Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service

Chris Philp Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Commons Chamber

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

Let me start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) on securing this evening’s Adjournment debate and on his eloquent and comprehensive speech. I echo the tribute he paid to firefighters not just in Buckinghamshire but up and down the country, who often put themselves in the line of danger in order to keep us and our families and constituents safe. As he said, they often run towards danger to protect their fellow citizens. I put on the record my and the Government’s thanks—and, I am sure, the thanks of the whole House—to firefighters for the work they do up and down the country on a daily basis. I pay particular tribute to the work done by the urban search and rescue services, whose specialist capabilities are unique and often necessary at very difficult times such as complicated and dangerous road traffic accidents of the kind mentioned by my hon. Friend.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend and the other Members present on their assiduous and always charming campaigning on behalf of the people of Buckinghamshire to preserve the urban search and rescue service. As my hon. Friend said, there was a plan—which, I should add, predated my time as Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire—to reduce the number of urban search and rescue centres from 19 to 14. I reviewed those plans and listened very carefully to the arguments raised by my hon. Friend, Members from the county of Buckinghamshire and others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) and Members from Norfolk. I studied their proposals and comments very carefully, as any diligent Minister would.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury said, I was pleased to be able to find ways to reorder arrangements internally in the Home Office so that we can keep all 19 urban search and rescue centres open until at least April 2025. We will also make sure that we bid for funding that goes beyond April 2025, to keep all 19 open into the future. Of course, I cannot prejudge the outcome of any future spending review, but I can give the commitment that we will include in our next spending review bid a robustly argued case for funding to keep all 19 centres open, while at the same time making sure that the necessary renewal of equipment happens. I personally accept the arguments that my hon. Friend and others have made, and I was delighted that I was able not just to listen but to respond substantively to the concerns raised. I congratulate him again on his successful campaigning on this topic.

At the end of his speech, my hon. Friend mentioned the question of resources for fire services more generally. The fire funding settlement that we announced a few months ago for the current financial year, which started a week or two ago, sees the average fire and rescue authority—assuming it uses the full precept flexibility—getting about 8% more funding this year than it did last year, so there is a strong financial settlement for the fire service there.

Finally, my hon. Friend drew attention to some issues to do with culture, standards and behaviour in the fire service. There was a recent inspector’s report covering that topic across the country as a whole, as well as the recent Nazir Afzal report into the London Fire Brigade. I am deeply concerned about these issues of culture, and I do expect the fire service to address them. I expect the fire service at all levels, right through to individual frontline firefighters, watch commanders and fire station commanders, to make sure that the right culture prevails. Where there is inappropriate behaviour, whether it is sexist, misogynist, racist or homophobic, that needs to be immediately called out and eradicated. It is up to every single firefighter, as well as fire service leaders, to make sure that happens. I am very pleased to hear that Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service conducts full vetting checks on all its firefighters—that is something that other fire services can learn from, and it is something I have asked colleagues in the Home Office to have a very careful look at. There is good practice in Buckinghamshire, and where Buckinghamshire leads, perhaps the rest of the country can follow.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am glad to be here—perhaps unusually—with a good news story, confirming that we have listened to parliamentary colleagues and responded positively, and that the urban search and rescue centre in Buckinghamshire and the other 18 across the rest of the country will continue.

Question put and agreed to.

Chinese Police Stations in UK

Chris Philp Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement on secret police stations operated in the UK by the Chinese Communist party.

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

Ordinarily, the Minister for Security, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) would have responded to this urgent question, because it sits within his portfolio. He is in Northern Ireland today, so I have been asked to respond in his place.

The latest reporting in The Times on the so-called overseas police stations are of course of great concern. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security said in his previous statement on the matter in November last year, investigations by the law enforcement community are ongoing, which limits what I can say in the House about a live investigation into a sensitive matter. As Members will appreciate, I do not want to say anything that would jeopardise any operational investigations or indeed any potential future prosecutions.

I will, however, take this opportunity to reassure the House of the Government’s resolve to protect every community in this country from transnational repression. Protecting the people of the United Kingdom is of the utmost importance. Any attempt to coerce, intimidate or illegally repatriate any individual will not be tolerated. That egregious activity is part of a wider train of authoritarian Governments—not just China, but others—perpetrating transnational repression in an effort to silence their critics overseas, undermine democracy and the rule of law, and further their own narrow geopolitical interests.

Through our police forces and the intelligence agencies that work with them, we take a proactive approach to protecting individuals and communities from threats. Where we identify individuals who may be at heightened risk we are front-footed in deploying security measures and guidance where necessary.

The upcoming National Security Bill will strengthen our powers to deal with transnational repression and with agents of foreign states more generally. Coercion, harassment or intimidation linked to a foreign power will be criminalised under the new foreign interference offence in that Bill. Existing criminal offences against a person, such as assault, will in future command higher sentences where they are undertaken at the behest of a foreign power through the state threats aggravating factor in that Bill.

The National Security Bill will also introduce a new foreign influence registration scheme, and we will not hesitate to use those new powers to bear down on the activities of foreign entities of concern. The Bill will return to this House in early May and I call on all hon. Members to support it when it does.

It is clear, however, that we can and must do more. That is why the Prime Minister asked my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security to lead a new defending democracy taskforce, a key priority of which is to enhance our response to transnational repression. That work is ongoing and he will provide an update to the House in due course. It builds on the work done by his ministerial predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who I see is in his place. I am clear, as is the rest of Government, that the repression of communities in the UK will not be tolerated and must be stopped.

[Yvette Cooper]

It is reported in The Times this morning that a Chinese businessman linked to an alleged Chinese secret police station in London has attended Chinese Communist party political conferences, is linked to the united front work department and has organised Tory party fundraising dinners and attended events with Conservative Prime Ministers. Those very serious allegations raise vital national security questions, and I think the Home Secretary should be here to answer them.

The director general of MI5 has warned about the Chinese authorities both trying to influence our politics and running operations to monitor and intimidate the Chinese diaspora, including forcibly repatriating Chinese nationals. In November, we questioned the Minister for Security about possible secret police stations in Croydon, Hendon and Glasgow. He provided no information, but said he would come back with an update. He has not done so. Nor has he met with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), despite promising to do so.

Other countries have taken visible action. This week, two men were arrested by the FBI in New York for suspected operations, and in the Netherlands similar operations have been shut down. In the UK, however, we have heard nothing—no reports of arrests and no reassurance that these operations have been closed down. Instead, we are told that one key individual has been vice-chairman of the Chinese group fundraising for the Conservative Association in the City of London, and has attended party-organised events with two out of the last three Conservative Prime Ministers.

Can the Minister tell us the full extent of that individual’s involvement with the Conservative party and contact with any Ministers? What actions have Ministers and the party taken? What have the Government done about the alleged secret police stations in Croydon and elsewhere? Have their operations been closed down?

The lack of answers will raise grave concerns that the Government are not addressing the scale of this threat and are not updating Parliament for fear of party political embarrassment because of the connections with the Conservative party. That is not good enough. Party political concerns must never—repeat: never—be put before our national security. The country deserves answers.

[Chris Philp]

The shadow Home Secretary asks a number of a questions relating to the specific individual named in The Times today in connection with his activities in Croydon, which is, as she will appreciate, the borough that I represent in Parliament—this is of great concern to me as well as to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones). I can tell the House that I have been briefed today, as one would expect—at short notice, as this is not ordinarily part of my ministerial portfolio—and there is a live investigation of this matter by the law enforcement community. As I said in my opening remarks, I cannot comment on the details of such an investigation while it is live for reasons that will be obvious to all Members of this House. As soon as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security is in a position to provide an update on the results of that investigation, he will do so. I will also ask him to brief privately the hon. Member for Croydon Central as soon as possible.

It is worth mentioning that the Chinese activity in this area is not confined to the United Kingdom. We are aware of approximately 100 alleged stations of the kind we are discussing around the world—they are not unique to the United Kingdom—and, as the shadow Home Secretary said, earlier this week arrests were made in New York in connection to an investigation conducted by the FBI similar to the investigations that we are conducting.

On party politics, all political parties need to be alert to the danger of representatives of hostile states seeking to infiltrate or influence their activities. It is fair to say that other Members of this House have been similarly targeted—those we know about—so I ask all Members of Parliament and all political parties to be alert to that risk. We all owe that to democracy.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

May I bring my right hon. Friend back to the real issue? Investigations into individual transgressions are absolutely fine, and they progress. The problem is that we in this House and the Government have known for a considerable time—it has been raised by many of my colleagues—about the activity of the three illegal Chinese police stations. We know that they are bringing Chinese dissidents in, confronting them with videos of their families, and threatening their families in front of them if they do not co-operate, leave and go back to China. We know that. The security services have warned the Government about it. The question today is this: why in heaven’s name have we not acted, alongside the Americans and even the Dutch, to shut those stations down and kick those people out of the country?

[Chris Philp]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and for his long-standing campaigning on this issue and the activities of China more widely, which are rightly of great concern to this Government and to Members on both sides of the House. The activity that he describes—interference with Chinese nationals in this country—is something that we take incredibly seriously. We saw that terrible incident in Manchester not very long ago, where members of the Chinese consular staff dragged someone inside their compound. As a consequence of that, six Chinese officials have now left the United Kingdom.

The activity that my right hon. Friend describes is incredibly serious and unacceptable, and it must and will be stopped, but the three particular locations that he referred to are subject to a live investigation and work by the law enforcement community, so I am afraid that I cannot say any more from the Dispatch Box today. As soon as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security can provide an update, he will do so.

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the SNP spokesperson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The Scottish National party welcomes the inclusion of a stand-alone China section in the integrated review 2023. I agree with the Minister that we must take this threat seriously, and the Government should be giving as much, if not more, attention to the influence of Chinese state actors as they do to that of Putin’s oligarchs.

This is not the first time that this issue has been raised in this House, so can the Minister provide any update at all on the secret Chinese state police stations? Can he assure us that he is not just waiting for the National Security Bill to go through before taking action? Can he reassure me that he or, perhaps more appropriately, the Security Minister has had communications with counterparts in the Scottish Government and Police Scotland? Given that one of these alleged secret police stations is in my Glasgow Central constituency, may I have an update from Ministers on the situation? The Security Minister has in the past given me a verbal promise of an update, but I have not had one. He is not here today to address that, and I do not want to put the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire on the spot, but I am very concerned about that.

What reassurance can the Minister provide to Scotland’s Chinese community, some of whom may have good reason to fear Chinese state interference and the secret police, who may be operating here? Can he reassure us that action is forthcoming, because it does not feel as though terribly much has been taken thus far?

[Chris Philp]

First, I will, on the Security Minister’s behalf, recommit him to meeting the hon. Lady, along with the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones). Given that one of these locations is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), it is important that the Security Minister meets her to discuss it. On his behalf, I make that commitment. I will talk to him later today and reiterate the importance of that meeting taking place, for all the reasons given by the hon. Lady.

I completely agree with the hon. Lady that this kind of activity—intimidation, or potential intimidation, of foreign nationals on our soil, whether by people acting for parts of the Chinese state or, indeed, other states, because we have seen this with other countries as well, with Iran being an obvious example—is completely unacceptable. We have zero tolerance for this kind of activity. It is under active investigation. It is not true to say that no action has been taken. In relation to these particular sites, action is currently being taken, but Members will understand why I cannot go into the details of that work at the moment.

I reassure the House that action can and will be taken under the law as it stands, but the National Security Bill updates and increases the powers available to us. For example, it requires registration and gives us more power to act against people who are acting on behalf of foreign states. I encourage all Members, including those in the other place, to support that Bill so that we can get it through Parliament and on to the statute book as fast as possible, because those extra powers will help us in this area.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I agree with my right hon. Friend that the National Security Bill will make this country safer against state threats and, indeed, make political dissidents in this country—North Korean, Russian and Chinese—safer as well. Does he agree that national security should not be a party political football and that, by definition, ongoing cases should not be discussed in this House, particularly when they have classified elements?

[Chris Philp]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Matters of national security should be tackled on a bipartisan, or tripartisan, basis across the House. All democratic political parties in the wider western world, including the United Kingdom, are at risk from inappropriate influence. All of us must work together to combat and exclude that risk, and we should approach these issues in that spirit of cross-party co-operation.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I am perplexed, and my constituents are very concerned. At the start of November, the Security Minister said in response to an urgent question that there was an investigation and that he would come back to the House as soon as possible to provide a report. He promised to meet me. I have emailed him multiple times and have even texted him, but I have had nothing in response, and now we read that the man in Croydon has links to both the Chinese Communist party and the Conservative party. Was the Security Minister’s failure to respond to me multiple times a discourtesy, or is there something else going on?

