Crime and Policing Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Crime and Policing Bill will make our streets safer, put neighbourhood policing back at the heart of communities after years of neglect, give law enforcement the powers it needs to protect the public and tackle the most serious violence, help communities to take back their town centres from thieves and thugs, and support the Government’s safer streets mission—a mission for the whole country—to halve knife crime and violence against women and girls in a decade and to rebuild confidence in policing and the criminal justice system by tackling the local crimes that most undermine our communities.

Across our countries, we have strong communities, a British tradition of respect for the rule of law and for each other, and a British policing tradition that goes back to Peel of policing by consent, with the police embedded in communities and residents pulling together to prevent and tackle crime. Yet, in recent years those traditions have become badly frayed. Too many town centres, neighbourhoods and public spaces are plagued by antisocial behaviour, and shoplifting and street theft have soared, while neighbourhood police have been heavily cut back. Too many families are forced to endure the agony of an empty chair at the dinner table night after night, having lost a loved one to knife crime, but it is easier than ever for children to get hold of lethal weapons online. There are barely any penalties for gangs who recruit children into crime—they get away with it.

Too many women and girls still face stalking, spiking, violence and abuse, and feel unsafe on the streets and in their homes, even now, nearly 50 years on from the first Reclaim the Night marches in Leeds. Too many children still experience sexual abuse and exploitation—including by grooming networks on the streets and online—and online abuse is getting worse and worse, yet the child protection reforms that we and others called for 10 years ago are still not in place. Trust in the police is undermined by vetting failures and abuses of power, but the action promised several years ago to raise standards is still not in place.

Across the country, too many of us just hear the same thing: people do not see the police on the streets any more, they worry that respect for law and order has disappeared, and they fear that if something goes wrong, no one will come and nothing will be done. That is why it is time for change and for the measures that we are setting out in the Bill. Safety and security are the bedrock of opportunity and the underpinning of every strong community. The safer streets mission is at the heart of our plan for change, because everyone has the right to live in freedom from fear.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady makes an important point about neighbourhood policing. Does she agree that local police stations should be integral to this plan?

[Yvette Cooper]

Local police stations are a matter for local forces, but they can be a central part of neighbourhood policing, which, sadly, has been heavily cut back in recent years. In fact, in many areas of the country, neighbourhood policing has been cut by a third or nearly half. At the heart of the Government’s plan is rebuilding neighbourhood policing.

We plan to put 13,000 more neighbourhood police and police community support officers back on the beat over the course of this Parliament, kick-started with £200 million of funding in the next financial year. We will reverse the damage done by the Conservative Government through years of cuts to community police. There are half as many PCSOs as there were 14 years ago, and many thousands fewer neighbourhood police officers. Some 54% of people say that they never see an officer on the beat—that figure has doubled since 2010, as too many neighbourhood police have just disappeared.

[Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)]

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[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

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[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way first to my hon. Friend and then to the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty).

[Chris Vince]

A report by Harlow council in 2023 stated that fewer than half of residents in Harlow felt safe going outside after dark. Does my right hon. Friend see the neighbourhood policing guarantee as part of the way of solving that problem?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right: neighbourhood policing is crucial, but neighbourhood policing teams have been decimated, and even those that remained were often abstracted or merged with other teams. That has been deeply damaging. It is crucial to get those neighbourhood police back on the streets, back into our town centres, and back into our communities. I give way to the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), who I hope will apologise for the scale of cuts that his party’s Government brought in.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

The right hon. Lady mentioned 13,000 neighbourhood police, but 3,000 of those will be new warranted officers; I believe that 3,000 will be operational police officers brought back from other places. When will police forces find out what their share of those police officers will be? How will the 3,000 officers currently in other roles be reassigned, given that operational matters are the responsibility of chief constables, not the Home Secretary?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have started with £200 million of funding for the next financial year to kick-start the drive to put 13,000 more neighbourhood police and police community support officers back on the beat. Already, police forces have been working with the Home Office on plans for recruiting new police officers and new PCSOs, and for redeploying existing police officers and backfilling by recruiting other officers to take their posts. We will set out in due course plans for the next financial year and that £200 million.

