Public Consultation: Extraction of Information from Electronic Devices Code of Practice
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
Following the successful passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, I am pleased to announce that today I am launching a public consultation on the draft code of practice for the extraction of information from electronic devices.
It is vital that victims feel confident in coming forward to report crime, but we know that fear of intrusive demands for information can deter victims from reporting offences or from continuing to support investigations. The powers in chapter 3 of part 2 of the Act therefore strengthen the law to ensure that there is a consistent approach to requesting information from phones and other electronic devices which puts respect for an individual’s privacy at the centre of every investigation.
This code of practice will be a vital tool in ensuring that all use of these powers is lawful and that the powers are used only where it is necessary and proportionate. The draft code makes it clear that the powers must be used only as a last resort. This will ensure that all those who are asked to voluntarily provide their devices and give agreement to the extraction of information, are given all the necessary information to enable them to make the decision that is right for them.
All authorised persons have a duty to have regard to the code when exercising, or deciding whether to exercise, the power. The code will also be admissible in evidence in criminal or civil proceedings and failure to act in accordance with it may be taken into account by the court.
Those who have an interest in the use of these powers and the protection of privacy for complainants are strongly encouraged to respond to the consultation, and I welcome the views of all colleagues on this important guidance.
I will arrange for a copy of the consultation and draft code to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS31]
Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right to talk about the public health approach and the need to prevent crime and work across communities to do that.
Across the country, in the last few weeks alone, I have heard from residents and victims talking often about there being no action when things go wrong; about repeated vandalism not being tackled even though there is CCTV evidence of who is responsible; and about the victim of an appalling violent domestic attack who was told that it would not come to court for two years.
I have heard about repeated shoplifting where the police are so overstretched that they have stopped coming; about burglaries where all the victim got was a crime number; about scamming, where Action Fraud is such a nightmare to engage with that pensioners have given up trying to report serious crimes; about persistent drug dealing outside a school where nothing had been done months later; and about a horrendous rape case where the brave victim was strung out for so long and the court case was delayed so many times that she gave up because she could not bear it anymore.
I have heard about police officers tearing their hair out over Crown Prosecution Service delays because they know that the victim will drop out if they cannot charge quickly; about other officers who are working long hours to pick up the pieces when local mental health services fail but who know that that means that they cannot be there to deal with the antisocial behaviour on the street corner; and about women who no longer expect the police to help if they face threats of violence on the streets or in their homes. There is case after case after case where crimes are being committed but no one is being charged, cautioned or given a community penalty and no action is being taken—and it is getting worse.
Since the 2019 general election—in fact, since the Home Secretary was appointed—crime is up by 18% and prosecutions are down by 18%. The charge rate is now at a record low of 5.8% compared with 15.5% in 2015. Cautions and community penalties are down too, notwithstanding the Prime Minister and his Downing Street staff’s attempt to make valiant personal efforts to get those numbers back up again.
The Home Secretary made an astonishing claim. She said:
“We have reformed the criminal justice system so that it better supports victims and ensures that criminals are not only caught but punished.”
Where are the criminal justice reforms that are pushing the prosecution rates up? The prosecution rates have plummeted on the Conservatives’ watch, which means that under the Home Secretary and the Conservatives, hundreds of thousands more criminals are getting off and hundreds of thousands more victims are being let down.
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Yvette Cooper
I will give way to the Policing Minister. I will also give way to the Home Secretary as many times as she wants, so that she can explain why prosecution rates have plummeted and cautions and community penalties have collapsed.
Kit Malthouse
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. I understand the picture that she is trying to paint, but I know that she will want to give the House a balanced picture overall. I am sure, therefore, that she will want to acknowledge that in the latest publication on crime statistics by the Office for National Statistics, violence was down 8%, knife crime was down 4%, theft was down 15%, burglary, which she mentioned, was down 14%, car crime was down 6% and robbery was down 9%. Although we acknowledge that the fight against crime is never linear, we should celebrate our successes, should we not?
Yvette Cooper
I am hugely relieved and glad that during lockdown, while everybody was at home, there were fewer burglaries of homes. I am also hugely relieved that during lockdown, while there were fewer people on the streets, there were fewer thefts on the streets. In April, however, the Office for National Statistics said:
“Since restrictions were lifted following the third national lockdown in early 2021, police recorded crime data show indications that certain offence types are returning to or exceeding the levels seen before the pandemic… violence and sexual offences recorded by the police have exceeded pre-pandemic levels”.
On overall crime, I am sure that the Policing Minister would not want to make the mistake that the Business Secretary made of somehow dismissing fraud, which is responsible for some of the huge increases in crime, and of saying that it is not a crime that affects people’s daily life. We know that it causes huge problems and huge harms, particularly for vulnerable people across the country.
Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
I support the Queen’s Speech and the programme unveiled by the Government. One can see politics getting back to normal and I am sure that the contest in the House today will be watched in the next two years as we glide to the likely date of a general election. Both sides are feisty performers and I am sure that many of us appreciate that.
The Government’s programme sets out to help grow the economy. It is for safer streets and for supporting the recovery of the national health service. The economy is in much better shape than one might have thought when we had the prolonged period of lockdown. We have a growing economy—this year it will be the fastest growing of many in the G7—a budget that is moving towards balance and falling national debt. There are challenges with the cost of living and inflation, but the Government have so far put in £22 billion of support, they are monitoring the situation and I am sure that, as things unfold, there will be further support as and when needed. One could never argue that the Government have not given support to the British people over the past two or three years. We must wait and see how things unfold on energy. Gas prices have fallen in recent months. Let us all hope that that continues and that inflation is lower than some predict. That is not to say that there are not challenges out there, but I think that the Government have proven that they can rise to challenges.
Some of the measures in the Queen’s Speech are useful to help and support the growing economy, in particular those to deregulate some of the EU regulations that we put into British law when we left the EU. Logically, we need to review them now to see if we can get ourselves a more efficient, more competitive economy. So I welcome the Bills that are looking at that area.
Of course, energy is a major challenge. It is my great pleasure to commend the Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), who is doing an excellent job with his energy brief. The Government are grappling with issues such as nuclear power, oil and gas, and renewables to increase our capacity. That is to be commended. Indeed, it is sensible, even if we are heading for net zero at some point in the future, that we use the resources that God has given us and which the British economy has proved able to get out of the ground. We are going to need oil and gas for a long time and the Government are proving that they want to make use of those resources to make us a richer and more competitive country.
Nuclear power is very important. We can see the mistake the Germans made in announcing the closure of their nuclear power stations and their dependency on Russian gas. We need to replace many of the Magnox stations that are going to go offline. This is an exciting time. I hope we get a decision on Sizewell soon. I am particularly pleased that Rolls-Royce has, with its partners, come up with a scheme for smaller nuclear power stations. I think that is going to be a game changer for the United Kingdom and it could be a game changer for exports to many countries that wish to avail themselves of safe nuclear power, so I think that is good.
There is one area, agriculture, that I am still a bit concerned about. I still think we seem to spend a little too much time talking about trimming hedges and less about producing food. One thing the pandemic and the current world shortages have proven is that resilience and local production are important. I would be very disappointed if the food we were producing reduced to below 50%. If anything, we ought to be producing more. I therefore think there needs to be a rethink in this area.
I am not a great fan of Bank of England independence. I have always been a little sceptical about it.
Kit Malthouse
On my hon. Friend’s first two subjects, I wonder if he would reflect on the fact that both in terms of nuclear power and agriculture we have the freedom and flexibility that come from his and my vote to leave the European Union. On nuclear power, he will recall the blood-curdling predictions that we would fail in that particular industry by departing from Euratom all those years ago. Does he agree that, along with the French now, we can position ourselves as the only two serious nuclear powers in Europe?
Sir Robert Syms
That is absolutely so. The original design teams for British nuclear power were taken apart. To have a productive nuclear power industry, we need continued investment in new plants. The good thing about what has happened at Hinkley C, Sizewell and Rolls-Royce is that we are getting design teams together and collaborating with other partners. That will be a major game changer in terms of Britain being able to produce the power we need in future.
Going back to the Bank of England, I am a little concerned that it has merrily gone on printing money. I am old enough to still be a monetarist in its broadest sense. One of the reasons we have higher inflation is that we have allowed for it because of monetary growth. If we had stopped printing money sooner and put up interest rates sooner, the consequences of the current spike in inflation would be less severe. Nevertheless, we are where we are. At least it is only the European Central Bank printing money at the moment and Britain can get back to a more sensible policy.
We have very low levels of unemployment and high levels of employment. There are many other measures in the Loyal Speech. We are trying to improve education and outputs in that area. We really do have to educate our population, so they become more productive and we can get productivity up. If we get the investment and education right, there is nothing we cannot do in the future.
I thank the Home Office for the hard work it put in in the last Session. My constituents are very appreciative that we now have powers to deal with Travellers, who tend to cause problems every summer in Dorset. They are also pleased that we are starting to deal with illegal immigration. Immigration has to be fair. If people follow the system, pay the fees, fill out the forms and wait in the queue, it is fundamentally unfair that people arrive in boats and try to jump the queue. The Government are therefore taking action. A lot of the action will put off some of those people from coming in an illegal way, which I think is good.
I am particularly pleased with the public order measures announced today. My constituents look at people trying to wreck petrol stations and getting on tankers—taking action that is dangerous. I have to say that my sympathy was with the woman in the Range Rover who was trying to nudge protesters. A lot of people work hard. They try to get their kids to school and keep them in school uniform. They take people to hospital. Protesters who are not demonstrators but are disrupting other people’s livelihoods need to be curtailed. The measures are therefore welcome and I am glad the Government are on the front foot when it comes to dealing with these issues. That is vital. Part of the problem and the reason we have to legislate is that we have seen examples of City banks where people outside have hit buildings and smashed windows with hammers, and, unfortunately, the judicial system has let people off. Sometimes the people who are making decisions in the judicial system do not understand the seriousness of where that leads. If we let there be some degree of anarchy, that can easily overspill and break out, so the measures are welcome.
Of course 13,500 police officers are welcome. I still think the police need some reform. It is the one area that Mrs Thatcher did not reform and sometimes the productivity we get out of the police force is not all that we need. We need some specialists in police forces, so I do not think that just the head count of police officers is important. It is important sometimes when dealing with fraud to deal with people who are experts in that, rather than people who just happen to be officers.
My final point is that we put a lot of money into the national health service. It is important we get the productivity. It is also important that it does not disappear and we cannot deal with care. We made a number of commitments. People are paying higher taxes, at least in the short term, to deal with the backlog and care. It is so important we live up to the pledges we made.
I welcome the Loyal Speech and what the Government are doing. I have one or two concerns, but broadly speaking I am supportive.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
I do not often get the chance to speak in the House—being shadow Minister without portfolio means having a lot to do, but often without the opportunity to say very much—so I am delighted to be able to contribute to the debate.
The Home Secretary is just leaving the Chamber. This will not do either her or me very much good—I may even get chased from this place by my own colleagues—but in her absence I want to say that I like the Home Secretary. I also like the Minister for Crime and Policing.
Conor McGinn
That will definitely not do me any good.
One thing I admire about the Home Secretary, even though I profoundly disagree with her, is that she believes in things. However, despite her virtuoso performance at the Dispatch Box today, I do not think that she believes some of the accusations that she levelled at the Opposition. I do not think for a second that the Government think that an Opposition led by a former Director of Public Prosecutions, who prosecuted terrorists and the worst sort of criminals and offenders and made sure that they were put in prison, are any sort of threat to national security. We can argue about policy, record and delivery, but let us not kid ourselves or the British public, because frankly they do not believe it either.
Before I come on to my main remarks about the Loyal Address, I want to place on record, given the topic of today’s debate, my thanks to and admiration for Merseyside police, led by Chief Constable Serena Kennedy. We have been blessed in Merseyside with good leadership using all the tools to provide a robust policing response to things that matter to people in St Helens and across Merseyside, tackle the root causes of crime and antisocial behaviour, and give no quarter to those criminals who would terrorise our communities. I stand squarely behind our police force—the men and women of Merseyside police who put themselves daily in harm’s way to keep us and our communities safe.
I turn to the wider aspects of the programme that the Government have set out, or the lack thereof. This was a gilt-edged chance for the Government to grab the cost of living crisis by the scruff of the neck. More than that, it was a chance to lay the groundwork after the pandemic, for prosperity and renewal across our communities and to set a pathway to the securer future that has never felt further away for many of our citizens, but is so badly needed.
The House will not be surprised to hear this, but I regret to say that I think the Government missed that opportunity. That matters, because this is not just about the theatre of the state opening. This is a profoundly worrying juncture for our country. Inflation is soaring and is predicted to rise further to some 10%, fuel and food prices are skyrocketing, and 15 of the tax rises imposed by this Government are hitting working people particularly. A national insurance hike—a tax on working people—is the wrong tax, at the wrong time, on the wrong people.
When I speak to residents, my neighbours in St Helens, their families, pensioners, businesses and local community groups, it is clear that this crisis is really affecting people and that they are really worrying about how they will cope. That was the stark reality that I heard from community groups in St Helens at a recent meeting that I convened with some of those who work with our community and residents who are affected. What they tell me is borne out by statistics from very reputable sources. Nine in 10 people have already seen a rise in the cost of living, are already experiencing more expensive energy bills, and are seeing more costly groceries on their weekly shop. Nearly a quarter of adults are finding it difficult to pay their usual household bills.
Worryingly, food bank use in St Helens North has risen by nearly 900 users over the past year, including 300 children—in the United Kingdom, in the 21st century, in a town like St Helens. This is not often cited, but our food banks are also wrestling with a 30% reduction in donations, because people who previously gave cannot afford to now because they have to look after themselves. Our transport costs are also rising, making it harder to get to work, see family and friends and stay connected. That has a huge impact on inequality.
Even before the crisis, a sixth of households in my constituency were in fuel poverty, so I was very pleased that a central plank of the Labour party’s offer in the local election campaign was putting up to £600 back in people’s pockets now by levelling a windfall tax on the excess profits of the oil and gas companies, which to all intents and purposes are printing money because of the increase in costs. At a time when the Government should be using every policy lever they can to deliver security, they had no answer this week.
As I have said before, our communities are resilient. We have been through a lot over the past two years—in fact, over the past 20 or 30 years—but people have come together to meet the challenges, particularly under the banner of St Helens Together, in a spirit of generosity, kindness and solidarity. Contrary to what some commentators wish to believe, communities in the north of England are not homogeneous and the challenges we face are nuanced, but our sense of place is important, as it is in St Helens. We are proud of that and remain steadfast in our ambitions for a better and securer future. That is why—this is a point that I have consistently made—it is not just about criticising the Government. Part of my job as an Opposition MP is to do that, but it is not enough.
