Alcohol Licensing (Coronavirus) (Regulatory Easements) (Amendment) Regulations 2023
Alex Norris Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Elliott. I welcome the Minister to her position. I know that she will bring her characteristic thoughtfulness to her work. The Home Department and the shadow Home Office team have been known to occasionally disagree, but I am sure we can disagree well when we do so.
The Opposition do not intend to stand in the way of this instrument, so I will keep my remarks brief. We support it, and we support efforts to assist the hospitality sector through the aftermath of the pandemic, the effects of which, as the Minister said, are still being felt. The hospitality industry in particular is hampered by the cost of living crisis at the moment, as disposable incomes are pared back, so the more support we can give, the better.
This is a reasonable accommodation to be made for business, and it strikes an appropriate balance between business and the community, but I hope this is the last time we extend these provisions in this way. It was heartening to see in the explanatory notes that there is a proper new unified licensing regime coming. That needs to be drafted, consulted on and put before Parliament, so that we can do our best by our constituents and perhaps iron out the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown raised and those that came out of the consultation.
I hope the Minister will expand on the commitment she has made. As I say, it is heartening to hear that this work is under way. The extension in this instrument lasts until March 2025, which takes us past the latest possible date for a general election. I would welcome some clarity as to whether we can expect the new regime in this parliamentary Session, before a general election, so that we do not have to do this again in March 2025 on an emergency basis, because we do not yet have a new regime to discuss.
There are concerns about the provisions in this legislation that need to be addressed by a unified regime. As the noble Lord Coaker said when the instrument was debated in the other place, the explanatory memorandum shows that the consultation responses were not, it is safe to say, supportive of this measure. There were 174 responses, which is not a huge number, but two thirds of those who replied wanted to return to the pre-covid provisions of the Licensing Act 2003. Slightly less—63%—opposed making the provision relating to temporary event notices permanent, but as the Minister says, that will be discontinued, which is welcome. Given that it has not been used, it is right to turn that provision off.
The Government spokesperson in the other place said that the reason for the Government going against the consultation was that, broadly speaking, the support was from the industry, with the opposition mainly centred on local residents and licensing concerns, and that, having viewed the consultation results, the Government opted to give more weight to the industry and continue the easements. I hope the Minister will expand on that. We are sent here to make such judgments based on evidence and to weigh up a variety of factors, and it is reasonable to sometimes act against a consultation, especially when I suspect that many of these concerns could be better addressed through local action under the current regime, or certainly under a broader, unified regime. However, it would be helpful if the Minister confirmed that that was the nature of those disagreements.
Notwithstanding what the Minister said about the National Police Chiefs’ Council, it would be helpful to know which representative bodies opposed and which supported this measure. I would be particularly interested to hear what the police and those who speak for local government said.
Another element of the consultation outcome related to crime and antisocial behaviour as a result of these easements. Happily, a majority—two thirds—of respondents said that they had not seen a change in crime and antisocial behaviour, but a significant minority of one third had. Again, I would be keen to hear from the Minister what assessment the Home Department has made of this, whether the impact of antisocial behaviour came up in those conversations with the National Police Chief’s Council, and what mitigations might be needed. We know that police forces and police officers are doing an amazing job all day, every day, and we would not want to make that harder, because we know that they are thinly stretched.
I have given the Minister a lot to address, and I hope she is able to do so. We will not oppose these measures, but it is time to move from this sticking plaster approach to a proper scheme that the public can buy into.
Hate Crime Against the LGBT+ Community
Alex Norris Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Mrs Cummins. I would like to start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for securing this debate, which has been so well attended. When I was shadow Public Health Minister, I had the chance to collaborate with him on his vital work to end the transmission of HIV. His efforts there have been remarkable, and he has set the tone and brought the same kind of spirit to today’s debate. He talked about the stark and horrific reality of hate crime, which should act as a call to action. He made crucial points about reference, which were echoed by my hon. Friends the Members for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) and for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake). We as leaders have a real responsibility in this space.
The debate has been important. I am particularly grateful to colleagues who were able to talk about their personal experiences. People assume that as parliamentarians we are confident in always sharing what can be very deep parts of our personality, but it really has enriched the debate, and I am exceptionally grateful for that. My hon. Friends the Members for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) and for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) made really important points about under-reporting. Our efforts today and the leadership we show from this place—we must hear that from the Minister, and I will have some ideas myself—are the way to drive up reporting and build confidence. We know for too many people that confidence is not there at the moment.
