Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. As everybody can see, the Lords amendments are in three groups. Please speak only to the Lords amendments in group 1 and do not stray into groups 2 and 3, as there will be opportunities to speak about those Lords amendments later.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his speech. He comes late to this party—he was not part of the Committee stage—and he has done well to catch up at this point.

We believe parts 3 and 4 of the Bill represent a power grab that bans peaceful protests and compounds inequalities, which is why we voted against the Bill in its entirety on Third Reading, but we also think that this Bill is a huge wasted opportunity. With crime up, prosecutions down, victims losing faith and criminals getting away with their crimes, there has never been a more crucial time to get to grips with law and order. Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have urged the Government to use this opportunity to move further and faster to tackle the epidemic of violence against women and girls.

Time and again, however, this Government have failed to act with the urgency that this epidemic requires. During the passage of the Bill, the Government have already rejected minimum sentences for rape and stalking, our plan to make street harassment a crime and our plans to protect victims with proper legal advice, but we still have time tonight, thanks to our friends in the other place, to make some changes. I urge the House to consider two Lords amendments in this group that the Government are rejecting that would make a real different to women’s lives.

I will start with sex for rent. Lords amendment 141 introduces a new offence of requiring or accepting sexual relations as a condition of accommodation. There are few things more horrific than someone using their power as a landlord or an agent to get sex. Predators advertise sex for rent blatantly. We can see in internet searches hundreds of adverts offering rooms or beds for free to young people, usually women, in return for sex. I understand the Government saying that they are going to look at this and potentially act at some point in the future, but women are being exploited all over the UK now and they cannot wait for another long Government consultation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) has pointed out—the Minister needs to talk to Shelter to understand this better—the impact of the pandemic means that more people, especially women, are facing financial hardship, which is making them vulnerable to this vile exploitation.

[Janet Daby]

I thank my hon. Friend for making such a fantastic speech. Does she agree with me that there needs to be a specific offence to punish landlords who engage in this awful practice of exploitation through sex for rent?

[Sarah Jones]

I absolutely do agree with my hon. Friend, and that is what we are trying to achieve tonight. This is not overly complicated, and I think it is staggering, when the Government are introducing legislation far faster in other cases, that they will not support the Lords amendment—and women—in this way.

The second opportunity we have, thanks to the Lords, is Lords amendment 72, which would add prejudice based on sex and gender to hate crime legislation. This would make misogyny a hate crime, which we have talked about so much already tonight. I know that the Law Commission has some concerns, but this is a simple and straightforward step that will increase public awareness, improve victims’ confidence—crucially—in reporting, and enhance the way the police respond to violence against women and misogyny. The symbolism of this is so important. We were all so shocked by the Independent Office for Police Conduct report into Charing Cross station and the misogyny in those messages that we never thought we would see in the police.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Would the hon. Lady agree with me that introducing this will require an extra burden of proof to be established through the court process, which as a result may actually make things worse for those reporting a crime?

[Sarah Jones]

I understand what the hon. Member is saying, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) said, there is a carve-out clause particularly designed to satisfy that concern. I believe that distinguishing between serious sexual violence crimes and other forms of crime that may be enacted with a misogynistic intent would solve that problem.

These kinds of misogynistic attitudes and this kind of behaviour are more widespread in society than we care to think. We must be absolutely intolerant of it, and the hate law speaks to that. Such attitudes erode the very fabric of society and we should collectively reject them.

[Joanna Cherry]

I share the hon. Lady’s horror of misogyny, but I do not understand why although “sex” is defined in the amendment, “gender” is not. What does she understand by the term “gender” in the amendment? Why is it not defined?

[Sarah Jones]

I understand the point that the hon. and learned Lady is making. The offences are motivated by hostility towards the sex or gender of the victim, and the amendment is designed to be as inclusive as possible, but I hear what she says. Refuge and some other women’s organisations have published a good briefing that tackles some of these issues, and perhaps we could have a conversation about it afterwards. I think her concerns are unfounded, but I understand the point she makes. These issues are complex and difficult, and we must make sure we get them right.

[Joanna Cherry]

But surely as legislators, if we use a word we have to define it. We all know that there have been problems with conflating sex and gender. The amendment clearly states “sex or gender” and since “sex” is defined, as one would expect, by reference to section 11 of the Equality Act 2010, surely we can define what we mean by “gender”. If we cannot define what we mean by “gender”, why are we including it as an aggravation?

[Sarah Jones]

The aim of the amendment is to try to make misogyny a hate crime in whatever form it comes, and to be as inclusive as possible in that definition.

[Stella Creasy]

Does my hon. Friend agree that given that “gender” is defined in legislation—indeed, the Government rather helpfully defined it in their consultation document, so we have a definition of “gender”—it is therefore important that we focus on perpetrators? The point behind hate crime is that I could be a victim of antisemitic abuse whether I am Jewish or not. It is about the motivation of the perpetrator. By recognising that sex or gender can motivate hostility based on misogyny, we are ensuring that no perpetrator could have a defence where they demean a victim, and no perpetrator can avoid that hostility being reported because somebody wants to put them in the trans box rather than in the misogyny box. The amendment is inclusive, but it ensures that it protects women, whether they were born or become one, using definitions that already exist in law.

[Joanna Cherry]

rose—

[Sarah Jones]

I feel as if there should be a three-way conversation in another place to tackle some of these questions. But they are real questions, and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow has campaigned on this issue for a very long time, and it is important that we listen to what she says.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Perhaps I can help out and say that, although no legislation is a silver bullet, this measure would make powerful progress and take a powerful stance against certain attitudes that are so prevalent and stare us in the face. We should send a signal that such attitudes are unacceptable, in the same way that we have done with other hate crime legislation.

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Lady puts it very well, and I completely agree. We have seen with the recording of such crimes in Nottinghamshire and other places that this measure works. It is welcomed by the police, as it is a useful thing for them as well.

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

The hon. Lady talks about the importance of symbolism, and I agree with her. Is she concerned that if we were to accept an amendment that exempts domestic abuse and sexual offences from the aggravating element of misogyny, that would be a terrible message to send? They are some of the most serious crimes against women, yet they would be exempt from that aggravating factor in sentencing.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow said, there is precedent for this with the case of the murderers of Stephen Lawrence.

[Ruth Edwards]

Just to correct the record, surely the issue was that there was no hate crime legislation to prosecute that murder. It was not that it was specifically carved out.

[Sarah Jones]

By the time that prosecution happened such legislation was in place, and there is precedent for that. I could point the hon. Lady in the direction of a very good briefing that explains all that in much greater detail, and I would be happy to send that to her.

Tonight we have two opportunities—I mean to touch on them briefly, Mr Speaker—for the House to tackle pernicious practices that have no place in society, and we would support the Government if they chose to back the Lords amendments. I should acknowledge properly the work of the other place on this Bill. Members of the Lords did some terrific work voting late into the night, and we are grateful to them. Hard work and strong arguments by many of my Labour colleagues in the Commons and the Lords have already forced the Government into several defeats and U-turns. Indeed there have been more successful Labour amendments to this Bill than to any other Bill this Parliament.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We have very limited time, so after the next speaker from the Opposition Front Bench there will be a time limit of five minutes. I suspect that that may have to come down during the course of the debate. Priority will be given to people who have not spoken previously.

[Sarah Jones]

I want to begin by making a comment in this House on the Government’s procedure in the other place. The Government tried to sideline the Commons from its role in the democratic process by bringing into the Lords substantial but last-minute amendments on protests that would have had a fundamental impact on our rights. The Lords had very little time to scrutinise them and that is generally considered to be very poor form. Instead of chasing headlines and rushing in last-minute sweeping amendments clearly not thought through, they should be focusing on driving up prosecution rates, improving their woeful record on crime and dealing with the problems that really matter to the British people.

Labour voted against the Bill in its entirety on Second Reading and Third Reading because of parts 3 and 4, which represent a power grab that effectively bans peaceful protests and will compound the inequalities experienced by Gypsies and Travellers. I want to pay particular thanks to colleagues in the other place who have stood up for democracy and prevented the draconian provisions on protests that the Government tried to get through at the last minute.

Before I come to the protest amendments, I want briefly to touch on the other amendments in this grouping. First, we are grateful that the Government have listened to reason on so many of our amendments. I want to mention two in this grouping in particular. I pay tribute to the hard work of Lord Bassam in pressuring the Government to extend football banning orders to online racist abuse in Lords amendments 148, 118, 119 and 120. Racists who abuse football players do not deserve to be anywhere near a game of football. The amendments send a strong message that disgraceful racist behaviour has no place in the world of football, online or in person.

We are also glad that Lords amendment 89, which will repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824, has been accepted by the Government and that they have finally decided to act. No one should be criminalised simply for sleeping rough. But I hope the Minister can provide some reassurance to the House that this crucial change will not be kicked into the long grass and that the new legislation will be brought in at the earliest opportunity.