I have agency. I am a Member of Parliament and a political leader, so just attacking the Government for what they are failing to do does not wash for my constituents in St Helens. They want to see action, so we are taking responsibility. As political, business and community leaders, we are addressing the big challenges facing our towns and villages in the Liverpool city region by regenerating our town centres through an historic, innovative £200 million partnership with the English cities fund; securing £25 million of innovative projects from the towns fund; investing record amounts in children’s services and focusing on the next generation’s educational attainment; and creating decent, secure and skilled jobs, training and opportunities through world-leading initiatives such as Glass Futures.
We are regenerating former colliery sites such as Parkside. They are not just a monument to those who worked there, proud as we are of that heritage. They are places that will create new employment opportunities for a whole new generation of people across our coalfields. We are revolutionising public transport, we are taking steps to bring buses back into public ownership, and we are seeking to “bring rail home” to where it originated, with the Rainhill trials, through our bid to host the headquarters of Great British Railways in our borough.
Our approach was endorsed again last week, when Labour increased its vote share in St Helens after its candidate stood for election on the basis of the party’s record and an ambitious manifesto. It is now back, forming a new administration in our council with a strong mandate to continue.
Disappointed as I am—as would be expected—with what the Government have, or indeed have not, included in their legislative programme, that is not an excuse for me or anyone else to abdicate responsibility. I know that I have a job to do for my community, and we are of course taking responsibility, because we are proud of our past and ambitious for our future. However, I must stress to Ministers that people are worried. There are huge fears about the cost of living and what it means for their families, and that clouds the present and makes it more difficult to be optimistic about the future. I wish that the Government would do more to help me and my constituents in St Helens, but also to help people throughout the country. I wish that they would help us to get through the cost of living crisis, but also to push on with our plans to build a better and brighter future. If they do not, however, we in Helens will, as always, just do it ourselves.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
What the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) said was very revealing, because he actually put on the record that most of this package of legislation is about party political advantage, posturing, setting up straw men and trying to create divisions that do not really exist, rather than trying to address the real issues facing this country, particularly the cost of living crisis, which I do not think he referred to.
What we have is the Government wasting parliamentary time, bringing back, with the Public Order Bill, the culture wars nonsense that we saw with the worst parts of the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. At that point, it was about attacks on statues, which was very much based on what happened in Bristol. It is interesting that the hon. Member talked about public opinion, but a jury trial acquitted some of the protesters by the Colston statue.
That was very much an attack on the whole Black Lives Matter movement. Although I did not agree with the fact that the statue was removed in the way that it was, we did not need legislation increasing the maximum sentence for damaging statues to 10 years. It was just about party political point scoring.
Now we have the measures on climate change activists. Again, the Government are trying to create a false divide. Most people, if we ask them, want to see greater action on climate change and support the right to peaceful protest, while thinking that the tactics used by some protesters are ill-judged, inconsiderate and counter-productive. People who are very much involved in the environmental movement share my opinion that some of the things we have seen do not help the cause at all. However, I am not convinced there needs to be legislation on this, rather than the Government working with infrastructure providers to obtain injunctions. Again, the reason is very much about headlines and trying to stir up antipathy. It is also interesting that the people who try to do that do not even manage to pay lip service to the need to address climate change.
Kit Malthouse
I am a little confused. Is the hon. Lady saying she is content for protesters to be brought before the court and punished either with imprisonment or a fine through an injunction process—a civil process—but would not support the same through a criminal process?
Kerry McCarthy
No, I did not say that at all. What I am saying is I think the reason the Government are bringing forward that legislation is suspect and I am not convinced that the police need these powers. I ask the Government to prove as the Bill passes through the House that the police are calling for these powers, because they were not calling for the increased powers brought in under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill; they said they did not feel they were necessary. It is now down to the Government to prove that the injunction system does not work but, as I have said, some of the protests are ill-judged and inconsiderate to people going about their daily lives, and I think we would all speak as one on that point.
It appears at first sight that the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill is more about spin than substance. If it genuinely gives more powers to local communities rather than developers, that is good, although the Government’s past action on this front does not inspire confidence. I hope that as we consider the Bill we can look at what has been happening. I have a case in my constituency where land originally used as meadows was designated for housing by a previous administration. The update of the local plan has been delayed, partly because the West of England has not updated its planning strategy. I think the Government rejected it. Therefore, even though we have a one-city ecology strategy that says we want to protect 30% of the land as green space, we cannot oppose the planning application on those grounds because the previous local plan is still in place. The Minister may have some experience of this sort of issue from previous roles. I hope that, when we get a chance to discuss the Bill, we can talk about how we can ensure that planning rules take into account a city’s desire to address the ecological crisis.
I would like to have a conversation with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about architecture. His remarks on Poundbury, the village the Prince of Wales set up, were quoted at the weekend. On aesthetic grounds, I do not like Poundbury. I do not think it is brilliant architecture, so I disagree with the Prince of Wales and the Secretary of State on that. but in his comments, the Secretary of State set up a completely artificial argument, saying opposition to new housing development comes from
“a few modernist architects who sneer at what the rest of us actually like and people who dislike anything that seems small-c conservative.”
That is not the case. The opposition to new housing developments is about people wanting to protect green spaces, thinking that infrastructure is not available and being worried about the impact on road systems and local facilities. It is not about people saying, “We would accept this new housing if the architecture was more modern.” That is just made up. It does not make for good political debate if people are constructing such straw man arguments.
The privatisation of Channel 4 is an unnecessary and spiteful move. Channel 4 is not broken and does not need the Government to fix it. Public ownership is not a straitjacket; the Government are trying to say it is. The channel invests more in independent production companies outside London—including Bristol, where it has one of its regional hubs—than any other broadcaster. Privatising Channel 4 could mean £1 billion in investment lost from the UK’s nations and regions, with over 60 independent production companies at risk of going under.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
It would be customary to say that it is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi), but, without being personal in any way, it is incredibly frustrating, when we are facing a catastrophic rise in the cost of living, a war in Europe and an economy that is just starting to recover from the covid-19 pandemic, that this is the Queen’s Speech we are dealing with today. It should have been full of ambition and vision for our country, but instead we have cynicism, half measures and a total lack of vision. We have an eclectic mix of Bills that is more about stoking division and setting up dividing lines. It does not come close to tackling the issues that the public care most about—the catastrophic fall in their incomes and the cost of living soaring as a recession looms.
The very beginning of the Queen’s Speech talked about supporting the police to make our streets safer. We know the Government have no shortage of hard-line rhetoric on crime; we heard it from the Home Secretary earlier. Browsing the headlines on any given day, there is a good chance that we will see something about how harshly criminals will be punished if they get caught. But it is the “if they get caught” bit that is really crucial. After 12 years of Conservative cuts, the police, and the justice system, often do not have the resources to investigate even the most relatively straightforward crimes. The impact of this has been devastating. The antisocial behaviour that blights significant parts of our country, including my constituency, has effectively been decriminalised. The cuts to frontline policing and the criminal justice system have caused the proportion of reported crimes ending in prosecution to plummet.
Catherine McKinnell
If the Minister wishes to disagree with the very obvious statistics on this, he is welcome to; we would love to hear it.
Kit Malthouse
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. Obviously antisocial behaviour is an important issue across the whole country, and we definitely recognise that. In my own county of Hampshire, the police and crime commissioner has established an antisocial behaviour taskforce, using the extra resources that the Government have now provided for the third consecutive year. Has she had the same conversation with her own Labour police and crime commissioner to establish exactly the same kind of assertive response in Newcastle upon Tyne?
Catherine McKinnell
I appreciate that the Government state their commitment to the issue, but over the past 12 years we have seen an accumulation of the impact of public service cuts right across the board, whether in education, youth services or our police, sending the message to constituents across my constituency and elsewhere that people are getting away with it and very little can be done.
The relatively small increases in police numbers are not going to change that either. Northumbria Police has lost 1,100 officers and we still need 632 more to get back to 2010 levels, but replacing police officers is not going to take us all the way. Ministers have also shown very little interest in replacing lost back-room staff, who are essential to releasing that police resource on to the street. The Minister seems to think the problem is solved, but residents in my area, and right across the country, would disagree. We need to make community safety a priority, and that means more police out there tackling crime, antisocial behaviour and dangerous drivers: the things that they came into the force to do. The Minister’s own Back Benchers have been calling for it repeatedly today. That means tackling the backlog in the judicial system—something that the Government have simply ignored and continue to ignore.
We know the distressing impact that antisocial behaviour can have on victims, destroying their mental health and impacting every part of their life. In the worst cases it can be life-ending. When I speak to people in my constituency in Lemington, Newbiggin Hall, Kingston Park, West Denton, Gosforth and Fawdon, they are very clear that what they want is greater support and protection from antisocial behaviour and crime, and greater strength and legal protection as victims. Yet victims are too often treated as an afterthought. The community trigger, which is supposedly the main instrument to support antisocial behaviour victims, is largely unused, and meanwhile support for victims remains a postcode lottery due to the lack of dedicated Government funding. It is disappointing that the long-promised victims Bill is still not enacted after being promised in no fewer than four Queen’s Speeches and three manifestos. Putting the victims code on a statutory footing is so overdue, and I urge the Government to take up the Victims Commissioner’s recommendation to include in it victims of antisocial behaviour. We must give them the same rights as victims of crime. We must end the postcode lottery in support for victims with proper dedicated funding.
Taking on crime is also vital to rebalancing our economy—or levelling up, as the Government like to call it. Crime not only leaves people fearful in our own communities but damages the prospect of attracting people and businesses to areas that quite often badly need the investment. The levelling-up agenda itself seems up in the air, with little sense of the Government’s priorities. The modest changes expected in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill simply are not enough, especially if the Government have already passed up the chance to transform northern economies by delivering on the long-promised eastern leg of HS2.
In the Levelling Up White Paper, the Government identify 12 missions to drive and measure change. I do not have time to go into them all, but take, for example, the mission of 90% of children meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by the end of primary school by 2030. We would all love to see it happen, but is it possible to achieve, when the highest performing areas currently do not reach 90%? It is hard to see how a Government who are presiding over half a million more children sinking into absolute poverty can possibly achieve that goal, given all that we know about the impact of poverty on achievement at school. Promises are one thing; delivery is another, and indeed there is no mention of child poverty at all in the Queen’s Speech or in the Levelling Up White Paper, even though we know it accounts for much of the difference in attainment at school across the country and impacts on so many areas of life, including health, wealth and happiness. It has become a reality that must not be named, but in failing to do so, the Government are failing our children.
I will touch on transport, because the transport Bill will include long-awaited and much-needed measures to roll out charging points for electric vehicles. Making the shift to low-carbon vehicles will save drivers money, increase energy independence and clean our air. We know that nearly 40,000 buses on Britain’s roads need to be replaced, both as part of the switch to zero-emission vehicles and to encourage people to switch from private to public transport with a new modernised fleet. The Department for Transport’s target is to fund 4,000 zero-carbon buses in this Parliament, but 40,000 need to be replaced.
The DFT’s approach of funding zero-emission buses through this ad hoc centrally administered funding pot, forcing local authorities to spend precious time and money writing bids, feels like an outdated and half-hearted solution, if I am honest, to the urgent problem of decarbonising our transport system. I often imagine my communities with full electrification of cars and buses, and think how quiet and clean the air would be. It is within our grasp; we just need more urgency, and we need to streamline the process of returning bus networks to public control, so that green buses can become integrated, efficient and accountable, like they are in major cities such as London. We want the same for Newcastle.
Fundamentally, we need to remove fossil fuels from transport. We need to make electric vehicles affordable for everyone and ensure that every community has the infrastructure to charge them. We need the right regulation and funding for a clean, efficient bus network, and we need investment in cycle paths and walking to allow people to travel safely. That is how we create safe and healthy communities.
Crippling energy bills and runaway inflation are hitting families hard, and the catastrophic fall in disposable income alongside the crisis in Ukraine will define our politics for the foreseeable future. The very first line of the Queen’s Speech should have acknowledged that we are living in a cost of living crisis and made a commitment to bringing forward a Budget to support households. Yet that is not what we got yesterday, and we are left with grudging half-measures previously announced by the Chancellor. That is scant comfort to constituents facing another increase in the energy cap in the autumn, when energy bills are expected to reach a staggering £2,500 to £3,000 on average. It is just not good enough.
Two and a half years into his premiership, it is not at all clear what the Prime Minister’s guiding mission in office is, other than staying there at all costs. It is a remarkably thin policy programme from a Government with an 80-seat majority who tell us that they are going to level up our country. It shows a Government seriously lacking in ambition and far more interested in stoking culture wars that they think will benefit them in the next election, rather than supporting British people and British businesses through the multiple domestic and international crises we face. I will work with Labour colleagues to try and improve these Bills and the Government’s programme, but frankly, after 12 years, it is time for a Labour Government.
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who spoke passionately about the cost of living crisis and the problems we face that have not really been addressed by the Government’s Bills.
First, in this new Session of Parliament, I will talk about the platinum jubilee. The Loyal Address has come weeks before this year’s celebration to mark 70 years since Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth became the monarch of the United Kingdom and the head of state of other territories and countries. For me, it is particularly poignant because 20 years ago, at the golden jubilee, as a result of the efforts of people in Preston, the council, other stakeholders and me, Preston was fortunate enough to receive city status in the golden jubilee competition in which 40 towns across England competed. I do not know which town will be chosen this year but I wish good luck to whichever town it is and the Member of Parliament who represents it, because we have seen considerable investment in Preston as its profile has been raised through its city status.
Despite the joyous occasion of celebrating the Queen’s platinum jubilee, the people of Preston and the country cannot help but be distracted by the real-time tragedy of the cost of living crisis that comes on the heels of two-plus years of hardship and sacrifice caused by the global pandemic. In the Queen’s Speech, the Government made it clear that they are not interested in easing the pain of people who are suffering now and will suffer in months to come. Between last year’s Queen’s Speech and last month’s spring statement by the Chancellor, no tangible action has been brought forward to address the cost of living crisis.
The country is in a state of emergency and on the brink of a potential recession, so people need help now. I echo the calls that the Government will have heard from Opposition Members for an emergency Budget to try to address that situation. At a time when high inflation is outstripping wage and benefit increases, in conjunction with recent tax increases, this Queen’s Speech is a missed opportunity to address the issues that matter most to people: their livelihoods and the future.
