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Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Claire Coutinho)
In England, the share of households required to spend more than 10% of their income on energy after housing costs was 21% in 2021 and 30% in 2022, following the invasion of Ukraine that year. We provided close to £40 billion of energy support to households and businesses last winter, one of the most generous levels in Europe. Since then, we have seen the Ofgem price cap fall from £4,279 at its peak in January 2023 to £1,928 from January 2024.
Sarah Champion
More than 20% of Rotherham households are living in fuel poverty, yet the Government’s flagship energy policy will not, by their own admission, save a single penny from those households’ energy bills. Bills are set to rise again in January. How can the Minister justify the Government’s appalling failure to act to support my constituents, struggling to heat their homes this winter?
Claire Coutinho
The extra support announced by the Chancellor last week brings our total cost of living support to £104 billion over the period 2022 to 2025. That is one of the largest support packages anywhere in Europe. On top of that, we are providing £900 in cost of living payments across 2023 and 2024 to ensure that support gets to those most in need.
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
I recently bumped into Christopher Thexton, who is one of the “green doctors” working out of College House in Barrow. He does an amazing job with his team, going into homes to try to help people to save money on their energy bills and reduce the cost of living, whether that is help with energy debt, fixing drafts in their home or even changing the lightbulbs to make them more energy-efficient, but demand is massively outstripping supply. Can my right hon. Friend speak to whether any more support is available to such teams to help people on the ground to reduce their energy bills?
Claire Coutinho
We are spending £20 billion on energy efficiency over this Parliament and the next. We can be proud of the steps we have taken so far. When we took over in 2010, just 14% of homes were energy-efficient. Now the number is 50%, and we have plans to go further.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
An estimated 6.3 million households are in fuel poverty across the UK. Ofgem has announced that energy debt has reached £2.6 billion. With millions of people facing another difficult winter, the Government promised to consult on a social tariff to help the most vulnerable. Can the Secretary of State provide an update on that consultation?
Claire Coutinho
People mean many different things by a social tariff, but fundamentally it is about providing people with support to help with their bills. Just in the autumn statement, we have increased the national living wage, which is worth £1,800 to people; increased benefits by 6.7%, which is worth £470; and cut national insurance contributions, which is worth £450. Those are all on top of the £900 cost of living support we already have in place.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
Thursday is Fuel Poverty Awareness Day, and recently the Scottish Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel estimated that nearly 30% of households in Scotland are facing extreme fuel poverty, up from 12% in 2019. Does the Secretary of State agree that at the very least that is concerning? Somehow a third of my constituents in the north-east of Scotland—home to a 50-year bonanza for His Majesty’s Treasury—live in energy-rich Scotland but find themselves in fuel poverty. Is that what Unionists mean by pooling and sharing resources?
Claire Coutinho
We have taken energy prices going up incredibly seriously, which is why we have spent £104 billion protecting the British people. That is one of the most generous packages anywhere in Europe. If the hon. Member cares about the incomes of people in Scotland, I suggest that he backs British oil and gas jobs.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Claire Coutinho)
In the UK, we have seen nearly £200 billion-worth of investment in low carbon sectors since 2010. That is 50% more than the US as a share of GDP. At the global investment summit just yesterday, it was clear that businesses see Britain very much as open for business, and that was backed up by £29 billion-worth of investment.
Nick Smith
In the summer, I heard about President Biden’s plan to use America’s industrial might to power up New York using offshore wind. Given that we need to turbocharge the green economy, why will the Government’s response to the Inflation Reduction Act not come into effect until 2025?
Claire Coutinho
We have taken many steps already. We have set out new plans for auction round 6 of renewable energy and for permanent economy-wide full expensing. We changed planning, and we are unlocking the grid. The fund that the hon. Member mentioned will unlock supply chains across the UK. What have people said? Scottish Renewables has said it is
“a shot in the arm for the sector”.
The Offshore Wind Industry Council has said that it will help us retain our position as a “global leader”. It has been welcomed by Make UK, Energy UK and many other businesses as well.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Last week, the Chancellor’s autumn statement included an important commitment on the Government’s part to bring forward legislation to modernise the Crown Estate’s investment and borrowing powers, which is a vital step for deploying 16 GW of floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea. That will benefit the whole of Wales, and we hope in particular my constituency and the port of Milford Haven. When are the Government likely to bring forward that important legislation?
Claire Coutinho
My right hon. Friend has been a doughty champion for the Celtic sea. He knows that we have a commitment to unlock an additional 12 GW of wind power in the Celtic sea. That is important to us, and we will bring forward the legislation in due course.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Instead of properly responding to America’s Inflation Reduction Act, the Government held a meeting with businesses yesterday—you might not have seen it, Mr Speaker, as it did not make any of the front pages. Was the global investment summit not just a distraction from the same old fundamentals—business confidence is down, exports are down, and growth forecasts are down after 13 years of instability and uncertainty? Does the Secretary of State think that lack of business confidence is because her Government trashed the economy last year, because her Government told business to eff off, or because, as Mark Carney said, the Government have “juvenilised” the climate debate instead of using it as a driver of good jobs? Does she not agree with those from a global pension fund I spoke to this morning who said it is time we got some adults in the room?
Claire Coutinho
What we saw yesterday was £7 billion from Iberdrola for UK electricity networks and renewables, and £300 million from Aira, the heat pump installer. In the last couple of weeks, we have had £500 million from Sea Wind, £2 billion from Nissan, and £186 million from Siemens Gamesa. What the hon. Lady should understand is that there is a difference between what the Government are offering, which is £29 billion of investment, and what Labour is offering, which is £28 billion of borrowing.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Andrew Gwynne
As a fellow Lancastrian, I hope you had a good Lancashire Day yesterday, Mr Speaker.
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
As a Yorkshire MP, I resent that remark. [Laughter.]
I meet regularly with business leaders and organisations. I chair or co-chair, among others: the Offshore Wind Industry Council, which I will be going straight to after questions; the solar taskforce; the green jobs delivery group, which met yesterday; the North sea transition forum, which I will attend tomorrow; and, from a strategic cross-cutting point of view, the Net Zero Council. Of course, the Secretary of State and I met global leaders yesterday.
Andrew Gwynne
Well, as the Minister seems to meet so many business leaders, he must have heard their shock and horror about the Government’s roll-backs on net zero. Earlier this month, the Aviva chief executive officer Amanda Blanc said that the Government were putting our climate goals as a country “under threat”, putting at risk
“jobs, growth and the additional investment the UK requires”.
She is not wrong, is she?
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman has a well-founded and highly esteemed reputation for anger. Under this Government, this country has cut its emissions more than any other major economy on the planet, and we have the most ambitious plans for 2030. When I attend COP28 next week, we will be inviting and supporting others to join the UK, which under this Conservative Government has led the way on a pathway to net zero.
Joanna Cherry
The Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre based at Heriot-Watt University in my constituency is doing incredible work on the green transformation across the UK’s industrial heartlands. It is working with all the biggest industrial clusters and is supporting more than 30 universities and research initiatives, looking at all aspects of the Government’s decarbonisation challenge. As such, it is well placed to assist business to meet our net zero targets. The problem is that its funding is coming to an end next March, and at present there is nothing to replace it. The science Minister promised me a meeting about this urgent issue several months ago, but it has been cancelled a number of times. Will the Minister advocate with his colleague so that I can get this meeting arranged and get funding in place for IDRIC to continue its fantastic work?
Graham Stuart
I thank the hon. Lady for her question and for championing vital research, not least in Scotland. I am looking forward to meeting scientists when I am in Scotland over the next couple of days. We have all heard her request, and it will be noted.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
My right hon. Friend mentioned that he will go to COP28 next week. Could he remind Members of the House, particularly those on the Opposition Benches, of the measures taken in last week’s autumn statement to help to promote the green energy agenda in this country?
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend is quite right. We must never forget the parlous state of this country in 2010. Less than 7% of our electricity came from renewables—that was the legacy of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). In the first quarter of this year, that was nearly 48%. Opposition Members raised the issue of people being cold and unable to pay their bills, but just 14% of homes were insulated properly; now, it is 50%. In last week’s autumn statement we heard announcements about the grid and—
Mr Speaker
Order. The Minister talks about emissions, and we are getting a lot of them from him today.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
My constituents put in 10% of the energy into the national grid from two nuclear power stations. We are No. 7 on the template for new builds, so I would like to invite the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) to come to Heysham to see for himself the good work of EDF and the new nuclear power programme that is coming to my constituency.
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend is a stout champion not only of the pathway to net zero but of the jobs and prosperity that come with it. It is with great alacrity that I accept on behalf of my hon. Friend the Minister.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
The share of households in fuel poverty in England reduced every year between 2010 and 2021, with energy efficiency being the key driver. Although fuel poverty is devolved, we continue to engage with the devolved Administrations, including on specific schemes such as the energy company obligation and the warm home discount.
Anne McLaughlin
Across the world and in the United Kingdom, human rights are being eroded and fuel poverty is on the rise. This Government could address both by declaring access to energy a human right. It would mean that people could not be cut off willy-nilly simply because they could not afford to pay for their energy at that time. Does the Minister agree that energy should be a human right? If not, will she tell me which human beings she believes should not have the right to heat their homes?
Amanda Solloway
As the hon. Lady indicated, the Government take fuel poverty incredibly seriously. Everybody has the right to heat. We have been helping people with their energy bills, including a £900 cost of living allowance, as well as all the great things that we announced in the autumn statement.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Andrew Bowie)
The Government have created a new £10 million community energy fund to support community energy projects in England. We are working with the sector on content and a timetable for a consultation on barriers for community energy projects.
Patrick Grady
Does the Minister recognise the frustration and disappointment at the length of time and legislative barriers that remain for campaigning community groups who want community energy schemes to move forward? It is the most secure way of generating electricity. The Conservatives are supposed to be the party of free markets and competition, so why are they denying consumers the choice that would come with an exciting community energy scheme?
Andrew Bowie
Far from denying consumers opportunity, we are already beginning to work with organisations, such as the Community Energy Contact Group. On the content of the consultation we launched and whether it should include solutions to barriers, I will need to take a view when it responds.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
My right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero earlier mentioned the solar taskforce. Will my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary liaise with his colleagues and the National Farmers Union on combining community energy schemes with farmers and the rural sector? The solar taskforce mentions acres of supermarket rooftops being available for solar, but makes no reference to farm buildings. It makes sense that community schemes, working with local farmers in rural areas, can deliver community energy and allow farmers to diversify.
Andrew Bowie
I hear very much what my right hon. Friend says and understand his concerns. It is therefore with equal alacrity that I accept a meeting on my right hon. Friend the Minister’s behalf to discuss those issues moving forward.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
Michael Shanks (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
The Secretary of State and I met CEOs of energy suppliers recently. We emphasised that Ofgem’s new rules must be implemented and lead to improved protections for vulnerable consumers. We are working closely with Ofgem and the industry to ensure that that is the case.
Tony Lloyd
The Minister will be aware that the ban on the involuntary installation of prepayment meters will be lifted soon. That will mean families with children over two years old and pensioners under 75 who are still vulnerable will potentially face the higher cost of prepayment meters. There is the possibility, of course, that when they run out of tokens they will be cut off. Is that right?
Amanda Solloway
First of all, we have been mindful of ensuring that there is no higher cost to prepayment meters. We are mindful of the fact that prepayment meters have a place in certain households, because we are very sure that we must not increase debt. However, one reason why we scrutinised the process so carefully is to ensure that it does not impact negatively on vulnerable customers.
Michael Shanks
I thank the Minister for that answer, but what is it about the code of practice that means two-year-olds are vulnerable but three-year-olds are not? What is the difference between those households? Why has Scottish Power been able to go to court to obtain warrants to install prepayment meters forcibly before it has been able to demonstrate any compliance with the code? Is that not the wrong way around?
Amanda Solloway
Just for assurance, we have held conversations with Ofgem and suppliers to make sure no forced instalments have taken place yet. We are scrutinising the system to ensure that all vulnerable people are able to access the energy they need.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
This has been a record year for onshore wind, which is already the largest renewables technology. The latest contract for difference added an unprecedented 1.7 GW.
Dame Meg Hillier
The Minister seems to be comparing figures I have not seen. If it is a record year, why have we seen such a dramatic drop in planning applications for onshore wind farms and in the number of onshore wind farms delivered? From a peak of 64 applications in 2011, it went right down to zero in 2019 and now to 10 in 2022, the latest figures the House of Commons Library could provide. That does not seem like a record year to me. Is it not time the Government stopped shilly-shallying on onshore wind and backed the builders, not the blockers?
Graham Stuart
The hon. Lady is renowned in the House for her arithmetic skills, but in this case they seem to have failed her. The 1.7 GW is a tremendous success. I share her enthusiasm for onshore wind where communities support it. In September, the Government announced changes to planning policy for onshore wind in England to help make it easier and quicker for local planning authorities to consider and, where appropriate, approve onshore wind projects where there is local support.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
In the Kettering constituency there are 30 large wind turbines. Together with solar panels, they generate enough renewable electricity to power all 45,000 homes in the constituency. Is this not yet another case of where Kettering leads, others follow?
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend has championed, does champion and, I am sure, will continue for many years to champion the good people of Kettering, and the fact that they are providing such leadership on net zero and the delivery of renewables after our parlous inheritance from the Labour party. Let us make sure that we never go back to a system in which renewables are not brought on to our grid in the way they are today.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
The Minister is being a little shameless with his figures. We really ought to look at what is continuing to happen in England. In England, industry and other bodies warned that the supposed changes to onshore planning restrictions that were announced in September were far too timid to make any real difference to the dearth of new onshore wind.
I recently visited the site in Leighton Buzzard of the only turbine that has been put in place onshore in England since those supposed restrictions were lifted. It turns out that it has been in the planning process since 2014, and is not on a new site anyway. The Department’s renewable energy planning database shows that there are precisely zero new schemes in the pipeline in England. Should the Minister not go away and reconsider the remaining planning and funding restrictions on onshore wind so that it really can get going again?
Graham Stuart
As I have said, I share the enthusiasm on both sides of the House for onshore wind. The Government have set regulations that require onshore wind developers to consult communities in advance of submitting a planning application, as well as having it consulted on post-submission. We make no apology for rolling out this transformation in renewable technologies in concert with communities, rather than seeking to ride roughshod over them.
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Andrew Bowie)
The proposed AQUIND interconnector project is a live planning application currently being redetermined by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is progressing the work in the normal course of business. That means that, as set out in the planning propriety guidance, I am unable to give any further information on the progress of this live case.
Stephen Morgan
Portsmouth people have waited far too long for the Government to decide against AQUIND. Will the co-owner’s donation of more than £1 million to the Tories—including £6,000 to the Prime Minister’s constituency party and over £70,000 to the Chancellor—be a factor in the Minister’s decision on what is a disastrous project for Portsmouth?
Andrew Bowie
The Secretary of State is following a well-established planning process. I am sorry that I cannot say any more about this live case beyond what I have said already; it is with the Department and the Secretary of State for a decision.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Claire Coutinho)
The Climate Change Committee itself has said that there was “no material difference” in our overall projections after we made the changes to policies in September. The Government have taken considerable further steps since then, including our introduction of the zero-emission vehicle mandate, our agreement with Tata Steel on industrial electrification in Port Talbot, and reform of electricity grid connections.
Afzal Khan
The Climate Change Committee has stated that the UK needs to
“regain its international climate leadership”,
but last year the Prime Minister was uninterested in attending COP27. The committee’s recent report to Parliament made it clear that the UK was
“no longer a climate leader”.
Since then we have seen approval for massive oilfields, weakened climate targets, and the resignation of a Minister because the Prime Minister is so “uninterested”. COP28 is days away, and there is still confusion over whether the Government will push for the phasing out of fossil fuels. Given all that, is it not fair to say that the Government are failing to do everything possible to halt the climate breakdown?
Claire Coutinho
The UK has one of the most ambitious climate targets in comparison with any of our international peers. The UN’s emissions gap report, published just last week, shows that the UK is expected to reduce emissions between 2015 and 2030 at the fastest rate in the G20 group. We remain extremely ambitious about climate change. We have over-delivered on all our carbon budgets to date, and the work that has been done shows that we will continue to do so.
Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
The committee’s recent progress report advocated a faster transition to lower-carbon energy. What fiscal and regulatory measures are the Government taking to encourage more capital investment by business in this important area?
Claire Coutinho
We are already taking steps. We have set out new plans for another round of renewable auctions, and we have set out the most radical plans to unlock the electricity grid since the 1950s. We have also launched a new gigafund that will unlock supply chains across all these areas, and we can see that investors are voting with their feet.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
When it comes to national and household energy security, ownership matters, as championed by the Co-op party. The Labour party is committed to 1 million owners of UK-produced renewable energy, with 8 GW that will be cheap, green and owned by the people here in the UK, so why will the Government not meet that ambition?
Claire Coutinho
I think the hon. Gentleman’s argument is completely wrong-headed. Let us look at what the UK Government have done since 2010. We now have the first, second, third, fourth and fifth largest offshore wind farms anywhere in the world. As I have said, the plans we have set out meant that yesterday we were able to secure £29 billion of investment into this country. That will drive jobs and prosperity. The Opposition’s plan is to borrow £28 billion, which would only drive up inflation.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
Yesterday was Lancashire Day and today is Bedfordshire Day—happy Bedfordshire Day to all Members. It is the job of the Climate Change Committee to be enthusiastic about achieving our net zero goals. It is the responsibility of the Government to be fiscally prudent in achieving that objective. Does my right hon. Friend agree with the Prime Minister that we need to be clear with the British public all the way along about the costs that will be incurred to achieve our net zero ambitions?
Claire Coutinho
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is really important that we are honest with the British public. We are pursuing the most ambitious climate targets, but we will do so in a sensible way that protects the economy, grows jobs and investment, and ensures that we can deliver for the country not only on energy security but on our climate change ambitions.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I have to say that I spent the first 40 years of my life in Bedfordshire and I had no idea that Bedfordshire Day was a thing, but happy Bedfordshire Day anyway.
Fifteen years ago, the Labour Government introduced the Climate Change Act 2008, a landmark piece of legislation that has guided climate policy and progress in this country and inspired similar action around the world—admirably led, it has to be said, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). But where is that leadership now? How can the Prime Minister show his face at COP when, in the words of the Climate Change Committee, his entirely cynical backtracking has created
“widespread uncertainty for consumers and the supply chain”,
has increased
“both energy bills and motoring costs”
and made
“Net Zero considerably harder to achieve”?
Claire Coutinho
I think the hon. Lady is putting a lot of words into the Climate Change Committee’s mouth there. What it actually said was that, in terms of emissions, it would make no material difference. As I have said, the UN’s emissions gap report showed just last week that the UK was expected to reduce emissions between 2015 and 2030 at the fastest rate in the G20 group. This is yet more doom and gloom from the Opposition. If we look at what we have actually achieved, we can see that we have the most ambitious targets in the world and we have set out unprecedented levels of detail. We will continue to do so.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
The Government provide energy bills support through the energy bills support scheme alternative funding to over 150,000 households, and via the alternative fuel payment alternative fund to nearly 90,000 households that could not automatically access this vital support.
Christine Jardine
Energy bills are up 50% since 2021, but there was no mention of this in the autumn statement and £440 million earmarked for the most vulnerable households went unspent last year, yet in my constituency of Edinburgh West, pensioners, carers and disabled people who often have to use more electricity for life-saving equipment are paying those bigger bills. All of them are also paying higher standing charges than elsewhere in the UK. If the Chancellor will not commit to reopening the energy bills support scheme or the alternative fuel payment scheme, will the Secretary of State do so?
Amanda Solloway
Of course, as a Government we are looking at the standing charges; it is imperative that we do that and Ofgem is working through that. We have also given an unprecedented amount of support to households and non-domestic organisations. I reiterate that there is support at the moment. We have the £900 for the cost of living. We also have the disability allowance and other allowances. To give assurance, I meet regularly with all stakeholders.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Andrew Bowie)
I frequently meet the network companies to discuss their important work developing our electricity transmission network. I have also been pleased to meet communities and MPs from East Anglia to discuss concerns about network infrastructure. However, as the decision maker for planning consents, the Department does not get involved in individual projects.
Giles Watling
I feel moved to found a Clacton Day. Why not?
I have called for the old Bradwell site on the Dengie peninsula to be used for the arrival of undersea cables, as opposed to wrecking the environment of Essex and other areas with substations, pylons and so on. With the scrapping of High Speed 2 as an example, does my hon. Friend agree that public bodies now need to do a better job of assessing possible alternatives, instead of just barrelling forward with boatloads of taxpayers’ cash and destroying our beautiful countryside?
Andrew Bowie
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. As he knows from when we met to discuss this in June, the Electricity System Operator is responsible for planning the design and location of grid reinforcement, while transmission owners develop individual projects. I understand that Bradwell had been assessed but was not deemed appropriate for this project. However, I cannot comment on specific projects, in order to avoid prejudicing planning decisions. I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend again to discuss this in further detail.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
This Government are proud to have made the UK a global leader in offshore wind, and the industry believes that UK jobs in the sector will rise from the current 30,000-plus to 100,000-plus by 2030—if, of course, Conservative stewardship continues.
Kenny MacAskill
Jobs for whom? That is the question. We have already seen the shameful situation of UK seafarers who work in the offshore wind sector being laid off, to be replaced by low-wage, exploited migrant labour. As the sector develops, as we see people go out to work on the turbines for longer and as we see the building of floating accommodation for them to stay on, there is a huge risk that those workers—not just those on the supply ships—will also face exploitation. Will the Minister work with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that the national minimum wage applies in the offshore sector beyond the 12-mile territorial limit? That is the solution to protect our workers, and those from abroad, from being exploited.
Graham Stuart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I share his enthusiasm for making sure that we continue the development of good, well-paid jobs, and the development of the skills required to help people access those jobs, and that we do not have exploitation onshore or offshore during that development. It is a huge opportunity for the United Kingdom and for Scotland. Working together, I am sure we can develop it.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
As we know from the excellent Rampion wind farm in Sussex bay—hopefully it will soon be expanded—offshore wind farms support workers not just in energy production but in tourism, fishing and leisure too. This year we celebrate 50 years of the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. It is estimated that there are more than 6,000 wrecks around the UK coast, but only 57 of them are listed, so will my right hon. Friend speak to his colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport about how we can co-ordinate activity between new wind farms and marine archaeologists so that we can boost both our efforts to combat climate change and our cultural protection, which will give particular assistance to coastal communities?
Graham Stuart
As ever, my hon. Friend puts his finger on an important point. Existing assets such as wrecks have so many uses, all of which need to be understood. Our seas look so large, but they have multiple uses for shipping, defence and energy. We are working to ensure that we have a strategic, joined-up energy plan and a spatial strategy so that wrecks, marine protected areas and other interests can all be protected in an integrated manner.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
The Government are continuing to provide up to £900 of cost of living support throughout 2023-24 to help vulnerable households, which is an increase on the £650 that we provided the previous year, as well as targeted support such as £150 through the warm home discount.
Daniel Kawczynski
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Farmers in my constituency and the neighbouring Ludlow constituency are among the most productive in the United Kingdom and, speaking as one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys, we are very proud of their contribution to British exports. At the moment, they are rather adversely affected by rising energy costs. What additional assistance will the Government give to the agricultural sector to help this very important industry survive?
Amanda Solloway
My hon. Friend is a champion for Shropshire and for the farming industry. Farmers in Shropshire constituencies and across the UK have already benefited from the energy bill relief scheme, which ended on 31 March and provided more than £7.4 billion of support.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Ind)
I wish to welcome Faroese politicians who are here watching today. In the past year, the energy bills support scheme alternative fund was set up to help 900,000 households. As the Minister said earlier, only about 150,000—141,000, in fact—got the £400 promised, which means that 750,000 eligible households missed out on their £400. With one in four bill payers now in energy debt, will the Government keep their promise and make good to those 750,000 who missed out on that money when the scheme closed in May?
Amanda Solloway
As I stated, the alternative fund was an incredible support and provided households with that support. The Government lent in to try to ensure that everyone who was entitled to the funding was able to receive it. Now that the scheme has closed, the money will return to His Majesty’s Treasury.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Andrew Bowie)
The Government have committed £20 billion to support early development of CCUS—carbon capture, usage and storage—and £500 million to the industrial energy transformation fund to help industry to decarbonise, with phase 3 expected to open for applications in early 2024.
Alex Cunningham
We are still waiting for a lot of that to happen. The Tees Valley hosts a huge number of energy-intensive industries, but we have lost many of them over the years—a few years ago it was steelmaking, but more recently we saw the demise of the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company at Darlington, which built the Sydney harbour bridge. The last ammonia manufacturing plant in the country, that of CF Fertilisers, closed its doors this year, as did Mitsubishi’s Cassel works, with both citing that their energy costs were way higher than those of their European and American competitors. What are Ministers going to do to ensure that we do not have any more closures as a result of their policy failures?
Andrew Bowie
It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman could not find it within himself to congratulate Mayor Ben Houchen on all the work he is doing to bring steelmaking back to the Tees Valley for the first time in a generation. The Government are engaging with the steel industry on a sustainable future, as announced on 15 September. Tata Steel expects to invest £1.25 billion, including a UK Government grant worth up to £500 million, in a new electric arc furnace. Frankly, the hon. Gentleman should start talking up the Tees Valley.
Gill Furniss
Sheffield has a proud history of steelmaking, so much so that we are known globally as the “steel city.” To this day, steel supports thousands of jobs in Sheffield, but repeated failures by this Government mean that more and more families are worried about the future of this key industry and the livelihoods that depend on it. Will the Minister commit to giving this vital sector the support it needs to decarbonise in a fair way, while ensuring that the industry has a green, sustainable and prosperous future?
Andrew Bowie
I thank the hon. Lady for that question and, yes, I can give that commitment, because we are already engaging in that work. We are working with companies up and down the UK to ensure that they are able to decarbonise and deliver secure, high-wage, high-skilled jobs into the future, which will be the backbone of this economy as we move forward.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
First, let me thank the Government for the support they give for CCUS, and not least the Acorn project in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that CCUS needs to be developed across the UK at pace? Does he recognise the particular value of new CCUS power stations, such as the planned project in Peterhead in my constituency, which will generate more than 900 MW and, in conjunction with the Acorn project, will do so 95% emission-free?
Andrew Bowie
Yes, I thank my hon. Friend and congratulate him on his relentless efforts to decarbonise the North sea and the north-east of Scotland, and his support for the Acorn project. I was pleased to join him and the Prime Minister at the announcement on that in the summer. As my hon. Friend knows, CCUS is a priority for this Government, and we are progressing at pace. Power CCUS will be a vital component of our route to net zero, which is why we are committed to supporting at least one power CCUS plant by the mid-2020s.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
The Government are taking significant steps to support industrial clusters around the UK. They are each at a different stage of development and much of the technology is emerging as we speak, but the 2030 target is quite close and the scale of investment runs into billions of pounds. What engagement is my hon. Friend undertaking to discuss investment plans with individual businesses, to ensure that they meet the target and use the latest available technologies?
Andrew Bowie
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that investment is key to delivering our ambitious plans, which is why the Secretary of State was at the global investment summit yesterday. Working with the Department for Business and Trade and the Minister for Investment, we are engaging with companies on a daily basis, inspecting their investment plans to ensure they are fit for this country and the future, and will deliver the ambitious, world-leading targets we have set ourselves to decarbonise and provide the jobs of the future for this country.
Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
In 2010, 960,000 measures were installed. In 2022, around 200,000 measures were installed. In 2010, Government schemes were aimed at low-cost, easy-to-install measures. In 2022, our funding schemes focused on high-cost measures.
Samantha Dixon
Upgrading homes to energy performance certificate band C would create a huge economic and social boost to Britain. In my constituency of Chester more than half of homes are below EPC C and almost 20% of the housing stock is classed as historic, as it was built before 1919. What plans does the Department have to upskill the workforce and speed up the roll-out of energy efficient homes, including historic buildings, such as the ones in my constituency?
Amanda Solloway
The hon. Lady makes a good point about upskilling the workforce. Good progress has been made and around half of all homes will now reach the Government’s ambition of EPC C by 2035, compared with just 14% in 2010.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Andrew Bowie)
Grid reinforcement is critical to delivering our world leading offshore wind targets. The electricity system operator is responsible for designing a modern grid that uses a mix of upgraded existing lines, offshore transmission networks and new underground and overhead lines to bring this low-cost, homegrown generation to consumers.
Priti Patel
My constituents are angry about the ill-thought-out proposal by National Grid to impose 100 miles of pylons and overhead powerlines between Norwich and Tilbury. Will the Minister share with me, the House and my constituents what work he is doing to ensure that the Government do all they can to encourage National Grid and developers to build an offshore grid that will provide more investment and growth in renewables, and pull the plug on these awful pylons?
Andrew Bowie
As my right hon. Friend knows, I visited East Anglia a few months ago and I plan to visit again. I hear the frustration and the concerns of her constituents, which she has brought to the House today. As she knows, the ESO remains responsible for electricity network design. Offshore routing is more expensive and the costs would be borne by consumers across the country. However, we will continue to engage with the ESO as it develops proposals that strike the balance of offshore and onshore infrastructure.
Mr Speaker
I call the spokesperson for the Scottish National party, who must have a great connection with the east of England.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
It comes as a great relief that the Minister is listening, certainly to my constituents and his own. There are extraordinary levels of cheap green Scottish renewable energy transmitted to large consumers in industrial bases in the south by the network. This north-south transaction should rightly be done by subsea transmission cables, negating the need for onshore pylons and their attendant visual blight, environmental degradation, loss of productive farmland, costly compulsory purchase and wayleave charges. Why are Angus and other Scottish communities now threatened with a new 400 kV pylon line, instead of transmitting that energy south using subsea methods?
Mr Speaker
I think there would have been better questions. Time is a bit tight, but please answer the question, Minister.
Andrew Bowie
The hon. Gentleman should probably direct that question to my Scottish Government counterparts, who are in the same party as him. He wants to ride roughshod over the Scottish planning system to allow for a faster deployment of this new energy infrastructure across Scotland, including in his and my own constituencies. The Scottish Government have control over planning, the ESO have control over developing those plans and—
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Claire Coutinho)
Since my last appearance at departmental questions in September, we have shown that Britain remains open for business. Through our announcement on AR6, we have taken the next steps towards 50 GW of offshore wind energy. We have announced £960 million of investment in advanced manufacturing for key net zero sectors, including offshore wind networks, carbon capture, usage and storage, hydrogen and nuclear. We have set out the most radical plans to update the grid since the 1950s. I have signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korea to ensure closer co-operation on nuclear and offshore wind, bringing in £10 billion as well.
Jack Brereton
Given the success of exempting the ceramics sector from the climate change levy, and the risks of carbon leakage from offshoring the industry, will my right hon. Friend seriously consider exempting the ceramics sector from the emissions trading scheme?
Claire Coutinho
I know that my hon. Friend is a long-standing champion of the ceramics sector. The sector receives free allocations under the ETS, reducing carbon price exposure and mitigating its risk of carbon leakage. The Government are reviewing the free allocations policy and will consult this year to ensure that we effectively support at-risk industries.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
The world sorely needs leadership at COP28, but the verdict of our most globally respected climate expert, Lord Stern, earlier this month was damning. He said that the Government’s backsliding on climate action is a “deeply damaging mistake”—damaging for the UK, the world and the future of us all. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to place on record her response to Lord Stern?
Claire Coutinho
The right hon. Gentleman should understand that we have the most ambitious climate target of any of our international peers. If he looks at the delivery today, he will see that we overshot on carbon budgets 1 and 2, and we are on track to overshoot on carbon budget 3. In fact, the UN gap report showed just last week that between 2015 and 2030 the UK is expected to reduce emissions at the fastest rate of any of the G20 countries.
Edward Miliband
The Secretary of State has no response to Lord Stern. The problem is that he sees a Government preaching one thing and doing another. Her negotiators at COP will argue to phase out fossil fuels, but she wants to drill every last drop at home and open new coalmines. She will tell developing countries that climate action is good for the economy, but the Government use climate delay to divide people here at home. Does she not realise that climate hypocrisy just trashes our reputation and undermines our leadership?
Claire Coutinho
I completely reject that characterisation. At COP28, we will be talking about the UK’s leadership when it comes to cutting emissions. We had cut emissions more than any of our international peers by 1990. Even if we look forward to our targets for 2030, we see that we will still be cutting emissions by more than any of our international peers. That is something that the right hon. Gentleman would do well to welcome.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
I thank my hon. Friend for all his work championing both this area and the concerns of his constituents. As he rightly says, planning policy and guidance encourage large solar projects to locate on previously developed or lower value land and we will indeed undertake to be vigilant in ensuring that those principles are respected.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Graham Stuart
The hypocrisy and the ignorance coming from the Labour party is extraordinary. We have decarbonised more than any major economy on this earth and we will decarbonise more to 2030, and we are doing it by unlocking a level of investment into renewable energy double that we have seen in the United States. So, Labour can take its selective facts and put them where the sun don’t shine.