I want to touch on Lords amendment 71. The Government are refusing to introduce a duty of candour on police officers at this stage to co-operate with inquiries. The Minister claimed that the existing schedule on standards of professional behaviour is sufficient, but we do not believe that it is. It states that police officers must act with honesty and integrity, which of course they should, but the amendment passed in the Lords goes significantly further to ensure that where the police are required to provide information to inquiries or other such proceedings, they must have regard to the pleadings allegations terms of reference and parameters of the relevant proceedings, but not be limited by them, in particular where they hold information that might change the ambit of the proceedings inquiry or investigation. That is a really important distinction. The Lords amendment goes significantly further than the statutory duty of co-operation.

In June 2021, the Daniel Morgan independent panel, which took eight years to report, recommended the creation of a statutory duty of candour to be owed by all law enforcement agencies to those whom they serve. It is time for decisions to be made and for actions to be taken to restore public confidence in the police service.

Part 4 of the Bill represents an attack on the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities, even though the police have made it clear that they neither want nor need these powers. The Government have rejected our calls to remove part 4, and that is one of the major reasons why we voted against the Bill in its entirety. Although Lords amendments 91 to 93 are very small technical amendments, they confirm the principles around the powers of seizure of property that we Opposition Members believe are unfair.

The problem that many Government Members seem to articulate whenever we debate this issue is actually one of antisocial behaviour. The solution to antisocial behaviour, wherever it comes, is tougher antisocial behaviour action. Under this Government, we saw 1.7 million incidents in the year to September 2021 and nothing has been done. Marginalising an entire minority is not the answer to antisocial behaviour. We need to distinguish between the two and not criminalise a minority.

I turn to the Lords amendments on protest. Over the past five days, thousands of people have been arrested and detained at anti-war protests across Russia. We would all defend their right to protest and yet here we are, in the mother of all democracies, debating an amendment to a Bill that would criminalise singing at a peaceful protest in this country. Britain has a long-standing and important democratic freedom to gather and to speak or to protest. The Minister quoted an HMICFRS report, but he misunderstood its conclusions. The report said that we need a

“modest reset of the scales”

because police forces are usually good at planning protests but the “balance may tip”. The report’s recommendations were not legislative; they were to update and improve guidance to senior police officers, to improve the way in which the police assess the impact of protests, to improve police intelligence and to improve debrief processes, all of which are very sensible.

The Government asked the HMICFRS to look at some legislative options, which it did, and it gave some qualified support to some of them, but at no point was noise any part of that conversation. I have spoken to many senior police officers and at no point have any of them asked for any changes to the law on noise. The Bill goes way beyond the right balance between the right to protest and the right for others, which we agree with, to go about their daily lives.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend concur that those who protested in Peterloo were probably a little bit noisy, as were those who protested for women’s suffrage and those who protested against the poll tax? Indeed, she mentioned the international situation in Russia. This is about freedom and democracy. I am sure that she would concur with that.

[Sarah Jones]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who put it so well.

[Rachael Maskell]

Protests occur so that people can be heard, and if people need to be heard, they need to make a noise. I was particularly struck over the weekend not only by the masses who have stood up against an authoritarian state, but by the actions that the police have had to take against those people. If we are to criminalise people for exercising their rights, is that not just going down the same path?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is right: this is about getting the right balance. We believe that the measures in part 3 of the Bill already threaten that careful balance by putting too much power into the hands of the Home Secretary, undermining rights, and hindering, rather than helping, the police to do their job. Labour’s Lords amendment 73 therefore focuses on the imposition of conditions related to noise on public processions. It would omit subsections (2) and (3) from clause 55, which broadens the circumstances in which conditions can be imposed by a senior police officer based on the noise generated by the people taking part and the impact that that has on the people in the area. Essentially, part 3 provides a trigger for imposing conditions on public assemblies, public processions and one-person protests if a protest is too noisy. The Opposition want those provisions removed from the Bill.

We also support Lords amendment 80, which was tabled by Lord Paddick and removes clause 56 from the Bill altogether, and we urge hon. Members to vote for Lords amendment 81 to ensure that permission can be granted for major protests in Parliament Square despite new rules on obstructing vehicle access.

[Barry Gardiner]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the level of nuisance caused by any noise or vocalisation at a protest may be a matter not just of decibels, but of content? Because somebody might perceive one kind of content to be more of a nuisance than another, the level of nuisance, in and of itself, is subjective.

[Sarah Jones]

That is an important point. The way the police interpret the laws we give them will always be subjective to some degree. We have to be very careful to define in law exactly what we mean, because the police implement the laws we give them and their job needs to be as clear as possible.

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

If we consider what the future will hold if the House follows the route that the Government suggest, there are two options: either the police will be left constantly at odds with those who wish to protest, or we will be left with legislation on the statute book that the police do not want and will never use. In either instance, what is the point?

[Sarah Jones]

That is a very valid point. On the noise issue, I cannot see that the police will find a way to use the legislation. It would be a waste of legislation: it would not be implemented.

The Government motion to disagree and amendments in lieu of Lords amendment 80 would restore the original wording of clause 56 and add a vague definition of “serious disruption” that would apply to the noise provisions in the Bill. The Opposition do not believe that it is adequate; it could apply to singing in the street outside a place of worship or a transport facility. It does not work, and we do not support it. Additionally, although the provision would be in the Bill, the amendments in lieu would allow the Home Secretary to change it at any point, so it is slightly pointless.

On public spaces protection orders, the Opposition believe that rather than introducing sweeping powers that could catch people protesting against the closure of their local library or singing songs in the street, the Government should focus on genuine problems such as those considered in the clauses that Labour introduced to stop intimidatory protests outside schools or vaccine clinics. That is why we tabled a targeted amendment, Lords amendment 143, so that schools, local councils and the NHS could fast-track local buffer zones to prevent intimidatory anti-vax protests outside schools and vaccine clinics. We won that vote in the Lords and are pleased that, after a period of inaction, the Government have accepted Labour’s proposals to crack down on those dangerous protests and give schoolchildren and NHS staff the protection that they need.

We also supported giving the courts the ability to increase sentences if protesters put lives at risk by blocking motorways. Labour’s Lords amendment 88 limits the Government’s original amendment so that it applies only to motorways and A-roads rather than to any highway, which could include a path. It is not proportionate to apply a maximum six-month sentence to the blocking of a grass verge or a public footpath. We need a common-sense and balanced approach instead. The Government should look at the HMICFRS report and focus on improving training, guidance, co-ordination and resources to manage public order policing as the inspectorate has recommended, rather than new powers that either are too wide-ranging or replicate powers that the police already have.

The point of protest is to capture attention. Protests are noisy and sometimes annoying—I find them annoying; we all find it annoying to have to listen to some of the ongoing singing that we hear in this place—but they are fundamental to our democracy.

If the public order provisions on noise in the Bill had been in place earlier, they would have stopped the suffragettes who marched for the right to vote, the children shouting loudly for action on climate change, or the Whitehall protesters against the Russian invasion. That is why Labour will keep pushing to limit the harmful provisions in this Bill.

There are elements of the Bill that we welcome, and it has been improved thanks to the hard work of Labour colleagues and, indeed, colleagues in all parts of the House. However, the Government have included disproportionate and draconian provisions that risk undermining our human rights and dividing communities. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) is not present, but if she were, she might say that there is a fine line between being “popular” and being “populist”. We on these Benches want to see the Government stop chasing headlines and get back to the core duties of the Home Office: to keep people safe, bring criminals to justice, and uphold the rights and responsibilities of the rule of law.

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[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I rise to speak to the amendments about noise, including Lords amendment 73 on processions, Lords amendment 80 on assemblies, and Lords amendment 87 on one-person protests. I am pleased that the Stop Brexit man, Mr Steve Bray, has come up, because I completely agree: he is profoundly annoying. He is very persistent, and he seems to have singled me out personally on a great many occasions—[Interruption.] I can’t think why. No indeed, I am grateful to Members for raising that. I cannot imagine why. The thing about Steve Bray is that he has become a great British institution. He is an oddball, he is a novelty, he is entertaining and, yes, he is annoying. Indeed, he could often be quietened down just by being offered an interview, and I would recommend that course of action to anyone.

The crucial point about Mr Bray is that he did not make one blind bit of difference to the course of events in this country—an entire waste of money for whoever has been paying for him to be there. Indeed, on his birthday one year he ran into me and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), and posed for a beautiful selfie so that together we could, cheekily, enjoy his birthday. He is a great British institution, entirely pointless, and willing to celebrate with his opponents on his birthday. I do not think we should accept any amendments in order to target hard cases, because hard cases make for bad law.

I also wish to mention an article written jointly by me and the former right hon. Member for Beaconsfield, Dominic Grieve QC. In the aftermath of the protests over the Sarah Everard vigil, he and I wrote an article contextualising this Bill. I had then, and I have now, considerable concerns about what we are doing on protest, but I decided to hold my nose and vote with the Government. I have often said to people that I cannot be fighting on every front; nor should I be since I was elected as a Conservative. However, one person alone has persuaded me that I should agree with their lordships on the Bill. That person is the ostensibly Liberal Prime Minister of Canada, Mr Trudeau, and his treatment, ostensibly from a left liberal perspective, of protesters with whom he disagreed.