Today’s debate focuses on crime and justice. The Conservative party fancies itself as tough on crime, yet it has a Prime Minister and a Chancellor who have been issued with fixed penalty notices for breaking laws that they wrote. Crime is up while criminal enforcement is down, with thousands of criminals getting off without being charged or held accountable.
The same is true for fraud and computer misuse, with online fraud soaring during the pandemic and before, yet few fraudsters are being arrested. According to the figures that I have, 416,000 cases of fraud have been reported in the last year and £35 million has been stolen as a result of that fraud, but only 156 fraudsters have been arrested. People may conclude from that that crime does indeed pay.
Kit Malthouse
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would want to acknowledge that, although he is right that fraud and computer misuse have been rising and have been included in the overall crime numbers in the last few years, quite a lot of those offences are committed by people who are operating internationally and online and who are, therefore, particularly difficult to bring to justice because they are in other jurisdictions.
Sir Mark Hendrick
I certainly agree with that point. In fact, as the Minister knows, there has been a big shift away from things such as car and telephone theft. Many people are now finding that their identities are being stolen and fraud is taking place as a result of computer crime, which is a big problem. We certainly see problems in cyber-space in terms of defence. I am pleased that the cyber-security centre is coming to Lancashire and hopes to do a great deal in that area. I am still quite bemused by the size of the resources being committed to police forces up and down the country to tackle this sort of thing, and the lack of wherewithal for Companies House to try to tackle fraud with businesses. I have had a number of cases of online fraud in my own constituency, about which I have written to the Government.
With the Online Safety Bill having been carried over into this Session, we have seen how delay has allowed disinformation to spread like wildfire online, particularly during Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, which obviously speaks to the point I have just made about cyber-crime and cyber-security. We want to see more effort on scams included in the scope of that legislation, to which I know the Labour party is committed.
The data reform Bill will reform the way data is handled in the UK after Brexit. The Government have said that the changes will help to increase the competitiveness of UK businesses and boost the economy, but reinventing the wheel by finding an alternative to the general data protection regulation just so the Government can claim freedom from so-called EU red tape is a waste of time. It is posturing really, and just creating new standards for data security is not going to solve any problems.
On the question of security itself, with the current state of affairs internationally, I think the Government need to be reminded of how critical national security is. We welcome the National Security Bill, and we want to limit state threats activity in the UK. As has been witnessed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine and in state-backed interference in the UK before that, there are changing threats to the UK, and legislation on foreign interference must keep pace with the reality on the ground. We want better security and we support the National Security Bill, but we want this situation to be transformed quickly, with the cyber centre I have mentioned being constructed and the experts in there as soon as possible.
On the Public Order Bill, this should really be about tackling injustice. However, it is not about tackling injustice; it is about restricting further rights to protest in a legitimate way. There are extreme cases, as we saw here when people glued themselves to the glass in the Gallery overlooking the Chamber, but laws exist at the moment to deal with that sort of thing. The normal activity of demonstrations is something that, as a free country, we have come to expect, and if the Government are too heavy-handed on this, Bill will do a great deal more to cause problems by not allowing people to protest freely.
There is talk about an energy security Bill and how it will build on the success of last year’s COP26 environment summit in Glasgow, with a pledge to build up to eight nuclear power stations and to increase wind and solar energy production in the UK. Again, I, as a Labour Member, and my party will support an energy security Bill. In particular, an increase in the provision of nuclear power is a no-brainer to me. Over the last 20 years—I do stress the last 20 years, and I would include the Labour Government as well—what we have seen in this country is a lot of talk about nuclear without much being done. I certainly welcome the consideration given to small modular reactors, which will provide very efficient nuclear power from engines that were originally designed to power nuclear submarines rather than provide power to the public. There is potential for great developments to see us move towards a carbon-free future, and not only in this country, but for exports abroad. In the area of my constituency, we have Springfields—formerly British Nuclear Fuels, but now part of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation—which is a world leader in producing nuclear fuels. I think the 1,000-plus people who work at Springfields can look forward to extra work if this Government and any future Labour Government are committed to delivering on the ground, instead of just the talk we have had over the last 20 years.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. We are not under huge time constraints today, which is unusual, so I will not put a time limit on. We will leave it up to people to judge for themselves how long they should speak, but I should just give an indication that 10 minutes is usually the maximum for a Back-Bench speech for all sorts of reasons that I do not need to explain to anyone who feels the atmosphere of this Chamber.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
What we have here is a set of divisive, straw man Bills—all fluff and no substance. Where these Bills do have substance, they are nasty and miserable, or they are in complete reverse from what was suggested in the previous Session. Planning is one such example. One moment, we were to have a developers’ charter, but a rebellion on the Tory Back Benches meant that that was suddenly reversed, so now we have a nimbys charter. Suddenly, our neighbours will be able to vote on whether we can have that loft extension. Do not upset the Joneses otherwise there will be no extra room for your child. What kind of world are we living in? It is absolute tosh. Then we have a Bill that will make sure that MPs can sit in their offices in silence—with no noisy protesters outside. Really! Is that the extent of the Government’s ambition?
The borders Bill summed up the failure of the Home Office, which is unable to properly process refugees’ applications, leaving them to wait years for proper and decent outcomes, and unable to create safe and legal routes for refugees, of which there are none at the moment for the vast majority of people in the world—none, in fact, for anyone outside Afghanistan and Ukraine. The only legal route to claim asylum is to make an illegal crossing. Is that not stupid? I would have thought that the Government would fix that tautology. No, instead they offshore the problem—they let Rwanda fix it because they cannot get their own house in order. Indeed, it is not just those applying for asylum who are suffering from Home Office mismanagement; ordinary people cannot even get their passports from the Home Office, such is the incompetence in that Department.
On conversion therapy, we have a Bill that is completely useless. Yes, it will protect under-18s, but the majority of those who attend conversion therapies are over 18 and they will of course sign a waiver because they will be told that if they want to stay in their church or their community, and with their friends and families, they will have to go through conversion therapy.
There is a good argument for including trans people in a ban on conversion therapy. I am not saying that trans people should not have psychotherapy and be able to discuss their options as they go forward, or that different options for going forward should not be presented to them and that things should not be slowed down rather than speeded up, but in conversion therapy, the therapist is trying to force people to go in one direction and that is wholly unethical in whatever form it takes. It is wrong for trans people, for gay people, or for any form of therapy where the therapist is forcing the person into a certain direction. The Government’s failure to ban trans conversion therapy, and to ban conversion therapy entirely for over-18s, is a missed opportunity.
My partner twice suffered going through conversion therapies in his long process of coming out—he comes from an evangelical Christian background—and it has caused huge amounts of pain and agony. I do not want other people to go through that, and the loophole the Government have given is not worth the paper the rest of the Bill will be written on. I am deeply saddened by that and hope the Government will come forward with something to address it.
Kit Malthouse
I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s view on this. Is he proposing there should be an absolute ban on conversion therapy, even if an adult consents? I understand the problem he raises about societal and group influence, but I am genuinely interested in how he would overcome the issue of freedom of association, or indeed action, for an adult.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
I do not think that any psychotherapy processes should ever have a prescribed outcome. Of course, people can have friends persuading them one way or another, but that is not a therapeutic programme. That is the difference.
This is a lock-‘em-up Queen’s Speech: lock up the refugees if they manage to get over here because there are no other legal routes for people to come; lock up protestors; and lock up people who may be drug addicts and need treatment and support rather than a criminalising approach. Meanwhile, it allows corporations to continue to get off the hook with tax dodging, and allows the huge covid scams that existed under this Government to go unpunished. There is nothing on clamping down on those corporations that led to the Grenfell tragedy—no forcing them to pay the costs of converting all the properties up and down the country.
We could have seen a cap on fuel bills. We could have seen real progress on social care, integrating it into the NHS. We could have seen the Union saved through confederacy, with the independent sovereign states and regions of this country coming together, instead of continuing the Conservative party’s blind approach of trying to pretend the Union is not in peril and forcing it further apart.
All the Queen’s Speech does on justice is pretend there is no problem. It pretends there is no backlog in the courts. It pretends that all people want is some British Bill of Rights. It pretends that there is not a crisis in the family courts. It pretends that there is not a crisis in the magistrates system—where the Government have cut local magistrates courts up and down the country in the past 10 years, where victims and people seeking justice cannot access a local court and often have to get a bus that takes half a day to get to the local court and a bus back. There is no access whatsoever and no suggestion of fixing it. Even where the Government do suggest some positive things, it is too little.
One area where I welcome some progress is on housing and the renter’s rights Bill that the Government are suggesting will come forward in this Parliament. I welcomed that in the 2019 Queen’s Speech, I welcomed it in the 2021 Queen’s Speech and of course I welcome it in this Queen’s Speech—but this is the third attempt to announce a strengthening of tenants’ rights. Ministers are planning to produce a Green Paper, to consult on it, to produce a White Paper and to get through all the stages in this place while assuming there will not be a new Session in Parliament or a general election, which would mean that all that good work was completely wasted.
I implore the Government to get on with the process, because every minute delayed is another minute of private renters being turfed out of their homes—and I literally mean every few minutes. Research by Shelter shows that every seven minutes a section 21 eviction notice has been served to households in England since the Government first committed to ending no-fault evictions. That equals 230,000 private renters who have been evicted from their households for no fault of their own.
Every one of those renters has their own story. Just last week I heard from one, a private tenant for 13 years in her current home, who has five children between 18 and seven years old. Their landlady has informed them they that they have to leave with a section 21 notice. The council will not help them until they get a county court judgment, and that is another scandal: once they have the county court judgment against them, they have a black mark against their name and they cannot rent from the private rented sector.
In this Kafkaesque world, that parent is petrified about even being about to put a roof over her children’s heads. She has the money to pay the rent, but will any landlord, or the council, help her? She says she is terrified. She has never been in rent arrears. She has two children with autism, one of whom has hypermobility problems and both of whom attend special educational needs provision in the city. She is worried she will have to move out of the city with the rest of her family. There is no legal redress or compensation for the fact that that family have been kicked out through no fault of their own after 13 years of calling that place a home.
I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group for renters and rental reform—I should mention that we are meeting next week, for those others who want to join—and our group has heard time and again that the lives of renters are being harmed.
These moves are positive, and the Government have agreed to set up a private rented property portal. I hope the lessons have been learned from the rogue landlord register, on which the Government predicted there would be 10,000 entries but on which, after two years of operation, there are just 21 names. It is completely useless. If the Government are to make the next register work, all landlords must be on it. Every single landlord in this country, with no exceptions—everyone in this Chamber who is a landlord, everyone out there who is a landlord—needs to be on that register and there needs to be a scorecard for them. If there is not, it will not work for people.
Finally, and most pleasingly in the housing section, there is to be a new housing ombudsperson. That is music to my ears, but what is the detail going to provide? Take the deposit scheme, where there is already a system of redress: it does not allow for precedent to be set from one judgment to the next in deposit disputes. If someone wins an argument that the level of mould was the landlord’s fault and not the tenant’s, the person in the house two doors down, with the same landlord who holds the deposit back and refuses to give it to them, has to go through all the arguments again, and with a different ombudsperson they might have a different outcome. We cannot have justice like that.
An ombudsperson in housing must have precedent for all the other cases they then see, unless the precedent is overturned through legal argument; and they must have open justice, where people can see the results of previous outcomes. They must look at rent, because we know that if we abolish section 21, all landlords will do is whack up the rent and kick tenants out. The Government’s saying they will make it easier for landlords to kick people out for rent arrears without going through the courts is a worry in itself. The system must not penalise tenants if they seek to use it, as currently happens in the county court system, where it can take many months, sometimes almost a year, to even get a hearing. There is a real problem with the backlog in our courts. The Government have called the Bill on housing and renters radical, and a radical approach is needed, so I hope we will see it.
Colleen Fletcher
In my constituency, off-road motorbikes are being used in a very, very intimidating way. They are almost escorting cars around. They are not doing them any actual harm, but they are intimidating people, so much so that one person in my constituency had to stop at the side of the road to gather himself to be able to drive on. That has been said to me time and again through emails and through visits in the community. I visited the police. I had a meeting with our police and crime commissioner. Only two weeks ago I had a summit meeting with the leader of the council and others, where I spoke about off-road motorbikes.
It would be useful if we could do something. The police and the police and crime commissioner tell me that there are not enough resources, and they have to put the resources where they need them. There are pots of money, such as the safer streets fund, but is that really the way to tackle those problems? This must be done far more broadly than it is now. Of all the antisocial behaviour incidents, I deal most with off-road motorbikes, and I know that this goes on across the whole west midlands. It does not happen only in my area, which is why we should look at what we are giving to police forces and say, “This is a problem up and down the country. We need to tackle it.” I would work with anybody to try to tackle it.
In a tacit admission of the damage that they have inflicted on policing, the Government introduced the police uplift programme. Although any uplift in officer numbers is welcome, let us be clear that this will still not take West Midlands police back to pre-austerity levels of policing. We lost 2,221 officers in the west midlands during the austerity years, and although the force is due to get back more than 1,200 officers through the police uplift programme, that still leaves a shortfall in the west midlands of more than 1,000 officers compared with 2010 levels.
Colleen Fletcher
I have nearly finished and I have already given way.
When launching the uplift programme in 2019, the Prime Minister said:
“I have been clear from day one I will give the police the resources they need”.
If his rhetoric is to match reality, and if he is to meet his pledge to level up, the Prime Minister must return the 1,000 police officers to the west midlands. Sadly, there was no commitment in the Queen’s Speech to either resource the police properly or tackle the antisocial behaviour problems on our streets effectively. I fear that once more on crime and justice, the Government have failed West Midlands police and failed the people of Coventry North East.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
I want to address the Queen’s Speech in regard to the position on justice. Justice is a light-and-shade issue; it is not all black and white. I am not surprised by the lacklustre Queen’s Speech and Government programme. I have not been surprised by the policies of Conservative Governments since I was a teenager. I am disappointed that we are yet again facing the same challenges that were visited on Scotland when I was younger. However, the tone from Government Members today is that of a punitive Government who are focused on punishment, not justice. That was personified by the behaviour of the Home Secretary when she opened the debate, with her dismissive and graceless attitude towards her counterpart on the Opposition Front Bench, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). From my perspective, this needs to be addressed from a position of understanding the light and shade of justice.
Many of the drivers of criminality are social in nature and include such things as poverty, destitution and grinding hopelessness. I cast my mind back to my teenage years, when Thatcherism stalked the streets of Scotland and destroyed many of the communities there—proud mining communities, industrial communities—as cuts and closures were visited on them.