[Chris Philp]

That insinuation of party political influence is frankly a disgraceful slur. The hon. Lady is not doing Croydon residents a service by attempting to ask the question in the way that she just did. I do know, because I have asked him, that the Security Minister has never met or encountered the gentleman concerned. He does, however, owe the hon. Lady an update, as I said in response to the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and I will make sure that the Security Minister meets with both the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) extremely quickly to provide an update on this issue.

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

As a former Police Minister myself, I think it is very important that Parliament stays out of an ongoing investigation—that is absolutely vital—but what I am particularly worried about is that, if we just kick these people out of the country and do not prosecute them and put them in British prisons, when they get back to China they will be given a medal, not the criminal prosecution in this country that they deserve. Can we make sure that if a criminal act has taken place, these people are prosecuted in this country, not just kicked out? The Chinese will love that, and they will give them medals and God knows what else.

[Chris Philp]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in the point he made at the beginning of his question, as a former Police Minister, about the importance of not commenting in this House on particularly sensitive live investigations that are being undertaken. I completely agree with his second point about the importance of prosecuting people domestically in the UK and, if they have committed a criminal offence here in the UK, making sure they serve a sentence here prior to getting kicked out. There needs to be a very clear deterrent, making it clear to the people who are thinking about doing these things that it is unacceptable on our soil—we will not tolerate it.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I was pleased to hear the Minister say that these are matters that should be addressed on a cross-party basis. The Security Minister, whom I hold in the highest regard, said that the defending democracy taskforce would be cross-party, something that was welcomed by the director general of MI5. Can I ask the Minister to confirm that that is still the case? If it is, presumably either the Minister and his Department or the Security Minister will be reaching out to our Front Benchers in the very near future.

[Chris Philp]

I certainly share the hon. Member’s sentiments about the cross-party nature of this issue. I will take that point back to my right hon. Friend the Security Minister and put it to him later today, as soon as he gets back from Northern Ireland.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

I am exasperated that, six months after I secured an urgent question on this issue, it is still true that there are four illegal police stations operating in the country that we know of—the one in Belfast seems to be missing from much of the reporting. There is no question that when we are vulnerable at home to Chinese transnational repression, we are weaker on the world stage. [Interruption.] I hope the Minister is listening; does he wish to respond already? This is a transnational crisis, and I have just met with Vahid Beheshti, who is on day 56 of hunger strike outside the Foreign Office because of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps failing to be proscribed, despite the promise to do so. When will the Home Office close the IRGC cut-outs operating in Maida Vale, Willesden and Manchester, as well as the at least four Chinese police operating stations? Other countries have acted, so why have we not?

[Chris Philp]

I assure my hon. Friend that I was listening extremely carefully to what she was saying. She asserted in her question that these locations are still operating. If I may say so, she is making an assumption in doing so—not an assumption that I am going to comment on, because it is a matter that is under live investigation, as she will appreciate. As soon as the Security Minister is able to comment on this matter, he will come to the House and do so.

As my hon. Friend will also appreciate, I cannot comment on the IRGC either, because as she knows, Ministers do not comment on matters around proscription that are being considered. What I can and will say is that this Government take interference with foreign nationals here—transnational intimidation—extremely seriously. It is completely unacceptable, and we will do whatever is necessary to stop it from happening.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Anybody who has the right to be here has the right to feel safe and secure in being here. In the past couple of years, to their credit, the Government have allowed in excess of 100,000 Hongkongers to move to this country, but we know that the intimidation and persecution has followed them. In universities up and down the country, they are shouted down, and they continue to be intimidated. These police stations are part of the infrastructure that enables that. To borrow a phrase from the Foreign Secretary, is it not time that we should be pulling down the shutters on them?

[Chris Philp]

I completely agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said, particularly in relation to the British national overseas Hong Kong citizens who have come here. We have extended a very warm welcome to those people, who are at risk of repression in Hong Kong now because of the Chinese Communist party’s brutal repression of democratic freedoms and other freedoms there, which this Government abhor in the strongest terms. That is why we have offered refuge here to those people.

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that foreign nationals residing in this country, regardless of their immigration status, should enjoy all the rights and freedoms around free speech and freedom from intimidation that we would expect any citizen of this country to enjoy. I agree with him: it is the duty of Government and the law enforcement services and agencies to ensure that those freedoms and rights are protected, including on campuses. I think the Department for Education is doing some work in that area. Where Chinese nationals are students at universities, they should be free from harassment and intimidation—the same applies, of course, to other groups of people, Jewish students being another obvious example. It is vital that university authorities take robust action to protect their students, whether Chinese, Jewish or from any other group, from any sort of intimidation on campuses, which is totally unacceptable.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his robust line, and I thank Ministers for all the work they are trying to do. I think it is true to say that in the past 10, 15 or 20 years, collective Governments have been slow and naive in dealing with these more nuanced, politicised threats from Iran, Russia, China and so on.

I get the fact that the Government are making transnational repression illegal and that there is an ongoing police case, but the point has already been made: repression is already illegal in this country, and has been for centuries. People have the right to the freedoms of this nation, whether they are visitors or citizens. We know who these diplomats are, and we are not going to be imprisoning Chinese diplomats, so we do not have to wait for a court case before we start expelling diplomats who are engaged in these practices. I think that is the point that I and others are trying to make today.

[Chris Philp]

There is no reluctance to ensure that diplomats engaged in inappropriate activity will leave: as I have mentioned already, six officials who were based in the Chinese consular office in Manchester have now left the United Kingdom. The gentleman in Croydon, the subject of the article in The Times today, is of course not a diplomat and is therefore susceptible to prosecution in the normal way, exactly as the former Police Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), described earlier. That is exactly why there is an ongoing investigation that is taking place.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

What specific measures will higher education institutions be encouraged to take, or if necessary what legislation will be put in place, to protect BNO passport holders particularly, but also young Iranian, Russian and Ukrainian students who feel under surveillance, and others within the student body who are there under a surveillance pact? We know this has been happening for quite some time, and the Government’s response has been tardy. Will the Minister undertake today to meet with the Higher Education Minister, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), and to share immediate advice following today’s news, so that we can have a reassurance that all international students are safe?

[Chris Philp]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady’s sentiment that international students—indeed, any students—at UK universities should be free from intimidation, a point I made in response to a previous question. Whether those are Chinese students, Iranian students, Jewish students or anyone else, they should not be getting intimidated. I will just repeat the point I made earlier: individual universities, first and foremost, should be ensuring the safety of students on their campuses in the first instance.

In relation to the hon. Lady’s question about action by the DFE, as Members will appreciate, I am already straying quite a long way beyond the limits of my ministerial responsibility by answering this question; going into DFE areas would take me even further beyond them. What I will say is that I will ask the Security Minister to come back to the hon. Lady specifically on that point and update her in writing on what work he is doing with the DFE to ensure the safety of students on campuses. It is a vital question, and it is appropriate that the Government get involved as well as leaving it to universities. I will ask the Security Minister to come back to her on that very important point, but I completely agree with the sentiment of her question.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

These illegal police stations form part of a pattern, whereby China is an adversary of freedom the world over. We saw that recently over her intimidation of Taiwan, we see it in her treatment of Hongkongers, and we see it in her actions in Africa to try to act through debt bondage to secure advantage on that continent. When will the Government designate China, as we should, as a formal threat to the interests of the United Kingdom in our security architecture?

[Chris Philp]

I agree with the thrust of my right hon. Friend’s thesis. Clearly, the Chinese Communist party is seeking to project its influence around the world, in a way that often undermines the interests of the recipients of that interest and often undermines the interests of those countries that believe in freedom and democracy. I believe we have a duty in this country, acting with our allies in the free world, to make sure that that influence is circumscribed.

Clearly, we are taking more powers domestically, for example through the National Security and Investment Act 2021, which came into force just over one year ago, to seek to limit influences in the investment and economic spheres. We are doing work with partners around the world, too. We are supporting countries where freedom is threatened, including Taiwan, which obviously we strongly support in its right to choose its own destiny. The question my right hon. Friend specifically raises is obviously a complicated one that is probably better dealt with by higher powers than me, but I have made clear in my answer my feelings on the topic of our relations with China.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

On how many occasions have the Government or governmental officials discussed the use of these police stations with the Chinese embassy?

[Chris Philp]

I am afraid that, not being a Foreign Office Minister or the Security Minister, I do not know. However, I am sure that the Security Minister will provide an update on that when he next comes to the House.

[Mrs Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his answers today. This is a difficult area, and he is constrained because of the ongoing investigation, but can he reassure me that the authorities doing all these investigations have all the resources they need, because that will be reassuring to the people of South Derbyshire?

[Chris Philp]

Yes, I can provide my hon. Friend with the assurance she requires. The Government take this issue incredibly seriously. We do not think the operation of these facilities is remotely acceptable, and neither is the intimidation of foreign nationals on our soil, so the relevant law enforcement bodies have the resources necessary to protect people on British soil, as she and this House rightly expect.

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Last month, Coventry hosted a friendship festival to welcome Hong Kong nationals under the BNO scheme. I am proud of the city’s diversity, but the existence of Chinese police stations poses a direct threat to my constituents. The Government’s own Back Benchers have said that this Government are asleep at the wheel when it comes to the threats posed by China. Given that this is a matter of national security, what steps will the Minister take to ensure the safety of my constituents in Coventry North West?

[Chris Philp]

I do not accept the suggestion that the Government have been asleep at the wheel. A whole range of actions are being taken to counter foreign state threats. I have mentioned the National Security and Investment Act 2021; the National Security Bill; the integrated review, which puts national security at its heart; and the defending democracy taskforce, which is chaired by the Security Minister. Those are all designed to keep safe not just BNOs, but others.

On the topic of BNOs, I think that illustrates the United Kingdom at its best. We sometimes hear Opposition Members saying that we do not have safe and legal routes, and that we do not extend a warm welcome. However, we have welcomed more than 100,000 with BNO passports with open arms. We have welcomed 25,000 people from Afghanistan via safe and legal routes. There are the 25,000 who came from Syria under the UK resettlement scheme and other schemes, and the more than 200,000 people who have come from Ukraine. They all illustrate what an open and welcoming country this is and the approach that this Government take to genuine and legitimate refugees.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

It is not just nefarious activity from the Chinese Communist party through the so-called police stations in this country and other parts of the world, but their commercial activities and activities in academia that are a threat to our national security. BGI is a company that is harvesting genomic information from people around the world, for example through prenatal tests. Can I have an assurance from the Government that the defending democracy taskforce will be looking not just at the so-called Chinese police stations operating in this country, but all those aggressive acts being carried out by the Communist Chinese state?

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to what the Chinese Government are doing in seeking to infiltrate academia and certain sensitive technologies. I saw that at first hand during my time as technology Minister, and I must say to the House that I was deeply concerned by what I saw. The machinery of government for dealing with that is the defending democracy taskforce, and there are various other arms of government dealing with that. The powers that exist under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 give the Government—in the first instance, I think it is through what used to be the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—powers to take action. I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government are alive to that, and I saw that when I was tech Minister. I can assure him that the Government are vigilant and alert and that action is being taken.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his responses. What steps are being taken to secure the safety of Chinese expats who are frightened of the reach of the Chinese Government’s arms in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? I have some constituents who are Chinese expats who have told me that they feel they have been followed. They are pretty sure that their phones have been tapped. What assurance can I give to my Chinese constituents about their privacy, security and safety?

[Chris Philp]

I appreciate the hon. Member’s question. If he is aware of cases where constituents feel that they are being in any way targeted, I strongly urge him and his constituents to contact the police, which I guess would be the Police Service of Northern Ireland in the first instance. The PSNI can then escalate the matter if required. Please report that quickly, and I would say that to any Member of this House. I can assure him that those matters will be quickly investigated and action taken.

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con)]

My constituency has become home to many people from Hong Kong. Can the Minister reassure my constituents that we take our moral duty to protect political dissidents seriously and that they should be free from harassment on any inch of UK soil? By that, I do not just mean Chinese police stations, but also IRGC cut-outs.

