Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry

Debate between Sarah Jones and Chi Onwurah

Thursday 18th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I think we can agree on some of what the hon. Lady has said. She is right that there was institutional blindness. We have seen that in other ways across the state, and not just in these horrific cases. It is something that we know we need to change. She is right to speak of the victims and the horrors that they have suffered, and she is right to keep a focus on that.

The hon. Lady said that the Opposition warned us about the prison situation; I gently say that we warned them, for very many years, about the state of our prison estate. When we came into government, we found a catastrophic situation: simply not enough prison places, and the whole system at the point of collapse. We have had to respond to that. As Policing Minister, I have a duty to ensure that our police are policing our streets and keeping everybody safe. We always ensure that we keep an eye, in the right way, on former criminals who come out of prison, and I spend a lot of my time talking to the police about how we do that.

We all greatly admire Louise Casey and are very grateful for the work that she continues to do. Of course she is right to push us to go faster, as she always will. That is why we asked her to do the job: because she demands the best from us. She has also praised the progress made by the Government in establishing the inquiry and in the work that has been done to date. She is understandably pushing us on three areas: the non-child prostitution convictions of some people who have been groomed, having the right information flows for Operation Beaconport, and Whitehall treating this issue with the urgency that it needs.

On all those issues, we are going as fast as we can and responding to the questions that Louise Casey has rightly asked. We are pushing to get all that work done as quickly as possible. She was clear that the inquiry should be relatively speedy. That was one of the challenges of the Professor Jay inquiry, which took many years, excellent though it was. The inquiry will be concluded by 2029. It has £65 million of funding. We will get to the answers.

[Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)]

The Spicer review of 2018 into the handling of the widespread sexual exploitation of children and vulnerable adults in Newcastle found a culture that enabled and did not investigate the exploitation and rape of children and vulnerable adults, and a culture of victim blaming. It also praised Newcastle city council and Northumbria police’s actions following the investigation.

I have repeatedly contacted Northumbria police to raise issues around child exploitation and to seek reassurances about its actions. Given the comments in the Casey review, how can I ensure that Northumbria police has the resources and support it needs to identify and support victims, believe them and encourage them to come forward, and to create a culture of investigation, openness and transparency to reassure my constituents?

[Sarah Jones]

I am happy to facilitate conversations, but it sounds like my hon. Friend is already having them. As she will know, we are working on police culture. The Hillsborough law and some of the wider work we are doing across Government aim to ensure that we have the right openness, transparency and culture of being professionally curious and seeking out solutions. That is very important. All forces across the country have had a funding increase this year, and Operation Beaconport has its own fund of £38 million. The funding should be there, but I am happy to have further conversations with her about that.

Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Sarah Jones and Chi Onwurah

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Lady makes her case very clearly, and we can agree that we need to design out those kinds of issues. The challenges are in what we do and how we do it—those are the challenges we had with this particular group of amendments. Obviously there is wider work being done on violence against women and girls and how the Online Safety Act is to be rolled forward, and that work is really important, but we are talking about this particular group of Lords amendments on chatbots and the challenges with them. That is why, through amendment (a) in lieu, we commit to reporting by the end of the year on our progress to develop regulations.

We are clear that regulation is a more effective and proportionate tool than the criminal law for addressing risks from AI chatbots and setting industry best practice. Incorporating currently unregulated chatbots into the scope of the Online Safety Act will ensure that such regulation applies extraterritorially, which is crucial when dealing with international companies.

The Government’s approach is also broader in scope than the content of amendments 360 and 368 to 372. Those amendments would not capture image generators creating non-consensual graphic images of women or online AI chatbot toys such as Gabbo. The Government’s amendment in lieu does capture such services and allows them to be clearly brought under online safety regulations.

[Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)]

The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has heard extensive and at times horrific evidence of the harms that AI chatbots can do, such as encouragement to suicide. I welcome Lords amendment 367, which gives the Government the power to amend the Online Safety Act, and I accept that the Government are seeking to reject amendment 368, tabled by the noble Baroness Kidron, to ban chatbots based on their content, but does the Minister accept that the harms of AI chatbots are evident, significant and hugely concerning, and that their regulation is unclear and consistent? Where chatbots are covered by the Online Safety Act, if those chatbots incorporate, for example, search functionality, enforcement is slow and ponderous or non-existent. Will the Minister commit to working with DSIT to take action on AI chatbots before the end of the year?

[Sarah Jones]

I welcome the work that my hon. Friend’s Committee has done and will continue to do in this space. It is very important that we have good analysis of what the problems are that we need to solve. She is absolutely right that the problems with AI chatbots are evident, significant and concerning, and that more work needs to be done in this space. If there is work that we can do sooner rather than later, I am sure that my colleagues in DSIT will do that, and I commit to working with them to do what we can as quickly as we can.

Finally, hon. Members will recall that on Report, the House decided to disapply the criminal law relating to abortion in respect of women acting in relation to their own pregnancy. Their Lordships agreed amendment 361, which would provide for automatic pardons for women previously convicted or cautioned for an abortion offence in relation to their own pregnancies and for the deletion of certain details from court and police records.

I stress that the Government remain neutral on the substance of clause 191 and Lords amendment 361, but we have a duty to ensure that the law is operationally and legally workable. Accordingly, we have tabled amendments (a) and (e) to Lords amendment 361 to ensure that the deletion of details from relevant official records can operate as intended.