I want to cover the point from the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder). First, to be very clear, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) has a very diverse constituency in Manchester and represents all her constituents, no matter their background—political or otherwise. That T-shirt is not an act of hate. Similarly, we would not interpret condoms at Tory party conferences that say, “Labour isn’t working, but this condom will (*99% of the time)”, as such. We take it in the spirit in which it was meant. I would be saddened if it was not taken in the spirit in which it was meant. I want to put that on the record.
In recent years we have seen incidents of hate crime rise significantly. Hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation have risen by almost 500% over the last decade. Crimes targeting transgender identity are up by 1,000%. We would expect to see some increase as we have, as a whole society, pushed to improve reporting, but even from isolating the data to the recent past four years—2018 to 2022—hate crime on the basis of sexual orientation is up by 41% and on the basis of gender identity by 56%. There is a problem here, and reporting alone cannot explain it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport said, there are changes in all our communities.
LGBT+ people must be treated fairly, with dignity and with respect. As leaders in this place, our commitment is to treat these issues with sensitivity, rather than to stoke division and pit people against each other. We should be proud of our record as a tolerant country. We should be proud of our progress on equality. As the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) said, we should be overjoyed that we have the most out LGBT+ Members of Parliament of any legislative body in the world. But that progress is not inevitable. We need to hear the Government’s plan to reverse this trend in hate crime and to reverse how LGBT+ people feel today.
Where the Government will not step forward, we stand ready. We are proud that the previous Labour Government did more to advance LGBT+ equality than any in history and, if given the chance, the next will break new ground in this space, too. We would introduce a full and immediate trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy, protecting legitimate talking therapies but closing any consent loopholes that are put in the statute book in the meantime.
We will also strengthen and equalise the law so that anti-LGBT+ and disability hate crimes are treated as aggravated offences. In doing so, we would accept the Law Commission’s recommendations that the aggravated offences regime be extended across five protected characteristics: race, religion, sexual identity, transgender identity and disability. That will ensure that anyone who falls victim to hate crime is treated equally under the law and that the perpetrators of anti-LGBT+ and disability hate can no longer dodge longer sentences. Those commitments sit alongside our broader, crucial pledges to put 13,000 neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers back on our streets and embedded in our communities, so that they can build local relationships to combat hate crime and deter it through their visible presence.
Florence Eshalomi
My hon. Friend will be aware of the horrific attack at the Two Brewers in my constituency of Vauxhall on Sunday 13 August. I commend the organisation for working with the police: the perpetrator was caught a month later and he is still on remand. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need more police officers across all our communities to ensure that anyone committing these heinous attacks will feel the full weight of the law?
Alex Norris
Absolutely. We want to send a very strong signal that, under a future Labour Government, there would be 13,000 extra staff, compared with the 10,000 fewer we have at the moment, to take back our streets so that those who think they can break the law with impunity find out that they no longer can.
There is a significant point about charging. Our charging commission, chaired by former Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird, will be providing recommendations on raising the scandalously low charge rates that are so damaging to our justice system and are letting criminals off the hook. This is a plan to reverse a legacy of decline. We are determined to turn this situation around, and to make our streets safe with a police and justice system that is fit for the future and that the LGBT+ community can trust to combat hate crime and bring the perpetrators of it to justice.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Norris Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
The Home Secretary seeks to paint a rosy picture on crime. In reality, retail crime is, as described by the Co-op, “out of control”, and with 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police and police community support officers, that is no surprise. Across all retailers, there are more than 850 acts of violence or abuse every single day. The Co-op also reports that even when it detains someone suspected to have committed a crime, 80% of the time it has to let them go again because the police are stretched too thinly to come and make the arrest. When will the Home Secretary drop this pretence that things are going well and actually stand up for our shop workers?
Suella Braverman
We take these matters incredibly seriously. That is why my right hon. Friend the Policing Minister met the Co-op and other major retailers recently to discuss this issue in detail. Shoplifting and retail theft have become a challenge for retailers and our community, which is not right. That is why, a few weeks ago, we made a nationwide commitment whereby all police forces have agreed to follow every reasonable line of inquiry. That will mean that CCTV footage, online evidence of resale and other actionable evidence will be followed up by the police, leading the investigations and justice process.
Dangerous Drugs
Alex Norris Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Nitrous oxide causes significant problems in our communities. As we have heard, it is the third most misused substance among 16 to 24-year-olds, it leads to antisocial behaviour, and the litter associated with it is a blight on our streets, parks and pavements. We know from our own mailbags that our communities are sick of having to literally and figuratively pick up after the problem that nitrous oxide creates. We feel that what the Government are proposing is a relatively minor change to how we approach this, and we do not intend to stand in the way, but I do have a number of questions that I hope the Minister can address.