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. It is a long-standing principle in this country that we will ensure the freedoms and rights of all those who reside on our soil. We will protect them from threats to their freedom by whoever might perpetrate them, including, and perhaps even especially, foreign states. He makes an important point, and he is right to make it.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) for tabling this urgent question, although I doubt whether the Chinese community will be thanking her after she made her cheap political point, which rather spoiled the questions she was asking. My right hon. Friend the Minister will be aware that, with regard to foreign actors, it is not just China that is active in this country, but Iran. What does he think he can do to protect journalists who correctly seek to criticise not only the regime in China, but what is happening in Tehran and the rest of Iran?

[Chris Philp]

First, I associate myself with the comment my hon. Friend made at the beginning of his question. In relation to press freedom, it is a long-standing, centuries-old principle in this country that the press is free and should be free from interference, including by foreign states, and that includes Iran. I suspect we are working closely with the Iranian media outlet that was shockingly, shamefully and disgracefully targeted by the Iranian regime, to ensure that it can and will continue to operate from UK soil, as it is perfectly entitled to do.

Use of Machetes and Other Knives in Crime: Legislative Proposals

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Written Statements

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

The Government are today launching a seven-week consultation on new knife legislation proposals to tackle the use of machetes and other bladed articles in crime.

There are already strict controls on particular offensive weapons, including certain types of knives, which are listed in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988. It is an offence to sell, manufacture, hire, loan or gift these weapons. This offence is in addition to the general offences of possessing a knife or offensive weapon in public or on school grounds. In England and Wales, there are 20 different weapons listed as offensive weapons. They include items such as the “belt buckle knife”, “butterfly knife” and “push dagger”.

There are also similar prohibitions in respect of “flick knives” and “gravity knives” in section 1 of the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959.

In August 2016, we added “zombie knives” to this list, as we were concerned that such knives had no legitimate use and were designed to look menacing, intimidate and encourage violence. In 2019, we added “cyclone knives” to the list.

We are consulting on legislative measures to provide the police with more tools to disrupt knife possession and tackle knife crime. We have identified certain types of machetes and large outdoor knives that do not seem to have a practical use and appear to be designed to look menacing and be favoured by those who want to use these knives as weapons. We intend to include them in the list of prohibited offensive weapons set out in the schedule to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988. Weapons listed in this schedule are prohibited under section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. This would mean that the manufacture, importation, sale and supply of these items would be an offence. Possession, both in public and in private, would also be an offence, unless a defence applies. We are inviting views from respondents on the finer details of the description of the items that we intend to ban.

We are also consulting on whether to provide the police with additional powers to enable them to seize, retain and destroy bladed articles of any length held in private, or whether the powers should be limited to articles of a certain length, even if the items themselves are not prohibited. We consider it a proportionate response for the police, where they are in private property lawfully, to seize, retain and eventually destroy bladed articles if they have good reason to believe that they will be used in crime. We would like to test this proposal with stakeholders and other members of the public so that we ensure that the most effective but proportionate system is put in place.

In addition, we are consulting on whether there is a need for the Government to toughen the current penalties for selling prohibited offensive weapons and selling bladed articles to persons under 18, and on whether the criminal justice system should treat carrying prohibited knives and offensive weapons in public more seriously, to better reflect the severity of the offences.

Finally, we are consulting on whether it would be appropriate to mirror firearms legislation and introduce a separate possession offence of knives and offensive weapons with intent to injure or cause fear of violence. This would carry a maximum penalty higher than the current offence of possession of an offensive weapon in public under section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953.

In summary, we are seeking views on the following proposals:

Proposal 1: Introduction of a targeted ban of certain types of large knives that seem to be designed to look menacing with no practical purpose.

Proposal 2: Whether additional powers should be given to the police to seize, retain and destroy lawfully held bladed articles of a certain length if these are found by the police when in private property lawfully and they have reasonable grounds to believe that the article(s) is likely to be used in a criminal act.

Proposal 3: Whether there is a need to increase the maximum penalty for the importation, manufacture, sale and supply of prohibited offensive weapons—section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and section 1 of the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959—and the offence of selling bladed articles to persons under 18—section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988—to two years, to reflect the severity of these offences.

Proposal 4: Whether the criminal justice system should treat possession in public of prohibited knives and offensive weapons more seriously.

Proposal 5: Whether there is a need for a separate possession offence of bladed articles with the intention to injure or cause fear of violence with a maximum penalty higher than the current offence of possession of an offensive weapon under section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953.

The consultation will be live from 18 April to 6 June 2023, and a response will be published in summer 2023.

We intend to make any changes related to the consultation as soon as parliamentary time allows thereafter.

Knife crime causes misery and fear in our communities, which is why this Government have taken concerted action to tackle it.

We are pursuing a twin-track approach, combining tough enforcement with prevention and intervention as we relentlessly bear down on violent crime.

The results are clear to see. Since 2010, violent crime has reduced by 38%, according to the crime survey of England and Wales.

A copy of the consultation document and the accompanying impact assessment will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and published on www.gov.uk.

[HCWS722]

Machetes: Consultation

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Commons Chamber

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

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on legislative proposals to tackle the use of machetes and other large knives in crime.

Knife crime causes misery and fear in our communities, which is why over many years this Government have taken concerted action to tackle it. We are pursuing a twin-track approach, combining tough enforcement with prevention and intervention as we relentlessly bear down on violent crime, and we are supporting the police every step of the way in that effort. We have given forces more powers and more resources to go after criminals and take knives and dangerous weapons off our streets, and we have legislated over time to tighten the law.

The results are clear to see. Since 2019, the police have removed over 90,000 knives and dangerous weapons through stop and search, surrender programmes and other targeted police action. Violence, as measured by the crime survey, is down by 38% since 2010, and hospital admissions as a result of injuries caused by a bladed article and where the victim is below the age of 25 are down by 24% since 2019. This is really important work: every knife or weapon taken off the streets has the potential to save lives. We have also invested significantly in violence reduction units to bring together agencies to tackle the drivers of serious violence at a local level. We have introduced Grip—hotspot policing to tackle enforcement in areas with particular problems—and have established the £200 million Youth Endowment Fund to fund innovative diversionary activities.

The combination of violence reduction units and targeted hotspot policing has prevented an estimated 136,000 violent offences in the first three years of funded delivery, and tomorrow we will launch a pilot of serious violence reduction orders to give the police an automatic right to stop and search convicted knife offenders. Every offender issued with an SVRO will face an increased likelihood of being stopped by the police and, if they persist in carrying weapons, will be sent back to prison or brought before the courts. That follows the start of the offensive weapons homicide review pilot on 1 April, which will see local partners work together to review the circumstances of certain homicides where the death of a person aged over 18 is likely to have involved the use of an offensive weapon.

Through our police uplift programme, of course, we are recruiting thousands more officers—we will get the figures next week, but we confidently expect those to confirm that we have record numbers of police officers in England and Wales. That is something that I am sure Members across the House will welcome very strongly, along with the 38% reduction in violence since 2010.

However, as the public would expect, we keep our approach under constant review, and where improvements can be made, we will not hesitate to act. It is in that context that we have today launched a seven-week consultation on new proposals to go even further to tackle the use of certain machetes and other bladed articles in crime.

The UK already has some of the strictest knife legislation in the world, and the police already have broad powers to tackle knife crime. Our new proposals to go even further have been developed in co-operation with the National Police Chiefs’ Council knife crime lead, but also in consultation with Members of this House who have brought forward constituency cases illustrating the need to go further.

I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), who brought forward an example of a knife that was legal that was used in an offence in Southend. That knife will be illegal once these changes are made. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes)—I see him in his place—who also highlighted constituency cases of knife crime. Finally, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) raised the case of one of his constituents, who was robbed using a machete in broad daylight on the streets of Chelsea. I thank those Members and others for bringing these issues to the attention of the Home Office, and it is in response to their constructive campaigning and to the police that we are taking even further action today.

We have identified certain types of machetes and large outdoor knives that do not appear to have a practical use and appear to be designed to look menacing and to be favoured by those who want to use knives as weapons. We intend to ban those weapons, going further than the weapons ban already introduced in the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, particularly under section 47, with which I am sure Opposition Members are familiar. That means it will be an offence to import, manufacture, sell or supply any of these weapons. We also believe that the criminal justice system should treat carrying prohibited knives and offensive weapons in public more seriously, to better reflect the severity of the offences, and we are consulting on that point.

In addition, we are proposing to toughen the current penalties for selling prohibited offensive weapons and for selling bladed articles to under-18s. Under our proposals, the maximum penalty for those offences would be increased to two years’ imprisonment. We are also consulting on whether to provide the police with additional powers to enable them to seize, retain and destroy bladed articles of any length held in private where they are intended for criminal use, or whether the powers should be limited to articles of a certain length. We consider that to be a proportionate response. When discussing it this morning in Brixton police station with the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead, they certainly strongly welcomed those additional powers.

Finally, we are consulting on whether it would be appropriate to mirror firearms legislation and introduce a separate offence of possessing a knife or offensive weapon with intent to injure or cause fear of violence, with a maximum penalty higher than the current offence of straight possession. In addition to publication on gov.uk, I will place in the Library copies of the consultation document and the accompanying impact assessment, and I encourage Members on both sides to respond to that.

Knife crime is a menace that has no place in society. It can destroy families and leave lives devastated. We have shown time and again that this Government will always put the interests of the law-abiding majority and victims first. We have given our police forces more officers, we have given them more powers, and now we are seeking to go even further. We are relentlessly focused on driving down crime, and I trust that Members on both sides of the House will support these measures.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Can I just say to the Minister that the copy of his statement that I have does not relate to what he was saying to the House? Some part seems to be missing.

[Chris Philp]

Of the statement?

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, of your statement. I do not know whether you have been ad-libbing.

[Chris Philp]

There were one or two points I added in reference to Members here, but in substance no. I am happy to try to work out what happened afterwards.

[Mr Speaker]

Normally, I see a full copy. I was looking to where we had got to, and then we picked up somewhere else. I think it is important that we try to keep as near as possible to the script that we expect the House to reflect on. I just make that point. I have had it before, and it is easier, especially when the Opposition are going to reply, if things are there. When you go off script for a while, we do wonder what is coming next. I call the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

The additional extracts were not in my copy of the statement either. Labour supports measures to ban zombie-style knives and machetes. Knife crime devastates lives and rips families apart, but this is too little, too late—a smokescreen to distract from the Government’s appalling record. Knife crime has risen across the country by 70% since 2015, and the whole country is affected. Since 2011, knife crime has doubled in Lincolnshire, Hertfordshire and Derbyshire. It has trebled in Norfolk, Essex and Sussex, and in Surrey it has risen tenfold. There are serious problems in Swindon, Milton Keynes and Rochdale. With a serious violence strategy that is five years out of date, the Government do not have a plan to tackle knife crime in our towns and suburbs.

The Offensive Weapons Act 2019 was hailed by the then Prime Minister as the big answer to what is a national crisis, but it has not worked. A year and a half ago, I called on the Government to act on getting these knives off the streets entirely, but they have done nothing. Why the delay? We have heard it all before. In 2016, the former Home Secretary pledged a ban on zombie knives. In 2017, the next former Home Secretary pledged another ban on zombie knives. In 2018, the then new Home Secretary pledged another ban. In 2021, the Home Secretary after that promised yet again to ban zombie knives. Now, déjà vu, we are promised yet another ban. The Home Secretary says today that it cannot go on, but it has and it is; it is going on and on. Who on earth do they think has been in power for the past 13 years?

This is personal for me. Just last month, I sat with a grieving mother in Rochdale, traumatised after the murder of her little boy. I have seen the destruction that knife crime causes with my own eyes, and it is getting worse. Total knife crime is up 11% in the past year alone. Knife-enabled rape and knife-enabled threats to kill are at record levels. Knife possession is up 15% on pre-pandemic levels. The Minister said that violent crime is down, but serious violence is up, not down, and that should be his priority.

The proposed ban does not go far enough. It is already an offence to sell knives to under-18s, but the Government have utterly failed to enforce the law. Just last year, a boy was murdered in east London with a knife bought with fake ID. After the Minister’s changes in the consultation, will I still be able to buy a 49-cm sword online? Only swords over 50 cm are banned. Will I still be able to purchase the 40-inch samurai sword for £100 or the 16-inch “Deluxe Rambo First Blood” knife for £40 that I found this morning on knifewarehouse.co.uk? The consultation does not seem to include any of those.

