Visas: European Union Students

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am not going to pretend that I have, but I will try to get an answer for the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I congratulate my noble friend on the proposal to extend the time that graduates of UK universities can stay in the UK from four or five months to two years. When is this likely to take place?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am very happy to accept the congratulations from my noble friend. I understand that the extension will be in place next year.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, as some noble Lords know, my background is in retail, and I have experience of managing the sale of dangerous objects—such as knives—and of alcohol and glue in shops, as my noble friend mentioned. This is an important issue, and we all have a lot of sympathy with workers in this sector. It is also important that we get it right, and while the issue affects shop workers, it is important to look at it in detail and work out what sectors would be affected. There has been a call for evidence and a meeting of the National Retail Crime Steering Group to look into this matter. It is important to look carefully at these offences, and provide time for interested parties, such as those representing shops, the unions and other stakeholders, to come forward and look at the detail of the arrangements. That makes it difficult, given we have got to Report, to deal with it in this Bill.

We all recognise concerns raised by stakeholders. Indeed, the Bill is about trying to make sure that offensive weapons do not get into the wrong hands. I am sympathetic to more work being done on that, but it is important to look at both legislative and non-legislative options for this sort of proposal. I look forward to hearing my noble friend the Minister’s response to this important amendment.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for speaking to this amendment. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his tireless work throughout the Bill to raise awareness of the violence and abuse towards shop workers, often those in small corner shops who are on their own, late at night, with little protection and who face, as my noble friend Lord Goschen pointed out, quite abusive behaviour. I thank the noble Lord and representatives from USDAW for meeting me, and having a constructive discussion about how we can improve protections for shop workers, and whether there are any gaps in both the legislative and the non-legislative space that we can work on. I am concerned for retail staff who do not feel safe when they are carrying out their duties at work. As I have said previously, everyone has the right to feel safe at work.

We had a good debate on this matter in Committee, and I understand the strength of feeling on this issue—I am very sympathetic to it. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, was grateful to have a meeting with the Minister in the other place on this issue as well. Before I outline the Government’s work in this area, I want to be absolutely clear that we do have an extensive legislative framework in place to protect those facing abuse in the workplace. It ranges from civil tools and powers, including civil injunctions to address lower-level anti-social behaviour we often see, to criminal offences including harassment, common assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and threats to kill in some rare cases. Where an offence is committed against a shop worker in the course of carrying out their duties, the courts can, quite rightly, take into account as an aggravating factor the fact that the offence was committed against a person serving the public. That, in part, answers my noble friend Lord Goschen’s point. In addition, the Sentencing Council is due to consult on an updated guideline on assault this summer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I totally understand the noble Lord’s point. He reminds me at every opportunity and I think that I will have written on my grave the “rogue landlords database”. However, I have to say that bringing forward the call for evidence will expose any gaps in the legislation. I appreciate, and I know that the noble Lord does as well, that we are going through a busy legislative time. However, we will provide opportunities to bring forward legislation should it be needed.

My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe asked what the evidence will cover. As I have said, this was discussed at the extraordinary meeting of the National Retail Crime Steering Group on 12 February. We want to take into account the group’s feedback and to use the call for evidence to strengthen our evidence about the scale and severity of the issue. As she has said, we hear lots of anecdotal horror stories, but we want to look at the broad evidence. Any abuse of a shop worker while doing their job is absolutely unacceptable, but we want to understand in more detail how frequently people are the victims of serious crime. I turn to the point made by my noble friend Lord Goschen about what sorts of businesses we are talking about. The scope and the direction will be led by the National Retail Crime Steering Group.

We want to use the findings to consider what more we can do to ensure that shop workers have the protections they deserve. That is at the heart of the noble Lord’s point. If the call for evidence shows that there is a gap in the existing criminal law, we will give that serious consideration. The group also discussed the options for strengthening the existing workplan. It includes actions to support staff who report incidents to the police and to improve police recording. We have committed to providing £50,000-worth of funding for a sector-led communications campaign to help raise awareness. We appreciate that there will be a huge spectrum of awareness across the sector.

I am grateful to noble Lords for their work in raising awareness of the challenges faced by shop workers and indeed I am grateful to the representatives of USDAW who have taken the time to articulate these issues to me. I hope that our commitment to exploring this issue further through the call for evidence and the wider work being taken forward by the Home Office will reassure the noble Lord that we are taking the concerns raised about this issue very seriously. The fact remains, though, that until we have had the call for evidence and we have studied the responses, there is not sufficient existing evidence to support the need for any new offence as provided for in the amendment.

