Knowsley Incident

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I know my hon. Friend’s constituents are frustrated by the use of hotels in Skegness—as are we in Government—and want to see action to tackle the small boats issue. They want to see our laws enforced and those coming here illegally apprehended and removed to other safe countries, but I know also that they will not want to join with more pernicious elements such as far-right groups and to stoke disorder or community tensions in his town. I applaud him for the work he is doing with his community; he held an important public meeting recently to listen to community concerns and raise them with me and the Home Secretary as we formulate policy.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Minister knows that there is a backlog and that hotels are having to be used because of it. He might not want to admit it from the Dispatch Box, but that is the reality.

My constituency is about 10 minutes away from where this incident in Merseyside happened and the Minister mentioned the asylum accommodation providers; may I urge him to work closely with them to ensure that wherever they are placing asylum seekers, they are working closely with the communities, the local authorities and the police there now, and they are ensuring that the accommodation that people are being placed in is able to handle and support them?

[Robert Jenrick]

The backlog is a contributing factor; it was a contributing factor when we came to power in 2010 and found a backlog of 500,000 cases, three times more than the level today. Simply processing those claims faster and making claiming asylum swifter and easier will not solve the problem, however; the problem will be solved by preventing people from reaching our shores in the first place.

On the situation in Merseyside, we are working closely with Merseyside police; we are in regular contact with them and with local authorities. We hold multi-agency meetings, which include the police, prior to standing up any new forms of accommodation so that these issues can be discussed. Where protests are planned, and we have extensive intelligence about that, we work closely with police forces so that they can make sensible preparations to keep the local community safe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question and his advice on this matter. We want to increase the productivity of our Home Office staff so that cases are not being decided to the tune of one per person per week, but at four, five or six per person per week, as they were a few years ago. We have had a positive pilot in our Leeds office, and we now intend to roll that out at pace across the country.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

T3. We have 8,000 fewer PCSOs, 6,000 fewer neighbourhood police officers, and people can see for themselves that there are fewer uniformed officers on our streets. No doubt the Home Secretary will deny yet again that the Government have cut police. In the vain hope that the public might be reassured by something that this Government say, I will ask again: will she commit to matching Labour’s plan to recruit 13,000 more neighbourhood police officers? No more smoke and mirrors: yes or no?

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

There is no need for smoke and mirrors when the police budget this year is £1.1 billion higher than last year, and there is no need for smoke and mirrors when on completion of the police uplift programme in just a few months’ time, there will be more uniformed police officers on our streets than at any time in this country’s history.

Tackling Knife Crime

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab) [V]]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) on an excellent introduction. I feel for her constituents. She told a heartbreaking story about her 16-year-old constituent who was murdered. I am afraid that I shall give some examples of very similar stories from my constituency.

In Sefton and across the Liverpool City Region, we have very good practice in the prevention of violent crime, including knife crime—in stopping people being stabbed in the first place, which we would all agree must be the absolute priority. It means working with young people. It means working with parents, as my hon. Friend said, right from the early years, all the way through. It means challenging gang culture in the Liverpool City Region and the carrying of guns and knives. It means addressing in young people the kind of risk taking and antisocial behaviour that is synonymous with what leads to taking and using a knife and, indeed, with carrying a knife in the first place. It means disruption; it means redirecting. It means finding other interests for young people to be involved in, so that they do not want to be involved in crime in the first place.

The projects that Sefton Council for Voluntary Service is responsible for co-ordinating are life-changing for those involved and they save lives, but building relationships takes time, because a relationship of trust is critical, especially for young people. That takes time, and more than a year of funding. As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North said, this is a public health approach across numerous agencies in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

I fully support the Merseyside police and crime commissioner, Emily Spurrell, in her work. She is reversing some of the significant cuts in police numbers, such as the 1,500 police who have gone in Merseyside since 2010. She is working with partners across all those sectors, building alternatives to crime for young people. This is not just in one borough, but across multiple boroughs, or in one region. Of course, we know the way that criminal gangs and organised crime like to engage with young people to get them to cross county lines, particularly with drugs.

Emily Spurrell and Sefton Council for Voluntary Service need help from the Government, because, as I alluded to before, funding is often too short term. It is often last minute, in response to the latest problem that has come up. That is not a basis on which to build the kinds of relationships, services and successful partnerships that are needed to redirect young people from serious and violent crime in the first place, or to prevent them from picking up a knife and getting involved in crime longer term.