Mr Speaker
I think that we have had a few problems with language already. I am sure the Minister will think carefully before he answers again.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Andrew Bowie)
It would not be Energy questions without a question on Wylfa from my hon. Friend, who is such a champion for that technology and for her constituency. We all agree that Wylfa is a great candidate for new nuclear and one of several potential sites that could host new projects—[Interruption.] Ignore the luddites on the SNP Benches. As a first step towards a new national policy statement, the Government will consult later this year on a way forward to determine how new nuclear developments might be located.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State indicated earlier, a social tariff can mean different things to different people. We are consulting suppliers and many stakeholders to ensure that what we are doing is the right thing. We are also looking at flexibility around the warm home discount.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Andrew Bowie
The Government aim to reach a strategic policy decision before the end of the year on whether to support blending of up to 20% hydrogen by volume into the GB gas distribution networks. We are building the evidence to determine whether blending offers strategic and economic value and meets the required safety standards.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Graham Stuart
As I have said in earlier answers, we are seeking to encourage more applications. As far as I know, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) may be right, which is exactly why we are consulting on improving community benefits and have consulted on changing the planning system.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
I welcome the fact that the UK is doing more offshore wind than any other country in Europe, but fishermen in Leigh-on-Sea are deeply concerned about the effect of expanding offshore on fish stocks. Can the Minister assure me that renewable power production on the south Essex coast will also focus on tidal, and will he join my vision to make Southend pier a shining beacon of renewables, completely powered by tidal energy?
Graham Stuart
I share my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm for tidal. We have had a specific pot in previous rounds of the CfD precisely to develop that. We are the world leader in deployment and will continue to be, and I hope that her vision for her local area will be fulfilled.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Amanda Solloway
I have previously answered questions on that and indicated that we have committed to making sure that we eradicate fuel poverty and support all people with their energy bills.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
With organisations such as the Dalton Nuclear Institute and the University of Bolton Institute for Materials Research and Innovation, combined with the Greater Manchester vision for “Atom Valley”, will my hon. Friend update the House on the part that it will play in Britain’s nuclear future?
Andrew Bowie
I thank my hon. Friend for his continued support for this growing and important sector. Alongside the work of the nuclear skills taskforce, we are currently in phase B of our advanced modular reactor research, development and demonstration programme. We aim to demonstrate that technology by the 2030s to decarbonise industry and we welcome his support in that work.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
As part of the recent floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme, ambitious and comprehensive bids for funding to support developments by three major industry players on the Tyne were unsuccessful. Will the Minister meet me and those key Tyne businesses to discuss what further opportunities the Department can bring to mobilise the high-quality assets of our great river?
Graham Stuart
The Government are collaborating with industry to identify solutions to unblock barriers to offshore wind deployment. I know that the UK Infrastructure Bank is providing support to the Port of Tyne. The FLOWMIS project is currently live, so I cannot comment on it, but I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss these issues.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made a lot of progress in trying to bring together a holistic network, but it is too late for communities in Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex. In that regard, will she request that the electricity system operator publishes its survey of the Bradwell site, and that it undertakes a fresh one, with a full cost-benefit analysis, as a pilot for future connections?
Andrew Bowie
As my right hon. Friend knows, the ESO has conducted an investigation into Bradwell and its suitability, but I am happy to meet her again to discuss Bradwell, the location of future projects, and how we might work together to ensure that her constituents see the benefits of any future energy infrastructure built in that part of the country.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
It now seems clear that the funds that the Government plan to commit to loss and damage at COP28 will come from the UK’s existing climate finance commitments. We cannot tackle the climate crisis by robbing Peter to pay Paul. Given that a properly resourced and operational loss and damage finance fund has to be a litmus test of success, will the Minister commit to looking at new and additional forms of funding, including a permanent windfall tax on fossil fuel companies and a tax on high-emission travel, to deliver new finance and make polluters pay?
Graham Stuart
The hon. Lady is right to highlight loss and damage as we approach COP28. We were pleased to play our part on the transitional committee in getting a recommendation to COP, and we look forward to its being operationalised in the near future. I agree with her that, if we are to get the scale of finance that is required, particularly for the most vulnerable countries at the front end, we need to look at innovative ways of adding to that finance.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
Wind energy projects have a standard compensation scheme for all local communities, but solar projects do not. Industry will not act, so I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to bring in a standard measure for all solar projects to bring fairness to clean energy in our communities.
Graham Stuart
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for pursuing this matter assiduously; we have met and discussed it, among other issues. I think both industry and communities would appreciate greater clarity about community benefits, and I look forward to discussing that with her further.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
One in four households in my constituency is now living in fuel poverty, compared with the national average of one in 10. Why do the Government continue to give millions to gas and oil giants, which enjoy billions in bumper profits, while our constituents continue to be dragged into poverty?
Graham Stuart
Regrettably, the content of so many Opposition Members’ questions this morning is absolutely not in line with reality. Oil and gas production in the UK not only typically has lower emissions than the alternative of imports, but supports 200,000 jobs, all of which would be at risk if the Labour party came to power. To answer the hon. Gentleman’s specific question, it is expected to raise £50 billion of tax over the next five years, all of which—including the safety of his constituents—would be at risk if Labour ever came to power.
Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)
Do my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Minister for Nuclear and Networks, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), agree that the very best location for two 470 MW Rolls-Royce small modular reactors is next to Sellafield, which will use some of the power and is a centre of nuclear excellence?
Andrew Bowie
My hon. Friend is another great champion for nuclear. It gave me great pleasure to visit her constituency just a few weeks ago to see the great work being done at Sellafield. As we have set out, we aim to deploy up to 24 GW of nuclear energy by 2050, and we remain open to all available technologies that will deliver it. We are developing a new national policy statement that will provide the planning framework for new nuclear power beyond 2025. We are consulting on a proposed way forward for determining how new nuclear developments might be located.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
This year, receipts from the emissions trading scheme will reach a new peak of £6.2 billion. The effects of attacks on energy-intensive industries are felt by workers in the aluminium and steel industries, and this week by workers at Grangemouth, where one of our few remaining oil refineries is going to close. Despite what the Minister said earlier, is it not a fact that, rather than helping energy-intensive industries, net zero policies are destroying them and sending them overseas?
Graham Stuart
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the EU has already legislated for a carbon border adjustment mechanism. Following our hosting of COP26, 90% of global wealth was covered by net zero pledges. At the beginning of that conference, the figure was just 30%. The right hon. Gentleman may not see it, but this is the direction the world is going in, and if he wants to future-proof British jobs he will get with the decarbonisation programme. Opposing it is to oppose the interests of his constituents and the sustainability of their of their jobs.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
Melton CLP has of the biggest sites in Hyndburn and Haslingden. The renewables obligation certificate is due to end in 2027, and certainty is needed on whether the scheme will be extended or another scheme will take its place. Will the Minister give us some assurances as to what comes next?
Graham Stuart
Mindful of how loquacious I am, I simply say to my hon. Friend that I will meet her to discuss the matter.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Over the space of a year, living in a cold home cost 21 of my constituents their lives. One reason behind that tragic figure is that homes in rural communities are more difficult to insulate. On that basis, will the Minister urgently review the ECO4 and ECO+ guidelines to prioritise the hardest properties to insulate so that we cut bills and save lives?
Amanda Solloway
Of course it is always a tragedy to hear such figures. I have regular meetings with the hon. Gentleman and I will have a meeting to discuss this issue further, because this Government are committed to supporting all vulnerable people, including all those who have disabilities and additional needs.
Speaker’s Statement
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Mr Speaker
Nominations closed at 12 noon for the election of the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. One nomination has been received. A ballot will therefore not be held for this position. I congratulate Sir Robert Buckland on his election as Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. He will take up his post immediately and serve as Chair until the end of this Parliament.
Ukraine
(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence to make a statement on the war in Ukraine.
The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)
Since I last updated the House on 24 October, the situation on the ground has remained largely unchanged. The armed forces of Ukraine continue to make slow but steady progress in their fight to retake their country, while a small crossing of the Dnipro has been established. Russian forces have made small advances in the northern axis of a pincer movement with which they are attempting to surround the town of Avdiivka.
Over the weekend, Russia launched what was likely the largest wave of one-way attack drone strikes on Ukraine of the war so far, ahead of another likely winter campaign of strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Ukraine neutralised most of the incoming weapons from the latest assault, and international partners, including the UK, are working with Ukraine to further strengthen its defences.
We will continue to support priority areas for Ukraine in the coming months, including air defence and hardening critical national infrastructure sites. Our foundational supply of critical artillery ammunition continues. We also continue to develop Ukraine’s maritime capabilities, helping it to deny Russia sea control in the western Black sea. With Government help, a UK-based commercial insurance provider has developed an insurance facility for shipping using the Ukraine maritime corridor; the facility charges premiums in line with those under the Black sea grain initiative, which is crucial for re-attracting commercial shipping.
The UK has committed £4.6 billion of military support to date, as we continue to donate significant amounts of ammunition and matériel from our own stocks, as well as those purchased from across the globe. In addition, we have trained more than 52,000 soldiers since 2015. Our support for next year is being finalised, both internally within the Government and with our partners around the world, and will be announced shortly.
John Healey
Early on Saturday morning, sirens sounded across Kyiv for six hours. Families took to shelters and fear spread across the city. That day, 75 drones were launched on Kyiv—the biggest strike on Ukraine since Putin’s brutal illegal invasion began, as the Minister said. With attention on the middle east, this is a wake-up call about Russia. Putin can still unleash fresh horrors on Ukraine, still shows contempt for international law, and still wants to redraw sovereign boundaries by force. Six hundred and forty-two days on, Ukrainians are living with fear every day, fighting every day, and dying every day. The defence of the UK starts in Ukraine, because if Putin prevails, he will not stop with Ukraine. I pay tribute to the UK troops who are training Ukrainian forces, flying out military aid and reinforcing regional security through NATO.
Last month, the Defence Secretary said:
“Let’s not forget about Ukraine.”
So why did the autumn statement do just that? There was no 2024 military funding or action plan for Ukraine. At the very time when Ukraine needs confidence that it has strong, continuing support from allies, the Prime Minister is stepping back. UK leadership on Ukraine is flagging: this year’s £2.3 billion of UK military funding runs out in March, while this month Germany announced €8 billion of military aid for next year. When will the Defence Secretary himself make a statement on Ukraine? When will Ministers announce the next delivery of UK weapons? When will the Government pledge funding for fresh military aid and publish a 2024 action plan for the military, economic and diplomatic support that Ukraine needs? When will the Prime Minister demonstrate by his decisions and actions that Britain will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes to win?
James Heappey
I do not think there is any doubt in Kyiv—in fact, I know there is no doubt—about the UK’s continued support, and indeed its leadership on gifting within the international community. While I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman is keen to make a political point, I think that deep down he knows that too, because he speaks to the Ukrainians. I know, as he does, that they continue to regard the UK as the standard bearer globally for encouraging others to donate ever more and, crucially, to donate weapons systems with ever more complexity. I have no doubt—as I think, deep down, the right hon. Gentleman has no doubt—that the Ukrainian Government maintain their confidence in us as one of their key allies, if not their key ally, and that the UK’s leadership is certainly not flagging.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the announcement of weapons. The reality is that we are giving a very broad range of weapons. While he might think it is militarily sound to focus on always giving something new, just being resilient in our ability to keep giving what we are giving is every bit as important to the operational planning that the Ukrainian armed forces need to do. This is not a set of gimmicks—a set of announcements. This is about the resourcing of a military operational plan that UK military operational planners are key in developing with the Ukrainians. I am entirely comfortable that across a whole range of weapons systems, the pipeline that we now have in place to deliver every month, not only from our own stockpiles and manufacturing capacity but from those that we can access globally, is a reliable, dependable part of the Ukrainian plan.
As for the plan for next year, I completely accept that the right hon. Gentleman is right to say that a number could have been given in the autumn statement, but surely it is more important to give a number that reflects the discussions that the chairman of the joint chiefs, the Chief of the Defence Staff and General Zaluzhny have had, and those that senior US, UK and Ukrainian politicians have had, in order to understand the Ukrainian ambition for their operations next year, so that we can resource that properly. All the way through, what the UK has done better than anyone else in the world is understand what the Ukrainians want to do next and get there first in delivering that capability, in so doing emboldening others to follow. As soon as the plan for next year is confirmed, I am certain that the amount that it will cost will be announced to Parliament and the plan firmed up, so that the right hon. Gentleman will be satisfied.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
That is an intriguing rationale for the fact that we gave £2.3 billion for the first year of the war and £2.3 billion for the second year of the war. Can the Minister convey to his colleagues in Government that Members on both sides of the House would be dismayed if we gave less than £2.3 billion for the year ahead? In his discussions with the Chancellor, might the Defence Secretary remind him that, when he stood for the leadership of the Conservative party, he recommended not 2% but 4% of GDP to be spent on defence?
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
At the weekend, the Ukrainian Government and peoples commemorated the holodomor—the genocide inspired by the Government of Joseph Stalin. During those celebrations, as the Minister rightly said, the Russian Federation launched its largest air attack on Kyiv to date, which included 75 Iranian-made Shaheds towards the capital. Part of the financing of the Iranian regime comes from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Back in January, Ministers intimated to the House and to Members that they were considering proscribing the revolutionary guard, a financer of the Iranian regime that is feeding the Russian Federation’s military might. When will the Minister’s Government stop considering and start proscribing it?
James Heappey
These are not conversations to which I am directly privy, so I am loth to offer detail that I do not have. Suffice it to say that the debate is more nuanced than the hon. Gentleman implies in his question, but I suspect he knows that. When we proscribe an organisation such as the IRGC, which is so integral to the Iranian state, we can make it quite hard to have any sort of communication with the Iranian state, but those are matters for colleagues in the Foreign Office. I will bring his question to their attention, and encourage them to write to him or seek to respond in some other way.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s comments about insurance for shipping in the Black sea to encourage grain exports. Can I ask him if the British Government intend to carry on doing everything they can to make sure that those exports happen? He will be aware that Lebanon relies on those grain exports, and with the current situation in that region, we must ensure that starvation does not become another factor in an already exceptionally tense situation.
James Heappey
There is lots in my right hon. Friend’s question—on all of which he is entirely right. First, many countries around the world are dependent on grain exports from Ukraine. It is a source of constant frustration to me and Government colleagues who go overseas on diplomatic missions to find that the Russians try to claim that somehow Ukraine is using food as a weapon of war, when it is they who are seeking to limit those crucial exports. Secondly, the more that Ukraine is able to export, the more that the Ukrainian economy survives and, potentially, grows. One consequence of the insurance initiative, alongside the military success or the naval success that the Ukrainians have had in the western Black sea, is that shipping from Odesa is growing, which is encouraging. It is a sign that the new front in the Black sea is succeeding not only militarily but economically.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
In August 2022, the Defence Secretary’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), promised a 2023 action plan for Ukraine, but that is still nowhere to be seen with just over a month left in 2023. Surely, the UK must provide our friends in Ukraine with the long-term certainty of UK military support to repel Russia’s illegal invasion, which is so important to Ukrainian friends and family in Feltham and Heston and across the country. Will the Minister explain why this action plan has not been published, and when there will be one for 2024?
James Heappey
The former Defence Secretary is a great man. The Opposition Front-Bench team has rightly sought to hold the Government to account for his commitment to an action plan, but I would reflect personally, in a rare moment of slight disagreement with him, that the masterplan for Ukraine next year is the Ukrainians’ plan for next year, and we, as their key leading supporter, have a duty to resource their plan. Understanding what that plan is and resourcing it, both through straight cash in-year as well as commitment over three to five years thereafter, are all things we undoubtedly need to do; I think there is complete agreement in the House on that. I understand the disappointment that the commitment was not made in the autumn statement, but for the UK to publish Ukraine’s plan would clearly be the wrong way of doing things; we need to understand what Ukraine’s plan is and then announce how we will resource it, and we will do so.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
Ukraine is holding firm against one of the biggest militaries in the world and it still rightly refuses to see the mass loss of Ukrainian life. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me on the following two points? First, as there are reports that we are already seeing a reduction in artillery deliveries to Ukraine, is enough getting through? Secondly, following Medvedev’s threat to Poland, what are we doing to make sure our allies, such as Canada, meet their 2% of GDP commitment to NATO, as we need them to stay in the fight and protect that eastern flank?
James Heappey
On the first point, “enough” is what there is. Part of military planning is to moderate consumption levels to meet the scale of deliveries. Ukraine’s military planning must reflect manufacturing capacity and stockpiles across the donor community. Enough is getting through, but we will not find a single Ukrainian general who would not want 10 times that amount if it were available. On the second point, my hon. Friend is absolutely right: we must ensure that the donor community remains foursquare behind Ukraine. In all probability the plans for next year will need to be more around consolidation than the plan for this year, but it is very important that those in the donor community see whatever consolidation is necessary as the right military, strategic judgment—and still worthy of maintaining donor support—rather than peeling away because it does not feel as sensational as plans in previous years.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
The previous Defence Secretary the right hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) was well thought of for the support he demonstrated for Ukraine, and in September last year he told the House that the Government had written “letters of comfort” to industry outlining the Government’s intention to place orders with manufacturers. In last year’s autumn statement the Treasury announced £560 million for the replacement of the UK stockpile, to be funded from the Treasury reserve rather than the MOD procurement budget. Where does the Minister think industry, Ukrainians and British service personnel should look for comfort given the silence in the autumn statement on the subject of continued UK support for Ukraine?
James Heappey
I suspect the first line of the hon. Gentleman’s question would make it into the leaflets of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) if he were standing again as that was rare, but much deserved, praise. I am not sure I understand the rest of the hon. Gentleman’s question. The Ukrainians know what they are getting this year and they have seen time and again the UK seeking to lead the world and catalyse donations. We have been the first to go through every capability threshold; they know that and they continue to know that.
UK service personnel will take comfort from the fact that in the autumn statement the Chancellor promised to maintain the 2% commitment—we are actually comfortably exceeding that—and that the complete modernisation and recapitalisation of the fighting echelon across all three services is well under way, with investment, too, in sorting out all the strategic enablers that bring credibility to our warfighting force. I do not see where any further comfort is needed, either on the Ukrainian side or for the men and women of the UK armed forces. In fact, it is quite the reverse; I think they know exactly what the Government are doing.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
Will the Minister assure the House that political resolve in NATO will remain as strong as ever in the event that this campaign becomes enduring, protracted and attritional? Will he also assure the House about what is being done to ensure that all NATO countries step up and pay their 2%?
James Heappey
NATO’s resolve is clear but its part in this is to deter escalation beyond Ukraine, whereas the donor community that has formed around Ukraine is a rather separate entity that extends beyond NATO’s borders; that is an important distinction. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that as we prepare for a summit in Washington at which our American colleagues will want to see progress in meeting the NATO commitment, all NATO countries that are not meeting the 2% commitment will perhaps want to consider their spending plans before getting on the plane to Washington.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
How is it possible that our NATO ally Turkey has seen a more than threefold increase in exports to Russia this year of goods vital for Putin’s war machine, and what are the Minister and our NATO allies going to do about that?
James Heappey
I am not familiar with that detail and will have to write to the right hon. Gentleman on it.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
You, Mr Speaker, and the Minister will know that one strength that the Government and people of Ukraine have got from this place, both with their President’s two visits and the visits of Members of Parliament, is the cross-party consensus on UK support for Ukraine. Does the Minister agree that it is concerning—unless I have got this wrong—that today the shadow Secretary of State the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), perhaps for the first time, slipped into party political fighting over this? I have a great deal of respect for the right hon. Gentleman and hope that will not be the case as we get nearer to the election because of the strength offered by this place through the cross-party consensus for support for the Ukrainian effort against Russia’s illegal invasion.
James Heappey
The right hon. Gentleman the shadow Defence Secretary has a job to do and it has been a feature and a great strength of the UK response that it has been largely non-partisan. I think the right hon. Gentleman saw an opportunity through the omission in the autumn statement, but I hope in my initial answer I was able to explain to him why understanding the Ukrainian plan must come first and announcing what the UK will do to support that plan necessarily comes second.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
There is a benefit to having these regular sessions, and there is of course the opportunity for more regular ministerial statements rather than just urgent questions; I encourage the Minister to think about that in the future. He will remember that on the last occasion I raised the issue of lethargy and concerns that events in the middle east could be a distraction from support for Ukraine, and I questioned some of the political dynamics evident in the US system. On this occasion I want to invert that question and ask if he has assessed the impact of the ongoing issues in the middle east and their consequences for countries such as Iran and their support for Russia, and whether that might present an opportunity for Ukraine.
James Heappey
I must be careful not to stray into intelligence matters but my sense is that it would be overoptimistic to think that raised tensions in the middle east might lead to a reduction in Iranian support for Russia; I think that support is now well embedded. On the other side of the formula, as the hon. Gentleman implied in the first part of his question there is of course a concern that the wider donor community might be distracted by what is going on in the middle east, and it is important to take moments like this to reassure Ukrainians and remind friends and partners around the world that we must remain steadfast in our support of Ukraine even while we all work together to deter escalation in the middle east.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
Effective military support to Ukraine is more than just about providing weapons; it is also about stopping Russia producing and getting its own weapons. The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) asked about this in relation to Turkey but I would broaden the question: is the Minister aware of western technology being sourced by Russia and does he think we are doing enough to stop it?
James Heappey
I am certainly aware that there was an alarming level of content from the west in a number of Russian systems that were compromised in the early part of the war. That leads to two further points. First, there is the reassurance that if we are constraining our supply chain to Russia—which the sanctions regime largely is, albeit not completely and we need to work on that—its capacity to develop complex weapons is diminished. Secondly, that also suggests that Russian industry does not have the ability to do these things itself.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
It does seem now as if this war will be much longer than we had all hoped. In that context, political leadership will change. While it is important that NATO maintains its present position, NATO leadership may change over time. What steps can be taken, including by our Ministry of Defence, to make the case across the world that the defence of Ukraine is in the global interest, not simply the Ukrainian national interest?
James Heappey
The UK has been making that case from the outset. The stated aim of the UK Government has been that Russia must fail in Ukraine and be seen to fail. That is first because that is the right moral outcome for Ukraine—it deserves to restore its territory and live as a free sovereign country—and secondly because if Putin does not fail in Ukraine, he will be emboldened to go again and again. Euro-Atlantic security over the next 30 to 50 years would be profoundly affected as a consequence.
Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
With much of the media and world now focusing on the ongoing conflict in the middle east, does my right hon. Friend agree that we must not lose sight of the ongoing suffering of Ukrainians at home and on the battlefield?
James Heappey
I absolutely agree. We certainly are not allowing it to become a zero-sum thing where we focus only on the middle east or on Ukraine. We can do both, and the western Balkans and everywhere else where the UK’s interest is challenged.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Reclaim)
It is clear that despite heroic efforts by the Ukrainian people, at best a military stalemate will be achieved. What is the Minister’s estimate of the civilian and military casualties on both sides of this conflict to date? What are the prospects of negotiations to bring the bloodletting to an end?
James Heappey
I will need to write to the hon. Gentleman with estimates on both sides. The number I have in my mind on the Russian side is 320,000 dead and wounded, but clearly there will be Ukrainian casualties as well, and those are numbers are military, not civilian. I will do my best to respond on that.
I am not sure that I accept the hon. Gentleman’s assessment that there is an inevitability to stalemate. The effort required to maintain the current apparent stalemate on land—in the Black sea, things are still quite dynamic—is incredible. It is not an inevitable consequence, but the consequence of an extraordinary amount of effort on both sides. If one side loses the strategic depth or patience to maintain that effort, it is perfectly possible that a very different outcome will be achieved one way or the other. That is why it is important we are completely committed to maintaining the current level of effort. As the question from the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) pointed to, we continue to make that case to friends and partners around the world, so that the donor community remains strong, because there is nothing inevitable about the outcome of this war.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Russia’s financing of this illegal conflict is derived from international trade, particularly the export of oil. I have highlighted how Russia is circumventing the unprecedented sanctions that have been introduced. Does my right hon. Friend agree that in this dynamic situation we need to be constantly alive to how international trade is made, so that we can prevent and block the financing of this conflict? Will he agree to work with international partners in reassessing what further needs to be done?
James Heappey
Absolutely. There is a military line of endeavour, but so too there is a diplomatic and economic one. The Minister for Europe—the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty)—was on the Front Bench to hear my right hon. Friend’s question. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to note the importance of advancing on all fronts with equal vigour.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
The renewed attacks on Kyiv at the weekend and the threats to power plants remind us how widespread the impact of the war is on Ukraine. Could the Minister update us on what recent talks he or ministerial colleagues have had with Ukrainian Ministers about recovery and reconstruction? Can he give details of what the UK is doing to help now?
James Heappey
The Prime Minister and other Ministers, including the Defence Secretary—this mostly sits in other Departments—meet the Ukrainians all the time to discuss exactly that issue. Indeed, the new Foreign Secretary was in Kyiv only last week. It is hugely important that alongside Ukraine’s military resilience, its economy and democracy remain equally resilient and are not strangled out of existence, which would undermine the existence of the state of Ukraine just as much as any military failure. In answering the previous question, I noted that it is important that we advance on all fronts, that we support Ukraine militarily, and that we help Ukraine to maintain resilience and even growth within its economy. It is important globally that a key part of that economy—the export of grain—flows as freely as possible, hence the amount of effort we are putting into the western Black sea.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for the work that he continues to do. He mentions the number of Ukrainian military recruits we have been able to help with training in the UK. Can he say any more about that training? How many recruits will we be able to assist in the coming months?
James Heappey
Our aim is to maintain that pace. For colleagues who have had the opportunity to visit, I know it is regarded as one of the moments of a lifetime to see the determination in the eyes of those men who are training to go to war. To train for five or six weeks in the absolute certainty that active combat waits immediately at the other end of that training pipeline focuses the mind in an extraordinary way. I pay tribute to them for their courage and heroism in volunteering to undergo the training, but also to the brilliance of the UK and other nations’ armed forces that are here in this country delivering that training all day, every week of every month.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I have always loved the opportunity to put my support for Ukraine and Ukrainians on the record. I appreciate that the Minister is not the correct Minister for this point, but I can see that the Immigration Minister has arrived for the next urgent question. We have been getting a lot of casework about Ukrainians finding it difficult to get their biometric residence permits processed in any meaningful time, including one who has been waiting since July. Can the Minister help with making representations to the Home Office to ensure that people can get those permits in swift time, so that they can rebuild their lives?
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
I welcome the continued work that my right hon. Friend and the whole Government do to support our friends in Ukraine.
May I return to the question of grain exports? Just a couple of days ago at a food security summit, President Zelensky was clear that he believes air defences are the missing link to secure those exports. Does my right hon. Friend share that assessment? If he does, how can we help make those air defences a reality?
James Heappey
Air defences have been an important part of the Ukrainian response to Russia’s belligerence from the very beginning. Air defences are necessary to protect critical national infrastructure, the Ukrainian frontline and ports and other key economic infrastructure, as well as the sea lanes through which ships travel. The reality is that we are doing our best to source as much air defence globally as we can, and we will continue to do so.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
A few of us who are members of the all-party parliamentary group on the Holy See visited the Ukrainian Catholic cathedral in Mayfair this morning and visited the fantastic welcome centre that has provided so much support to Ukrainians who have come here seeking refuge and safety. One of the key messages we heard—I have heard this from constituents, too—was about the uncertainty they are facing as the visa programme extended by the UK Government is starting to come to an end. Can the Minister assure us that colleagues are working across Government to provide Ukrainians with the certainty they desperately need that they will continue to be welcomed here in the United Kingdom and will not have to pay for the privilege of extending their visas?
James Heappey
The Home Office will be seized of the need to provide as much certainty as it can. Indeed, on Friday I had the pleasure of visiting the welcome hub in my constituency and met eight Ukrainian families who were asking me the same questions. As I explained to them—I share this with the House now—while I completely understand why they individually want as much certainty as possible, it is also important that Putin does not get to see all these countries across Europe that are hosting so many millions of Ukrainians between them offering them an opportunity to stay permanently. The danger is that we would end up with Ukraine losing millions of its best people to economies around Europe, when ultimately we hope they will be able to go home to a free, sovereign Ukraine.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much for his determination and leadership, which we all endorse. Ukraine has reported territorial advances of 3 km to 8 km in the Donetsk region, which have been hard fought—the cost has been in lives and injuries—but the determination of Ukrainians to retake their land from Russia is as strong as ever. What can the Minister do to allocate more high-grade military equipment to strike Russia hard in its backyard?
James Heappey
The UK is doing a lot—indeed, it is doing more than most—and we have been the first to go through every capability threshold. Although unfortunately it cannot yet be discussed openly in public or even in the House, the UK has also been able to use our ability to support the Ukrainians in developing their own complex weapons. That, when the time comes, will be one of the great stories, but it is of course something that we are doing all the time.
Net Migration Figures
(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the publication of net migration figures.
The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
The most recent published data from the Office for National Statistics estimated that net migration in the year to June 2023 was at 672,000. That places untold pressure on housing supply and public services and makes successful integration virtually impossible. As the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have repeatedly made clear, it is far too high. The Government remain committed to reducing levels of legal migration, in line with the manifesto commitment on which every single Conservative MP stood in 2019 and the express wish of the British public as articulated at every single general election in the last 30 years.
Earlier this year, we took action to tackle an unforeseen and substantial rise in the number of students bringing dependants into the UK to roughly 150,000. That means that, beginning with courses starting in January, students on taught postgraduate courses will no longer have the ability to bring dependants; only students on designated postgraduate research programmes will be able to bring dependants. That will have a tangible effect on net migration.
It is crystal clear that we need to reduce the numbers significantly by bringing forward further measures to control and reduce the number of people coming here, and separately to stop the abuse and exploitation of our visa system by companies and individuals. So far this year, we have initiated a significant number of investigations into sectors such as care companies suspected of breaching immigration rules. We are actively working across Government on further substantive measures and will announce details to the House as soon as possible.
Yvette Cooper
Where is the Home Secretary, and what on earth is going on? The media were briefed that he was going to make a statement on net migration yesterday or today, but we have had nothing, and he is nowhere. The Immigration Minister has been everywhere, madly briefing all his ideas, but who speaks for the Government?
Net migration figures are now three times their level at the 2019 general election, when the Conservatives promised to reduce them. That includes a 65% increase in work migration this year, which reflects a complete failure by the Conservatives on both the economy and immigration. The Immigration Minister is complaining today—he will be furious when he discovers who has been in charge of the immigration system for the last 13 years.
Net migration should come down. Immigration is important for Britain and always will be, but the system needs to be properly controlled and managed so that it is fair, effective and properly linked to the economy. Net migration for work has trebled since 2019 because of the Government’s failure on skills and training, their failure to tackle record levels of long-term sickness and people on waiting lists, and their failure to make the system work. Social care visas have gone from 3,000 a year to more than 100,000 a year, yet this spring Ministers halved the programme for recruiting care workers here. Health visas are up, yet Ministers cut training places last autumn. Visas for engineers are up while engineering apprenticeship completions in the UK have halved.
Will the Government immediately agree to Labour’s plan to get rid of the unfair wage discount that means employers can pay overseas recruits 20% less than the going rate, and which prevents training and fair pay in the UK? Will the Government immediately ask the Migration Advisory Committee to review salary thresholds for skilled workers in shortage occupations, which have not kept up, and where the MAC has warned repeatedly about low-paid exploitation? Will the Minister link the points-based system to training and employment standards in the UK and have a proper plan for the economy and the immigration system?
The Government have no serious plan; they are just ramping up the rhetoric. They have no plan for the economy, no plan for the immigration system and no plan for the country. Britain deserves better than this.
Robert Jenrick
I listened to the right hon. Lady for five minutes or so and detected absolutely no trace of a plan from her—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am worried, because I can only allow two minutes. Please do not go telling everybody that I have allowed five minutes. Honestly, it was only two minutes.
Robert Jenrick
I will keep that as a secret, Mr Speaker.
The only policy that the right hon. Lady articulated is something that is barely used and would have a de minimis effect on net migration, but that should come as no surprise to any of us. She has spent her entire political career campaigning for uncontrolled migration. She has campaigned for freedom of movement—she backed a Leader of the Opposition who campaigned for freedom of movement. She has always supported and lobbied and campaigned for unfettered access to the United Kingdom. She said that there is chaos on the Government side of the House, but all we heard from her was rhetoric and posturing. It would be laughable if it were not so serious.