The Government are trying to legislate their way out of a problem caused by their cuts to police—cuts that have left us with 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police and police community support officers on our streets since 2015—and cuts to everywhere from mental health to youth work. Does the Minister think it is okay that adults can buy dangerous banned knives on online marketplaces that come from abroad? There is nothing today to tackle that, and the online harms Bill will not stop that. Does he think that tech execs should be responsible for what is on their sites? Apparently not, because his party opposed Labour’s plans to make technology execs criminally responsible when they consistently fail to remove illegal content. Does he think it is acceptable that knife seizures have collapsed at the border? Why is the serious violence strategy now five years out of date? Why are the Government failing to prevent young people from being drawn into crime in the first place, opposing Labour’s plans to outlaw the criminal exploitation of children and cutting a billion pounds from our youth services?

Is it any wonder that the public have lost faith in this tired Government, who are weak on crime and weak on the causes of crime? The next Labour Government will take action, making it our mission to halve knife crime within 10 years. Labour is the party of law and order now.

[Chris Philp]

I certainly admire the shadow Minister’s sense of humour. Let me pick up some of the points she made. She asked about police numbers. As I have said, the figures that will be released on the 26th will show, I am confident, that we have more police officers than at any time in our country’s history, including more police officers than at any point in the time in office of the last Labour Government.

The shadow Minister asked about crime figures. I will repeat the point I made before: only one dataset is considered reliable by the Office for National Statistics and that is the crime survey of England and Wales. It shows that, since 2010, violent offending has dropped by 38%, criminal damage is down 62%, burglary is down 56%, robbery is down 55% and overall crime, excluding fraud and computer misuse, is down 30%. When will the shadow Home Secretary, who was a Minister in that Government, apologise for the fact that crime was double the level it is now under this Government?

The shadow Minister asked about the changes we are making today. This Government have been progressively tightening the legislation over the years, including the Offensive Weapons Act 2019. We have been continuously reviewing that legislation. Where we find opportunities to make it stronger and more effective in response to Members of the House and the police, we will take those opportunities, and that is what we are now doing. If there are some specific comments on the length of knives, that is exactly what the consultation is designed to capture. I strongly urge the shadow Minister to respond to the consultation. I look forward to receiving the extremely considered and detailed submission that she is no doubt working on already.

Finally, in relation to recent trends in the data, the most reliable source of information on serious violence is hospital admissions where the victim has received a knife wound. Over the past three years, for victims under the age of 25, those have reduced by 24%. There is a lot more to do, but the direction of travel is clearly right and this Government are committed to going even further.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

If I can make a non-partisan point for a moment, the whole House knows that our late friend and colleague Sir David Amess was murdered with a bladed weapon, so I would like to pay tribute to his proactive successor, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), for campaigning on this issue, evidently with some success. Can the Minister assure us that, on so-called zombie knives—many of which are now purchased online and some of which, I understand, we can only ban because of what is written on them, rather than what they can do—this new legislation will materially restrict the ability, and ideally end it, for people to buy those weapons online, either domestically or from abroad?

[Chris Philp]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point and is right to remind the House of our much-loved former colleague Sir David’s tragic death at the hands of a knife-wielding attacker. He asks two questions. First, yes, I can confirm that zombie knives that do not have any writing on them will be covered by the proposals. Sub-paragraph (iii) in section 47(2) of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 has a requirement that there are threatening words on the blade, and we have reached the conclusion that that is unduly restrictive. It is not something that anyone, including the Opposition, complained about at the time the Bill passed, but on further reflection and following input from colleagues, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West, we think that that change needs to be made, and I can confirm that it will be.

In relation to my right hon. Friend’s question, and the shadow Minister’s question, about sales online, people directly selling online prohibited items is obviously just straight-up illegal. In relation to selling on marketplaces, following discussions with colleagues in the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, I have been assured that the Online Safety Bill will cover online marketplaces when it comes to selling items like this, so with the passage of the Online Safety Bill, the kind of provisions he is asking for will apply.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I know that there is widespread concern about this issue on both sides of the House. In 2019, the Home Affairs Committee published a report on serious youth violence, following a 70% rise in knife crime over five years. The Home Office had failed to give the Committee at that time any assessment of how many young people were at risk of being involved in knife crime. The Committee called on the Government to treat this as a social emergency and warned them that the serious violence strategy was inadequate. Four previous Home Secretaries have made announcements in response to knife crime. I wonder if the Minister could set out why he thinks those approaches have not been effective. What is different about the approach that he has announced today and will that be effective?

[Chris Philp]

I thank the Select Committee Chair for her question. I do not accept that the previous initiatives have been unsuccessful. I have already pointed to the steady reduction in hospital admissions as a result of knife wounds and the steady reduction in violent offences, as measured by the crime survey for England and Wales. The Government have successively tightened the law and we are tightening it further today. We have also put more and more resources successively into tackling the social problem that the Select Committee Chair rightly highlights. For example, the violence reduction units are now putting a great deal of money into the 20 police force areas where violent crime is most serious. The Youth Endowment Fund has £200 million to spend on targeted, evidence-based interventions to help young people into a better future. I have visited some of the programmes that have been run—by Everton football club in Merseyside, to give one example. I was in Brixton in south London earlier today, hearing about the community work that happens there. I think the process we are following is successively increasing resources, investing in diversionary activities for young people and successively strengthening the law where evidence emerges that that is necessary. It is over time yielding results; I set out the data at the beginning of my answer.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Following a recent meeting with my local chief superintendent, he set out that it is a matter of course for many young people in Bury to carry a knife. I will just state that fact again: it is a matter of course for young people to carry a knife. The excuse, when they are stopped, is that it is for self-defence purposes. What happens then? The police take the knife, but there is no prosecution. The problem, and we always do this in this House, is that we talk about words on a piece of paper. Unless the police actually prosecute and take action against people for possession of weapons, this problem will never be sorted out. It could be any type of knife that you want. Does the Minister agree that we have to have an approach from the police where there is no nonsense and no taking a knife—people are prosecuted and put in front of a court if they have a knife, end of story?

[Chris Philp]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The laws we pass here, whether on this topic or on any other, are only meaningful to the extent that they are properly enforced. It is my view, as it is his, that when the police arrest somebody in possession of a knife, they should follow up. There should be a prosecution and, where appropriate, there should be custody as well, or there should be rehabilitative work, where that is appropriate, as well. So I entirely agree with him. With the extra resources and extra officers the police are getting, they have the bandwidth now to do that. Our expectation across this House—on both sides—and certainly in the Home Office is that the police do do that.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

Knife crime is taking a devastating toll on our communities, with young lives cut short and families torn apart and living with the heartbreak for the rest of their lives. Last year, my constituent Ronan Kanda was killed in a knife attack just yards from his own front door. Ronan was only 16. He had his whole life in front of him. His mum Pooja, his sister Nikita and his wider family miss him every day; I spent time with the family on Friday evening. Can I urge the Minister to bring in this ban on the sale of machetes and similar knives as soon as possible, as one step towards tackling knife crime and trying to ensure that fewer families have to face the grief felt by the Kanda family over the loss of Ronan and the many other families carrying a similar burden of grief?

[Chris Philp]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his moving and powerful description of the awful tragedy that has affected the family of his constituent. The way he described that incident illustrates powerfully to the whole House why it is so important that all of us work to eradicate the scourge of knife crime. Yes, I can give him the commitment he asked for: we will proceed as quickly as we possibly can. Some of the proposals can be done in secondary legislation. We will do that as quickly as we can following the conclusion of the seven-week consultation—it is quite a short consultation, because we want to get on with this. Where primary legislation is needed, we will aim to do that as quickly as we can in the following Session, so, yes, I can give him that assurance.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

I am absolutely delighted to hear this announcement today, because machetes and knives have been used in my constituency with tragic consequences, quite apart from what happened to Sir David. The devil is always in the detail. I am delighted to hear that we are going to consider tightening up the definition of zombie knives, which is obviously needed. I am also delighted to hear that, once they are prohibited, their importation, manufacture and sale will be illegal. But reckless retailers are expert at circumventing the law and that is what has happened here. So could I urge the Minister to consider going even further and having a licensing scheme for machetes in this country similar to gun licences? There are some legitimate uses for machetes, but not many. That way, at least we could make sure we get every machete off the streets and out of homes, and prevent these appalling crimes and tragedies.

[Chris Philp]

Can I start by paying tribute again to my hon. Friend for her tireless and very effective campaigning on this topic? This issue is a good example of Members of Parliament raising constituency issues that have led to what I hope will very shortly be a change in the law. In relation to retailers, we intend to be very strict with retailers. The ban will apply to machetes where there is no obvious legitimate purpose, and retailers will be committing a criminal offence if they sell them. We should have no tolerance at all, as she says, for any retailer who seeks to circumvent or break the law by selling machetes that are—that will be—banned.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Machetes and zombie knives should have been banned a long time ago, given that the Government had committed on multiple occasions to banning them, but 13 years of cuts to youth services has led to a number of those services closing across the country, including in my constituency, and it is a fact that areas suffering from the largest cuts in spending on young people have seen the biggest increases in knife crime. For all the talk about prevention and intervention, why will this Government not commit to investing in more resources for young people alongside banning these weapons?

[Chris Philp]

On the first point regarding existing legislation, certain kinds of zombie knives were banned under the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, but as I said earlier, sub-paragraph (iii) in section 47(2) of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 banned only zombie knives that have threatening writing on them, and we are now filling that gap in response to feedback.

On the second point about youth services, I agree that prevention is a critical part of the strategy—it is not just about enforcement; it is about prevention as well, and that includes providing alternatives for young people. That is why we have set up the Youth Endowment Fund, with £200 million to fund evidence-based activity, and it is why violence reduction units and project Grip programmes are directing funding at the 20 police forces, including the Metropolitan police, where those services are most desperately needed.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

I pay tribute to Pete Madeley and the Express and Star newspaper for their campaign on this issue and for articulating the concerns of their readership. Does the Minister share my surprise that the Labour police and crime commissioner seems to have made little or no attempt to engage with the public in Walsall following some dreadful knife crime recently?

[Chris Philp]

I thank my hon. Friend for his tireless campaigning on this issue, and his local paper which I know has been raising it as well. I am sorry to hear what he says about the Labour PCC in the west midlands. I urge all PCCs to engage with their local communities and I am particularly shocked and concerned to hear that the west midlands PCC is apparently considering closing down 20 police stations.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I welcome the relative novelty of a Home Office statement, instead of Home Office Ministers having to be brought to the Chamber to answer an urgent question. If this statement is a yardstick by which statements can be expected, the House will be better served in the future than it has been in the recent past.

The measures in the consultation are eminently sensible, and I do not think there would be any challenge from Members in any part of the House, but the Minister is kidding himself if he thinks that this process is going to shift the dial at all in reducing violent knife crime. What would make a difference is visible police presence in our streets. It remains to be seen whether the Government have honoured their manifesto pledge on police numbers, but we already know that the number of police community support officers on our streets is down by 33%; when are the Government going to restore those numbers?

[Chris Philp]

I am glad the right hon. Gentleman likes the statement and I will try to provide further such statements in the future given that there is clearly an appetite for them from his side of the Chamber.

On moving the dial, there is clearly no one solution to a problem like knife crime—there is no silver bullet; no one measure will fix the problem in totality—but I do think that these proposals will move the needle. I saw a knife today in Brixton police station that is currently legal; it was a zombie knife without lettering on it and therefore does not fall within the scope of section 47 of the 2019 Act. It is legal today, but under these proposals it will be illegal, meaning people cannot sell it, market it, import it, manufacture it or even possess it in private. I spoke to the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead today about the totality of these measures and he was very clear that he thinks this will make a difference. It will not solve the problem on its own, but I think it will make a difference.

On police numbers, the figures will be unveiled at 9.30 on 26 April—next Wednesday—so the right hon. Gentleman will have to bear with me until then. However, I am very confident, as I have said once or twice already, that we will have record numbers of officers—more than we have ever had at any time in the history of policing in England and Wales.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

I do not wish to pre-empt the outcome of the consultation, but many of my constituents cannot comprehend how such dangerous weapons can be sold and end up in commonplace use on our streets. I recognise the challenges, but please will the Minister do whatever it takes to get these weapons off our streets, prosecute those who carry them regardless of whether or not they claim it is for self-defence, and go as far as possible to restrict, and preferably completely ban, their sale?