In order to have those resources, the cuts made since 2010 have to be addressed. The cuts have to be reversed; that is true for the police and for local government, as well as for grants in the voluntary sector. Those cuts have made it much harder to tackle the causes of knife crime, as well as knife crime itself. The consequences and the human side of knife crime are utterly devastating.

Take what happened to Sam Cook from Crosby. Sam was on a night out celebrating his 21st birthday. His girlfriend, Charlotte, was assaulted and Sam intervened to protect her. Sam was stabbed through the heart. Sam’s grandad died of a broken heart hours after a court convicted Sam’s killer, Carl Madigan, of murder. Sam’s mum, Gill Radcliffe, told me she found it difficult every single day, for months after Sam’s murder, just to get up and get on with her day. That is the human side, both for the person who dies and for their families and loved ones left behind.

Talking of love, Sam loved football and in his memory his mum has been involved in the Liverpool No More Knives campaign, which talks to young people after football matches to encourage them not to use knives. Using sport to get people away from the danger of becoming involved in violent crime is a great example of an effective intervention.

What happened to Sam is the reality of knife crime, as is what happened to Jacob Billington and Michael Callaghan, friends from primary and secondary school, also from Crosby. They were two of the eight people stabbed in Birmingham city centre in September last year by Zephaniah McLeod. Jacob sadly died but Michael was saved, despite the fact that the knife had severed his carotid artery, his jugular vein and his vagus nerve. The quick thinking of their friends saved Michael, but sadly they were unable to do the same for Jacob. I cannot begin to imagine what Jacob’s family have gone through and I know from talking to Michael’s family just how difficult it has been for them.

In 2001, 21-year-old Colin McGinty was stabbed 15 times. His killers have histories of violence and were part of the Liverpool underworld of the time. Colin’s sister, Laura Hughes, is an amazing woman I have had the privilege to get to know a bit recently. Laura and his mum and dad are all dedicated to saving the lives of knife victims in Colin’s memory.

I mentioned the way Michael’s friends saved his life. They stopped him bleeding to death while waiting for the paramedics. Laura and Colin’s parents want bleed control kits to be available in public places so that more people can be saved if they are stabbed. Laura is asking for funding for the kits. They were designed by Liverpool surgeon Nikhil Misra as part of the Liverpool KnifeSavers project, and they cost about £95 each. Laura is looking for places to put the kits, which can be used to reduce bleeding while waiting for an ambulance or paramedic. They can of course be applied to any situation where someone is bleeding heavily—for example, a road traffic accident.

We can only imagine the devastation caused to the families of knife victims. The lives of Sam, Jacob and Colin all ended in violence, and Michael’s life changed forever. He was in a coma and suffered a stroke. He is recovering slowly 10 months after the attack, but as he says,

“In time I will recover, but I can’t get Jacob back.”

Jacob was his best friend from school.

We have heard of the importance of prevention and of investing in the long-term activities needed to disrupt potential knife attacks, and of the need for investment in services and support across organisations and sectors. It is not just a policing matter, or a matter of responding when an attack happens. I have also given the amazing examples of how Michael Callaghan’s friends saved his life and how Colin McGinty’s inspirational sister, Laura Hughes, is campaigning for bleed control kits, which improve the chances of saving lives. Laura does not know whether a bleed control kit could have saved Colin’s life—or Jacob’s, or Sam’s, or the thousands of lives of knife victims across our country—but she knows that bleed kits would have given them a better chance, had the kits been available.

My plea to the Government and the Minister is for long-term funding for prevention to support the long-term relationships that develop the trust that is needed to ensure young people decide not to be involved with serious and violent crime in the first place. I also plead with the Government and the Minister to take a good look at what Mr Misra of Aintree University Hospital has developed. It is very similar to battlefield first aid and it uses the same principles, with gauze and shellfish enzymes that help blood clotting. We need funding for prevention and funding to save lives when things go wrong. Tackling knife crime is about both. It is about prevention and response, but we need the Government to intervene, reverse those cuts and provide support for prevention and response.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I look forward to coming back to Wolverhampton, obviously when circumstances permit. I also thank him for the great work he is doing with local groups, organisations and police to protect the victims of crime, but also to do much more on preventing crime. The police uplift, more police officers, the record sums of cash that we are putting into policing—all of this will go towards preventing crime, but also ensuring that victims are safeguarded.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab) [V]]

Today’s reports of hundreds of travellers coming from the United Arab Emirates via Dublin show loopholes in the existing quarantine arrangements. Why are next week’s new quarantine arrangements not plugging all those loopholes and making sure that everyone who comes here, from whichever country, is covered, in order to prevent further incoming variants such as the South African one, which is already in my borough of Sefton, stamp out excess variants coming into this country and protect people here while we roll out the vaccine?

