Police Reform White Paper

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a powerful point: in the end, policing is a public service. It is essential that we maintain public confidence in our policing and that we are also sure that the standard of service we get from our police is the same no matter where we are in the country.

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

I have raised in the House a number of times the police allocation formula and how it impacts Cambridgeshire, which is the fourth worst funded force in the country. Could the Home Secretary outline how the formula will be changed to reflect the division of tasks between the National Police Service and regional forces? I heard what she said about rural crime and neighbourhood policing. The rural crime action team in Cambridgeshire, although incredibly under-resourced, is very effective. This seems like a fantastic opportunity to try to restructure rural crime action teams to tackle hare coursing and machinery theft, rather than neighbourhood policing in rural areas. Lastly, on pay, local police officers have raised concerns with me around things like the application of overtime and the adjustment bank, and of course the south-east allowance for forces in Cambridgeshire.

[Shabana Mahmood]

Once the review’s work on recommendations for the number of new regional forces has completed in the summer, I will set out further proposals on how the police funding formula needs to be reviewed and updated to reflect the changes in the new model of policing. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman on that point, and I am sure we will debate these issues many times in the House over the coming months and years. On rural crime and overtime, I can offer him a meeting with the Policing Minister to go through the detail of those issues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

With congratulations on his engagement, I call Ben Obese-Jecty.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

On 9 February 2020, the Home Secretary co-signed a letter to the then Prime Minister urging him to suspend a deportation flight to Jamaica for foreign national offenders. Fabian Henry, who had been convicted of grooming and raping two young girls, was removed from that flight and is believed still to be living in the UK. Having previously campaigned to keep them in the country—even demanding in this Chamber that the flight be halted—has the right hon. Lady now taken any action as Home Secretary to deport this dangerous child rapist, whom she helped to remain in the country?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I signed that letter because one of the individuals was a constituent of mine who had served in the British armed forces—serving this country on two tours of Afghanistan—and was British in every meaningful way, and his case should have been looked at more by the Home Office before he was placed on that deportation flight. I will look at the details of the specific case the hon. Gentleman mentions and write to him on that.

Violence against Women and Girls Strategy

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

I am very happy to say that coming up with a statutory definition of honour-based abuse, and working on statutory guidance with the organisations that my hon. Friend has identified, are very much in the strategy. I am very proud to do that, because we absolutely need cultural sensitivity in the services we provide, and we need to listen to the voices of the women in those services. It is an honour to work with those organisations, and I will continue to do so.

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

I will address another aspect of this strategy: how it relates to male survivors of crimes considered to be violence against women and girls. My ten-minute rule Bill earlier in the year called for a dedicated strategy for tackling interpersonal abuse and violence against men and boys, so that male survivors of rape, sexual assault, domestic abuse, forced marriage and honour-based violence receive the justice and support that they deserve. I recently met the Minister, and I thank her for her time; the discussions were very positive. I have also spoken to the Victims Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), about how to shape the strategy to support male survivors. What provisions are there in this strategy to support male survivors? Will a dedicated strategy to help male survivors be published next year?

[Jess Phillips]

I really thank the hon. Gentleman for his approach to this issue, and for working collectively with us. Alongside the strategy, there is a statement specifically targeted at men and boys, and there are some specific support services and policies for male survivors, but anything in the strategy, any of the legislation, and any of the support services and the commissioning are for men and boys who are victims. As he and I said, we actually need a piece of work done, because we cannot just paste what women have always used on to men. At the men and boys summit that my hon. Friend the Victims Minister will hold early in the new year, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman can be part of, we will look at exactly what that is.

Asylum Policy

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I really caution my hon. Friend not to defend a broken status quo. He should know that it is foreign national offenders who are deported from this country, and I hope he can agree that foreign national offenders should be deported from this country. We should not be keeping convicted criminals in our nation for a day longer than is absolutely necessary. I say to him that the thing that is morally wrong is knowing that we have a broken system and then either pretending that it is not broken or defending a broken status quo. I will never tolerate that.