I was a Labour voter when I lived in London, but when I returned to Scotland I was gripped by the progress that had been made with devolution and by the team, record and vision, as it was known, of Alex Salmond’s early SNP Government. The significant advances that they had made in improving the quality of life of the Scottish people seduced me and encouraged me to believe in Scottish independence. The other factor that drove me to that conclusion was the election of a Conservative Government in 2010, enabled by the Liberal Democrats, which motivated me sufficiently to move out of the health service and into frontline politics.
The UK Government’s legislation does not fit the aspirations of Scots. Their immigration policies drive down inward migration, but in Scotland we need more people, not fewer. As for policing the streets, crime and justice is largely devolved in Scotland, but the drivers of criminality are the responsibility of this place, which has legislated to drive people into deprivation and destitution. The police’s job is made all the harder in Scotland because we do not have the normal powers of an independent country.
Let me set out a couple of the key issues. We have a serious problem with drug-related deaths in Scotland. People do not wake up one day and say, “I’m going to become a drug addict”; addiction is the result of grinding poverty, hopelessness and lack of opportunity, which are controlled by this place. If we are to improve those people’s quality of life, we must have the full economic powers of an independent country. We must also make progress on moving drug-related problems from the criminal justice system to public health.
Kit Malthouse
I recognise that the nationalist imperative is that all that is good in Scotland is down to the nationalists, while all that is bad is down to the UK Government. With respect to what the hon. Gentleman says about drug deaths, however, would it not be interesting to understand why the problem is so much more severe in Scotland than in England and Wales? I do not think that the UK Government have necessarily discriminated between them over the past 30 or 40 years. Certainly, for the past decade or more, all the tools required to get on top of the problem of drug deaths, which I acknowledge is very severe in Scotland, have been in the hands of the nationalist Government. Presumably the hon. Gentleman is putting as much pressure on them as he quite rightly puts on us to come together to solve the problem.
Neale Hanvey
Drug deaths are not an isolated issue that exists in a bubble. The opportunities to correct them require the full economic levers of an independent country. While the problem exists, the remedy is retained by this place. The issues cannot be isolated. I certainly do not say that all is rosy in Scotland and that an independent country would flourish spontaneously, but independence is a gateway to different choices, different policies and different politics. It is not a panacea; that is not the argument that I am making. I will cover some of the Minister’s other points as I make progress.
There is another issue that affects crime and justice in Scotland and is a very good illustration of why Scotland needs the full economic levers of an independent country. Harnessing Scotland’s vast energy resources must benefit the Scottish people, not Her Majesty’s Treasury as it does currently. How can it be that in an energy-rich country such as Scotland, our people are fuel-poor and hungry and our pensioners survive on the lowest pension in the developed world? There are uncomfortable truths for those on the Government Benches. It is absolutely clear, from the Queen’s Speech and from the actions and words of Conservative Members, that this Government will prioritise the profits of energy companies over the wellbeing of the people whom they are supposed to serve. The chancellor’s economic policies are making inflation worse, not better.
There are alternative choices. For instance, the Chancellor could reduce council tax by a quarter, at a cost of £10 billion a year. That would reduce the retail price index by 1%. He could halt skyrocketing energy bills with a 50% cut. That would cost another £10 billion, but it would take another 1% off the RPI. Every time the RPI goes up, so do the interest payments to global financiers on index-linked gilt debt. A 1% RPI increase puts £5 billion on to those interest payments, but equally, 1% off the RPI saves £5 billion. The Chancellor—if he had a conscience—and a Government with the political will could reduce energy costs and cut council tax immediately. Her Majesty’s Treasury could finance the additional £10 billion with the windfall tax on the energy companies’ profits. Saving £10 billion for the financial markets and £10 billion from a windfall tax could fix many of the problems that we face immediately. All it takes is political will and a determination to improve the lives of the people you are supposed to serve.
Gerald Jones
I absolutely agree with that point, because we have seen too many examples, particularly in rural and isolated areas, where communities are left without any access to cash. The opportunity for banks and other financial institutions to work together is long overdue.
As we know, the Tory record on crime is shocking. We have heard again today that crime is up, charges are down, criminals are getting off and victims are being let down by the Conservatives not taking crime seriously. We have seen an 18% rise in total crime over the past two years. Quarterly recorded crimes are now at their highest point on record, at 1.6 million. As the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), told us earlier, the overall charge rate has fallen from 15.5% in 2015 to just 5.8% in 2021, meaning thousands more criminals getting off and more than 1 million theft cases being closed without a suspect being identified—and there is no sign of things improving.
Antisocial behaviour continues to blight our communities. I have spoken in previous debates about the difference under the last Labour Government, when all local wards—I was a county councillor at that time—had a police officer and one or sometimes two police community support officers. We do not have to hark back to “Dixon of Dock Green” to find a time when people knew their community bobbies, as we had that in the period of the last Labour Government up to 2010. At that time, the neighbourhood policing teams provided meaningful engagement and deterrence in communities before issues got out of hand. We now have the same-sized teams covering five or six wards, and the sheer lack of people on the ground makes it impossible for them to tackle issues effectively, despite their best efforts. Labour would strengthen legal protections for victims of antisocial behaviour to give victims of persistent, unresolved antisocial behaviour new rights, and we would give the police and local authorities stronger powers to shut down premises being used for drug dealing or consumption. Although we have seen more police officers recruited, we still have thousands fewer than we had before the Tories started cutting them in 2010. I am grateful that in Wales we have the support of the Welsh Labour Government on this. Although they do not have responsibility for policing, as it is not devolved, they have provided funding for 500 PCSOs—that has increased to 600 in this Senedd term.
Before I leave the topic of policing, I would like to put on record again the issue of the apprenticeship levy paid by Welsh police forces. In England, funding for the police education qualifications framework, which includes apprenticeships for uniformed police officers, is provided through the national apprenticeship levy. In short, English police forces are fully reimbursed by the Government for the cost of training police officers. In Wales, the Home Office has reimbursed only half that cost, leaving Welsh police forces with a shortfall of more than £2 million.
Kit Malthouse
I acknowledge the issue that the hon. Gentleman is raising. However, I am sure he would want to acknowledge that although the UK Government do collect the apprenticeship levy, as he rightly points out, the money is passed to the Welsh Government, who then have declined so far to pass it on to the police forces affected. He is right to say that the Home Office has stepped in to fund it this year and in the past, but I urge him to speak to his Labour colleagues in Wales to get them to pass on the money, which has been given to them, after being taken from the police forces in the form of the levy.
Gerald Jones
The Minister really should go away and do his homework. This issue was taken up by his colleagues in the Wales Office team and correspondence has been exchanged. I appreciate that this is a long and complicated issue, but the Home Office is responsible for it, and it should take up its responsibilities and fund the four police forces in Wales in the same way as other police forces are being funded. Welsh police forces are being short-changed, and the responsibility lies with the Government.
Let me return to the cost of living crisis. I urge the Government to listen to the concerns that we have heard over and over again today. There is an urgent need for the Government to listen and to take action on things such as cutting the VAT costs on energy bills and introducing a windfall tax. Those practical steps have been offered to the Government and they really need to take them on board and take action now, for the sake of families right across the United Kingdom.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
It seems only a matter of weeks since we were in this place fighting against the UK Government’s now-successful attempts to restrict some of our most precious and long-held fundamental rights. It seems only a matter of weeks because it is. In the previous Session, we battled against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which will strip people of their right to protest, among other terrifying measures; the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, which has serious implications for access to justice and the accountability of public bodies; and, finally, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which is set to treat asylum seekers and refugees in ways that I can describe only as nightmarish. It is exhausting to stand here today facing an almost identical set of challenges in the new legislative programme. Rather than see the Queen’s Speech as a unique opportunity to help people to tackle the cost of living crisis and put some compassion back into the system, the UK Government are just adding to their attacks on people’s rights.
A constituent and friend of mine, Joanna, is a cleaner. On Monday, she said:
“So wages have gone up and my company added a wee bit extra, so not too bad. But today I got my wage slip and my national insurance contribution is now more than my income tax contribution, and it’s taken me back to exactly what I was earning before.”
What in the Queen’s Speech will tackle the issues that everyone out there is worrying about? Energy bills are spiralling out of control, the cost of the weekly shop is absolutely skyrocketing and the impending climate crisis is ever-present. There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech to tackle any of that. It is being left to the likes of my constituent Mandy Morgan, who dreamed up the Scottish Pantry Network and has opened nine shops in the past year. The network charges people a £2.50 membership fee for £15-worth of food, and that food is fresh fruit and vegetables and fresh meat and fish. The network is not just for poor people; it was set up for environmental reasons as well and tackles food waste. When people go into the network’s beautiful shops, they do not have to worry that somebody is going to know that they are on their uppers. I pay tribute to Mandy Morgan for everything she has done and to all the volunteers and staff who work for the network. There are, though, troubles ahead for them, because they are struggling to access the food that they need, and an increasing number of people need their help.
Instead of tackling such issues, the Government are attacking people’s rights. We know the old saying about divide and conquer: who do the Government want people out there to blame for all this? As usual, it is those who are already the least powerful and often completely voiceless. This Government thought it was perfectly acceptable to mention, alongside reference to those poor, desperate refugees who are forced to cross the channel in the most perilous of conditions, what they say are plans to help the police to make the streets safer—in the same paragraph of the Queen’s Speech. That is a consciously cynical ploy to conflate the two in people’s minds. It is a deliberate attack on asylum seekers and refugees.
This Tory Government’s shameless propaganda says that anyone who flees persecution and tries to get to safety on these islands is a criminal. And it is working: many people on these islands are doing everything they can to welcome and support refugees—I thank and pay tribute to them, and I thank God for them—but many people repeat the tropes that the Government have so cynically created. It is cynical, deliberate and strategic. We need only to listen back to some of the similarly worded interventions in the last debate on the Nationality and Borders Bill from Government Back Benchers who had never previously shown an interest.
Today, the attacks have moved to those of us who support refugees. I was disgusted to hear the Home Secretary refer to those of us on the Opposition Benches as defenders of “murderers” and “paedophiles”. I understand that it is apparently okay to do that in this place as long as it is not directed at an individual, so I will be writing to her and asking her whether she believes me to be a defender of murderers and paedophiles. I encourage everyone in here to do the same because we deserve an answer.
This Queen’s Speech was primed to reinvigorate the Brexit vote, but perpetuating the myth that Brexit is somehow reclaiming our sovereignty is just ridiculous. Doing it at the cost of trashing our rights is plain scary.
I wish to talk briefly on three of the many Bills that I feel most concerned about in this Queen’s Speech. The first is the Bill of Rights. It is no secret that the Justice Secretary has a long-held disdain for human rights, or, to put it another way, for people having rights. His book, “The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong with Rights” is illuminating if not wholly depressing. Let me give one quote from it:
“The spread of rights has become contagious”—
well we can’t have that—
“and, since the Human Rights Act, opened the door to vast new categories of claims, which can be judicially enforced against the government through the courts”.
Let us not forget the footage from the same year, 13 years ago, which saw him look into the camera and say:
“I don’t support the Human Rights Act and I don’t believe in economic and social rights.”
Well, I do, as does my party, which is why human rights are entrenched in Scots law. I thank my lucky stars that we have them, more so now than ever. They make sure that, to some extent, we can all stand shoulder to shoulder in society, that we share some of the same rights of access to justice, and that we can all call out the Government—whether it be this one, the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government, past Labour Governments, future Labour Governments or any public body—when they act in a way that undermines our rights. Who on earth would want to do away with that? These are not some legal concepts out of reach for most; they are entrenched in our modern psyche, and people know that they can rely on them to protect them at their most vulnerable moments, or when they need to face the might of the state. That is what the Tories do not like. They do not want people to know that they can be held to account in the courts, and they do not want to be scrutinised. I predict that, when they are out of office, they will perform a complete U-turn on this.
I do love the positive spin though—the Bill of Rights will defend our freedom of speech. Really? That is just as long as we are not outside this place with a megaphone, or stood at the gates of a fracking site. Our freedom of speech will end right there if Government Members get their way. It is nonsense to imply that the perfectly functioning Human Rights Act has somehow stifled our freedom of speech when it has in fact codified protections for freedom of both speech and assembly under articles 10 and 11 of the European convention on human rights. As with so much legislation forced through this place, there is little evidence to support much of what the Government claim in respect of reform of the Human Rights Act. There is an agenda; there are facts, and then there are Government Ministers determined to bend, manipulate and skew the evidence to fit.
Why should the Government be allowed to dictate who can access justice? That is completely at odds with the rule of law and our international obligations to anyone who seeks refuge on these islands. When will the Government realise that this is not what people want? People are lying under immigration control vans to stop deportations. People are physically running to gather together to protect others from Border Force officers. We all know about Kenmure Street in Pollokshields, but last week, on the day of the council elections, SNP council candidates Marianne Mwiki and now Councillor Simita Kumar, stopped campaigning for themselves and staged their own Kenmure Street protest, along with activists from Edinburgh SNP and hundreds of their fellow citizens from all parties and none, when Border Force vans came looking for someone. We just have to look at the number of emails that have come flooding into our inboxes on the Rwanda plan to know that this is not what our constituents want.
Of obvious concern to anyone in Scotland is the adverse effect that this Bill will have on the devolution settlement. The rights enshrined in the Human Rights Act are at the very core of the settlement and, as Scotland’s Equalities Minister Christina McKelvie MSP said this morning:
“Changes must not be made without the explicit consent of the Scottish Parliament.”
The Scottish Government want to enhance and extend rights protection, but the UK Government want the opposite. What could the solution possibly be? We will no doubt be debating this for many months and, although we may be exhausted with it, we are very much up for that debate. However, I do not understand why anyone would believe this measure will somehow cut our ties with the European courts; rather than our rights being brought home, we will be forced to go to Strasbourg to enforce them. Our human rights should not be embroiled in the Tory Brexit fantasy.
On the Public Order Bill, it is no surprise to see the eleventh-hour amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that were vehemently voted down by the House of Lords returning in the Queen’s Speech. Is this the way it is going to work now—democratically rejected clauses will be repackaged and grouped together to form next year’s legislation? If the Government can do that after just a few weeks of being told no, what on earth is their argument against Scotland’s right to go to the people and revisit the question on Scotland’s independence after nine long years? They are leaving themselves with no arguments for refusing a section 30 order; that will not stop them refusing of course, but they have no valid arguments. It is one rule for this Tory Government and another for everyone else. It is a brazen thing for the Home Secretary to do. These clauses did not go unnoticed by the public; they sparked outrage and protest during the passage of the policing Act, and rightly so. The Government are deluded if they think that the people who were willing to stand outside this place and risk arrest and imprisonment are going to lie down and accept this Public Order Bill. They are also deluded if they think that those Members on this side of the House and in the other place will roll over and accept defeat.
