Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Steve Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher), for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss), for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick), for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) and, of course, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) for making some really thoughtful contributions. They have made it clear in the debate that the Conservative party has gone high on tax and is now also soft on crime. What a sorry situation for a party that once proudly stood for the precise opposite of the record that it now holds.

The Conservative Government took 21,000 police officers off our streets. They closed courts, created a backlog of nearly 60,000 cases and targeted cuts on the youth services that prevent crime at source. At every stage in the criminal justice system, the Government have let criminals off and let victims down, and now we have this thin, meagre Queen’s Speech, offering nothing to put that right.

As we have heard from Opposition Members, the Conservatives have promised a victims Bill in every Queen’s Speech since 2015, and yet, seven years on, a Bill has still not appeared in Parliament. Yesterday, we were promised only a draft Bill, meaning that it will take even longer to become law. A victims Bill should be at the centre of the legislative programme, not an afterthought, because the Government have let victims down for far too long.

It is nothing short of scandalous that only 1.3% of reported rapes ever result in a prosecution; the other 98.7% never reach court. In those rare cases where a prosecution actually happens, the average delay in getting to court has now exceeded 1,000 days for the first time ever. Rape survivors deserve so much better than this. Letting an offender walk free for nearly three years—especially when so many of them live in the same neighbourhood as the person they attacked—is a major contributing factor in why so many cases are dropped. At a time when rape involving a knife has gone up by nearly 10%, the Government have effectively decriminalised rape.

The Home Secretary—I am sorry that she is not in her place—mentioned paedophilia in her opening speech. Let me respectfully remind her that her party ignored the child victim of the predatory former Conservative MP for Wakefield and allowed him to stand as its candidate. She might reflect on that before she debases herself with slurs against other parties ever again. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler) did not hear what the Home Secretary said from the Dispatch Box. Those comments are directed at what she said, and she debased her office in how she said it.

Labour proposed a victims Bill that would have put victims and survivors back at the heart of the criminal justice system, but the Government refused to work with us. We can only conclude, after seven years of delay and dither, low prosecution rates and eye-watering court delays, that they just do not care about victims. A fundamental part of supporting victims is catching the criminals who offended against them in the first place, but the Government’s police cuts are so extreme that they have effectively decriminalised many of the crimes that worry people the most. They fail to prosecute 93% of reported robberies, 95% of violent assaults, 96% of thefts, 99% of reported rapes and 99.9% of reported cases of fraud. Shops and supermarket managers say that the police no longer come to arrest shoplifters, so there has been an explosion of shoplifting to order. The criminals march in and unload what they like off the shelves—[Interruption.] I suggest the Minister for Crime and Policing, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) speaks to some supermarket managers in his constituency. The criminals march in and unload what they like off the shelves and there is no one to stop them. If there are not enough police because the Conservatives took them off the streets, they cannot catch the criminals. It really is as simple and common-sensical as that.

Fraud is the fastest-growing crime of all. Scammers target people’s life savings and bank accounts with ever more intricate online schemes. We have recently even seen low-life criminals set up fake funds claiming to be helping Ukrainians, when they are just fraudsters helping themselves to decent people’s money. Yet the Business Secretary of this Conservative Government tells us fraud is not a real crime. No wonder their own fraud Minister resigned in disgust at the Government’s failure to take these serious crimes seriously.

The Government are also letting down the victims of violent crime. Custodial sentences for knife offenders have fallen to the lowest level for seven years. Almost half of all knife offenders dodged jail because the Conservatives broke their election pledge of “two strikes and you’re out”. I know from my time as a council leader how to cut violent youth crime. My council reduced it by—[Interruption.] Conservative Members might scoff and laugh, but my council reduced it by a third in 18 months. [Interruption.] I suggest the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) listens to this. We did it by investing in better support for parents, more community-led projects that divert young offenders away from crime, and tougher enforcement against law breakers. It works, but this Government have done the polar opposite. They have presided over a 70% cut in youth service funding that has left some areas with no funding at all—zero funding. They have closed 750 youth centres and sacked 4,500 youth workers who did vital work steering the most vulnerable young people away from crime.