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend speaks words of great wisdom and I agree with every single one of them.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

This is urgent. Last Sunday a 15-year-old boy was attacked with a machete in Leeds—he is being treated for a serious head injury—and the previous month a group of men had a fight with machetes in broad daylight on the streets of our city. I welcome these proposals and echo the call from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) for them to be brought in as quickly as possible and the call from the hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) for them to be made as comprehensive and loophole-free as possible, because there is no place for these weapons anywhere in our cities and towns.

[Chris Philp]

I agree completely with the right hon. Gentleman’s sentiments and those expressed previously by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden). Speed is important: we want to do this as quickly as we can, and that is one reason it is a seven-week consultation rather than longer. As I said earlier, we will take forward measures in secondary legislation as quickly as we can, and will also handle as quickly as possible those that need primary legislation.

I agree with the point about the need to avoid loopholes, and in that spirit I strongly encourage Members of this House and people outside it with an interest in this topic—whether charities or anyone else—to reply to the consultation on those points of detail. The shadow policing Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) raised some questions about the length of particular knives; that is the kind of detail we need to get right and the consultation is the vehicle through which we can make sure the details are comprehensively captured exactly as the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) suggests.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

As in the constituencies of other Members, in 2018 we had a shocking incident in Gillingham in which an 18-year-old was killed by a gang using knives—the incident led to the tragic loss of the life of Kyle Yule. I met his family afterwards and said we would do everything we could to address the issue of knife crime, which brings me to asking the Minister where we go next.

In 2019, senior detectives in Newham said they had discussed with the Government a licensing or registration system due to fears that hunting knives were becoming the weapon of choice for gangs. That was in 2019 and we are now looking at new initiatives. Where are we with regard to licensing and registration? The Minister says we are looking at firearms legislation to see whether we need to move to that kind of system for the possession of knives. I was a lawyer and I prosecuted and defended many of these cases, and questions were raised then about licensing perhaps being specifically needed in this area. Are we there, and if not, why not?

[Chris Philp]

Some important steps were taken through the Offensive Weapons Act 2019. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) is in the Chamber, and in a previous ministerial post she took that important legislation through the House. We propose to go further now: rather than introducing a licensing scheme, we propose to ban completely the machetes and zombie knives that are not currently illegal. Instead of requiring a licensing regime, it will simply be illegal to sell, market, import, manufacture or privately possess those particular knives.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I obviously welcome the further steps to crack down on dangerous knives whenever they might come in, but I gently say to the Minister that when I have taken evidence from experts on the knife problems in my constituency they tell me it is about poverty and child poverty; they tell me it is about the flourishing illegal drugs trade that we just do not have a handle on; they tell me it is about the exploitation of children by county lines gangs; and they talk about the lack of access to youth services and mental health treatment. I urge the Minister to look at this in a holistic way and begin to bring real change and real hope to communities like mine which are so blighted in this way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I recognise many of the causal factors the hon. Lady describes from her experience in West Ham. In Croydon, we see similar social problems that need to be addressed. Quite a lot of investment is now going into those areas. There is more money going into mental health. I mentioned already, in response to previous questions, the money going into the Youth Endowment Fund. The violence reduction units are designed to work with young people and get them on to a better path. I was talking to officers in Brixton in south London earlier today. They were telling me how they will use their extra officers. The sergeant from Lambeth talked about how they are going to try to work with families of young people as young as nine who are beginning to head down the wrong path. So, I agree that those are exactly the things we need to work on. Investment is being made and we are on the right path.

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

I, too, welcome the news today that the Government are working to close legal loopholes on zombie knives and to strengthen police powers to help make our streets safer. My right hon. Friend will be aware that many of our constituents, in Croydon but also in Old Bexley and Sidcup, are very concerned about the rise in crime, in particular knife crime, under the Mayor of London. I therefore urge the Minister to review the calls from frontline police officers to look also at the introduction of scan and search as a way of helping to get knives off the street.

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend and fellow London MP asks a very good and pertinent question. The Metropolitan police currently takes between 350 and 400 knives off the streets of London every month using regular stop and search, so we should be clear that it is an important tactic that keeps our constituents and fellow citizens safe. Scan and search has enormous potential for covertly or discreetly scanning people as they walk down the street and detecting those who are carrying knives. I strongly encourage police forces up and down the country, not just the Metropolitan police, to adopt that kind of technology to ensure they identify more knives and take them off our streets.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

An hour and a half ago, we were able to identify and source online a machete for under £11 which could be delivered to my house tomorrow. That is totally unacceptable. My constituents do not want to hear any more words; they want action. The Minister talked about diversionary tactics for young people. The 23 villages I represent tell me the Government have abandoned them: no youth services anymore; very little access to mental health services for young people; and very often we do not see any community police officers in our villages. None of that is acceptable. The issue requires a holistic approach by the Government to tackle the sense of abandonment that so many people feel in our area, which is the breeding ground for so much violent crime.

[Chris Philp]

One of the reasons we are hiring extra officers—and why we are confident we will have record numbers when the figures are unveiled next week—is to ensure we have a visible police presence not just in our cities and towns, but in villages up and down the country as well. In terms of action on buying zombie knives, the seven-week consultation launched today, combined with the provisions in the Online Safety Bill, are designed to address that problem. It is important, as the hon. Gentleman says, and that is why the Government are acting.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)]

Recently in Thornaby we have seen feral, balaclava-clad, knife-wielding yobs riding around residential areas on off-road bikes. On Saturday, someone was robbed at knife point in broad daylight. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we must encourage and back the police in the wider use of stop and search to get knives off our streets? Will he meet me to discuss the horrendous issues occurring in Thornaby?

[Chris Philp]

Yes, I absolutely agree that stop and search is a vital tool. I mentioned a few minutes ago that every month in London alone stop and search takes between 350 and 400 knives off our streets—knives that could be used to injure or even kill our fellow citizens—so I completely agree with that point. And yes, of course I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is nearly three years since John Rees, then 88, left his wife in the car when he popped into Penygraig Co-op to pick up a few groceries. While he was in there, Zara Radcliffe tried to attack another person. He tried to intervene and was killed in the process. Of course, a knife was involved and it was the knife that killed him. But in the end, in a way, it is not the knife but the person who killed him. He was a phenomenal hero.

My anxiety is that if we deal only with more and more legislation and we do not deal with all the other issues, such as the mental health situation surrounding Zara Radcliffe or the problems with youth services up and down the country, we will not come to a solution. A point was made by a colleague of the Minister earlier that I think is really important: there is no point in passing lots more laws if we do not enforce them. He may not be able to answer this question now, and if he cannot I would be grateful if he wrote to me, but can he tell me how many prosecutions there have been since the 2019 Act in relation to possessing a knuckle duster, a throwing star or a zombie knife, or for that matter for the sale of a knife either in person or online without proper reason to someone under the age of 18?

[Chris Philp]

I am afraid I do not have the prosecution figures to hand, but I will certainly write to the hon. Gentleman with them. They are quite substantial. I agree with his general point that legislating is important but that, on its own, it is not enough. It is important that we legislate and that the police have the relevant powers, and it is important that we criminalise dangerous knives, as we are going to do, but we also need to ensure that there are enough police to enforce those laws, hence the police recruitment programme. It is important to have the right youth services, hence the Youth Endowment Fund and the violence reduction units that are being invested in, and the hotspot policing via the Grip programme, where the police identify particular hotspots and have surge policing in those areas. He is right that we need to do all those things. By comprehensively tackling this together, we can continue to make sure that the violent crime figures go down.

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on child criminal exploitation and knife crime, I welcome any announcement to tackle knife crime. As many have said today, adequate police numbers are important when tackling knife crime. In the west midlands, we have seen the highest incidence of knife crime of any police force area in the country, but we have had the lowest increase in police numbers since 2010. When will the Government start listening to my constituents in Coventry North West, invest in policing in the west midlands and make the necessary investments to start tackling the root causes of knife crime?

[Chris Philp]

I have talked a lot about the measures being taken to tackle the causes of knife crime: the Youth Endowment Fund, the violence reduction units and the Grip hotspot surge policing. I think the west midlands is one of the 20 forces that receives those interventions, as we would expect given the problems. On police numbers, I believe we will hit record numbers across England and Wales. There are some individual forces where police and crime commissioners have chosen, over the last five or 10 years, not to use their precept flexibility to raise more funds, and that does have a consequence. That is an issue the hon. Lady should raise with her local police and crime commissioner.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I welcome the consultation. Let us hope it leads to urgent action. The Minister bandied around some figures to try to paint a rosy picture of crime rates, but what he failed to mention is that knife-enabled rape cases are at a record high and that, since 2015, knife-enabled crime is up 70%. I wonder if he thinks that has been assisted and aided by the fact that the Conservatives cut 21,000 police officers in that time, and whether that contributed to those rising figures? He says he may be crowing about the number of police officers next week, but where will they be allocated and will they be back on our streets in community policing, which the Conservatives decimated?

[Chris Philp]

Actually, the Metropolitan police already has record numbers. The most recent published figures show that it has roughly 35,000 police officers compared to a previous peak of 33,000, so the Met already has record numbers. From talking to the commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, I know that he intends to place an emphasis on neighbourhood policing. In fact, earlier today a neighbourhood sergeant in Brixton, Lambeth confirmed that the neighbourhood policing units across the three wards he looks after have gone up already.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

In his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), the Minister cited the importance that he attaches to data from the Office for National Statistics. It reports that the number of people killed with a knife last year was the highest in 76 years. Did the Minister miss that statistic? How does that fit into his rather upbeat presentation?

[Chris Philp]

Overall, total homicide has gone down slightly over the last three years—by about 7%, speaking from memory. We should welcome that reduction. One of the reasons for legislating is that we are concerned that some of the very dangerous knives are being used in knife-enabled homicide, as the hon. Gentleman describes. One of the issues with zombie knives is their double-serrated and jagged edges: if somebody is stabbed it causes serious internal injuries, which trauma surgeons and A&E consultants tell us are more likely to lead to serious injury or even death. Precisely for that reason, we are bringing forward these changes.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware of the long-standing research by the University of Leicester on knife injuries, which found that carving knives are the most commonly used in stabbing incidents? A campaign was led by retired circuit judge Nic Madge, who has tried many knife offence cases. He said:

“my experience is that the vast majority of knives carried by teenage boys are ordinary kitchen knives.”

The campaign has made some practical recommendations such as only allowing the sale of large kitchen knives with rounded tips, to reduce serious injuries. Will the Minister engage with that work? What he announced today will make very little difference to the number of deaths and serious injuries on our streets, as perpetrators have other sources of knives available.

[Chris Philp]

As I said in my previous answer, the knives that we are talking about with serrated edges and jagged shapes tend to cause the worst injuries, because of the internal damage that they cause when somebody is stabbed with them. However, the hon. Gentleman makes some valid points, and I would be happy to engage with him and others to see if there are areas where we can go further.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Sadly, on Friday evening a young teenager in Luton South was stabbed and died. Like many others, I welcome the consultation. However, like others, whether from West Ham in a city, the village of Hemsworth, the valley of Rhondda or the town of Luton, how can I trust what the Government are saying about prevention when they have stripped £1 billion from youth services?

[Chris Philp]

I am sure that all in the House extend their condolences to the bereaved family in Luton for the incident that the hon. Lady described. We have talked about youth services quite extensively. Significant investment is being made via the Youth Endowment Fund, which is an evidence-based programme to put money into interventions that are proven to work using data. The violence reduction units in the 20 police force areas with the most significant challenges are funding local services to help young people in particular—in some cases as young as nine—on to a better path for the future. Those measures are working collectively. Violent crime is down by 38% since 2010, but clearly cases such as the one she mentioned mean that we cannot be complacent. There is more work to do. I am confident that by working together we can overcome the scourge of knife crime.

Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Chris Philp Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 24th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

In that case, I will just say that I mentioned those points in relation to new clause 1 and the other amendments. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman has set out very clearly the rationale, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, spelling out why we require guidance—we all hope that it will come speedily—but also why it is important that the legislation is consistent with other Acts in this area. I hope that the House will bear those remarks in mind when deciding how to vote.

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

It is a great pleasure to speak to the amendments before the House on Report. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) for his new clause 1 and amendment 1, and I am happy to confirm formally that the Government support those amendments.

