Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Yemm Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is right that there are many different forms and changes to the kinds of vehicles, bikes and scooters being used. The legislation applies not just to off-road bikes, but more widely to vehicles being used antisocially. That is important because the police need to be able to act swiftly and not end up having to try to chase and catch the same people again and again to take action.

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

Antisocial behaviour is a significant concern to my constituents, especially the nuisance caused by off-road bikes and e-scooters. Last Friday, local officers specifically told me that they do not feel they have the power to pursue the riders of these bikes when they are in their patrol cars, with riders often taunting and even laughing at them because they know they cannot easily be caught. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that my local officers in Mansfield have the specific powers they need to stop those bikes and bring those terrorising our community to justice?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right, and people in Mansfield should not be terrorised by deliberate harassment by people on off-road bikes. That is why we are strengthening the law through the Crime and Policing Bill, but it is also why we support the work that some police forces are doing—for example, the work I have seen in Staffordshire where they were using drones to follow those on off-road bikes and make swift seizures or arrests.

Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings

Steve Yemm Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I do not apologise for deporting people who have no right to be here or who have been through the system and are discovered neither to be asylum seekers nor to have any right to stay in the country. I accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the desperate situation that people are in. They could claim asylum in the country they are in, and we need to work with our counterparts in the European Union and along all the routes to see what we can do to divert those people who are seeking a better life in our country and see if we can look after them closer to home.

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

Under this Labour Government, illegal working raids and arrests are up by a third. Does the Minister agree that that sends a clear message that the UK will not and should not tolerate those who abuse our immigration system, and that we will crack down on illegal activity in all its forms?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes. Illegal working arrests and visits have increased by 38%. More people have been arrested. More people have been fined. We are seeking to ban those who abuse illegal workers—often underpaying them and treating them like modern slaves—from running companies. The fines are now £60,000 per illegal worker. There is no reason why legitimate small businesses should be undermined by illegal working and illegal practices.

Crime and Policing Bill

Steve Yemm Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

This Bill will be very much welcomed back in my constituency, with this Government introducing 50 new laws that will help to cut crime and make my area’s streets safer. They include measures to tackle antisocial behaviour and stop theft, particularly in shops, and to tackle street crime head on, giving the police in our communities new powers to take back town centres from thugs and thieves and tackling knife crime, violence against women and girls, cyber-crime, child sexual abuse and terrorism.

That said, I am particularly pleased to see that this Bill deals with one particular issue. Illegal off-road bikes and e-scooters are a significant concern to many people in Mansfield. Antisocial behaviour connected to their inappropriate use was raised with me time and time again on the doorstep during the election campaign, and it is now raised in my casework inbox. I will share one such example, from a constituent who recently contacted me about this issue:

“Only yesterday whilst out with my husband doing ‘grandparent school duties’ we were yet again placed in a serious and dangerous situation. Several youths appeared out of nowhere wearing balaclavas weaving around our vehicle before racing off in different directions. The silence of them means you have no awareness of them before they appear in front of your car”.

Many constituents report similar concerns, and are exasperated that nothing can be done to deal with the issue. Enough is enough, and I am delighted to announce after discussions I have had with local officers in Mansfield that the police are launching a crackdown over the coming weeks to tackle antisocial behaviour in my constituency related to off-road bikes and e-scooters.

As part of this crackdown, officers are appealing to the public to come forward via a new dedicated police email address—set up with my office and by the 101 phone line— to report any illegal bike-related antisocial behaviour. Using that information, officers will take significant enforcement action to target those who are terrorising our communities in Mansfield. I will be working closely with the police during that campaign, and will be holding a public meeting with them on 21 March to explain how it will work. I would be delighted to update the Home Secretary on its progress. More information will be released by my office in the coming days, but this crackdown will rely on my constituents acting as the eyes and ears on the ground. Without their reports, the project will not be a success, so I urge local people in Mansfield to get involved.

To conclude, my message to those causing misery in Mansfield is this: “We see you. The police are coming for you, and our communities will not let you get away with it any longer.”