The cuts to neighbourhood policing over the past decade were even worse than we had thought. The previous Conservative Government were so indifferent to neighbourhood policing that they did not even keep a proper count of who was doing that work. Too often, they treated neighbourhood police officers just the same as 999 response officers or local detective teams, and Home Office guidance allowed forces to report some of their response officers as neighbourhood police. The last Government did not have proper checks in place, and as a result, hundreds, even thousands, of officers and PCSOs were miscounted. Later this month, the Home Office and the National Police Chiefs’ Council will have to publish revised force-by-force figures, so that communities can see properly what is happening in their area. This Government take seriously neighbourhood policing, which must be community-led policing in our towns and on our streets.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for giving way; it is courteous of her. On miscounting numbers, can I drill down on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty)? Of the 13,000 new neighbourhood officers that the Home Secretary claims she is recruiting, 3,000 will be diverted from the existing workforce, so they are not new, are they? Will she also confirm that her police funding settlement will lead to 1,873 officers being withdrawn?

[Yvette Cooper]

Sadly, I did not hear an apology for the previous Conservative Government’s massive cuts to neighbourhood policing, which meant that many towns and cities right across the country saw neighbourhood police numbers slashed in half. Communities were badly let down. I am sure that the next Conservative Member to intervene will begin their question with a huge apology for the damage that their party and Government did.

[Paul Holmes]

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[Yvette Cooper]

I am really pleased that the hon. Member is ready to give an apology for the deeply damaging legacy of his party in government.

[Paul Holmes]

I thank the Home Secretary for giving way, but I think she should apologise for not answering the question. There were record levels of policing under the last Government; 20,000 extra police officers were recruited. I ask her again: she said that she is recruiting 13,000 new neighbourhood police officers, but will she confirm that 3,000 of those will be diverted officers? They are not new, are they?

[Yvette Cooper]

Still no apology for the deep damage the Conservatives have done. Let us be clear: they halved the number of PCSOs, and they cut the number of neighbourhood police officers, probably by more than 10,000, but we cannot be precise about that, because their measuring of neighbourhood police officers was so ropey and all over the place that we cannot be certain what the cuts were precisely.

This Government are committed to increasing neighbourhood policing and PCSOs by 13,000. In the first year, the neighbourhood policing increase will be funded by £200 million. That funding is already delivering plans from police forces across the country, which we will set out in due course, to increase the recruitment of new police officers and PCSOs, and redeploy some police officers, whose posts will then be backfilled through the recruitment of other new police officers and staff—[Interruption.] Conservative Members should hugely welcome these measures, because they mean that we will get police back on the streets, and into our communities and neighbourhoods, for the first time in years.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

Antisocial behaviour is breaking communities in places like Windhill, Baildon, Cottingley and Denholme. It is a direct result of the cuts made to neighbourhood policing by the Conservative party. When I speak to local residents, they express concerns about the misuse of fireworks, drug dealing, fly-tipping and the dangerous use of e-bikes and scooters. Will the Secretary of State reassure me and my residents that as part of the safer streets mission, the new neighbourhood police will tackle antisocial behaviour in communities like mine, as a matter of urgency?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right that we need the police back on the streets. Let us be honest: everyone can see this in their community. People know. Conservative Members may think that everything was hunky-dory at the end of their 14 years in government, but communities across the country can see the reality. As part of our neighbourhood policing guarantee, we need to get more boots on the beat, and we need more town centre patrols by officers who know the community and are trusted by them to go after local perpetrators and prevent persistent crime. These are not outlandish demands—they are just the basics. We need a return to the Peel principles that lie at the heart of British policing, including the principle that the police are the public and the public are the police. We need trusted officers in the community, working to keep people safe.