As my right hon. Friend has set out, the new clause would require Ministers to publish statutory guidance for all police forces, to which those police forces would have to have regard. In particular, the guidance would need to include material about the reasonable conduct defence that has been the focus of so much discussion. There has been some concern, expressed by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and others, that a subjective interpretation of the reasonable conduct defence might be adopted by defendants in an attempt to repudiate responsibility for their actions or to avoid conviction.

It is the view of the Government that what constitutes reasonable conduct can be defined objectively with regard to their conduct, without needing to have regard to somebody’s internal thought processes. However, we agree that guidance would be valuable in order to be completely clear about that point and to remove any ambiguity, so we are happy to support new clause 1 and amendment 1 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells.

It will of course be possible for many other people besides the police to refer to the guidance, including the Crown Prosecution Service, which we would expect to operate on the same basis as the police when prosecuting those offences. To respond to a very reasonable question from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), we want to get this done as quickly as possible. I certainly would not want or expect it to take anything like so long as a year, which he referred to in his speech in a different context; I hope it can be accomplished in a matter of months.

My hon. Friend also said that the guidance should be subject to input and scrutiny to ensure that it is constructed in a way that is proportionate and reasonable, and I am sure the hon. Member for Walthamstow would agree. I would therefore expect opportunities to be provided to interested parties to provide that comment and I will give consideration to whether we should have a formal consultation process on the guidance. We should be mindful that that would introduce additional delay, but, given that the point has been raised, we will give it thought and strike the right balance between getting the guidance done quickly, which everyone wants, and making sure that interested parties both in Parliament and outside have an opportunity to input into its construction.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells for tabling the amendments and to other hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Walthamstow and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch for offering their comments.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Would it not be normal to produce the draft guidance and then consult on it, rather than expecting the Government to come up with the perfect solution after they have received representations in general? I strongly urge my right hon. Friend to take the approach of having draft guidance first.

[Chris Philp]

It is occasionally possible for the Government to come up with something perfect straight away, but I accept that that does not always occur. The process that my hon. Friend just set out, where the Government might publish a draft and invite comments on it, either informally or via a formal consultation, seems to me a sensible way of arranging matters.

[Stella Creasy]

One of the concerns behind much of this is about consistency in the law. With other forms of harassment legislation, how reasonableness is defined is already written in. I invite the Minister to consider whether the important thing is not to come up with a whole new set of guidelines, but simply to clarify and be consistent in how we expect courts and juries to consider that concept when somebody claims, “I thought my behaviour was reasonable,” and the law says, “Well, you ought to have known,” in other forms of harassment legislation. This is not about a new piece of guidance; it is about clarifying matters so that we do not inadvertently damage the ways in which our courts can work. For example, the CPS guidance on the Serious Crime Act 2015 talks about how defendants “ought to know” about the course of conduct—again, with oblique directions that judges can give. There is plenty of guidance out there; we really just need to compile it into one document, do we not?

[Chris Philp]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady. There is existing guidance and practice in other areas that quite rightly clarifies or confirms that the assessment of reasonableness includes what somebody ought to have known, and that inferences can be drawn from their behaviour. She is quite right to point to that existing guidance and practice, and I completely agree that we should be consistent on that. I am sure that looking at that would help to draw up the draft in a quick manner. A combination of the approaches suggested by the hon. Lady and by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will quickly lead us to the right answer and enable us to publish something—a draft—and get views on it, as my hon. Friend suggested. It sounds to me as if there is a rapid, sensible, pragmatic and consistent way forward.

Let me turn now to the amendments moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. On the topic of his good humour, I have been informed by the Government Whips—a source of unimpeachable reliability, obviously—that his Mobile Homes (Pitch Fees) Bill has successfully passed its Second Reading unopposed in the other place. I hope that that provides an early boost to his good humour. Although it does not relate directly to an amendment, I just want to respond to one important point that arose in his speech, on something that I have noticed, too: adverts on London underground tubes referring to people’s behaviour in terms of where they look. He said that those were produced by the Government. For the sake of clarity, those advertisements are in fact produced by the Mayor of London in his capacity as the head of Transport for London.

As the House has heard and would expect, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells has given the various amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch close and careful consideration, as have colleagues in the Home Office. We completely understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has tabled the amendments after a great deal of consideration, and we have taken them very seriously indeed, so I will go through them one by one.

First, amendments 2 and 6 would require the other person’s sex—the victim’s sex—to have been the principal motivation for the defendant’s behaviour. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells has set out, he has drafted the legislation in the way that he has so that we are following precedent, and, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow said a moment ago, it is best that, where possible, we are consistent in the way we legislate. If any component of the motivation for the defendant’s behaviour is concerned with the sex of the victim, that is, in itself, of great concern. It may not be the principal component in some cases—it may simply be one component or a subsidiary component—but it is serious none the less.

The aim of the House is to protect people from sex-based harassment, and it strikes me that, whether the sex-based component is the principal component or a subsidiary component, the seriousness remains. Having considered that very carefully and, of course, discussed it with the Bill’s promoter, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells, our feeling on balance is that the drafting as it was best translates the House’s intention into legislation and is consistent with the rest of the statute book.

Amendments 3 and 5 would replace the words “because of”. Once again, as my right hon. Friend has set out, those words appear in a number of other contexts, in other pieces of legislation, and although we cannot, as he said, dispute the command of the English language and elegance of expression of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, there is a great benefit to consistency with other pieces of legislation. We feel that following precedent and maintaining that consistency is a good idea.



Amendments 7 and 8 would restrict the new offence to cases in which the harassing is done because of the victim’s actual sex, rather than what the defendant presumes the victim’s sex to be. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that getting into wider discussions about the distinction between sex and gender would probably not be helpful in the context of this debate. We are considering here a circumstance in which someone harasses someone else in the erroneous belief that that person’s gender is the opposite of what it actually is. I think that what matters is the intent to cause sex-based distress and harassment, and that even if the perpetrator, or the alleged perpetrator, was mistaken in their assumption about the sex of the victim—or the purported victim, the complainant—that does not minimise or mitigate the seriousness of the act, because the intention was there and the act was undertaken.

At this point I should say that I had meant to address at the start of my speech a question that arose while my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch was speaking. Let me deal with it now. I agree with my hon. Friend that concerns about prison capacity should not constrain what the House may do in framing new legislation. It is of course incumbent upon Parliament to legislate and set out criminal offences. The police will investigate, the Crown Prosecution Service will prosecute and the courts will, if appropriate, convict. It is then up to the Government to ensure that adequate prison capacity is available. I know that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice is engaged in a substantial prison building programme, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that prison capacity constraints or availability should in no way fetter the House as it considers legislation.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister is making some very good points, with only one exception: I think that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has had a good record in this general area. When it comes to the prison population, however, is it not about time that we did something about the 1,000 young people who are convicted under joint enterprise? That could open up so much capacity in our prisons.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman has made an important point, and I am sure that—as you have implied, Madam Deputy Speaker—the House will have an opportunity to consider it on another occasion.

Amendment 4 would make the Bill state that the defendant can be a man or a woman. As we heard earlier from my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells, the defendant could indeed be a man or a woman, and indeed the victim could be a man or a woman, because, as we have established, the Bill makes no distinction between men and women. We do not generally set out in legislation the permitted genders of potential perpetrators, or those who might be guilty. Almost every offence is capable of being committed by a man or a woman, but we do not usually need to put that on the face of a Bill, and I do not think we need to do so in this instance. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch was right to raise this issue and to seek the clarification that I am happy to provide.

Amendment 9 requires the Bill to come into force on 1 August this year. I entirely share the desire of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and the hon. Member for Walthamstow to get the Bill activated quickly. Let me be candid and say that, as a Minister, I sometimes find it frustrating that it takes longer to get things done than perhaps it ought to, so I share the sentiment expressed in the amendment. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells said earlier, there is some uncertainty about the timing of the Bill’s passage through the other place. Obviously, their lordships regulate their own business, and we cannot be certain about how they may seek to dispose of the Bill.

There is also the question about the guidance, which we have discussed already, and the suggestion that we publish a draft that people can then comment on. That will take a little time. I hope it is a few months, but I do not want to create a tripwire that we inadvertently stumble over. I suggest that we proceed, as is often the case in primary legislation, with commencement via a statutory instrument, with a firm undertaking from the Government that we will seek to do this as soon as possible. The Bill clearly commands, in principle, widespread support across the House, and for the sake of protecting women and men it is important that we get this on to the statute book, and operational and effective, as quickly as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 1 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 3

Extent, commencement and short title

Amendment made: 1, page 2, line 20, after “1” insert “, (Guidance)”.—(Greg Clark.)

This amendment is consequential on NC1.

Third Reading

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I will be extremely brief, because I know that many other Members want to bring Bills forward today, and other Members have made excellent contributions. I quickly congratulate again my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) on bringing forward this legislation. I congratulate many Members on the work they have done on this issue, particularly the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price).

It is important that this Bill is only one part of a wider piece of work to protect women and girls. Of course, this is a Government who brought forward legislation on forced marriages, stalking, upskirting and making sure that serious sexual offenders spend more of their sentence in prison. We have brought forward the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, introduced the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and legislated on female genital mutilation. There of course is a lot more work to do, and I look forward to working with colleagues in government and across the House to make further progress.

Public Order Bill

Chris Philp Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 6B to 6F.

The Bill is about giving the police the tools they need to tackle the highly disruptive protest tactics that we have seen in recent months, which have blocked ambulances, delayed passengers making important journeys, stopped children getting to school and prevented patients from receiving critical medical care. We have seen our capital city, London, being held to ransom. It cannot be right that a selfish minority committed to causing as much disruption as possible continue to get away with it. These actions are not only impacting the public, but diverting the police away from the communities they serve; in October and November last year, something like 10,000 hours of Metropolitan police time were taken up. That is why the Bill is so important.

We have had some back and forth with the other place, but there is now only one remaining issue to resolve between us. It concerns the power to stop and search without suspicion, which has been extended through the Bill to enable the police to search for and seize articles related to protest activities. It is worth saying that, before that power can be exercised, it requires a police officer of the rank of inspector or above to have a “reasonable” belief that a number of offences may be committed in the area concerned. It further requires that officer to believe that the conditions being imposed, and the authority to carry out these searches, are necessary to prevent the commission of offences. Moreover, the power lasts for only 24 hours and is capable of extension for another 24 hours at the most. Therefore, the power is to be used only where it is reasonably suspected an offence may be committed, only where it is believed to be necessary, and only for a time-limited period. Those are important restrictions on the way the power can be used.

Stop and search is a vital tool used to crack down on crime and protect communities. We see it as appropriate, in the face of large, fast-paced environments where it can be difficult for the police to reach the level of suspicion required for a suspicion-led stop and search, for them to have this power available as well.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am old enough to remember when a policeman used his initiative and intuition to suspect that a crime was probable, or could be caused or had been caused. Does the Minister feel that the Bill ensures that a policeman can still use his initiative to ensure that those who are carrying out crimes can be detained with the suspicion of cause, rather than without evidence?

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Police will often suspect that crimes may be committed, but in a particular case an individual may not reach the suspicion level and, in those circumstances, these rules will apply. I completely agree with his point.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Can the Minister confirm, as an illustration, that, if a demonstration is about to take place by a group who use a particular tactic—gluing themselves to the road, for example—the police may use this power to intercept individuals with glue in their pockets, before they carry out an activity such as gluing themselves that occupies enormous amounts of police time, often puts them and police officers in danger, and causes enormous inconvenience? In those circumstances, will the police be able to use this power to get ahead of the problem?

[Chris Philp]

The way my right hon. Friend puts it is good. It is in exactly those circumstances, where the police are concerned that one of the specified crimes may be committed, that they can use this power. Those crimes are specified in clause 11(1), and include offences under section 137 of the Highways Act 1980—that is wilfully obstructing the highway—offences under section 78 of the relatively new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which involve

“intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance”,

and various offences under the Bill, which include causing serious disruption by

“tunnelling…being present in a tunnel… obstruction etc of major transport works”,

interfering with critical national infrastructure, as well as “locking on”, which I think is the point made by my right hon. Friend.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

This was raised the last time we had this debate, but the Minister mentioned the crime of nuisance. The threshold for that is incredibly low. An inspector could be concerned that there was a chance that someone would commit this offence by being seriously annoying or inconveniencing somebody, and then we let loose suspicionless stop and search of hundreds, potentially thousands, of people, for no further reason than that. Is that not a ludicrously low threshold for triggering these search powers?