North Sea Energy

Debate between Sarah Jones and Chi Onwurah

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Minister on setting out a plan that supports jobs, skills and communities in the face of technological change�unlike the Conservative party, which abandoned wholesale our industrial base in the 1980s. Like the north-east of Scotland, the north-east of England has jobs, skills and opportunities that depend on the energy of the North sea. Kinewell Energy, in my constituency, leads in wind farm design optimisation. Can the Minister confirm that she will work with the Mayor of the North East, Kim McGuiness, to ensure that the north-east of England benefits from the jobs and opportunities of the North sea?

[Sarah Jones]

I meet industry representatives all the time, and their response to Kim McGuiness is great. She is such a force of enthusiasm, knowledge and power for her communities, and people engage with her. They like what she says about investing in the north-east, and they are responding to her. She is making a real difference in her community. We are doing all we can, through all kinds of levers that the Government can use, to make sure that the investment in clean energy supports all our communities. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the fact that we need to take advantage of the particular skills of people in the north-east.

Leasehold Reform

Debate between Sarah Jones and Chi Onwurah

Thursday 11th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and all the other members of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on such a powerful report, and I thank the 700 or 800 people who got in touch with the Committee to give their views. We have heard this afternoon how powerful the feelings are across the country. I thank the APPG, of course, the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, of course, and the National Leasehold Campaign, of course, all of which have done extraordinary work in this area. I also pay tribute to all the Members who have spoken today, but I give particular thanks to the Conservative Members on the opposite side of the House. It is not necessarily comfortable for an MP to stand up and call for action from their own Government, but they have done that well and with dignity and great conviction.

We have all heard some of the stories many times, and the time has come to act. One in four homes in this country are leasehold homes, which means that up to 6 million people have basically bought homes that they think they own when they do not. We have heard horrific cases of people trapped in homes they cannot sell, people being ripped off with extortionate service charges, and people being threatened with eviction for absolutely no good reason.

No other major economy has this feudal-style system. Every other major economy has moved away from leasehold and towards fairer, more transparent systems of ownership. Scotland has abolished leasehold, transferring all properties held on long leases to outright ownership, and action has been taken in Northern Ireland. Other countries have demonstrated that alternative models of ownership can work. There are co-op models, and the Australian system has spread to other countries—Canada, New Zealand and Singapore. This is being done everywhere else, but not in the UK.

This week, the Labour party announced a policy that will bring leasehold into line with every other major economy, and I brought a copy of the document with me today. We do not have many printed copies, but I have one here for the Minister, because she will hopefully appreciate reading it. We talked to the Law Commission. We spent a lot of time listening to the debates, reading the Select Committee’s report, and listening to the APPG and the campaigners, and we talked to property lawyers. Our policies are comprehensive and sensible, and worth being looked at by the Government. There are two parts, and the first is what we do with new leasehold properties going forward.

Of course, there is no argument at all for new leasehold houses. We should be looking to abolish new leasehold flats, too. The second part of the package, of course, is to help the up to 6 million people living in leasehold homes by giving them new rights and saving them thousands of pounds.

The Government have paid lip service to this. They know the system is broken and they have acknowledged the problem, but they have failed to act. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Jo Platt) said, they have made over 60 announcements on leasehold since 2010, but none of their proposals is aimed at helping the 6 million people trapped in leasehold homes right now and none of their proposals has led to any legislation.

Going beyond that, as has already been mentioned, the Government are actually propping up the system. The number of leasehold homes is increasing and £1 billion of Help to Buy money has gone directly to new leasehold homes, which is nothing less than a scandal.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) said, Labour proposes to end the sale of new leasehold houses, with direct effect, and to legislate to end the sale of new leasehold flats. We want existing leaseholders to be able to buy the full freehold ownership of their home for no more than 1% of the property’s value. Where does the 1% figure come from? It was suggested by the Law Commission; it is well evidenced; and we think it could work.

Labour would end ground rents for new leasehold homes, and as has been said, we would cap them for existing leaseholders at 0.1% of the property’s value, up to a maximum of £250 a year. Again, where does that come from? It comes from the Select Committee, and the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) has tabled the Ground Rents (Leasehold Properties) Bill, too. Again, the proposal is well evidenced and sensible.

Labour would give new rights to empower leaseholders to hire and fire their managing agent, or to take over the management of their home themselves. Importantly, we would crack down on unfair fees and contract terms by publishing a reference list of reasonable charges, not dissimilar to that which the Government introduced in the Tenant Fees Act 2019. We could have a similar system. We want to see transparency, which we would introduce on service charges, and we want to give leaseholders a right to challenge rip-off fees. As we have heard, such fees are complex, difficult and expensive.

We think the formulation of acting “whenever parliamentary time allows,” after nearly 10 years of Conservative government, is unacceptable. As the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) said at the start of the debate, this feudal system has been in place for around a thousand years. After a problem has existed for a thousand years, parliamentary time should allow for us to act. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) said, Labour Members and Conservative Back Benchers would support such legislation if it were introduced by the Government.

I end with a series of questions, which I would be grateful if the Minister answered. Does she recognise that we are the only developed country in the world that has failed to move away from the feudal leasehold model? Does she accept that the number of leasehold homes has gone up, and is still going up? Does she accept that 100,000 people are trapped in unsellable homes because of the leasehold scandal?

[Chi Onwurah]

Some of them are my constituents.

[Sarah Jones]

Exactly. If the Minister does not accept that 100,000 figure, what work is her Department doing to understand what the number is? What possible reason can she give, after the 60 announcements and the body of evidence we have heard of today, for legislation not having been introduced? When will the legislation be introduced? Can she confirm that none of the Government’s proposals will help the up to 6 million people who are currently leaseholders, and what will she do about it? England is the only place in the world that has failed to move away from this system, and it is time we caught up.