The Bill gives neighbourhood police more powers to tackle the local crimes that undermine and damage communities: antisocial behaviour, street theft, shoplifting, harassment in our town centres. In too many areas, those powers were too often weakened. Travelling around the country, I and many others will have heard the same story too many times—shop owners who say that thieves have become increasingly brazen; crime driven by organised gangs; elderly shoppers who say that they do not go into town any more because they do not feel safe; people who have had their phones stolen in the street, with all the details of their life ripped away from them; and residents driven mad by the soaring number of roaring off-road bikes and scooters driven in an antisocial and intimidating way.

In the two years before the election, shop theft went up by more than 60%. Snatch theft, mainly the theft of mobile phones, went up by more than 50% in two years. Thousands of such crimes were reported every single day, yet the police have been left with too few powers to act. Too often, because of changes made by the Conservative Government 10 years ago, they have been left with weakened powers to tackle those antisocial behaviours and crimes.

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I welcome the introduction of a new offence of assaulting a shop worker. I have been in shops in Worksop where I have seen shop workers who are absolutely fearful of what will happen next, and I have seen food stolen before my eyes. Does the Secretary of State agree that local shops must become no-go areas for lawbreakers?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. The Bill introduces stronger action on retail crime. I thank the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, the Co-op, the British Retail Consortium, the Association of Convenience Stores and more for their determined campaigning over many years to protect shop workers. They are the staff who kept their shops open and kept our local communities going through the pandemic, but in recent years they have had to face a truly disgraceful escalation in threats, abuse and violence. Our party has campaigned on this measure for very many years. Through the Bill, we will introduce a specific offence of assaulting a retail worker, sending the message loud and clear that these disgraceful crimes must not be tolerated, because everyone has a right to feel safe at work.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

The Home Secretary has talked about neighbourhoods and communities, but I have not heard her talk about the rural communities that I represent, and the rural crime force. What will the Bill deliver for them? I am very lucky to be in Leicestershire, where we have a rural crime team, which saw crime drop by 24% in its last report, but machinery being taken has a massive impact. Can she talk me through any measures that are being brought forward that will benefit my community?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is exactly right to draw attention to that. Our rural communities see different kinds and patterns of crime, but it is very often driven by organised gangs who think that rural communities will be a soft touch. We have sometimes seen that with GPS machinery for factories; we believe that stronger action is needed there. The Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention is working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council on a new rural crime strategy. I know that she would be happy to follow up on any specific issues that the hon. Gentleman wants to raise.

Too often, crimes are dismissed as low level, even though they leave residents in a living nightmare and corrode community life, so here are the things that this Labour Government’s Crime and Policing Bill will change. We are introducing new respect orders that the police and courts can use to ban repeat offenders from town centres, or to put new requirements on repeat perpetrators in order to prevent them causing havoc in the community—for example, requirements to take up drug or alcohol treatment.

Currently, the police cannot immediately seize bikes or vehicles that are being used in a dangerous, intimidating or antisocial way. They give a warning and have to hope that they catch the same person again, but that means that there can be two, three, four or endless strikes against the person, and the bike will still be on the road. Frankly, one strike should be enough. Under the Bill, if the police find somebody using a bike or a vehicle in a dangerous or antisocial way, they can seize it straightaway and get that dangerous, damaging bike off the road.

We will give the police stronger powers to tackle the rising amount of snatch theft. We will all know constituents, friends or family members who have had their phone stolen, and who could track it, maybe through Find My iPhone or a similar service, but when they told the police where their phone was, nothing was done. We will give the police new powers, so that where they have electronic evidence from tracking technology on the location of stolen goods, they can enter and search premises without waiting for warrants to be put in place. Ministers are also working with tech companies and the police to pursue stronger action on designing out and disincentivising phone theft, so that we can go after the criminal gangs making people’s lives a misery by stealing phones on the street.

