Catapults and Antisocial Behaviour

Danny Beales Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Lincoln Jopp]

The hon. Gentleman echoes my cry. Since being elected as the Member of Parliament for Spelthorne, in all my dealings with the community, too often it becomes a conversation of the deaf, inasmuch as people think that there is no point in reporting crime because the police will not do anything about it, and the police say, “Well, no one has reported any crime, so there’s nothing for me to do.” We must unlock that conversation of the deaf by encouraging everyone to report every crime; in cases where they are worried about intimidation, they have the opportunity to use Crimestoppers, and I commend that outlet as well.

In Spelthorne, we have a serious problem with young kids using catapults on animals. I am obliged to Inspector Matthew Walton of Spelthorne police, who has helped me a great deal in preparing this campaign. The police tell me that in Spelthorne over the past year and a half crimes involving catapults have been reported to them more than once a week. The crimes happen predominantly after schools have ended, and in 90% of cases no suspect or even person of interest is identified. Spelthorne police, to their credit, tell me that they are going back to reviewing a number of these cases to make sure that they did not miss anything the first time round and to see whether any particular patterns emerge. My constituents notice the crimes happening; sadly, they too often see the wounded and killed wildlife when they are out enjoying our green spaces and river walks.

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

I thank the hon. and gallant Member for securing this important debate. As in his constituency, significant amounts of wildlife crime are being reported by residents of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. I recently met with the Save our Swans group and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The horrific events that he describes in Spelthorne are also common on the canals and rivers in Hillingdon. Does he agree that prevention is better than cure, and that taking these catapults off people before crime has happened is vital? Does he also agree that there is a role for public space protection orders, which councils can introduce, to ban the possession of catapults and other items in public spaces? Does he support me in encouraging councils to adopt those public space protection orders to prevent this crime and to make it easier for councils to pass those measures?

[Lincoln Jopp]

I believe that the Green party is led by a hypnotist; it seems that the Government Benches have a mind reader, too, because the hon. Gentleman must have seen into the future and what I was about to say.

My constituents write to me in numbers to express their distress at this scourge. Spelthorne borough council has responded and has in place a public space protection order for catapults across the whole borough. Unfortunately, though, the council will not enforce a PSPO breach if the individual is under 16. That is the council’s choice, but I would prefer it to reduce that minimum age considerably.

I went out for a ride-along with the response team of the Spelthorne police two weeks ago. We had an intelligence briefing beforehand, and what was striking was the ages of the young people we were keeping an eye out for—they were all 16 and under, and had records for some very serious offences. Catapults are predominantly kids’ stuff, by which I mean children of 10 years old and up. Currently in Spelthorne, anyone committing an offence will have their catapult seized and be issued a fine by the council, while those under 16 will have their parents informed and the catapult returned to the parent. The trouble with the current powers is that they rely on someone’s being caught offending and, as I said earlier, these crimes are rarely witnessed.

When I was in Iraq and Afghanistan, we faced a lethal threat from improvised explosive devices. There was, of course, a whole raft of things that we did and drills that we learned in order to react and save life when those things when went off, but the majority of effort and ingenuity was applied to try to stop it happening in the first place—we had to do everything to the left of the bang, as the saying went. It is similar with catapults. The police would like to pre-empt this problem before it happens, and believe that reducing the minimum age of a community protection notice to 10 years would allow early intervention before bad behaviour escalates. It would also provide a proportionate civil response without criminalising children and reduce reliance on lengthy court processes.

To be clear, the process at the moment is that the police can combine the public space protection order and the community protection notice to intervene early. It is a civil offence. A community protection warning is the first step; if people do not adhere to that warning, they get a notice, and the breach of a notice itself becomes a criminal offence currently punishable by a £100 fine, although in the consideration of the Crime and Policing Bill in the other place, on the back of the former Government’s draft legislation, that is going up to £500.

I know that there is public support for an outright ban on catapults. Others want them regulated in the same way we regulate guns, or possession of them treated as we treat possession of knives. A volunteer at the Swan Sanctuary launched a public petition to make catapults illegal, which received 24,521 signatures. There is currently a live petition asking to make it an offence to carry a catapult in public without a lawful defence, which currently has more than 33,000 signatures and is live until next year.

The Government know they have a problem; I am obliged to the Minister for animal welfare, Baroness Hayman, for replying to me recently. She said that the Government feel that there is sufficient legislation on the statute book to handle the problem, but nevertheless stated:

“Having said this, I recognise the concern that the misuse of catapults is causing to communities in certain parts of the country. I attended a meeting earlier this month with the Home Office’s Minister of State and two members of parliament to discuss solutions to combatting this very issue. I am determined that with key partners, we can agree a way forward to protect our wildlife, the public and property from these appalling acts.”