[Chris Philp]

I am not sure I entirely agree. The offence of intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance is set out in section 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, and I do not accept the characterisation of that offence as simply a minor one. Causing huge inconvenience to other members of the public is not something that this House should treat lightly, particularly as we have seen examples in recent protests of ambulances not getting through, and of people unable to get their children to school or to attend medical appointments. I am not sure I accept that characterisation.

A number of changes have been proposed in Lords amendments 6B to 6F. They first propose a higher level of authorisation for suspicionless searches. By the way, the other place is not disputing the principle; it is simply seeking to change some of the thresholds, one of which would involve changing the authority level in a way that would be inconsistent with the use of searches under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 in other contexts.

Another change relates to the time periods. As Lord Hogan-Howe, a former commissioner of the Metropolitan police, pointed out, the use of the power has to be practical and reducing the time threshold to just 12 hours would limit the ability of police forces to use these powers in a meaningful way. We should take seriously the opinion of the noble Lord who used to be the Met commissioner.

The changes proposed in the other place would also require a chief superintendent to provide authorisation for this matter, when an inspector is acceptable under the existing section 60. I think that overlooks the urgency and speed with which these protests can unfold, and the speed at which decisions need to be made. It also has potential to cause confusion if there is a different level of seniority here, compared with the well-established section 60.

Finally, the amendments proposed in the other place would set out in statute a requirement for the forces to communicate the geographical extent of an order. The Government recognise that communication of any power is important for understanding and transparency. I am aware that most forces already communicate their section 60 authorisations—I have seen that happen frequently in Croydon and it is gratefully received when it happens. But, for consistency, it is important to keep these new powers as close as we can to existing legislation, although the Government encourage forces to communicate any use of this power, in the way they already do for a section 60 order, where it is operationally beneficial to do so. There is a lot to be said for consistency, which is why I respectfully encourage Members of this House to gently and politely disagree with the other place in their amendments 6B to 6F.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Stop and search is a crucial tool, as we all agree. Its normal usage is based on intelligence around a crime or a potential crime, based on proper suspicion, and applied for the right reasons. In our country, we use stop and search with suspicion to look for weapons, drugs and stolen property. Under particular circumstances, we use suspicionless stop and search—a section 60, as we call it—to search people without suspicion when a weapon has been used, or where there is good reason to believe there will be a serious violence incident. The Government are introducing suspicionless stop and search for potential protests, an overreach of the law that the police have not asked for and which pushes the balance of rights and responsibilities away from the British public.

Yesterday, we debated Baroness Casey’s report into the Metropolitan police. It is an excoriating report that, among much else, calls for a fundamental reset in how stop and search is used in London. I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister today accept all the findings and recommendations in the report. The report states:

“Racial disparity continues in stop and search in London. This has been repeatedly confirmed in reports and research. Our Review corroborates these findings.”

It is ironic that the day after the report was published the Government are trying to pass laws that risk further damaging the relationship between the police and the public by significantly expanding stop and search powers way beyond sensible limits.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

It is three in a row, as I agree and associate myself with the remarks of the previous speakers. It is important to look at the Lords’ amendments in the light of yesterday’s Casey report. Throughout my involvement with the Bill, I have always tried to look at it as a former police officer, although not a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner. I have always tried to think about the Bill from the perspective of the police officers who will be required to carry out the powers in it, and from the capacity perspective—the capacity of officers to go and do these duties and to be trained to carry them out.

On the first point, I refer to page 86 of the Casey report, which states:

“The lack of comprehensive workforce planning and prioritisation…throughout this report also makes for a weak approach to learning and development. Officers regularly said that they had to keep their own records and that they were not held centrally.”

Can the Met say how many officers it has currently trained in public order, whether in basic command units doing aid training or in tactical support groups? When the Bill is enacted and police come to court, the defence will ask officers what training they had in these powers, so that is a valid point.

The second bit is about capability. If officers have not attended the training but are then abstracted to attend a protest, do they actually have the skills at all? I want to pick up on page 131 of the report, which mentions tactical support groups and their use across London. It states:

“While they can be tasked to carry out policing functions in a BCU area, they are not accountable to the BCU chain of command. This can undermine a BCU’s attempts to own its very extensive patch, and to be fully accountable for policing there, both to the Met and to the public.”

It goes on to say:

“We were told that specialist teams tended to have rigid attitudes to their style of policing. ‘TSG come here not knowing the area…they come late, allegedly go to the gym on job time…they annoy the community, and arrest people who probably didn’t need to be arrested anyway… My colleagues think it suppresses crime. I don’t think it’s worth the community upset, it poisons the relationship with the community.’”

Those comments have been made by some of the core teams that will be enacting these powers.

My third point goes back to the comments I made last time we discussed these Lords amendments. Whether a police officer is attending an incident or a spontaneous protest, and whether they are a police constable attending by themselves or taking directions from a silver public order commander in relation to a planned protest, they are still exercising those powers and making those decisions. We must look at the stress placed on police officers who are juggling all those multiple demands. Again, I refer to page 90 of the Casey report:

“The reality of policing means that most of the time, police officers are in threat perception and threat management mode.”I suggest that when people are policing in those kinds of modes, the strain they are under means that making good decisions, potentially about complex legislation, becomes more challenging.

I agree with the comments have been made about clause 11 being removed in its entirety; indeed, my colleagues in the other place continued to support that. We also support the new amendments that we are considering. In terms of arguing whether they are reasonable or not, I say this: they reflect the safeguards and the BUSS—best use of stop and search—scheme, which was introduced in 2014 and scrapped by the former Home Secretary in May 2022. What is proposed in the amendments has previously been utilised by the police, so I do not see why they cannot continue to do so.

[Chris Philp]

I do not wish to repeat everything I said at the beginning, but I want to pick up on one or two points made in the course of this short debate. The first point relates to policing’s position on this power. The shadow Minister, my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), said that the police had not been calling for this. I politely draw her attention to what was said by His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services, which is run by a former chief constable:

“On balance, our view is that, with appropriate guidance and robust and effective safeguards, the proposed stop and search powers would have the potential to improve police efficiency and effectiveness in preventing disruption and making the public safe.”

I do not want to reiterate yesterday’s extensive debate about the Casey report, which has been referred to, but I will say one or two things about the use of stop and search in that context. First, when I discussed stop and search with Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner, a few days ago, he pointed out that between 350 and 400 knives are removed every month from London’s streets using stop and search. I think that is an extremely important contribution to public safety.

In her report, Baroness Casey referred to academic research from the United States that found that the use of stop and search led, on average, to a 13% reduction in crime. For the sake of balance, it is important to keep those points in mind.

It is fair to say that a very small proportion of stop and searches result in complaints. That has been the case particularly since body-worn cameras have been used, because the officer knows that when conducting a stop and search the whole thing is being recorded. Some of the bad practice that may have been prevalent 10 or 15 years ago is much less likely to occur when both parties are aware that the stop and search is being recorded.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Of course stop and search has a role to play, but it has to be applied appropriately and under the right criteria. As a barrister who has prosecuted and defended cases, and having been a member of the Home Affairs Committee, may I ask the Minister a question specifically about stop and search? How many individuals from diverse communities who have been stopped should not have been stopped in the first place? We need to have that data to know how to look at legislation moving forward. At the end of the day, we have to carry communities with us and ensure there is appropriate community cohesion. What is the figure?

[Chris Philp]

In whatever context, stop and search has to be done in a respectful and appropriate way. That is why body-worn cameras are so important. As I pointed out a moment ago, only a tiny fraction of stop and searches result in a complaint these days.

To conclude, we have recently seen protesters use tactics, often covertly, that are deliberately and exclusively designed not to protest as a way of communicating a message, but to cause intentional disruption to other members of the public going about their daily business, including children trying to get to school and patients trying to get to hospital. These well-designed and proportionate measures will help the police protect the public and allow them to go about their daily business, while also allowing the right to protest. Therefore, I respectfully invite colleagues to disagree with Lords amendments 6B to 6F.

Question put.

Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group: Fifth Annual Report

Chris Philp Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Written Statements

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

My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) has today made the following written ministerial statement:

Today I am pleased to announce the publication of the fifth annual report of the Biometrics and Forensic Ethics Group. The group provides Ministers with independent advice on matters relating to ethical issues in forensic science and biometrics and considers issues in data ethics.

I would like to thank the group for their valuable advice concerning the use and retention of human biometric identifiers, and regarding the use and implementation of projects involving both large and complex datasets.

The Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group have continued to show commitment to advising the Home Office biometrics programme on matters regarding changes to biometric regulations and biometric enrolment.

I am grateful to the Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group for maintaining strong relationships with internal Home Office teams in order to establish a strong presence and to identify a range of projects, within their remit, which can benefit from expert ethical guidance.

The Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group annual report can be viewed on the website of the Group at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/biometrics-and-forensics-ethics-group and a copy will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS649]

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Philp Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Home Secretary should know better. This is sub judice.

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

He has been convicted—it is not sub judice.

[Mr Speaker]

He has appealed his sentence, and I do not need any lectures from the Front Bench either. I look forward to an apology. Am I going to get an apology?

[Chris Philp]

indicated assent.

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you. Home Secretary, will you take the advice that I have been given? I know you do not like it, but I am only working on the facts of the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

6. What recent progress her Department has made on reviewing the police funding formula.

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

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important topic. The Government are committed to reviewing the police funding formula, in which there are some unfairnesses. The police funding formula is historical and somewhat out of date, and we intend to consult on it in the near future.

[Andrew Selous]

Will the new funding formula be crime based, rather than just population based? Will it be implemented immediately for the winners, to stop the gross unfairness of the current formula to forces such as Bedfordshire?

[Chris Philp]

The intended consultation will cover topics such as the demand drivers of crime and how we should take account of the different costs of providing a police service in different parts of the country. In the meantime, Bedfordshire’s excellent police and crime commissioner, Festus Akinbusoye, is working incredibly hard to spend his budget effectively and to drive down crime in Bedfordshire.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Minister aware that many police forces are struggling to obtain good forensic science facilities? Is he further aware that the Westminster commission on forensic science, with which I am involved, is deeply concerned about the instability of forensic science in our country?

[Chris Philp]

Forensic science is critically important, as the hon. Gentleman says. The Home Office is continually discussing forensic science provision with our colleagues in the policing family to make sure there is adequate provision. We are always looking at the funding arrangements and the range of providers, so I can assure him that this topic is the subject of continual scrutiny.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

7. What steps her Department is taking to reduce antisocial behaviour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

13. What steps her Department is taking to tackle knife crime.

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

Tackling knife crime is a priority. That is why, since 2019, we have not only spent £340 million on diverting young people into alternative activity via the violence reduction units, but had targeted Grip hotspot policing in areas where knife crime is particularly prevalent. That has led to a 19% reduction over the last three years in hospital admissions with a bladed weapon injury, and since 2010, according to the crime survey for England and Wales, violence is down by 38%.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

Last year knife crime in Salford fell, thanks to the extensive work with young people by the Salford community safety partnership and Greater Manchester police operations to remove weapons from circulation. Sadly, since January this year there has been a spate of serious knife crime incidents that have destroyed lives and distressed the community. We need urgent Government support to implement a wider proactive reduction strategy. Will the Minister commit to ringfencing dedicated funding today for knife crime reduction initiatives and for lifesaving bleed kit roll-outs across Salford?

[Chris Philp]

That is a very fair question. We are already directing ringfenced money towards Greater Manchester and other areas via the Grip hotspot funding, which we are going to at least maintain and possibly increase next year, and the violence reduction units, which try to get young people on to a better path. I am visiting Greater Manchester a week today and look forward to discussing those initiatives and more with Chief Constable Stephen Watson, who I must say is doing a very good job, and others in Manchester.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Deterrence through tough sentencing must play an important part in dealing with the scourge of knife crime, such as that committed against my constituent Ellie Gould some years ago. I very much welcome Ms Wade’s report, which came out on Friday, about sentencing in murder cases involving knives, but I am disappointed that the Government have so far accepted only three of the 17 recommendations. Will the Minister speak to his colleagues at the Ministry of Justice to ensure that all 17 of the recommendations are implemented?

[Chris Philp]

I know that my hon. Friend has been a tireless campaigner on this topic over many years following the appalling murder of his constituent. Yes, I will raise the issues that he mentions with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, who I am sure will be extremely receptive.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

This week, the five young men who murdered a 17-year-old boy from Poplar using knives were pictured for the first time. Those young men were sentenced to a total of 93 years in prison. Although sentencing is a form of justice, the reality is that this Government have lost their grip on preventing such violent crimes. Time and again, they have failed to act until it is too late—sticking-plaster politics at the heart of power. When will the Secretary of State show some leadership and lay out a proper plan for crime prevention?