It has to be said that, as a psychoactive substance, nitrous oxide is already covered by the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. In practice, that means it is already an offence to produce it, supply it, offer to supply it, possess it with the intent to supply it, import it or export it on a similar basis. The only thing that is not an offence is the possession of it outside custody. That is in practice what will be different as a result of this instrument, so I would say, as I did at the beginning, that this is relatively modest.
I am glad that the Minister has addressed the points relating to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, because it is important when the Government diverge from what their independent advisers tell them—which they are of course able to do—that they explain why they are doing so. The Opposition’s view is that we would have given greater weighting to the creation and impact of antisocial behaviour than the ACMD did in its report, which is why taking action is reasonable.
The ACMD did raise other points, and the Minister has covered them to some degree, but I want to get some greater clarity, starting with the legitimate use of nitrous oxide. We heard a couple of answers from the Minister—originally that there would be no change, but later that there would be a follow-up statutory instrument to make sure there is no change. Those two things are slightly different. I think I heard him say that they will come into force on the same day, so there will be no interregnum, but I would be grateful for more clarity if he is willing to say that that is the case.
The ACMD report also discussed a tighter definition of nitrous oxide so that lawful activities are not disrupted. The Minister, in his response, seemed to indicate that he was minded to do that. Could he say what the timeline might be? It also raised the crucial point about the move from the 2016 Act to the 1971 Act, and that the impact of that ought to be kept under review. Can he confirm that will be the case, because we do need to know that this will not excessively criminalise certain groups, especially young people?
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
It is clear that the 1971 Act is vastly out of date and has many adverse consequences in its application. I wonder whether those on the Labour Front Bench would welcome the idea of our committing to review the use of that Act and to update and modernise it. I am not saying we should scrap it, but we definitely need to investigate its use. That would give me some reassurance and enable me to do what those on the Front Bench are asking later on.
Alex Norris
I am afraid that I am going to disappoint my hon. Friend by not setting such a broad policy while debating a statutory instrument on a narrow bit of policy, but I know he will continue to make his case to me and my colleagues ahead of the election down the road.
Let me address the point about the diversionary work. From what I understand from the impact assessment, the Government envisage a relatively small minority of those caught in possession being charged, with the others instead having conditional cautions, community resolutions or diversionary activities. I would be keen for the Minister to state what he has based that assessment on, and how he thinks it is likely to work in practice.
The Minister, I think rightly and importantly, has coupled this issue with that of antisocial behaviour, so we must take a reckoning of the Government’s broader record on antisocial behaviour. They have had 13 years. The Minister talks about the antisocial behaviour action plan and the pilot programmes in 10 police forces, but that is less than a quarter of all forces. We have seen from the Minister and his colleagues a complete failure to reverse the cuts to neighbourhood policing, and we still have 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers than we did eight years ago. Half the population say that they rarely see the police on the beat, and that proportion has doubled since 2010. It is clear that the Government’s plans are too modest to meet this challenge.
Chris Philp
I welcome the shadow Minister to his place. Will he join me in expressing pleasure at the fact that we now have record numbers of police officers? As of 31 March, there are 149,566 in England and Wales, which is about 3,500 more than we have ever had at any time in history.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for that intervention and for the Minister’s kind words of introduction. As he says, I am new to this parish, but if I were in his seat and not mine, I might be a little less gleeful about there being 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs than eight years ago, and about the fact that the people of this country, whom we serve, are twice as likely to say that they rarely see police on the beat than when this Government started in 2010. That should perhaps be a point for reflection, rather than the grandstanding that we saw.
People will ask—it is important that the Minister addresses this—what non-legislative actions are being taken alongside this statutory instrument to ensure it is effective. On enforcement, this provision has important implications for our police, and I would be keen to know the Minster’s assessment of the overall readiness of those who are already busy, and who we will be asking to enforce this ban. What training does he think it will take to be effective? Again, we must see this record in its historical context to know where we are building from. The Government have weakened powers over the last decade, and brought in powers that have not been used, such as the community trigger. They have abandoned the major drug intervention programmes that the previous Labour Government left, they have slashed youth service budgets by £1 billion and they have let charges for criminal damage halve. We did not hear from the Minister what sort of broader preventive actions he intends to implement alongside this statutory instrument to make it effective.