Drug and alcohol addiction lies behind many criminals’ offending. They steal to feed their habit and their habit often makes them more violent. We would expect any serious Government to tackle that, but the Conservatives have done the opposite. The House of Commons Library found that, thanks to this Government, £100 million a year less was spent on tackling drug and alcohol addiction in the three years to 2020, a decision that is right now fuelling crime. Under the Conservatives, a prisoner is more likely to leave prison addicted to drugs than when they first arrived. The think-tank Reform tells us that one in seven prisoners are now addicted to drugs, more than double the figure five years ago.

Under the Conservatives, our prisons have become colleges of crime that breed offending, instead of places of punishment and rehabilitation that prevent it. It is alarming how many serious criminals walk out of jail at will. In February, the dangerous sex offender Paul Robson walked out of HMP North Sea Camp. In March, the murderer Shane Farrington walked out of HMP Thorn Cross. [Interruption.] The Minister for Crime and Policing should take responsibility for the Government’s record after 12 years in power. This Government should never have allowed such dangerous criminals to be placed in a low category prison where they could simply walk out and menace the public. With drugs and violence running out of control in our prisons, we are seeing more prisoners leave prison to commit even more serious crimes afterwards. Over the last decade, 685 ex-offenders have been convicted for murders committed after they were released. More than a third of those murders were committed between 2018 and 2020, showing that the rate of the most serious reoffending is speeding up under this Government.

Terrorism worries everyone in this country. We heard some heartfelt contributions today, for instance from Members talking about the horrific attack that targeted young people at the Manchester Arena. We remember those victims with great sorrow in our hearts. Of the last four major terrorist attacks, three were carried out by prisoners released on licence and one by a serving inmate. So it beggars belief that the Justice Secretary wants to blunder ahead with his ill-conceived plan to rip up protections against terrorism in his bonfire of British people’s rights. This country’s security services have explained in The Times that his plans will make it harder to deport dangerous foreign terrorists, and in some cases, terrorists could get away with their crimes because of the reforms in the Queen’s Speech.

Our security services give evidence to the British courts in secret for terrorism cases. That is necessary so that their sources and operations are not exposed to the terrorists that they are tracking down. Under the Government’s disastrous proposals, however, these cases would have to be heard in Strasbourg at the European Court where secret evidence is not allowed. Rather than exposing their agents, the security services would be forced to drop cases and let terrorists walk free. The Government’s warped ideology threatens to put the British people at greater risk of terrorist attacks. It is our job in the Opposition to stop them doing that.

This Government have gone soft on crime. They do not prosecute criminals because they cut the police by 21,000. They do not punish criminals because they do not catch them in the first place. Our prisons have become drug-addicted colleges of crime and the Government cut the diversionary programmes that knock low-level offenders off the crime escalator, so they then progress on to more serious forms of offending.

Labour’s approach would be so very different. We would put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system with a strengthened victims Bill. We would make offenders pay back communities with new community and victim payback orders that stop young offenders in their tracks, and we would let victims choose the work that offenders have to carry out. We would crack down on drugs in prison and keep dangerous prisoners in high-security prisons that they cannot walk out of. We would set up new neighbourhood crime prevention teams in every community, bringing together police, youth workers, mental health services and, importantly, victims’ representatives to tackle the causes of crime and antisocial behaviour. While the Conservatives sack the police, we back the police, and we would put more of them back on the streets catching criminals.

Under this Prime Minister, crime is up 18% and prosecutions are down 18%. Perhaps it is no surprise that the Government have gone soft on crime when they are led by people who break the law themselves. The Leader of the Opposition has promised to resign if he is issued with a fine for breaking covid lockdown rules. The Prime Minister broke those laws repeatedly and shamelessly, yet he hopes to cling on to office. That sends criminals a very dangerous message: if the Prime Minister does not obey the law, why should they? This Government are led by law-breakers who believe that laws are for the little people. No wonder they have gone soft on crime; no wonder they are letting criminals off and letting victims down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Reed Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is right to emphasise that it absolutely is people traffickers and organised crime gangs who are encouraging people to make this extremely perilous crossing. We deploy aerial surveillance, but the House will appreciate that I will not be able to discuss our covert assets in detail. He is right to emphasise that we are working with a number of member states, including France, to facilitate returns. About 20 individuals who have crossed via small boat have been returned to date, and further returns are in progress.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