I have to say to my hon. Friend that, as I have said to Opposition Members today, I do not care for what other parties are saying on these matters or for what other politicians have to say either. First and foremost is my moral responsibility to the people of this country as I fulfil my duty as Home Secretary. I have a series of reforms that are underpinned by the values of the Labour party and the values of the British people: fairness and contribution. I hope my hon. Friend will reflect on that as he reads up on the detail of these reforms.

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

In February, at Second Reading of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, I raised the issue of the generous financial and accommodation package that is advertised on the Government’s own website under “Asylum support: What you’ll get”, which outlines the provision of an asylum support enablement—ASPEN—card with £49.18 of cash loaded on to it each week, on top of free accommodation, even if someone has been refused asylum. The cards can be used for gambling and have been over 6,000 times, according to a freedom of information request. In May, I raised this issue again when I asked the previous Home Secretary what she planned to do to address the pull factors of free cash and a free home. Can this Home Secretary now commit to address my previous calls that these pull factors must be mitigated to create a deterrent, and will those on section 4 or section 95 support have the benefit withdrawn under these measures?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I urge the hon. Member to look at the detail of the asylum policy statement, the whole point of which is to deal with the pull factors that we know are drawing people to get on a dangerous boat and cross the channel illegally. The upshot of the reforms will be to deal with those pull factors, and he will know that we have said in the asylum policy statement that a relatively small number—just under 10%—of those in asylum accommodation already have the right to work, and in future we will expect them, where they have the right to work, to work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2025 Commons Chamber

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

Last week, the Minister for Policing and Crime told me:

“the funding allocation will be made in the usual way before the end of the year…there is more money going into policing this year and we will ensure that it is given to where it is needed.”—[Official Report, 13 November 2025; Vol. 775, c. 344.]

Irrespective of the fact that more money is going into policing, can the Minister clarify for my constituents whether the Government will update the police allocation formula this year to give Cambridgeshire its fair share? The neighbourhood policing guarantee means nothing if our local police forces are underfunded in comparison with neighbouring forces.

[Sarah Jones]

I would not say that the neighbourhood policing guarantee, involving an extra £200 million, means nothing. It is a substantial amount for all our communities in England and Wales, and the allocations will be decided in the usual way this year.

Police Reform

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I think the PCSO model is extraordinarily successful, not just because the model is slightly cheaper and therefore we get more bang for our buck, but because they do an incredibly important role. They do not have the same powers as police officers, but they have the ability to go in and build relationships with their community to reduce tensions, and in building those relationships, they can predict, see, understand and give everybody else the intelligence we need about the crime happening in our local communities. I think they are really powerful, and one of the awfully sad things that happened under the last Government is that that model was completely decimated. I want to see more PCSOs on our streets because, as I say, they play a fantastic role.

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

The train attack that took place in my Huntingdon constituency on 1 November was mercifully prevented from being far worse by the swift actions of Cambridgeshire constabulary in neutralising the threat and placing the suspect in custody within eight minutes of the 999 call being placed. However, the Government are lucky that that was the outcome. Cambridgeshire is the fourth worst funded police force in England and Wales, and it does not receive the south-east allowance. The current police allocation formula uses data from as far back as 2001. I know that our current PCC, Darryl Preston, and the current mayor, Paul Bristow, share my concern that our police are not adequately resourced, and we went through this last year with the Policing Minister’s predecessor. What commitment can the new Policing Minister offer me that she will completely overhaul the formula as part of the forthcoming police funding settlement, and give Cambridgeshire the fairer funding it needs?

[Sarah Jones]

I join the hon. Gentleman in praising Cambridgeshire constabulary for the way it responded in incredibly difficult circumstances. The quick wit of many—including, of course, the people working on the train such as the train driver and others—saved lives, and we are all very grateful for that. The hon. Gentleman makes a point about funding, and the funding allocation will be made in the usual way before the end of the year. I appreciate the points he made, but there is more money going into policing this year and we will ensure that it is given to where it is needed. As I say, the police reform programme is designed to transform how we do policing so that we can become much more effective and productive in the future.