I hope that the noble Lord will be content to withdraw his amendment. I know that in taking time to raise these concerns with me that he is not trying to be troublesome. He is addressing a real concern from the retail industry and I hope that we can work together on this.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I wonder whether my noble friend could comment on who sits on the National Retail Crime Steering Group if that is going to be important in carrying forward this work. I presume that the retailers’ unions will be represented, along with the police and other relevant people. If she is not able to answer the question, it would be helpful to have that information by way of follow-up because I think that there is a consensus across the House that it would be good to find a way forward in this area. However, we will want to make sure that the legislation covers the right areas and carries the right penalties.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Representatives of USDAW are part of the steering group along with staff from large retail organisations right down to small shop owners. It is important that we have a wide range of representation from organisations so that we can see the full spectrum of exactly what issues are involved. I am aware of my noble friend’s past employment with Tesco. Somehow I had assumed that a big organisation would suffer less abuse because the shops are covered by security officers, but that is not necessarily the case. I have witnessed this myself in big retail organisations, and to improve our understanding, we need representation from across the spectrum of those retail companies.

Police Funding Settlement

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on this welcome investment in policing at strategic and local level, because both are important. I very much endorse her words of gratitude at this Christmas season for brave police men and women in our country.

I have two questions. Does my noble friend agree that better use can be made of digital techniques and information sharing in the fight against crime and in improving value for money in policing? Good digital methods can help to make money go further. Secondly, can she accelerate the cross-party work that she mentioned on offensive weapons, given the appalling incidence of knife crime that we see up and down the country and in the newspapers far too often?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for those questions. Her first point was about better use of digital techniques. In all the efficiency discussions that we have had with the police, that is one of the most important things. The advent of new technology means that the police can spend more time out on the streets fighting crime. As more efficient police services engage with this type of technology, we will see that realised in more police time.

My noble friend makes a good point about a cross-party approach to the Offensive Weapons Bill, which I look forward to discussing across the House. I know that we will have a constructive discussion about that before we debate the Bill and I look forward to hearing from her at Second Reading and beyond, and to her engagement in the process.

ONS New Crime Statistics

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Friday 20th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I have said that the Government recognise the genuine increase in serious, violent crimes. I have talked about our serious violence strategy. This very week my honourable friend in another place, Victoria Atkins, will be going out to schools to talk about the initiative #knifefree and the importance of young people not getting drawn into knife crime. We have a number of initiatives around this, including Operation Sceptre. I have outlined not only the funding settlement for this year but the Home Secretary’s priority for the next spending round, because he recognises the sheer strain that police have been put under—the changing face of the types of crime that people are committing and, of course, the strain that they have been under in terms of terrorist attacks. I will say something about police numbers in relation to serious violence. At the national level, most types of serious violence were far higher in 2000, with higher police numbers compared with the 1950s and 1960s, when police numbers were far lower. That is not to denigrate the points made about the police and the pressure they are under. I take this opportunity to thank the police for the very important work they do in keeping our communities safe.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I endorse what my noble friend says about the great work done by the police. I am particularly concerned about the position in London, particularly in relation to knife crime. Does she feel that there is more that the mayor and his team could do to help in the fight against this appalling crime?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend makes a very valid point. Many people have pointed to the increase in knife crime and moped crime around London. This is not solely a job for the police: elected people such as the Mayor of London have their part to play. As I say, there are a number of initiatives going on in this area. The police are doing some incredible work, but everyone has their part to play.

Amesbury Incident

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for making that point. Perhaps the media should have guarded against naming the couple in the first place before their families had been informed, which is the reason that the Government have not named the couple. I have read all sorts of things in the media over the past 24 hours. Thank goodness I do not get my briefings from the media, else we might have heard all sorts of nonsense across the Dispatch Box this afternoon. I totally support a free press, but my noble friend is right: this reporting has been irresponsible.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank my noble friend and noble Lords on all sides of the House for expressing their support for the emergency services, who do such an amazing job in the circumstances. I especially endorse Salisbury hospital and its A&E. As a resident near Salisbury I have used it often and thought it was brilliant with the Skripals—to have the expertise in these awful weapons of mass destruction, which I think meant that they saved the lives of that wretched couple. I very much wish that the latest unfortunate incident will have a similarly good outcome.

I want to ask a different question about Salisbury itself. My noble friend mentioned that some things have been done to try to alleviate the hit on the shops and market of Salisbury from the incident, but I go there every Saturday. There are lots of closed shops. There was some help with parking. Can she either give us a little more detail or ask the MHCLG to write to us with details of what has been done for the people of Salisbury and may be done in future, because this is a double whammy?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I join my noble friend in paying tribute to the emergency services. It must be very frightening to go in to assist, knowing that this substance is so deadly, but trying to save lives at the same time. I agree with her that Salisbury hospital has done an incredible job saving the lives of the Skripals, and I hope it will save the lives of the couple involved in this incident.

I will ask the MHCLG to write to my noble friend about how it has helped the local economy following the previous incident and how it intends to bring confidence back to a place which must have been really badly shaken by this latest incident. She is absolutely right: help is badly needed for the town to get back on its feet.