Every single Conservative Member of Parliament campaigned on a manifesto commitment to bring down net migration. I did not see that in the Labour party’s manifesto at the last election. Although she may be doing what she is because she is reading the polls or wants to posture, we are doing it out of deep political conviction. We believe that the number of people coming into this country is too high, that it places unbearable pressure on our public services and on housing, and that it is making it impossible to integrate people into this country and harming community cohesion and national unity. It is also a moral failure, because it is leaving people on welfare and enabling companies all too often to reach for the easy lever of foreign labour. For all those reasons, we are determined to tackle this issue. We understand the concerns of the British public, and I am here to say that we share them and will bring forward a serious package of fundamental reforms to address the issue once and for all.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
I congratulate the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), as it is clear from the two ideas she laid out that she has read the 12 points in the New Conservatives’ immigration plan. She is more than willing to copy and paste, just as the shadow Chancellor would, had she had the opportunity.
My right hon. Friend has my full support, although I am sure that will not help him with those in No. 10. I am deeply concerned and confused. At the weekend, the Prime Minister said that migration was “too high” and needs to
“come down to more sustainable levels”.
That is the full-fat option, Yesterday, I got the skimmed option, with the Prime Minister boasting about our “competitive” visa regime. Are the Cabinet members who sit with my right hon. Friend full-fat, semi-skimmed or skimmed?
Robert Jenrick
I support my hon. Friend in his lobbying and campaigning for the Government to take this issue seriously. He speaks for millions of people across the country who see the levels of net migration as far too high. Of course, it is right that we want the UK to be a country that is open to the very best and the brightest, and that is why we have taken action in creating visa routes such as the global talent one that the Prime Minister was promoting at the investment summit this week, but we must reduce net migration. That means taking difficult choices and making a tangible difference in the months ahead. The public are sick of talk. They want action, and they want us to bring forward a clear plan.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I wish to take a different approach from the Westminster parties to the migration statistics. On behalf of the SNP, I thank those people who have come to make their home here and to contribute to our universities, public services and health and care sector, and who have made our society and our economy all the richer for their presence. Have the Government thought this through? Who will carry out the vital tasks of those who have come to our shores if they pull up the drawbridge and send people away? The CBI has said that two thirds of UK businesses have been hit by labour shortages in the last year. Pressures on services are helped, not hindered, by those people coming here. Those pressures on services are a result of more than 10 years of austerity from the Conservatives. Under-investment in those services is the fault not of immigrants but of this Government.
Interestingly, those who have come on small boats represent only 3% of the total, which is the flimsy basis on which the Minister and his colleagues want to disapply human rights laws, pull us out of the European convention on human rights and renege on our international commitments. It is clear that Scotland has different needs and attitudes towards migration. According to Migration Policy Scotland, six in 10 Scots say that immigration has a positive impact. In Scotland we need to deal with the challenges and the pressures of emigration over many decades. Can we finally have an immigration policy that meets Scotland’s needs? If the Government will not devolve that, Scotland will need independence more urgently than ever before.
Robert Jenrick
Fortunately, immigration is a reserved matter, and we do not intend to leave it in the hands of the hon. Lady and her colleagues in the SNP Government. As she knows with respect to illegal migration and asylum seekers, the fine words that she says here in the Chamber are not matched by the actions of the SNP Scottish Government. For example, in June there were fewer asylum seekers in the entire city of Edinburgh than in a single hotel in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). Her humanitarian nimbyism really sticks in the throat.
On legal migration, here is the difference between us: we see that there is a reason for people to come to the UK, but we also see millions of people on welfare or economically inactive, and we care about those people getting back into the workplace. We do not want companies simply to reach for the easy lever of foreign labour. That is not a route to sustainable prosperity and productivity. That is why my right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary and the Chancellor set out major measures last week. That is our vision for this country—one that genuinely drives up GDP per capita so that we can support and protect all our citizens.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
The figures are unsustainably high, but to put them in context, they also include 200,000 Ukrainians and 150,000 Hong Kong citizens. I wonder if those are included in the “something must be done-ism” from the Opposition. Can my right hon. Friend explain why 135,000 visas were granted to dependants last year, up from 19,000 just three years ago, and around 100,000 visas were granted to Chinese students, up 87% over the past 10 years? He mentioned care worker scandals and the 78,000 visas to care workers. Is it true that some visas have been granted to care workers to work in care homes that do not exist?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend raises a number of issues, all of which are worthy of consideration and which the Home Office is working through at present. It is certainly true that a very substantial number of dependants have come to the UK alongside visa holders, whether students, care workers or skilled workers. It is a choice for the country whether we want to continue to pursue that. There is a strong argument that it is unsustainable for the country to continue to take so many dependants, who put pressure on housing, public services, school places and so on. We could base our visa system on different models to stop so many dependants coming into the country. We have seen a very substantial number of care worker visas issued, and those care workers bring dependants with them on almost a one-for-one basis. As my hon. Friend knows, we are actively considering that.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Although today we are discussing one single set of net migration figures, we know that net migration has hugely varying impacts in regions and communities. We also know that the most skilled migrants flow disproportionately towards London and the south-east. Has the Minister given any thought to developing a more regionalised approach to immigration, to ensure that communities across the country benefit evenly and fairly from it?
Robert Jenrick
In recent years we have given thought to the concept of creating a more regional system, but it is difficult to create in practice—I would welcome ideas from the right hon. Lady’s Committee. As a general rule, we have maintained one single United Kingdom immigration system, but there are a number of visa categories that reflect particular issues facing different parts of the country. Those include the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, which is focused on rural England, and global talent, which increasingly takes individuals with a science or technology background and will impact those parts of the country with a science cluster. The system is able to support different sectors and needs of parts of the country.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Does the Minister recognise that many myths about immigration are perpetuated by the unholy alliance of greedy globalist corporate businesses and guilt-ridden bourgeois liberals? One of them is that immigrants bring only economic benefit and no cost. In practice, dependants of the kind he described bring more economic costs than benefits, so will the Minister immediately introduce measures to restrict the number of dependants who can come here? In doing so, will he recognise that we are relying on him to sort this out, because we know that he shares our concern that it is time for British workers for British jobs?
Robert Jenrick
My right hon. Friend and I are at one on this issue. He is right to say that there are two challenges: the sheer number of people coming in, and the types of people coming into our country. It is right that we make careful judgments about who will benefit our citizens and who will add to our country’s economy and skills base, and not simply allow very large numbers of people with low or, at best, mid skills. They are unlikely to add to our economy and, in many cases, will be net costs to the Exchequer. Those are the choices that we need to make to establish a more discerning migration system. I have already answered the dependants question, and we are carefully considering it.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Government had a commitment in 2019 to deal with immigration. I have a simple question: why has it taken four years for them to recognise that they need a plan? Social care relies on workers from abroad, because there is no strategy in place for workforce, training or funding. So before the Minister agrees to increase the salary at which people can come from abroad to work as social care workers, will he agree to do a full impact assessment on what that would mean for the social care sector? What measures will be put in place to provide better salary and training for UK residents to take those jobs?
Robert Jenrick
First, I would say politely to the hon. Gentleman that it is only because we left the European Union that we have the levers at our disposal to control net migration. It is crucial that we use those levers to deliver on the promise of Brexit. With respect to social care, I dispute the fact that there is not a plan; there is a workforce plan for the NHS and social care. It is essential that we take a rounded judgment about the individuals who come to the country to work in social care. Of course there are vacancies to fill, but enabling an individual to come with their dependants will cost the British taxpayer a great deal. We must ensure that we are coming to the right judgments about what is in the best interests of the UK. Those are the conversations that we are having across Government. I hope we will be able to bring forward proposals very soon.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
People in Ashfield have had enough of this. There are 7,000 people on the council house waiting list. People are struggling to get a GP or dental appointment and are struggling to get school places. Is it not about time that we had a cap on migration and put a clear divide between us and that lot over there?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend speaks for my constituents as well as his—he represents a constituency near mine—in saying that the British public want us to get on with the job and bring down the numbers coming into the country. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I are committed to bringing forward a set of fundamental reforms that I hope will achieve the objective that my hon. Friend sets out. There are definitely strong arguments for using caps, whether in general or on specific visas, but those are conversations we need to conclude within Government.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Instead of sitting in Whitehall and trying to persuade people that this is some sort of threat to them, why does the Minister not get out and talk to the businesses in communities such as mine that are crippled by labour shortages? He first promised me a meeting to talk about the issue of visas for deck hands in the fishing industry. He is obviously scared—because he has not met me yet—to sit across the table from people like my constituent, a skipper of a crab boat in Orkney, who has had to sell one of his two boats because he cannot get the crew to work on it. That is the reality of the Minister’s failure.
Robert Jenrick
The right hon. Gentleman obviously missed our announcement earlier in the year where we added various fishing occupations to the shortage occupation list. That was as a result of a very helpful meeting I had with other colleagues from across the House, which he did not come to.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Minister will know that some of us have been banging on about this ever since he took office, saying that we should increase the level of work visas to average UK earnings. We have not done that because Ministers are worried that the care home sector will fall over, but if we did insist on people coming to this country earning a proper wage, would there not be a sort of virtuous circle? The care home sector would have to pay proper wages—after all, what is more important than looking after our elderly population?—and we could get more people off benefits because there would be decent jobs for them to go to. It is ridiculous that the care home sector is handing out visas like sweeties and employing people, for starvation wages of £20,000 a year, from all over the world. So, more power to the Minister’s elbow. We know he is on the right side. He just has to persuade the Prime Minister now.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and agree with everything he says. It is absolutely critical that we get a handle on this issue. The points he makes about social care are entirely valid. It is not sensible that our social care sector is reliant on importing foreign labour from overseas, including their dependants who then have to be housed, have access to public services and be supported on the NHS. We need to take a more sensible, sustainable attitude to how we pay and look after people in such an important career.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
The increase in net migration has been fuelled by an increase in health and care visas last year of around 150%. I want to bring the Minister back to the central question. I am sure he shares Labour’s ambition to upskill the workforce here, but the central question is why the funding for the new social care workforce pathway was halved earlier this year. He will know that the shortage of social care workers is contributing to bed-blocking in our NHS. That is the last thing we need ahead of another potential winter crisis.
Robert Jenrick
As I said in answer to an earlier question, we have set out a social care plan. The Chancellor and the Health Secretary set out a long-term plan for the NHS workforce more generally. It is absolutely right that we train more people in this country to be nurses and doctors than we have in the recent past. That is why, for example, the Health Secretary set out a plan for further medical schools in a number of parts of the country, including in places where there have been shortages. That is the way forward. It is not a sustainable future for the NHS or social care to recruit in other parts of the world. Even those places are now encountering shortages. There is a highly competitive international market for doctors and nurses, so the future of our NHS has to be by persuading more of our own young people to go into those sectors and train people properly here.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the people of this country will not be fooled by the shallow, opportunistic tough talk coming from Labour Members? They were the Members for remain, which would have meant completely open borders. They are the party of re-join, which would again mean completely open borders, including to those people who have since migrated into European countries and who would then be completely free to come to the UK. Does he agree that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) said, it is time for a cap on net migration?
Robert Jenrick
I do not think anyone listening to the debate will be fooled by the damascene conversion of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and her colleagues to controlled migration, when they have spent their entire lives campaigning for completely the opposite. One of the few pledges that the Leader of the Opposition launched his campaign on just a few years ago was freedom of movement. We have committed to controlled migration. We share a deep conviction that we have to get the numbers down. I am hopeful and confident that the package the Prime Minister and Home Secretary will bring forward very soon will do just that.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
International students contribute £42 billion annually to the UK. They are vital to the economies of towns and cities across the country. Most return home after their course. Those who do not are granted a visa for further study or a skilled workers visa, because we want them in the country. Students are not migrants. The public do not consider them to be migrants. Is it not time we took them out of the net migration numbers and brought our position into line with our competitors, such as the United States, whose Department of Homeland Security, as the arm of Government responsible for migration policy, does not count students in its numbers?
Robert Jenrick
I do not think fiddling the figures is the answer to this challenge. The public want to see us delivering actual results and bringing down the numbers. Of course, universities and foreign students play an important part in the academic, cultural and economic life of the country, but it is also critical that universities are in the education business, not the migration business. I am afraid that we have seen a number of universities—perfectly legally but nonetheless abusing the visa system—promoting short courses to individuals whose primary interest is in using them as a backdoor to a life in the United Kingdom, invariably with their dependants. That is one of the reasons why we are introducing the measure to end the ability of students on short-taught courses to bring in dependants. Universities need to look to a different long-term business model, and not just rely on people coming in to do short courses, often of low academic value, where their main motivation is a life in the UK, not a first-rate education.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I am glad to hear the Minister, on behalf of the Government, recognising that the legal migration figures are far too high. I am glad he recognises that migrants bring not just economic benefit, but potentially economic cost and pressure on public services and communities. Will he confirm whether his plan will be published and brought to the House before Christmas, and will it include a raise in salary thresholds and an increase in the minimum salary required to bring in dependants?
Robert Jenrick
My plan would have been brought to the House before last Christmas if I could have done that, but let us hope we can bring forward a substantive package of reforms very quickly. I am working intensively with the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. We are at one on this issue. I hope my hon. Friend will not be disappointed.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The main driver of the ONS net migration figures is healthcare professionals. According to the Royal College of Nursing, 53% of nurses registered to practise in October had been trained internationally. The only in-patient ward at Ysbyty Tywyn Hospital has been closed since April because it cannot get staff. High visa fees are already a red tape barrier to filling vacancies. In claiming credit for cracking down on visas, will the Minister also take responsibility for shutting down hospital wards?
Robert Jenrick
I think the right hon. Lady is rather overdoing the hyperbole. We are on course to meet our manifesto commitment to increase the number of nurses here in the UK. A significant proportion of those have come from overseas, but the sustainable answer to the problem of recruiting nurses, in the right hon. Lady’s constituency and everywhere else, is to train more of them in the UK, rather than reaching out to developing countries and seeking to bring their nurses here.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
If the Government ever decided that it was not in the country’s security interests for large numbers of communist Chinese students to be educated in our universities, would they be able to do anything about it?
Robert Jenrick
We do control the levers of our immigration system, so we have the ability to make determinations on individuals who come from different countries around the world. We do not today operate a system that discriminates between nationalities, although we do have different levels of security vetting on a case-by-case basis, which is particularly important in the case of certain nationalities. However, my right hon. Friend makes an important point.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
Serco’s half-year profits for 2023 are £148 million, while many asylum seekers are living in unsafe and insanitary conditions. Can the Minister explain why the Home Office refuses to disclose the amount that providers are allowed to make before part of that share is returned to the Home Office? Does he agree that the money should go to local authorities, to enable them to provide services in their own areas, and does he also agree that we need to lift the ban on unemployment rights?
Robert Jenrick
I have made an open offer to local authorities that want to provide asylum accommodation. None have come forward so far, but if the hon. Lady’s local authority wants to provide such accommodation, I would be more than willing to consider that. The sustainable answer to reducing the reliance on hotels and other forms of accommodation is to stop the boats, but the hon. Lady has voted consistently against every measure that the Government have taken to do so. I would strongly encourage her, for example, when we introduce the emergency legislation on Rwanda, to support it with vim and vigour.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
One of the principal arguments against reducing the number of care worker visas is the shortage of workers in the care sector, and of course there is a shortage. However, in the 12 months to July, 70,000 people were recruited from abroad for care roles, while the number of vacancies in the sector dropped by just 11,000. Is it not the case that the principal impact of the care worker visa scheme is the displacing of British workers from the system? It is not having an overall impact on the size of the workforce. Is it not also the case that until we turn off the taps to stem the arrival of cheap labour from abroad, employers will not improve pay and conditions here?
Robert Jenrick
As ever, my hon. Friend makes a number of important points. The health and social care visa has not worked as well as even its proponents would have wished. Not only have far more individuals come to the UK, including a significantly higher number of dependants than was envisaged, but, as she says, there has been a displacement effect whereby British workers have left the care sector to be replaced by foreign workers. The key necessity in care, as in other sectors, is to encourage the sector to pay better, improve conditions and improve productivity and skills, so that British workers can put themselves on a sustainable footing.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Reclaim)
The Minister is a gifted orator at the Dispatch Box but, as always, his fine words butter no parsnips. We have heard it all before from his predecessors, every one of whom has said that the Government will reduce net migration. After 13 years of broken promises, when the Minister says that he has a cunning plan to reduce it—undisclosed at the moment—why should the public believe him?
Robert Jenrick
We are working intensively across Government to fine-tune our plan, and I hope we will be in a position to set it out very soon. I know that the hon. Gentleman shares my determination to tackle this issue. It is critical for his constituents and mine that we bring down net migration and make use of the levers that we now have at our disposal, and that we do not betray those who voted for Brexit and wanted to give us those levers so that we could use them.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
These figures were, I regret to say, entirely predictable, and they are unsustainable: they put too much pressure on our public services. My constituents want to know—and we have been talking about this for years—when they will see a drop in the numbers.
Robert Jenrick
According to the Office for National Statistics, the figures are starting to fall—although the ONS’s methodology itself keeps moving around, so one has to treat that with a degree of scepticism. It is now critical, to my mind, that we introduce a set of fundamental reforms. The time for tinkering is over, and I hope that the package that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I will put together in the coming weeks will meet the expectations of my hon. Friend.
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
We should not forget that we are talking about fellow human beings who have made, and will go on to make, enormous contributions to our society—not least in holding together a health and social care sector that has been left broken by 13 years of Tory failure. Does the Minister regret, as I do, the fact that the fearmongering and hyperbole that we have heard from his Benches today will give succour to the forces of the far right who seek to divide our communities, and will he join me in welcoming, and expressing his solidarity with, all those who have chosen to make the UK their home over the last year?
Robert Jenrick
There has been no fearmongering whatsoever on the Government side of the House. There has been a simple and clear articulation of the view of the British public—including, I suspect, the hon. Gentleman’s own constituents—that the levels of net migration are too high, and of course we want to bring them down. I recall that when the hon. Gentleman and I had a discussion about housing asylum seekers in Birkenhead, he was not too keen on that, so I think we all have to engage in an honest debate and take the actions that are needed.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is working on many policies to try to solve the problem, but he will be aware that the performance of the Home Office in processing all kinds of applications has been chronically poor. Can he update us on the actions that are being taken, and on the direction in which he hopes efficiencies may be moving when it comes to processing the policies that he wants to put in place?
Robert Jenrick
On that front, I can give my right hon. Friend good news. The visa service and the Passport Office are performing in a way in which they have not performed for many years, and are meeting their service standards in almost every respect. As for the asylum case working system, there has been a complete transformation over the last 12 months. A year ago, 400 decisions were being made each week; today the figure is about 4,000, and I pay tribute to the many dedicated civil servants who have achieved that—particularly the director general of HM Passport Office and UK Visas and Immigration, Abi Tierney, an outstanding civil servant who has transformed that service.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Can the Minister explain to the musicians in Glasgow North who can no longer afford to travel to Europe, the academics in Glasgow North who have lost so many opportunities to collaborate across borders, and the hospitality and care sector venues that are crying out for staff why he thinks that the end of freedom of movement has been such a good thing?
Robert Jenrick
If the hon. Gentleman is arguing for higher levels of net migration than we see today, I suspect that he is a lone voice in the country. We are seeing substantial numbers of people coming into the UK, in all visa categories, and we want to take action to bring those numbers down.
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend and perhaps the Home Secretary, who is present, tell me whether they share my concern about the fact that an increasing amount of questionable European Court of Human Rights case law, via judgments, is actually being drafted by foreign non-governmental organisations—unaccountable—and foreign judges—often unqualified—many of whom have close links with NGOs? I should like an answer to this, please.
Robert Jenrick
We are very concerned about some of the issues that have arisen out of the Court in Strasbourg, including the so-called pyjama injunctions of the kind that blocked a flight to Rwanda in the summer of 2022. That is why we are working with the Court on a package of reform. The first proposals in that regard have now been mooted, and the Attorney General, the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary are working to put them into practice. This issue did raise fundamental questions about the rule of law, and we want to see those resolved.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Chad: five coups in three years in sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel. What more can the Government do to work across Government in order to reduce the number of failing states becoming a situation in which Islamic State, the Wagner Group and other terrorist organisations use push factors and illegal migration into Europe as a weapon of war?
Robert Jenrick
My right hon. Friend raises an important point. There is some evidence that hostile states are using migration as a weapon against countries such as the United Kingdom. The new Home Secretary in his former role and I in my role as Immigration Minister have been to many countries in north Africa and beyond, and time and again we have seen persistent conflicts, climate change and instability driving migration. That is going to be one of the features of the 21st century, and that is why we want to be a strategic partner to those countries, using our diplomacy and our overseas development aid budget to support refugee-producing countries and crucial transit countries such as those in north Africa for mutual benefit.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
It is quite clear that my right hon. Friend gets it on net migration. It is a shame that many people do not get it. In 2019, I stood on a manifesto when net migration was around 220,000 and I promised my constituents that it would come down. Last year the figure was 740,000. This year it was 650,000. This is a truly shocking state of affairs. The disconnect between where most of the public are on migration and the reality is growing and growing. Does the Minister agree that this growth in the disconnect has become an affront to our shared democracy and that urgent, radical action is needed now?
Robert Jenrick
I agree with my hon. Friend that for 30 years the public have voted in general elections to reduce the levels of net migration, and it is important that we as politicians, if we want to maintain their trust and confidence, act upon that. That is why the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and I are working on a package of fundamental reforms, and I hope that we will be able to bring those to the House very soon.
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
I would like to thank the Minister for all the hard work he has done while he has been in his place, because I know how much he has done and how he has worked with colleagues here to make sure that he can drive this initiative through. It is absolutely the truth that the vast majority of people in this country want to see both the legal and illegal migration figures go down, and near to zero in the case of illegal migration. Does he agree that we have seen from the Opposition today that their plan is not really to affect any figures, which is to prevent democracy from happening, but also to tinker around the edges and reclassify people to pretend that they can solve immigration when actually what they are going to do is just tell a few untruths, perhaps?
Robert Jenrick
Well, what a difference between the questions on our side of the House and those from the Opposition Benches. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said that the Labour party had a plan, but each and every one of her colleagues behind her set out reasons why we should have higher levels of net migration, not lower. So we all know what would happen should there be a Labour Government; it would be uncontrolled migration once again. A leopard does not change its spots. The Labour party has always stood for open door migration and it would do so again.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
The UK has been an extremely open and welcoming country, but I think most people can see that even the most basic maths shows that numbers in the hundreds of thousands are not sustainable and cannot continue. This is having an unbearable impact on our housing, on our public services and particularly on schools. In schools in Stoke-on-Trent, some of the classrooms have nearly every single child speaking a different first language, which is having a massive impact on those schools without any additional funding. Can my right hon. Friend ensure that we take urgent action now to address these serious issues?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we need to take urgent action. He is also right to point out the profound impact that very high levels of net migration have on certain communities in particular, such as the one that he represents. It is often the poorest communities that feel the impact of legal and illegal migration most keenly in terms of a lack of social housing, lack of access to public services, and people living more segregated lives. We want to build a more cohesive and unified country.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Ind)
Time and time again, the British public have told us that immigration is too high and needs to come down, and time and time again we have sadly left them bitterly disappointed. The levels of net migration we have seen over recent years are completely unsustainable, have no democratic mandate whatsoever and are completely unacceptable. Surely it is time to put this House and MPs in charge of the issue and to set legally binding caps on the numbers of migrants and asylum seekers. That might finally be a net zero policy I can support.
Robert Jenrick
The great reform that this Government have achieved is taking back control of the levers of migration by leaving the European Union. Now the task falls to us to use those in a judicious and discerning way to bring down the levels of net migration, and that is exactly what we intend to do.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the Minister for answering the urgent question.
Criminal Justice Bill
Tuesday 28th November 2023
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 View all Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before I ask the Home Secretary to move the Second Reading, just another little reminder that as well as being here at the beginning to listen to the opening speeches, it is important that those who are participating not only stay in for the majority of the debate but get back in good time for both the Opposition and Government wind-ups. If anybody feels that they cannot get back in time, they should let me know now so that I can withdraw their request to speak.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Cleverly)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Victims of crime must have justice, and lawbreakers must face the consequences of their actions. This Criminal Justice Bill will give the police the powers they need to crack down on criminals and ensure that those who pose the biggest threat to the public are imprisoned for longer. It will give the public greater trust in the police and more confidence that the system works for them. We have always faced criminal threats, but those threats mutate and evolve, so we have to stay ahead of them by updating our technological capability and also updating our laws.
We are building on strong foundations. Compared with the year ending spring 2010, as measured by the crime survey of England and Wales, domestic burglary is down 57%, vehicle-related theft is down 39% and violent crime is down by 52%. Police-recorded homicide is down by 15% and the number of under-25 NHS admissions for assault by a sharp object is down by 26% in the year ending June 2023, compared with the year ending December 2019.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for giving way. It is so good to see him in the Chamber now. Could he tell us what the percentage increase has been in knife crime since 2015?
James Cleverly
The right hon. Lady has made an intervention. Let me make some progress now—[Interruption.] If she had the answer, she could have just stood up and said it rather than making this rather performative intervention. I will make some progress.
We have also taken the fight to the county lines drug gangs and to antisocial behaviour. Of course, these successes are not the Government’s alone, but we have enabled and supported that success with record funding for police; record numbers of police officers in England and Wales; expanding the powers to stop and search; and expanding the powers to tackle disruptive protests. Of course, we have also cut red tape, which means that more of those police officers are out on the beat fighting crime. We are building over 20,000 more prison places and ensuring that offenders face the toughest possible punishment for their crimes.
We will never rest, and we will go further still. This Bill will support the Government’s zero-tolerance approach to crime by giving the police, the courts and the other criminal justice agencies the powers they need to make our neighbourhoods even safer still.
Illegal drugs and knife crime bring chaos and misery to individuals. They destroy families and ruin neighbourhoods. Knife crime is a scourge in many of our cities and, during my time on the London Assembly and as a Member of this House, I have seen for myself the devastation it can bring to families.
Any family can be affected by drug misuse. I send a message to so-called casual users of recreational drugs that their actions underpin a vicious trade that has a profound and negative human cost. That is why we are giving the police more powers to seize and destroy bladed articles and to drug test more suspects upon arrest.
The Bill increases the maximum penalty for selling dangerous weapons to under-18s and creates a new criminal offence of possessing a bladed article with intent to cause harm. It will enable the police to seize, retain and destroy knives held in private when officers are lawfully on private property and have reasonable grounds to suspect the item or items will likely be used in violent crime.
The police will also be able to test individuals in police detention for specified class B and class C drugs, just as they can already test for specified class A drugs. This will mean that the police can direct more suspects using illegal drugs into treatment, which will help to reduce drug use, support recovery and, of course, cut crime. Those who refuse a drug test, or who fail to attend or stay for the duration of a directed drug assessment, may be committing a further offence.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
Although drug testing makes sense, it is also important that we have drug and alcohol treatment facilities, which are still very patchy across the country. Will the Home Secretary comment on what can be done to improve that patchiness?
James Cleverly
The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point. Of course, this Bill focuses on the crime and criminal justice part of the equation, but he is right that treatment is important. That is why I am very proud that this Government have invested an extra £600 million in the very thing he raises, because we realise that, as well as having robust criminal justice action, we need those treatment facilities.
A tough but humane approach to illegal drugs is the only plausible way forward. The House knows that being a victim of any kind of crime is deeply distressing. No crime should be screened out by the police solely because they perceive it to be minor. In August, the police committed to following all reasonable lines of inquiry for all crime types. That is a hugely welcome development, and it is my job to give police forces every possible support in that endeavour.
The Bill confers additional targeted powers on the police to enter premises without a warrant to seize stolen goods such as mobile phones where they have reasonable grounds to believe that there are particular items of stolen property on the premises. GPS location tracking technology, for example, could provide such grounds. This gives the police an opportunity to address a particularly prevalent crime type. The Bill also gives the police greater access to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s driver records in order to identify criminals.
Public confidence in policing is, of course, vital, but it is also vital that officers have confidence in each other and that police leaders can root out those who are unfit to wear the uniform. We want to ensure that we never again see the culture of defensiveness and self-interest that, sadly, we saw in the aftermath of the terrible incident at Hillsborough and following the killing of Daniel Morgan. The Bill therefore introduces a duty of candour in policing. This follows Bishop James Jones’s report, which shone a light on the experience of the incredibly brave families of the Hillsborough victims. Those families have been through a lengthy and terrible ordeal.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Home Secretary to his position. He rightly says that a new proposal is being brought forward on police misconduct, but he also mentions public confidence. Would the public not have more confidence in the police if any officer who failed their vetting was automatically dismissed?
James Cleverly
We are taking action to ensure that police officers, both at the start of their career and through their career, are held to appropriately high standards. On that particular issue, this is something we are taking forward. It is part, but not the totality, of what needs to be done, which is why we are outlining a number of things in the Bill.
Through the Bill, we will give chief constables the right to appeal the outcome or findings of a misconduct panel to the police appeals tribunal. Chief constables are responsible for upholding standards in their force, so it is right that they have a statutory route to challenge decisions that they consider unreasonable.
A person is not safe unless they are safe everywhere: in their home, at work, in public places and, of course, online. The Bill builds on the intimate image sharing offences in the Online Safety Act 2023 by introducing new offences addressing the taking or recording of intimate images or films without consent, as well as addressing the installing of equipment to enable the commission of the taking-or-recording offence. This means we now have a comprehensive and coherent package of offences that is effective in tackling intimate image abuse, which is a truly horrible crime that can have a lasting negative effect on victims.
Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend and his colleagues for their fantastic work in implementing the Law Commission’s review in this area. It really is a testament to the Government that they have done that. However, some victims of intimate image abuse face another issue, because their images are still legally online and have not been taken down by some website providers. Will my right hon. Friend encourage one of his Ministers to meet me to talk about this further, and about possibly addressing it in this Bill?
James Cleverly
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s intervention. I am more than happy to ensure that her point is discussed with the Department, so that we can see what we can do to incorporate what she hopes to achieve either in this Bill or in guidance to the internet service providers and online platforms.
The Bill also fulfils the Government’s commitment made during the passage of the Online Safety Act to broaden the offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm to cover all means, not just communications, by which serious self-harm may be encouraged or assisted. That could include, but is not limited to, direct assistance such as giving someone a blade with which to seriously harm themselves. This broader offence will give full effect to the recommendations of the Law Commission’s 2021 “Modernising Communications Offences” report.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Home Secretary to his post. Not only is he the Home Secretary, but he is an old friend of mine, and I hope he stays longer in this post than he has in the others. Having had a tragedy close to my family of a young woman taking her own life, may I ask that we remove from social media these aids to and promotion of suicide, and things showing people how to conduct it?
James Cleverly
The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point. Sadly, far too many people have, like him, experienced the implications of this kind of content online, and I take his point very seriously. We will look at both legislative and non-legislative measures to make sure that we genuinely do everything we can to remove content that encourages sometimes very vulnerable people into a dark place.
The Bill creates a new statutory aggravating factor for murders that are connected to the end of a relationship or the victim’s intention to end a relationship. Killing in that context is the final controlling act of an abusive partner, and its seriousness will now be recognised in law. The Bill also adds the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour to the list of offences that require automatic management of offenders under the statutory multi-agency public protection arrangements.
We recognise that antisocial behaviour does so much to blight people’s lives and undermine the pride and confidence that they rightly have in their local communities. At its worst, antisocial behaviour can drastically lower the quality of life for whole neighbourhoods. The Government’s antisocial behaviour action plan, published in March, sets out a strong approach to working with local agencies so that antisocial behaviour is treated with the seriousness and urgency it deserves. The Bill enhances that with a range of new measures, including enabling the police to make public spaces protection orders and registered social housing providers to issue premises closure notices; lowering the minimum age of a person who may be issued with a community protection notice from 16 to 10; and increasing the maximum amount of a fixed penalty notice from £100 to £500 for breaches of a public spaces protection order or community protection notice.
Every public service should be accountable to the public, and we are strengthening the accountability of community safety partnerships and improving the way in which they work with police and crime commissioners to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour. For example, PCCs will be given the power to make recommendations on the activity of community safety partnerships, which in turn will be duty-bound to consider those recommendations. That proposal follows feedback from various sources that the powers available to the police, local authorities and other agencies could be used more consistently. We need every part of the system to work together as one well-oiled machine.