Huntingdon Train Attack

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been for my hon. Friend’s constituents and those in neighbouring areas to hear news of this horrifying attack. He will know that I cannot say any more at the moment about other potential incidents—they are the subject of further investigation. As more facts are confirmed by the police, we will be able to say more and, of course, the IOPC must be allowed to do its work.

When we know more about the facts of this case, we will know whether it relates to community cohesion or to wider community issues. I encourage Members to wait until more facts are known before we draw those broader conclusions, but I agree with my hon. Friend that it is necessary that we reassure communities in his constituency and across the country. That is why there is an increased police presence across the transport network and why this Government will ensure that, as we know more, where there are lessons to be learned, they will be learned and acted upon.

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

This has been a difficult and challenging weekend for Huntingdon. My thoughts are with the victims of this terrible tragedy; with the LNER crew member whose heroic and selfless actions, placing himself in harm’s way, saved lives at the cost of his own safety, and who remains in a critical but stable condition; with the other four victims who remain in hospital with stab wounds; and with the four who were discharged yesterday, as well as those who bore witness to the attacks and will still be processing their own experiences.

I would like to place on the record my praise for the emergency services’ response: to Cambridgeshire constabulary, whose unarmed response officers and firearms officers were able to place Anthony Williams in custody within eight minutes of receiving the 999 call; and to Cambridgeshire fire and rescue service, our air ambulance services, and the East of England ambulance trust for their incident response and for getting the casualties to Addenbrooke’s hospital. I also praise the train driver, Andrew Johnson, and the signalling staff, whose speed of thought in moving the train on to the suburban line from the high-speed line meant that the train could make the unscheduled stop at Huntingdon—a decision that curtailed the attack by several crucial minutes, that allowed the police to apprehend the suspect and that undoubtedly saved lives.

The swift action of all those involved prevented a horrific attack from being far, far worse. I am sure that the Home Secretary, and indeed the whole House, would wish to share in my sympathies for those impacted by this horrific attack, and in my pride in the conduct, leadership and professionalism of the responders and railway staff.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the hon. Member for both his question and for his own work over the weekend. He was very quick to arrive at the scene. I thought that he handled himself with great honour and that he responded in a measured way to such a horrifying incident in his constituency. The way he has handled himself is a credit to him and to the people he represents. Of course, I agree with his remarks about the bravery of all those who were responding, the speed of the response and the bravery of those inside the train. Let me assure him that myself and my officials stand ready to work with him and others locally on the ground to ensure that all lessons are learned as we move forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Freedom of conscience, religion and belief is a protected freedom in this country; it is part of the rights and responsibilities that we have as citizens of this great nation, and nothing should get in the way of that. Freedom of speech is also protected in this country. There will always be some crossover between those freedoms, but, as I said in answer to a previous question, I am absolutely clear that there is a line between content that is offensive, rude or ill-mannered and incitement, whether to violence or hatred, which is a crime. It is important that we police the line between those types of comments effectively so that everybody in this country can have confidence in our policing system, as well as confidence in exercising their rights under the law of our land.

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

Last week was Rural Crime Action Week. I recently had an opportunity to join Cambridgeshire constabulary’s rural crime action team to see the work that it does, despite having to cover a huge county of eight constituencies with just 14 officers. Those officers have recently been reallocated from being designated operational support unit officers to neighbourhood policing officers, thus bolstering the number of officers the Government will classify as neighbourhood police and helping them to reach the target of 3,000 officers. However, those officers are neither new nor dedicated neighbourhood police. Can the Home Secretary explain why she is artificially inflating neighbourhood policing numbers by reclassifying those in specialist roles?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The Government’s policy position is to ensure that the policing resource that we have focuses on neighbourhood policing, because we know that visible neighbourhood policing increases the confidence that communities have in going about their business and helps us to take back our town centres from those who indulge in low-level criminality—which is not low level, because it harms people and their confidence in their own communities. That is why we make no secret and are not ashamed of our neighbourhood policing guarantee.

