Violent Crime

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Clive Efford

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the work of Redthread. The Home Office is investing in Redthread’s projects in Nottingham, Birmingham and London hospitals, and I have seen its work at close hand. I am very impressed by what Redthread does.

We will, of course, look at rolling out the project further, but I hesitate because some A&E departments thankfully do not see the levels of knife crime that perhaps London, Nottingham and Birmingham do. We have invested in those hospitals because we are targeting funding at hotspot areas, but we will look at where the project could assist by being rolled out further.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Minister should not selectively use statistics. Violent crime is significantly up, and we warned the Government when they were cutting police numbers that it would have an impact on crime. We were told that it is not about numbers but about the effective use of our police forces. She must now regret cutting 20,000 police officers, which must have an impact on what we are discussing today. What we want to hear from the Government is not about projects but about how much they will put into the police and how many of the police officers we have lost will be replaced.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am not selectively using statistics. I referred the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) to the Metropolitan police statistics precisely because of the action that the commissioner has taken in London, including setting up the serious violence taskforce, which, as I said earlier, dedicates 300 officers to hotspot policing across the capital. The commissioner has said that the recent figures show a decline in the increase, which is what I was talking about. It was not selective at all. I am just looking at the most recent evidence we have.

Knife Crime

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Clive Efford

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise the matter of exclusions. As I have said, we are awaiting the report from Ed Timpson. Instinctively, I would want to give headteachers the flexibility to exclude if they feel that a child is a danger to the wider school community, but I accept that this is for headteachers to decide, so we are very much listening to the evidence. The decisions on the borough command unit set-up are taken by the commissioner. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has made representations to the Mayor if he is concerned about this issue, because obviously the Mayor is the police and crime commissioner for London.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Government were warned about cutting police numbers. Had the 20,000 police officers we have lost still been in place and enabled one stop and search per week, there would have been 1 million stop and searches. Had there been one a day, which is not a lot to ask, there would have been over 7 million stop and searches. If we add to that the intelligence-based use of resources, would that not have had a major impact on knife crime?

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman rather highlights the reason we changed the voluntary guidance for police officers, in that we do not believe that a one-size-fits-all approach helps. Listening to communities where young people have been stopped and searched without reason—as they see it—we are very conscious that that can harm relations between the police and the community. That is why we have encouraged the use of intelligence-led, targeted stop and search. I refer to the answer I gave earlier about the huge benefit of body-worn cameras in this space, because the public and the police have that extra reassurance that searches being conducted are in fact lawful.

G4S: Immigration Removal Centres

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Clive Efford

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his interest. An action plan was put in place that included appointing a new manager and dismissing nine staff, enhancing staffing levels with recruitment and training plans, introducing body-worn cameras for staff to provide more transparency and assurance, refreshing and promoting whistleblowing procedures, putting in place an improved drugs strategy, and commissioning an independent review led by Kate Lampard to look at the root causes of the issues highlighted that is expected to report this summer. In addition, the Home Office monitors this continuously. Indeed, the Home Office has strengthened its staff numbers at the centres to try to help on a casework basis people who may wish to return voluntarily.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

G4S’s performance in how it delivers public contracts is woefully inadequate, and not only in the Prison Service. G4S runs the transport service for my local hospital. Last week, I had to go to rescue a 94-year-old relative from a discharge area full of patients who had been waiting over five hours for G4S to turn up, and this is a regular occurrence. I am a governor of a school where G4S consistently fails to deliver on the school maintenance contract. When are the Government going to get a grip and deal with G4S, because there is something fundamentally wrong at the heart of this company?

[Victoria Atkins]

G4S is held to account not just by the Home Office but centrally through Cabinet Office reporting requirements. The new procurement process will provide a basis for further progress on all these issues, and the progress of G4S will continue to be monitored very closely.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Clive Efford

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

8. What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on monitoring crimes committed by prisoners via social media and mobile phones.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Prisoners’ illegal use of mobile phones enables their continued offending, threatens the safety and security of our prisons, and harms our communities. The Government have introduced legislation to disconnect mobile phones in prisons remotely; they have invested £2 million in mobile phone detection equipment; and the Ministry of Justice is working closely with mobile network operators to deliver cutting-edge technology to prevent mobile phones from being smuggled into prisons and then working.

[Clive Efford]

I thank the Minister for her answer, but I have recently been dealing with two cases where violent partners have been running a campaign of threats and intimidation from within prison against their former partners, yet they are still up for parole. It does not seem that the police locally, who are investigating these crimes, are contacting the MOJ and the Prison Service to ensure that this is taken into account when these people are considered for parole.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He will appreciate that I am not able to comment specifically on those cases, but I ask him to write to me about them so that we can see what further can be done. I want to emphasise that it is getting harder and harder for prisoners to get mobile phones into prisons and to then use them. Indeed, at least 150 phones have been disconnected since the telecommunications restriction regulations came into force.