T8. Local authorities are formally responsible for applying to the EU settlement scheme on behalf of looked-after children, but it is not clear what support is available for vulnerable adults such as elderly people with dementia. With potentially just 11 days left until we leave the EU, will the Minister now confirm what support will be made available to help vulnerable adults secure their status before the UK leaves?

[Caroline Nokes]

The Government have made available £9 million of grant funding to charities and other organisations to support vulnerable people, including vulnerable adults in the care sector, through this process. We have already, through the test phase, been working closely with a number of local authorities, and there has been an extensive engagement process with the LGA and other local government bodies to make sure that we get this right.

Emergency Summit on Knife Crime

Steve Reed Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

What the hon. Lady mentioned are not proposals, but things we are doing. I was delighted to hear from the chief constable of Merseyside and also its police and crime commissioner in the last two weeks. The chief constable was urging the Home Secretary and others to assist with surge policing, and I am delighted that in the spring statement we secured that extra funding for Merseyside.

Last week, the police and crime commissioner for Merseyside gave her views on what can help. The reason we are focusing on the seven metropolitan forces is that they account for a great deal of the knife crime that we are seeing at the moment. If we can share their best practice with other forces that are seeing the county lines phenomenon, that will, of course, help those forces get up to speed quickly too.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

In my advice surgery last Friday, I met Mr Glenford Spence, whose son had been savagely knifed to death in a youth club two weeks previously. When I asked the Minister in the Chamber what action the Government were taking to prevent that kind of tragedy, she placed particular emphasis on the troubled families programme; what she did not say is that all funding for that programme ends in March next year and that the service heads are implementing proposals to wind down and close those services.

Given the Minister’s recognition of the important part that the programme plays in preventing a further escalation of knife crime, will she confirm to the House now that funding for the troubled families programme will continue after next March?

[Victoria Atkins]

I cannot, in that that is not my Department, so it would not be right for me to make financial commitments at the Dispatch Box. I have discussed this with the Secretary of State in the last 48 hours, and we are very clear about the value that that sort of intervention can and does have for families who need a bit of extra support. If I may, I will ask the hon. Gentleman to contact the Secretary of State for a precise answer to his question about the future of that programme.

Knife Crime

Steve Reed Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend understands the value that PCSOs can bring to their local communities, not least because they can often be a very good way of engaging with young people who may be at risk, or who may know others who are at risk. He will be pleased that police and crime commissioners have pretty much universally said—there may be one or two exceptions—that they intend to use their increased funding to recruit more officers. Some have also said that that includes PCSOs. We leave it to local police and crime commissioners and chief constables to work out what works in their local area, and I welcome and support those plans.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

We already know what works in tackling violent youth crime because we have done it before. For instance, the public health-type approach that I and others introduced in Lambeth in 2008, more than 10 years ago, dramatically cut violent youth offending at the time. It included services such as better family support, tackling school exclusions, better youth provision, more community engagement and leadership, support for the voluntary sector and better mental health care targeted at young people. This Government came in and cut the funding for all those services, and now we see more young people dying on our streets. Will the Minister finally acknowledge the scale of the Government’s mistakes in cutting funding, think again about the fair funding formula, which will target precisely those services and precisely those community for further cuts, and urgently restore funding so that we can tackle the complex root causes of violent youth crime?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is supporting our multi-agency approach under the serious violence strategy. He will, I am sure, welcome the fact that part of the troubled families programme, which he knows funds a great number of vital projects across the country to help those who are most deprived, has been apportioned by the Secretary of State specifically to tackle knife crime. It is exactly that sort of approach that will not just commend itself to the House, but have real, real effect on the ground.

Immigration Rules: Paragraph 322(5)

Steve Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) on securing this important debate.