Nuisance begging and rough sleeping can, of course, be a form of antisocial behaviour. The former may be very intimidating and the latter may also cause damage, disruption and harassment to the public.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The Home Secretary will be aware of the campaign across the House to scrap the Vagrancy Act 1824, which does not come into force until all these clauses come in—so I am very pleased to see them. Looking at the detail, we see that it forms a third of the Bill—it is enormous. Does he share my concern that by replacing the Vagrancy Act with a measure of this level and strength, we are not treating homelessness with the compassion that we said we wanted, and we are creating a rod for our own back, which we just do not need?
James Cleverly
We have committed to scrapping the 1824 Act, and nobody should or will be criminalised simply for having nowhere to live. That is why we are repealing the outdated 1824 Act. However, we need to make sure that things such as nuisance begging are addressed, because the British public have told us that they feel these actions are intimidating—I am sure that Members from across the House hear that in our advice surgeries and will have had people tell them that—and it is right that we respond to their concerns. The hon. Lady makes the point, implied in her question, that people end up rough sleeping for a wide variety of reasons, including, sometimes, because they are themselves the victims of abuse or they have medical conditions, be they physical or mental. That is why last year we published our “Ending rough sleeping for good” strategy, and we have made an unprecedented £2 billion commitment over three years to accelerate the efforts to address homelessness at source.
Layla Moran
I thank the Home Secretary for giving way again; I will not test his patience too much more. However, I should point out that we have been working on this since 2018, when I started this campaign. I have met countless Ministers over the years and not once did nuisance rough sleeping come up as the issue. Nuisance begging did, and there is a debate to be had on that and I would happily have it. All I ask is: will he consider meeting me and others from both sides of the House who have taken a keen interest in this issue for a very long time so that we can put across our concerns about what is in this Bill to replace the 1824 Act? I say that because this looks like Vagrancy Act 2.0 on steroids.
James Cleverly
We have presented a Bill and the House has the opportunity to debate it. So rather than having conversations in private, the legislative process—the process of debate—is designed for Members from across the House to inject their ideas, thoughts and suggestions into the legislation. That is literally what the passage of a Bill is designed to do.
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
I wish to share my concerns, which are those the hon. Lady has mentioned. The Bill introduces a wide definition of “nuisance rough sleeping” that is incredibly concerning to me, because it will criminalise people who are rough sleeping. In practice, it will result in worse criminalisation of people sleeping rough than under the draconian Vagrancy Act. Will the Home Secretary and Government Members give any assurance and clarity about the intentions?
James Cleverly
The Bill makes it clear that any actions that will be taken will be in response to a continuing refusal to abide by the moving-on powers that the Bill provides, so I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s assessment of how this will play out in practice. However, as I say, this is the Second Reading of the Bill and there will be opportunity through its passage for ideas, thoughts, concerns and potential improvements to be put forward. I encourage her and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) to put forward their ideas, because we recognise that this is an important issue. We want to get it right, but we are responding to specific concerns that have been raised.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The Home Secretary is right to say that the Vagrancy Act, as it comes to its bicentenary, is ripe for renewal and change, and there is an interesting debate to be had. He is right to identify that it is a problem for many of our constituents. The other problem, which he knows I will be talking about later, is the offence of spiking. I was listening keenly to what he said and no doubt he will touch on that in a moment or two.
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the need to update a number of provisions, including the Vagrancy Act 1824. I know he feels strongly about that and, through the passage of the Bill, I am more than happy to listen to his contributions about other opportunities to update and modernise legacy legislation, which has served us well but for a very, very long time, to ensure that it is relevant for the modern world, not the Victorian—or sometimes Georgian—era when the provisions were originally drafted.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
These matters raise the issue of proportionality, and I am sympathetic to the Government’s position, but does my right hon. Friend accept that a number of other areas in the Bill, most of which is very good, will need careful examination? For example, the power to enable entrance to premises without a warrant will need to be supported by the evidence base. Will my right hon. Friend also bear in mind that we need to move with some care on the practicalities of transfer to foreign prisons? Although that may be useful to have in the toolbox, when it has been used abroad the evidence is very mixed as to how long and significant a difference it can make. As the Bill progresses through the House, will he engage with the Justice Committee and others on the evidence that we have received on those issues?
James Cleverly
My long-standing hon. Friend makes a number of points. Of course we want to ensure the Bill works. When the Bill is enacted, we want to ensure it improves the lives of people who might be victims of crime and helps to avoid that victimisation, but we also want to ensure that appropriate checks and balances are in place. I feel confident that those are in place, but it is the duty of those on the Treasury Bench to ensure that all Members of the House share that confidence.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
In that spirit, on the basis that this is Second Reading and there are opportunities for this otherwise good Bill to be improved, will my right hon. Friend take on board the important points about ensuring that we get right the extension of the identification principle on corporate criminal liability? We made big progress in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and the Government are now following through on their intention, but I want to ensure we get the wording absolutely right.
Secondly, I note with enthusiasm the presence in the schedule of restricted cost provisions relating to restraint orders for the proceeds of crime. We have long said that uncapped costs are a deterrent to making robust applications. Will he consider extending those principles to other areas of activity, so that we can see more applications being made without the fear of being clobbered by costs?
James Cleverly
My right hon. and learned Friend makes some important and useful points based on his extensive experience. Of course, we listen very carefully to the contributions that have been made. With the indulgence of the House, I want to make progress so that Back Bench Members have time for debate.
We need to understand that crime is a business—a big business. Serious organised criminals are relentless, adaptable and resourceful. That is why we are banning articles that are used to commit serious crime, including templates for 3D printed firearms components, pill presses, and vehicle concealment and signal jammers that are used in modern vehicle theft. In banning the supply, adaptation, manufacture and import of those articles, as well as their possession, we will target the corrupt individuals who profit from supplying those articles to those involved in serious criminality while keeping just enough distance from the offences being carried out to avoid facing the inevitable consequences of their actions.
We are also strengthening the operation of the serious crime prevention orders. It is absolutely right to make it easier for the police and other law enforcement agencies to place restrictions on offenders or suspect offenders and stop them from participating in further crime. Fraud is now the most prevalent form of crime. It costs this country billions of pounds annually and is a terrible personal violation. I have no doubt that every Member of the House will know constituents who have suffered from that type of crime.
The Criminal Justice Bill contains several new measures to tackle fraudsters and the perpetrators of other serious crimes. We are prohibiting the possession and supply of SIM farms that have no legitimate purpose. Law enforcement agencies will have extended powers to suspend domain names and IP addresses used for fraudulent purposes or other serious crimes. We are also reforming the powers used to strip convicted criminals of the proceeds of crime. A new scheme will see the Government work with the financial sector to use the money in accounts suspended on suspicion of crime to fund projects tackling economic crime.
Going beyond economic crime, we are further expanding the identification principle, so that companies can be held criminally responsible when a senior manager in that company commits a crime.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
While fraud accounts for 40% of recorded crime at the moment, only 1% of police resources are used to deal with it. What are the Home Secretary’s thoughts on that?
James Cleverly
By the nature of this crime type, specialism in investigation is inevitable. Ultimately, the training and deployment of the resources of the police and other crime fighting agencies will naturally need to reflect that. It is not quite as simple as mapping the proportion of crime to the proportion of police officers, but implicit in the right hon. Lady’s question is the fact that we need to upskill investigators so that they can focus on those crime types. We are putting the legislative measures in place, the funding is in place, the increase in police numbers is in place and we are happy to work with PCCs and chief constables to ensure that those resources are deployed in the most effective way.
Sir Robert Neill
It may save the House hearing from me at some length later.
I welcome the measures on fraud, because they follow on from the Justice Committee’s report last year that highlighted the gaps in our ways of dealing with it. Will the Home Secretary look carefully at how we reform the identification principle? There remains a concern that the exemptions that were placed on the size of businesses in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 may have the perverse effect of allowing many fraudsters to split their businesses up into smaller units that fall below the threshold in that Act. Glencore, for example, had only 50 employees but was still one of the biggest frauds that did massive harm. Can we take the opportunity to look at that issue?
James Cleverly
Once again, my hon. Friend makes a good point. We are always willing to listen to suggestions from colleagues around the House that will strengthen the ability to close loopholes, so that sinister but clever and adaptable individuals do not find a way of navigating through the legislation, so I take his ideas on board. I do not have much of my speech left, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sure you would encourage me to move quickly, and I beg the indulgence of the House to do so.
There has been a concerning increase in the number of serious offenders refusing to attend their sentencing. It is a further insult to the victims and the families; as we have seen, it causes a huge amount of upset. That is why we are giving judges express statutory powers to order offenders convicted of an offence punishable with a life sentence to attend their sentencing hearings. That measure will apply to all offenders convicted of any offence that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Adult offenders who refuse to do so, without reasonable excuse, will face punishment with an additional custodial sentence of up to 24 months. The legislation will also make it clear that judges in the Crown court may direct the production of any adult offender, and that the custody officers can use reasonable force to ensure that they are produced.
James Cleverly
I am sorry, but I promised Madam Deputy Speaker that I would be winding up.
Last year, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse published its final report. It revealed the terrible extent to which children have been betrayed over decades not only by rapists and abusers but sadly, in too many instances, by those who should have been there to protect them. We must honour the courage of those who have spoken out by doing things differently. Everything possible must be done to prevent these crimes. When they do occur, they should be met with heavy punishment. The Bill introduces a new statutory aggravating factor to capture offenders who demonstrate grooming behaviours in connection with specified sexual offences against children and young people, or whose offences have been facilitated by grooming by others.
The grooming itself need not be sexual; it may be undertaken by any offender or a third party and committed against the victim of the underlying offence or a third party. The Government will also bring forward amendments to the Bill to restrict the ability of registered sex offenders to change their names in certain circumstances. Following consideration of the responses to our consultation, which closes on 30 November, we also plan to bring forward amendments to provide for a legal duty to report child sexual abuse.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I am incredibly grateful to the Home Secretary for bringing forward legislation on sexual offenders changing their name by deed poll, but we could not find it anywhere in the Bill, so is there any reason why there is a lag?
James Cleverly
It is because we will have to bring it through as an amendment, but I can assure the hon. Lady that we are committed to making this work. [Interruption.] It is a Government amendment. [Interruption.] I disapprove of theft in all circumstances except for when someone brings forward a truly good idea.
Let me return now to the duty to report child sexual abuse. Walking by or turning a blind eye should never, and must never, be an option. The Bill enables polygraph testing to be extended to more serious sexual and terrorism-linked offences, including for convicted murderers who are assessed as posing a risk of sexual offending on release. It also ensures that those serving multiple sentences alongside a sentence for a sex offence can be tested for the whole of their licence period. The measure further applies to individuals convicted of non-terrorism offences who would have been determined by the court to have a terrorism connection if the option had been available at the time of the sentencing.
The Government have a programme to build 20,000 new prison places. It is the biggest prison building programme since the Victorian era. Prison demand is likely to increase over the medium term, as we continue to empower police forces and the courts to drive down crime and punish offenders.
In order temporarily to increase prison capacity, the Bill will introduce domestic powers to transfer prisoners to rented prison spaces overseas subject to future agreements with other countries. Norway and Belgium have successfully rented prison places from the Netherlands in the past. The Bill will also extend the remit of His Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons to include any rental prison places abroad.
The Criminal Justice Bill will give the police greater powers, the public greater confidence, and the courts greater ability to punish offenders and protect the law-abiding majority, and I invite the whole House to get behind it.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
It is good to see the Home Secretary in his place. He was not here for the urgent question earlier, but he has been having a bit of a week of it. He had to pseudo-apologise yesterday to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) for his language. He has been rude about northern towns and rude about northern MPs. Although he may be all over the place on home affairs, we should perhaps be relieved that he is no longer in charge of diplomacy for the nation—although, to be fair, given the treatment of the Greek Prime Minister in the past 24 hours, things may have got even worse since he left.
As I said, the Home Secretary did not come to the Chamber earlier to answer the urgent question, but I gather from reports that he was meeting Back-Bench Conservative MPs. Certainly, yesterday, he had half his party standing up to complain about his policies. The problem seems to be that he thinks his Rwanda policy is batshit, that has driven his Back Benchers apeshit, and now his whole party is in deep sh-ambles.
The Home Secretary told us yesterday that he does not really know yet what is going on in the immigration system, so I assume from today’s speech that he is still getting the hang of what is going on in the criminal justice system. His claims about how well things are going are incredibly out of touch. Let me sum it up for him. After 13 years of Conservative Government, things are pretty dire: 90% of crimes now go unsolved; the charge rate has dropped by two thirds; more criminals are getting off; and more victims are being let down. The Prime Minister has an excuse when he says that things are great: he only sees things from a helicopter, but the rest of them have no such excuse and they are out of touch.
If a person commits a crime today, they are less than half as likely to be caught as they were under the previous Labour Government. That is the collapse of law and order under this Conservative Government, who have been in power for 13 years. In the past eight years, we have had eight Home Secretaries and 10 Justice Secretaries. We have huge court backlogs and delays, record numbers of crimes being dropped with no suspect identified, and record numbers of victims dropping out of the criminal justice process due to lack of support and unacceptable delays.
New technology has helped to prevent some volume crimes, but serious violence is up by 60% on 2015. The Home Secretary did not have the figures to hand on knife crime, but knife crime is up by 70%, and the number of young victims of violence is at its highest in a decade. I have spoken to mums who have lost their children through knife crime; they feel as if they have lost their future, but they want us to act to save other children’s lives.
Crime at the heart of our communities and town centres is also on the rise. We have seen shoplifting surge to record levels—up 25% in the past year alone—but town centre policing has dropped. Many towns have seen a huge drop in neighbourhood police on the beat and half the country say that they do not see police on the streets. There are now 10,000 fewer police and police community support officers in neighbourhood teams. When the Home Secretary talks about police numbers, we remember the 20,000 police officers that his party cut, for which we are still paying the price across the country. The lack of police on the street means that half the country never see them. That is the result of 10,000 fewer police and PCSOs on our streets, and that is the backdrop to this Bill. Quite simply, it is not enough to tackle the serious problems that the country and the criminal justice system face.
Mr Sheerman
My right hon. Friend is speaking with great authority on this. Every Member of this House knows how underfunded the police are. We have not only an underfunded police force, but a justice system that has been cut and cut and cut again. We must do something to build it up again, and perhaps the way we will do that is to have a new Labour Government.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right that huge damage has been done to policing and the criminal justice system. In addition, because police are often the public face of the criminal justice system, the fact that confidence in policing has been heavily knocked has an impact on confidence in and respect for the rule of law in our country. That is why it is so serious and why there ought to be cross-party support for restoring confidence in policing and the criminal justice system.
Mr Sheerman
One more very small point: I think my right hon. Friend knows of my interest in miscarriages of justice, but is it not a fact that in this underfunded criminal justice system we see more miscarriages of justice?
Yvette Cooper
It is certainly the case that far too many victims are not getting justice, because they are either dropping out of the system or being let down.
The Opposition support the Bill before us and we will support its Second Reading. Of course there will be individual measures that we need to pursue, but there are many measures in it that were Labour policies or that Labour has called for. However, the Bill simply does not go far enough to address the challenges that we face.
We welcome the fact that the Government have now agreed to Labour’s calls to crack down on antisocial behaviour by going after drug dealers with stronger closure orders and the introduction of the power of arrest for breaches of antisocial behaviour injunctions. In 2013, the then Conservative Home Secretary removed the power of arrest when antisocial behaviour injunctions were introduced, and we warned that they would not be strong enough. It has taken the Government 10 years to restore the power of arrest, but we welcome it.
On fraud, we called for the introduction of corporate criminal liability during the passage of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, so we are pleased to see it in this Bill now. We have also supported stronger sentences on sexual offences. We support the increase in sentencing for the most serious offences and the power to compel perpetrators to attend sentencing in person. Justice must be seen to be done and the victims of the most heinous crimes need to see justice done and sentence given with the perpetrator standing before the court.
We also welcome plans to tackle revenge porn and image-based abuse. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) makes a very important point on that, which we are keen to discuss further and support in Committee. We also welcome tougher sentences for those who commit murder at the end of a relationship.
It is welcome that the Government have ditched the plan to make cancelling tents their entire policy on homelessness, but we will need to pursue the detail of the measures in the Bill, because they do not address the root causes of homelessness. The last Labour Government cut rough sleeping by two thirds, but under the Conservatives that progress has been reversed and it is now up by 75%.
Paula Barker
In February last year, both Houses of Parliament supported the repeal of the Vagrancy Act 1824 via an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. However, no commencement date was included in the amendment, so the Vagrancy Act technically remains in force. The Government are now introducing replacement legislation via this Bill. Is my right hon. Friend as confused as I am about why that would be?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the detail and I hope that, in the evidence-gathering sessions in Committee, evidence is properly taken on that. It is an area where the legislation needs to be got right and concerns have been raised. There is also the wider problem of a toxic mix of rents and the failure to end no-fault evictions, which is hitting vulnerable people hard, and the Conservatives still have not kept their promises to act on that.
There is still a series of substantial omissions from the Bill that we would like to see added to it. There is nothing to ensure that neighbourhood policing is properly restored. We have set out proposals for 13,000 more neighbourhood police and police community support officers, and we want to see that underpinned in legislation.
There is nothing in the Bill to turn around the shocking collapse in charge rates. For example, there is no plan to tackle the problem of redaction—a problem I know the Policing Minister recognises—where officers effectively spend hours and the equivalent of a bottle of Tipp-Ex having to redact a whole series of things before files are even passed to the Crown Prosecution Service. Many have argued that legislation needs to be changed to tackle that. Doing so could save police officers hours and hours of time, and I think it is included in the police productivity review. Surely we ought to be able to tackle that, but it is currently not in the Bill.
The Bill is also not strong enough in its measures to tackle town centre crime. A law brought in by the Conservative Government, again around 10 years ago, means that shop thefts under £200 often are not investigated, even if the same gang comes back time and again. We should end that £200 rule to tackle the shoplifting gangs. We also have shop staff who are petrified to go to work when there are 850 incidents a day of violence and abuse against shop workers.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The week before last, during Respect for Shopworkers Week, I had the pleasure of visiting one of my local Co-ops. They have had £155,000-worth of goods stolen in the first six months of this year. For many stores, that is enough to close them down. I commend USDAW—the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—and the Co-op for the work they are doing on that, but the police are just not turning up or taking it seriously. I commend what my right hon. Friend says; let us see whether she can push the Government to move further here.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the impact of shoplifting. If town centres do not feel safe, it is local businesses that are hit and can end up going under as a result, undermining local economies and putting off local residents who want to go shopping. Sometimes elderly residents, in particular, will simply not go into town anymore if they do not feel safe, and if they feel that laws are just not being enforced when they watch people leaving the shops with a big bag of goods stolen from the shelves and see nothing being done. It is just not good enough.
That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) rightly called for stronger measures to tackle assaults on shop workers. The Government did finally agree, as a result of his campaigning, to an aggravated sentence for assaulting shop workers, but that is not enough. The whole point is to make it simpler for the police to take action and to send a clear message from Parliament to police that this is an offence we take immensely seriously. That is why Labour will be tabling amendments that reflect the campaigns by USDAW, the Co-op, Tesco, the British Retail Consortium and small convenience stores for a new law and tougher sentences for attacks on our shop workers. Everyone should have the right to work in safety and to live free from fear.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
We do take retail theft and shoplifting very seriously and agree that more needs to be done, but may I draw the shadow Home Secretary’s attention, and that of the House, to the retail crime action plan, which the Government agreed with the National Police Chiefs’ Council just a few weeks ago? In that plan, the police commit to investigating reasonable lines of inquiry for all shoplifting cases, including running CCTV evidence through facial recognition software, attending the scene of a crime where that is necessary to gather evidence, where there has been an assault or where the offender has been detained, and using data analytics specifically to go after prolific offenders. All that is in addition to Project Pegasus, a joint project with retailers to go after serious and organised crime. I hope she will join me in welcoming the plan, which I believe will be very effective.
Yvette Cooper
I would gently say to the Minister that the fact that it is an announcement—
Yvette Cooper
It is a plan; it is not even an announcement of something that is going to happen. It is an announcement that there is a plan for the police to check CCTV when a theft has taken place. That just shows how bad things have got over the past 13 years. We welcome any work that is being done, including by the British Retail Consortium with the National Police Chiefs’ Council. However, the Government are not taking the action that they should be taking to underpin this. In particular, they are not changing the law either on assaults against shop workers or on the £200 limit, and neither are they supporting the neighbourhood police we need to do the work to deliver the plan. There are 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police and PCSOs on our streets and in our communities, and communities know that. It does not matter what the Policing Minister says or what figures he plucks from thin air: people know. They can see it. We all see it in our own towns in our own constituencies, and half the country now say they never see the police on the beat.
Yvette Cooper
I will give way, because the Policing Minister is a glutton for punishment on this one.
Chris Philp
The shadow Home Secretary is very kind to give way. I am sorry that facts and figures get in the way of her argument but, as I said at oral questions yesterday, the neighbourhood policing figures that she keeps quoting are unintentionally misleading. Local policing numbers cover neighbourhood policing, emergency response and others. Since 2015, which is the year that she cites, those numbers have gone up from 61,000 to 67,000, and overall policing numbers are at record levels, at 149,566—3,500 higher than under the last Labour Government.
Yvette Cooper
This is the problem with the Policing Minister: he just thinks that the country has never had it so good on crime and policing. As far as the country is concerned, he is incredibly out of touch. That is not what is happening in towns and cities across the country. The idea that we can just merge neighbourhood policing and response teams, which are different things, shows that he simply does not understand the importance of neighbourhood policing or what it actually does.
Neighbourhood police are the teams who are located locally. They will not just be called off for a crisis at the other end of the borough, district or force area; they are the police officers who can deal with local crimes. They are not the officers who have to deal with rising levels of mental health crisis, which we know so many of the response units have to deal with. There has been a big shift away from neighbourhood policing and into response policing because the police are being reactive, dealing with crises that this Conservative Government have totally failed to prevent for 13 years.
The Government have demolished a lot of the prevention work and teamworking between neighbourhood officers and other agencies in local areas, and as a result the other response officers are having to pick up the pieces instead. The Policing Minister’s approach just shows why the Tories are failing after 13 years. It is not the answer.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Ind)
On the restoration of police numbers, may I inform the Policing Minister that in Cleveland the numbers have been slashed by 500 since 2010? They have still not been restored, so we are still down in those numbers. On retail crime, we cannot take any lessons from the Conservative party—the Conservative police and crime commissioner in Cleveland received a caution for handling goods stolen from his then supermarket employer. This stuff about retail crime is, quite frankly, hogwash.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point—[Interruption.] I do not think the claims made from a sedentary position by the Policing Minister help him in the slightest, given the challenges involving the current police and crime commissioner.
We ought to have a consensus on tackling knife crime. There are some measures in the Bill, but they do not go anywhere near far enough. I urge the Home Secretary to consider a proper offence of child criminal exploitation to prevent people drawing children into criminal activity in the first place, as well as stronger action on the loopholes that still allow online marketplaces to sell knives. We have had multiple announcements over the years about taking action against zombie knives, but it is groundhog day, because far too many are still being sold easily and not enough is being done about it.
The Bill also does not go far enough on violence against women and girls. We still need rape investigation units in every police force, we need all 999 control rooms to have domestic abuse experts, and we need stronger requirements on police forces to use the tactics and tools normally reserved for organised crime and terrorist organisations to identify and go after the most dangerous repeat abusers and rapists and get them off our streets.
Too many things are not in the Bill. Overall, there is still no proper plan to raise confidence in policing and the criminal justice system. That confidence has plummeted, putting respect for law and order in our country at risk. We support the Bill and will work across parties to strengthen the measures in it, but it will not tackle the serious problems that we face. Security is the bedrock of opportunity. If people do not feel safe—if they do not believe that anyone will come or anything will be done when things go wrong—that undermines confidence in their community, in their way of life and in the rule of law in our country.
That is what is at stake here, that is why incremental measures are not enough, and that is why we need to tackle the crisis of confidence and halve serious violence. Labour has committed to halving serious violence, including violence against women and girls, and to increasing policing confidence, the number of criminals who are charged, and the number of victims who get justice. Those ought to be shared objectives, but for too long the Conservatives have undermined them. That is why we need change.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the opening Front-Bench speeches, to which I have listened with interest. It feels like groundhog day, if I may say so, on many counts and fronts.
First and foremost, there is much to welcome in the Bill. I bear the scars of having taken a number of criminal justice measures through the House—with great pleasure and through working with colleagues, including some Back-Bench colleagues who served with me in government. I think we can all reflect on how important it is that this criminal justice legislation strikes a fundamental balance between protecting civil liberties; supporting victims wholeheartedly in everything that we do as legislators; preventing crime, which must be absolutely front and centre of what it does; and punishing offenders.
This is a point of reflection. We in this House have discussed all those themes in separate debates, urgent questions and statements over a number of weeks. When it comes to punishing offenders, I know that the Lord Chancellor has, from the Dispatch Box, tried to address the issues to do with prison spaces. At the same time, we have been having conversations about preventing crime and supporting victims. Those are all personal and human aspects on which we must get the balance right.
I cannot emphasise this enough: we need to bring in and operationalise practical measures that deliver the desired effects and outcomes. In the debate thus far, we have not fully reflected on what it means to put into practice the delivery of such measures—what it means for resourcing, policing, prison spaces, the use of stop and search, and, importantly, how we put victims front and centre of everything we do. We must also demonstrate why those desired impacts are needed above and beyond what is already in place. We have good measures in place already, but now we have to reflect on them and go over and beyond, in the light of some of the points that have been made in the debate. I will come to many of those points.
I know that, while the Bill is going through Parliament, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will have to brace himself for the significant amount of lobbying that will come his way from inside and outside the House. I reflect on that because a great deal of experience that will come his way, and those important discussions will be moments for him to reflect on the practicalities not just of what goes in the Bill, but of its delivery. I thank him for the conversations that we have had in the past week. He will build on the many practical suggestions that will come his way.
Before I comment on the measures in the Bill, it is important to reflect on the actions that have been taken in recent years and the difference that they are making. It is too easy to come in and throw the baby out with the bathwater. A lot of good was done in previous Bills. I will pay tribute later to the work to invest in and recruit 20,000 more police officers. That has had an effect not just on the criminal justice system, but on building public confidence in policing—we should never stand still on that. At the end of the day, the public look to us all—certainly to a Conservative Government—to ensure that we have the manpower to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour, which has been mentioned. Importantly, we must give the public confidence that law and order is on their side and will use every pillar and strain every sinew, including police officers and the criminal justice system, to be on their side. Of course, the beating crime plan contained significant details about measures to target hotspots of criminal activity, including many dreadful aspects that have been touched on today, such as antisocial behaviour, homicide and knife crime. For example, the plan included the introduction of violence reduction units and investment in safer streets through the safer streets funds—important measures that must be built on to deliver safety practically and to build confidence in the criminal justice system.
Dame Meg Hillier
The right hon. Lady talks about having confidence in the criminal justice system. I will park for a moment the reason we are seeing an increase in police numbers: that, obviously, there was a drop previously. Does she agree that one of the biggest problems is the huge backlog in the courts—not as a result of covid; that has exacerbated it, but it was there before—that will take until 2025 to get anywhere near back to previous levels? I have a constituent who was violently attacked in front of her seven-year-old child. It was three years before her court case was taken. The situation leaves the police powerless, as the individual in question can keep breaking his non-molestation order, with no further action taken. It is all very well having the police officers, but does the right hon. Lady have anything to say about the court system?
Priti Patel
The hon. Member is absolutely right. We have discussed that issue more broadly in relation to an end-to-end criminal justice system being fit for purpose: working to a sensible timeframe; the police being able to process the cases with the Crown Prosecution Service; and then, obviously, the cases going to court. I am afraid that there is a lot of merit in the whole debate, particularly around sexual violence and rape cases. We have discussed the matter many times and much more can be done.
Good support has been brought in to address violence against women and girls—the rape review has taken place and there has been investment in independent domestic violence advisers—but there are fundamental criminal justice system issues around cases of this nature, including: the time such cases take; the level of attrition; and the retraumatisation of victims, because these cases are absolutely appalling. I have raised this subject in the House many times, including from the Dispatch Box, and have spoken about personal cases that have come to me through constituents. We all have tragic constituency cases, and we have to make sure that we are strong advocates to bring about justice for those victims.
Let me turn to a number of strong measures that are already in place. A great deal of work has taken place to tackle drugs gangs, organised crime and county lines. The Government deserve great credit for that and for their work on the ring of steel. I used to harp on about the fact that we do not grow these drugs in our country—and some are obviously manufactured—but it is vital that we have in place a ring of steel around our ports and airports to make sure that we do absolutely everything we can to stop at source the scourge of terrible chemicals and drugs coming into our country. We should never, ever stop doing that work; and that goes back to the point about the investment required in our ports and in law enforcement.
The violence against women and girls strategy and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 have helped victims of the most horrific crimes, but I will touch on what more can be done. I welcome the new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), to her place. I look forward to working with her on these sensitive and difficult issues.
On policing, the Government have enshrined the police covenant in statute, given the police more powers to fight crime and increased prison sentences. That is all part of offender management and making our communities safer.
Yvette Cooper
I know that the former Home Secretary takes the police covenant very seriously. Does she agree that, as well as the police covenant, we should have a police bravery award for those who lose their lives in the line of duty?
Priti Patel
The right hon. Lady is absolutely right; we have had discussions about that point previously. I think this might be an opportune moment to pay tribute to those police officers who have lost their lives defending communities, being braver than ever and going after the criminals out there. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] We see so many acts of bravery, but I am sorry to say that they are sometimes not recognised enough. A lot of our police officers sadly get a bad rap because of other reporting issues and all sorts of things, but the reality is that we should pay tribute to and give the right recognition to those who are out there on the frontline, defending us. The right hon. Lady will be familiar with the police bravery awards—what a sobering moment, when we honour our police officers—but we must do more to represent the fallen and to protect family members. That is why the police covenant is so important. I would like this House and Ministers in particular to do much more collectively to recognise that bravery, because the families of officers are affected in a very challenging way.
Richard Graham
I was moved, around the period of remembrance, that Gloucestershire Constabulary arranged for a short ceremony in which all the MPs in our county gathered together with the Gloucestershire Constabulary to commemorate those who had died in earlier conflicts and those who have suffered during very difficult moments more recently. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is something that might be rolled out across the country?
Priti Patel
That is a very nice practical example of a community coming together to commemorate and recognise that public service. We are speaking about people who give public service to our country to protect us all, while at the same time making enormous sacrifices. I had the great privilege of spending much of my time as Home Secretary with law enforcement, including police officers on the frontline, and with some of their family members, so I have heard first-hand testimony of the sacrifices made. That is particularly the case for the loved ones of officers who have died in the line of duty; it is incredibly sobering.
This Bill is important, and as it progresses I look forward to working with the Front-Bench team on the measures they are introducing. I will touch on some of the positive measures, as there are sections of the Bill that are hugely welcome. This legislation goes further in giving the public confidence in criminal justice and policing to keep our citizens and our country safe. There are provisions to address the use of 3D printers and electronic communications devices that aid vehicle theft. I think it is fair to say that we are great believers in designing crime out through the use of technology—making it harder for criminals who abuse the system to even commit the crime in the first place. The measures in the Bill should help in that preventive work.
Criminals are clever: they are constantly adapting, they are agile and they evolve their methods. As legislators, we must be prepared to make sure that we can do more to support the police to fight offenders. I welcome more details on how the Government will continue to grow their plans. The Policing Minister mentioned facial recognition, and I support that work. It is about time that we stood up to some of the legal challenges and brought in more facial recognition provisions to strengthen law enforcement.
I particularly welcome the measures in clauses 9, 10 and 18 relating to knives and bladed articles. I agree that more can be done. Online loopholes around the purchase of weapons has been a subject of discussion in the House for a long time, and I think we could do much more there. It is a fact that we are all horrified and shocked by the impact of knife crime on our streets on victims and their families. The lives of so many young people are blighted by the horrors of knife crime, and we can absolutely come together on this issue. Our hearts go out to victims of knife crime and their family members. We never, ever want to experience the grief and anguish that they endure, but we can do more. I pay tribute to the many campaigners in this space; we should stand with them to do much more.
I am pleased to see that clause 13 and schedule 2 include new provisions to strengthen the legal framework to prevent people taking, sharing and broadcasting intimate images—of course, I am referring to revenge porn. There are still loopholes, and we want to do more to close them. It is a sickening offence that blights people’s lives. Essex police investigated a very high-profile revenge porn case that led to the successful prosecution of an offender, Stephen Bear. I pay tribute to Georgia Harrison, who was on television again just yesterday, both for her bravery in speaking out so strongly and encouraging others to come forward and for the many ways in which she has championed this issue. Our laws have to be flexible and able to adapt to modern technology, so that victims are protected from the people who commit those dreadful crimes.