Kit Malthouse
One of the arguments put in the House of Lords around the clauses the hon. Lady refers to is that they had not been adequately scrutinised by the House of Commons; that is the main argument behind why they were knocked out and, by bringing them back, we will be allowing that scrutiny. I am interested in the hon. Lady’s view, however. As she will know, there is currently a protest outside a fuel depot in Scotland where protestors have locked themselves on. Does she support the arrest and removal of those protestors, and their prosecution, and if they are prosecuted and convicted, what penalty does she think they should get?
Anne McLaughlin
The Government are constantly doing this: they are constantly trying to suggest that, because we do not like the draconian laws that they want to bring in, we somehow support everybody’s right to do whatever they want without any penalty. I am not going to get dragged into that. Instead I tell the Minister that we will continue to fight this issue, because what they are doing is wrong; no matter how dispiriting it gets, we will continue to fight them. Today, on the 41st anniversary of the death of the late, great Bob Marley, I would like to use one of his quotes to explain why:
“The people who were trying to make this world worse are not taking the day off. Why should I?”
We should not, and we absolutely will not. If the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 was a step too far, this Public order Bill is a leap into the realms of a dystopian nightmare.
I want to take a moment to say how pleased I was to see my friend and colleague my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Amy Callaghan) back making a speech yesterday. It was emotional for all of us, and not least for her parents and her partner—her fiancé—who were watching up in the Gallery. I was particularly pleased to hear my hon. Friend express support for a fully inclusive ban on conversion therapy for all LGBT people. I absolutely concur with her: absolutely nobody should be subjected to conversion so-called therapy.
I will finish my remarks by saying that I am disappointed. Of course much of this Queen’s Speech was predictable, but these measures are not manifesto pledges becoming reality; they are the result of personal agendas and are attacks on the most vulnerable people on these islands. As I asked earlier, where is the compassion? Where is the helping hand or the reassuring support from a Government who are at least partly responsible for the cost of living crisis?
Scotland wants to do things differently—as, I appreciate, do many non-Scottish National party Members on the Opposition Benches. We do want to offer that helping hand; we do want to act with care and compassion; and we do want to welcome people in need, not throw up the shutters and turn them away. The Scottish Government do all of those things, but they do so with one hand tied behind their back. I am ready for this year’s challenges but I am also raring for our independence referendum, because when the people of Scotland recognise that the only way to stop tinkering around the edges of dreadful Tory policies and to stop having to spend millions of pounds on mitigating the effect of those policies, thus leaving the Scottish Government with a lot less money to do the things that we as a country want to do, and they reach the conclusion that the only way to have full control over the kind of country we are is to vote yes to independence, I predict that that is exactly what they will do.
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
It is my pleasure and great honour to close this day of debate on the Gracious Speech, with a particular focus on preventing crime and delivering justice. The past two years have been immensely challenging, but thanks to the efforts of public servants across our criminal justice system, the public have been protected and justice has continued to be served.
As the Minister for Crime and Policing, I want to start by paying tribute to our brave police officers for their tireless commitment to keeping the public safe, which has remained steadfast throughout the immense challenges of the pandemic and as we continue our covid-19 recovery. As a joint Minister between the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, I know that hard work and dedication have been no less evident at the other end of the system, from our court staff, legal professionals and the judiciary. Their efforts have kept the wheels of justice turning so that we can drive down the court backlog, rebuild a better, stronger system and bring swifter justice for all.
I have listened to today’s long debate with interest and I am grateful to Members on both sides of the House for their contributions. There was clearly a common theme across pretty much all the speeches this afternoon—that is, a strong concern, shared by the Government, about the cost of living challenge being felt up and down the nation, bringing difficult choices to houses and homes across the country. The Government have moved quickly to inject £22 billion through various means into people’s pockets, particularly focused on households who have less money to spend on a daily basis. I know that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are monitoring the situation on a daily basis.
Over the next few months, the cost of living will be even more of a challenge, given the Bank of England forecast, and it is the duty of all of us in Government to do what we can to alleviate the burden on our fellow citizens. This is a Queen’s Speech laying out a legislative agenda for the next Session, rather than a Budget laying out a fiscal or taxation agenda, but I am confident that when it comes to that point, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will do what he needs to do to support households in this country, as he has done in the past.
We have had a variety of contributions this afternoon, falling broadly into three categories. First, there were the constructive contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) talked about antisocial behaviour in his constituency, a theme we heard from several hon. Members. The three graces—my hon. Friends the Members for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and for Dudley North (Marco Longhi)—expressed strong support for the Public Order Bill. The general theme was expressed pithily by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough:
“We want criminals to be scared of the law. We do not want the law-abiding majority to be scared of criminals”—
a sentiment with which the Government heartily agree. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) made his usual vigorous and wide-ranging contribution, illustrating neatly why his part of the world is becoming more of a Conservative stronghold with every month that passes.
Our friends from Northern Ireland, on the other side of the Irish sea, also made constructive and thoughtful contributions and expressed support for our measures to deal with guerrilla-style protests. I heard very clearly their concerns about the Northern Ireland protocol; I know that the Prime Minister and the Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland and for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs are engaged intensively in trying to solve the problems that the protocol is bringing to that part of the country.
Happily, from the Opposition Benches, the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) took us through the very welcome renaissance in the fortunes of St Helens, a town that I know well from my upbringing in the north-west. He seemed to miss the bit of his speech where he was grateful for the Government’s contribution to that renaissance—not least the £360,000 that theusb council received to help with rough sleeping in the town, with which it has been remarkably successful. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) was very gracious about the Government’s work in his constituency, which I hope is bringing great prosperity and success to his part of the world. I am grateful for his contribution.
Then, I am afraid, we had a variety of contributions that were all variations on the theme of “Everything Conservative bad, everything fill-in-the-blank-for-my-party excellent, good, brilliant silver bullet-style solutions.” The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) seemed to be happy for protesters to be punished through the civil courts but not the criminal courts, which is a rather confused stance. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) really needs to reflect on how the various problems with crime in her city that she raised should be the priority of the Labour police and crime commissioner; I hope that she will have an assertive conversation with her, as she was assertive in her contribution. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) blamed the Government, strangely, for members of Action Fraud catching covid; hopefully they will recover soon.
It is always good to hear from the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon). It is excellent to know that the Corbynite heart of the Labour party is beating strongly. Fear not, my friend: your time will come again, we all hope. In the vigorous contribution from the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), among the expected attacks on us there was food for thought about the perhaps more sensitive issues that we will have to face during the Session.
A couple of west midlands Members, not least the hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher), put the fall in West Midlands police numbers down to the Government. In fact, there is very little that we can do if there have been Labour police and crime commissioners who have not prioritised the maintenance of police numbers over the past 10 years. Many police forces across the country have the highest number of police officers in their history—not least the Metropolitan police, because those who have had custodianship of the finances of that force over the past decade or so have made the right choices. I cannot compensate for the poor choices that police and crime commissioners have made in the past 10 years, much as I would like to. I hope that when we reach the successful recruitment of 20,000 police officers, which I forecast will be towards the end of this year, people will reflect on the decisions that they made over the decade and on where those decisions have put them at the end of the process. Finally, we heard from the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), who seems to fail to realise that a commitment to net zero is, I am proud to say, a matter of law which cannot be avoided by this or, indeed, any subsequent Government.
That brings me to the chief dystopians, the pair on the Opposition Front Bench. In his closing speech, the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) went into some kind of weirdo rant at the end, filled, I am afraid, with misrepresentations and—am I allowed to say “half-truths”? I do not know whether or not that is parliamentary language.
The strange thing is that so eager are the Opposition to attack, so eager are they to push for all-out frontal assault, that they forget the collateral damage. In their speeches, they attack the police; all those brave police officers are, apparently, callous and uncaring. As for the Home Office, the thousands of Home Office staff are unfeeling, inefficient, and similarly callous about those who seek their services. Given that most Labour Members represent areas with Labour police and crime commissioners, however, they are actually attacking their colleagues for their lack of thought and care. The general parts of their speeches do not really require a detailed response, not least because these are the same attacks that we heard in the run-up to the 2019 election. As I have said, they were all variations on a theme, and I suspect that we will get the same result at the next election unless they change their tune.
We did, however, hear three thoughtful contributions which struck me in particular. My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms) raised not just crime and justice issues, but the old-fashioned issue of monetarism as a key part of our economic approach. That is something with which I have strong sympathy, and no doubt it will come to the fore as we look towards our cost of living challenge.
My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) put his finger on an issue that has been particularly neglected, and I was interested to hear about the all-party parliamentary group on issues affecting men and boys. He said that if we had 1,000 cars and three went wrong, we would not damn all those 1,000 cars but would try to work out why the three had gone wrong. I think that was a very strong analogy, and I hope that he and I can work together in the months to come to solve some of the problems that we undoubtedly see in the criminal justice system involving men and boys.
The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), for whom I have enormous respect, obviously had to go through the standard attacks on the Conservative party to satisfy central command in Scotland, but her thoughts on the Bill of Rights, conversion therapy and online rights were well worth listening to, and gave pause for thought. I will be sending copies of her speech to the various Ministers so that they can consider what she said. She is obviously a legal brain to be reckoned with, so we should do exactly that.
It was hard to discern, amid the fury from the Opposition Front Benchers, what they were likely to support in the coming Session, but I am pleased to say that in our part of the Government universe we have a number of Bills which I think will make a significant difference to the British people.
The National Security Bill will enhance the safety of the British public and protect our vital interests from those who seek to do the UK harm, making good on our manifesto commitment to ensure that the security services have the powers that they need. I assume that Opposition Front Benchers will support that. The protect duty Bill will introduce new legal requirements for public locations and venues to ensure that they are prepared for and protected from terrorist attacks; I assume that they will support that as well. I know that they will support the Public Order Bill, because the Leader of the Opposition called for more assertive action during the recent fuel protests, and I expect to see support for it in the Lobby. We have already heard from the Front Benchers that they want to support the economic crime Bill, and we hope to work constructively with them in ensuring that we are all safe online and able to deny the proceeds of crime to those who wish to make money from exploiting our fellow citizens. The Online Safety Bill has been subject to a great deal of discussion in the House and elsewhere about how we should start to police the online world in the same way we police the offline world. No doubt there will be challenges along the way, but I am sure that we can reach a settled view.
I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) for her contribution on algorithms. She will remember that we are, I think, the first Government in the world to have a register of algorithms that can be looked at by those who understand them, although I am not saying that I necessarily would. There is scope for the House to come together to protect the vulnerable and, in particular, children, and to ensure that we deal with offending online.
I know that the modern slavery Bill will garner support from across the House. A number of Members from both sides of the House have mentioned their desire to strengthen protections in that area. The victims Bill has been a little time coming, but I am glad to say that it will be laid shortly, I hope, in draft form for pre-legislative scrutiny, as it should be. Everyone wants to put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system, and we have done an enormous amount to support them over the last couple of years, spending significant money on support mechanisms for them, but there is always more we can do. We want victims to be supported, but our primary aim is that there should be fewer of them, and the work that we are doing across the whole of the criminal justice system and policing will achieve that.
Finally, we come to the Bill of Rights, which should ensure that our human rights framework meets the needs of the society it serves and commands public confidence, and that where perceived and actual abuses of our human rights laws are ended, we can restore a bit more common sense to the criminal justice system. We need to strengthen our common-law traditions, particularly now as we exit the European Union, and we have to reduce our reliance on Strasbourg case law.
As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary set out earlier in this debate, the first job of any Government is to keep their people safe, which is why we are delivering ambitious reforms to do just that by cutting crime, delivering swifter justice and making our streets safer. We are backing the ever-growing numbers of police with the tools and support they need, making sentences tougher for violent and sexual crimes, strengthening victims’ rights and restoring confidence in the criminal justice system. We will ensure that we strike the right balance in our human rights framework so that it meets the needs of the public and commands their confidence, strengthens our traditions of liberty, particularly the right to free speech, adds a healthy dose of common sense and curtails abuses of our justice system. I commend the Government’s programme on crime and justice to the House.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(David T. C. Davies.)
Debate to be resumed tomorrow.
Independent Expert Panel
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 150D),
That this House:-
(1) takes note of the report of the Independent Expert Panel, The Conduct of Mr Liam Byrne MP, HC 1272 in the last session of Parliament, and the recommendation for sanction of a suspension of two sitting days;
(2) accordingly suspends Liam Byrne from the service of the House for two sitting days, namely Thursday 12 May and Monday 16 May; and
(3) notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 45A, directs that Mr Byrne’s salary shall be withdrawn for two days, from Thursday 12 May till Friday 13 May.—(Mark Spencer.)
Question agreed to.
Forensic Information Databases Strategy Board Annual Report and Updated Governance Rules
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I am pleased to announce that I am today publishing the annual report of the forensic information databases strategy board for 2020-21 and the updated Governance rules. This report covers the national fingerprints database and the national DNA database (NDNAD).
The strategy board chair, DCC Ben Snuggs, has presented the annual report of the national DNA database to the Home Secretary. Publication of the report is a statutory requirement under section 63AB(7) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 as inserted by section 24 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.
The report shows the important contribution that the NDNAD and the national fingerprint databases (policing collections) make to supporting policing and solving crimes. I am grateful to the strategy board for their commitment to fulfilling their statutory functions.
Both the report and governance rules have been laid before the House and copies will be available from the Vote Office.
[HCWS791]
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Kit Malthouse ExcerptsMonday 25th April 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 View all Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Message as at 25 April 2022 - (25 Apr 2022)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I beg to move,
That this House insists on its disagreement with Lords in their Amendment 73, insists on its Amendment 73C to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement to that Amendment, insists on its Amendment 74A to Lords Amendment 74, disagrees with the Lords in their Amendment 74B to that Amendment in lieu, disagrees with the Lords in their consequential Amendments 74C, 74D, 74E, 74F and 74G, insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendment 87, insists on its Amendments 87A, 87B, 87C, 87D, 87E, 87F and 87H to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement to that Amendment but proposes Amendment (a) in lieu of Lords Amendment 73 and additional Amendment (b) to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendment 87.