I will focus on one constituent, because the individual cases really highlight the damage the Government are doing. I have a woman constituent—she prefers to remain anonymous—who came here from Zimbabwe in 2007 after winning a British Council scholarship to Birkbeck College in London. She has been a model citizen ever since. She works very hard—she has never had fewer than two jobs at a time—and she brings up her three children without any recourse to public funds. She has held management jobs, and she is the director of a company she set up in 2010. She has been a governor and a volunteer at a school in her community. She has run three marathons for charity, she volunteers at Crisis at Christmas and she helped to set up an arthritis charity.

In 2010, this woman suffered the horrific experience of being raped. Her attacker was eventually sentenced to 15 years in prison. In the aftermath of that trauma, she made a mistake on her tax return. She put that down to the many pressures in her life at that time. Considering that she was dealing with a serious sexual assault, holding down multiple jobs, volunteering and bringing up three children, she had an awful lot on her plate. She realised the mistake herself, reported it to HMRC, put her affairs in order and paid off the underpayment. HMRC accepted that it was a mistake and did not impose a fine. A few months later, she applied to the Home Office for indefinite leave to remain but, after a 19-month wait, she was rejected on the grounds of a tax discrepancy that had already been resolved to the satisfaction of HMRC.

This woman has now used up all her life savings on legal advice, has lost the right to work, can no longer afford to pay her mortgage or her bills, and is forced to live on handouts. She faces immediate deportation unless she can raise enough money to carry out further legal action. The Government have ruined this woman’s life.

Clearly, this woman and the thousands like her are assets to this country. They must not be used as pawns in the Government’s attempts to cover up the failures of their immigration policy by targeting people whose presence in this country is wholly legitimate and wholly beneficial. I hope the Minister agrees to suspend the use of paragraph 322(5) for purposes it was never intended for, sets up a hardship fund to help people this policy has damaged, and offers compensation to people who have lost their jobs, homes, savings and livelihoods because of it—and I hope she says sorry to the people she has damaged.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry

Steve Reed Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Part of the Government’s response to Grenfell must be to ensure that it can never happen again, but nearly a year later, far too little has been done to give people living in blocks like Grenfell with similar cladding that very important reassurance. In 2009, the Lakanal House fire caused the loss of six lives. In 2013, the coroner reporting on that tragedy told the Government that the fire safety guidance was confusing, unclear and not fit for purpose, and that it needed to be revised, but the Government did nothing. In 2016, flammable cladding was put on Grenfell Tower, and in 2017 Grenfell Tower went up in flames. Had the Government listened and acted, those people would be alive today. Industry figures show that there is still an average of one fire a month relating to that kind of cladding. How long will it be before one of those fires is not put out? Eventually, that will happen unless we take that cladding down.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, Ministers stood up and declared that the cladding was not compliant with the guidance or the regulations, but the Government’s chief fire safety adviser signed off specification for the same kind of cladding for use on high-rise residential blocks. That emphasises the coroner’s point, after the Lakanal House fire, that the regulations and guidance were unclear and confusing. Ministers did not know, because they cannot interpret the guidance any more than anybody else can.

We will have to wait and see what the Hackitt review comes out with, but there are widespread concerns that it is compromised because there are so many individuals on it representing vested financial interests, and the early reports of what is coming out of the review do nothing to allay those fears. The Government must act without further delay.

My concern, which is widely held in the sector and by people living in blocks that have the same kind of cladding as Grenfell, is that a money-go-round is operating in the fire safety sector. The BRE makes considerable revenue from running fire safety tests for cladding manufacturers, which are able to design their own tests and keep rerunning them, slightly differently, if they fail, until they get the result they desire. They are then able to keep the detail of those multiple tests, and even the fact that they have taken place, secret on grounds of commercial confidentiality. That simply cannot be right. That gives the BRE, which also drafts the fire safety guidance, a direct financial interest in allowing the use of semi-combustible cladding, which is banned in many EU countries, because non-combustible cladding would not require the same level of very profitable testing—of course, it also would not result in so many deaths.

