Policing (England and Wales)

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con) [V]]

It was a key manifesto commitment to recruit 20,000 more police officers into the force and, despite the pandemic, the Government are honouring that commitment. By the end of December we had already seen more than 6,500 extra officers, surpassing the recruitment target three months ahead of time.

Laws protect our general safety, ensure our rights as citizens against abuses and help to create a society based on fairness and respect for one another. Strong relationships of mutual trust between police agencies and the communities they serve are critical to maintaining public safety, effective policing and ensuring those laws are followed. We govern by consent, and that is the same way we police. Trust in the police hinges on society believing that police actions reflect community values and incorporate the principles of procedural justice and legitimacy. To do that, the police need the funding, and this £15.8 billion settlement, with a rise of £636 million, is welcomed by my chief constable.

Norfolk is extremely lucky. We have an exemplary chief constable in Simon Bailey, who is also the national lead on child protection. He has led his team through this pandemic with his usual professionalism and utter dedication. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to him and all his staff and officers not just for protecting the county at this most difficult of times, but for working tirelessly to keep infection levels low by enforcing the Government regulations. My constituency alone has been a magnet for visitors, given its picturesque draw, so I thank Norfolk police for all they have been doing.

The £15 cap on a band D property is very welcome in boosting much-needed core funding. For Norfolk constabulary, that equates to a 5.6% increase, or £4.5 million in the base budget. We must bear it in mind that 2% of the uplift is required just to stand still and keep current resourcing and spend and current service levels when there is rising demand, but the remaining budget will be well used. We will see a domestic abuse perpetrators programme and 90 more officers on the frontline in Norfolk, which is getting on for a third more than the allocation from the 20,000 programme. The fact that Norfolk is over-recruiting is to be applauded and shows total commitment to keeping our public safe and secure.

Moreover, I commend Mr Bailey for investing heavily in a number of police digital investigators. As crime changes, the need to tackle hidden crimes grows ever more. Abuse and exploitation of the vulnerable is despicable, and we will see justice served today in Norfolk with sentencing for an individual charged with grooming hundreds of young people. These heinous crimes can only be stopped with digital investment in officers.

I end with a mention of police and crime commissioners. Many constituents feel slightly unsure what they are and what they do, and it is important to raise that. An effective crime commissioner understands their role and responsibility. Their role is to be the voice of the people and to hold the police to account. It is to explain and engage with the electorate on the decisions taken and how budgets are used. If that is got right, working hand in hand with the chief constable, it can be an exemplar relationship.

Law and order is one of the cornerstones of our democracy. The Government are providing not just the funding, but the tools to let the police do their job properly. It is with that in mind that I commend this funding settlement to the House.

Registers of Births and Deaths Bill

Duncan Baker Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

It is nice to speak on a Bill that causes little controversy these days, and this Bill does just that. What is more, we have become rather accustomed in recent months to doing things electronically, including meetings, and I think we would all agree that, from time to time, things have to move on. To fully digitise the registers of births and deaths is a very welcome step, especially since we have not done an awful lot of that since 1837, when the paper system was introduced.

I have two reasonably young children, and when I was preparing for the debate, I asked my wife, “What was the process like when you registered the births?” She gave me a rather sharp look and said, “Well, you were actually there,” to which I replied, “I was quite tired at the time,” and then got told that you do not say things like that at all. The punishment is a Friday sitting before I go home later today. I talked to my colleague who runs my office in North Norfolk about whether this is an excellent piece of legislation, and he should know, given that he has been down to the register office to register births no fewer than four times. He thinks that it is an excellent Bill.

Clearly, removing the duplication involved in running two systems since 2009 will lead to a far more efficient process and will save the taxpayer some £20 million over the next few years. The registration process for births and deaths can be rather difficult and stressful, particularly for deaths, which can be highly emotional. In this digital age, I welcome this much more efficient process, which could help a great number of people, particularly those who might find going out of the house for the first time on their own after a death incredibly difficult. The Bill addresses those sensitive matters.

I wonder whether the entire process will end up being done virtually in due course, especially given what we have seen in the last few months. Provided that there are security checks and the ability to capture signatures electronically, we can get past some of the shortcomings. This is a natural step forward, and I know that the Bill has Government support. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for taking this sensible, progressive step, and I commend the Bill to the House.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt]

I could not agree more. We need to be robust in fighting it. It is not just on this issue but on many others that there is this disconnect.

The Bill is an important step in our fight against the scourge of terrorism, which seeks to attack the foundations of our society and cause divisions between us. The mandatory 14-year prison sentences for the most serious terrorist offenders that the Bill includes will provide a strong deterrent against terrorism and send a clear message to those who want to spill blood on our streets out of hatred for our country that they will not be tolerated. I call on the Government to go even further over the coming months in looking at the out-of-touch decisions that are coming from our courts, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) rightly said, and to deal with the Shamima Begum case.

