcome the amendments that he has tabled to this section of the Bill. The Opposition want clauses 55 to 61 removed from the Bill and we want to protect our right to protest.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

When I spoke to my local police about these clauses, they were really concerned that policing by consensus will be replaced and drive protests into more conflict, and therefore, for them and for us, it is a negative step.

[Sarah Jones]

That is a very good point. The Peelian principles—the people are the police and the police are the people—are very important. I know the police value that careful balance between them and the public and where consent is and how powers are drawn. We strongly believe that these powers go too far.



Part 4 on unauthorised encampments represents an attack on the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities and their whole way of life. The police are clear that they do not want these powers. Martin Hewitt, head of National Police Chiefs’ Council, said in Committee that he strongly believes that

“the fundamental problem is insufficient provision of sites for Gypsy Travellers to occupy, and that that causes the relatively small percentage of unlawful encampments”.––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 15, Q20.]

The police already have extensive powers in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to move on unauthorised encampments. As at January 2020, just 3% of Gypsy and Traveller caravans in England were on unauthorised encampments. We know that there are high levels of prejudice and hate towards Gypsy Traveller communities. Even on this Bill Committee, one Member made an incredibly prejudiced and offensive remark. We have asked this of the Government before, and we will keep on asking: under the provisions in part 4, what would happen to a Traveller family in a single vehicle who are residing on a highway and have nowhere else to go?

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Nineteeth sitting)

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. Indeed, that has been part of our work with the review. We conducted the first review in 2018 and, to put this in context—I will read the figures out because I want to make sure they are correct—of the 406 clinics and hospitals identified as providing those services, providers told us that only 36 had stated that they experience any protest activity.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to state publicly that I very much support the new clause. On the point that the Minister has just made, in my local area abortion services can be accessed in the large hospital. There is no protest there because it is a large hospital with loads of people coming and going for other things, but in areas with stand-alone abortion clinics, we all know where they are, and people are known to stand outside. Although I understand the point about things being different in different areas, when people are standing outside, holding something and not saying anything, it is still enormously judgmental, scary and upsetting, even though what those people are doing perhaps does not look to the police to be as intimidating as it is. I am sure that some turn away because they cannot face going past that.

[Victoria Atkins]

I accept that, and of course, women can be in a distressed state when they are approaching clinics. They may be in turmoil and may have questions about what they are about to do—they may well have doubts. I am sympathetic to the idea that not every protest has to display the sorts of posters that the hon. Member for Rotherham has described to unsettle or upset women accessing those services.

I have a second set of figures. The figures are important because we as a Government have to look at proportionate responses. The first set of figures came out of the 2018 review. Since then, to come to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby, we have again asked service providers for their views and whether there has been an increase or decrease in activity. The figure I have been provided with is that 35 out of the 142 registered clinics are currently or have recently been affected by protest activities. Five hospitals have been affected. That compares with 32 clinics and four hospitals being affected in 2018.

I am told, incidentally, that one of the clinics that had been reviewed in 2018 has since closed down, so that may explain that difference. I give the figures because that is why we are concerned that a blanket ban across all of the service providers may not be proportionate, given that the majority of clinics and the overwhelming majority of hospitals that provide these services do not appear to have been affected by protest activity thus far. That is why we believe that a localised approach of PSPOs, with councils using the orders, is the way forward.

We have also looked very carefully at whether there is work we can do to help councils understand the powers that they have under the orders. Again, we believe that the law is in a good place at the moment, but we very much keep this under review.