Borders and Asylum

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

We have made it clear that we need to end all asylum hotels, including the hotel in my hon. Friend’s constituency. It is because we believe in the UK’s long history of helping those fleeing persecution and conflict in an ordered way that we also need to get control and fix the chaos that we inherited, including ending asylum hotels, which are undermining confidence in the whole system and were introduced exactly because the previous Government lost control of the system. That is what now needs to be turned around, and those are the foundations we are putting in place.

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

The Home Secretary has touched on it a couple of times, but I am yet to hear from her about the scope of the Government’s asylum accommodation programme, which is currently rated “amber”. Despite the fact that 29,003 asylum seekers have arrived by small boat so far this year, the scope of the programme, following its strategic refresh, will mean the creation of only 5,000 bed spaces by the end of 2026, spread across three accommodation pilots. Where will those three pilots be, how many bed spaces will each have, and at what stage is each one?

[Yvette Cooper]

We are developing alternative approaches to asylum accommodation, including work with local councils that have come forward and with other Departments. We will provide an update as we make progress. Two things need to happen together: the shift to alternative sites must follow value-for-money tests—not having the proper assessments in place was a mistake that often happened in the past, as the Public Accounts Committee identified—and we must reduce the number of people in the asylum accommodation system overall. If we do not reduce the numbers in the system but simply move the problem around from place to place, we will not solve it and get it back under control.

Crime and Policing Bill

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is right, and I hope the Government will respond to that. However, she will forgive me if I focus on the essence of new clause 5, which is e-bikes.

The definition of a legal e-bike is one that uses pedals and also uses electricity to assist the cyclist. All the other ones are illegal. This brings me to the problem that, if this measure is going to go through into law, as it will, will the Government press the police to start arresting and prosecuting not only the people who deliberately use e-bikes for nefarious purposes but more importantly, those who just cycle dangerously on footpaths? E-bikes are now more dangerous than bicycles in the sense that they are e-bicycles and therefore get up to higher speeds. Even though the speeds are supposed to be governed, they are still higher than most cyclists will get up to in the normal act of pedalling their way to work.

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

My right hon. Friend and I had a discussion about this earlier. On the subject of illegal e-bikes, does he agree that we need to clamp down on the illegal conversion kits that are readily accessible online which allow an ordinary bicycle to be converted to do anything up to 30 or 40 mph? I tabled a written question about that, and the Government said that it was for the Office for Product Safety and Standards and local authority trading standards to enforce that, but could the Government do more to crack down on it?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

It is funny that my hon. Friend raises that point, because I was just about to get on to it. I am glad he has pinched my speech, but we are on the same side, so let me thank him for getting ahead of me.

I reinforce that point: the Government now need to decide whether to do something about that issue in the other place. All non-bicycle electricity-supported cycles are legal, but all the others are either illegal or have to be used on the road and therefore have to qualify for road use, which means in many cases taking instruction and passing a test, or treating the e-bike like a car or a motorcycle. The problem is that most people do not know that. They are either ignorant of it or they deliberately do not care, and they can buy these illegal bikes in lots of legal shops in the UK. It seems bizarre that we are allowing people to buy these bikes—many are not bikes; they could be boards or all sorts of contraptions—and they then think they are able to use them. Most people do not check up on the highway code or the law; they just get on and use them. They are deeply dangerous to themselves, but also to other road users. I would press the Government to look at this again in the other place—it is too late to do it here—to see whether there is some way in which selling these things to people without proper licences could be made illegal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for his speech and for advocating for new clause 156. He is a powerful advocate for his constituent who suffered such horrific things, and I thank him for that.