This is a very sensitive issue. I appreciate that terrorist offences have touched the lives of many right hon. and hon. Members. We need to be robust in confronting it. We cannot make excuses and apologies for the people who take these actions. Yes, it is important—I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry)—that, for the public interest, people are able, under certain circumstances, to rehabilitate, but it is also important for the public interest for there to be a strong deterrent, and a message to deter future evil acts like some of those that we have discussed today.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the passionate speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt).

I spoke in the debate back in February when the Government passed emergency legislation to ensure that terrorist offenders would no longer be released early and automatically. I am glad that we are now doing all that we can on this. We must continue to root out terrorism from our streets. I am pleased that the earliest point at which terrorist offenders will even be considered for release is after they have served two thirds of their sentence. Indeed, no terrorist offender will be released before the end of their full custodial term unless the Parole Board agrees.

This Bill will ensure that serious and dangerous terrorist offenders spend longer in custody, and it improves the ability to monitor and manage those of concern when they are released. It is only right that offenders still viewed as a threat to the public will be forced to spend the rest of their term in prison. Members of my party stood on a manifesto that promised to keep us safer, with investment in our police force and our Prison Service, and that included stronger measures to deal with terrorism.

It was thanks to the exemplary work of the Prison Service during the pandemic that I recently wrote to the governor at HMP Bure in my constituency, to voice my gratitude and appreciation for the fantastic work that the prison staff, healthcare staff and civilian staff there are doing, given the unprecedented challenges we face, during covid. We must do all we can to strengthen confidence in our criminal justice system and make society as safe as we can from cowardly acts of terrorism, which devastate lives and communities. That could be no better emphasised than by the heartfelt and moving speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson). The Bill, along with the doubling of the number of counter-terrorism specialists and probation staff, will absolutely do that.

We already have a MAPPA—multi-agency public protection arrangements—review, a Prevent review an HM inspector’s report and three-year post legislation. It is unnecessary to have yet another layer of review. A serious terrorism sentence for the most serious and dangerous terrorist offenders is a welcome move. We are going to get tough on terrorism and ensure that those that set out to hurt innocent people will spend at least 14 years in prison and up to 25 years on licence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) said, recent attacks show that the Bill is necessary; that sentencing needs toughening, but so does the investigation, the monitoring and the management of offenders.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman feel that those who have carried out acts of terrorism in the past, and perhaps have not been held accountable for them until this time, should be subject to these new laws that are coming in, because there would be no early release for them, as has been the past history? Those who murdered the four Ulster Defence Regiment men at Ballydugan some 25 or 26 years ago, those who murdered my cousin, Kenneth Smyth—does he agree that it is time that anyone who has never been made accountable, is made accountable as well?

[Duncan Baker]

I absolutely agree that we should make sure that those people who have committed absolutely heinous acts face the full prosecution of the criminal justice service.

I will finish by saying that giving the Secretary of State expanded powers to impose additional restrictions, such as imposing overnight curfews, and to gather more information on devices, such as electronic devices, would give us even more control measures and services to eliminate risk even further. This is about restricting, interrupting and stopping dreadful attacks, such as those that happened at Fishmongers’ Hall and Streatham. As the Justice Secretary has said, the Government are pursuing every option to tackle terrorism. It is with that in mind that I welcome the Bill. The largest overhaul of terrorist sentencing and monitoring in decades, it delivers what we need to keep our communities safer and come down hard on those that set out to ruin lives.

[Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the thoughtful intervention speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker).

It was a privilege to serve on the Public Bill Committee. As someone who lived in London in the 1980s and ’90s, I remember all too well the impact of terrorism on this nation’s capital. A massive lorry bomb was left outside the London overground station at the bottom of my then street in Bethnal Green and the local policeman, whom I knew, discovered it. We must not forget the emotional toll on frontline officers of dealing with such terrorist incidents; he has to live with that for the rest of his life. There are other parts of the Union that have to live with it more frequently. We all need to work together as one nation to deal with these issues. There are many human stories, with which we sympathise.

Serving on a Committee examining the proposed legislation seeking to counter terrorism was an interesting challenge, but a privilege. I thank the Minister for how he steered the Committee through the issues covered in the legislation. In Committee, I found the interventions of my hon. Friends the Members for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) and for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) very useful in dealing with the issues. It was also very interesting to hear what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) had to say in Committee meetings, and the contributions of all those other Members who sit in this Chamber today.

Having considered all the evidence, done my research and read back over the years, it is my clear view that the overwhelming weight of the evidence heard by the Bill Committee sessions was that the provisions of this Bill will make the public safer and will greater enable us to defeat terrorism and contain former terrorists.

This law is proportionate in what it seeks to do in relation to the rights of prisoners. Of course, we need to keep our people safe. The Opposition’s request for further reviews and delays is not proportionate with what we need to do today.