Ministers need to start listening to independent sources of advice. The chair of the Government’s fire safety expert panel is a trustee of the BRE. The culture that allows that is why nothing has changed since Lakanal House or Grenfell last year. One of the reasons why Ministers do not want to recognise these failings is that they do not want to accept their share of the responsibility for the tragedy that happened at Grenfell Tower, but they must recognise failings if they are to put them right. Ministers must now change course. There can be no more Grenfells, but there will be another if Ministers do not act.

Independent Review: Deaths in Police Custody

Steve Reed Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I did make it clear in my statement that we published our response today and I am placing it in the Library. When the hon. Lady reads it, I hope that she will see that it is a substantive response to all the thematic considerations that Dame Elish has brought forward.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

In Croydon, we had the tragic death of Seni Lewis in a mental health hospital, which was one of the cases that led to this important review. Following the lessons from the Seni Lewis case, does the Minister agree that non-natural deaths in a mental health setting should also trigger an independent investigation—with the emphasis on independent—as already happens when a death occurs in police custody and in prisons? Will the Lord Chancellor’s review of legal aid for bereaved families, to which the Minister referred, also cover the deaths of people in mental health custody?

Knife Crime

Steve Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

Yes, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to do more. County lines is a new and developing issue that I have learned about in Croydon. Gangs go out as far as Cardiff and down to the south coast from London and other UK cities. They are spreading out, and we need to do more. Police resourcing is absolutely key, but we need to work together even more. Children from Aberdeen to Cardiff and Margate are carrying knives; it is a UK-wide problem.

The second thing I know is that the age of the young people involved is getting lower and lower. Every single agency I spoke to over the summer said that it was used to seeing young people between the ages of 16 and 24, but that the age of the children it saw was dropping to 12, 13 and 14.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I echo the words of congratulation to my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. To what extent does she believe that the severe cuts to council services—they have led to cuts in services such as crime prevention, early intervention and family support—and the severe reductions in neighbourhood policing have contributed to Croydon having the second highest level of knife crime in London?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Over the summer, I walked around with the police looking for knives, and I talked to senior police officers and many others about the impact on their work of the cuts to their budgets and to other services. I heard about policeman buying food for children whom they had picked up before taking them home, because those children did not have enough food to eat. There are a huge range of issues that we need to tackle, but police cuts and local government cuts are an important part of the picture.

The third thing that I discovered over the summer is that the problem stretches beyond the children who are involved in crime and who carry knives themselves. Teenagers are growing up attending the funerals of school friends, with parents who are under-supported or overworked, and often both. Those children have growing anxiety and fewer ways to express it. A counselling service in my borough described deep-seated traumas among a growing number of young people, with half of the people who made up its case load having experienced suicidal thoughts. Many of our children now see the carrying of knives and the exploitation of men and women as normal. They see a world that, in many ways, we do not see.

The fourth fact that I learned is that the issue is complex. We cannot just say, “This is about kids in gangs who want to make money.” In fact, most knife crime is not gang-related. The causes range from policing, to jobs and training, to education, mental health and youth service provision; from silos in the care system to social media, parenting and street design. Every crime is different, every cause is different and every response must be adapted.

My fifth finding is that we know what works. A lot of people are already showing us the way, working hard and finding the answers. Although the picture is complex and the scale of the problem pretty big, there is a lot of evidence about what works and what needs to be done. I would not be standing here today if I did not think we could develop cross-party consensus about what needs to happen and how to tackle knife crime. The case that I want to make today is that we are simply not doing enough to tackle this blight on the lives of individuals and communities. I say that while welcoming the Home Secretary’s recent promise to crack down in law on the online sale of knives. I also welcome the continued commitment to Operation Sceptre by police forces up and down the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Newton]

Of course resources are important, but let us be clear: the Government are not cutting the money that goes to police forces. Since 2015, their money will have been going up in cash terms, especially if they use their precepting powers. It is not fair to say that we are cutting that money. Police officers—police leaders, with the police and crime commissioners—make the operational decisions. It is the Mayor of London, working with the Metropolitan police, who decides how London is to be policed and how communities are to be kept safe. Of course the Home Office has a role to play in supporting them, and, since 2016, our modern crime prevention strategy has focused on the reduction of violent crime, including knife crime. That strategy is very clear. When we meet the all-party group—in the few minutes I have got this evening, I cannot do justice to the breadth of work the Government are doing to bear down on this issue—I will, with officials, explain to the hon. Member for Croydon Central and other members of the APPG across the House who want to come along our strategy and the actions that we are taking now. As the hon. Lady says, the Home Secretary announced a whole series of measures that we are about to consult on, and of course her contribution to that will be very welcome.