We see in the independent report that standalone publicity campaigns are likely to have limited effectiveness, so what more thoughtful, community-level approaches are going to be used? Labour Members have set out a full comprehensive plan, with 13,000 extra neighbourhood officers and PCSOs, paid for by savings that have been identified by the Police Foundation, but which Ministers are refusing to make. We would introduce new respect orders for repeat offenders, hotspot policing to tackle drug dealing, and strong action on fly-tipping. Those are the sorts of things we could align alongside the decisions being taken today to make sure that they are actually meaningful. Otherwise there is a risk, which the Minister will have to reflect on, that people think the Government are chasing headlines, rather than chasing change. To conclude, we will not stand in the way of this instrument today, but it must be seen for what it is: a small intervention when we need much bigger ideas.
Nottingham Incident
Alex Norris Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Suella Braverman
People can feel safe in Nottingham going forward. I know that that is difficult for many people to feel in the immediate aftermath of a terrible incident of the type that we have just seen. They must know that the police are working flat out to get to the bottom of this. Ultimately, we all want justice. We are also backing the police and all the other professionals to ensure that they can do their operational work as effectively as possible.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Our community has been shaken by these devastating events. Yesterday, we stood together at a vigil in St Peter’s church. It was a sad and poignant act of reflection for the loss and pain that our city is feeling. Our city’s thoughts are with those who have lost their lives, their loved ones and those who have been injured, and our gratitude is with our emergency services.
Nottingham is a beautiful and vibrant city. We are a diverse community where people of every culture and background live together peacefully. That cohesion will be more important than ever. We will need our partnerships that characterise that cohesion to come together—the faith community, civil society, academic institutions that have been so rocked by the loss of members of their family, our statutory services and the public more widely. Will the Home Secretary commit her Department’s support to these important efforts?
Suella Braverman
I say simply, yes. The hon. Gentleman speaks with devotion and care for his residents and constituents. Frankly, there are no words to describe the pain and anguish that people in Nottingham are feeling right now. But, exactly as he says, communities, faith groups and professionals coming together to support one another in a spirit of recovery and unity is the way that we will rebuild from this.
Net Migration Figures
Alex Norris Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I have looked into the issue in great detail. I have spent time with officials from the Home Office and local authorities where we have hotels for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, speaking privately to the social workers and support staff who care for them, to ensure that we have the right processes in place. I am confident that we do. The hotels have a range of very considerable support around them. When a young person goes missing from a hotel, all the same processes are followed as for any other missing person, whether that be a child of a migrant or our own children.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
The shadow Secretary of State raised very important questions about work visas that the Minister has not yet addressed. The number of work visas has doubled since the pandemic. Are the Government satisfied with that increase?
Robert Jenrick
We want a system that enables businesses to bring in foreign workers where there are sustained skills shortages, but we want British employers to focus, in the first instance, on training British workers to fill those vacancies, because there are large numbers of people who are economically inactive. The first duty of employers and the Government is to help those people back into the workforce.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Norris Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Chris Philp
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for her campaigning on the issue of Nottinghamshire fire services, which she has raised with me a number of times. There is certainly no financial excuse for what the fire and rescue authority is doing. This year, it received a 5.2% funding increase and, thanks to my hon. Friend’s campaigning, when the figures are published tomorrow, there will be further good financial news for the Nottinghamshire and City of Nottingham Fire Authority. On how the fire authority’s decisions might be queried, any concerns she has can be raised with the inspectorate and taken into account when the fire service is next inspected. Otherwise, the fire and rescue authority is made up of local authority representatives, who are accountable, periodically, via the ballot box.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service is well led and staffed by excellent firefighters and non-firefighting staff alike. They keep our community staff in increasingly difficult circumstances. They would like to meet the Minister to discuss their challenges, particularly in relation to funding. Will the Minister take that meeting with them and with local MPs?
Chris Philp
Yes, I would be very happy to meet the hon. Member and his colleagues from Nottinghamshire, perhaps early in the new year, to discuss this issue. As I said, Nottinghamshire fire services got a 5.2% funding increase in this current year, and I think good news can be expected when the full settlement is published tomorrow. I would observe that, in common with the rest of the country, the number of fires in Nottinghamshire has substantially decreased by 45% over the last 12 years.
Protection of Retail Workers
Alex Norris Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on the excellent way in which he introduced the debate, and I particularly thank the 104,354 people who signed the petition, thereby triggering the debate. The violence and abuse our shop workers face is a source of national shame, and it is well beyond time that we acted.