I hope that what the Minister hears today can inform those considerations, and I will gladly take an intervention from either of the two mystery Back Benchers the Minister referred to in her letter, if indeed they are here today.

Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation

Danny Beales Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2025 Westminster Hall

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

Let us be in no doubt: no one in this place believes that the use of hotels to house asylum seekers awaiting immigration decisions is acceptable. It is bad for the taxpayer, it is bad for our communities and, ultimately, it is bad for the asylum seekers themselves; we have heard terrible stories about the conditions that many asylum seekers face in accommodation. I am pleased, therefore, that the Government have rightly pledged to end the use of asylum hotels in this Parliament.

The use of hotels is a symptom of a broader systematic failure of our migration system. Under the last Government, the asylum system descended into chaos. The backlog of asylum cases reached a historic high in the tens of thousands, and asylum hotels popped up in many communities, including in Hillingdon, to house asylum seekers waiting to be processed. At the peak in autumn 2023, 400 hotels were in use, at a cost of almost £9 million a day.

The UK has a proud history of opening its doors to those fleeing violence and persecution. Jewish communities found their home here during the second world war—in my constituency, many Polish service personnel came and joined our Royal Air Force and worked alongside it to fight the Nazi tyranny; the Polish war memorial in South Ruislip reminds us of their contribution to humanity—and, more recently, Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion settled in our towns, villages and cities. Many Ukrainian asylum seekers settled in my constituency. Migration is part of our national story and it has enriched the lives of so many of our constituents in so many ways. I see that regularly in my constituency.

All of us, including those who have come to the UK and themselves call it home, want an immigration system that works fairly and effectively. We want a system that is able to promptly turn away those with no right to be here while treating genuine asylum seekers with the compassion and respect that they deserve. I know that the Government are committed to restoring order to our asylum system and ending the reliance on hotels. That will require rapid action to increase the pace of decision making and the removal of those who are found to be here without due legal cause.

I am pleased that the Government have made substantial progress in reducing the historic backlog. From January to March 2025, we saw the second highest number of initial decisions taken since records began in 2002, and more than double the number taken in the three months before the election. At the same time, the Government’s new immigration enforcement programme has increased removals of people who have no right to be here; the number of people put on flights out of the UK had reached 30,000 by 18 May 2025.

I understand the frustration that many people in Uxbridge and South Ruislip have about the pace of change, and I share their concerns. With almost 3,000 asylum seekers in Hillingdon hotels, we are the local authority most affected by asylum hotels in the whole country, and we feel the impact acutely. I hope that the Home Office will increase its joint working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to properly resource local communities, local councils and local services and ensure the better management of hotels. Today we have heard terrible stories of profit making and contractors failing to live up to their responsibilities, and I hear them time and again locally, from partners in the community and those in hotels. We have to hold contractors to account for the services they are paid good public money to provide.

I hope that we will also improve and increase our work with the voluntary and community sector, which is stepping up and providing a significant amount of support in increasingly difficult and hostile conditions. A number of voluntary and community sector organisations that provide vital support to refugees and asylum seekers have recently been targeted by protests, with violent and extreme protesters threatening abuse, violence and even arson. That is clearly unacceptable and illegal, and it must be addressed.

It is also important that we provide accurate information in the public domain, and that, as public officials, we seek to lower the temperature and focus on practical solutions and on working together to solve this shared, long-term issue. Unfortunately, in my community, our council, rather than doing that, has hidden behind misinformation and used public resources to amplify fear and disinformation. It is hiding behind asylum seekers and refugees for its own financial failings, putting out communications, with public money, blaming decisions such as the removal of free garden waste collections on asylum seeker pressures, which is clearly not the case, not true and not helpful.

Public financial documents by the council’s independent officers show that the council is approaching bankruptcy because of long-term funding pressures on local government, particularly owing to the last Government underfunding councils, about which my council said very little at the time—I wonder why. It is because of the pressures relating to social care, children’s services and temporary accommodation that local government faces, and financial mismanagement by that council, as well as some immigration pressures. It is vital that we all seek to base things on facts, and on full and frank information, at this time when temperatures are rising and hate is being fuelled. Many of my constituents who have been here for years, and many who were born here, are increasingly facing violence, hatred and abuse in their communities.

Moving forward, I hope that we will close the hotels as quickly as possible, and do so in an effective way. Comments have rightly been made about how we cannot rush forward with simple solutions to this complex problem. We cannot close all the hotels today, as doing so will simply translate into a homelessness and rough sleeping crisis in our communities, sending many thousands of men, women and children on to our streets. That would be morally, legally and practically terrible for our towns and communities.

This Government are making progress; I would like to see us do so as quickly as possible. I assure my Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituents that I understand the seriousness of the matter and am completely supportive of the Government’s efforts to get a grip on the asylum system and ensure that it is just, efficient and shares responsibility fairly across the country.

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.