Madam Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to consider the following Government motion:
That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendment 80, insists on its Amendments 80A, 80B, 80C, 80D, 80E, 80F and 80H to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with that Amendment, disagrees with the Lords in their Amendment 80J instead of the words left out by that Amendment but proposes additional Amendment (a) to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendment 80.
Kit Malthouse
I rise to speak to the motions in the name of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, including the associated amendments in lieu. We return yet again, I have to say with a smidgin of ennui and irritation, to the issue of police powers to attach conditions to protests. It is disappointing that the debate on these provisions continues to be characterised by misinformation about what the Bill actually does and irrationality.
I shall start with the issue of noise. As I said in round 2 of ping-pong, at the Opposition’s behest, we have added provisions to the Bill that can be used to limit noise and disruptive protests outside schools and vaccination centres. I am therefore at a loss to understand why they would not agree to these provisions outside, say, a convent, a hospital, an animal sanctuary or, God forbid, a factory. What happened to the workers’ rights?
It cannot be that a protest can inflict any amount of noise on those living or working in the vicinity for prolonged periods of time, day or night. I agree that it would not be necessary or proportionate, for example, to attach conditions relating to the generation of noise to a procession that will pass a particular location within a matter of hours, but the same cannot be said of an ongoing raucous protest, perhaps encamped in a residential area, which includes the banging of drums and the use of loudhailers. It is intolerable that local residents should have to endure that day and night, and it is right that in those circumstances, the police should have the power to act. I do not understand why those residents’ rights are so lightly set aside by the Opposition. When the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) rises to address the motions, I hope she will answer that question.
I can, however, assure the hon. Members for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) and for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson)—they questioned me on this in the last round—that there are no new powers here to restrict what is said and, for that matter, sung. These provisions are simply about the harm caused by excessive noise; the content is irrelevant. Of course, the existing criminal law relating to hate or intimidatory speech will continue to apply.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I have a real concern about Lords amendment 80. I am not sure that my concern, or the concerns of my hon. Friends the Members for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), and for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), have been dispelled. Can the Minister give me an assurance in this House today, on the record in Hansard, that open-air or other events will not be affected? The letter of the law does not give that protection; sadly—this has been done in this country already—officers have the power to arrest those preaching the word of God. I seek an assurance from the Minister that on no occasion and under no circumstances will the opportunity to preach the gospel in the streets of this kingdom be in any way thwarted, reduced or restricted.
Kit Malthouse
As I have already explained, what is said is irrelevant for the purposes of this legislation. The Bill merely covers the distress that may be caused by the volume or persistence of the noise. The existing criminal law already covers content. If the content—obviously, not in this case—is intimidating, somehow hateful or incites some kind of violence, there are already provisions against that kind of speech. The hon. Gentleman describes somebody simply preaching the gospel; if they are not causing alarm or distress through the level or persistence of the noise, I cannot see why that would be offensive to anybody, or that the police would use these powers.
I turn to the other provisions in clause 56, enabling the police to attach any condition to a public assembly where such conditions are necessary to prevent serious public disorder, serious damage to property, serious disruption to the life of the community or intimidation. I welcome the belated acceptance by the other place that existing powers in section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 are insufficient, but I am afraid Lords amendment 87J is not up to the task. The police have told us that the distinction drawn in that Act between processions and assemblies is outdated, and it does not reflect current-day challenges of policing dynamic protests that can morph from a procession to an assembly and back again. The current situation prompts all sorts of questions. For example, how slowly would a procession have to move before it becomes static? If protesters walk in a 200 metre circle, is that a procession or a static protest?
It will continue to be the case that any conditions must be proportionate, and necessary to prevent serious disorder and the other serious harms set out in the Bill. None of that, however, is to say that we have not listened to and reflected on the views expressed by the other place. In the last round, we raised the threshold for the exercise of noise-related powers by removing the “serious unease” trigger, and we have tabled an amendment in lieu that will place a duty on the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a report on the operation of the relevant provisions in clauses 55, 56 and 61 within two years of their commencement. In one of our earlier debates, my right hon. Friends the Members for Newark (Robert Jenrick), and for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), stressed the need for a post-legislative review of those provisions, and the amendments would enshrine that in law.
We have reached a stage of the legislative process where the issue at stake is no longer simply the merits or otherwise of the measures that we are debating. A more fundamental issue is at stake: the primacy of this elected House in our constitutional arrangements. This House has already debated and expressly approved the noise-related provisions on no less than three occasions: on Report last July; on consideration of Lords amendments at the end of February; and again at the end of March. That is not to mention the separate votes on Second and Third Reading of the Bill. I hope and expect that hon. Members will endorse the provisions for a fourth time when we come to the Division. The other place, composed as it is of hereditary and appointed Members without any democratic mandate, has done its duty in asking this House to reconsider this issue. We have now done so and made our position abundantly clear. We should send the provisions back to the Lords again, with a clear and unequivocal message that they should now let them, and the Bill, proceed.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
I am sorry that the Minister finds himself bored by the democratic process, but this is the process, and sadly he has to come to the Dispatch Box to engage in this debate. There is one—[Interruption.]
Sarah Jones
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not mind how noisy the Minister is; I do not want to curtail his right to be as noisy as he likes.
We are debating one topic: the right to protest and make noise. We have indeed debated it several times. Members from across the House have spoken passionately about why this issue matters, and why the Government have got this so wrong. One might think that, with crime up 14%, the arrest rate having halved since 2010, and prosecution rates at an all-time low, the Government might spend their time on the bread-and-butter issues of law and order, such as fighting criminals. Instead, they seem intent on criminalising singing at peaceful protests. That suggests that the Government are tired, out of ideas and have no plan, and are searching round for anything eye-catching to distract from their years of failure.
The Lords responded to the Minister’s defence of his policy by voting against it again. Lords amendments 73 and 87 remove the Government’s proposed noise trigger, which would allow the police to put conditions on marches or one-person protests that are “too noisy”. Labour agrees with the Lords, and we support Lords amendment 80, which removes clause 56 from the Bill altogether. As with most Government policies thought up on the hoof, there are many questions about how the proposed powers would work.
Kit Malthouse
This is a genuine question. For many years, I was a councillor in central London and a London Assembly member. I am conscious that central London is particularly targeted by protests, which happen pretty much every weekend and often every day of the week. Central London is characterised by a quite dense residential population. Where is the balance between the rights of those residents to the peaceful enjoyment of their homes, and the rights of protesters to protest throughout the night, which the hon. Lady seems intent on preserving? Will she please explain why residents do not deserve some kind of protection from noise?
Sarah Jones
I ask the Minister back: where is the evidence that residents have asked for this change in legislation? [Interruption.] I see no evidence that anybody has asked for this change in the law, not least the police—
Sarah Jones
My inbox—I do not know about the Minister’s—is full of emails asking us to vote against the Government’s provisions today. I have not had a single one asking me to vote in favour.
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend is right. I am proud to have campaigned with Jane Hutt. She knows what she is talking about, and she delivers results—something that this Government could learn from.
Recently published guidance on this bizarre change to the law gives us the helpful tip that
“a noisy protest outside an office with double glazing may not meet the threshold”
in the Bill. The guidance is seriously asking the police to base their consideration of whether a protest is too noisy on how many buildings around it have double-glazed windows. How on earth will the police know? Is it fair to our police if the law is so peculiar that they could interpret it in a million different ways, and would stand accused of bias whatever they did? I urge Ministers to bear in mind the consequences of these provisions on the police officers trying to put them into practice.
Kit Malthouse
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, if only so that I can, hopefully, enliven our proceedings slightly. I am a bit confused; the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) seemed to imply that the Minister in the Welsh Government says that there is plenty of legislation to deal with this problem. Is she therefore content for legislation to be used in Wales to control protest noise?
Sarah Jones
The point we are trying to make is that there is a balance to be struck between what is reasonable in protests and what is not. We believe that the right to protest is not an absolute right; there have to be provisions in place to ensure that protests are reasonable, and do not put out the public too much. These provisions on noise are almost impossible to interpret—they are really unclear—and the police and the public have not asked for them. There are existing rules to ensure that reasonable, peaceful protest can take place, and the Bill rides roughshod over those genuine rights.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
Throughout the proceedings on this woefully drafted Bill, I have maintained that, although it is largely reserved to England and Wales, part 3 on protest will severely restrict anyone from Scotland, or indeed anyone across these islands, from exercising their fundamental and democratic right to protest. None of us can sit back and allow that to happen. What happens here in the coming days will outlive this Government, so the Scottish National party will vote against the Government motions to disagree with the Lords, who have worked tirelessly to help restore some balance to the Bill. I am seriously concerned about what will happen when the Bill is forced through the Lobby, and I know that that worries some Conservative Back Benchers who have been lobbying Members of the other place to allow the Commons the opportunity to think again on protest measures. We are back here to consider part 3 on protest, and rightly so.
The protest measures in the Bill have been the headline grabbers—the clauses most briefed on, tweeted on, reported and debated—and, most importantly, they are the clauses that people are concerned about, because they are a threat to our long-held right to have our voices heard. My office also receives hundreds of emails on a daily basis asking me to stand up and act against the threat to those rights. People are worried not just because of this Bill in particular—although it is terrifying—but because of the context in which it is being pushed through this place.
This week, we will debate the Elections Bill, the Nationality and Borders Bill and the Judicial Review and Courts Bill, each carrying its own threat to our fundamental rights. People know how this works: they know that the Government have seemingly unfettered powers to make any law that they want. Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb put it best when she said:
“Because they have a huge majority…they can afford not to care about how the Bills are written or about their content.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 31 March 2022; Vol. 820, c. 1707.]
The Bill is badly written. No well written legislation would require so many amendments—it borders on the ridiculous. When we are forced to create a database for amendments just to keep track, we know that fundamentally something has gone wrong at the front end. However, it is our job to amend, correct and stop badly drafted legislation and, whatever the Minister says, it is the second House’s job to have its say on that.
I will speak briefly on specific amendments, but I would like to make a general point: all the amendments under discussion clean up ambiguous and badly worded clauses that will, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), said, only force the police into making quasi-political decisions on the spot. Former police chiefs and senior officers have warned against the
“political pressure the Bill will place on frontline officers.”
It has become apparent through these debates that it is not more legislation or laws that the police need or want.
Lords Amendment 73 would remove sections of the Bill that allow the police to intervene and limit processions based on the criterion of noise. We have heard a lot about that today. The Government have got this wrong—they simply have. They have tried to make assurances that powers to act on noise will be used only in the most extreme circumstances, but it is all just too vague. As the shadow Minister said, what kind of law would ask a frontline police officer to assess the thickness of walls in an office or the kind of glazing in a building prior to intervening on a protest? Seriously! It is in the guidance, if Government Members opposite want to check it. Here is a quote from the guidance:
“A noisy protest outside an office with double glazing may not meet the threshold”.
It is not just the way a building is constructed that frontline officers might have to contend with, but the duration of the noise and the type of noise. The list goes on. This is ill-conceived and ill-defined. It will load pressure on to already pressurised police forces and simply will not work. And that is before we get to the crux of the matter: our right to protest is our democratic right. It is not for this Government or any successive Governments to take that away.
We continue to oppose the Government’s apparent concession to remove the term “serious unease” for the simple fact that it is nestled in badly drafted sections and has the unintentional—or possibly intentional—effect of lowering the threshold for police intervention. Removing the term would lower the threshold of “serious alarm or distress” to “alarm or distress”. My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) eloquently made that point in a previous debate, and I stand by his remarks.
We supported Lords amendment 80, to remove clause 56 on public assemblies, and we continue to support it. This is yet another clause rife with hidden dangers, attempting to replace public order legislation that is operating perfectly well. The Public Order Act was careful to delineate and differentiate the conditions that could be imposed on static demonstrations, as opposed to a march or a moving protest, and that was sensible. That reflected the relative ease by which a static demonstration can be policed.
Kit Malthouse
I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but I am afraid I disagree with it. In Scottish jurisprudence, Scotland has an advantage over England in that it has a well-expressed and commonly used offence of nuisance. Would she support the use of this legislation in controlling nuisance emanating from a protest?
Anne McLaughlin
So many of us have already answered that on so many occasions. There already exists legislation and the powers for the police to control demonstrations that are not peaceful and out of control, but we are not talking about that. The proposed legislation allows the police to make decisions according to very spurious guidance. The removal of the distinction regarding statics demonstration could hand the police unfettered discretion to impose further conditions on static protests, such as the words and slogans that can be used on placards. That is ridiculous. Sometimes they are the best bits! I really wish I had the time to read out some of my favourite words and slogans that I have seen recently, but I do not think the Government would be too pleased about that.
Finally, I want to touch on Lords amendment 87, on one-person protests. The amendment removes the ability of the police to impose conditions on a one-person protest. That was rejected in the last round of ping-pong and the Lords have rightly asked for it to be reconsidered. I have twice now heard the Minister talk in derisory terms about the House of Lords because some of them are hereditary and none of them are elected. The SNP is opposed to the House of Lords on that basis, but his party is not and it puts people in there all the time. If that is the system he supports, he cannot really complain when they do the job they are asked to do. Are we really going to see a law passed today that will allow the might of the state to bear down on a single, individual protester? It is ridiculous, disproportionate and nothing short of bullying. And be careful anyone who even stops to chat to a protester, because they could be snared by the clause, too. How many times have we all stopped to chat to the wonderful array of protesters outside this place, whether we agree with them or not? Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, doing so could soon see you committing a criminal offence.
We are not impressed with the Government’s amendments to lay reports before the House with regard to changes to the Public Order Act. They are lip service posing as concessions. They are better than nothing, but they are not much better.
I understand that time is short, so I will finish with this: we support the Lords in their amendments and fundamentally disagree with the undemocratic way the Government are throwing their weight around. If the Government are intent on dissuading protest, they are intent on silencing voices. From the huffing and puffing coming from the Minister today it is clear he is no fan of democracy, so I am sure he will not mind if I tell him the Bill is undemocratic, unworkable and unfair.
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)
It was through protest that many of our fundamental rights were won, including the right to vote. Noise is an essential part of protest. What is the point of a demonstration if no one can hear its message? What is it if not a show of strength of feeling? Thousands of people gathered together will inevitably be loud. Make no mistake: the Bill is an assault on our right to protest and our ability to hold the powerful to account. What is to stop a corporation that is being protested against calling the police and claiming that the noise is causing significant disruption in order to shut down the demonstration?
The powers also give huge discretion to police officers. That will make the law on protests completely unpredictable. People will attend protests not knowing whether the noise that they are making is illegal and whether they will go home that evening and have dinner with their family or be thrown in the back of a police van. I have no faith that the police would show restraint with these new powers when other powers have been abused time and again.