We will take stronger action on shoplifting. Some 10 years ago, the Conservative Government introduced a new £200 rule, categorising shop theft below that amount as low value. That sent the signal, which has shaped the police response ever since, that such crime should not be taken seriously. It became a Tory shoplifters’ charter—a signal to thieves and gangs across the country that they could operate with impunity, wandering from shop to shop and stealing away because nothing would be done. That kind of crime spreads. It creates a sense of lawlessness, and huge anger and frustration among the law-abiding majority, who see criminals getting away with it and respect for the law hollowed out. This Government will finally end the damaging £200 rule.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that this is not just about the shoplifting, but about the fear it creates in our communities, including among our shopworkers? Our local corner shops and accessible shops are there for elderly people who cannot always get out to the big supermarkets or other people who have difficulty doing so, and shoplifting has put them in fear as well.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. This is about the fact of the crime—the disrespect—but also the sense of fear that it can create and the huge frustration among shopworkers about the crimes that they see.

I am glad to see some signs of a change in heart on the Conservative Benches, with Conservative Members recognising how damaging their approach to town centre crime has been. The shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), has written on Facebook that the police

“must have ZERO TOLERANCE to shoplifting and phone theft in Croydon…otherwise it will escalate. Stealing, even less than £200, is illegal…The police must focus ruthlessly on catching criminals and always pursue every line of inquiry.”

Who would have thought it? If that is what the right hon. Gentleman now believes, why on earth did he not take the opportunity during the two years that he was the policing Minister to scrap the £200 threshold, which sent all the wrong signals to the police?

We do know one part of the shadow Home Secretary’s remedy for the disappearance of neighbourhood police and the soaring levels of town centre crime. He has said that

“The wider public do have the power of citizen’s arrest and, where it’s safe to do so, I would encourage that to be used…including potentially a physical challenge”,

otherwise it “will just escalate.” Putting aside the intriguing suggestion that the shadow Home Secretary wanders around with handcuffs in his pocket, I wonder whether he has misunderstood the Peel principle that the police are the public and the public are the police. What that principle means is neighbourhood police in the community, not leaving the community to pick up arms because the neighbourhood police have gone. As for Reform Members, it looks as if they are too busy dealing with their own internal antisocial behaviour to even show up. This Government will be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, something that has not happened for far too long.

Alongside the action on community crimes, the Bill introduces much stronger measures on some of the most serious crimes of all, including the knife crime that is destroying young lives—teenagers and young people who do not get to achieve their ambitions or fulfil their dreams, with parents and families left bereft.

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

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[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

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[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss), and then I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading Central (Matt Rodda).

[Warinder Juss]

Last year, only four in 10 knife possessions resulted in any formal criminal justice outcome. Does the Home Secretary agree that by increasing police powers to seize, retain and destroy knives that may be legally owned but may be used in committing a crime, we will reduce the number of people carrying knives?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. We need to prevent people—especially young people—getting access to those dangerous weapons in the first place, but also to make sure that there are proper interventions, including referrals to youth offending teams. We must not have a system that simply shrugs its shoulders when young people are caught carrying knives.

Knife-enabled offences recorded by the police rose by 9% in the two years up to last summer. Many people in this House will know the story of Ronan Kanda, who was just 16 when he was stabbed to death with a ninja sword just yards from his home. He was killed by two other teenagers who had bought, not just that sword, but more than 20 other lethal weapons online with no questions asked and no proper checks. It is because of the tireless campaigning of Ronan’s mum Pooja that we have already launched plans to ban ninja swords, following this summer’s implementation of the zombie knife ban, and commissioned Commander Stephen Clayman to do an end-to-end review of knife sales. That review was published a few weeks ago, and it is driving some of the new measures we are introducing as part of this Bill.

[Matt Rodda]

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[Ben Obese-Jecty]

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[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading Central, and then I will give way to the hon. Member for Huntingdon, but let me just make a couple of other points first. The Bill increases the maximum penalties for offences relating to the sale and possession of offensive weapons from six months to two years’ imprisonment. Following the Clayman review, we will also bring forward amendments to the Bill in this House to introduce stricter age verification checks, with a stringent two-step age verification system for online knife sales, so that customers have to submit photo ID at the point of purchase and again on delivery. It will be a legal requirement to hand a package containing a knife to the buyer alone.