That brings me on to the measures in the Bill that cover the management of offenders who have a record of coercive and controlling behaviour. Clause 30 puts those offenders under the multi-agency public protection arrangements, which is very welcome. Those measures build on a strong record of supporting victims of domestic abuse and violence, and it is vital that they are put into effective practice. Having mentioned domestic abuse and violence, I want to touch on a really harrowing aspect of that issue: domestic homicides. A great deal of work has taken place in the Home Office around domestic homicide reviews. I led that work, and would like to see it strengthened so much more. We see too many loopholes, and I am afraid local authorities are not always following up on domestic homicide reviews in the way we would like them to. A lot of good practice is already out there, with some local authorities championing that work, working with multi-agency teams and law enforcement.
I also welcome the measures in clause 32 of the Bill to confiscate the proceeds of crime, and serious crime prevention orders, which are dealt with in clauses 34 and 37. Again, it is important that we constantly adapt and update our legislation, and that those measures are operationalised and implemented in an effective way. I look forward to hearing more details from the Government about those areas.
I have already touched on the great work undertaken to keep our streets safe and fight crime, particularly the work of the police, who are on the frontline. I believe that we should back the police when it comes to new technology, but also by standing by them as legislators, including in difficult times when the way in which they are policing and operationalising and their professional judgments are under scrutiny, including public scrutiny. The police are the ones who put themselves in harm’s way to protect the public, and in recent weeks, we have seen the pressures they face when it comes to policing in challenging circumstances. I pay tribute to the police—I have seen them in very difficult situations. They are skilled professionals, and the recruitment of 20,000 police officers did not come out of the ether. A great deal of detailed work took place around that recruitment, but also around retaining them—how our laws back them, and how new technology and funding enables them to do their jobs. Our police officers are a credit to our country, and we should always show them our appreciation. They are diligent and maintain the highest possible standards, as I have seen myself.
However, we have of course seen some shocking and disturbing incidents, inappropriate conduct and serious criminality involving police officers. We have debated that issue in this House many times, both during my time as Home Secretary and since I left that position. It is right that chief constables and police commissioners across the country work to improve professional standards—I have had many discussions to that effect—but it is also important that we learn the lessons when things go wrong. In particular, the measures in clause 73 relating to ethical policing and the duty of candour can build on the work that has taken place through recent reviews. Of course, inquiries are still taking place, in particular the Sarah Everard inquiry that Dame Elish is working on. It is important that we maintain those standards going forward—we have a lot of work to do.
I will now touch on some areas in the Bill where I want to see greater scrutiny to ensure that the measures in this legislation will make a difference and will go further in some quarters. One area that needs reflection is clause 19, which the Chair of the Justice Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), touched on already. That clause contains measures that would permit entry into private premises without a warrant.
I am the first to recognise the desired outcome that the Government are seeking: to support the police in tackling the issue of stolen goods by enabling them to enter and search premises and to seize items without a warrant. We all want to see those responsible for those crimes apprehended more quickly, and the goods returned to their rightful owners—that is absolutely right. Too often, victims of crime are left frustrated by the challenges involved in investigating those crimes and getting their goods back. However, as the party of law and order that believes in safeguarding the rule of law, I want to ensure that if this power is introduced, freedom and civil liberties are maintained and due process remains in place. There is the prospect that that power will be misused, leading to miscarriages of justice.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
I share my right hon. Friend’s slight misgivings about that clause; it will be interesting to hear the argument that the Minister makes. Obviously, there are already circumstances in law where, if the police have reasonable suspicion that a person has committed a crime, they are able to enter that person’s premises in pursuit of them or the goods they have supposedly stolen. As such, I am unsure what more the clause will add; it will be interesting to see where the Government take it. I share my right hon. Friend’s nervousness about breaching a long-standing settlement with the British people about their privacy and the ability of the police to invade it.
Priti Patel
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. He and I spent a great deal of time discussing policing powers and what more we could do to strengthen them in relation to all aspects of criminality. The Bill rightly includes some safeguards, but there are measures in place already. We need to understand how the proposed powers will work—how their use will be authorised, and in what circumstances. The Bill is at an early stage, and it will obviously be scrutinised in Committee, but there are questions that need to be answered. We welcome those discussions.
I will say a few words about the provisions relating to nuisance begging and rough sleeping. I have listened with interest to the comments that have already been made about this issue on both sides of the Chamber. Members will recall that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 contained provisions to repeal the Vagrancy Act 1824, which is nearly 200 years old. I and my colleagues in the Government at the time worked with all Members of the House on that—it was right that the repeal took place—and we spoke about the replacement legislation as it came forward.
No one in the House would dispute that dealing with homelessness is a difficult, sensitive and highly complex issue. I worked with Government, local authorities and charities on these issues as Home Secretary, as did my former ministerial colleagues. In particular, we looked to provide resources and the right kinds of interventions to support those sleeping rough on our streets. Project ADDER was brought in to deal with a lot of the addiction issues that are associated with homelessness. That is an incredibly successful programme that works with local authorities. The Government must invest more in it and roll it out further.
I recall working on this issue with my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who was then Policing Minister. He brought his London experience to the fore regarding problems in central London. There were some specific cases of begging and homelessness on Park Lane, and we were able to address those issues and deal with rough sleeping, which was causing a lot of problems in that community, by bringing in the police and Westminster City Council and taking some proactive measures. There are also some incredible charities doing outreach work in London and across the community, in particular those that engage with rough sleeping.
We should reflect on the fact that this issue involves some veterans with complex needs, including the challenges posed by mental health issues, as well as some individuals who need trauma-informed support. We need to invest time across different Departments and agencies to tackle this problem, rather than looking at it just in the context of a criminal justice Bill. It is right that the Government look at the legislation required to prevent rough sleeping, and it is also essential that they bring in measures from other Departments to provide the right help and support. It will be interesting to hear from Ministers about the work that will take place in this area and to hear some of their reassurances.
I would like to touch on the point my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) made about spiking. Some work on that has taken place already, and we have met victims of this horrendous crime and campaigners against it. I had the privilege of working with the police on spiking issues, and in fact with Assistant Chief Constable Maggie Blyth, who was brought in to support all the work on violence against women and girls in particular.
During my tenure as Home Secretary, we certainly introduced new restrictions on some of the drugs used for spiking, and we brought in tougher sentences. We also reviewed whether a new and specific offence was needed. One has not been brought forward, but it is subject to debate, and the Policing Minister is familiar with all this. As the Bill progresses, it will be interesting to see where the Government take this issue, particularly because it is difficult to track, as we know from policing data. We should recognise that as a House, but we want to do more to prevent further victims of spiking, and we need to come together to look at what practical measures can be put in place.
I look forward to working with Ministers. We have a very strong team, who will be very diligent when it comes to both building on previous measures and looking to strengthen the Bill to bring in proper practical measures. No one would dispute that the country wants robust action when it comes to going after offenders and punishing those who do dreadful things across our communities, leaving victims harmed. It is right that the Government bring in this Bill and it is right that we work collectively to strengthen our laws, but we do need practical measures to make sure that the legislation actually delivers for victims. We want fewer victims of crime, and we want to protect our communities and strengthen our safety.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and I certainly agree with her remarks on homelessness and veterans. I have a number of veterans charities in the Glasgow South West constituency, and they work with me and other elected representatives to make sure that veterans get the support they need. She was absolutely right about their trauma and some of the issues they have to face, and I certainly hope that the Government listen to her remarks.
Some of this Bill relates to Scotland. I will touch on those parts, and then I may sound like an international observer making constructive comments, because many other parts of the Bill affect England and Wales only. As the explanatory notes say, the Bill affects and applies to Scotland in relation to
“defence; official secrets; terrorism; telecommunications and wireless telegraphy; financial and economic matters; and consumer protection.”
I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that her officials and Scottish Government officials are engaging on those issues to make sure that the Scottish Parliament will be asked to approve a legislative consent motion. There will be some grey areas—consumer matters are often seen as one—but perhaps the Minister, in summing up the debate, will talk about what work is being done with the Scottish Government.
It does seem as though, instead of solving challenges relating to crime or alleviating push factors such as poverty—instead of tackling the causes of crime—the Government are intent on more incarceration. There are some welcome aspects of the Bill, such as measures to tackle organised gangs and violent crime, remove templates for illicit activities and tackle communications offences. There are 650 Members of Parliament, and certainly my view from what I see on social media is that the attacks on all of us are getting worse, so we do need to look at that. However, this is not just about us, of course; there are many other communications offences. We certainly need to strengthen the law on revenge porn.
The Home Secretary has had to leave for other business, but he served with me on the all-party Youth Violence Commission before his elevation on to the ministerial ladder. I do hope that the Government will look at the SNP’s continued call, which is also the call of the all-party Youth Violence Commission, for the implementation of a violence reduction unit equivalent to the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, which focuses on preventing violent crime through community and youth work, education and social services. In the Glasgow South West constituency, youth organisations play a vital role in making sure that we turn young people away from youth violence. There is a clear role for social services and education in the whole approach to ensuring that we reduce violent crime, particularly for young people.
The Scottish Government’s annual figures show that the rate of homicides continues to fall. The number of homicide victims has shown a downward trend since 2004-05. In 2022-23, there were 52 victims of homicide in Scotland, one fewer than in 2021-22. However, the biggest reduction in the number of homicide victims is among those aged between 16 and 24: for the last five years, the average rate of homicides in that group was 10 per million of the population per year. I hope that the Government will look seriously at what happens in Scotland and learn from it by having a youth violence reduction unit for the UK and engaging with social services, education and the great youth organisations out there right across these islands engaging young people.
As the world is changing its views on drugs, the Government appear to be expanding drug testing on arrest, and there is a concern that stop and search may disproportionately target those from an ethnic minority background. In the year ending 31 March 2022, there were 516,684 stop and searches in England and Wales. For 20% of those, the person’s ethnicity was not known or not recorded. There were 8.7 stop and searches for every 1,000 people, but there were 27.2 stop and searches for every 1,000 black people compared with 5.6 for every 1,000 white people. I think there is a concern there and I hope the Government will look at it. It does look as though the black, Asian and minority ethnic community is being discriminated against.
In tackling antisocial behaviour, we really do need to look at provisions that move us away from the theory that homelessness is some sort of lifestyle choice. The immediate predecessor of the Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), was wrong-headed in weakening modern slavery laws that target organised begging in the streets and then suggesting that people living in tents is some sort of lifestyle choice. I do not think I was the only one to find that comment completely and utterly ludicrous.
The Bill enshrines that,
“An authorised person may give a nuisance begging direction to a person appearing to be aged 18 or over if satisfied on reasonable grounds that the person is engaging, has engaged, or is likely to engage, in nuisance begging.”
Again there seems to be a complete mismatch of Government priorities. Instead of scrapping section 21s, which allow landlords to evict tenants who are not on fixed-term contracts without giving a reason in England and Wales, the Government will criminalise begging, which shows their warped priorities.
Between 2018 and 2022, nearly 4,000 people were arrested under vagrancy laws for sleeping rough or begging. Begging is legal in Scotland unless it is deemed to be aggressive. According to campaigners, begging has become a common sight, but steep fines and criminal charges do not tackle its root causes. Crisis chief executive Matt Downie has said:
“While genuine anti-social behaviour must be addressed, we know that engaging people in support services is much more effective at ending their homelessness for good”,
and he continued:
“Above all, no one should be punished just for having no home.”
In tackling antisocial behaviour, the Government appear to be reheating a ban on zombie knives, which successive Home Secretaries since 2016 have tried and failed to ban the manufacture, sale and importation of. The Government must get this right. Under the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 offenders with banned firearms can be jailed for up to 10 years, while those found with other weapons can be jailed for up to six months and fined. Under current rules, the possession of machetes and zombie knives is not outlawed unless they feature images or words that suggest they could be used for violence. This means that if police find weapons in someone’s home, they cannot seize them even if they believe they will be used to commit a crime. I hope the Government will tidy up the legislation so that from now on there will be a criminal offence of possession of a bladed article with the intent to cause harm.
The Tories appear to be prioritising more freedom of movement rights for prisoners than for any other UK citizens. British prisoners have more rights to stay in Europe than UK citizens currently do, with a 90-day maximum limit post-Brexit and a visa and/or residence permit required thereafter. The UK Government said the plan would only be undertaken if the
“facilities, regime and rehabilitation provided meets British standards.”
Transferring prisoners engaged in active legal proceedings in the UK, such as those appealing against their sentence, risks violating article 6 of the European convention on human rights guaranteeing the right to a fair trial, as enshrined in the Human Rights Act 1998. There are also concerns about violating article 8 on the right to a family life due to the difficulties in ensuring family visits for inmates being kept overseas, as well as fears over the general quality of treatment.
The Government have accepted that the scheme could be costly, not least because taxpayers may have to pay for families to visit relatives in overseas jails and would only be pursued if it represented value for money. The Government point to similar practices by other countries but there are still concerns. Questions remain over how the Government could prove that their values and legal obligations were upheld in another territory. That is an important point which I hope the Minister will address in the closing remarks. If prisoners do not volunteer or consent to being transferred overseas, principles of procedural fairness could be violated that encourage prisoners to be able to share their side of the argument and have that considered in decisions made about them, such as on good behaviour for parole.
In concluding, I associate myself with the remarks of the shadow Home Secretary on shop workers. Daniel Johnson, a Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament, had a private Member’s Bill that went through the Scottish Parliament with support from the Scottish Government, and I hope the UK Government will listen and look to work constructively on any amendments that protect shop workers. What happened in Scotland was built by persuasion and consensus and I hope the UK Government will listen, because if they do shop workers across these islands will be very grateful.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak about this very important Bill, and it is of course a pleasure to follow Scottish National party spokesman the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens).
There are some very positive aspects to the Bill that are welcome. Tackling violence against women and girls, giving powers to law enforcement agencies to respond to technological change, and strengthening the law to protect the public from violence and intimidation are much-needed measures that will certainly reassure my constituents. There are communities across my constituency that have been the victims of appalling antisocial behaviour in recent years. The police and local councils are doing what they can to protect these communities with the application and implementation of community protection notices and then public spaces protection orders, but one challenge that the police have faced is that many of the perpetrators of antisocial behaviour are under 16. Lowering the age of a CPN to 10 will help the police in tackling antisocial behaviour and is much appreciated.
However, I am not comfortable with parts of this Bill—the last Criminal Justice Bill before the next election—and there are also things that are missing from it. I shall be as brief as possible. I apologise to those who have provided some excellent information, and I will probably do them a disservice as a consequence. I will also be blunt, as there is no other way of saying this, and I find myself being slightly firmer on this than the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper): I did not work as a Minister and as a Back Bencher on the repeal of the Vagrancy Act, only to see rough sleeping criminalised again via a different piece of legislation.
I get that there is an issue with aggressive begging. We on the ministerial taskforce, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) was very much a part of, were always aware of that. There was always a view that other pieces of legislation, such as the existing antisocial behaviour legislation, could cope with aggressive begging being transferred in. At no point did we, either as a taskforce or as part of the Vagrancy Act repeal, hear evidence about aggressive rough sleeping.
Rough sleepers require holistic support. They often have extremely complex needs, including significant mental health needs. Visibility may be uncomfortable for many, but it also enables support workers from the many brilliant charities and local authorities to reach out to them. Issuing prevention notices does nothing to solve the problem, but pushes them further away from the solution. Sentencing them to prison creates nothing more than extra problems for the person and the creaking prison estate.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
What the hon. Lady is saying is incredibly powerful, and I wholeheartedly agree with her. Does she agree that one challenge we face is that we have a homelessness crisis? In my local area, our brilliant night shelters are already full, and the people working with the homeless would find it harder to help them if they had a criminal record. It would be counter-productive to the very good work we all know needs to happen to prevent homelessness so that it is one night only.
Tracey Crouch
I completely agree with the hon. Lady. People who find themselves sleeping rough on the streets are in a desperate situation, and the provisions in the Bill will do nothing to help them. Our local authorities, which often get a bad rap for the consequences of rough sleeping, have many officers doing brilliant work in trying to support rough sleepers. We need a holistic approach to tackling that issue. We do not need to criminalise them through these provisions, some of which, by the way, are laughable, respectfully. We have the idea that a prevention notice can be served to a rough sleeper at their last known address in writing. I am not entirely sure why that provision is even in there.
The point is that we need to be supporting people who are rough sleeping. I get that there is an issue with aggressive begging. In fact, various mayors across our metropolitan cities have said that, but rough sleeping does not need to be criminalised. We got rid of that as part of the Vagrancy Act repeal, which was supported by the Government. All we are doing is bringing that criminalisation in by the back door.
I will support the Bill on Second Reading because of the other measures, but I strongly urge the Government to remove the clauses on nuisance rough sleeping from the Bill. If not, I will certainly lend my name to amendments to remove those clauses from the Bill, on which I hope I would get cross-party support as a consequence. There are other ways of dealing with rough sleeping, rather than criminalising people.
The Bill also contains welcome measures to improve public confidence in policing after significant failings within forces to identify and investigate criminal behaviours. Those are welcome, given the shocking high-profile cases of recent years, but I suggest we reflect on how we protect good officers who do their job in challenging and fast-moving situations from prosecution. The Times on Saturday reported on the prosecution of PC Paul Fisher, who crashed en route to south London, where Sudesh Amman, a convicted terrorist, had stabbed two members of the public. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said that it
“undermines the confidence of all officers using their powers to keep the public safe.”
He is spot on.
A constituent of mine—a frontline Metropolitan police dog handler—was sentenced today having been found guilty of actual bodily harm after apprehending a dangerous criminal, who was subsequently sentenced to 14 months in prison. At the time, he was hailed “brave” and a “hero”. A complaint made from prison was dismissed by every level of the internal standards process, and it was only when the prisoner appealed again that it ended up in court, with the shocking guilty verdict. My constituent’s 21 years of exemplary service are in tatters due to a system that actively works against frontline officers and instead advocates for passive policing. We do need to improve standards of policing across our forces, but, at the same time, we need to protect those officers who are doing their jobs.
I turn to issues that would be helpful inclusions in the Bill. This morning, the first part of the inquiry into the depraved acts of David Fuller in the mortuaries of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was published. The families of the victims of Fuller are always at the front of our minds when we, the MPs whose constituencies are covered by the trust and where many of them live, are informed about the inquiry. We collectively agree that the Government, the NHS and the trust should accept and act on the recommendations of Sir Jonathan’s report without delay.
Fuller will rightly serve the rest of his life in prison for the heinous crimes he committed, but there are two additional aspects of his crimes that the Government must also act on. First, the woefully short maximum sentence of two years for anyone found guilty of the sexual assault of a dead body needs to be substantially increased to at least 10 years, as per Baroness Noakes’s amendment to the previous Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Secondly, the current legislation applies only to the sexual assault of a dead body that involves penetration. Given the sensitivity of this matter, and on this day when coincidently the inquiry published its report and we are debating the Bill, I do not want to go into further details, but, in short, non-penetrative sexual assault of a dead body is not included under existing legislation, and that needs to be changed. I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who is currently abroad on Government business, will table an amendment to the Bill to that end. I truly hope that we will never see such depravity again, but in memory of those who were victims of Fuller’s crimes, we must ensure that the offence covers all acts of assault and that sentences are increased significantly.
I turn to an entirely different point. I am surprised not to see in the Bill a specific offence of tailgating at football matches. The House will have seen Baroness Casey’s report following the violence at the Euro 2020 finals. Tailgating causes significant operational, safety and security problems for major events at Wembley stadium as well as other football matches across the country—I witnessed that as I experienced the surge of those illegally attempting entry to Wembley as I queued to get into the final. I understand that the Home Office agrees with the recommendation for a specific offence and that King’s counsel has recommended to the FA that that can be done through either an update to the Football (Offences) Act 1991 via statutory instrument, or adding it to the Bill. Given that the Bill is in front of us, it feels like a missed opportunity not to include that offence in it, so I will happily table an amendment to ensure that it is in place long before we host Euro 2028.
Finally, there is one other point that I was surprised not to see in the Bill. There are many reasons for us to be disappointed that the Government dropped the kept animals Bill, but one particular reason, which is relevant to this Bill, is that it would have introduced a specific pet abduction offence. Given that there is no debate about the harm and impact of pet theft, I was surprised not to see the offence included in this already wide-ranging bill. There has been an increase in pet theft, and the Government’s pet theft taskforce believes that pet owners should not live in fear of this cruel crime. Since this was in our manifesto, I hope the Government will either table an amendment or support a Back Benchers’ amendment that creates a stand-alone offence and bring reassurance to the millions of pet owners across the country.
I appreciate that I have raised a varied list of points, and that others wish to speak and I am running out of time. In summary, this is an important Bill—our last Criminal Justice Bill before the election. There are things in it that we need to do. There are things in it that we do not need to do. There are still things that we need to put into it. Fortunately, we have an excellent ministerial team responsible for the Bill. I look forward to working with them as it progresses through Parliament.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak on the Second Reading of the Criminal Justice Bill. It is always a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who made a powerful speech. She speaks for many in Chamber when saying that there are things in the Bill that should not be there and things that should be that we do not have yet. I hope that we will see some improvements in Committee.
I refer back to the point made by the previous Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), on spiking. That is an ongoing issue—the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) is in his place, and he has done an enormous amount of work on it. The Home Affairs Committee carried out an inquiry and produced a report in which we were clear that we would like a specific offence of spiking to be introduced. We were also conscious of how important it is to work on prevention. That is ongoing work, and I am hopeful that we might see some progress from the Home Office in the coming months. It will be interesting if we get to the point where we need to table amendments to introduce that specific offence.
Another Session, another Home Office Bill. As the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford said, it is probably the last before the general election. I want to focus on the issues that the Home Affairs Committee has considered in some detail in our recent inquiries. A few weeks ago we published our policing priorities inquiry, and before that a report on police misconduct. I want to look specifically at the clauses relating to policing. It is important to pay tribute to our police forces and officers for their work day in, day out, dealing with very difficult circumstances. However, we all know and accept that, in recent years, policing has had far too many scandals. Far too many police forces have gone into special measures, and there has been a real exposure of the racist, sexist and homophobic culture in many of our police forces. We must be mindful of the powerful report by Dame Louise Casey this year on the Metropolitan police. The Committee has been conscious of her recommendations in that report and the need for action from the Home Office and the Mayor of London.
I turn to clause 73, which I welcome in principle. It is the requirement that the College of Policing issue a code of practice on ethical policing. The College of Policing already publishes a code of ethics, so I assume from the drafting of the clause that the new code of practice relies on a trickle-down effect from chief officers, rather than being—as we all thought it would be—a general duty for all officers at all ranks to be open and honest with the public when mistakes are made. The importance of leadership in driving and improving culture is recognised in our policing report, but the public are entitled to expect openness and honesty from officers at all levels. The creation of a less defensive culture across policing is necessary to rebuild public trust and confidence in the police.
Priti Patel
The right hon. Lady is making a powerful speech and has concentrated on the ethics of policing in a constructive way. The Government are introducing the duty of candour, which we welcome, although there has to be concern about how that fits within the overall structure of the language of ethical policing, which is important. She will be familiar with the work of the College of Policing and of His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services and its chief inspector, former police constable Andy Cooke, who has been doing a great deal of work on this. It has to be deliverable. We are learning lessons from Hillsborough and other reports in the past, but we need specifics about what this means in practice.
Dame Diana Johnson
I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady, who speaks with great knowledge about this area and about how legislation has to be deliverable. It has to work for every officer at every level in all our police forces, so there is a job of work to be done. I hope that in Committee the information on how it will all fit together will become clear. The Home Office has said that the duty will filter down to all officers. The concern of the Home Affairs Committee is that if we are really serious about changing police culture we need more than just a hope that things will cascade down. We need clear responsibilities and clear duties.
Clause 74 gives chief officers a statutory right to appeal to a police appeals tribunal against a disciplinary decision. I would like to highlight again that the Home Affairs Committee heard, on several occasions, that simply giving chief constables more powers of appeal will not solve the underlying problem of the initial quality of investigations or even the confusion over the definition of misconduct. That has proved very problematic in dealing with disciplinary cases, so more clarity on that is needed.
The Bill will allow the Secretary of State to enable appeals by police and crime commissioners in limited circumstances where the chief constable is the officer subject to a misconduct decision. The Home Affairs Committee has previously questioned whether extending rights to challenge misconduct hearing outcomes in general to police and crime commissioners would create a conflict of interest for them. The Committee was concerned that giving PCCs extra powers to challenge individual misconduct hearing outcomes could encourage them to stray into operational decision making, and that the often party political and elected nature of their posts could be seen to influence their decisions. The Committee concluded that PCCs should drive systematic improvements in local forces, for example by taking steps to assure themselves that misconduct and competence processes are fit for purpose, rather than intervening in individual cases.
At this point, I want to make a comment about something that is not in the Bill, but which the Committee would have liked to have seen in it. The Independent Office for Police Conduct has, very unusually for such an organisation, one post for the roles of chief executive and chair. The Committee has been concerned about that for some time, and a review of the structure of the IOPC is ongoing. Separating out those two very important roles would be an important part of the reform of the IOPC that is perhaps still needed, and that is not in the Bill.
Clauses 15 to 17 expand police powers to test suspects in police detention for drugs. I would be really grateful if the Minister was able to confirm what resourcing will be put in to ensure that any increase in those testing positive for the extended range of drugs will be matched by the necessary diversion services. I think we all want the Government’s 10-year drug strategy to meet its aims and objectives, but if it is to do that we must be clear that much more work needs to happen.
As the Committee set out in its recent report on drugs, we must have the right interventions in place to help people break away from the terrible cycles of addiction and criminality that drug addiction can cause. They need the right support to let them deal with addiction, but they also need psychosocial support and interventions to deal with the underlying trauma that may have led them to drugs in the first place. I welcome the measures in clauses 1 to 3, including the creation of a new offence to better enable law enforcement agencies to prove illicit use of pill presses. That is very welcome, and it too was proposed in our drugs report. However, I hoped that the Government might make an announcement about a roll-out of naloxone to all police forces. In Scotland it is carried by all police officers, and it plays an important part in saving the lives of people who have taken an overdose.
Clause 19 deals with extending the powers of the police in respect of acquisitive crime. There are some important unanswered questions here. First, can the Minister provide examples of what might constitute “reasonable grounds” for believing that goods are stolen and on the specified premises? Secondly, how confident is she that the new power to enter any premises without a warrant will be used proportionately? Thirdly, given that forces are committed to following
“all reasonable lines of enquiry”
in the case of every crime, may I ask how they can be adequately resourced to undertake what they have promised to do?
There are a couple of other measures, recommended by the Select Committee in the past, that I hoped would be in the Bill. The first involves retail crime. We made a very specific recommendation that certain offences be created. A few weeks ago, the manager of my local Co-op was showing me the system that it had on its CCTV. While I was at the back of the store, someone came in, opened the door of the fridge, scooped out all the chicken legs and thighs and other kinds of meat, and then left. According to those at the Co-op, the crime that they see the most is organised crime. It is not a case of someone stealing a loaf of bread or some sandwiches; people are going into stores and stealing every day, and that needs to be addressed.
This issue has already been raised, but I still do not understand why each and every one of our police forces—rather than just two thirds of them—does not have specialised units dealing with rape and serious sexual assaults, when all the evidence makes it clear that what is needed is specialist investigation of those very serious crimes.
There is another provision that is not in the Bill and ought to be, in the light of recent disturbing and tragic events. I have mentioned several times in the Chamber that women can still face prosecution under section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 if they end a pregnancy after the legal time limit. In 1861 Queen Victoria was on the throne, Charles Dickens was writing “Great Expectations”, women could not vote or be Members of Parliament, and the age of consent was 12. The maximum penalty under section 58 is life imprisonment.
Between 1861 and November 2022, just three women were convicted of having an illegal abortion, but let us make no mistake: this not a defunct piece of legislation quietly gathering dust on the shelf. Since December 2022 one woman has been convicted for a late termination, and six women are awaiting trial. We also know that police officers have investigated at least 52 women over the past eight years on the basis of suspicions that abortions have taken place after the legal limit.
Abortion care providers also report a stark increase in information requests from the police. For example, after Hampshire police found a human placenta in woodland in Southampton over the summer, it contacted the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and asked for details of anyone who had been seen at a clinic but turned away because they were past the time limit at which they could seek an abortion. That request was made without any court order. Earlier this year, it was reported that distressed women who have had miscarriages are being tested for abortion drugs by the police. Abortion providers have warned that women suspected of illegal abortions have been pushed into having these tests while in hospital, with no legal representation and without their proper consent being obtained. No woman should be pursued by the police for ending her pregnancy.
Those calling for the threat of criminal prosecution relating to abortion to be lifted from women include the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Midwives, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and Rape Crisis England & Wales. That is why I will be tabling a new clause to remove women from the criminal law relating to abortion. Let me be very clear with everybody: this is a very limited and highly targeted amendment. It would not change any law regarding the provision of abortion services within a healthcare setting in England and Wales. The abortion time limit, the legal grounds for abortion and the requirement for two doctors’ approval would all stay as they are. What the amendment would do is usher in an end to women being put in jail for having an abortion, and in 2023, I hope that we can all come together and agree on that course of action.
Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). She knows that I very much agree with the sentiment that she has just expressed around the criminalisation of women who are in one of the most difficult situations. In years gone by, people who took their own lives were subject to the criminal law. We have seen the error of our ways and changed the law on that, and I hope that we will on this too.
There are many good things in this Bill, and we have heard from the Home Secretary that there are more good things to follow, particularly the legal duty to report child sexual abuse and the prohibiting of sex offenders from changing their names. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has had a great deal to do with those measures and she certainly has my fulsome thanks for all the work she has done on them. These are important changes, and the fact that the Government have listened demonstrates not only the strength of her arguments but the strength of our ministerial team.
There is nothing more corrosive than the fear of crime, and we therefore have to be careful in how we use language to frame this debate. At the beginning of today’s debate, there were way too many statistics being bandied around for my liking, so I am going to start my comments with one fact. I was going to quote Mark Twain, but I am not sure that the word “lie” is acceptable parliamentary language, so I will not talk about lies and statistics; I will just talk about facts.
One of the most important facts, and one that will help to stop an unnecessary fear of crime, is that this Government have put in place 20,000 more police officers. We now have over 149,000 police officers in England and Wales and the fact is that that is the highest number on record. That is unequivocal. I would like to pay tribute to my local constabulary, Hampshire police, and particularly to my police and crime commissioner, Donna Jones, because they have gone above and beyond what the Government asked for, which was around 500 new officers in Hampshire. More than 600 new officers have been recruited to Hampshire. Those are facts, not statistics, so hopefully we can all agree on them.
It is important that we do not use inflammatory language when it comes to crime, because people become unnecessarily concerned. I see that on the doorstep when people start talking about their fear of burglary, whereas the Home Secretary has rightly said that burglary rates have fallen dramatically. There are many other sorts of crime that we should be concerned about, so let us not make our residents concerned about things that have fallen dramatically.
As my right hon. Friend said, this Bill demonstrates the constantly changing shape of crime. People find new unacceptable ways to benefit from others, and we have to make sure they become illegal. Following some very high-profile cases, of which we are all aware, I very much welcome the introduction of a broader offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm. I also welcome the new aggravating factors that increase the seriousness of child sex offences where there is grooming, and of murder connected with the end of a relationship. There are important changes to be made.
There will be a duty on the College of Policing to issue a code of practice on ethical policing, which is particularly important for those of us who are proximate to the Met police—my constituency almost neighbours the Met.
There are powers for the courts to order the attendance of offenders at sentencing hearings, and to punish them if they do not attend—again, this follows some very high-profile cases. Obviously, refusing to attend a sentencing hearing can cause huge distress to families.
The Bill also has measures on knife crime. Basingstoke is a county-lines town, as we are a gateway to Hampshire. We have seen some horrific knife crimes involving young people, often from south London, and I am not surprised to see that knives account for more than 40% of homicides in the last year. The Government have introduced measures to increase the maximum penalty and to criminalise the intent to cause fear of violence, and these are all things that need to be better dealt with in law.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) spoke about the antisocial behaviour provisions, which will introduce new powers to lower the age limit of community protection notices to cover younger perpetrators aged 10 or above. It is sad that I recognise the measure’s importance, because my local police have talked to me about people under the age of 16 who are creating appalling nuisance and antisocial behaviour in my community. Extending community protection notices to that younger age group, and increasing the upper limit of fixed penalty notices, will help to give the police the tools they need to deal with the real crime in our community.