I note that the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) condemned anti-vax protesters, and yes, they may well have a dangerous point of view. I have been pro-vaccine throughout this crisis, but we cannot condemn protesters because we happen to disagree with them politically. Goodness knows, right now I am the victim of a defamatory campaign in my constituency by people who evidently have not bothered to trouble themselves to look at my views.

[Sarah Jones]

Just to be clear, I am not against people having a position; our amendment seeks to make sure that clinics ensure that people get their vaccines, that NHS workers can get to work, and that we do not have anti-vax protesters stopping people going to work and doing their business.

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that clarification. Like her, I would like people to have the freedom to get vaccinated, and I have said that throughout the crisis.

With apologies to my right hon. Friend the Minister—and he is a friend—I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) and others. I commend to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) just flirting with it—just get in that rebel Lobby with us. Let us say to the Government that actually this is going too far on noise. It is time to say, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) vividly demonstrated, that yes protests are inherently noisy and annoying. If noise is ever used as a weapon, I am sure other instruments of law could be used.

Police Grant Report

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the people who serve in our police service. It has not been an easy time: 10 years of cuts followed by covid has placed enormous strain on them. Thanks also go to the officers who work here to keep us safe and to those who acted with such bravery on Monday as an angry mob surrounded the Leader of the Opposition shouting claims made by the Prime Minister in this place last week. We must not, though, shy away from recent reports on some of the worrying misogynistic, racist and sexist culture and practice in policing that have shocked many of us and challenged police throughout the country to strive always for higher standards.

The police grant report comes at a difficult time for the country. Inflation is rising, energy prices are rising and taxes are rising. We have had a wasted decade of low growth, the challenges of covid and a Government who have wasted billions and billions on covid fraud and incompetent PPE contracts that never delivered. In April, tax goes up, and inflation is forecast to rise to 6% in the spring. The Government’s only answer is a buy now, pay later energy scheme that will not help those most in need or help the economy.

Because of the Government’s mismanagement of the economy, the additional funding in this year’s police grant will not go anywhere near as far as we need it to go. There has never been a more important time to invest in policing.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that when the Government announce increases in police funding, as the Minister has done today, they forget to tell people that the bulk of that funding will come from local council tax payers? The Government are continuing the policy of the past 11 years of moving the cost of police funding from central Government to local taxpayers.

[Sarah Jones]

My right hon. Friend is completely right: a third of the extra funding now comes from the council tax precept. That is a very high proportion.

Total crime went up 14% over the past two years—contrary to what the Prime Minister said in this place last week, for which he has been criticised by the UK Statistics Authority. As we heard earlier in Prime Minister’s questions, there are 14,000 cases of fraud every day—although the Prime Minister and the Government do not count them as real crime. Arrests are down and prosecutions are at their lowest levels. Just one in 50 burglaries result in a charge and, shamefully, only 1.3% of reported rapes lead to a charge. Criminals are getting away with it.

A proper plan backed by proper investment has never been more important, yet we yet have a demoralised police workforce who have declared no confidence in the Home Secretary. Pay in real terms is lower than it was in 2010. Despite the uplift that has already taken place, the total police workforce has more than 17,000 fewer people in it than it had in 2010. The number of police leaving the service with mental health problems is high. Neighbourhood policing is decimated, with nearly 50% of police community support officers gone and police staff cut.

Only 400 of the first tranche of 6,000 new police officers were deployed in neighbourhood roles. Police officers are backfilling vital police staff roles because forces do not have the budgets to pay the salaries of the number of police staff they need. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has said, despite the uplift many areas will still end up with fewer officers than they had in 2010. Merseyside will be 456 officers short and the West Midlands will be 1,000 officers short. This is the woeful context in which we debate the police grant.

The overriding sense I take from the police grant report is the total lack of any meaningful ambition to come even close to fixing some of the challenges we face, and the lack of any kind of vision or plan from the Home Office to tackle crime and its causes. It is a woeful attempt to make up for a decade of cuts by heaping the tax burden on to local council tax payers through the precept.

Budgets have started to increase, but they are not inflationary increases. We are not back to 2010 levels in real terms. Once money for new officers is counted out of the figures, direct funding to PCCs is rising by only 4.8% at a time when inflation is rising steeply and is predicted to reach 6% in the spring. That means the Tories’ failure to keep inflation down will hit day-to-day police budgets and the police’s ability to keep communities safe.

While police officers across the country recover from the pandemic, they will be paying higher national insurance and higher energy and petrol costs. Officers and staff will see less value in their income because of inflation. The Government are also demanding £80 million in efficiency savings on top of it all. Members should not just take my word for it; Gloucestershire’s Conservative PCC, Chris Nelson, has had to admit that his manifesto pledge to add 300 officers is “unachievable,” adding that he would be “jolly lucky” to achieve it.

In Merseyside, it is estimated that inflation will cost £2.3 million, the pay increase will cost £5 million and the national insurance increase will cost £2.3 million, while Merseyside police is making savings of £2.9 million. The additional precept income is being used to cover the cost of pay, price inflation and the national insurance levy. Earmarked reserves are being used to balance the budget in-year, and there is a potential long-term increase in expensive police officers sitting behind desks to cover crucial police staff roles.

With these kinds of pressures, how can arrests and prosecutions increase? How can the police tackle serious violence, violence against women and girls, drug addiction and all the other pressures with the strength we expect? That is Conservative Britain.

The Government expect more and more police funding to come from local taxpayers, but there is a gross inequality in this overreliance on the precept because it is the most deprived communities, those with the fewest band D properties, that will get the least. There should be no winners and losers when it comes to public safety.

Northumbria has the lowest band D precept, and just 18% of Northumbria police’s funding came from the precept in 2021-22, whereas Surrey police got 55% of its funding from the precept. Budget pressures will be even greater if PCCs are not able to bring in as much as the Government have projected from the council tax precept, as the £296 million increase depends on every PCC making full use of the flexibility to increase the precept. Even if they all do so, as we think they will all be forced into doing, it means more tax rises on local people during a cost of living crisis.

We are debating police funding, so we should return to the age-old question of when the Minister will finally get round to reforming the funding formula. This was vaguely promised by the Minister before the election but, if the Government wait until 2024, they will have spent nine years dithering while police forces have had to make massive efficiency savings and local taxpayers have had to pay the price. Is there any chance of news of progress today?

This settlement should be a real opportunity to recruit a more diverse police service that better reflects the communities it serves. The annual increase in the proportion of black and minority ethnic officers is 0.3 percentage points. At that rate, it will take 20 years to reach 14% black and minority ethnic officers, which is the make-up of the country, so much more needs to be done, so much more.

Only one in 20 crimes leads to prosecution. The “Beating Crime Plan”, whatever the Minister says, has no meat, no ideas and no strategy. It will not do to pretend that everything is okay with press releases that the UK Statistics Authority says

“presented the…figures in a misleading way.”

It will not do to claim that crime has fallen because of the “Beating Crime Plan”, when it has actually risen, and when certain crimes which reduced in number did so largely because of covid restrictions and are now on the rise again. It will not do to allow antisocial behaviour to blight people’s lives, serious violence to make a generation of young people fearful, and women and girls to continue to be the victims of violence and abuse.

We need a properly funded police service, an economy that functions and leadership from the Government. That is what the public expect. A Labour Government would put victims first and ensure that every neighbourhood where people are frightened and afraid has a new police hub and neighbourhood prevention teams, bringing together police, community support officers, youth workers and local authority staff. Labour’s record in government shows that, unlike this Government, we can be trusted on policing and crime. By the time we left government, there were 6 million fewer crimes than in 1997. It took us years to build up neighbourhood policing, and this Government are spending their years undoing that good work.

The Opposition will not vote against the plans, because some funding is better than no funding, despite the poor economic conditions that the Conservatives have created, which will mean that the money does not go anywhere near as far as we need. This Government, like the two Conservative Governments before them, are failing to deliver on crime. They are failing to bring down total crime, failing to deliver justice to victims, failing to rebuild neighbourhood policing and now failing to control the inflation hitting day-to-day police budgets. They should go back to the drawing board and try again: “Must do better.”

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[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

This has been a good debate; if only it was a good settlement. A wasted decade of low growth under the Conservatives is holding back Britain; it has left our economy weakened, with inflation, national insurance and energy prices all putting pressure on the police. Inflation is predicted to rise still, which will put more pressure on our services. The Government have wasted public money through crony contracts, covid fraud and PPE waste, so there is less funding for policing.

To make up for the lack of central Government police funding, the Minister is burdening local taxpayers. Total crime is rising, prosecution rates are at an all-time low, and criminals are getting away with it. The police do not feel supported; pay is still lower in real terms than it was in 2010. The settlement will not go far enough. There is no leadership from Government on the challenges facing the service and no plan to cut crime.

This was an interesting debate that touched on all the major issues that we have debated on many occasions.