[Matt Rodda]

I thank the Home Secretary wholeheartedly for her work on this important matter. In my constituency, 13-year-old Olly Stephens was attacked and brutally murdered by two other boys. They had seen hundreds of images of knives online on 11 different social media platforms. I warmly welcome in particular the consultation that she has announced to look into the potential penalties for tech executives who fail to act responsibly in this important area.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, and he has raised the terrible case of the killing of Olly Stephens with me before. I know how incredibly devastating that has been for the whole community. He is right that the online system has made it far too easy for young people to get hold of lethal weapons. There is also the content that too many of our young people are seeing online. That is why the measures as part of the Online Safety Act 2023 to strengthen the requirements on tech companies around material visible to children will be important, too. Those are expected in the summer.

My hon. Friend is also right that we will bring forward amendments during the Bill’s passage to give effect to our manifesto commitment to introduce personal liability measures for senior managers of online platforms that fail to take action on illegal content concerning knives and offensive weapons. We will introduce a requirement for sellers to notify bulk or suspicious sales of knives to the police. We have seen cases where young people were able effectively to become arms traders, buying huge numbers of illegal weapons that should not have been sold to them and then distributing them in the community.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

Knife crime is a grave issue, and I welcome any measures that can help to reduce it. I have a debate next Thursday on knife crime, and I hope to see good representation from all parts of the House in debating how we can reduce the number of children and young people involved in knife crime, whether as victim or perpetrator. The question I would like to ask is about knife sales online. Some 52% of fatal stabbings involve a kitchen knife, and only 3.6% involve a zombie knife. I appreciate that measures are in place to reduce the ability of people to obtain kitchen knives online, but everybody has a drawer full of knives at home. How can we take measures to reduce that?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member makes an important point. We know there is an issue with young people being able to get some of these lethal weapons. It becomes part of what they want to do, and part of the search for status is to carry particular kinds of weapons, but he is right that people can get access to dangerous knives in different ways. We need stronger prevention across the board. That is why the Young Futures programme we are working on is particularly important.

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

The Government’s commitment to introducing a Young Futures programme to prevent young people from being drawn into crime is welcome, especially as youth services and hubs were hollowed out under the Conservatives. Does the Home Secretary agree that prevention must be at the centre of the mission to tackle knife crime in our communities and our country?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. To tackle this devastating crime, we must address prevention, whether online or in the community, and access to weapons. There is also the response when young people are found carrying knives, and the wider punishment and response as part of the youth justice system. There are the interventions to turn things around, too. We must also tackle the criminal gangs drawing young people into crime and violence in the first place. That includes drawing them into county lines, drug running and the kind of criminal activity that leads to violence, to the carrying of knives and to dangerous crimes at a later stage. For the first time, under the Bill, there will be a specific offence of child criminal exploitation, because gangs should never be able to get away with exploiting young people in that way.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) mentioned kitchen knives, which are the main weapons that are used. Will the Home Secretary look into the issue of pointed kitchen knives, which cause so many deaths? Existing knives can be blunted or rounded at the ends if there are incentives for that to be done, and manufacturers can be persuaded to sell knives with rounded ends, as some already do.

[Yvette Cooper]

That is an interesting point. It has been raised with us by the coalition against knife crime that we have formed, bringing together campaigning families and campaigning networks and organisations, and as a result it is being examined further.

A range of measures in the Bill, along with amendments that will be tabled, make up Ronan’s law. Pooja, Ronan’s mother, has said:

“I wish this was done years ago, and my son would be with me today.”

We are taking action in memory of Ronan, but also as a tribute to Pooja and all Ronan’s family who have campaigned so hard to keep other children safe.

