Antisocial Behaviour Action Plan

Debate between Suella Braverman and Greg Smith

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Let me put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend, but also to Andrew Snowden, the excellent PCC in Lancashire, who has led some great initiatives, notably on antisocial behaviour. The police have had a lot of success in clamping down on boy racers and other nuisance behaviour in some town centres in the area. Lancashire police will receive funding as one of the pilots for hotspot policing. That money will be diverted to increasing resources on the frontline to improve visible and responsive policing.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, which comes at a particularly timely point for my constituents, as the first email I opened in my inbox this morning reported vandalism to a brand-new £20,000 fence around a community sports facility in Winslow. Also over the weekend, the Crew Café in Princes Risborough saw a break-in. That café sits at the epicentre of a hotspot of antisocial behaviour over the last year, seeing intimidation, broken glass and other vandalism. Can she assure me that the powers she has announced today give the superb officers of Thames Valley everything they need to combat these incidents and that, as broken windows theory teaches us, this will shut down higher-level crimes too?

[Suella Braverman]

I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming me to his constituency over the weekend to meet Thames Valley police and his excellent police and crime commissioner, Matthew Barber. They are leading brilliant work when it comes to rural crime. He is absolutely right. I believe in the broken windows theory of crime prevention. It is essential to take a zero-tolerance approach to so-called lower-level crime. As I said, there is no such thing as petty crime. It leads to more serious crime and more criminal behaviour. The antisocial behaviour plan is vital to stamp it out at the earliest possible opportunity.

Migration and Economic Development

Debate between Suella Braverman and Greg Smith

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

As the justices made clear at the beginning of their judgment, they are not opining on the politics or the morality of the Rwanda scheme; they are simply opining on the lawfulness. That is why I have huge confidence in the judgment that has been handed down today.

If we are talking about the broader issues, I gently disagree with the hon. Lady, as the House would imagine. I think that what is actually unacceptable is that her party is peddling a mistruth to the British people. It is saying that we can have an unlimited and open borders policy, that we have unlimited capacity and that everybody is welcome. Unfortunately, the reality is that that is not the case. We have to take a pragmatic, measured and compassionate approach to our migration—that is what is sensible and is required by the British people.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Central to solving the crisis of illegal migration is the prevention of further loss of human life in the English channel, so I welcome not only today’s judgment, but the commitment that my right hon. and learned Friend made in her statement to delivering the Rwanda partnership

“at scale as soon as possible.”

However, it is clear that there will be continued legal challenges to it, either on an individual basis or on a whole-policy basis, so may I push the Home Secretary further on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash): that the legislation coming in the new year, which I look forward to supporting, really must include a “notwithstanding” clause to ensure that we can prevent the further loss of human life in the channel?

[Suella Braverman]

What is essential is that we introduce, consider and pass legislation that will be robust and resilient and actually deliver on our stated political objectives. That will require an exhaustive analysis of the legal methods but, simply put, we are in the process, we are in the sausage machine, as they would put it, so it is not a pretty sight, but nothing is off the table.