In recent weeks Members across the House will have seen the heroic actions of anti-war protesters in Russia and Ukraine. If MPs truly support their right to protest and their ability to make noise, they should vote against these powers. Many Conservative Members also consider themselves great champions of freedom of speech, quick to condemn so-called cancel culture. If they truly believe in freedom of expression, they should vote against the powers.
I would also bet that the majority of Members in this Chamber will at some point have taken part in a protest that could have fallen foul of a noise trigger—thank goodness the Chamber is not subject to these anti-noise laws, because otherwise I expect that would be happening every Wednesday. I urge every Member here to think about those protests, the causes they were championing and the people they were with. If they feel that those protests were legitimate and that they should not have been arrested for making some noise, I urge them to extend the same right to others and to vote down these powers.
Kit Malthouse
Let me deal with the closing point from the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) about Prime Minister’s Question Time. She will recall that the Speaker spends quite a lot of his time semi-threatening Members of the House, saying that they should keep quiet so that the voices and rights of Members on both sides of the House can be respected. Control is exercised, as we all make our views known.
As we close this debate, I want to focus broadly on where we agree. We all agree that, in an ancient democracy such as ours, protest is intrinsic to, and a cornerstone of, our rights. The Government are resolute in defending the rights of freedom of speech and of assembly. We should all be able to take to the streets to express our views on the issues of the day. In doing so, it is inevitable that some will be offended, inconvenienced or put out, and we should all accept that as part of the debate.
However, I think we have all accepted, on both sides of the House, that even in a protest situation, controls can and should be mandated and that there is not an unqualified right. As both Opposition Front Benchers—the hon. Members for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) and for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin)—have accepted, in Scotland and Wales there is a legal basis for controlling all forms of protest, including noise. All that we are trying to do is give the police the power to do so in challenging and exceptional situations in England as well.
When one person is exercising a right that infringes on the rights of others, whether it involves the use of hate speech, running on to motorways, endangering lives or generating such a cacophony of noise that it causes alarm or distress, the law must be able to step in—as it does, perhaps for a tenant or resident in Croydon. I would be interested in the view of the hon. Member for Croydon Central on this: if the noise that the resident complained about from the neighbours was Bob Dylan protest songs all day and all night in furtherance of a protest in their home, should that just be allowed? [Interruption.] Well, exactly. The point is that we have to be able to qualify these rights and we have to give the police control in exceptional circumstances.
The time has come to say unequivocally to the House of Lords that enough is enough. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) said, this elected House has made its views on the measures crystal clear four times. It is time for the other place to acknowledge that, accept the amendments that the Government have put forward in the spirit of accommodation and let the Bill pass.
Question put.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
In advance of the recent irresponsible and self-defeating protests, there has been regular engagement with the police, local authorities and industry to ensure that these protests can be managed effectively, and that there is no risk to fuel supply. All fuel supply points are fully operational, and we will continue to work closely with the police and industry to ensure that supplies are maintained.
Andrew Selous
Does the Minister agree that while the right to protest is a fundamental liberty, this type of behaviour just infuriates the public, whom we need to get on side with our net zero campaign? It is particularly unfair to the self-employed. If they cannot get fuel for their vehicles, they cannot get to work and they do not get paid. Will he ensure that the police and the law stay on the side of the law-abiding, so that everyone can earn an income?
Kit Malthouse
I certainly will ensure that, and my hon. Friend is right to point out the impact, particularly on those who rely on their vehicles for their work, of these irresponsible and self-defeating protests, many of which have been extremely dangerous. It is worth also reflecting on the other impact, which is that hundreds of police officers are pulled away from policing neighbourhoods across the UK, because forces provide each other with mutual aid. We have brought police from as far away as Scotland, the south-west and Wales to help deal with these protests, and that has a direct impact on crime in all our constituencies. We are all committed environmentalists and want less use of fossil fuels, but this is not the way to achieve it.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
Drug Crime
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years ago)
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The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
It is a great pleasure to appear before you, Mr Pritchard, either side of what felt like a parliamentary recess. It is good to be back.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) for securing this debate on an important area of policy. I am sure he will appreciate that the Prime Minister made it a Government priority on, in effect, the day he stood on the steps of Downing Street all those months ago. He and we accept that drug-related crime inflicts a terrible toll on our society. We have heard some horror stories this afternoon. We are determined to turn the tide.
Our unwavering commitment to addressing the problem was, as a number of Members have pointed out, set out in our drugs strategy, “From harm to hope”, published last December. That strategy is underpinned by a landmark set of investments totalling about £3 billion over the next three years. The plan comes in support of our general policy of levelling up across the whole of the UK. We want to see people living longer, healthier lives in safe and productive neighbourhoods. Our approach couples tough enforcement with renewed focus on breaking exactly that cycle of addiction mentioned by so many Members today.
We plan to achieve that difficult challenge with three simple strands of work. The first is to attack every single stage of the drug-supply chain. The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) asked what is different about our approach to drugs this time. From an enforcement point of view, we have shifted the emphasis carefully away from the notion of mass arrests—which, as he and a number of Members have pointed out, simply results almost immediately in replacement—much more to attacking the mechanics of the business itself. If our job is to degrade or restrict the supply of drugs into a particular area, we have to ensure that that is done in a way that means that no one can step in to replace and repeat the operation. Attacking the business and the supply chain is critical. We also want to ramp up our investment in treatment and recovery—we have been given hundreds of millions of pounds to do that across the whole of England and Wales—and, critically, to support those people ensnared by addiction to rebuild their lives, ensuring that they get off the roundabout in and out of the prison system, once and for all.
Alongside that, we want to address wider demand and to see a generational shift in society’s attitude towards drugs. For example, we will expand and improve the use of drug testing on arrest and diversionary schemes, such as out-of-court disposals, and undertake work to understand how communications can be used to change behaviours and drive down the use of recreational drugs.
We plan to publish a White Paper proposing a new range of sanctions particularly aimed at those who still choose to take drugs on a casual, non-addicted—whatever you want to call it—recreational basis, recognising that they play a huge role in stimulating demand for drugs across the whole of England and Wales. I will host a summit next month, bringing together experts and representatives from a range of sectors, to discuss the levers and interventions needed to drive down demand across the country, reduce harms and change societal attitudes. We recognise that as we enforce against supply, we must also do something to reduce demand.
Kit Malthouse
I am quite short of time, so I will not, if the hon. Member does not mind.
Our 10-year, whole-system strategy, which we are implementing, is a fundamental reset in our approach to tackling illegal drugs, which is what a number of Members have called for. We expect to see results, as do the public, and that is why we have set out clear and ambitious metrics to drive progress. Those cover a number of areas, including closing more than 2,000 county lines over the next three years, seeing a 20% increase in organised crime disruptions and preventing and reducing drug-related deaths.
Much of this debate has been about county lines, and it is worth reflecting on the despicable way in which those criminals exploit young people—as outlined by the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Lyn Brown) and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley—recruiting them as runners to transport drugs and money around the country. We are clear that the targeting, grooming and exploitation of children for criminal purposes is deplorable, and we are committed to tackling it.
We will continue to invest in our successful county lines programme, which has resulted in more than 7,400 arrests and 1,500 line closures. Critically, more than 4,000 vulnerable people have been rescued from that horrific trade. We are also providing specialist support and funding to help young people who are subjected to, or concerned about, county lines exploitation, and to ensure that they get the protection and support they need.
We have been focused on dismantling the county lines model for well over two years and, as I have outlined, we have had real success. However, complacency is the enemy of progress, and we will continue to protect those most vulnerable and be clear to those gangs that we will keep coming at them again and again. On that note, I was pleased to hear that the Home Secretary visited the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley to discuss drugs and other matters.
Ms Lyn Brown
Could the Minister please refer to the child criminal exploitation definition and the Online Safety Bill?
Kit Malthouse
I will come to those in a moment. The hon. Lady will be interested to know that I had a meeting with the Children’s Society just this morning, in my capacity as a constituency MP, to discuss those issues. I am giving consideration to its proposals. We recognise that this trade particularly exploits young people. In my own constituency, we have had some appalling events—young people stabbed and, in one case, killed, where neither victim nor perpetrator was from Andover. Both, in various ways, were victimised and exploited in the drugs industry.
Many Members have mentioned that if we are to have an impact on drugs, we must have a co-ordinated set of actions. We recognise that the complexity of the drugs problem means that we absolutely must be effective in co-ordinating those other partners—local government, other treatment delivery partners, enforcement, prevention and education. They all must come together to form a coalition as a foundation of our strategy, and they are often best placed to establish the priorities and to devise ways of working to address the needs of their local communities as quickly and effectively as possible. This spring we will publish guidance for local areas in England on working in partnerships to reduce drug-related harm.
But we have not been waiting for our strategy or the guidance. I will finish by highlighting some of the work we have been doing already. Alongside the very assertive work we have been doing on county lines in Keighley and elsewhere, some 18 months ago we established a set of projects in 13 areas of the country that are most exploited by drugs gangs and that have the most appalling drug use statistics. Project ADDER, which stands for addiction, diversion, disruption, enforcement and recovery, has been running since November 2020. In effect, it brings together all those people who are focused on dealing with the drugs problem to focus in the same place, at the same time, on the same people, so that all their work can be leveraged. Those projects have had positive results. In particular, law enforcement plays a big part in restricting the amount of drugs in a particular geography, making sure that as the therapeutic treatments come alongside those individuals, they are less likely to walk out of their appointment with a drugs councillor and into the arms of a dealer. There have been big increases in disruptions and arrests in those areas, as well as a large increase in the numbers of people referred to treatment, and some heartwarming stories of people who have been rescued and brought into a better life.
Kit Malthouse
I do not have time, I am afraid.
When I visited the Blackpool project, I was very pleased to hear from a senior police officer who is helping to run it that, in her nearly 30 years of service, she had never felt more hopeful about dealing with the drugs problem in Blackpool.
In calling this important debate, I think my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley is looking for a sense of the priority that the Government assign to this problem. We are investing enormous amounts of public money and massive amounts of political leadership time, right up to the Prime Minister, who I will be meeting over the next couple of weeks to talk about our drugs strategy and where we will go next to make sure that over the next 10 years, we see a reduction in drug use, drug deaths and drug crime across all our constituencies, but most particularly in Keighley.
Independent Office for Police Conduct Annual Report and Accounts 2020-2021
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years ago)
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The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I am today, along with my the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), publishing the 2020-21 annual report and accounts for the Independent Office for Police Conduct [HC 1237]. This will be laid before the House and published on www.gov.uk. The report will also be available in the Vote Office.
[HCWS757]
Home Department
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Kit Malthouse
One of the improvements that the inspectorate did note that the Metropolitan police has achieved over the past couple of years is an elimination almost of the vetting backlog, which just three or four years ago stood at something like 37,000, astonishingly.
[Official Report, 23 March 2022, Vol. 711, c. 381.]
Letter of correction from the Minister for Crime and Policing, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse):
An error has been identified in the response given to the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck).
The information should have been:
Kit Malthouse
One of the improvements that the inspectorate did note that the Metropolitan police has achieved over the past couple of years is an elimination almost of the vetting backlog, which just three or four years ago stood at something like 16,000, astonishingly.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years ago)
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The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I beg to move,
That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 58 but proposes amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to consider the following:
Government motion that this House disagrees with the Lords in their amendment 72B but proposes amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.
Amendment (c) in lieu of Lords amendment 72B.
Government motion that this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 73, insists on its amendment 74A to Lords amendment 74, disagrees with the Lords in their amendment 74B to that amendment in lieu, disagrees with the Lords in their consequential amendments 74C, 74D, 74E, 74F and 74G, insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 87, insists on its amendments 87A, 87B, 87C, 87D, 87E and 87F to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement to that amendment but proposes additional amendment (a) to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 73 and additional amendment (b) to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 87.
Government motion that this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 80, insists on its amendments 80A, 80B, 80C, 80D, 80E and 80F to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with that amendment, disagrees with the Lords in their amendment 80G instead of the words left out by that amendment but proposes additional amendment (a) to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 80.
Kit Malthouse
Our position on Lords amendment 58 has always been that we accept the case in principle that the Food Standards Agency should have direct access to relevant police powers to enable it to tackle food crime, but that such powers should be accompanied by appropriate accountability mechanisms, including in relation to the investigation of complaints. Lords amendment 58 was inadequate to the task, but as the disagreement between the two Houses was not one of principle, we have now brought forward amendments 58C to 58E in lieu, which seek to put a comprehensive legislative framework in place.
The amendments do four things. First, they allow the regulations to be made, conferring relevant Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 powers on the Food Standards Agency; we are principally concerned here with search and seizure powers. Secondly, they will enable regulations to apply provisions of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 relating to drawing inferences from a suspect’s failure to account for their presence at a particular place. Thirdly, the amendments create an offence of obstructing a food crime officer in the execution of the functions conferred on them under new section 114C of PACE. Fourthly, they amend the Police Reform Act 2002 to bring the National Food Crime Unit within the remit of the Independent Office for Police Conduct. I trust that the amendments will be welcomed by both sides of the House, notwithstanding the unfortunate way they were made in the other place.
I move on to Lords amendment 72B. I am pleased that the other place has seen reason in abandoning plans to make misogyny a hate crime, given that the Law Commission identified risks that the plans could generally prove counterproductive for women and girls. The Lords have, nevertheless, tabled an alternative. It would still mandate the police recording of crimes that effectively amount to hostility on grounds of sex or gender, although, perhaps recognising the Law Commission’s warnings, it does so without any attendant powers to recognise such crimes in court. The amendment would also introduce a new stand-alone offence related to harassment or intimidation that is aggravated by hostility towards sex or gender.
On matters of police recording, I assure Members that the issue requires no legislation. During the Domestic Abuse Bill, the Government committed to asking the police to collect such data and they are still in discussions with forces to take that forward. I acknowledge that the other place thinks that the commitment is moving too slowly. My noble Friend, Baroness Williams of Trafford, was completely frank that we ought to accelerate our efforts; I share that sentiment.
However, judging from the debate in the other place, the purpose of the amendment appears to be based on the premise that any delay is explained by police foot dragging; as such, legislation would serve to turn up the heat on reticent forces. That is not a fair characterisation. We need to move more quickly, but the remaining teething issues are of an entirely technical nature, as we decide on the best approach and reconcile a number of different approaches by those forces already recording that kind of data. Wielding a bigger stick through legislation may confer a frisson of virtue, but unfortunately it misdiagnoses the problem. It is also particularly important that we take extra care over the design of our approach in light of the Law Commission’s finding on existing local police recording efforts. Quoting an independent review, it noted that the experience in Nottinghamshire has
“not been associated with increased reporting”.