[Richard Drax]

The hon. Lady accuses the Government of not cutting crime, but I remind her that it is the chief constable and their officers—they do such a valuable job—who tackle criminals, not the politicians.

[Sarah Jones]

I was not aware of that. I thought the Government had some role in tackling crime, but clearly the Conservative Government think not.

With 17,000 fewer people working in the police force now than in 2010, it is also harder for the police to do the job that we expect them all to do. I was glad to hear about the new train leaving the station on the funding formula, and I was pleased to see Bedfordshire Members in the Chamber—if they were not here making the argument, on either side of the House, I would worry that something was amiss. I am glad that they have an answer on a timescale, but the formula was first promised in 2015 so we are already seven years down the line. I look forward to seeing that.

There was much debate about the council tax precept and the fact that a third of the increased funding must now come from council tax. It is not possible to level up by using the precept to pay for policing. Inequality is bedded in to the formula. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said eloquently that it is the sting in the tail, and the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) agreed with that. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said that no one likes paying council tax; everybody is being forced to put council tax up to its highest level. The Cambridgeshire Conservative PCC, who has asked for a £9.99 tax increase on band D properties, stated that

“if I thought for one minute that we were likely to get substantial financial increases from government then I would’ve happily used reserves to plug the gap and not ask to raise the precept.”

The Conservative PCC for Bedfordshire said that rising costs due to inflation means taxes will need to rise to avoid cuts in police services. He said:

“We are facing rising costs across the public sector because of inflation. This means that next year an increase in the precept will be needed just for Bedfordshire Police to maintain its current position and meet the costs of pay and price increases.”

We heard about police numbers and the lack of policing in our neighbourhoods. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) talked about the 500 additional PCSOs that the Welsh Government are providing, which will make a difference. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham talked about the lack of police officers—the 325 they have lost and how, even with the increasing numbers, they will still be 153 officers short. The alternative universe that the Government try to peddle—that somehow they did not cut tens of thousands of police before they started to recruit a few—will not wash. There are 17,000 fewer people working in police services than there were in 2010.

Crime affects everywhere. The hon. Member for West Dorset talked about the delightful area he represents, but also about the violent criminal drug gangs and county lines that are there. This is an issue that every single one of our constituents cares about. Criminals are getting away with it. Charge rates are at a record low. Victims have lost faith in the criminal justice system. The Government are not showing any real grip on tackling crime. They do not have any ambition to get prosecution rates up. They cannot level up without cutting crime. I hope the Government will go away and think again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

No, I am going to finish, because we have to move on to other business.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) invariably presents a dystopian vision of our work on crime. She is a very hard person to please. Let me now read out the bit of her speech that she obviously crossed out for some reason, in order to remind the House that according to the most recent Office for National Statistics publication, produced just last week, violence is down by 15%, murder by 16%, stabbings by 15%, theft by 20%, burglaries by 30%, car crime by 28%, and robberies by 34%.

[Sarah Jones]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kit Malthouse]

I will not.

I am the first to admit that the fight against crime is always two steps forward and one step back—it is never a linear progression—but after this settlement, and given the history of the Prime Minister and myself in this particular matter of policy, I hope that no one will doubt our commitment to fighting crime throughout the United Kingdom, and I hope that through this settlement we have once again demonstrated our enduring commitment to the police who conduct that difficult job. We are giving them the powers, the resources and the tools that they need to continue this ever-important battle, and I hope that the House will support the financial settlement.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) for 2022–23 (HC 1084), which was laid before this House on 2 February, be approved.

IOPC Report on Metropolitan Police Officers' Conduct: Charing Cross Police Station

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I share my hon. Friend’s horror at some of the messages that have been published, which really are abhorrent. As I understand it, the unit that is being investigated has since been disbanded, and quite rightly so, with disciplinary action following.

With regard to my hon. Friend’s specific requests, on the offence, I am certainly happy to look at that suggestion and explore it further as a possibility. On the Casey review, he is quite right that Dame Louise Casey has been appointed by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to examine cultural issues within the force.

Obviously, that started with the appalling killing of Sarah Everard and the consequences thereof, but I am sure, knowing Dame Louise as I do, that she will be looking closely at all these issues as they unfold, sadly, on an almost weekly basis in the newspapers. I have asked today for a meeting with her so that I can understand exactly where her inquiry is going and establish for myself that it will fit neatly with the work we are doing, through the inspectorate and through the Angiolini inquiry, into wider issues of culture in the Met and elsewhere in policing. On the establishment of whistle-blowing systems, one of our specific requests of the inspectorate as it looks at all the police forces across the UK is that it make sures that adequate whistleblowing facilities are in place—or that the process is there—that will allow officers who want to call out bad behaviour to do so with confidence. Again, it is worth saying that although it is possible to put in place processes, practices, manuals and training, and we can do our best to train police officers and to instil in them the right values—that has never been more important than now, as we are having such a huge influx of new, young police officers waiting to be filled with the right kind of values—this still does point to a culture of leadership making it clear that such behaviour is not to be tolerated, and projecting confidence on officers to step forward and call out bad behaviour and this kind of communication. Whatever the processes we put in place, unless the wider leadership of UK policing is able to project that confidence, I think we will fail in our mission.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

May I associate myself with the comments from the Minister, particularly his thanks to the IOPC for the report? The behaviour outlined in the report is truly appalling. As a woman and a mother, I found it chilling. Such shameful behaviour undermines policing and threatens public trust. The Metropolitan police must accept and urgently implement the IOPC’s 15 recommendations.

Sadly, this is not just an issue in London; there have been disgraceful cases involving misogyny or racism among officers in Sussex, Hampshire, Leicestershire and Scotland. Ministers will know about these—we have been aware of them for some years. It is not good enough to leave police forces to solve these problems, or to wait until all the different reviews are completed. We need action now from the Government to tackle discrimination and prejudice within policing, and to help rebuild confidence.

Police training needs overhauling now, so that police officers get ongoing training throughout their careers, including on anti-racism and on tackling violence against women and girls. Action is needed now on the wholly inappropriate use of social media to perpetuate prejudice or bullying. What are the Government doing now to make sure that that happens? Action is needed now to tackle racism within the police force, but the National Police Chiefs’ Council action plan on race is 18 months overdue. Why is the Home Office not making sure that this happens sooner?

The Home Office inquiry after the murder of Sarah Everard is still non-statutory, meaning that it still does not have the full range of powers. Will the Minister listen to Labour’s calls and place it on a statutory footing? If the Government want to show that they believe in tackling misogyny, at a time when the rape charge rate has fallen to a record low of 1.3%, will the Minister finally commit now to making tackling violence against women a strategic policing requirement?

Confidence in the police is absolutely fundamental—to protecting victims, catching criminals and keeping our communities safe. We all want the police to be the best that they can be—victims deserve it, the public deserve it and all good police officers deserve it. We need a plan from the Government to make sure that that happens. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner must now spend every minute of her remaining time working to make the Met the best that it can be. That means tackling serious violence, and violence against women and girls, and getting prosecution rates up, but it also means a relentless focus on raising standards. Nothing less will do.

[Kit Malthouse]

I recognise that the hon. Lady’s job is to challenge the Government to do ever better, and I welcome her doing so, but I hope she will bring the same forensic challenge to the Mayor of London. Having done the job of deputy Mayor for policing and crime, I would certainly have taken responsibility for driving such changes forward from City Hall. Indeed, we faced similar problems between 2008 and 2012, established our own race and faith inquiry and drove through some of the very difficult reforms that were required a decade ago. I hope she will speak to her party colleague in City Hall and press him also to bring action.

While the hon. Lady is right to urge us into ever-greater action on these matters, I know she recognises that there is plenty of work already ongoing. We are, for example, working closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council as part of the new national working group on inappropriate social media use by police officers, working out what more we can do to drive that down. I recently met the chair of the scrutiny panel for the NPCC race and equality plan, and I am confident she will be able to bring impetus, momentum and scrutiny to the work it is doing.

We have not made the Angiolini inquiry statutory, because we want to get on with it. We need speed if we are to solve some of these problems fast and maintain confidence in UK policing. If we find, in discussion with Dame Elish, that the statutory basis is required, we will consider that. For the moment, we want to get on with it fast and, as I say, the work has already started. We do not believe, given the way the police regulations are drawn, that Dame Elish will face any obstacle in obtaining the evidence she needs from those forces involved in stage 1 of the inquiry, but if obstacles are put in her way, we are committed to trying to remove them for her. We are examining the strategic policing requirement at the moment and will make announcements about what is or is not included in it in the months to come.

Biometrics Commissioner and Forensic Science Regulator

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) on securing the debate, and on his elegant critique of Government progress. He asked a comprehensive list of questions about missed deadlines and the like, which I look forward to hearing the Minister respond to. I join him in thanking the members and Clerks of the Science and Technology Committee for all the work that they have done—he listed the number of times that this issue has been looked at and the proper and serious work that has been undertaken.