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Steve Yemm Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

Our country has a proud history and record of offering sanctuary to and helping those in need. From the Kindertransport when we offered a home to Jewish children escaping Nazi persecution to hosting Ukrainians fleeing President Putin’s Russia, our country has proudly welcomed people from around the world. In fact, in our very own hour of need, when our cities lay in ruins after world war two, immigrants from the West Indies played a significant role in rebuilding Britain, filling labour shortages in critical sectors such as construction, transport and healthcare. We should never forget either the contribution that immigrants have made to our country or our responsibility as a place of refuge in the world, but today immigration is higher than it is ever been, and this causes legitimate problems and concerns that my constituents in Mansfield are very concerned about.

Let me be absolutely clear that my constituents, many of whom voted for me last year, are not racist, right wing or far right for having concerns about immigration and the security of our borders. They are neither racist nor far right for being worried about our NHS, about housing or about why their children cannot get a place in the local school of their choice. We must never label those constituents who raise legitimate and factually sound concerns as racist. What we must do as a Government is address those concerns. I believe that the previous Government failed to do that, instead allowing migration, both legal and illegal, to skyrocket. I am glad, therefore, that the Government are scrapping the completely ineffective Rwanda scheme, which cost an eye-watering £700 million, and that we are instead introducing measures that will deal with the problem at hand.

I am particularly pleased that the Bill will target the people smuggling gangs that have facilitated boat crossings of the channel. It will create a new offence of selling or handling small boat parts for use in the channel, it will enable the confiscation of electronic devices and the disruption of communications, and it will support the newly created Border Security Command. These responsible, realistic actions show that this Government are focused on delivering results, unlike the solutions offered by the Opposition.

My constituents in Mansfield want to get on with things. This Bill, along with the other legislation that the Government have introduced in their first six months to support house building and invest in our national health service and schools, will go a long way towards doing that.

Violence against Women and Girls

Steve Yemm Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

My constituency is classed as the most dangerous major town in Nottinghamshire, and by far the most common crimes are violence and sexual offences. Like much of the rest of the UK, Mansfield is victim to deeply rooted misogynistic beliefs and social norms that allow violence against women and girls to proliferate.

In the time I have, I would like to welcome some of the valuable work and initiatives already ongoing in my community, particularly the work by Mansfield district council and Nottinghamshire police in relation to their Safer Streets initiative, and the police and crime commissioner’s strategy for tackling violence against women and girls.

As a proud father to three women, I recognise the privilege I have had throughout my life. Simply being a man has protected me from having to navigate the gender-based challenges that are ever present in the lives of girls and women. For example, I do not know the feeling of silently suffering sexual harassment in school and the effects that it could have on my education, or of being scared to walk alone at night, with the constant need to check over my shoulder. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree with me not only that there is great value in putting the voices and experiences of women and girls at the centre of our work, but that equally every one of us has to acknowledge the responsibility that we have for tackling this issue?

Small Boat Crossings

Steve Yemm Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I said in an earlier answer that there are no magic wands in this area. Tough operational processing and international co-operation will begin to bear down on this, and work by the National Crime Agency and by prosecutorial authorities, often cross-border in different jurisdictions. The fact that we have made such a good start with international co-operation and the significant shift in attention here will bear down on this, but I will not stand at this Dispatch Box and pretend that there is an easy timeframe or answer for when that will have the effect that we all want it to have. We will bear down on it and we will make progress.

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

At a time of highly stretched resources right across Government, thanks to the mess in the public finances left by the Conservative party, my constituents will be pleased that £75 million has been secured for further investment in the Border Security Command. Does the Minister agree that it is a far better use of taxpayers’ money than paying people to go to Rwanda or housing them in hotels at great expense?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes, it is advisable to try to deal with the immediate causes of the problem—organised immigration criminality—as well as bearing down on the longer-term causes, which often are about political stability in other areas of the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Yemm Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Seema Malhotra)]

The Government are committed to bringing down legal migration. We will do so by making sure that British workers are upskilled in key sectors, with new requirements for employers to address skills shortages, and by introducing new training and workforce plans so that overseas recruitment does not remain the default for filling skills shortages in the UK.

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

T9.   I have listened in absolute amazement to the outrage from Opposition Members about the careful consideration of security for Taylor Swift’s concerts in London, a week after her Vienna tour was cancelled due to a terror plot. Does the Home Secretary think that is cynical opportunism from Conservative Members, or have they lost all sense of reason?

[Yvette Cooper]

I think it is a matter for us all to take the security of people immensely seriously, and to ensure that terrorist, extremist and criminal threats do not win in their attempt to pose threats not just to life, but to our way of life.