I rise to speak in support of new clause 48, which stands in my name. It would create a new, stand-alone offence of assaulting a delivery worker. Before I begin, though, let me refer Members to my entry in the Register of Member’s Financial Interests and my membership of the GMB Union.

Delivery workers are vital to our local economies. They link shops with homes, cafés with customers and communities with each other. They help keep our high streets alive and our homes supplied. But too often, they are abused, assaulted, and attacked just for doing their job.

Rolston, who rides for Deliveroo, has been verbally abused and threatened with violence on people’s doorsteps for asking for ID when delivering alcohol, as the law requires him to do. Emiliana has been riding in Kent since 2018. She has had two motorbikes stolen and has been pelted. Sometimes it is far worse. Claudiu Carol Kondor was an Amazon delivery driver. He was killed in Leeds last year. A thief jumped into his van while he was delivering parcels. Claudiu tried to stop him, clinging to his vehicle for half a mile, pleading with the thief to stop. He was deliberately knocked off and killed. He had bought that van just three weeks earlier and was trying to protect his livelihood. Instead, he lost his life. No one should leave home to go to work and not come back.

Those are just a few stories, but they are not isolated incidents. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers has found that 77% of delivery workers for major retailers such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Ocado, Morrisons and Iceland have been a victim of abuse in the past year. A quarter have turned down deliveries because they feared for their safety, and 13% have been physically assaulted. And this is happening during an epidemic of retail crime. Shoplifting has nearly doubled since the pandemic, and rose by 23% last year alone. In-store retail staff also face absolutely shocking abuse.

I welcome the Labour Government’s commitment to protecting retail workers with a stand-alone offence, which USDAW, through its freedom from fear campaign, has campaigned on for years. It is the right move, because no one should feel unsafe, or face abuse—verbal or physical—just for doing their job.

Delivery workers are on the frontline, too. They work alone, often at night. They are public-facing and can be vulnerable. When something goes wrong—a delay, a missing item, or the wrong order—they are the ones who face the backlash. Too often frustration turns into abuse, violence, or worse. Delivery workers deserve the same protection that this Government are rightly offering to staff in stores. When Parliament places extra responsibilities on delivery riders to police much-needed laws on age verification, it should legislate to provide additional protections for them. New clause 48 is backed by the GMB Union, USDAW, Deliveroo, the British Retail Consortium and UKHospitality. Trade bodies and trade unions are campaigning together, because they know the reality. They see what delivery workers face every day. Since the covid pandemic, delivery riders have become a part of how we shop and we rely on them.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I wish to speak about new clauses 84 to 86 and return once again to policing and police funding. In new clause 86 on neighbourhood policing, the Liberal Democrats seek to address the Government’s recently announced neighbourhood policing plan. The plan pledges to recruit an additional 13,000 police officers—a figure that still simply does not stack up. I spoke last week in Westminster Hall about the discrepancies in the Government’s pledge, the lack of clarity around the baseline figure against which progress will be measured, the fuzziness around how the 3,000 officers transferred from other roles will be determined or implemented, and the fact that the 2,611 officers overcounted as being in neighbourhood roles by 29 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales means that the 3,000 officers the Government have announced this year is all but net neutral in terms of additional warranted police officers—it is an in-year increase of just 389 officers once the adjustment is taken into account.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lisa Smart]

I do not know why anybody would be against a minimum level of neighbourhood policing. It was in this Government’s manifesto that they wanted to see a proper restoration of neighbourhood policing. It is the model that has the most trust and the most support from my community—and, I am pretty sure, everybody’s community—and it seems daft, frankly, to oppose such a measure.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

At no point did I say that I was against minimum levels of neighbourhood policing. I merely pointed out that the Liberal Democrats’ new clause is simply not good enough in articulating that point. This is where I would encourage the Liberal Democrats to put pressure on the Policing Minister to change the police allocation formula.