[Priti Patel]

As I have said several times already, all measures are under review. Colleagues across Government are working to implement the hotel quarantine policy and the logistics involved in that, but this is not just about hotels. This is absolutely about compliance and enforcement, and we have measures in place at our ports and airports to ensure that people are being checked and to ensure compliance.

Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I agree completely with my hon. Friend. She is right that all right-thinking people of this country have been outraged by tactics that are perceived as striking at one of the foundations of our freedoms. Although it might seem like a small thing, a one-off event and a peaceful protest, there is something about it that has unsettled people significantly. They want to see consequences for those who perpetrated it, and I certainly hope that will be the case.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

A member of the family of one of the victims of the horrendous Birmingham knife attacks spoke to me yesterday and again this morning. The victim was with a group of friends, and the family are very grateful to those friends, the police and the paramedics, who almost certainly saved his life. He is seriously ill now in hospital. Sadly, they were unable to do the same for the other of their friends who died.

The Minister spoke of his experience when he was at City Hall. I ask him to reflect on the fact that we still face far too many knife crime attacks, and that far too many people are losing their lives or being seriously injured. What preventive work can and should be done? Not least, what can be done to address the under-provision of mental health services, which we know about from recent knife attacks?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am obviously grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. He is right that the solutions to knife crime are complex. As I learned between 2008 and 2012, there is no silver bullet that will drive the numbers down. However, our experience of those four years is that they can be driven down through a combination of things, including strong enforcement by the police. As he knows, we have given the police extra powers on stop-and-search—although it is controversial, we know that there are people with knives out there tonight, and our only viable tactic is to stop them, search them and remove the knives—while we create space to do long-term diversionary work with younger people, whether it is moving them away from gangs, crime and drugs, or identifying and dealing with their mental health issues early. There is a variety of things on the menu required to do it, and we will be working hard in the Home Office and across Government to put those measures in place.

Intelligence and Security Committee: Russia Report

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The disinformation point is a very relevant one. Our counter-disinformation unit is led by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, bringing all this action together across Government to highlight and call out work with the social media companies over this important time. It does incredibly important work to guard against disinformation now, as it has done before. It will continue to do that, as well as leaning towards the online harms legislation that I have already spoken of.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Let’s park the lines from Mr Cummings, shall we? The Conservative party takes money from the Russians, No. 10 suppressed the report, and the Prime Minister forgot that his first duty is the security of the British people. So will the Minister go away and tell the Prime Minister to investigate the Kremlin’s role in undermining our democracy?

[James Brokenshire]

I will take no lectures from the Labour party, or indeed the Whips’ question that the hon. Gentleman has asked me. This Government and my party are vigilant on issues of national security, and we will remain so. We will be clear-eyed as to the threat that Russia poses, and where further action needs to be taken, as I have said, we will do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We have never said that people at lower skill levels are unimportant. As we know, throughout this crisis everybody is making a tremendous contribution and effort to keep all services functioning and running, while at the same time ensuring care and compassion for workers in service provision that is essential right now. I have already committed to keeping all aspects of the points-based immigration system under review. The important thing about that system is that we will ensure that points are tradeable based on skills and labour market need across particular sectors.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I am afraid that the lack of sense displayed by some parts of the British public is putting retail workers under enormous pressure and threat. Retail workers often cannot be 2 metres apart from other people, especially at checkouts. This point was brought home to me by a constituent who witnessed somebody being spat on for refusing to allow bulk buying. Will the Minister please revisit what he and the Home Secretary have already said about the need to protect retail workers? We are going to need them to continue at work; we cannot afford for them to become sick.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue once again. As I said earlier, the protection of retail workers is one of the uppermost issues in our mind. I have noticed a number of retailers who are taking protective measures—for example, measuring out the distance and putting tape on the floor to indicate where people should stand in order to stay 2 metres away from a retail worker. However, the hon. Gentleman is right that action needs to be taken when there are serious offences. As far as I can see, the incident that he mentioned is a crime that should be reported to the police and actioned accordingly.