I will now comment on two particular elements of the Bill, before suggesting a couple more that the Minister may want to think about. Although I understand the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford, I think the measures on nuisance begging and rough sleeping will be more warmly received in my community than she suggests, because organised begging in our town centre, often by criminal gangs, and begging that causes a nuisance around shops and cash machines is a concern not only to residents but to retailers and business owners. It is important that we have measures in place to deal with these issues as robustly as possible, but—and this is an important but—they need to go hand in hand with effective measures to make sure we do not simply move the problem of rough sleeping either into our prisons or into other communities.
We ran a very effective programme in Basingstoke under the then Conservative administration that I hope the current independent administration will continue. It was started by then Councillor Terri Reid, who worked with Julian House, a well-known charity that, through its outreach work, supports rough sleepers into accommodation and into the help they need. If the Minister’s intention with this Bill is to marry together these provisions with effective support, I can see how it might work. This measure worked in my constituency because the money that was given by the Government to the upper tier authority was passported down to the lower tier one, and it could then work much closer to the community and to the problem, making sure that we have effective plans in place. The number of people now homeless in my community is extremely small indeed.
Tracey Crouch
I want to put on the record, for clarity, that the Bill contains separate provisions to deal with nuisance begging and with nuisance rough sleeping. Nuisance begging is absolutely an issue that blights communities, and people from across the House will agree that the provisions from clause 38 to clause 50 are definitely necessary—the question is whether that needs to be done in this Bill. Nuisance rough sleeping is addressed from clause 51 and it is entirely separate. The criminalisation of the rough sleepers is the issue here, not the nuisance begging, which is dealt with under entirely separate provisions.
Dame Maria Miller
Let me confirm that I was talking about rough sleeping. The antisocial behaviour action plan, which is cited in the explanatory notes, to provide the support that is needed is vague, and I hope that the Minister will reassure us that far more support will be given to local authorities if these measures come through, to make sure that they have effective provisions in place.
I will speed up, Mr Speaker. The provisions in the Bill on intimate image abuse relate directly to the Law Commission’s work in this area. Again, I pay tribute to it for bringing forward those provisions and to the Government for taking them up. They will start to complete the necessary legislation to protect individuals from intimate image abuse online. To have an intimate image published online without one’s consent is akin to rape and it is now being dealt with in the criminal law, for which the Government are to be applauded. I also thank Professor Clare McGlynn, at Durham University, who has done so much work in making sure that these provisions are as they should be.
There are a couple of issues where the Government might consider adding provisions into the Bill. I have already raised the first of those with the Home Secretary in my intervention: non-consensual intimate images not being removed online, even though they may have been part of a criminal case where somebody is now in jail. There are mechanisms for us to be able to remove these images, but it sounds as though some people are not removing them and that the law may need to be tightened further. Finally, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North has suggested that this Bill may be a place to decriminalise abortion for women. We will come later on, perhaps in the remaining stages, to whether this Bill is the right place to do that, when there is perhaps not sufficient time to go through all the details. If that were to be the case, I gently suggest that perhaps the Government will want to look again at my sentencing guidelines Bill so that we make sure we continue to take incremental steps to modernise the way women are treated in the law on abortion. We have had provisions on buffer zones and telemedicine, and sentencing could well be a way in which we could make sure that women are starting to be treated in the way they should be: as patients and not as criminals when it comes to abortion.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
This Bill presents a precious opportunity to address some of the big problems that exist within our justice system. Despite this Bill making some progress on the sentencing of serious offenders, it is frustrating that the Government are seemingly refusing to use it to fix those fundamental problems. I hope I am wrong or, at the very least, that this is just a starting point and the Bill will be improved during its passage through both Houses. I commend all the recommendations that hon. Members have made today.
Let me start with the positives. I am genuinely relieved that the Government have finally introduced legislation on the non-consensual sharing of intimate images. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has reported that nearly a quarter of girls who have taken a nude photo have had their image sent to someone else online without their permission. I and many others have called repeatedly for action on this issue. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) for her persistent work and successful campaigning, and I assure the Minister that she will continue campaigning until the law properly reflects what is needed.
I am also supportive of increased powers to ensure that offenders attend their own sentencing hearings. Sentencing should be a moment of justice for victims and families. For abusers and perpetrators to refuse to take the stand is morally wrong, as it denies closure to those they have harmed. The Government must ensure that the measures are balanced, but their priority should be to ensure that victims receive the outcome they need.
Now for the “needs improvement” section. I welcome clause 23, which makes grooming an aggravating factor when an offender is being sentenced for child sexual abuse. I hope victims will begin to feel that the jail time that their abusers receive reflects the devastation that the crime causes. However, this is just one step in sentencing. Grooming is already an offence—I know that because I have already changed the law on it. If the Government genuinely want more prosecutions, they need to invest in our police and courts, which have been utterly decimated in the last 13 years. Introducing an aggravating factor to an offence that is already on the statute book will not get sentences meted out unless we have the resources to make that happen.
Likewise, I welcome the principle of mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, but unless there are fully funded police, investigative and criminal justice services, just reporting it becomes a tick-box exercise; it will make people feel that they have done their duty, but there will be no back office to actually prosecute the people carrying out the abuse. I worry that the measure is seen as an easy solution rather than getting into the detail.
Similarly, requiring judges to consider the end of a relationship as an aggravating factor in murder cases is a good step, but we should go further. We need recognition of something that is the precursor to the murder of many women: stalking. Why not take the opportunity that the Bill presents to address that? I continue to call on the Government to take stalking as seriously as other forms of violence. The Minister can use the Bill to prevent murders by rolling out harsher sentences for the factors that lead up to them.
Now for the bad, I am afraid. I am genuinely outraged that the Government are taking such draconian steps towards criminalising rough sleeping. I support 100% the comments made by the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). I am genuinely baffled why the Bill treats homelessness as a “nuisance” rather than providing the help that homeless people clearly need. During the pandemic, the Government did amazing work getting every rough sleeper off the streets. Why are they criminalising them now?
Crisis has stated that anyone who is judged to look as though they are going to sleep rough and is capable of causing a nuisance could fall foul of the Bill. That is not how we make good laws. No one would voluntarily choose to sleep on the street or in a tent. People do it because they are desperate. They need support, not to be criminalised, especially when our criminal justice system is already at breaking point. In reality, the police will take them off the street and put them in a cell for a night, and then they will be back out again the next morning. That is not a solution. Will the Minister work with her colleagues on housing rough sleepers and providing them with a long-term route out of poverty, rather than criminalising them?
This Bill is a missed opportunity for some of the changes that are needed in the justice system. I am keen to support my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) in amending the Bill to remove parental responsibility from all those convicted of sexual offences against children. We must also ensure that the Bill repeals the ridiculous, archaic laws that criminalise people when it is expressly not in the public interest to do so.
I give my support to the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and to what I believe will be the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), because women in 2023 should not be punished in criminal law for accessing abortion. I will be supporting the amendments that I believe they will be tabling to drag our laws out of the 19th century and into the 21st century, where women are entitled to support when making choices about their reproductive health.
Finally, I am surprised, relieved and delighted that the Home Secretary has announced that he will be adopting my legislation to prevent registered sex offenders from changing their name by deed poll. I pay tribute to Della for her campaign and to The Safeguarding Alliance, which has been working for years alongside me and other campaigners to make Ministers understand both the scale of this problem and the threat that it presents.
As I was coming down to London on Monday, I saw in the Metro a report of a teacher who had a relationship with a 15-year-old. He went to jail for three years because of it. He has now come out and changed his name, and he is working in a pop band. I believe that that presents a very real risk to other 15-year-olds. I really hope that the Minister will work with me and others to get the legislation right quickly, in order to protect everyone.
There are provisions in the Bill that are welcome, while others highlight weaknesses and areas that need to change. The issue is that the Government are bringing forward individual measures, rather than focusing on the much bigger problem—the lack of joined-up thinking around our justice system. There is much missing from the Bill that would ensure that the public were safe and that victims received the justice that they need, and I do hope the Minister addresses that.
The Conservatives can claim that they are tough on criminals, but when it comes to the practicalities of keeping the public safe from known offenders, I am saddened that, as it stands, this Bill is a missed opportunity. Please, Minister, do not just let this be PR and puff; let it be something that everybody can be proud of.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
I rise to support the Bill, which will help to make our constituents safer, including by imposing tougher sentences; imposing new measures to fight knife crime, including zombie knives; tackling violence against women and girls; and giving law enforcement agencies the powers that they need to respond to changing technology.
In the previous Session, we legislated to ensure that the most serious offenders serve longer in prison. Through this Bill, we will impose tougher sentences for child sex offences by making grooming an aggravating factor, and implement recommendations by introducing an aggravating factor for murder at the end of a relationship.
I wish to highlight the importance of judges imposing sentences that reflect the intent of this House. In 2022, we legislated to increase the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving, yet sentences continue to be too short. The mum, sister and stepfather of my constituent Summer Mace were killed in an appalling incident, but the offender got a sentence of only 10 and a half years and could be out after seven years. Ministers and Parliament need to make sure that the sentencing guidelines actually do what we legislate for.
Turning to some of the specifics in the Bill, I particularly welcome the new power in clause 22 to allow judges to compel offenders to attend sentencing hearings, rather than their hiding away in their cells to avoid victims or their families and the powerful victim statements that are made. That abuses the victims and their families all over again. This is something that I supported and campaigned for after a case in my North West Norfolk constituency where an offender refused to attend the sentencing hearing when he was found guilty of sexual assault of a girl under the age of 13, and of intimidating a witness. Indeed, he failed to attend most of the trial.
The explicit statement that reasonable force can be used by the police and escort officer staff will ensure that the power to make defendants appear in court is very clear. However, as it is currently drafted, that provision applies only to offenders awaiting sentencing for an offence for which a life sentence must or may be imposed. That would not address the case from my constituency, as the maximum sentence for that sexual offence was 14 years. Abusing a child is an incredibly serious offence. I therefore urge the Minister and the Home Secretary to look at the provision again and expand the range of offences to which it applies, because it is important for all victims that offenders face justice. It is important that there is punishment if the requirement is breached and that, where the new power cannot be used—for example, if someone is so violent or disruptive that it is not possible—there will be an additional custodial sentence of up to two years. I fully support that.
One issue I want to raise relates to bail. I hope Ministers will consider, through this Bill, amending the Bail Act 1976 to allow the imposition of electronic monitoring in police bail conditions. In an Adjournment debate that I led on behalf of my constituents on the dangerous driving case I mentioned and unduly lenient sentences, I spoke about the offender, who in June 2023 was sentenced for three counts of causing death by dangerous driving. At the time of the crash, he was on police bail for a driving offence and was subject to a curfew. He also had several previous convictions for motoring offences.
Currently, section 3 of the Bail Act allows courts to impose electronic monitoring as a condition of bail, but electronic monitoring is not permitted under the conditions of police bail. When that offender broke his curfew and set out that night to drive, there was no electronic monitoring in place. Who knows whether, if it had been in place, that tragedy might have been avoided? One of the changes that my constituent and her family are campaigning for is to allow electronic tagging in cases of police bail. Their petition in support of the change is backed by more than 13,000 people. I ask the Home Office to look at whether it can use this Bill to introduce a change to help to reduce the likelihood of other offenders committing such appalling acts.
There are many measures in the Bill that I support. Those to tackle the scourge of fraud are very welcome, given that that is the most common crime and one that causes true misery for our constituents, especially for vulnerable and elderly people. In particular, banning SIM farms, which are used by criminals to send thousands of scam texts at once, will help to protect people, together with the initiatives being taken by mobile networks. Of course, it is sensible that the Government can respond to developments by updating the list of banned technologies and articles through secondary legislation, rather than having to wait for another criminal justice Bill—although they do come round rather frequently.
The Bill includes new powers to help make our communities safer, to cut serious crime and to tackle antisocial behaviour. However, I have outlined specific improvements that I would like, and I hope that Ministers will consider them carefully and bring them forward as the Bill continues its passage.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
There are a number of measures in the Bill that we can all agree are very welcome, and I want to recognise that. However, there is a wider challenge for us all when we see such a deconstruction of our criminal justice system, given that parliamentary time is so rare and precious. Are we doing everything we can do through this Bill to tackle the challenges in our constituencies?
I am sad that the Home Secretary is not here. His approach to talking about knife crime will not go down well in my constituency. We are facing an epidemic of knife crime in our community. For many of my residents it is a sign of real concern that they see a lack not only of the police they want, but of the social fabric that we need, both to tackle knife crime and to prevent it in the first place. I am also sorry that our SNP colleague, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), is not in his place. He talked about the Glasgow model. I would go further than a public health model; I would go for an education model to try to prevent these issues in the first place.
I ask Ministers to look again at what more we can do to tackle knife crime. It has risen substantially and I am afraid that my local police consistently seem stretched to the point where they cannot do the work I know they want to do. I put on record my gratitude to the police for the work they are attempting to do, but we all know it is not enough.
The same is true for antisocial behaviour. My office has taken to mapping out the many areas where we know there is persistent drug dealing, in the hope that at some point we might be able to use that information to effect change and progress. We hear from residents that, even when they report things and try to do everything we tell them to do to stop those problems, nothing changes. I look at the Bill but do not see the measures that will help them with antisocial behaviour.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) is not in her seat because I absolutely agree with what she said about rough sleeping. There is a rough-sleeping epidemic in my local community. Criminalising it—separately from begging—will not help us to deal with it, and, indeed, could be counter-productive. I hope that, as the Bill progresses, we recognise the overwhelming cries from those in our brilliant night shelters, who work on the ground to tackle rough sleeping, about how counter-productive that would be.
I put on record my gratitude for the work of Daniel Johnson, a Labour/Co-op MSP, on tackling violence against shopworkers. My Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), has done brilliant work on that in this Parliament. We have a model for what works. We know that our shopworkers deserve better; they are trying to help us. I hope that we can finally agree that such legislation is needed.
In an outpouring of collegiality, let me also agree with everything that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) said, as well as with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who is a powerhouse of changes in this place, as she has proved yet again. I agree with the case made by my right hon. Friend about the decriminalisation of abortion. I will focus on that in my speech because I will also table an amendment on that matter. I will set out why I believe we can take that way forward. I think there is growing agreement that the issue needs to be addressed.
Indeed, on 15 June, when faced again with the evidence of the continued prosecution, criminalisation and incarceration of women for having abortions, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), challenged us by saying that it was up to this place to do something about that if it had a problem with it, particularly the difference now between the experience of women in Northern Ireland and women in England and Wales. He tried to argue that the House made a decision knowing that it would create a different regime for access to abortion in Northern Ireland. I disagree. As somebody who was heavily involved, I do not think that, when we voted, we deliberately wanted to give second-class status to our constituents in England and Wales as to their rights. But I also recognise the challenge that the Minister set us that day: to test the will of the House through a free vote on an amendment to a piece of legislation.
Let me clear: I intend to table an amendment to begin that process of testing whether an Englishwoman’s right to choose should be confined by a piece of legislation from the 1600s. We know that abortion is a routine health procedure. One in three women in this country will have one in their lifetime. This Bill is the right place to act, because even if we see abortion as a healthcare matter, it is first and foremost a criminal offence that every one of those women is enacting before seeking exemption from prosecution.
When Roe v. Wade was repealed in America last year, many were quick to dismiss the idea that such attacks on women’s basic rights were possible in this country—access to abortion was secure and reflected the settled will of the people—but in the last few months alone, we have seen what the Government have done on buffer zones, for which the House voted overwhelmingly. Those same voices are silent as the Government drag their heels on the implementation of buffer zones, which are the will of Parliament.
In the meantime, multiple women are awaiting trial, under a law that is older than Germany, for the offence of just having an abortion. Last year, six women were charged with having an abortion. Each of them could, in theory, spend the rest of their lives behind bars. It is not just about the high-profile cases that have gone to court and been in the press, and the prison sentences that the legislation drives; investigations into women have rocketed in the last few years, too. Police data shows that, since 2015, 52 women have been reported for having an abortion.
I am sorry to disagree with the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), who is no longer in her place, but I genuinely feel that looking at sentencing guidelines alone will not do. It is having the offence in the first place that is driving those investigations and prosecutions. The cases that come to court are the tip of the iceberg of a culture in which we use a woman’s reproductive capacity against her at a time when she is most vulnerable. Many people agree that that is wrong, but we in this House have yet to address it because we have always put decriminalising abortion in the “too difficult” box.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Ind)
I have been listening very carefully to the hon. Lady. Can I ask her to explain why there is a sudden rash of prosecutions of women? It seems extraordinary. What is the catalyst that has caused it?
Stella Creasy
I wish I could tell the hon. Gentleman what I think is the cause for sure. There are a number of pressures—perhaps the move towards telemedicine or a renewed interest in the issue—but I hope we can agree that in the 21st century the idea that having an abortion in and of itself is a criminal offence is outdated and unworkable with a commitment to equality between the sexes. Indeed, we are increasingly seeing—I know this will shock him—any woman who has had a miscarriage or stillbirth being at risk of being dragged into a criminal investigation.
A young teenager called Megan suffered a stillbirth at 28 weeks. The police investigated Megan’s involvement in her child’s death for a year before the post-mortem confirmed that the pregnancy loss was due to natural causes. She faced that ordeal while dealing with the trauma of stillbirth, and it resulted in her needing emergency psychiatric care. She is not the only one. Another young teenager, unaware she was pregnant, delivered a stillborn child. Once this was declared, her hospital room was flooded with police officers—the presumption of foul play assumed before a post-mortem or a doctor’s examination. Although sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 have become more widely known, it is section 60 that is most frequently used to charge an individual at initial stage, and that was originally written in 1643 to be used to prosecute where there was a suspicion of abortion. That is why senior obstetricians are now raising concerns that the provision, if it stays on the statute book, leaves bereaved parents exposed to intrusive questioning and investigation from the police.
For those who have suffered a stillbirth, the knock on the door that they need is from a counsellor, not a constable. If these cases were occurring in Northern Ireland, women would not face this pressure. That is why in 2019 MPs in this place voted to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland. It is also why women in Northern Ireland now have buffer zones; they are part of a decriminalised process and protected as such. Crucially, when we know people wish to attack a woman’s basic right to choose, in Northern Ireland the Secretary of State must uphold that human right to choose to have an abortion—safely, legally and locally. Those who seek to frustrate that access, whether through formal or informal ways, face a Government who know they will have to go to court if they do not overcome those barriers and protect the rights of women to choose. That is because that legislation is founded under the auspices of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—a treaty that we technically have yet to ratify fully, but which expressly states that states parties should remove criminalisation of abortion and
“withdraw punitive measures…on women who undergo abortion”.
The amendment that I will table this evening, which is open to all MPs to support—and which I hope I can convince my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North to co-sign—does not ask for something new or to set a new precedent. It is rooted in practice and evidence about what works when we are protecting the human right of women in the UK to choose. This is not untested because decriminalisation of abortion has already happened not just in Northern Ireland, but in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We are simply asking for equality and for somebody in Government whose role it would be to uphold that right to access an abortion without the threat of punitive measures.
In tabling my amendment I want to be very clear, because I understand that there will be concerns, especially in the light of recent court cases: nothing in my proposal will change the time limits in the Abortion Act 1967. Indeed, my amendment would explicitly enshrine those limits in future regulations. We should all be clear that 90% of abortions in this country happen before 10 weeks and that those having late-term abortions often do so for the most heartbreaking of reasons—the fatal foetal abnormality that means that if we try to move the time limit, we force women to give birth to babies they know will die. After carrying a much wanted child, we would be criminalising them rather than medicalising this matter.
Decriminalisation is about taking away the threat of prosecution. It does not take away the principle of viability in accessing services, so I state here and now—and for the purposes to be repeated online and offline as we move through the issue—that a vote for decriminalisation is explicitly a vote against abortion up to birth, though some have tried to scare otherwise. It is not the case in Northern Ireland, and it will not be the case here. Neither is it a vote for no regulation: the removal of the criminal underpinning of our legislation would mean its replacement with a medical one that puts the health of women first and ensures appropriate professional delivery of services as well as clinical safeguards.
I know there are some who will never want this progress. I respect their views: I respect the fact that they do not believe abortion should be an option, and will fight for their voices to be heard in this democracy. Surely we all want positive sex education in all our schools and support access to contraceptives, which will reduce the number of abortions required. However, many more of us disagree that a woman should be forced to give birth, and recognise that having bodily autonomy is a human rights issue.
The Northern Ireland experience shows that it is possible to make progress but also means that we currently have a two-tier system, with women in the UK being given different rights depending on where they live. Why should the women of Birmingham, Bangor, Bradford, Bury, Broadstairs, Bournemouth and Barking not enjoy the same protection of buffer zones as the women of Belfast? If colleagues voted for those buffer zones in Northern Ireland, why would they not extend them to their own constituents? If colleagues were not in this place to vote for them in Northern Ireland, why would they accept their own constituents being considered second-class citizens when it comes to their basic human rights?
Now is the time to recognise the damage being done because our criminal code does not allow a right to be accessed safely, legally, locally and equally across our nations. We know that this will be a long fight, that the wording may change and different variations may be put forward, but we also know that the time is now. Colleagues who agree—who do not want to see women prosecuted, obstetricians worried and stillbirths penalised in this way—should co-sign our amendment and say, “It is now an equal time to choose for all our constituents.”
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
I am pleased to welcome the Bill, and many of the measures to tackle serious organised crime and antisocial behaviour that it contains. These are important issues that are often raised by my constituents in surgeries and through surveys, because they impact on people’s daily life and their sense of safety and belonging in their community. I pay tribute to the work of Sussex police, as well as the Government funding that has focused action on the town centre most particularly, delivering the safer streets that give people the confidence to be out and about, especially in the night-time economy. However, I will confine my remarks not to measures that are in the Bill but to one measure that is not in the Bill but might be.
If there is one place where everyone should feel safe, it is surely within the comfort and confines of their own home, but the reality is that thousands of vulnerable people across the country are terrorised in their own home by criminals who take control of that home and use the property for criminal purposes. That horrendous exploitation is known as cuckooing, where criminals target the most vulnerable, such as socially isolated people, those with learning difficulties or those dealing with addiction and drug use. They may initially befriend those people, or may simply threaten them. They are often violent, ultimately taking over the victim’s home to store drugs, grow cannabis and facilitate prostitution or any number of other criminal activities. The influence of cuckooing goes further and wider, because the neighbours of people whose homes have been invaded have to contend with disruption, antisocial behaviour and intimidation from the criminals who operate from that property.
Cuckooing happens across all communities in our country, including—I am very sorry to say—in my own constituency of Eastbourne, and it is a rapidly growing problem. Figures from Sussex police reflect that: in the past five years, there has been a tenfold increase in cuckooing. Understanding the impact on the victim in one local case—their powerlessness, despair and shame at having been so abused and exploited—must surely command further action.
Bob Stewart
May I ask my hon. Friend what the reason is for a tenfold increase in cuckooing in Eastbourne?
Caroline Ansell
I thank my right hon. and gallant Friend for his question. I cannot explain the increase in Eastbourne, but I imagine that the increase is across the land. There will be an increase and an uptick because it has been found to be a very effective way for criminal gangs to operate, and they move from home to home to evade detection. It is an absolutely vile crime, but one that clearly lends itself to the activities being pursued.
It was actually a real shock to me to discover that this hostile takeover or invasion—this taking over of somebody’s home—was not already a crime. However, I believe the Government recognise the need for it to be, because in the antisocial behaviour action plan, published just in March, there was a commitment
“to target the awful practice of ‘cuckooing’ or home invasion”
and a pledge or commitment to
“engage with stakeholders on making it a new criminal offence.”
Indeed, Emily Drew, who is the exploitation co-ordinator at Sussex police, substantiated that point when she said:
“It’s definitely hard to tackle cuckooing when it’s not technically a crime. There are lots of other tools and powers we can utilise and we can be quite creative with it but it does rely on perpetrators committing other offences.”
Hence the real challenge of making this a stand-alone and discrete crime.
Clearly the action plan was a very positive step forward, but at the moment the Bill does not include such an offence. However, in his opening remarks, the Secretary of State talked of “every possible support” and “additional powers” for the police. He spoke about people feeling safe in their homes, and about opportunities during the passage of the Bill to consider further amendments to cover some of the concerns raised by hon. Members. I very much hope that the Bill will provide the perfect opportunity to introduce a new criminal offence to outlaw cuckooing once and for all. I hope the Minister and the excellent ministerial team, with the Secretary of State, will bring forward such an amendment in due course.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to speak to some of the amendments and proposals outlined in this Bill, and to echo some of the comments made by right hon. and hon. Members. One of the key things in it—requiring individuals who are facing a sentence to come up and hear their sentencing—is a step in the right direction. I am sure that provision is welcomed, and it is good to see that the Home Secretary and Ministers are listening to many of the bereaved families about the impact non-attendance has on them. They have spoken about how it is distressing, exacerbates trauma and essentially denies them the opportunity to address the perpetrators. However, I hope that the Minister, in responding, will address some of the concerns of campaigners and organisations, including Justice, which have highlighted that the use of force may have a disproportionate impact on BAME offenders and could also put custody officers and prisoners at risk. I hope that the Government will bear that in mind when they are looking at how to implement this power.
Bob Stewart
I totally agree with what the hon. Lady has said. Are we envisaging someone who refuses point blank to come into court to receive their sentence being forced into court by police officers and manacled to the dock? Personally I agree with that, but is that what we are envisaging?
Florence Eshalomi
This is where we need clarity, not only for offenders but for prison officers who are going to be dealing with those people and making sure no harm comes to them. There must be a clear definition of the use of force, recognising that this is a very distressing time for the families and those in the dock but also recognising that there must be appropriate use of force.
Many Members have highlighted the second area I want to focus on: the new proposal on the power of nuisance begging and nuisance rough sleeping. The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) are not in the Chamber at present, but I agree entirely with their comments. There is no mention in the proposals of any support to address rough sleeping, yet we have a number of punitive measures that will only end up criminalising people who are already facing a difficult and challenging time. Those measures will do nothing to end rough sleeping and homelessness. Specifically, the penalty for nuisance begging or nuisance rough sleeping is one month of imprisonment. The measure might not work, either, because the Government have been honest in saying that there is a lack of capacity in prisons—there is just no space. That is evident in the Government’s proposals in clauses 25 to 29 to transfer individuals to rented prisons abroad.
Short-term prison sentences are expensive, and studies show that they do not work in having a positive impact on re-offending. I am co-chair of the all-party group for ending homelessness, and our inquiry last year heard from many people who had experienced rough sleeping and homelessness. The key issues they highlighted were mental health problems, substance abuse, domestic abuse, alcohol and poverty. All of them are key drivers in forcing people to experience rough sleeping and homeless.
Stella Creasy
Given that this is a Home Office Bill, does my hon. Friend recognise that one of the challenges we are seeing is an increasing number of people who are refugees becoming homeless because they are given such short notice that they are no longer going to be housed in hotels? Perhaps if we had a little more notice and planning we might be able to avoid some of those people sleeping rough, because we could work with them to make sure they were able to find housing or other accommodation in their new country when they have the status they need to be here.
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that matter, because it is as if she is reading my mind. Our all-party group took evidence from a number of different organisations as well as London councils, refugees and people from the Homes for Ukraine scheme. We heard about people who had been housed and supported by various councils and host families, but who were now presenting to councils up and down the country as homeless with nowhere to go. The Government need a joined-up approach to addressing this.
We also have to recognise that people who are rough sleeping are also very vulnerable and are more likely to be victims of crime and antisocial behaviour, yet they will not report that to the police because of the stigma of being homeless.
Everyone needs a good-quality home to live in. It is central to our wellbeing and our physical and mental health, and it should be a basic human right. I urge the Minister and the Government to remove the clause in question and instead to work with local authorities, charities, shelters and organisations including St Mungo’s, Crisis, Shelter, Homeless Link and a range of others, who are working hard to provide support to people so that everyone can find a decent home and keep it.
I also want to talk about the vetting, suspension and misconduct of police officers. This Bill presented a good opportunity to introduce reform in those areas. We have had various reports and studies on police conduct both in London and across the country, and the fact that seven of our police forces are still in special measures should alarm us. The duty of candour for police under clause 73 falls short of the wholesale review we need in policing. There is a requirement on the College of Policing to issue a code of practice to set out the actions to be taken by a chief officer. That essentially leaves the College of Policing to determine what
“acting in an open and transparent way”
means.
One of the key areas cited in Baroness Casey’s report was the defensiveness of organisations such as the Met police when faced with criticism. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) put forward a number of sensible proposals to look at reforming that, and they go way beyond what the Government are outlining in the Bill. They include automatic dismissal for a serving officer convicted of a serious criminal offence, automatic suspension of an officer charged with a serious criminal offence and automatic dismissal of a serving officer who fails their vetting. That would help restore some of the trust and confidence in our policing, because at the moment criminals see that those who are supposed to uphold the law are not within the law themselves and are facing criminal charges. That should not be happening.
We welcome some of the good measures in the Bill. Some of the measures on knife crime are good, but on their own will they not go far enough to address knife crime. One of the most difficult things I have had to do as a Member of Parliament is to meet bereaved families. I have sat in a family’s front room and looked over their shoulder and seen a picture of the loved one they have lost—that young smiling face. I held my constituent’s mum earlier this year after her daughter was brutally murdered at 4 pm on 1 May. She asked me, “Why?” She asked why she has to wait over a year to get justice for her daughter. There is nothing you can say.
Just introducing new measures and legislation on zombie knives and other knives will not address the chronic issue of knife crime that we see across the country. We need a full-scale, holistic public health approach. We need funding, education and a mental health approach to dealing with the root causes of knife crime. We cannot just lock people up to get out of this—that is not the solution. Those who have lost family members know that is not the solution, and they want to work with the Government to address this matter properly. I ask the Government again: instead of introducing yet another measure on knife crime, will they work with local authorities, youth services, councils and police forces up and down the country to have a wholesale public health approach to dealing with this pandemic of knife crime?
Hate crime has sadly risen, too. Earlier this year there was a horrific hate crime attack at the Two Brewers in Clapham in my constituency. We have seen a massive increase in LGBTQI+ hate crime. Someone being attacked simply for who they love is wrong. Again, the community feel that when they come forward to report such crimes to the police, their concerns are not taken seriously. Will the Government look at the inefficiencies in reporting and addressing those crimes?
A number of Members have mentioned retail crime and visits they have made to stores in their constituencies. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), I visited a Co-op store in my constituency. In the South Lambeth Road store, shopworkers mentioned a situation where the same offender had come to the shop 17 times. Shopworkers are going out to work every day knowing that they could be physically attacked and abused, and that is not right. I started my working life in Sainsbury’s on Clapham High Street. Yes, customers could sometimes be aggressive, especially when the focaccia bread was sold out by 11 am on Saturday morning—it was Clapham High Street—but no one should have to tolerate abuse and physical abuse just for going to work. Staff on the frontline in our retail shops are being attacked day in, day out, and that cannot go on. The Government are not recognising that, and are saying that thefts under £200 will not be looked at. We need to ensure that the police have the resources to address this issue, because low-level antisocial behaviour escalates. In some cases, that physical and verbal abuse, God forbid, turns into a stabbing and an innocent shop worker being killed. We should not have that happening to our frontline workers. There are sensible proposals in the Bill, but I urge the Government to think carefully about those that will not have an impact in addressing the key issues of crime and antisocial behaviour.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
The Conservative writer and statesman John Buchan said:
“You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass.”
Too often, our constituents are exposed to how fragile that thread is as they deal with the barbarity of crime. It is true that, as the new Home Secretary said, some crimes have fallen—burglary has certainly declined, as well as some other crimes—but too many of our constituents have a diminishing faith in the rule of law. Order delivers and depends on a secure sense of certainty shaped by shared values and, as communities become increasingly fragmented by social breakdown, those values are eroded. There are many reasons for that, but just two of them are the pace and character of change. We cannot admit 1.3 million people into the country in just two years and hope that communities will hang together. In some places, there is nothing to integrate into, even if the people coming would like to do so. We have to deal with the rapid pace of change and its effect on the character of community and the shared values on which we all depend.
There is another problem, which sadly is prevalent in the Chamber; I hear it prosecuted many times. That is to assume that the focus in criminal justice should be on the criminal, not the crime; the cause, not the event. That implicitly limits—I would say that it reduces—our concern for victims as we perpetually ask why something has happened rather than what has happened. The effect of a crime—the event—is immediately felt, and the consequences of that event are measurable, so let us stop agonising about why, and deal with what and how, and what we will do about it.
