Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

What the police and crime commissioner of Thames Valley should be congratulated on is cutting crime by 31% in the past five years, with a very difficult spending round. As we develop the new funding formula, I am sure there will be lots of conversations across the House about how the process should be taken forward. There will be winners and losers, but at present it is suspended. I congratulate Thames Valley on the work it has been doing.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

11. What assessment she has made of the ability of each police force to tackle cybercrime.

[The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)]

Cybercrime is a threat that the Government take very seriously. In the last Parliament, the Government committed £860 million to the national cyber-security programme, and we will continue to invest in that programme.

[Steve McCabe]

It is estimated that cybercrime is costing the UK at least £34 billion annually. If we add computer crime to October’s headline crime figures, we see that they more than double to over 14 million offences. Yet the City of London police, one of the lead forces, argue that less effort should be put into solving crimes against victims whom they judge not to have taken sufficient precautions. Does the Minister share my concern that this amounts to a charter for criminals?

[Mike Penning]

No, I do not. I think that our personal security is a very important thing. We also have responsibilities as citizens to make sure that our computers in particular have the right software so that it is more difficult—not to stop it completely, but to make it more difficult—for cybercrime to take place. We are taking cybercrime very seriously, which is why we have put it in the crime statistics for the very first time.