I listened with interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) talk about the history of how we got to where we are, and how none of us here will be looking at this through the eyes of ideology—what should be private or public—but through the eyes of what is most effective. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) said about funding and governance, we should have the ambition to be world leaders in this space—that should be what we are all striving towards.

As Members have already made clear, forensic science is critical to the investigation of crime and the administration of justice. Without it, thousands of people would not have been brought to justice. It not only allows us to identify offenders and provide evidence to the courts, but is a vital safeguard against wrongful conviction and false allegations. When it comes to forensics, the stakes are high. The United Kingdom must have an efficient, working and credible model for forensic investigations.

I welcome the Forensic Science Regulator Act 2021, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), to whom I pay tribute for his hard work and commitment in delivering his private Member’s Bill. However, it has not yet been fully implemented. He asked the Minister a written parliamentary question on 5 January, and the Minister’s answer was “as soon as possible”, so I would appreciate some kind of timescale to go with that. Considering that it took the Government nearly 20 months to respond to the Committee’s report, Members of the Opposition cannot be confident that the Government are committed or willing to prioritise these important matters.

One of the major issues affecting forensic science is the market and the availability of services. It is vital that the Government ensure there is sustainable capacity to meet the needs of the whole criminal justice system. The market does not work as it currently runs; private providers come in and out and some collapse, leading to delays and confusion as they pass on their work. New recruits are not trained properly, funding is unclear and unequal, and increased pressure leads to falling standards, errors and, potentially, miscarriages of justice. The police need costs to be as low as possible because their budgets have been cut, and everyone is having to make difficult decisions in a volatile and unsustainable market.

Such fragmentation of the sector does not just provide a regulatory headache; it has real-world impacts. This lack of certainty leads to criminal cases being put in jeopardy and emergency funding needing to be provided. Redundancies in the sector are also an issue. It is vital that the criminal justice system has the power to retain the very best scientists.

Forensic science is time sensitive. Courts rely on toxicology reports to determine whether an individual was driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, but they cannot receive a report if the statutory time limit for the test has been passed. It cannot be right that charges are dropped because of a forensics problem. It is also the case that police forces are sometimes forced to ration and prioritise which cases they send to forensics. Forensics work must be done in a timely manner.

On digital forensics, we know that rape victims—really vulnerable people—might have their phones confiscated for months or even years, in the worst instances, while waiting for a forensics team to download and analyse their data. In the end-to-end rape review, the Government committed to leaving no victim without a phone for more than 24 hours in any circumstances. It would be good to understand a bit more about the progress towards that goal, particularly with the rape charge rate at a shocking 1.4%.

Similarly pressing are the issues of oversight and accreditation. Accreditation, as we have heard, provides an independent, impartial confirmation of technical competence. It surely forms an unavoidable plank in the plan to ensure public confidence in forensic science and the criminal justice system more widely. The importance of accreditation and compliance is indicated by the Randox case, which called into question the integrity of the laboratory’s toxicology results, and impacted 10,000 criminal cases. It was estimated that the re-testing of those samples might take between two and three years—even then, the degradation of samples would have rendered re-testing pointless. Randox did not have additional accreditation to the codes of practice and conduct for forensic science providers and practitioners in the criminal justice system.

The Forensic Science Regulator Act 2021 requires a regulator to prepare a code of practice for forensic activities, which each forensic unit will have to comply with. It also included deadlines for units to achieve accreditation. As long ago as 2011, the Committee called for statutory powers to enforce compliance, with proper standards. These are yet to be introduced. The Committee called for a prohibition on the police using non-accredited laboratories to be included in the 2021 Act, as well as the mandate that all in-house police labs should be accredited within a year. The Minister disagreed, suggesting that these clauses would

“detract from the independence of the Regulator.”

It seems to me, however, that such regulations are critical, and might speak to some of the most concerning areas within the forensics sphere.

Regulation would ensure compliance with standards and deal with the fragmentary market. It would help solve the serious delays in digital forensics, which the Minister himself says remain a concern. It is a field now more important than ever, given the increasingly online nature of crime. Computer misuse has increased by 85%, hacking is up 161%, and 90% of cases now have a digital aspect.

Recent evidence given by Professor Tully shows that deadlines on accreditation of police laboratories continue to be missed. It seems impossible that the proposed October 2022 deadline for all forces to achieve accreditation on all sites will be met. The current situation sees victims relying on a forensics system that is not properly regulated, and reliant on a regulator with no proper enforcement powers. Time and again, the story seems to be of a Government failing to listen to the advice of experts, including that of the Science and Technology Committee.

At a time when just 6.5% of all crimes lead to a prosecution, the charge rate has halved and 1.3 million victims walked away from an investigation last year, public confidence in the justice system is at rock bottom. There can be no excuses. The Government say that tackling crime is a priority. They must put their money where their mouth is and stop the delays.

The use of biometrics has become an increasingly important and contentious issue, and it is only growing more so. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West attempted to include clauses related to biometrics in his private Member’s Bill, but the Government refused to support them, and they were removed. With new biometric systems being developed more rapidly than the police are able to keep up with, it is vital that the Government develop a proper evidence base for the use of these new technologies.

In his evidence to the Select Committee, Professor Wiles noted

“the continuing failure of the Home Office to update the crucial databases that hold both biometric data and general information about offenders, convictions, arrests and so on.”

The current legislation covering biometrics is a complicated patchwork quilt of Acts, difficult to grasp and to follow. We are clear that proper, fit-for-purpose regulation is needed. As in the forensics field, the stakes are high. It is crucial that the use of biometrics—undoubtedly powerful tools—does not infringe on civil liberties.

As we have heard, despite repeated assurances, the Government have still not delivered an automatic deletion system for custody images of unconvicted individuals whose data remains stored in a database. That is very worrying and, as the Biometrics Commissioner put it, unlawful. It cannot be right that an unconvicted individual would have to apply to have images of themselves deleted.

In the Conservative party manifesto for the last election, the Government said they would

“empower the police to safely use new technologies like biometrics and artificial intelligence”.

In evidence to the Committee, Baroness Williams noted that it was

“the legal framework that allows the police use”

of biometric technology that is both “necessary and proportionate” that is necessary in this sphere. There have so far been no legislative proposals from the Government on this front. I wonder when we might see a White Paper or similar setting out the Government’s plan to regulate this rapidly changing field.

The power of these new technologies is very great indeed. With regard to assets such as live facial recognition, voice recognition and gait analysis, Professor Wiles noted that the current framework

“has not kept up with the development of new biometrics; nor has the Government responded to judgments by both domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights about the inadequacy of that current framework.”

Even companies such as Microsoft—truly one of the great tech giants—support regulation.

When will the Minister act and commission a proper, UK-wide, independent review of the use and retention of biometrics and biometric data not covered by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012? Surely, with criminals utilising technology at a speed never seen before—I point to the sale of drugs online, which I have spoken about in this place before, as well as the criminal exploitation of children online—it is more important than ever that the Government get to grips with both forensics and biometrics, and absorb both into their plans to tackle crime.

The Minister believes that

“both of these biometrics and forensics are completely critical to the future success and…consent model of the police.”

We agree. There must be a clear, balanced and effective national decision-making structure for forensic science. This complex and complicated area deserves to be governed on a national basis, with policy decisions and implementation properly overseen. The Government must ensure that the 2021 Act is implemented, they must come up with a proper biometrics strategy, and they must deliver regulation, implementation and accreditation. That is crucial for the public and for victims.

Neighbourhood Policing: West Midlands

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) on securing the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) on taking on the mantle. I also congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) and for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali) on their powerful speeches. Every one of them cares about nothing more than the safety of their constituents, and that is why Labour Members are here en masse. Sadly, there is only one Government Member present—the hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi). I suggest that he talks to more of his constituents about how they experience crime in their constituency and ponders what they have to say.

This is a vital and timely debate. The Government have dropped the ball on crime: serious violence is up, prosecutions are down, and they have no plan to tackle their failures. The west midlands is an excellent part of the country, with brilliant people who have hopes, dreams and aspirations that are being hampered by this Government. In the excellent police and crime commissioner Simon Foster, whom I visited only a few weeks ago, they have a champion with the right priorities, but he is fighting against crime with one hand tied behind his back because of a Government whose complacency has allowed serious violence to thrive and neighbourhood policing to dwindle.

There are four areas where that complacency has driven up violence and other crimes, such as antisocial behaviour. First, of course, is the lack of policing. The 21,000 lost police officers is a well-worn statistic, but less well known are the 50% cuts to police community support officers, the eyes and ears of our community. The Government have dismantled neighbourhood policing since 2010. Do not take my word for it: twice as many people now as in 2010 say that they never see police on the streets.

Secondly, the UK is now Europe’s largest heroin market and a target for international drug-trafficking gangs. That has increased violence on our streets and steered a trend towards youth violence, with increasingly young children carrying knives and drugs. Thirdly, violence against women and girls has reached epidemic levels, as defined by Her Majesty’s inspector of constabulary and fire and rescue, Zoë Billingham, in her damning report earlier this year. Prosecution rates for crimes such as rape and sexual assault are on the floor. Fourthly, all the services that support young people, such as youth work, treatment for drug addiction and support for children with special educational needs, and that more broadly tackle inequality and poverty have been decimated after 11 years of drift.