Retail Workers: Protection

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. This is an incredibly important debate, and it has been one of remarkable consensus on the scale of the problem. I hope the Minister will have some good news in a few minutes’ time in response to the call for evidence, because 115 retail workers have been attacked every day since it closed, according to the British Retail Consortium—a total of 24,000 retail workers. The Association of Convenience Stores estimates that 300,000 retail workers have been either attacked or threatened in that time. In responding to the debate here on 5 November, the Policing Minister described the levels of crime as “obviously unacceptable”.

It is time for me to pay tribute to my friend and former colleague David Hanson, who led that November debate and who championed the cause of retail workers alongside my trade union, USDAW, and many business organisations. I am proud to be an USDAW member and a member of the Co-op as well, because in the context of this debate, their advocacy on behalf of retail staff—both USDAW’s Freedom From Fear campaign and the Co-op’s report, “‘It’s not part of the job’: Violence and verbal abuse towards shop workers”—has been phenomenal. Today, 228 days after the close of the call for evidence, I repeat David’s call for a response that delivers a crackdown on this pernicious blight on our retail sector and the appalling catalogue of attacks on shop workers, which, sadly, we have heard described in graphic detail by a number of hon. Members during this debate.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) , and I thank all those who have contributed to the debate. I thank the business community and trade unions alike for their contributions. My hon. Friends the Members for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) and for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) all spoke brilliantly, and I thank all hon. Members who intervened as well.

That brings me to my questions for the Minister. Police numbers have declined by 21,000 since this Government came to office. The Government have now promised an increase; indeed, the last Prime Minister started action to increase the recruitment of police officers, but she found that police officers are leaving the service nearly as fast as they can be recruited. The Policing Minister will be acutely aware of how difficult a promise that is to keep, but he must keep it, and in a timely fashion.

We require shop workers to uphold legislation passed by Parliament, so the least we can do is ensure that we protect those same workers. Legislation on solvents, knives, alcohol and tobacco must all be enforced by staff, and all can be the subject of tensions and verbal and physical attacks. The least we can do is ensure that the police have the resources to prevent assaults. Having more police is an essential prerequisite for the prevention of retail crime. Industry is taking steps—£1 billion-worth of steps—and employers absolutely have a responsibility, which they should be held accountable for meeting, to look after their workers. However, the public authorities should act as well, and that is why I repeat that call for the police officers on our streets to support retail workers.

Retail staff should also be able to rely on the justice system. That means prosecutions for violence, abuse, theft and shoplifting, and support for businesses and their staff. Failure to prosecute lets down the victims, so the Government need to ensure that the criminal justice system is equipped to act. The alternative is repeat offences and ongoing intimidation, threats and violence. A caution is not the answer. Consequences must be meaningful, not meaningless; that is why the Association of Convenience Stores calls for a review of the out-of-court disposal system, which needs attention and a response from the Minister. The association’s concern is that it is not disrupting offending and, indeed, is allowing repeat offending against retail workers.

That brings me to the call for tougher sentences and an answer to the question asked by David Hanson and by my hon. Friends. Will the Government legislate to protect shop workers, including, but not exclusively, when enforcing legislation such as age restrictions on sales of corrosives and knives? We have protections in place for emergency workers, and rightly so. Is it not time we did the same for retail workers? Will the Government create a specific offence of assault on a retail worker? Will they review the £200 shoplifting limit, below which no action is taken on thefts? Will they look at the role of organised crime gangs in attacks on shops—an added threat to staff and communities that also needs attention?

As Helen Dickinson of the British Retail Consortium put it:

“No one should ever go to work in fear for simply carrying out their job. Retail workers are at the core of our communities across the country and these horrific crimes impact these skilled, passionate and determined individuals that make the industry what it is.”

This is an incredibly important industry, and I hope that the long-awaited industrial strategy for retail includes an element of protection for retail workers. I hope the Minister comments on that.

