Police Presence on High Streets

Danny Beales Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton) for securing this important debate.

We have heard countless times today that, in 14 years of Conservative government, neighbourhood policing was decimated to the detriment of our town centres and high streets, which are now gripped by an epidemic of antisocial behaviour, theft and shoplifting. Let me be frank: too often, the last Government wrote off those crimes as low level and left communities to pick up the pieces.

There are few places more visible in our communities than our high streets and town centres, which are vital for social and economic needs. National data suggests that police visibility in those spaces has reduced from 27% to 12% in the last decade. PCSOs are often on the frontline in those places, but they too have been cut to the bone: their numbers are down 56% since 2010.

In Uxbridge and South Ruislip, like many constituencies we have heard about today, shops are being ransacked multiple times a day, often by the same people, with little consequence. Supermarket staff in Uxbridge, Yiewsley and Ruislip Manor all tell me the same story. Whether it is men and boys on bikes grabbing phones, taking money from children, openly dealing drugs or engaging in shoplifting or theft, it is bad for business. It leads to more victims of crime and erodes trust and pride in our high streets.

I welcome the steps that the Government have taken to turn the situation around. The significant increase in real-terms funding for neighbourhood police officers nationally and in London is welcome. I also welcome the Crime and Policing Bill, which will lead to tougher action on theft and shoplifting, and will deal with the terrible crime of assaulting shop workers.

[Anna Dixon]

I recognise this issue, because many of my local independent shops in Bingley have been victims of crime, particularly by aggressive scammers demanding money. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that independent shops not only feel confident about reporting the crime, but know that the police will respond and that there will be prosecutions?

[Danny Beales]

I wholeheartedly agree. We need action: those individuals must be punished quickly, and the court backlogs must be dealt with. The whole process must incentivise action and deterrence.

When I met the couple who run the local post office in South Ruislip, they told me a heart-wrenching story of the change over the past 10 years. They have worked there for decades, and now they are threatened and abused almost weekly. Enough is enough.

I am pleased that the Government are taking action, but more can and, I am sure, will be done. I would like neighbourhood policing to continue to be prioritised, in order to deal with the capital policing challenges in London. Neighbourhood policing should be properly funded, as colleagues have said. I would like the police to regain a footprint in neighbourhoods. Lots of spaces where the police would base themselves closed down under the previous Conservative Mayor of London and Conservative Government. We have a fantastic neighbourhood town centre team in Uxbridge high street, which is doing great work, but we also need a town centre team in Yiewsley and West Drayton high street.

I hope the Government also consider providing support for the development of business crime prevention networks where there are not business improvement districts and more formal structures. Often, shops on smaller high streets are disparate and do not share information. They do not have the funding to focus on training, advice and crime prevention, so there is room for improvement in that space.

I would like to see the rapid deployment of the 13,000 new neighbourhood officers, with particular priority for our town centres and high streets. I hope that, under this Government, we will see a complete shift from the situation under the last Government. We must value our high streets and community policing, and not leave our communities alone. We need sustained, long-term investment to rebuild what the Conservatives destroyed so that we can once again be proud and safe on our high streets.

Crime and Policing Bill

Danny Beales Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)]

Crime and antisocial behaviour affect the whole community in which they take place. They erode social cohesion, trust and pride in a place, driving people away from our town centres and making them feel insecure in their own streets and workplaces and even in their own homes. I am therefore pleased to speak in support of the Crime and Policing Bill, which is the largest package of measures on crime and policing for decades.

Crime and antisocial behaviour increased under the previous Government, despite what the shadow Home Secretary said. The reality is known by my constituents. In the year ending September 2024, the Home Office recorded the highest ever increase in shoplifting offences. USDAW found that one in five shop workers had been physically assaulted in a year. Instances of theft from a person increased by 22%. In my community of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, I have heard from many constituents who are worried about rising levels of crime—knife crime, shoplifting, burglary, phone theft and car theft, to name but a few. On Sunday alone, 21 constituents wrote to me to share their concerns about burglary in South Ruislip. The news is deeply distressing to my constituents, many of whom feel unsafe in their own homes and believe that the police do not have the resources needed to protect them. That simply cannot go on.

Increases in antisocial behaviour are a symptom of a society in distress. Far too often it was dismissed by the last Government as low-level crime—they were unwilling and unable to act. I welcome the measures in the Bill to introduce respect orders on the worst offenders, banning persistent offenders from our town centres. That is welcome news for many of my constituents who have contacted me about such activities in Uxbridge town centre and Yiewsley high street.

Critically, the Bill will also keep my constituents safe and protect them from armed burglary. It will create a new power for the police to seize, retain and destroy bladed articles and create a new criminal offence of possessing a bladed article with the intent to cause harm. It will also ban the possession and distribution of electronic devices, which are far too often used in vehicle theft, and create a new targeted power for the police to enter premises and search and seize electronically tracked stolen goods, from mobile phones to stolen vehicles, ending the terrible situation that my constituents have reported where they can track their stolen phone or electronic item but the police are unable to go in and get it. I hope, too, that we will look at international vehicle crime and tougher measures at our ports, to stop the rapid removal from the country of stolen vehicles.

As well as tough laws, the police must also have the resources they need to apply them and a return to proactive neighbourhood policing. Although the uplift in police funding, including to London police forces, in the last year, is incredibly welcome, significant pressures on London policing remain, so I hope we can continue in this Parliament to increase the resources of the Metropolitan police. Unfortunately, my predecessor, while Mayor of London, closed a number of police stations and police counters. I welcome the present Mayor of London’s commitment to keep Uxbridge police station open, and I hope we can work together to reopen the front counter and the custody suite.

I strongly support this Bill and the new measures and increased police powers, along with the uplift in funding already agreed by this new Government. These measures will help to restore trust in the police and improve the safety of my constituents, and I wholeheartedly support them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Danny Beales Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)]

6. What steps her Department is taking to help tackle antisocial behaviour on high streets and in town centres.

[Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)]

23. What steps she is taking to improve safety in town centres.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

Too many town centres and high streets have been hit in recent years by soaring levels of shoplifting and street crime, and damaging antisocial behaviour, at the same time as neighbourhood police have been heavily cut. The Government are introducing new powers to tackle antisocial behaviour and shop crime, and rebuilding neighbourhood police on our streets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. As well as our plans to increase neighbourhood policing and introduce respect orders, we are going to get rid of the ludicrous £200 rule that we inherited from the Conservatives, which means that shoplifting is very often not properly investigated. That needs to be taken much more seriously.

[Danny Beales]

This morning I had the pleasure of meeting Sunny, the new store manager at the Hotel Chocolat in Uxbridge, which opened today. Unfortunately, during that joyous occasion, he told me all-too-familiar stories about the shoplifting and antisocial behaviour that blight our high streets. Will the Home Secretary assure me that the 19% of the Met Police’s time that is taken up with London-wide and national policing issues will be taken into account when allocating the Met’s budget, so that we have the resources we need and, crucially, the police we need back on our high streets?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point; I can tell him that we have already provided Met Police with an initial £30 million this year to fund the police pay increase that was not funded by the previous Conservative Government. We are also supporting neighbourhood policing right across the country and much stronger action, not just on shop theft, but on assaults against shop workers—a truly disgraceful crime.