According to the Association of Convenience Stores, there have been 40,000 violent incidents in the past year, with one in five resulting in injury. On top of that, there are a staggering 1.2 million incidents of abuse, and nearly nine out of every 10 shop workers have been affected. They are key workers, doing their job, keeping us fed and watered, and that is what they have to face daily.
This is such a significant issue, and it calls us to act. As parliamentarians, we have a special responsibility to do so. When do many of those flashpoints happen? When shop workers enforce age or similar restrictions—alcohol, cigarettes, acids, knives: 50 different categories of things that we have asked them to restrict. Those are important restrictions, and in that moment the staff act as, yes, employees of their retailers, but also as public servants. We put them at risk while they do so: we ought to have their backs.
What could we do? I hope that the Minister has had the chance to read the excellent “Breaking the Cycle” report carried out by Dr Emmeline Taylor in conjunction with the Co-op Group, which is doing outstanding work on behalf of its staff in this area. I am proud to have provided an introduction to that report, but I assure colleagues that it gets better after that bit, so keep reading on. The report provides tangible ways in which to tackle the epidemic, with particular regard to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, from the better use of civil tools to improvement in the ways in which probation and prison services respond to offenders.
I will finish by focusing on one suggestion, which is to replicate the excellent Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021, introduced by our colleague Daniel Johnson. That Act created a new offence in Scotland regarding violence and abuse targeted at shop workers, with an enhanced aggravating factor when age restrictions are involved. I have introduced a private Member’s Bill in each of the two previous Sessions along the same lines, with the support of excellent trade unions such as USDAW, of which I am a member.
Like no other campaign, this has united companies and their unions, management and their staff, big retailers and the independents—they all think that that is the right thing to do and they all want to act now. My good friend, Sir David Hanson, pressed for similar during proceedings on the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, the Government asked for time for the case to be proven through the call for evidence. That evidence was overwhelming. Since then, things have worsened, and have been turbo-charged by the pandemic. I hope that when the Minister sums up, he will announce that the Government are ready to bring forward their own amendment, or to accept the amendment mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) to move the issue forward. The time is now, we have proven the case and we can wait no longer. It is time to act.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Norris Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
Alex Norris
The Minister was wise to make extra funding available in the light of the impact of covid on domestic abuse and sexual violence. However, that money has to be spent, through police and crime commissioners’ offices, by support services by March. The support services that I have talked to have said that that is simply not enough time to spend it efficiently and effectively. Will the Minister commit herself today to giving them another year to spend that same money?
Victoria Atkins
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising a constructive point. I hope that he knows that we were very keen through the pandemic to help at a local, regional and national level. Indeed, I was very careful to ensure that police and crime commissioners, who are responsible for distributing the local level of funding, do so not just to the services that are commissioned, but also to non-commissioned services, because there is a wealth of expertise across the country. On the point about funding, I will of course take that away. It is something that I have been discussing with charities and I know their concerns; we are dealing with that issue during the spending review allocation process.
Channel Crossings in Small Boats
Alex Norris Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Philp
I add my tribute to my hon. Friend’s tribute to our crime fighting agencies—the police, the National Crime Agency and Immigration Enforcement, who are working day and night to break up these criminal gangs. I mentioned the raid that I accompanied in July, which went to about 13 different addresses across most of London and resulted in 11 arrests and the seizure of £150,000 in cash. There are multiple operations under way in the United Kingdom, but also working with law enforcement partners in other European countries and countries beyond Europe, to break up these criminal gangs. It is not just in France; it goes way beyond France. They are dangerous; they are ruthless; they are exploiting vulnerable migrants; and they are engaged in other associated criminality. We will stop at nothing to get all of them rounded up, arrested and put out of business.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It has been sad to watch a summer of the Government chasing cheap newspaper headlines, rather than getting a grip of this challenge, because growing global climate change will only make more challenging migration patterns for European countries. We need a cross-European solution. We have heard from the Minister for immigration compliance what his solution is: “Nothing to do with me, guv—stay in Italy, stay in Greece, stay in France, stay in Germany.” That will not do. So what are the Minister and the Home Office doing, today, to get to a mature, equitable and humane solution with our European partners?
Chris Philp
As I say, we have, as part of our European Union negotiations, made a detailed and comprehensive offer in relation to returns arrangements—readmission arrangements—and indeed UASC and family reunification. That offer was a detailed offer. We tabled a full legal text in both of those two areas in May last year, and that will provide the basis of the co-operation that the hon. Gentleman describes. But if, for any reason, that agreement cannot be reached, then obviously we will make our own unilateral arrangements that are compassionate, humane and fair but at the same time control our borders.