Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Toby Perkins Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 1
Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

There are many important points that I would be happy to debate about the police covenant and giving our police officers—the frontline men and women who keep us safe day in, day out—the protection that they and their family members deserve. The hon. Gentleman is right about the sentencing structure and guidance, but we have had support from the Crown Prosecution Service regarding the assaults that I have referred to, particularly over the last few months in relation to coronavirus, when we have seen spitting and assaults on officers.

This Bill is a criminal justice Bill as much as a policing Bill. It is an end-to-end Bill to ensure that the sentence fits the assault and the crime. The Bill will double the maximum penalty for assaults on emergency workers from 12 months’ to two years’ imprisonment, recognising that our officers and emergency workers should rightly be protected. Having spent much time with those on the frontline and seen the impact and the sheer volume of these incidents, I think it is right that we have that provision in this Bill.

The Government fully recognise the professionalism and skills of our highly trained police officers, and that includes the specialism of police drivers. Too often, they are driving in high-pressure situations pursuing suspects on the road while responding urgently to incidents. Through this Bill, we will introduce a new test to assess a police officer’s standard of driving. Should an officer be involved in a road traffic incident, this new test will allow the courts to judge their standard of driving against that of a competent and careful police constable with the same level of training, rather than that of a member of the public, which is how it stands at present.

The Government back the police and will never allow those with an extreme political agenda, such as those calling for the defunding or abolition of the police, to weaken our resolve when it comes to protecting the police. We back the police and will do everything we possibly can to make our community safer.

I have heard the call of the British public for safer communities, and that means cracking down on violent crime, which has a corrosive impact on towns and cities across the country. That includes gangs peddling drugs, as a result of which law-abiding citizens live in fear and, tragically, teenage children are stabbed to death. This senseless violence has absolutely no place in our society.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I support entirely the need to make sure that sentences fit the crime, but is not the reality that courts have huge backlogs and are reluctant to jail people who should be in jail, because they know that our prisons are overcrowded? Does not this Government’s failure on courts and prisons massively undermine what the right hon. Lady says about sentencing?

[Priti Patel]

Absolutely not. The Government are determined in their resolve—through this legislation, and delivering on our manifesto commitments—to bring in sentences that fit the crime. This is an end-to-end criminal justice Bill. If the hon. Gentleman and hon. Members listen to this afternoon’s debate, they will hear about the measures that are being introduced, and about the Government’s longer-term response. That includes the wider work that the Government are undertaking with the courts and the CPS; the changes that we need to make not just to sentencing, but to our laws; and the support that we are giving to our police.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Yes, I was not aware of your position on the Bill, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have not finished my speech yet, so the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) will just have to wait for me to complete my argument.

As welcome as this measure is, the Labour party is clear that it does not go far enough. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda said, we need to consider the workers on the frontline of the pandemic who should also be given that level of protection. First, it does not cover the whole of the NHS family, so we are calling for protections to be extended to social care workers as well. Throughout the pandemic, the range of frontline service workers who put themselves at risk to serve our community has been clear.

[Mr Perkins]

I wonder whether the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) has actually hit on something that might be helpful to the House. There are many aspects of the Bill that we all agree on. If only the really divisive aspects that the Home Secretary has put in were removed, could not the whole House get behind supporting our police, rather than going through the mess that we have in front of us today?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Absolutely. The Government could press pause on the Bill and bring the whole House together.

Research has shown that, during the pandemic alone, one in six of our shop workers have been abused on every shift, with 62% of UK shop workers experiencing verbal abuse and almost being threatened by a customer. There have been awful examples of attacks on other frontline workers, who have been spat at, punched, verbally abused and intimidated. Labour is calling for wider measures to protect the pandemic heroes, extending protections to shop workers as well as other frontline workers. There is widespread support for this, with the additional protection for shop workers supported by organisations such as the Federation of Independent Retailers and chief executive officers from a number of major retailers, including Aldi, the Co-op, Marks & Spencer, McColl’s, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and WHSmith.

I would also like to mention the work of the USDAW—the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—which has been passionate in campaigning for its members to receive these vital protections and has generated well over 100,000 signatories on petition. We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to frontline workers for putting themselves at risk to keep our country running. We should repay some of that debt with decent legal protection as well as decent pay.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

We will try to get back to some sense of reality after the nonsense we have just heard.

This is a really important and wide-ranging Bill, and there are many aspects that I and my colleagues welcome. I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for their success in securing the “protect the protectors” aspects of this Bill; my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) for securing reform of the Disclosure and Barring Service; and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) for her work that has led to the dangerous driving reforms. All those things and more deserve support. It is a testament to the Home Secretary’s insatiable desire for conflict that a Bill that contains so many measures campaigned for and fought for by Labour MPs should still be impossible to support.

What a missed opportunity this Bill is. There is nothing that will make a significant difference on the issue of violence against women and nothing on victim support, despite what we have just heard from the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) about the Tories being a party that supports victims. Indeed, it considers protecting statues a greater priority than protecting rape victims. The events of this weekend have brought into sharp relief where a civilised society must allow protest and support our police to keep our streets safe from criminals, not instruct them to arrest peaceful and grieving women.

We can easily see why this division is a political strategy of Conservative Members. Listening to speeches like that of the hon. Gentleman, it is very clear that they want to introduce elements that we will all agree with, and then introduce one or two elements that we cannot possibly agree with in order to say that we are preventing the good parts of this Bill. It is absolute cheap politics, and it is the politics of division. This is a Government who have frozen police pay, cut police numbers, and let criminals off the hook due to backlogs in the courts and overcrowding in our prisons. There can be no doubt but that they are no friends of the police.

Before I finish, I want to take a moment on someone who is a friend of the police—the police and crime commissioner for Derbyshire, Hardyal Dhindsa. I was extremely proud that my county, Derbyshire, where less than 5% of residents are BAME, was the first area to elect a BAME police and crime commissioner. Five years on, we are even prouder. Hardyal promised he would set up a programme in every village and town in the county. Not only has he done that, but he has met residents right across our county, while fiercely fighting the corner of our dedicated police both in Government and in the media. He has never forgotten who he is there to represent, and if the police get it wrong, as they did when Derbyshire police published pictures of dog walkers in the Peak or fined people walking five miles from home, he has been quick to be the voice of the people, not hidden away from a difficult situation. I hope he gets people’s support on 6 May.