What will the Government do about it in the Bill? There is much to be welcomed. The new crackdown on antisocial behaviour is overdue and insufficient but welcome. There is the concentration on knife crime and new offences for carrying knives. That, by the way, needs to be backed up with much more extensive use of stop and search—I hope we will hear that from the Minister when she winds up—because there is no point in having something on the statute book that says, “If you carry a weapon, you will be prosecuted” if we do not know whether people are carrying one or not. We know that stop and search works and we want to see more of it.
There are also sensible changes to the laws on vagrancy. Again, let us be crystal clear about those changes. The Bill says—this is not the hyperbole we have heard from some Opposition Members—that we will ban begging where it is causing a public nuisance such as by a cashpoint, in a shop doorway, on public transport, or approaching people in their cars at traffic lights. It will also introduce a new offence targeted at organised begging, which can be facilitated by criminal gangs to gain money for illicit activity—that is organised, orchestrated begging on a large scale. It will also introduce powers for the police and local authorities to address rough sleeping where it is causing damage, disruption, harassment, distress, or a security or health and safety risk such as the obstruction of fire exits or blocking pavements. That all sounds eminently reasonable.
Of course, those measures are not part of a bigger strategy on homelessness—I acknowledge and accept that—but my constituents tell me that they suffer from exactly the things that I have just detailed and want something done about it. The Government are to be congratulated for responding to those calls. The Government are right, too, to insist that criminals are in court when sentenced. We all saw recently that Lucy Letby was able to avoid meeting the families of her victims by cowering in her cell when she was duly sentenced.
There are things that are not in the Bill. I would have liked it to look at raising minimum and maximum sentences for all kinds of crimes. I would like more custodial sentences, not fewer, and not just for serious crimes. We have heard a lot about shoplifting. Let us imagine if we said to our constituents that the Government are increasing sentences for serious crimes, but a perpetual shoplifter will never go to prison; someone engaged in criminal damage by defacing or attacking a war memorial in our constituencies will not go to prison; someone involved in perpetual antisocial behaviour will not go to prison. That is not good enough, it is not what our constituents expect or want and it is not what the Government should do.
Richard Graham
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the power of community payback is enormous, visible and makes a huge difference to our communities? When those who commit petty crimes are seen to be painting or gardening in city or town parks, the offence is commensurate with the justice mooted, and we can all benefit from that.
Sir John Hayes
Yes, but it is a big mistake to assume that the principle aim of criminal justice is to avoid recidivism. That seems to underpin much of what the Government think. It is true that we want to stop people becoming perpetual criminals, but that is not the only measure of criminal justice. The purpose of justice is to punish. People want to see
“the infliction of an ill suffered for an ill done”.
For people’s faith in criminal justice to be maintained, they need to know that if someone does something wrong, they will suffer for it.
Similarly, imprisoning someone takes them away from where they committed the crime and thereby stops them from committing another. In the case of shoplifting, at the very least it provides respite for those plagued by shoplifters—often, the same families, groups and social networks are involved in that concentrated and organised shoplifting. It is not the person stealing the occasional thing; unfortunately, it has been institutionalised in certain criminal communities and among a certain kind of felon. We need to think about criminal justice in those terms. Community sentencing can play a part, but it is important that criminal justice is retributive. That argument is made to me perpetually by my constituents, but in their eyes, it seems to fall on deaf ears among the political elite. Protecting the public, punishing criminals and providing victims with a sense that justice has been done are all essential to maintain popular faith in criminal justice.
I know that others want to speak, and too many speeches in this Chamber are too long. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is no such thing as a political speech that is too short. So I will conclude with a different quote from a different character. C S Lewis said:
“I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can.”
We will never eradicate the wickedness of crime. No society ever has. But in tackling evil, first we must recognise it, and secondly be intolerant of it. To be intolerant of wickedness is not only the right thing ethically but would allow us to say with pride that we are defending the innocent against those who seek to make their lives a misery. Let us move forward with the Bill with a spirit of righteous intolerance of evil. On that note, I look forward to the new Minister, whom I welcome to her place, illustrating her vigorous intolerance of all that is wicked and criminal.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for his contribution, but I feel I have to pick up on his point about stop and search.
As I know from my own constituency, done badly, stop and search can have a lifetime impact on trust in the police. I know men of my age who can still remember when they were stopped and searched frequently and badly. It absolutely has to be intelligence-led and done respectfully, so that any young person—or any person stopped by the police—knows their rights and is treated properly, because not everybody carries a weapon. There is a point to it when it is well-targeted, but we have to keep monitoring the police so that the number of stop and searches and the number of weapons found are proportional. Across London—I know my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) will find this as well in her constituency—people caught with a weapon will often hide it in the bushes or somewhere else because they know it will be found by stop and search. If it is used badly, it does not work; if it used well, it does have a place in policing. It cannot be got rid of completely, but it must be done respectfully and properly.
Given the current challenge the police are facing, particularly in London, in terms of trust with the community, we need to be really careful. In my constituency, I watch the statistics closely for who is stopped and searched, and the proportion of knives caught. It is important that we all keep an eye on that. We are at a point of disagreement, but I hope we can disagree well on this issue. The tone of the debate has been like the old days— we are actually discussing the matters in the Bill.
I want to focus on a number of issues, starting with that important matter of public trust in policing, which we know is currently a real challenge. We have policing by consent in this country and that is a prize worth fighting for. In my constituency, over a very long period of time, before my election 18 years ago and since, we have seen that lack of trust and challenge played out viscerally at times. Nationally, we had the shocking cases of police officers Wayne Couzens and David Carrick. They were serving officers and continued to be in employment despite previous incidents that were clear red flags.
I strongly commend to the House Baroness Casey’s review into the standards of behaviour and internal culture in the Metropolitan police. It sets out clearly the scale of the problems and is a seminal piece of work, but it will only be a seminal piece of work in reality if it is actually taken on board. I therefore welcome the commitments made by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, to tackle those issues, and his strong acknowledgement of the systemic problems in the force he now leads. The leadership has to come from the top, but it needs to be root and branch from below as well. We need to have confidence that the police can report issues among their colleagues —the duty of candour is an important element. The idea that things are hidden from senior management, or that senior management will not deal with them, needs to be in the bin now. Sir Mark Rowley needs power to his elbow to continue to deliver what he is trying to do. I am very concerned about how we got here and there are still lessons to be learned.
Very many years ago, I became a Home Office Minister. I had responsibility for the vetting and barring service. Building a picture about an individual police officer and vetting is still not being applied to the police. I served as a Home Office Minister for the three years from 2007 until the general election in 2010. Colleagues may remember the Bichard report, published in 2004 after the tragic murder of two young girls in Soham. The importance of recording and aggregating inappropriate and concerning incidents and behaviours carried out by people in professional roles, or indeed anyone, was not being managed well. Someone could commit a crime in one area—or not even commit a crime, but come to the attention of the police force in that area—and then move to a different area and repeat the same actions, and there would not be an overall picture of what that person had done.
As the Minister responsible for the then vetting and barring scheme, since subsumed, alongside the Criminal Records Bureau, into the Disclosure and Barring Service, I helped to shape that picture, focusing particularly on people working in education and health settings and bringing together and changing the rules governing the way in which people were supported. But that picture building also plays a much wider role. I know, having dealt with it in such detail at the time, that if it is used and shared properly, it can prevent opportunities for more serious crimes to be committed.
It is a tragedy and an irony that that type of intelligence gathering, which is now well established in many professions, including education and healthcare, had clearly not been happening in policing. The vetting system alone was different. Someone could be vetted and passed to become a police officer in one area, but in another area the vetting would disbar him or her from that force. Actions could be registered on people’s files and records as employees in one force, and in another force—or, indeed, in the same force—the accumulation of those actions did not lead to those people losing their jobs.
Before Wayne Couzens was convicted of rape and murder, six incidents of indecent exposure were linked to him, and in a previous job he was known as “the rapist” because of how he made women feel. David Carrick’s offences spanned a 17-year period—almost as long as I have been in the House—with reports to the Met first made in 2000. Here we are in 2023, more than 20 years after the tragedies in Soham, and that picture building and intelligence gathering across police forces has still not been happening. There is a great deal to be done to build trust between the public and the police, and it is clear that immediate progress needs to be made on the issues that I have mentioned.
I want to say something about the Home Office’s recent review of police officer dismissals, in particular its recommendation that misconduct hearing panels should be chaired by senior police officers supported by a legally qualified panel member and an independent member. Previously the panel would have been chaired by the legally qualified panel member, supported by the other two members, in order to ensure, rightly, that those chairing misconduct hearings had the appropriate knowledge and skills and were removed from any actual or perceived conflict of interest in the case. I fear that the change in the make-up of the panel threatens public confidence in the transparency and independence of the proceedings.
For example, a police chief or a police and crime commissioner might be required to make a statement immediately following a police incident, something we regularly see on our television screens and read about in the media. After that, the officers involved could be subject to a disciplinary hearing. How could that police chief then chair the panel objectively? There would be a clear conflict of interest.
The Bill creates the right of a chief constable to appeal against a decision made by a misconduct hearing panel. The rationale for that is that police chiefs should have a right to determine whom they employ in their forces. On one level I completely understand that, and, as I say, all power to the elbow of Mark Rowley in wanting to get rid of bad officers in his employment. However, it adds another layer of proceedings—another potentially lengthy and resource-draining element.
Policing is not a regulated profession, which is extraordinary when we think of comparable professions. As the IOPC points out in its response to the Home Office’s review of the process of police officer dismissals,
“Police disciplinary proceedings have their origin in the employer-employee relationship between a constable and their chief officer. However, that relationship has been overlaid incrementally by a statutory regime intended to promote public confidence. As has been noted in various legal judgements, the legislative regime that has resulted is very complicated.”
In regulated professions, the professional body deals with the public interest in fitness to practise issues, which means striking off people from the professional register when that is appropriate, while employers deal with breaches of the contract of employment, which means dismissal or some lesser sanctions. In the absence of a fitness to practise model in the police, a neat solution would be to separate findings relating to misconduct from the sanctioning element. A panel—chaired, I suggest, by an independent member—could find an officer guilty of misconduct and make a recommendation regarding an appropriate sanction, but the police chief would then make the decision to retain or sack that officer on the basis of the independent findings.
We all know that confidence in policing is the foundation of our system and that policing by consent is something we should prize. It is essential for my constituents in Hackney and for people up and down this country that we take concrete steps to address the problems and fix the long-standing systemic issues. I think there is an opportunity to do that in policing. I can see why the police will have lobbied the Government to have the right to chair misconduct proceedings, but I think there is a way of resolving that and keeping the independent oversight while giving police chiefs the right to sack people who have done the wrong thing.
I also want to touch on something I mentioned in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in relation to shoplifting. Shoplifting has increased 25% in the last 12 months alone, with offences under £200 rarely being enforced. I recently visited the Gainsborough Co-op in Shoreditch to talk to the staff there, and I thank them for hosting me. I have also spoken to the trade union USDAW. It was interesting and sobering to talk to the member of staff at the Co-op who is responsible for collecting the information about shoplifting across the Co-op group. A lot of evidence is collected. We have heard examples of people going in and sweeping up food, with the same person often making several visits a day; they know when the security guard is on a break and go in then. They case the joint and steal repetitively. They are also increasingly aggressive, and staff tell me that they now go behind the tills more often.
The staff now wear cameras to try to record video evidence. They collect video evidence and they collect evidence from staff, who have to take time out of their duties to report it. They tell me that they are assiduous in doing that because they see the importance of trying to tackle the issue. The Co-op then pulls together that data—USDAW tells me that it is the same for other stores—and presents it to the police en masse to try to get a conviction, yet so little is taken up. A police officer will not necessarily attend an individual incident. I understand the pressures on the police in my borough, where there are lots of things going on. There always has to be a priority, but shoplifting is so often down the list of priorities that it is a real tragedy for those working in those shops.
Priti Patel
The hon. Lady and I see eye to eye on quite a few of the points that have been raised today. She mentioned a Co-op store, which is part of a wider group that clearly has a few more resources than independent retailers do. Does she agree that we really need to change not just the mindset in policing but the law to ensure that all crimes are treated equally, particularly when it comes to shop crime and its impact on retailers?
Dame Meg Hillier
The right hon. Lady and I are perhaps surprised to find ourselves in such agreement, but absolutely. I will finish highlighting what the Co-op does, because I think it plays into what happens in smaller stores.
The staff pull together enough information to make it evidentially strong enough to take through the prosecution service and into court, but even then they often struggle to get any interest—and of course, if the stores clamp down in one area by putting more security into a shop where there has been a particular issue, the criminals just move to the next property. We have to deal with this problem area-wide, which is why it needs to be a police matter and not just dealt with store by store. Crucially, as the right hon. Lady says, if the Co-op, Tesco or Sainsbury’s clamps down on a particular store or stores in an area, other shops are left with less support. They are often small corner shops with a lone shopkeeper, and the fear for them is palpable. It is really worrying. If they know that the police are not going to come, they just have to back off and their goods are stolen.
The Co-op that I visited has lost £155,000-worth of goods in the first six months of this year. For a small shop, that is the difference between existing and not. We rely on those local shops, and in lockdown we needed their support. Now we need to support them, and this needs to be a higher priority for the police. The Government could also be doing more. This is something that my own party is keen to look at. I am a Labour and Co-op Member of Parliament, so I am particularly keen to see this dealt with. I was struck as I talked to the staff in store by how helpless they feel when someone pretty much jumps across the till to take cigarettes and booze. They have to hide things, and they have to stock dummy products, which is inconvenient for customers. Of course, customers sometimes go into one of these shops and find that the goods they want to buy are not there because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) said, the shop has just had a large-volume raid.
Shoplifting needs to be taken much more seriously. Nobody should go to work and expect to be attacked. Everyone I spoke to had suffered an incident of shoplifting. Even if they stepped back and were not violently attacked, it is still very damaging psychologically. No wonder we see such turnover among shop workers.
Sir John Hayes
Does the hon. Lady agree that perpetual shoplifters of the kind she describes, who intimidate people and make the lives of shopkeepers and shop assistants a misery, should be banged up?
Dame Meg Hillier
Again, I find myself breaking out in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman.
If the sanction is too low, people will keep doing it. As with county lines, it is clear that criminal gangs are often using and exploiting vulnerable people to do their dirty work. Those vulnerable people get caught, but we do not get Mr Big. Shoplifting is becoming an epidemic in many of our areas.
Florence Eshalomi
One of my conversations with shop workers was about the mental health impact of being attacked and abused day in, day out. A number of them were thinking of changing profession. We might think they have support, but the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) mentioned that, in most circumstances, smaller shops have just one person in the store. Does my hon. Friend agree that their safety has to be paramount and that we need more action?
Dame Meg Hillier
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Like her, I have spoken to shopkeepers and it is heartening that they want to do a good job. They said the problem is that, after a shoplifting incident, not only do they go home with it in their head but they have to take time out to record it all. This is what one said to me, and it was really heartfelt: “It stops me doing what I’m here to do, which is to help customers.” He was so proud of his job, and he wanted to help customers. Nobody should be forced not to do their job well. Frankly, there is a real issue here, and there needs to be a strong signal that there will be action on the ground, with the police working with the retailers. The big retailers can help, but action needs to be area-wide. We need to take a completely different approach to shoplifting.
I commend the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall on knife crime. She highlighted the utter tragedy that she and I have experienced too often. It is not right that our young people feel unsafe roaming the streets. They should have the right to roam, but instead they and their parents are constantly worrying about knives on the streets.
Just banning zombie knives is not enough, because people will hide them. As with county lines, people will find a way. An 11-year-old in my constituency was recently asked to hide a gun, and when the gun went missing—it was taken from him—he had to pay back the person who had asked him to look after it. That is a classic example of grooming, and the same thing will happen with knives, which are not always held by the criminals themselves. Those who want to get hold of a dangerous weapon can do so all too easily, even if it is banned in law. That alone is not enough for somebody who is determined to do this.
We need to take a much more holistic public health approach to knife crime. I was in the Home Office when my party was last in government. The right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and I are proud of our service in the Home Office, which is a great Department to be in, but it is also frustrating. At that time, we were trying to work with accident and emergency departments to get the data so that we could track what was happening, to make sure we had a more holistic approach. This is not just a crime issue; it is about making sure we are helping and diverting young people, who are often drawn into this activity not because they want to be but because, for young people living in certain areas, it is safer to be part of a gang than to step away. It is hard to resist that pressure at times, and those innocent young victims need as much support as other victims.
Priti Patel
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We can all reflect on where other parts of the state drop the ball on this issue, for young people in particular. Tragically, as she will know from her constituency—I have spent a lot of time with families in central London who are grieving because they have lost their children, their nieces or their nephews—these children get trapped into bonded labour, basically. They are treated like slaves. Somewhere along their journey the state, whether it is social services or the Department for Education, has failed. These kids may have been kicked out of school. That is where we need early intervention to stop the rot setting in.
Dame Meg Hillier
I absolutely agree on that, and we need resourcing for that early intervention. Something we look at on the Public Accounts Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing, is what I call “cost shunting”. A classic example of that would be where mental health services get cut and the police end up picking up mental health patients and having to divert resources there. We could have early intervention to support young people so that they are not caught up in this. I am not blaming young people, as they themselves are not a problem—the young people in my constituency are amazing and are going to be great leaders of the future—but some of them, sadly, get sucked into this. That little bit of money going in early can prevent a lot of challenge for young people.
Many years ago, a police chief in Lambeth, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), did a bit of work to analyse the tragic knife crimes of that year and a clear pattern of victims emerged, one that often related to their being in care and to challenges in the education system. I give credit to Hackney’s gangs intervention unit, which finds the young people who are at risk of getting involved or who are involved. It then finds a way to divert them out of that path, through rehousing and education, and supports the family in doing that. This is a real challenge and so many parents want to talk to me about it. They do not want a uniformed police officer coming to the door if they know that there is a drug or gang issue in their area, because they do not want the young person in their family, often their son or daughter, to be targeted. We can talk about that issue.
Frankly, it will be cheaper for the Home Office to put money into early intervention than deal with the aftermath—the victims, the deaths and, later, the prison system, which goes to the Ministry of Justice budget. We need to break the government spending silos, looking across them with a mission statement as the leader of the Labour party has suggested. No longer can we look at individual silos; we need to find a way of tackling these wicked issues.
On fraud, the PAC has been looking at the issue for some time, and it is a failure of the system that we have such a poor response to it. The PAC looked at fraud in 2017 and again this year. Outlawing SIM farms is all very well, but victims continue to be let down. This is like the tip of an iceberg; it is as though the Government had to put something about fraud in the Bill so they went for SIM farms. Is that going to solve anything, given that most of the crime is overseas? When we looked at this again this year, the Committee concluded that fraud is
“everyone’s problem but no one’s priority”.
The Bill backs up that premise. Some 41% of all crimes currently committed are frauds; we are talking about 3.8 million instances of actual or attempted fraud in the year to June of last year. Such little progress has been made in the past year, with fraud increasing and victims paying the price. The cost of fraud to individuals cumulatively is £4.7 billion. We all want to boost the economy, so if we stop fraud, we could have £4.7 billion being spent in our economy. I am not being flippant, because this has a huge impact on the individuals who get hit, sometimes to the tune of several thousand pounds. For many of my constituents, even £50 or £100 is enough to tip them over the edge in a month, so this is a really big concern. Of course, this is about not just financial fraud, but other fraud.
Dame Diana Johnson
I am pleased that my right hon. Friend is talking about fraud. The Home Affairs Committee has just started an inquiry on fraud and we learnt that only about one in seven people who are the victim of a fraud report it, because of the shame and stigma attached. Is she is concerned as I am that people are not reporting fraud and so this is the tip of the iceberg?
Dame Meg Hillier
I absolutely am. I recommend to my right hon. Friend our report of this year and, I am sorry to say, our back history of reports on this issue, because things have moved so slowly that people might as well read the 2017 report as not much has moved on since.
I am going to come on to the issue of how reporting works, because the Bill misses an opportunity there.
Sir John Hayes
The right hon. Lady may recall that when I was a Home Office Minister—we are all sharing our Home Office histories here—we set up the National Cyber Security Centre and the national cyber-security strategy. We have made significant progress, but she is right to say that, as with shoplifting, fraud and cyber-crime are at epidemic levels. Part of that is about the way we constructed systems that are interdependent, interconnected and interoperable. Sometimes that adds to vulnerability, so we must change culturally how we go about doing business and interacting.
Dame Meg Hillier
I do not dispute what the right hon. Gentleman says, but there is a danger that that lets the Home Office off the hook. In the five or six years during which the Public Accounts Committee has been looking at the issue, fraud has got worse. Indeed, I was dealing with some of the issues when I was a Home Office Minister, and we are seeing a growth in the crime but not a growth in the action in response to it. That is not surprising, as the volume and complexity of cases are overwhelming police forces and Action Fraud, the civil body to which people report such crime.
The point that the right hon. Gentleman makes about interdependency is valid. Because the Home Office is dependent on the banking, technology, telecoms and retail sectors to fight fraud, its response has been slow and sluggish, relying on voluntary agreements with organisations in those sectors to deliver change. Frankly, those agreements have not delivered enough. The banks were reluctant to give evidence at all to the Public Accounts Committee—I suggest to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), that she pushes the banks to give more information—and when we suggested publicly reporting fraud levels against the banks, they were apoplectic. We ended up recommending slightly time-delayed reporting as a way of keeping institutions on their toes, so that customers could vote with their feet and know exactly which banks were on top of dealing with fraud. We think that the different sectors where fraud is happening could do more.
Over 70% of fraud has an international element, so whatever we do domestically will not resolve the situation unless we have better relationships with overseas criminal justice agencies. This is immature in the Home Office currently, as we concluded in our report published earlier this year, and the matter is not helped by the lack of capacity in the UK. Only 1% of police are dedicated to fraud, yet it represents 41% of crime. The Home Secretary said that percentage balancing was not possible, but we can all acknowledge that if 1% of police officers are dedicated to fraud and 41% of crime is fraud then the balance is out of kilter.
Some 20,000 new police officers are being recruited, which is a welcome step, but only around 2% of them—some 380 officers—will be focused on fraud. The Public Accounts Committee looked at new officer recruitment; recruiting fast can mean that a lot of junior staff are recruited, not the specialists that are needed, so there has been a missed opportunity. I will not go into that further, as it is outside the scope of the Bill.
Public communications could be improved by the Home Office, working in partnership with others, as campaigns can be effective. When the Committee looked at communications this year, there were 13 public campaigns running about fraud, but fewer than 10% of citizens were aware of any of them. We raised the matter five years ago, when the Take Five campaign was run by the National Crime Agency. However, five years on, that campaign is still being evaluated, so it is not working very well.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North raised the issue of fraud not being reported by people. Only 300,000 cases were reported to Action Fraud by the public, which given the overall numbers is not very many, and another 600,000 were reported by business and industry. Of the 900,000 cases reported annually, fewer than 15% end up with further action and only 1% result in a criminal justice outcome. Action Fraud is set to be replaced in the new year, yet the Bill does not mention the victim experience, which is a missed opportunity. I hope that will be probed further by members of the Bill Committee.
It is sobering that the time taken by law enforcement agencies to take on and tackle fraud is often longer than the sentence that the fraudster receives, so something is going wrong. We need a concerted effort to deal with this wicked issue, which cuts across many areas.
The measure relating to intimate images is welcome. I pay tribute to my previous constituent, Emily, who has now moved back to the United States, who worked tirelessly over a period of years to shift the dial on the issue, after she was filmed naked without her consent. I held an Adjournment debate in April 2018 calling for exactly this issue to be addressed and made an offence. New section 66AA sets out three offences of taking or recording intimate photographs or film, including an offence of “intentionally” taking a photograph or recording a film that shows another person in an intimate state without that person’s consent or a reasonable belief in their consent.
This is a moment to pay tribute to Emily Hunt, who bravely named herself, took on the system and was a force of nature in making sure the issue was tackled. We could not understand why the crime of taking such a photograph was not identified in law. At the time, the fact the person who had taken it had not published it was the issue, but this measure has now been introduced and it would have protected Emily. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) highlighted what happens to many young teenagers, particularly teenage girls, so this measure acts as a protection. In addition, we need to ensure we educate people that such behaviour should not happen. As the Bill makes progress, I hope some of those issues will be picked up in Committee.
Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to accept the Home Secretary’s invitation to get behind this Bill, because there is much to commend in it. The process is an iterative one, as it builds on so much work that the Government have already done on crime and on the criminal justice system. I was honoured and pleased to serve on the Public Bill Committee that considered the Domestic Abuse Bill, enacted in 2021, and an example of a further improvement in the Criminal Justice Bill is the addition of an aggravating feature to reflect the crimes of men whose control of their partners ends with the heinous crime of murder.
As I say, this is very much an iterative process, and there is much to like in the Bill, such as the way it bears down on drug crime; the way it bears down on knife crime; the way it bears down on sexual offending, and sexual offending against children in particular; and the way it bears down on serious organised crime. The one area that I emphatically support is the Bill’s requiring those criminals—they are cowards—who have the nerve, having committed a crime, not to face up to their victims, to attend their sentencing hearing.
As a proud daughter of a police officer, I welcome the focus on police standards, and I note that, for the vast majority of policemen, there is nothing worse than misdemeanour and criminal activity in their own ranks. I know that the vast majority of police will very much welcome that focus.
There is no such thing as a minor crime. Crime is a violation of that feeling of safety and security that we all deserve. My constituents in Hertford and Stortford certainly deserve that sense of security going about their daily business and their daily lives. Antisocial behaviour is a scourge on our communities and one that we have concerns about in Hertford and Stortford. I wish to pay tribute to my local police as well as to Chief Inspector David Cooke and all his team. They have used closure notices and closure orders, which are very useful tools.
What has been raised with me by my local police—I have also raised this with Ministers—is that we have a bit of a revolving door with closure orders. A closure order can be issued by a court, and it is very effective. The community breathes a sigh of relief, as it has respite from the problems that they have been experiencing for a period of time, but, at the end of that order, the same occupants can go back into the same property, or a similar property, and the community is left absolutely distraught—in fact even worse than the first time, because they have had a sense of relief but then the problems have recurred. Antisocial behaviour is something that we need to bear in mind because it is a blight on local communities.
The provision to extend the power to issue and to apply for closure orders to registered social housing providers is very welcome, because that helps to give extra responsibility to those providers, and it will, I think, encourage them to take the matter seriously to try to avoid that revolving door element and look for more permanent solutions, which will be hugely beneficial to local communities.
As I say, this is an iterative process, and there are opportunities in this Bill to create other criminal offences. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell), who is not in her place, raised the issue of cuckooing, which I would also like to suggest as a separate offence. Very often criminals use properties for illegal activity, and this action is not victimless, because often they move into a property—the better term for it is actually a home invasion—where there are vulnerable people, who are used as a vehicle for criminal purposes. Those people are often physically or mentally vulnerable or have addiction problems. They are real victims, and they need to be protected. Society needs to say, “We do not accept this.”
In order to measure, name and deal with a crime we have to accept it as a crime. This cruel and cynical activity should be criminalised as a separate offence. There are different offences we can use to tackle cuckooing, but those would generally be drug offences or antisocial behaviour offences, which do not reflect the gravity of the crime and the fact that there are victims. We should be saying, “We don’t accept it and we don’t tolerate it. We want to measure it and know the scale of it, so we have to name it and make it a separate offence.”
Along the same lines, another horrific crime that has no separate offence is spiking, which has been mentioned already. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) has done a lot of work on the issue already and I know he will continue to do so. It beggars belief that someone would go out and prepare to administer toxic, noxious substances to another person—usually, but not exclusively, a woman—often for sexual or control purposes. Here again we currently rely on other offences, but we must name that offence. We must see it, we must convict it and we must sentence it as the crime it is.
I sat on the bench as a magistrate many times. I saw the victims of offences and I saw how much it means to them to have their day in court—to be able to give their evidence and to have the crime that has been perpetrated against them named and recognised and sentenced. It means a huge amount to them, and it should mean everything to us. We often hear that the punishment should fit the crime but, in the case of cuckooing and spiking, it is my assertion that the crime should fit the crime and that they should be separate offences. I hope that Ministers and the Government will look at them carefully.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
What a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson) and to hear her mention the issue of spiking, as several others have done. I will not speak for quite as long as the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), who I think managed 40 minutes, but there is enough time to mention two or three quick points of interest to the House.
This is, after all, a debate on issues of huge importance to all our constituents, issues of safety and justice. Much has been said from all parts of the House that many of us can agree on. I particularly enjoyed the speeches from my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.
The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North has done great work on spiking. She, I, the former Home Secretary my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham, and others are completely aligned in our proposal to the Ministers on the Front Bench and to the Home Secretary that this is not just a great opportunity to follow through on some of the things that are already in the Bill—for example, the importance of criminals attending their sentencing, preventing sex offenders from changing their names to confuse the register of sex offenders and other very good initiatives—but a historic opportunity to make spiking a separate, specific offence defined in law and to send a very clear message to a lot of people. This is not the first time that I have sung this tune, Mr Deputy Speaker. As you and others will be aware, we had debates in my name in January, two ten-minute rule Bills in January 2022 and June of this year, and a Home Affairs Committee report in April this year. They have all recommended the creation of a separate offence of spiking.
It now falls to the new Ministers, whom I warmly congratulate on their appointments—especially new the safeguarding Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris)—to seize the moment and bring the change to life. The reason it matters so much is partly that, rather like the with Vagrancy Act 1824, we need to update legislation to reflect modern practice and language. We need to define the term “spiking”, bring together elements of two separate existing acts—one of them Victorian—and ensure that the police record complaints and accusations, help to collect evidence, and refer cases to the CPS when appropriate.
However, behind all that is the straightforward truth for anyone listening to the debate: we all know, or know of, at least one person who has been spiked. That includes several Members of this House or members of their families, as well as so many of our constituents. Almost all those cases have not been reported or recorded. Let me give three quick examples of spiking that we do know about.
The first is an example sent to me this morning by a colleague whose friend, a male in his 60s, was here in London on business. He dropped
“into a pub near his hotel and had his drink spiked.”
The guy who spiked the drink
“supposedly ‘helped’ him back to his hotel where the assault and rape happened.”
The individual who was raped was not a gay, so it was particularly traumatic. Our colleague from this House says that the individual thus abused
“is mostly over it now”.
That is just one example of an incident that has not gone anywhere near the police, let alone the courts.
There is, of course, an infamous example from Manchester that has come to light and, indeed, gone on to court: the case of Mr Reynhard Sinaga, who raped more than 50 men under the guise of being a Christian befriending those who were sleeping rough in the evening. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) has mentioned his constituents Mandy and Colin Mackie, who created Spike Aware UK after their son Greg’s tragic death following a spiking.
All three examples are relatively unusual, partly because they have come to light, but also because they are all male on male. However, we know—both anecdotally and through research done by Stamp Out Spiking, for example—that the vast majority of cases are man on woman, especially in the night-time economy and particularly among university and college students, although by no means exclusively. So there is a key element of violence against women and girls in the whole business of spiking, which is another reason tackling it is so important.
Sceptics tend to ask, “So how many spiking crimes have been committed?” That is an almost impossible question to answer, not just because there is currently no offence of “spiking”, but because proving attempts or committed acts of spiking is hard, and the presence of drugs in the body fades quite fast. That only emphasises why legislative change is necessary: once spiking is an offence in its own right, those who have been spiked will get more support from the police, the CPS, the NHS and night-time economy venues. That is why many police forces, including Gloucestershire constabulary—my local force—and its chief constable, and PCCs including Gloucestershire’s excellent Chris Nelson, recognise that making spiking an offence in its own right matters. It will enable proper data collection, encourage victims to come forward, and drive technical changes to capture the evidence more effectively, and, crucially, it should result in an increase in simple messaging and a decrease in offences.
If we can achieve all that through some crisp drafting by the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, we will have done many people a great favour.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham).
This is an important Bill that highlights the Government’s commitment to improving our justice system and making our communities safer. I would like to focus the majority of my remarks on one aspect of the Bill that I am pleased to see has received so much attention, which is antisocial behaviour. Members across the House might well represent different parties or political beliefs, but I am confident that I can safely say that we will all have received complaints from our constituents about antisocial behaviour in one form or another. Although it is formally considered to be low-level criminality, the reality is that, left unchecked, antisocial behaviour causes frustration and misery to many, many law-abiding citizens; it is undoubtedly the area of criminal behaviour about which I receive the greatest amount of correspondence. I therefore particularly welcome clauses 65 to 71, which extend the maximum period of certain directions, reduce the minimum age for community protection notices and allow for the closure of premises by registered social housing providers. I am confident that those provisions will all bring tangible benefits to my constituents and those of hon. Members across the House.