[Mr Reed]

The Government have directly reduced funding for youth offending services and indirectly reduced funding for early intervention and family support through the cuts delivered to local government. This has become so severe that those working in youth offending services can no longer devote the time necessary to prevent young offenders from reoffending, so we are still seeing reoffending at extremely high levels. That is putting those young offenders at risk and risking future victims. Will the Government look again at these very short-sighted cuts which are not only causing such damage to young people’s futures, but will cost more in the long run because of the consequences of the crimes they commit?

[Sarah Newton]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that prevention is vitally important—working with young people to explain the risks they are taking if they carry a knife and, once they get into the criminal justice system, making sure they get all the support they need to be diverted from such harmful behaviour. A key part of the announcement we made in July was that we will be doing more work at a community level. We are setting up the new £500,000 community fund to support those very successful grassroots organisations we have heard about this evening, which are key partners for us in the Home Office, such as St Giles and Redthread. I am sure the hon. Member for Croydon Central has had meetings with those excellent organisations in London. We work with and partner such organisations and part-fund them, along with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the Mayor of London, to make sure the services are there, and that we are identifying the most vulnerable young people and giving them the support they need to make different choices in their lives.

Building on that evidence base and what we have learned in London, services are being expanded across the United Kingdom. We have heard about the excellent work done in A&E departments—the “teachable moments” that happen in our major trauma centres here in London. The Government are part-funding the expansion of that into cities around the UK this year. So we are working at pace with determination using the evidence base of what works—a lot of that has been learned in London—to make sure other parts of the country and communities that are experiencing such problems are getting the support they need.

That brings me back to the hon. Lady’s primary ask that we work together across the House to look at both a national and a local response. Since we launched our strategy, we have been building the capacity in the system to understand this very complex issue: it is sometimes driven by gangs, and sometimes by organised and serious crime; and whereas carrying knives and participating in knife crime disproportionately involves young people, people of other ages are involved as well. We have funded a whole series of local and area-based reviews. One was done in Croydon; the hon. Lady might not have had a chance to speak to the chief executive of her local authority or her borough commander about that work, but it was very useful. We have had very good feedback from boroughs and places all over the country, enabling all the agencies in the community—social services, youth offending services, schools and teachers, voluntary groups, communities and counsellors—to share data and build a picture of what is happening in their communities, so that they can properly target their resources to join up those services to support young people in the communities to make different choices.

That work extends beyond the immediate localities to deal with the county lines issues. This sort of crime is being exported out of London, Manchester and Liverpool to other parts of the country, so we are funding not only local area reviews but national strategic reviews. With that better intelligence and data, we are making a real difference by joining up the different parts of the public services with businesses and voluntary sector organisations, which are so capable of working with young people, to restrict access to knives. That work is being scaled up at pace to meet the challenge that we undoubtedly face today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Reed Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Gentleman will know that I cannot comment on the specifics of the case. If he will forgive me, I will write to him.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

In 25 days’ time, the public will go to the polling booths to vote for elected representatives in local authorities, the Welsh Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and for the mayoralty of this great city. We have a great tradition of democratic accountability in this country, and I am proud that on 5 May that principle will be extended to policing. For the first time since we introduced them in 2012, the public will be able to hold their local police and crime commissioner to account for their record in office. It is easy to forget what went before PCCs: the unelected, unaccountable and invisible police authorities, which no one knew existed. Today, a majority of the public know about their PCCs, and PCCs have been associated with greater clarity of leadership and heightened accountability by the Home Affairs Committee. Even the Labour party, which until recently opposed PCCs, and the Liberal Democrats, who did everything they could to sabotage the first elections, support the role and have nominated candidates in May’s elections. PCCs have worked hard over the past three and a half years to keep their communities safe, so I hope that the House will join me in congratulating the first PCCs on their successes and encouraging the public to hold them to account in the most powerful way possible on 5 May: at the ballot box.