The Bill also introduces stronger measures to tackle violence against women and girls, and the abuse and exploitation of children. According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, one in four women have experienced domestic abuse, one in four have suffered sexual assault, and one in five have been stalked. Those are the most traumatic and appalling crimes, and it is high time we treated this as the national emergency that it so clearly is. Decade after decade, we have uttered warm words in the House, but too little has changed. It is imperative that we take action, not just through the Bill but across the board. This is part of our ambition to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, an integral part of the safer streets mission, because no one should live in fear.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Those of us who represent Northern Ireland constituencies are very pleased to know about the 51 clauses that will affect Northern Ireland through a legislative consent motion. It is important to recognise the benefits that that will have not just here, but in Northern Ireland. However, there are one or two others that we might like to see in the future. Has the Home Secretary had an opportunity to speak to the policing and justice Minister in Northern Ireland about that?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have had discussions with Northern Ireland Ministers, and I am happy for them to continue.

I am very conscious of the time, and I know that many Members wish to speak, so I want to make some progress now. Through the Bill we will protect people better by making stalking protection orders more widely available and introducing a new criminal offence of administering a harmful substance, for instance by spiking. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has long campaigned for our measures to strengthen the management of offenders in the community and introduce enhanced notification requirements for registered sex offenders, as well as a bar on their changing their names when there is a risk of sexual harm.

We are also taking stronger measures to protect our children, which is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of all. The Bill will create a new duty to report child sexual abuse, backed up by criminal sanctions for those who seek to cover up abuse by preventing or deterring someone from carrying out the duty. That was recommended by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, and the Prime Minister and I both called for it more than a decade ago. The Bill will make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offenders, because these are the most vile and damaging of crimes, and will introduce new criminal offences to combat the use of artificial intelligence technology in the making or sharing of child sexual abuse material, and stronger action against those who organise grooming online, where the scale of abuse and crime is increasing steeply.

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State greatly for giving way. I recognise what clauses 45 to 54 say about the mandatory duty in England to report child sexual abuse, and I wonder if I might draw her attention to the fact that there are exceptions dating back to 1603, under canon law, for confessions relating to treason. There is also precedent in section 38B of the Terrorism Act 2000, relating to terrorism, which covers faith leaders. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we might help the various churches, faith leaders and volunteers in England to make sure that they mandatorily report when they come across this stuff in confession?

[Yvette Cooper]

The Policing Minister is happy to meet the hon. Member to discuss the detail. It is imperative that all institutions and organisations across communities take responsibility for tackling these appalling and damaging crimes.

We are also introducing measures around national security, including a new youth diversion order to help manage the increasing number of young people being investigated or arrested for terrorism-related activity. Counter-terror police have said that their case load of young people has trebled in just three years, and more action is needed.

There are further measures, which I am sure we will discuss later in this debate and in Committee, to strengthen standards in policing and ensure that chief officers and local policing boards have the right to appeal the result of misconduct boards to police appeals tribunals, to make sure that those who are not fit to serve can be removed from policing and that the standards of police officers, who do an incredible job across the country, can be maintained.

On accountability, we will bring forward amendments to establish a presumption that firearms officers who are charged with offences relating to, and committed during, their duties will have their anonymity preserved during the court process so that we can maintain their confidence, as well as the confidence of communities, in the work that they do.

Safety from harm is not a privilege; it is a fundamental right that should be afforded to everyone, no matter their circumstances. No one should be left to live in fear because of crime and antisocial behaviour in their community. Under this Government, safer streets is a mission for us all, to draw our communities together. We are putting police back on the beat, introducing respect orders and taking action on off-road bikes, shoplifting, street theft, stalking, spiking, grooming and child abuse, knife sales, terrorism and serious crime. We are taking stronger action against criminals, delivering stronger support for victims, restoring respect for the rule of law and restoring police to our streets. Ultimately, we are building a better, fairer Britain that is founded on safety and security for all. I commend this Bill to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Before I call the shadow Secretary of State, I inform the House that because many people wish to contribute, Back Benchers will have a time limit of five minutes to begin with.