The west midlands has not been exempt from the impact of those cuts. Despite the excellent work of Simon Foster, who has put rebuilding neighbourhood policing at the heart of his agenda, the force will be 1,000 officers short of where it was in 2010. By anyone’s description, that is a large number of officers for one region. It cannot be right that, even with the so-called uplift to police numbers—as an aside, just 400 of the first tranche of 6,000 national recruits have been placed in frontline roles—the west midlands faces such a large shortfall.

The Government make a fanfare of their fêted levelling-up agenda, but make no mistake: there is no levelling up when it comes to the west midlands constabulary. If this Government do not put in place more funding, West Midlands police will face annual cuts of £60 million to deal with rising costs. The west midlands police and crime commissioner recently made a cross-party call for fair funding for the force that he oversees, and is calling for the Government to plug the black hole and put funding in place for the 1,000 missing officers. I support those calls. Does the Minister?

I recently met Simon Foster and saw for myself the excellent work that he is doing through solid policing, and through innovation via the violence reduction unit. For example, a new scheme places youth workers along routes to schools; they act as trusted adults, pull children away from crime, and de-escalate potential violence. Violence reduction units do good preventive work, but there is no long-term funding model for them, and the Minister knows that. They rely on annual funding. I am especially disappointed that Andy Street seemed unaware of this fact on “Politics Live” last week. He claimed that a long-term funding model had been put in place, and also seemed unaware of his role in tackling violence through his responsibilities for youth unemployment, community cohesion and housing, which all have vital roles to play. Can the Minister confirm whether the VRU in the west midlands will receive a funding settlement of longer than one year?

Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue noted that West Midlands police

“is good at strategic planning, organisational management and providing value for money.”

However, it added that the force cannot

“meet the demand for its services in protecting vulnerable people with the resources it has.”

Ultimately, it is the people of the west midlands who lose out; it is they who bear the brunt of this lack of funding. That cannot be acceptable. If the Government are serious about levelling up, they must start with organisations such as West Midlands police. Can the Minister commit to filling the gaping hole in resources in the west midlands, so that it is not 1,000 officers down on 10 years ago?

Neighbourhood policing in every community will always be Labour’s top priority. Keeping people safe will always be Labour’s top priority. I urge the Government to make it theirs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

I will give way in a moment. Those Members are unwilling to acknowledge the reason, which is that decisions were made by the previous Labour police and crime commissioner that set the west midlands back. They have to take responsibility for those decisions; they cannot, I am afraid, just come to this Chamber and keep saying that everything that goes wrong in the west midlands is the Government’s fault, and that everything that goes right is the Labour party’s achievement. Nobody is buying that in Edgbaston, Selly Oak, or anywhere else in the west midlands. They recognise that difficult decisions had to be made, and I urge the Labour party to acknowledge those difficult decisions.

David Jamieson was not all good, and he was not all bad. He had difficult things to do, and he made a set of choices that produced a particular outcome and a particular baseline in the west midlands. I have no doubt that that was what he said in the elections that he won, and that the people of the west midlands took him at his word and believed him. They have re-elected a Labour police and crime commissioner, so presumably they are happy with that performance, but complaining that everything that goes wrong is down to the Government seems a little naive to me.

[Sarah Jones]

Knife crime has gone up in every single part of England and Wales.

[Kit Malthouse]

That is not true.

[Sarah Jones]

It is true. I can send the Minister the statistics. Crimes have gone up across the country. It is not accurate to blame one area or another for those universal increases and the universal drops in prosecution. Of course, there are good police forces and less good police forces, and everyone tries their best. The point we are trying to make is that we are 1,000 police officers down, which means neighbourhood policing will suffer. On the point made by the hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) about the police station, I should have mentioned that the police and crime commissioner is waiting for the Conservative council to sell them the land to build the police station. Perhaps we could talk about that later.

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but it is unfair and pulling the wool over the eyes of the people of the west midlands not to stand by the fact that a Labour police and crime commissioner—or any other police and crime commissioner elected, presumably —has an impact on the force. The decisions they make must have some implication for the way the force is run and its finances.

Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. Over the last 20 years, we have seen a stark pattern of class A drug use. Between 1996 and 2011, the use of class A drugs was on a downward trend year on year. Since 2011, the use of class A drugs has increased every year. Drug deaths are at an all-time high and we have seen the emergence of increasingly violent and exploitative gangs that use technology that is way ahead of the Government to groom kids and sell them drugs.

The question Dame Carol Black answered in her review on drugs was why that has happened, and her conclusions were damning. We have gone backwards over the last 10 years, with drug abuse up and drug treatment down. She said that

“drug misuse is at tragically destructive levels in this country…Funding cuts have left treatment and recovery services on their knees. Commissioning has been fragmented, with little accountability …partnerships…have deteriorated. The workforce is depleted…and demoralised.”

I could go on.

There has never been a greater need for a 10-year plan to try to undo the 10 years of damage caused by Conservative Governments. In his statement, the Minister talked of ambitious plans, but what is missing is any recognition that the policies followed by Conservative Governments over the last 11 years have caused such damage. The truth is that the Government have dropped the ball on drugs and on crime.

I have been going round the country over the last few weeks and I have seen the damage that has been done. Communities of good people with hopes and dreams have been invaded by serious organised crime that trashes our streets and preys on our young by offering false hope of money and a future. There are two-for-one deals on Insta: “Introduce a friend and get your drugs half price. You help us, we’ll help you.” Thousands of children at risk of abuse are taking a punt on their futures at the hands of thugs, and whole communities are having to deal with antisocial behaviour and the crime that follows drug addiction. This is Tory Britain.

I will not join the Prime Minister’s fanfare about the biggest investment in a generation, because this Government have overseen the biggest failures of a generation; and I mourn the loss of life. Instead, today I hope that the Government mean what they say, and want to welcome the strategy—at last—and ask some questions of the Minister.

I welcome the funding, the commitment to 54,000 new treatment places, the closure of the 2,000 lines we hope to close and the ambition to save 1,000 lives, but will neighbourhood policing be brought back to the levels we saw in 2010—so crucial for catching those who sell drugs in our communities—because we know that only 400 of the first tranche of 6,000 officers are in frontline roles? Will the 50% of police community support officers we have lost be replaced?

Can the Minister explain why he is not funding treatment to the level that Dame Carol Black has called for? We count a shortfall of over £200 million. Will the Minister look at the new offence of child criminal exploitation, accept Labour’s suggestion of putting modern slavery offenders on a register similar to the sex offenders register, and look again at all the amendments we have tabled to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to impose longer sentences for adults who involve children in criminal enterprise?

While this Government have dithered on drugs, those selling and producing them have been working hard. They have new, exploitative ways of pushing their products around the country, and they have chilling ways of advertising them online to our children. A shocking 58% of 18-year-olds reported seeing drugs being sold online, often via Instagram and Snapchat.

Can the Minister confirm that the statistic that the Government have shut down over 1,500 deal lines actually means they have taken or shut down an individual phone or phone number, not that they have necessarily caught the groomers and the exploiters? Most criminal gangs will keep copies of their customer list that can be sold for thousands of pounds. I have heard the police talk about using an order to force a communications provider to disconnect a device or phone number, and the line was back up in an hour. How many actual networks have been shut down?

What is the Minister doing to recruit more analysts? What is he doing to work with social media companies, which should not allow the sale of drugs on their networks, to get ahead of the criminals online? How are the telecommunication companies involved in his plan?

Finally, prosecutions for drug offences are down 36% since 2010 and convictions down 43%. This is alongside an overall drop in prosecutions since 2010—down 40%. Why has this happened, and what is the Minister doing about that? All around this country, people know what impact drugs are having on our communities and they want something done about it. This statement and this drugs plan, however the Minister presents them, are not about levelling up; they are compensation for cuts over the last decade, for lives lost and for communities that have had to bear the brunt of the Government’s complacency on drugs.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am afraid that, while I obviously welcome some of the hon. Lady’s pleasure at what we are doing in the plan and I recognise, as she does, the need for some action, these exchanges between us have a slightly tiresome pattern, if I may say so, which is that I announce some new initiative and the hon. Lady starts talking about the events of 12 years ago, somehow implying that we are not really doing anything at all. Even if I accepted her premise about the pattern over the last 10 years—which, for the record, I do not—it would be refreshing, would it not, if she and her party were willing to accept some culpability for the financial situation that we inherited well over a decade ago. Somebody had to sort out the finances of this country, as we had to in 1979 as well, and if we had not done that and sorted out the money side of it then, I hesitate to imagine what financial situation we would be in now.

While the hon. Lady points to the pattern of consumption, she strangely seems to forget that drug consumption now is well below the level it was in many of the years of the previous Labour Government. In fact, consumption of class A did not really start to turn in this country till about 2014, not 2011, as she pointed out. That was because the industry, as it were, or the business of drug distribution reacted as any business would: it found different products and new ways to distribute, made products cheaper and stronger, and started to exploit people in a way we had not seen before.