My friend David’s last words in Hansard were that

“this issue will not go away and will be dealt with by Parliament.”—[Official Report, 5 November 2019; Vol. 667, c. 252WH.]

I hope he is right, and that the Minister will give some hope that the Government will give retail workers the support and protection they need and deserve.

Retail Crime Prevention

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Westminster Hall

[David Hanson]

That is another knock-on consequence of retail crime and emphasises the point I want to make to the Minister. This is not an inconsequential or victim-free crime. The victims of shop theft and shop retail crime are the staff on the frontline, who are upholding the law, the shop owners and businesses, who take a hit to their profits, the customers, who pay more, and the insurance companies and other businesses, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston mentioned, which face the consequences of those actions.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend on his brilliant work over the years to support shop workers and the way that he has tried to get the Government to change their approach to the law. The wider damage done by crimes against shop workers affects staff, businesses and, at a time when retail is struggling, communities. Does he agree that, for all those reasons, if this Government are re-elected, they must act? If the Labour party is elected to Government, we will take the action required.

[David Hanson]

I am not a Front Bencher. My Front-Bench days are over by choice. I did the Minister’s job at one point. We had 21,000 more police officers, at that stage, who helped to protect victims from crime. I cannot speak for a future Labour Government, but I know that my hon. Friends the Members for Swansea East and for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) will put in place measures to improve policing and legislation to protect shop staff, and to reduce retail crime, which impacts badly across our community and remains a hidden crime.

I have mentioned the policing plan and the policing response. I make no criticism of the police for being unable to respond at the same level as in the past, because when there are 21,000 fewer police officers than there were 10 years ago, that puts pressure on the police. The Government have said they will introduce 20,000 new police officers. I would like to know from the Minister how many police officers have been recruited since that pledge was made. What is his plan for when those 20,000 will be recruited? Why is he still putting forward proposals to have fewer police officers than when I held his job 10 years ago? What priority will he put on ensuring that police forces tackle retail crime, supported by legislation? These are key issues in any forthcoming discussion on this subject.

Emergency Summit on Knife Crime

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I get on very well with the hon. Lady, and I hope she knows that I am not in any way dissatisfied with being at the Dispatch Box on my birthday or on any other day. My frustration, such as it is, is that this is essentially a question about a date, and had the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) asked me quietly, I would have happily provided her with the date. However, this gives me the opportunity to explain the work that the Government are doing to tackle serious violence.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) is right. I think alternative provision is key to this. We have our next serious violence taskforce meeting on Tuesday, and we will look at this issue in detail. I met the Children’s Commissioner yesterday to talk about her recent report and the role of education in this problem, but also about providing life chances—the hon. Lady and I have talked about them—for the young people we are steering away from carrying a knife and from crime. Those life chances are critical to this, and will of course be an important part of the summit.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The disappointment about the Minister’s objection to the urgent question is not about us in here, but about the impact it will have on the families and on victims who have survived. Honestly, these are great opportunities for her to take examples and hear feedback from around the country on the sort of things that will make a difference in dealing with this epidemic.

I know the Minister said she cannot tell us exactly who will attend the summit, but will she take on board what my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) said about education, as well as the points about youth services, probation, children’s social care and all the agencies that have an influence in reducing the number of knives for one reason or another? In her answer to me now, will she recognise that it is so much harder for those agencies to do their jobs, along with the police, when they have had such fundamental cuts to their budgets since 2010?

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman is right. For the sake of the families, the victims and the young people who tell me that they are worried about walking around without a knife, it is important that this summit is done properly, and that takes a bit of time to arrange. We have a huge array of experts in this field, and getting everybody into one place on the same day takes a bit of organisation, but that is what will happen. It will be a summit that looks at all areas related to the causes of knife crime, the consequences of serious violence, and the efforts we can make to intervene on young people and those who may be on a wayward path.

The hon. Gentleman should not think for a moment that the knife crime summit is the only thing that is happening in Government; it absolutely is not. A whole roster of work is happening nationally to tackle serious violence. Some of it we have seen having an immediate impact, such as Operation Sceptre last week, and some of it will be longer term, as we know from the Glasgow model. Our efforts to improve alternative provision in education, and to intervene on children and their families if they need a bit of help, will all take a bit longer. However, we are very clear that we have an immediate, a medium-term and a longer term approach to tackling serious violence.