[Mr Reed]

Levels of violent crime and domestic abuse remain unacceptably high in Croydon, and the borough was of course hit hard in the 2011 riots, so it is very worrying that it is about to lose a third of its remaining neighbourhood police bases, on top of 83% of its police community support officers—reductions that are much higher than the average in London. Will the Home Secretary therefore meet me to discuss real public concerns that these cuts will damage the fight against crime in Croydon?

[Mrs May]

To repeat what I said earlier, I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Government have protected police budgets over the comprehensive spending review period, when precept is taken into account, which is in sharp difference to what the Labour Front Bench suggested—cutting them by 10%.

Riot Compensation Bill

Steve Reed Excerpts

Friday 5th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and his characteristic courtesy in giving me advance notice of his intention to raise it. My initial reaction, off the top of my head, is that it is not disorderly, though it might be considered unhelpful. In my experience, it constitutes a somewhat odd transfer. Transfers are commonplace, but where the question is as specific as his, it is an odd, perhaps unconventional transfer that might have been requested by people acting on behalf of the Prime Minister who are perhaps not as well versed in our procedures as the hon. Gentleman is or as the Chair likes to consider himself to be. I advise him to make the short journey from the Chamber to the Table Office to seek guidance on how he can take the matter forward. Knowing him as I do, I think it improbable in the extreme that he will allow the matter to rest there.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

Hon. Members will be aware that Croydon was hit very hard in the 2011 riots. Many members of the public, seeing the damage caused to local businesses, homes and property, wanted to help those seeking to recover and deal with the losses incurred, and they generously gave money to a fund set up by the mayor of Croydon for precisely that purpose.

I rise to speak in favour of amendment 8, which was tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). I am sorry I missed the start of his contribution, but I heard the end, and it was typically magnificent. I would like those who give generously to help their neighbours who have suffered a loss to have the reassurance that the money they contribute will not subsequently be deducted from official compensation payments, but tragically that is exactly what happened in Croydon in 2011. Money was donated to the mayor’s fund and was then distributed to individuals and businesses that had suffered a loss, but those generous payments were then deducted from the official compensation payments that were made. That is clearly wrong and a disincentive to people to give generously, as they did in Croydon to help their friends and neighbours. It is entirely wrong that such generosity should be discouraged by the deduction of those contributions from official payments. I strongly support my right hon. Friend’s amendment, which I hope will have the support of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

I have one further piece of clarification. If a payment from a public fund has been given for a purpose not covered by the Bill, a deduction will not be made. For example, if payments were made for personal injury or to cover a loss of income, which would take us into the sphere of consequential loss, a deduction would not happen. In other words, it will be fine if a payment has been made for a purpose for which the Bill provides through the compensation schemes covered in it, but if payments have been made through schemes designed for other purposes, it will clearly not be appropriate for a deduction to operate. I hope that that clarification is helpful in explaining how we envisage the inter-relationship between compensation schemes under the Bill and other schemes.

[Mr Steve Reed]

I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the public purse, but what reassurances can he give that charitable donations from members of a community that were given to help victims in the locality will not be—rather than should not be—deducted from official compensation payments?

[James Brokenshire]

Again, the best place to deal with that and give clarity about the operation of the Bill is in regulations. I hope that given what I have said today about the intention to introduce regulations to sit alongside the Bill, hon. Members will be reassured on this important point about charitable donations. The right hon. Member for Tottenham indicated that he thought the best place to deal with that would be in regulations. That is our judgment too, but I hope that what I have said to the House is helpful in providing clarification and setting out the how the Government will seek to operate the provisions in the Bill. Obviously, right hon. and hon. Members will be able to examine the regulations when they are published, following Royal Assent—we hope that will happen, but both Houses need to give the Bill their consideration.