We commissioned Dame Carol Black to do this study. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who has just left the Chamber, commissioned it when he was the Home Secretary, because we recognised the alarm being caused in neighbourhoods, towns, cities and villages across the country, and we wanted to do something about it. That plan has now resulted in our strategy that we are publishing today, and we firmly believe it will make a big difference over the next decade.

The hon. Lady should not imagine—and I slightly take umbrage at her accusation—that we have sat on our hands more recently. As you will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, over the last two years that I have been in this job, I have dedicated myself to the Prime Minister’s command that we should roll up county lines. We have closed 1,500 deal lines, which has resulted in 7,400 arrests and, importantly, over 4,000 young people have been rescued from the clutches of those gangs. [Interruption.] I hope she, and her colleagues muttering at me, will welcome those results and, frankly, congratulate the police on manufacturing a modus operandi of dealing with these gangs that is often dismantling them permanently.

The three big exporting forces of London, West Midlands and Merseyside have seen significant investment by the Government over the last two years to deal with this problem, and as a result, we have seen big falls. If we look at a county like Norfolk, only 18 months ago it had well over 100 county lines, and the number of county lines in that county can be counted on the fingers of two hands. There have been great results across the country, and I am disappointed that the hon. Lady has not recognised that. So the idea that somehow there was some dithering on drugs is completely unfair. We have closed down a large number of deal lines, but there is still a long way to go. We think we are down to about 600 active lines now across the country, and that over the next two years, with the investment we have put in place, we will be able to drive them down even further.

The hon. Lady did ask an interesting question about the role of telecommunications companies and the use of technology. One of the things we have learned over the last two or three years is that these businesses, as it were, of distributing drugs are uniquely vulnerable because of their use of telecoms to distribute, market and communicate with their customers. We will be talking to telecommunications companies about how they can help us.

On the hon. Lady’s final accusation that this is not about levelling up, we know that the impact of drugs has been disproportionate across the country. The north-east, for example, suffers much more than any other part of England. Again, Blackpool, where we have put a Project ADDER and where we are doing significant work, has the highest number of drug deaths in England. There is a disproportionality out there, and we are determined to address it. We will start our work in those kinds of areas, and that will be a key part of our levelling-up agenda in the years to come.

Reopening Local Police Stations

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) on securing this important debate. We are all still mourning the loss of David Amess, who was a friend and colleague to many in this place. I have thought, following his death, of the police officers who would have had to be some of the first people on the scene to attend to that incident, and how horrific that must have been for them. I attended a funeral yesterday in my constituency of a 16-year-old boy who was murdered in his flat in front of his mother by many young teenage boys. Again, the police will have been the first people on the scene. We ask so much of our police officers, who face a difficult challenge. I start by thanking them for all that they do.

I have agreed in the main with everything that everybody has said. The hon. Member for South Dorset is right to question the direction of travel in terms of police station closures. I do not quite agree with some of his analysis. He was talking about the good old days of policing. I think that in many ways policing has come a long way and improved over the years. In the good old days, we probably would have turned a blind eye to domestic abuse, and we would not have uncovered some of the child abuse that we now do. In many ways, modern policing is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was.

[Richard Drax]

I did not mean that in the slightest. The hon. Lady has taken what I said completely out of context. I was simply talking about the old way of doing things—catching criminals and locking them up, and having police officers on the beat. Of course, policing has changed. I totally accept that, but officers still need to be on the beat, baddies still need to be arrested and locked up, and we need to be protected. That has not changed.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I completely agree with the points that he makes; I was just contemplating the changing nature of crime, and the crime that we see, and what we do about it, which I think is a good shift. His fundamental point is about having police in our communities where we can see them and where they can see crime. We talked about the Peel principles—that the police are there to prevent crime, not just to tackle it once it happens. That is the starting point of our police service, and they cannot prevent crime unless they are there in our communities, understanding our neighbours.

I have reflected a lot since the death of David Amess about my own office space, and how it is one of the few places in our community where people can come and get access to an office, and the doors are open. The closure of a lot of our police stations reflects the closure of some of our other services. A lot of council services are now online. There are not many places where people can physically go and talk about their issues. Police stations are part of that picture.

As the shadow Minister of State for Police and the Fire Service, I spend all my time talking to the police, and talking about the impact of the cuts over the past 11 years. Since 2010, funding has been cut by £1.6 billion, and thousands of police have been taken off our streets. There are thousands fewer police officers now than there were in 2010; almost 8,000 fewer PCSOs; 7,500 fewer police staff; and 6,300 fewer special constables. The number of people who say that they never see police on the streets has doubled in that time.

As policing has suffered those cuts, the nature of crime is changing. We have high levels of violent crime, a high proportion of online crime—especially fraud, which is going through the roof—and the changing nature of terrorism, with the challenges that brings. The impact of cuts across other services, such as mental health services, youth work and the NHS, means that police are dealing with the fallout of a small state picking up the pieces when there is no one else left.

The hon. Member for South Dorset said that the police are not social workers. He is right; they are not. However, when I go out with police, they often provide that function because they are picking up people with mental health problems or substance misuse and spending hours taking them to A&E, going through the motions with them and making sure that they are okay, when actually we want the police on our streets preventing crime.

We have not just lost police officers. With all the cuts to police staff, we have lost the whole apparatus behind those who actively help to prevent and solve crime. As a response to and result of that, criminals are getting away with it; pathways to crime are open; and our children are being exploited by criminal thugs and groomed into violence. Our justice system is not making the right response and, at a national level, the problem is not taken seriously enough.

We talked about knife crime, which reached its highest levels on record in 2019-20 at more than 50,000 offences in a year. That is an extraordinary number, which has doubled since 2013-14. Between 2010 and 2019-20, knife crime rose in every single police force area in the country. Fraud and online crime has rocketed to such levels that most crimes are not even investigated. Outcomes for rape, which we have talked about over recent months, are at record low levels, at only 1.6%. Fewer than seven in every 100 violent crimes end up with a charge—an extraordinary figure.

Unlike this Government, Labour’s record in government shows that we can be trusted on policing and crime. By the time we left government, there had been 6 million fewer crimes than in 1997. The risk of being a victim of crime was at its lowest since the Crime Survey began in 1981, and police officers reached record numbers, up by almost 1,700 since 1997, alongside more than 16,000 PCSOs.

The figures on police station closures make grim reading. In 2018, The Times estimated that about 600 police stations had closed since 2010; the Daily Mail reported that it was 667. The closure of police stations forms a common thread across the length and breadth of the country. Regardless of whether the closures have happened under Conservative or Labour PCCs or Mayors, they are done because chief constables and PCCs can only play the hand they have been dealt by the Government here at Westminster.

A report from the Public Accounts Committee in 2018 claimed that closures were due to cuts in police funding, that funding cuts had led to forces selling off more of their assets to try to raise funds for capital investment and increasingly drawing on their reserves. We know that in South Yorkshire, 24 police stations have shut their doors.

[Robbie Moore]

I want to make a very quick point. When I was referring to my constituency, where we saw Keighley police station moved out of the centre of town and relocated, with a new police station built on the outskirts of town, it was all undertaken by a Labour police and crime commissioner. The same Labour police and crime commissioner that was—we now have a Labour West Yorkshire Mayor—is having discussions about moving the police station back into the centre of town. Does that not show a lack of strategy rather than it simply being related to funding models that have been dripped down from the national level?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but I disagree. If we look at the pattern of police station closures across the country, it has not just occurred in Keighley; it is everywhere. I was with the new West Yorkshire Mayor, Tracy Brabin, in her offices a couple of weeks ago talking about her approach to tackling crime, particularly, in that conversation, violence against women and girls. I am sure she will do the right thing. As has been mentioned, if 20,000 police officers are cut out of the system and then some are put back, there needs to be a physical place for people to go. The situation is that we closed everything down and are now having to look at whether we open things up again.

A lot has been said about the changing nature of how people want to report crime, and the opportunities available to report online. The hon. Member for South Dorset is right that there is a role for online reporting, and we need to look at how that works. In 2016, 8% of crimes were reported at police front counters—down from 22% in 2006. The Government’s so-called “Beating crime plan” includes proposals for every single person living in England and Wales to have digital access to police through a national online platform.

I suggest that that plan is not working. There is too much confusion about how and where to report crime, and the lack of action when people do. An extraordinary number of online fraud cases are not investigated at all. People report incidents online and wait a long time for a response. There are real pressures on the 101 service across the country, and victims of crime are increasingly calling 999 because they cannot get through on 101. The Cheshire police and crime commissioner said recently that 101 is “not fit for purpose”. Similar problems have been reported across the country.