[Chris Philp]

As I set out to the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), the Government have spent £340 million in the last three years directly to tackle knife crime, and, contrary to the hon. Lady’s question, that is yielding results. Hospital admissions for injuries caused by knives have dropped by 19% in the last four years, and violent offences, as measured by the crime survey—the only statistically approved measure of crime—have come down by 38% since the last Labour Government left office.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

T1. . If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

We have seen a number of murders recently in Walsall as a result of knife crime, but we have seen no sign of the Labour police and crime commissioner. Does the Minister agree that it is important that the police and crime commissioner visits all part of the west midlands, rather than simply staying in Birmingham?

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

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Police and crime commissioners, particularly the one in the west midlands, should visit all parts of their patch. I was also rather concerned to hear that the Labour PCC in the west midlands is formulating plans to close up to 20 police stations, despite having received a 10% increase in funding over recent years, which I think is pretty shocking.

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

On the back of last week’s Budget, I made a speech about industrial hemp. The industry is telling me that it can create 105,000 jobs and pay £1 billion in tax if it is allowed to grow—pun intended. I will be writing to the Minister to explain this in detail, but it would be really helpful if I could sit down with the relevant Minister and industry representatives so they can make their case.

[Mr Speaker]

Who wants it?

[Chris Philp]

Mr Speaker, I will take this question. The hon. Member and I have had a number of discussions on this topic. We are always happy to engage, discuss points of detail and hear industry representations, so if he would like to meet face to face to discuss it further, I would be very happy to do that.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

It was great news in the Budget last week that Dinnington High Street got £12 million for regeneration, knocking down the burnt out building and opening up the marketplace. What we need now is a police station to combat antisocial behaviour. Will the Minister support my campaign to reopen the police station on Dinnington High Street, which will clamp down on antisocial behaviour, and use some of the underspend in the Labour police and crime commissioner’s budget to do that?

[Chris Philp]

I think my hon. Friend has formulated an excellent plan. I notice that South Yorkshire next year is getting an extra £10.7 million in funding, and the idea he suggests sounds like a good way of spending some of that.

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Today I heard harrowing testimonies from the Turkish community in Coventry North West who have lost family members in the tragic earthquake. They would like to be reunited with the family members they have left, hopefully via a family visa scheme, so what steps is the Home Office taking to provide support to those affected by the earthquake in Turkey and Syria?

--- Later in debate ---

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Children are regularly detained in police cells for long periods and for too long without an appropriate adult being present, despite that being both a requirement and an essential safeguard for children. Will the Minister confirm today that, when police powers and procedures data is published later this year, it will include the number of minutes taken for an appropriate adult to arrive and the duration of time present—and if not this year, when?

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Lady is raising a very important question. The case of Child Q is of course on our minds as we consider this. Some revisions are being made to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 code of practice—it is code C—that are relevant in this area. In relation to the reporting question she asks, I can certainly undertake to look into that.

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Far-right Islamophobic Danish politician Rasmus Paludan has said he is going to travel from Denmark to Wakefield for the sole purpose of burning a Koran in a public place. Mr Paludan was previously jailed in Denmark for his hateful and racist statements. He is a dangerous man who should not be allowed into this country. Can the Home Secretary assure me and my community that the Government are taking action to prevent this?

Knife Crime: West Midlands

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Caroline. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb) for securing this debate and giving such a powerful testimony about the terrible tragedies that she described. All of us here will want to remember the victims of the terrible crimes that she described: Ryan Passey, Cody Fisher, Bailey Atkinson, Akeem Francis-Kerr and Olly Stephens. Their deaths are a tragedy, and we will all want to remember them and convey to their families our very deepest sympathy. Every death is a tragedy, and each of them is mourned deeply by the families. It is our duty in public life to do everything that we can to try to protect families from similar tragedies occurring in the future.

[Wendy Morton]

The Minister is rightly naming a number of individuals. I would like him to acknowledge James Brindley—the son of Mark and Bev Brindley—who was stabbed to death in Aldridge, hence the James Brindley Foundation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I thank my right hon. Friend for mentioning the name of her constituent James Brindley. Each death is mourned deeply, and we must do everything that we can to try to prevent them from happening.

Confronting serious violence is clearly a priority for this Government, and it is a focus for the Home Office as well. The starting point for that must be to ensure that there are sufficient police officers and police resources available to enable the police to combat violence. As Members will know, we are in the middle of recruiting an additional 20,000 police officers across England and Wales, and once that programme has completed, which is due to happen by the end of this month, we will have more police officers in England and Wales, by some thousands, than we have ever had at any time in this country’s history. Clearly, ensuring that those police officers are available to protect our streets and protect the public is a critical element in the fight against violent crime.

[Marco Longhi]

The Minister rightly emphasises that we are putting so much more resource into policing and recruiting so many more police officers to do the job that the people of this country deserve and need, but it is also true that police need the infrastructure—a place that they can call their own base. To be a little parochial—I hope that the Minister will forgive me—my predecessor announced that there would be a brand-new police station in Dudley in 2019, and the then police and crime commissioner said that it would be implemented. In 2023, we still do not have one. Where can these new police officers operate from when the previous police and crime commissioner closed all police stations, including the main police station in Dudley?

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. We have given police and crime commissioners resources. Next year, they will have, between them, over £500 million extra, and there will be more money for the west midlands as well. I understand that the West Midlands police and crime commissioner is even today looking at closing up to 20 police stations across the west midlands, which is a terrible mistake, and I certainly do not support those plans at all. I urge the West Midlands police and crime commissioner to think again about the closures that he is contemplating. I have heard Members today make the case that perhaps the powers currently exercised by the west midlands police and crime commissioner might be better exercised by the directly elected Mayor of the West Midlands. I will take that proposal away and consider it very carefully, given the serious problems that have been outlined.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge mentioned some of the serious problems with knife crime and violent crime in the west midlands, which are rightly of deep concern to Members of Parliament across the region. The problems are particularly stark given that they run against the national trend. The most reliable measure of crime is the crime survey for England and Wales, which is the only source of crime data authorised by the Office for National Statistics. Since March 2010, violent crime across England and Wales has fallen by 38%, from 1.84 million offences to 1.15 million. When it comes to measuring violent crime where a knife is involved, the Home Office has been tracking admissions to hospital with a knife injury, and since 2019 they have dropped by around 20%. I am deeply concerned to hear that in the west midlands the trend appears to be going in the opposite direction. It is right that my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge and others are raising this issue.

I have mentioned the additional resources being given to policing. We are also investing in prevention; in particular, violence reduction units have received £64 million. Those entail identifying people, particularly young people, in danger of following the wrong path, and intervening by ensuring they stay in education, have the right social care if they need it and providing them with alternative activities, such as sport. I visited Everton and the community on Merseyside in Liverpool last week to look at a scheme that is being funded there that also helped young people into employment.

Violence reductions units are critical, as is the Grip programme, which is a hotspot policing initiative funded by the Government, identifying geographical areas where there is a high risk of violent crime and patrolling and policing them heavily. Where that is done, it dramatically reduces crime. Interestingly, it does not displace crime somewhere else; it actually reduces it. I strongly encourage police and crime commissioners around the country to pursue the violence reduction unit and Grip initiatives. The west midlands receives funding to do those things, as would be expected.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge raised a few questions. One of them was about sentencing for knife crime, and that is an extremely good question. We want to have strong deterrents for knife crime possession. Members will know that the maximum sentence for possessing a knife—or a “bladed article”, as the law describes it—is four years’ imprisonment. We recently legislated through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 to strengthen the presumption, making it near certain that if someone is convicted for a second time carrying a bladed article, the court will impose a minimum six-month custodial sentence for adults, or a four-month detention and training order sentence for 16 and 17-year-olds. We have strengthened the law in this area to ensure that the consequences that follow knife crime are strong. The deterrent effect that my hon. Friend described is very important.

My hon. Friend also asked a couple of questions relating to the trial of Ryan Passey’s killer, and the jury acquittal that occurred. She asked me if I could signpost her towards the Ministers responsible for policy in that area. The policy around that sits with the Ministry of Justice. The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, or the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), who has responsibility for courts, would be the right people to approach regarding that policy. Provision in the Crown Prosecution Service’s guidance states that in exceptional circumstances, it can seek a retrial, where there is new compelling evidence that was not available at the time of the original trial. It is possible to seek the quashing of an acquittal, but that is extremely rare. I hope that gives my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge some assistance when she is thinking about who else to speak to.

We have heard harrowing stories this morning about the devasting effect of knife crime on people’s lives—particularly those of young people—in the west midlands, but clearly it applies elsewhere as well. Nationally, the Government are doing everything they can in terms of more police officers, funding violence reduction units, Grip hotspot policing, diversionary activities and stronger sentences for knife possession. Police and crime commissioners also play a critical role by using those resources in their local areas in a way that is appropriate and wise. I strongly commend my hon. Friend and her colleagues for shining a light on this issue. The Home Office will do everything it can to work with her and colleagues to fight this abominable crime.

Question put and agreed to.

Proscribed Psychedelic Drugs

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

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

In the short time that I have available, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) for securing the debate and for the thoughtful, knowledgeable and carefully considered manner in which he delivered his speech. I also recognise the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), who is in her place. I know that she has a deep personal interest in the topic, about which we had a detailed meeting a few days ago, so I am delighted to see her in the Chamber.

Of course, the Department of Health and Social Care leads on questions concerning the availability of medicines and prescribing, because medicines are licensed and regulated by the MHRA. The Home Office, however, is responsible for controlled drugs legislation and our controlled drugs licensing regime to support research and clinical trials in the UK, which is why I am responding rather than a Health Minister.

I am keen to encourage research into the use of drugs in the UK as far as we can. We have an internationally well-regarded research sector in universities and, of course, in commercial pharmaceutical companies. It can be a great source of national competitive advantage to make their research projects as straightforward as possible.

Drugs scheduled in schedule 1 can be used for research purposes, but with a licence. As I discussed with the hon. Member for Warrington North a few days ago, I know that some people feel that the process to obtain such a licence can be onerous, particularly for universities and NHS trusts. Clearly, for drugs scheduled in schedule 2 and higher, those restrictions do not apply in the same way. I am very aware of the point about research.

I am also aware that, to consider whether there are medical benefits that would support the rescheduling of drugs from schedule 1 to schedule 2 or higher, which might enable them to be prescribed to patients for medical purposes, there needs to be a research base. I accept that there is an element of chicken and egg or Catch-22 about the situation, because we need to do the research before there is an evidence base to justify the rescheduling that might be merited.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate said, I received part 1 of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ advice on reducing barriers to research with controlled drugs, which focused on synthetic cannabinoids. In December last year, so just a few weeks ago, I formally commissioned it to conduct part 2 of its review, which is designed and intended to consider, and will consider, research with schedule 1 drugs more widely. That of course includes LSD and MDMA. In my letter to the ACMD commissioning that work, I specifically highlighted psilocybin. It would be open to the Government, depending on the ACMD’s advice, to change the research rules to say that all schedule 1 drugs might be capable of being used for research purposes without the onerous requirements that currently apply, in the same way as happens with schedule 2 drugs and higher, or some variation of that. There is obviously quite a lot of policy detail that one would have to consider, but were that move to be made, it would clearly address the barriers to research that my hon. Friend highlighted. Were those barriers to research to be removed, the evidence base could then be developed, which might provide a basis for the MHRA to make a case that such a drug should be moved to schedule 2 or higher, and that would facilitate doctors prescribing these drugs to the patients who need them.

My hon. Friend very kindly said that he would not press me too hard, given that I am relatively new in this position. I think the comments I have made do suggest that there is a path forward. I do strongly support making it as easy as possible for UK institutions—universities, hospitals and private companies—to conduct research using not just psilocybin, but all drugs, and there is clearly a commercial as well as an academic benefit. I am looking forward to receiving the ACMD advice as soon as possible, and I can certainly assure my hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Warrington North and others that, when that is received, it will receive my prompt and positive attention.

[Crispin Blunt]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Philp]

I think you are indicating that we are almost out of time, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am sure my hon. Friend and I can speak briefly afterwards, and on that point, I will rest.

Question put and agreed to.