I am also glad to see the proposals for reviews of antisocial behaviour by the local policing body, which I know are supported by the excellent police and crime commissioner for Thames Valley, Matt Barber. It can often be difficult to know where exactly responsibility lies for tackling antisocial behaviour—whether it is with the local authority or the local police force, or whether a particular act might straddle the responsibilities of both—as I highlighted in Home Office questions in May. Proposed new section 104A in clause 71 provides the opportunity to make real progress in resolving such difficulties, and as the PCC for Thames Valley, Mr Barber, told me, it should provide more power to enact change and really stand up for residents.
Tackling antisocial behaviour does not mean always acting after the event, though. Indeed, one of the most effective crime-fighting tools is to prevent crimes from being committed in the first place and to divert those at risk of offending to more meaningful pursuits. In my constituency of Aylesbury, we have some excellent local initiatives to provide activities for young people to help prevent them from becoming involved in criminality. I saw that for myself just last Friday, when I spent the afternoon with the Aylesbury neighbourhood community policing team, led by Sergeant Clare Farrow. Two of her PCSOs, Lee Abrahams and Rachel Matthews, joined me at Southcourt baptist church in Aylesbury, where they help to run a weekly boxing club alongside the pastors and other members of the local community. The club has 100 young people on its books, and engages boys and girls from all parts of Aylesbury’s very diverse community. For some children it has helped to build confidence, for others it has brought resolution between bullies and victims, and for all it has provided a constructive activity, keeping young people off the streets and away from the temptation to become involved in criminal behaviour.
So dedicated are PCSOs Lee and Rachel that they even give up their own time to go and help at the club when they are not on duty, and this service has rightly won them and their colleagues the community policing award for Thames Valley in the category of problem solving. It is problem solving that is key to successful neighbourhood policing, which needs special skills and talent. The social enterprise Police Now recruits officers specifically for that type of policing; I was pleased to meet one of its undoubted success stories, PC Elliott Jones, who has been working in Aylesbury for the past year. Spending just a few hours with that neighbourhood team was genuinely inspiring, and I thank all the neighbourhood teams in my constituency for their superb work.
Mindful of the time, I would like to touch briefly on a couple of the other measures outlined in the Bill, given my previous experience as a magistrate and at His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris)—who I am absolutely delighted to see on the Front Bench, having served with her on the Justice Committee—can help to provide a little more detail on these measures, either now or at a later date.
I absolutely recognise the reasons for the Government’s introduction in clause 22 of powers to compel attendance at a sentencing hearing. I entirely understand the anguish that has been caused to victims of crime when the perpetrator of the offence has simply refused to return to the dock, demonstrating, frankly, utter disdain for the harm that they have caused. But I am pleased that the power to produce the offender in court remains at the discretion of the judge, because it is the judge who will be best placed to decide on the individual circumstances of a case. I would be keen to hear more from the Minister about how that might operate in practice, particularly if an offender refused to leave prison to go to court in the first place. I am aware of cases where forcing somebody to leave his cell and get on to the van would have taken a very considerable number of prison officers. While one can reasonably say that that prisoner should be forced to hear his sentence and face justice in person, the reality is that the prison officers involved are taken away from their usual duties and responsibilities. That could—indeed, likely would—impact the normal regime of the prison, which in turn would prevent other prisoners from engaging in the work, education and training that can reduce their chances of reoffending. It is important that we get the balance right, and I am keen to hear how we will make sure that we do so.
Turning to the transfer of prisoners overseas, I am pleased that clause 28 makes provision for His Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons to inspect overseas prisons. However, as a former member of the independent monitoring board at HMP/YOI Feltham, I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister outlined how she envisages conditions being monitored on an ongoing basis. The role of IMBs is not necessarily as well known as it should be, perhaps even in this House, but to quote the IMB website,
“IMB members are the eyes and ears of the public, appointed by ministers to perform a vital task: independent monitoring of prisons and immigration detention. They report on whether the individuals held there are being treated fairly and humanely and whether prisoners are being given the support they need to turn their lives around. This can make a huge difference to the lives of those held within these facilities.”
A critical element of that role is that IMB members can turn up at any time, unannounced, and go to any part of the prison they wish with their own set of keys. I would be grateful if the Minister set out what equivalent provision will exist for overseas prisons.
There is much else in this Bill that is important, including measures to respond to changing technology used by criminals, such as 3D printers. As someone whose own car was stolen by thieves accessing the vehicle by intercepting the signal from an electronic key, I particularly welcome clause 3. However, I do not wish to detain the House any further: I conclude simply by welcoming the Bill, and the many ways in which its provisions will make the people of my Aylesbury constituency safer and more secure.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
I call the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman to wind up the debate.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Over the past 13 years, our criminal justice system—once the envy of the world—has crumbled as a consequence of Tory mismanagement, but I pay tribute to the police and the court and probation staff who work hard in such difficult circumstances. Victims in our country are left traumatised, waiting years for justice only to be let down again; trials are delayed for years on end and victims pay the price, with record numbers withdrawing from their cases. The Crown court backlog now stands at a record high of almost 65,000 cases. There is a crisis in prison capacity, to the point where convicted criminals are having to be let out early or are even not being sentenced in the first place, despite the Government’s fantasy plans to send prisoners aboard. The Home Secretary talks about powers, but can the Minister tell us what discussions with credible partner countries have taken place to make that fantasy a reality?
Simply put, this Conservative Government have failed in the first duty of Government: to keep its citizens safe. This Bill is further evidence of that continuous failure, and while it contains some measures that we on the Labour Benches welcome, it is the absences that are most glaring. The Bill contains no assurance at all that the existing systems in our country are ready to cope with the many changes it will introduce, as the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) recognised in her speech.
Time and again, this Government have failed to deliver the prison places we need. They have once again pushed back their deadline for delivering all 20,000 places, this time shifting their own target from 2025 to 2030. According to the most recent debate, only 8,200 places are due to be delivered by 2025, a shortfall of nearly 60%. With 10 Justice Secretaries and eight Home Secretaries in 10 years, this Government have focused on fighting each other instead of fighting for justice, and it is the British people who have paid the price. There have been repeated urgent warnings going back years: the 2020 prison population projections predicted a significant rise to 98,700 by September 2026, and the National Audit Office also warned in 2020 that
“demand for prison places could exceed supply between October 2022 and June 2023.”
After that warning from the NAO, the Government introduced a number of measures through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that added even more pressure to the capacity crisis. I was the shadow Minister on the Public Bill Committee at that time, and I raised my concern with the Minister, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp)—he is just taking his seat—who is now the Policing Minister. If the House will indulge me a little as I quote myself, in Committee I put it to the Minister:
“The Opposition would welcome further information from him about the impact on the prison system… The impact is to be felt very shortly indeed, and at a time when our prison services are recovering from the exceptional operational difficulties of the pandemic… Given all the additional prisoners that the system will have to cope with in not just seven or eight years’ time but as early as next year”—
this was last year—
“how will the Government ensure that our prisons do not become even more overcrowded and unsafe?”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 8 June 2021; c. 422-3.]
So there it is: we were raising serious concerns, but Ministers fobbed everyone off with the assurances that all would be well. However, we know that the building programme is now well behind and our prisons are absolutely stuffed. It is no way to run a Government.
As the Prison Reform Trust has said:
“This lack of strategic approach means that the prison service has been forced to operate in an almost perpetual state of crisis. To cope, it has pursued short-term expediency over effective long-term planning. This has included a reprieve of prison accommodation which should have been decommissioned decades ago; the use of police cells; the rapid construction of temporary cells”—
and—
“a staff recruitment scheme working flat out to keep officer numbers stable”.
Indeed, it is only now that prisons are completely at full capacity that we have seen any sort of acknowledgement from the Government, and then only out of sheer necessity, not because they have some sort of new commitment to prison reform.
The best the Government can do is a series of half-baked ideas that do nothing to address the very serious and immediate issue of convicted criminals who should be in prison being out on our streets instead because there are not enough cells to put them in. I know most of those ideas are contained in the Sentencing Bill, but as we have heard, this Bill contains the provisions relating to the transfer of prisoners to foreign prisons. However, these provisions will make absolutely no impact on the current crisis because we do not have a deal in place with another country. It is nothing more than gesture politics.
Reducing demand on the prison system is also dependent on a robust probation service that can supervise and work with probationers to reduce crime, but there is a capacity crisis there too. Probation delivery has been seriously undermined by the failed structural reforms of this Conservative Government. The disastrous transforming rehabilitation reforms have left probation, in the words of the Public Accounts Committee,
“underfunded, fragile and lacking the confidence of the courts.”
The probation inspectorate has found
“a critical lack of frontline staff”
that has led to “excessive caseloads”. Recent research has found that less than half of probation practitioners believe they have a manageable workload. The probation service needs ambitious and transformative support from Government, but this Bill is yet another missed opportunity. While the extension of polygraph conditions and the changes to multi-agency public protection arrangements are welcome, it is an insult that these are all that is on offer from a Government who have driven probation into the ground.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said in her opening speech, there are a number of measures in the Bill that we actually support. First, I would like to refer to the speech by the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who felt the need to be blunt with her own colleagues when addressing the outdated Vagrancy Act. She is right that aggressive rough sleepers need support, and that issuing prevention orders does nothing to address the underlying problem.
We back the powers to compel attendance by offenders at sentencing hearings, and I pay tribute to Farah Naz, Cheryl Korbel, Ayse Hussein and Jebina Islam for their tireless campaigning on this issue. However, it will be no surprise to the Government that we support this measure, since we have been calling for new laws to be introduced on this since April last year.
Let me give hon. Members a preview of another request that we similarly invite the Government to borrow from us. We would like to see the Bill amended so that offenders who have sexually harmed children and are sent to prison as a result lose the ability to control their own children from behind bars. This is a long overdue measure that will ensure all children are safe from these dangerous predators, including their own parents.
We have had a good debate, and before concluding I would like to refer to some of the other speeches made by our colleagues. I was pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) celebrating today, and I welcome the fact that her long campaign to stop sex offenders changing their names has come to fruition. She also went on to address all manner of other things including action on the sharing of explicit images.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, spoke of a campaign for a specific offence of spiking. She spoke of her Committee reports on policing and the work needed to build trust within the community, and I am pleased to see that she has the cross-party support she wants.
The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) said too many statistics had been bandied about but then went on to give some of her own—but she claimed they were facts rather than statistics. Yes, the Government might have gone some way towards replacing the police that they had cut over all those years, but it is the job they are doing that matters and we need more of our police out on the streets.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) talked about the epidemic of knife crime in our community and the need for so much to be done, and the need for a public health approach and prevention as well. My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) talked about the proposals for offenders to face their sentencing in court but rightly questioned how that would work. She joined in the concern about rough sleepers and made the point that they are more likely to be a victim of crime than to commit crime. And we would of course all expect a long and comprehensive speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), covering everything from policing by consent to misconduct and shop crime to fraud.
In this Bill, and indeed in the Sentencing Bill, there are a number of clauses that will lead to more people being imprisoned or being imprisoned for longer and we support many of them. However, it beggars belief that such proposals are put forward without any certainty whatsoever that the Government will be able to actually provide the prison places needed. It is no good posturing on law and order when the criminal justice system is crumbling as a result of 13 years of mismanagement by this Conservative Government. This Bill is yet another failure of this Government’s record on justice, but we will work with Ministers to improve it where we can.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Laura Farris)
It is a pleasure to close this important debate on the Second Reading of the Criminal Justice Bill, a Bill that puts public protection and community confidence at its core. It has a strong empirical basis, building on the detailed work undertaken by the Law Commission, by Baroness Casey into misconduct in the Metropolitan police, by Clare Wade KC into domestic homicide and coercive control, and by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.
It consolidates the significant progress this Government have made since 2010 and it was disappointing to hear the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Home Secretary, only rely on the statistics from police recorded crime when she knows as well as I do that the Office for National Statistics says that the correct measure is the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which provides—
Laura Farris
I will not because I have little time. That survey provides a more reliable measure of long-term trends than police recorded data.
Laura Farris
If we use the correct measure, the regrettable conclusion for the Opposition is that like-for-like crime is down by 56%.
Laura Farris
Violent crime is down from where it was in 2010 by 52%, and domestic burglaries are down by 57%. If we compare—[Interruption.] If we compare where we were in 2019 to today—
Laura Farris
Domestic abuse, a sensitive category of crime, has fallen between 2019, before the pandemic, to today by 16%. [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
Order. Even the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has to understand that the Minister is not giving way.
Yvette Cooper
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister will know that the time is not limited. We do have time and she has named me. I do understand that she has the right not to take an intervention but she will also know that, having named me, as a courtesy to the House, she would normally do so.
Mr Deputy Speaker
That is not strictly a point of order for the Chair. The right hon. Lady understands the procedures extremely well.
Laura Farris
The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) said that this Government have failed in their duty to keep citizens safe. It is regrettable that His Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary, Andy Cooke, takes a different view. He has said:
“England and Wales are arguably safer than they have ever been.”
In the limited time I have available, I will address some of the points that came up today. I will respond in writing to those whose speeches I cannot address. Under this Bill, we are taking the fight to serious organised criminals, cutting off their capacity to churn out new firearms, mass-produce illegal drugs and perpetrate fraud with devices using multiple SIM cards. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) elegantly put it, we are designing crime out. We are cracking down on some of the most pernicious harms, which are often hidden from view. We are developing recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, and we are developing the package of measures announced by the Prime Minister in April by creating an obligation in law to treat grooming as an aggravating factor in sentencing.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on the name change measure. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), who introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on that issue. I will just pick up on the point about mandatory reporting, which the House will know was the subject of a principal finding and recommendation of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. I hope that the hon. Member for Rotherham agrees that the measure is a good step forward.
I will briefly address two other issues. Making murder at the end of a relationship an aggravating factor, recognising that the moment of maximum danger for many victims is when they tell him finally that they are leaving, is not the only thing we are doing in that space. Yesterday, the Ministry of Justice announced a consultation on whether coercive and controlling behaviour or the use of a knife or weapon that is already on the scene should become aggravating features in any murder case. I pay tribute to Carole Gould and Julie Devey for their campaign on that.
Finally, I will address the point that was raised about whether the measures we are taking adequately answer the findings of Baroness Casey in her report into misconduct in the Metropolitan police and our handling of it. The measures in the Bill are not the only ones we are taking. We are also acting to ensure that any officer who cannot hold appropriate vetting clearance can be removed from office and that a finding of gross misconduct will automatically result in summary dismissal, and we are giving chief constables the right of appeal following a misconduct hearing if the conclusion is that one of their subordinates has not been subject to an adequate sanction.
The depth and breadth of this debate highlights the need to stay ahead of criminal ingenuity through enhanced supervision, interception and disruption, and by cutting criminals off from the tools of their trade. We are developing legal principles that find their roots in the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Online Safety Act 2023. We are cracking down on crime at every level. From antisocial behaviour all the way to serious organised crime, it blights our communities and targets the most vulnerable. I therefore commend this Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Criminal Justice Bill (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Criminal Justice Bill:
Committal
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on 30 January 2024.
(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading
(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
(6) Standing Order No.83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Scott Mann.)
Question agreed to.
Criminal Justice Bill (Money)
King’s recommendation signified.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Criminal Justice Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:
(a) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by a Minister of the Crown, and
(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Scott Mann.)
Question agreed to.
Business without Debate
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
18:18 - The House divided: - Ayes: 280 / Noes: 199 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:32 - The House divided: - Ayes: 285 / Noes: 203 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:45 - The House divided: - Ayes: 281 / Noes: 201 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Foreign Affairs
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Petitions
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
I rise to present a petition on policies relating to the climate and nature crisis.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that the UK Government needs to significantly strengthen its manifesto and policies with respect to the climate and nature crisis, as called for by 2000 business professionals and leaders; further that there needs to be a rapid scale up in investment, and support essential training for the transition; further that there needs to be a more robust plan to restore nature and halt further decline by 2030 which would involve a National Plan for achieving nature targets and robust regulatory frameworks enabling our rivers, seas, food and farming to thrive; and further that there needs to be an end to new fossil fuel developments in the UK including new licensing rounds and approvals for oil and gas exploration, in line with calls from the UN Secretary-General, climate scientists and the IEA.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the concerns of the petitions and take immediate action to ensure that these three areas are underpinned with robust policies and regulation.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002877]
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of my constituents in Linlithgow and East Falkirk in relation to energy bill support. There is no doubt that we are in the midst of a rising cost of living crisis, with energy bills spiralling. There is a great deal more that I believe the Government should be doing to support people, such as an energy bill rebate or an emergency social tariff. However, the very least that should be done is that the Government should signpost the many good schemes that energy companies are running to give support. My constituents therefore
“request that the House of Commons urge the Government to publish accessible information on support available from all energy companies so that those who are struggling financially maximise their chances of surviving the cost of living crisis.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the constituency of Linlithgow and East Falkirk,
Declares that whilst the Energy Cap has decreased, many people are still experiencing extreme difficulty paying energy bills for a number of reasons including the lack of a UK Government Bill Energy Bill Support Scheme and the increased financial pressure from the cost of living generally; notes that whilst there is widespread, legitimate criticism of energy companies many are providing some financial support to consumers in such circumstances but this is not widely known.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to publish accessible information on support available from all energy companies so that those who are struggling financially maximise their chances of surviving the cost of living crisis.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002881]
Tattoo Artists, Body Piercers and Cosmetic Clinics: Licensing
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
Earlier this year it was announced that Wales was set to become the first UK nation to introduce mandatory national licensing for what we call special procedures: tattoo artists and those working in body piercing, semi-permanent makeup, acupuncture and electrolysis. The licensing regime in Wales is being introduced under part 4 of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017. Happily, section 180 of the Health and Care Act 2022, passed by this place, gave the Secretary of State the power to introduce a licensing regime in England. I am really glad that we are now doing that and that our Government are taking the issue seriously.
In this very short debate, I am keen to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing to speed up the introduction of that regime in England, something that the Health and Social Care Committee, which I chair, called for when it published a report on body image back in 2022. I want to mention my hon. Friends the Members for Bosworth (Dr Evans) and for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), who did good work on that regard when they were on that Committee.
As we are all well aware, non-surgical cosmetic procedures such as Botox, dermal fillers, chemical peels and aesthetic procedures such as tattooing and body piercing are soaring in popularity. The beauty industry is valued at an estimated £3.6 billion in the UK. That boom has been fuelled by sales on social media and in beauty shops on the high street. However, while these procedures are popular, they carry risks that must be managed to protect both those who undergo the procedures and those who provide them.
At present, healthcare professionals such as doctors, nurses and dentists who carry out non-surgical cosmetic procedures must be trained and insured as part of the requirements laid down by their own regulatory bodies or Royal Colleges. However, there is no set training for beauty therapists and other non-professionals, something that is a cause for concern and an issue that many respected practitioners have campaigned on for some time. It is, after all, in their interests; as the sector has boomed, there has been a rise in people being physically and mentally harmed by poorly performed procedures. The aesthetics sector has been described to us by some, in part, as the “wild west”, which clearly is not ideal for anyone, patient or practitioner.
Further to that, a survey carried out by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons found that 69% of its surgeons have seen patients with complications following temporary fillers. Again, that outlines the need for the licensing scheme to be introduced and enforced. An estimated 900,000 Botox injections are carried out in the UK each year, with 3,000 complaints registered in 2022. The public need to be educated on the risks; they cannot assume that someone who is carrying out an aesthetic treatment is trained. It goes without saying that people should take the time to find a reputable, insured and qualified practitioner, if they decide that such treatments are for them.
To my mind, the licensing scheme is an important step towards better outcomes for the industry and consumers and, I hope, towards removing rogue practitioners from the industry. Practitioners must have adequate training to deal with complications and to minimise them in the first place. For instance, if a blood vessel is blocked while a patient is undergoing a procedure, it could easily block the blood supply to their eye. I was contacted with the horror story of one woman who was unable to open her eyes for 16 weeks following botox treatment.
Wales opened its 12-week consultation on its licensing scheme in January of this year. The scheme aims to reduce infections, eliminate poor working practices and create a central public register for licensed practitioners and approved business premises. That is important as the industry continues to increase in popularity. The Welsh chief medical officer said at the time that he was
“very pleased that these impending changes have been widely welcomed by practitioners in Wales, with many already volunteering to meet the new standards.”
One tattoo shop owner who has been working with the Welsh Government on the new qualifications said—this was widely reported—that:
“The increase in quality of tattoos in the last decade has been exponential so the hygiene needs to be raised. This is all positive for the industry and helps shake the image of it being dark and shady. It’s reassuring for those getting tattooed as well.”
I obviously very much agree with that statement, which shows why we need further legislation—or regulation off the back of legislation—in England to protect both clients and practitioners. In answer to a written question earlier this month, the Welsh Government confirmed that the aim is for their statutory licensing scheme to come into force in the summer of 2024, when it will initially apply to the four special procedures specified in their 2017 Act: electrolysis, body piercing, tattooing and acupuncture.
As I say, I was pleased when the Health and Care Act 2022 introduced powers for the Secretary of State to establish a mandatory licensing scheme in England, following calls for greater regulation of non-surgical cosmetic treatments—not least from my Select Committee. It is important that the scheme is introduced sooner rather than later, which we emphasised in our report on body image.
It was positive when the consultation in England finally opened at the beginning of September this year with pretty much the same intentions as the Welsh piece of work. However, concerns have been raised with me by those in the industry that the consultation in England has been far too heavily biased towards medical input rather than input from those in the cosmetics industry, which makes up a large part of the sector. As part of our body image inquiry in 2022, the Health and Social Care Committee recommended that the introduction of licensing for non-surgical cosmetic procedures be made a priority and introduced by July this year. The Committee also suggested that a safety taskforce be set up to bring stakeholders together, but I understand that the Government decided not to follow that route. The National Hair and Beauty Federation says that it is concerned that the Government have not reached out to an adequately broad range of stakeholders. Why have the Government not pursued the route recommended by the Select Committee?
In the pre-consultation phase, it was felt that more medical organisations than beauty organisations were consulted, which the NHBF has suggested caused a bias towards the medical sector. That is creating concern that routes into aesthetics via the beauty sector will therefore be restricted, which will have obvious consequences for many legitimate and reputable businesses. It also creates the risk that the new regulatory regime may drive some practices into the underground market rather than increase quality and standards across the industry, which is what we are aiming to see. The NHBF also said in September that it had written to the Government twice this year regarding the new licensing scheme but was yet to receive a response. Maybe that has been updated since.
When implementing mandatory licensing, we need to ensure that we establish a framework that demands a higher standard of care and proficiency from all practitioners. Further to that, another issue that needs to be addressed by the national scheme is procedures carried out in tattoo and piercing studios in England, which are currently subject to regulation by local councils. As there is no national scheme, we currently lack the reassurance needed. Practitioners need to contact the local council where their premises are based to get a tattoo, piercing or electrolysis licence. They must then register both themselves and the premises with the local council. However, registration is a fairly simple process, there is no requirement for the provision of proof of qualifications, and local authorities have few powers to refuse a registration. The current licence with local authorities covers tattooing, semi-permanent skin colouring, cosmetic piercing, electrolysis and acupuncture.
Local councils do, it must be said, conduct regular inspections of premises to ensure that they are compliant with health and safety laws, and there is a requirement for every tattoo artist to be licensed by their local council. To remind the House, tattooing without a licence or tattoo certificate is illegal. However, the fact that licensing is determined by local councils in England means it differs on what standards must be met across the country by those who apply. For example, some councils demand that all practitioners have access to their own sink, while others are happy for shared sinks, which risks cross contamination—posing a health risk. A new compulsory licensing scheme would ensure that both clients and practitioners are adequately protected, and practitioners would have to abide by the same rules across England.
The purpose of registration with councils is to protect the public from the transmission of blood-borne viruses such as HIV, hepatitis B, hep C and other infections, and to ensure that the health and safety regulations are followed. I think a national licensing scheme would increase this protection. As I have already set out, although section 180 of the Health and Care Act enables the Secretary of State to establish a licensing scheme, it is yet to be fully enacted. The consultation process closed a month ago today, and the advances to implement this hugely important scheme have been slow in England. When does the Minister think the Government will respond to the consultation?
There are four key priorities that must be addressed in the new licensing scheme to make sure that there is adequate protection for practitioners and clients. The first is the design and implementation of the national licensing scheme for all premises, as well as practitioners of non-surgical cosmetic procedures, to ensure that those who practise invasive procedures are competent and safe for members of the public—our constituents. Secondly, all practitioners must hold the correct insurance to provide these procedures. Thirdly, there needs to be official guidance on the training and qualification expectation of all practitioners, such as the knowledge and application of infection controls and first aid training should things go wrong. Fourthly and finally, we need a system that effectively records adverse incidents and public awareness raising so that all cases that go wrong can be tracked. I think such a system would dramatically improve safety standards. It would also ensure that members of the public are better equipped, as they would have better tools and knowledge surrounding the procedures and the practitioner that they were using.
The Government did assure the Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners, the British Beauty Council and the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health that they were committed to the licensing of the non-surgical aesthetics sector in England, so I ask the Minister when we can expect to see further action, following the consultation that I have mentioned.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate forward. My council, Ards and North Down Borough Council, has a policy in relation to piercings specifically. It has initiated a piercing guidelines policy to make both piercers and those who get piercings aware of the guidelines and policies that, in its word, “must” be followed. Does he agree that there could be more discussion of providing this information—in local schools, for example—because many people who get piercings are under 18 years of age, and are often naive to the guidelines and hygiene policies that piercers must follow? Educate them early: does the hon. Gentleman agree?
Steve Brine
We have enough debates in this House about some of the things that we teach in schools, and I can but imagine some of the responses we would get to this, but in my view education can never be a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with tattooing and piercings. It is not my personal choice—I do not know about the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—but if people are going to do it, I think they should go with their eyes, or any other part of themselves, wide open; and that is why the hon. Gentleman’s point on education is well made. [Interruption.] Did that amuse you, Mr Deputy Speaker?
In closing, would it be possible for the Minister to outline the timeline, even in rough terms, for the introduction of the licensing scheme? Finally, I understand that it is complicated and a bit like peeling an onion—the more you take, the more you find—could the Government outline which procedures will fall under the new licensing scheme? On that, I will close; I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing this important debate and reiterate the Government’s commitment to improving patient safety in this area. We recognise that for some time, there have been concerns about the lack of regulation of these procedures, both here and abroad, the dangers they can pose to consumers and the long-term impact when they go wrong. As my hon. Friend pointed out, we have heard many horrific stories, both in this Chamber and in Westminster Hall, about what can go wrong when procedures are done poorly or consumers or patients experience side effects that they were not expecting.
As my hon. Friend pointed out, there are existing regulations for body piercing and tattooing, which I will touch on in a moment. However, we take this area so seriously that the Health and Care Act 2022 gave the Secretary of State powers to introduce a licensing scheme for non-surgical cosmetic procedures in England. The scheme we intend to introduce in England will be more extensive than the Welsh scheme that my hon. Friend mentioned; it will cover more than the four areas outlined in the Welsh Government’s recent piece of work. Obviously, we have just held our consultation, and at the moment we are looking to see whether the scheme will also cover some of the existing powers around tattoos and piercings that are enforced by local councils.
We want the licensing scheme that we intend to introduce to support people in making an informed choice, and to ensure that when they make their choice, they experience safe care for any non-surgical cosmetic procedure. We want the scheme to address three areas, the first of which is to ensure that services are administered by suitably trained and qualified practitioners. That does not necessarily mean regulated healthcare professionals, but it does mean that anyone who undertakes procedures must be trained and qualified to do so. We also want practitioners to hold appropriate indemnity cover, so that they and the patients they are treating are covered should something go wrong, and to be operating from premises that have appropriate standards of hygiene and cleanliness.
As my hon. Friend said, we have been working closely with many professionals from a variety of backgrounds to start the process of introducing the licensing scheme. The cosmetic procedures sector includes a vast and expanding range of treatments and techniques. We want to future-proof regulation so that we cover as many emerging techniques, treatments and procedures as possible—we do not want to be revising regulations on a regular basis—and cover a wide range of practitioners and businesses. We want those businesses to thrive—they contribute to our economy and provide a very popular service—but we need to make sure that they are safe and well regulated, so that those undergoing procedures are safe and can make informed choices about treatments.
In introducing the licensing scheme, we need to make sure that we consider all eventualities. There are a number of factors to consider, from who undertakes the procedures to the types of procedures that are covered and who undertakes inspections once the regulations are introduced. Through our engagement, we have developed proposals on which treatments are to be included, who should be permitted to perform them, and whether age restrictions need to be introduced for certain procedures.
As my hon. Friend said, we rolled out an initial consultation, which closed at the end of last month. We received over 12,000 responses from across England, which is a pretty significant number of responses to a Government consultation; we do not normally get so many. To reassure my hon. Friend, 43% of those responses were from aesthetic practitioners and about 40% were from the various regulated health professionals, so there was an even mix of practitioners and regulated healthcare professionals. We received a fair balance of views, and we are working through the responses at speed. I thank everyone who responded, because the consultation will inform how the regulations are developed.
Over the next 12 months, we will work through the consultation responses and set out exactly which procedures will be covered by the regulations; the education and training standards that will be required of practitioners; the types of premises that will be allowed; the types of licence fees that will be introduced, if any; and who will enforce the regulations to ensure that they are complied with.
That will take time—we estimate that it will take most of next year—but I can assure my hon. Friend that it is crucial. Like him, I thought that we would be able to get this done pretty swiftly, but once we start to unearth which procedures should be covered, who should be doing them and the types of premises they should be operating from, it is a can of worms. It is really important that we take the time to get this right, so that we have a really robust, extensive and safe regulatory licensing scheme in operation across England.
My hon. Friend touched on tattoos and piercings. As he said, those are regulated by measures such as the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1992 and the Local Government Act 2003, as well as legislation specific to geographical areas of England. The existing legislation gives local authorities the power to register practitioners and their premises, and to take enforcement action if practitioners are not abiding by byelaws. He is right that that varies across England, but the measures local authorities undertake do reduce the risk of transmission of blood-borne viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B and C. The Department has a model byelaw template—if local authorities want to introduce that in their local area, they can contact us for it—to try to get as much consistency as possible.
We are looking at whether tattoos and piercings should also come under the non-surgical cosmetic procedures regulations. We are engaging with those sectors to see whether we should have one wide piece of legislation and regulation, or a dual system, because many tattoos and piercings practitioners feel that that works quite well for them right now. We have not ruled out a change, but it is important to note that, as the legislation stands, there are already regulations for tattoos and piercings, which should be being enforced by local authorities up and down the country.
I want to touch on cosmetic procedures abroad, because that is becoming more of a topical issue. As costs rise and procedures are often cheaper abroad, it is so important that we make sure that people from the UK travelling for non-surgical cosmetic procedures are informed about the risks and do their research before they travel. While excellent healthcare is available internationally, we are aware of tragic cases—even cases in which people have lost their lives—arising from treatments outside the UK. Our team are actively engaging with international partners to consider how best we can support people considering travelling abroad for such treatments. Having a safer, regulated system in England will help inform people that, if they are travelling abroad, the country involved should be operating to the same standard as the licensing scheme we are intending to introduce in England.
I absolutely understand the urgency with which my hon. Friend wants to see the licensing scheme come forward. That is why we introduced the power in the Health and Care Act, but this is a complex area. We need to decide who will undertake these procedures and which procedures will be covered, and to future-proof so that we cover as many as possible. We also need to look at the premises that practitioners are operating from and who the regulator will be. It could be the Care Quality Commission, local government, the Nursing and Midwifery Council or the General Medical Council, which all have a role to play in this. There is a lot to decide before the legislation and regulations come before us.
I can assure my hon. Friend that we will be working to respond to the consultation early in the new year, and we will then set out the framework for the legislation. We will conduct a further consultation on that before finally announcing it, because, as he said, there are concerns across the sector. There will also be an interim period so that, if we introduce mandatory training for practitioners, there is time for those operating in this space to take on qualifications and training, to upgrade their premises or to look at which procedures they undertake. We want to ensure that those who can practise safely have the time to develop their skills and upgrade their premises accordingly. I assure my hon. Friend we will consult again so people will be fully aware of the changes coming through.
I look forward to working with my hon. Friend and his Select Committee to make sure that we have an extensive scheme of regulation across England as quickly as possible, but also that it is robust and meets the needs, most importantly of patients, but of the sector as well.
Question put and agreed to.