Modern policing and the changing nature of crime mean that online reporting has an important role to play, but the value of face-to-face interaction with local police cannot be overstated. We need local neighbourhood policing in real life, not just online, and the Labour party is pushing for that. Neighbourhood policing and the role of PCSOs have never been more important. Police and place are intrinsically linked. When Labour was last in government, our policing reforms re-rooted British policing. We brought in neighbourhood policing teams all over England and Wales. We introduced the brilliant PCSOs, who are the eyes and ears of their communities. They provide vital intelligence and do a huge amount of preventive work. This Government have no plans to put more PCSOs back into communities.

A recent Police Foundation report found that, despite the Minister for Crime and Policing’s announcement on taking office that an extra 20,000 police officers would be recruited because people want to see more officers in their neighbourhoods, only 400 of the first tranche of 6,000 new recruits were deployed into neighbourhood roles—that is exactly the same number cut from the national PCSO cohort over the same period.

We want to ensure that in every neighbourhood, where people are frightened and afraid, there will a new police hub and neighbourhood prevention teams, bringing together police, community support officers, youth workers and local authority staff to tackle antisocial behaviour, as well as the perceived more serious crime that we have talked about. Where the graffiti starts, crime leads. That has to be tackled as a priority, as well as more serious crime.

Closures of police stations are sadly just one aspect of the attack on policing by Conservative Governments, which has culminated in a Britain characterised by increasing serious violence, antisocial behaviour at record levels tarnishing our streets, rape convictions at a record low, and violent crimes routinely going unresolved. Does the Minister agree with our overall argument that we need more police stations? What plans does he have to put them in place? Will he confirm whether the Budget contained any plans to increase the number of police stations? Does he agree with the public, who say that having a police station in their area makes them safer and prevents crime?

Sexual Misconduct in the Police

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I applaud the sentiments behind my right hon. Friend’s work in this area. NDAs are profoundly to be avoided. I cannot, I have to say, envisage the circumstances in which they would be used in policing, not least because, as I said earlier, following changes in the law, offences of this type have to be referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct. Decisions are therefore taken independently in terms of the investigation and the proposed sanction. The disciplinary structure around police constables, which then follows those allegations or charges, is an independent one, run by an independent panel and with an independent qualified chair who makes decisions about disclosure or otherwise regarding the case. I cannot see that an NDA would necessarily be applicable in those circumstances, but she is right to point out that they are deeply undesirable.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I add my voice to the tributes we heard earlier to James Brokenshire. I worked with him, and always found him to be charming, committed and thoughtful.

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) for tabling this urgent question. The killings of Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa, Bibaa Henry, Nicole Smallman and others have shone a light on the epidemic of violence against women and girls. Zoë Billingham, from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, defined this epidemic in her recent report. She said:

“The problem is known, consistent and deep-rooted in its presence, and growing in the forms it takes.”

We cannot hope to tackle violence against women and girls unless we can be sure that those who are here to protect us will not turn on us. Every police officer I have spoken to since Sarah’s murder has said the same: they, more than anyone, want to root out any opportunity for perpetrators to join our police service, and they want to ensure that the culture and climate in every force enables victims to have the confidence to come forward.

To rebuild the trust and confidence of women and girls in police, there must be a comprehensive, independent inquiry on a statutory footing. The Minister said that the public are in urgent need of reassurance, and that is absolutely correct, but a non-statutory inquiry cannot act in the same way as a statutory one. It cannot compel witnesses to testify, it cannot demand documents and the evidence it hears will not be under oath, and we do not believe that is good enough. It is clear that we need to look at the whole system: the vetting process, the misconduct process, working cultures, misogyny and sexism within the police force and training processes. This could be a watershed moment, and it must not be left to women and girls to make this happen.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) asked this week, when will the Home Secretary implement the recommendations of Zoë Billingham’s report? When will the Government reform and invest in our police force, our criminal justice system and wider public services so that we are ready to start tackling this epidemic? For women and girls everywhere, and for our police officers who are devastated at the betrayal of everything they stand for, things cannot remain as they are. We would work with the Government, and thank them for it, if they took this moment to bring profound change.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. On her substantive point about the inquiry, she will know that a statutory inquiry is a very long-winded affair to set up, and a non-statutory inquiry can be much quicker. She will also be aware that it is contrary to regulations, since a change in the law recently, for a police officer not to co-operate with such an inquiry, whether statutory or otherwise, and they would be subject to disciplinary proceedings if they did not co-operate. Having said that, if the chair of the inquiry feels that he or she is not getting the co-operation or the information they need, we have reserved the right to convert the inquiry into a statutory one.

The hon. Lady is right that the inquiry forms part of a suite of tools that we need to restore and enhance the confidence particularly of women and girls in our police forces. One of those processes is what we are seeing with the uplift programme, which is essentially a greater feminisation of UK policing. We have moved over the past 10 years from 25% of the force being female to just over a third, and we have a number of forces where more than half of new recruits are female. I am hopeful that that progress will mean that women and girls feel that the police force better reflects them and may result in better contemplation of these issues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s diligence in this area, and I am grateful to him for high- lighting the challenges. He will be glad to know that of the £76 million that we announced in May to help the most vulnerable people in society, £10 million has been allocated for charities providing safe accommodation, such as refuges; £2 million has been allocated for national and other non-local charities providing support to victims of domestic abuse in the community; and £25 million is already being allocated via police and crime commissioners for support services for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. Finally, there is an additional £3 million specifically to fund independent sexual violence advisers for the next two years.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

What steps his Department is taking to support children and young people who come into contact with the criminal justice system.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

Fortunately, the number of children coming into contact with the criminal justice system is reducing; offences committed by children have fallen by 76% over the last decade. We have allocated £72 million this year for youth offending teams to provide support for children who have offended, to help them turn around their lives.

[Sarah Jones]

Following the Black Lives Matter movement, in Croydon we have held a series of quite urgent meetings to look at the system and what we can do to improve things—the police, the youth offending teams and community groups. One of the issues that the youth offending service has identified is that a lot of young people who come into contact with it but just brush the system and do not end up being charged with any offences have significant problems, whether with trauma, abuse or bereavement, and need intervention at that point, before they are criminalised. Will the Minister look at increasing the support given to our young people at that stage?

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Member makes a really important point on both how we ensure that there is not racial disparity in those who enter the criminal justice system and how we divert people away from it. She will be pleased to know that over £220 million has been invested in early intervention, including £200 million in the youth endowment fund to support those most at risk of being drawn into crime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Buckland]

I know that my hon. Friend takes a great interest in the work of the staff at HMP Peterborough. It has been a difficult time for all prisons, whether publicly or privately managed. The staff are hidden heroes, and I know he would join me in applauding their dedication to public service. We have worked closely with our privately managed prisons throughout this period. As with the public sector, the staff have responded with care and compassion to support prisoners through the pandemic, helping them to maintain family ties and providing them with in-cell materials, exercise, distraction, activity packs and reading matter.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

We have the lowest rates of children in custody for years, which is great, but nine of the 10 children currently in custody in Croydon are black. That is a small statistic, but I suspect there is underlying discrimination and racism. One month on from the Prime Minister’s announcement of a commission to investigate racial inequality, can the Secretary of State give us any intelligence as to when it will be set up, who will chair it, what its terms of reference will be and whether we will see some action?

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. She is right to highlight the tremendous success in the reduction of the number of children in custody, but the disproportionate number of black, Asian and minority ethnic children is of real concern. There are issues, identified in the Lammy review, among other things, relating to how legal advice is tendered and to engagement with the system. She will know that already, as a result of that review, we have started the “Chance to Change” pilots on different ways of dealing with allegations against black and minority ethnic youngsters. As for the wider work of government, I do not have those details at the moment, but I will make sure she is furnished with them as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work both as a Minister in this Department and as a campaigner on this issue. I share his approach to these issues. Since we launched the going forward into employment scheme in January 2018, we have recruited 29 ex-offenders who are currently in post in civil service roles, with a further 20 due to start in post shortly. I commend the work being done on Ban the Box, the private sector community initiative, which I actively support.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

When the Prime Minister was Mayor of London, the number of stop and searches steadily declined, but they became more effective and intelligence-led. As a result, the arrest rate significantly increased. Now that the Prime Minister has decided to increase stop and search, the reverse has happened. They are less intelligence-led, and arrest rates are declining. Does the Secretary of State agree with me and with the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime that stop and search is an important tool, but it is not the only answer, and that a long-term public health approach that puts prevention at the heart of policing is the way to tackle knife crime?

[Chris Philp]

I agree that stop and search is a vital part of our fight against knife crime. When the use of stop and search was dramatically reduced between about 2014 and 2018, we saw a reduction in the number of convictions and, shortly afterwards, an increase in the number of offences. Leading police and crime commissioners, including Jane Kennedy, the former Labour MP and Minister who is now the police and crime commissioner in Merseyside, have said that the fair and effective use of stop and search remains one of the most powerful tools that the police have at their disposal. With body-worn cameras now in use, some of the issues to do with communities feeling disrespected have been largely addressed. However, this is only part of the battle against knife crime, as the hon. Lady says, and I pay tribute to her work as chair of the knife crime APPG. Preventive work and work in schools are important as well.