We want to understand why and then improve on that outcome. What we simply need to do now is resolve a number of points of implementation with forces. We are committed to moving more rapidly in doing so.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I am listening with great care to my right hon. Friend’s remarks about reporting—a concern that, as he knows, I share, having been in office when we made that undertaking, which I regard as very solemn. In order to help, I hope later to develop an argument about sentencing guidelines, but does my right hon. Friend agree that existing guidelines on intimidatory offences already refer to offences based on hostility in relation to sex, as opposed to a sexual motive? Would he with his officials look at the applicability of those guidelines to see whether that is already a hook on which the police can hang their monitoring and data collection task?
Kit Malthouse
As usual, my right hon. and learned Friend has made a helpful suggestion. We will certainly review as he suggests. It is worth bearing in mind what we are trying to achieve, which is twofold. First, we obviously want to encourage women and girls to come forward and report in a way that they believe will have impact. Secondly, we have to make sure that that impact happens—that there is a police response. As many hon. Members will know, modern policing is driven by data. It is important that the police see crime through the data that appears daily in their management dashboard and that they can therefore assign resources accordingly. I have often said to groups of citizens that reporting crime is a little like that interesting philosophical problem: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If a crime occurs and no one reports it, how on earth are the police to know?
The reporting of crime is often a complex area, so marrying up the confidence that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) is looking for in reporting, and making sure that that then translates into police action on the frontline, is the critical piece of work that we want to do as swiftly as possible.
I move on to the question of a stand-alone offence. The Law Commission’s review of hate crime laws did touch on this issue, while noting that it was not within its terms of reference. In doing so, it suggested that the Government should tread carefully, recommending that we explore the possible need for such an offence and ensure that, if one is required, it is proportionate and well defined. It also briefly echoed some of the Government’s own considerations about the need for further analysis, speaking to some of the complexities.
With that in mind, I am pleased that in the other place my noble Friend Baroness Williams committed to consulting publicly on the issue before the summer recess. That is entirely the right approach—ensuring that we are moving forward to elicit answers while taking account of the competing considerations at play. Again, short of rushing into legislation before we have the right answers, this part of the Lords amendment is also in my view rather redundant.
As I have said before, our desire to advance the cause of women’s and girls’ safety is extremely strong, but we have to ensure that our efforts are directed at the right solutions. The Government are already doing and have committed to doing a huge span of work in this space, and our mission is ongoing and urgent. To that end, the Government have tabled amendments (a) and (b) in lieu. These require us properly to consider the Law Commission’s carefully considered and expert-informed recommendation relating to making misogyny a hate crime and to establish a clear position on it. Through that, we are targeting attention to the right evidence-based solutions, the importance of which I have outlined. Furthermore, we have gone further in committing to consulting publicly on a new public sexual harassment offence, which means that we will soon have a much clearer sense of how we should proceed. With those measures in mind, I invite the House to reject Lords amendment 72B and agree with the amendments in lieu.
Let me turn to the two public order issues that were returned to this House by their lordships. There has been much ill-informed comment about the powers to attach conditions to a protest related to the generation of noise. I will repeat what I said at the last session of ping-pong: these provisions do not ban noisy protests. There is no dispute that local authorities should have powers to deal with egregious noise—I speak as a local councillor and, when I was a resident of central London, as a frequent user of their services. Indeed, at the Opposition’s behest, we added provisions to the Bill that can be used to limit noisy and disruptive protests outside schools and vaccination centres. Those continuing to support the Lords amendments—including, I assume, Labour Members—are saying that protesters may make any amount of noise, at any location, at any time of the day or night, and for any length of time, perhaps over a period of days or weeks.
When faced with a prolonged protest in, for example, a residential or commercial area, where the level of noise is such as to amount to intimidation or harassment, or is causing alarm or distress, it is entirely reasonable that the police should be able to impose conditions, perhaps prohibiting the use of amplification equipment or drums between the hours of 10 pm and 7 am. If not, we find ourselves in the ridiculous situation where although the police cannot enforce something, the local authority can.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Obviously, Northern Ireland has a history and tradition of protesting, and it is about getting the right balance. I say honestly to the Minister that I, and probably other Opposition Members, would like Lords amendment 73 to be approved. If someone is preaching the Gospel, or if a single person or group of people are singing hymns on the streets of the United Kingdom, can the Minister reassure me that they will be able to continue and there will be no restrictions? We all know those services last no longer than about an hour—that is a fact. We are keen to ensure that the Government are not suppressing the right to religious freedom in the way it has been suppressed in the past.
Kit Malthouse
There is no desire or intention to suppress religious or other freedoms. This is about giving the police powers not to ban protest or assembly, but to place conditions on it. As I said in previous stages of the Bill, the job of this House in a democratic society is to balance competing rights. There is no doubt that, as is accepted at the European Court of Human Rights and across the liberal world, the right to protest is not unqualified. Someone cannot protest in such a way that it unreasonably impinges on my right to go about my business as a non-protester. Where noise is concerned, we are seeking to give the police powers to strike that balance where appropriate.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Can I take this point just a little further? This is about an interpretation not only of how loudly something is being said, but of what is being said. Is the Minister saying that the Bill would allow a police officer to make a judgment that he does not like the particular verse of scripture or quote that is being used, and could therefore stop it being said? That breaches the European convention on human rights in a number of areas.
Kit Malthouse
The amendments have no bearing on the content of the noise, merely on the impact the noise is having on people nearby from a decibel or distress point of view. Other legislation governs content, particularly if it promotes hatred or incites violence, although as I hope the hon. Gentleman will understand, that will not necessarily be true in this case. The amendments are agnostic as to content.
Ian Paisley
I must press the Minister further. We surely live in a society that allows difficult things to be said. Unfortunately, the Bill is going down a road—it is considerably un-Tory-like, I have to say—where difficult things will no longer be allowed to be said, or at least to be said loudly, proudly and boldly. That appears to be where the Bill is taking us.
Kit Malthouse
Not at all. Difficult things will and should still be said loudly, proudly and boldly, but it may be different in certain circumstances—for example, we have already conceded in the Bill that certain things should not necessarily be said consistently loudly, proudly and boldly outside a school. We have already conceded the power to control noisy protests outside a school, or indeed a vaccination centre. Why should those areas necessarily be privileged over others? This is about the distress and alarm caused by that noise, and its imposition on the rights of others. It is not necessarily about the content.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
Only the other week, alongside RMT and Nautilus members I engaged in a very noisy protest outside the P&O and DP World headquarters in London. That protest was noisy, and I hope it was a nuisance to those working in P&O head office. People are very concerned that the Government have such a stubborn attitude to trying to retain provisions that could make the noise of that important protest against injustice unlawful.
Kit Malthouse
Let me give the hon. Gentleman an example. At that protest, legitimate and right as it is, individuals are exercising their right to free speech. Imagine, for example, that next door to the P&O headquarters there was an old people’s home. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) laughs, but such circumstances do occur, and that is why we have local authority noise teams. There could have been a hospital next door to the P&O headquarters. If the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) had continued his noisy protest, and the shouting, screaming and flying of banners through the night for days on end, to the extent that occupation of that hospital became difficult, it would seem perfectly reasonable for the police to say, “Would you mind awfully not shouting and screaming between 10 o’clock at night and 7 in the morning?” In certain circumstances the police would have to form a judgment about that. An area might face prolonged and noisy protests that impinge on the rights of others who are not necessarily even involved in the dispute or protest. In the face of changes and developments in amplification technology, we have a duty to seek to strike a balance between those competing rights.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The question of distress and alarm is an interesting one jurisprudentially. By what means does the Minister anticipate that it will be established in court? Does he see it as an objective or subjective test?
Kit Malthouse
If I could make some progress, I was going to come to that matter. There has been some concern about the definitions of particular phrases in the Bill, and we recognise that some of the terminology has caused concern. Many of the terms used, such as “alarm” and “distress”, are precedented and well understood by the police and courts, but we accept that the term “serious unease” is novel in legislation. To address those concerns, the Government amendments in lieu remove that as a trigger for the power to attach noise-related conditions to protests.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I am grateful to the Minister for taking so many interventions. By taking out the word “serious” as well as “unease”, there is a danger that we also take out “serious alarm” or “serious distress” and replace it with just “alarm” or “distress”. On one hand the Home Secretary is making a welcome concession on “serious unease” but she also appears to be watering down the trigger so that “alarm” and “distress” is enough.
Kit Malthouse
As I said, those terms are well understood by the police and courts. They are interpreted, and have been over many years in other circumstances, and we do not believe there is room for misinterpretation. This is about placing conditions and balancing rights. We hope and believe that in the small number of circumstances where it is appropriate for the police to apply conditions, just as for the tiny number of protests that currently attract conditions in this country, this is a proportionate, modest power for the Lords to put in place.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
The Minister is trying his best on this point, but he has to return to the fact that it is wholly subjective whether distress or alarm has been caused. We are conferring this power, but we are not providing strictures around it, or indicating what we believe to be appropriate or inappropriate. None of this will be settled until it is tested, tested and tested again, but bear in mind it will never be tested in the court until a protest has already been curtailed and the police have acted in using these powers without any parameters from us as legislators. That is not the road to go down, unless we very clearly and simply define what we mean and how we intend to curtail protest. Until the Government do that, they cannot have our support.
Kit Malthouse
I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but he is looking towards, if I may say so, a Napoleonic approach to the law which we do not have in this country. We set the parameters of powers for the police, which they interpret and which are then tested through the courts. That has been done for public order legislation down the ages. As I say, it has been interpreted, quite rightly, over time by independent judges who oversee and seek to strike that balance. He is right that each circumstance where the police face a decision will be different and that we rely on the test through the court over time to find the right balance.
I urge Members who are expressing concern about this measure to consider, as many do, what it is like living in central London. Those who are residents of Westminster, where for many years I was a councillor, will know that Westminster City Council has a very good and very effective noise team. If their next door neighbour is having a disco or a party well into the night, night after night, they can seek a defence against that from their local authority.
In a small number of cases where legitimate protest impinges, because of its noise, decibel level, longevity or other matters, why should not local residents or businesses who are unable to continue, or whatever it might be, seek some kind of protection from the police? That seems perfectly reasonable to me and I cannot see why anyone objects, unless they believe that protesters should be allowed to make any amount of noise at any time anywhere outside any sort of premises. If they do not, we are just talking about matters of degree. The way we settle those matters of degree, as in other areas of police powers where we look at proportionality and reasonableness which are then interpreted by the courts, seems to me a fairly modest way of doing things.
On Lords amendment 80, I should say once again that both the national policing lead for public order and the policing inspectorate have said clearly that the distinction, drawn by the Public Order Act 1986 between public processions and public assemblies is anachronistic and no longer reflects the realities of policing protests. Provided the thresholds in the 1986 Act are met, the police should be able to attach any condition to an assembly in the same way they can already attach a condition to a procession.
As is its right, the revising Chamber, the unelected partially hereditary House, has asked this elected democratically accountable House to consider the amendments again. We have listened to the concerns raised and responded with further changes. It is now time for the views of those of us who took the trouble to get elected to prevail, so we can get on with implementing the many measures in the Bill that tackle violence against women and girls, ensure violent and sexual offenders get the punishment they deserve, and protect all our neighbourhoods.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his radical reformist speech. I had not realised he was in favour of such reform of the House of Lords.
There are three topics for debate today: the Food Standards Agency and tackling food crime; misogyny as a hate crime; and noisy protests. I can deal with the first relatively quickly. We welcome the Government’s amendments in lieu of Lords amendment 58 on increased investigatory powers for the National Food Crime Unit of the Food Standards Agency. I congratulate Lord Rooker and his colleagues on their doughty campaigning on this topic, and I congratulate the Government on listening to the argument and introducing additional amendments to bring the National Food Crime Unit within the remit of the Independent Office for Police Conduct. I understand that further legislation will bring the crime unit under the remit of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services. We will therefore support the Government in their amendments in lieu tonight.
Moving on to misogyny, I am sorry that yet again we are in a position where the Government are blocking legislation that would provide better protection to women. Given the Government’s woeful record on violence against women and girls, with prosecutions at an all-time low for crimes such as rape and sexual assault, it seems to us that they should be doing far more, from making street harassment a crime or introducing rape and serious sexual offences in every force, to longer minimum sentences for rape and more support for victims. As Baroness Newlove said in the other place, making misogyny a hate crime is simply about ensuring
“that the law is on the side of women”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 January 2022; Vol. 817, c. 1379.]
The Lords listened to the Government’s arguments that the Law Commission had concerns that making misogyny a hate crime might complicate the prosecution of rape and sexual assaults. They then came back with Lords amendment 72B, which narrows the scope of the proposals significantly. It makes it an offence to harass or intimidate a person based on hostility to their sex or gender. That negates all the concerns of the Law Commission. The amendment also requires the Secretary of State to pass regulations within six months requiring police forces to record data on offences which fall under this section or which the victim reports as being motivated by misogyny. These are relatively straightforward steps that will increase public awareness, improve victims’ confidence in reporting, and enhance the way the police respond to violence against women.
The Government have rejected those simple and progressive reforms. In their place, they have tabled an amendment giving the Government 12 months to respond to the Law Commission’s report. Surely that is a statement of the obvious, in that one would expect the Government to formally respond to the Law Commission. The Opposition do not understand why the Government would reject a law making it an offence to harass or intimidate a person based on hostility to their sex or gender. And we certainly do not understand why the Government still have not asked police forces to gather the data.
On that point, perhaps the Minister could help to clarify something for us. During the passage of the Domestic Abuse Bill in March 2021, the Government committed to asking police forces “on an experimental basis” to record the data and said that they would shortly begin the consultation process with the National Police Chiefs’ Council. In the other place, Baroness Williams said:
“discussions with the police through the NPCC have been under way on this for some time.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 March 2022; Vol. 820, c. 790.]
However, in a freedom of information response this month to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), the NPCC says:
“a formal request to record has never been received to date.”
Can the Minister clarify if the Government have—if so, when they did—or have not formally requested, through the NPCC, that that data should be recorded? My concern is that, while I understand some of the arguments the Minister was making about the complexity of the data, some of the conversations have yet to actually begin.
We must be absolutely intolerant of misogyny in all its forms. The Government could choose to make that clear now by backing Lords amendment 72B. It is not a frisson of virtue, which is what the Minister described it as; it is a very clear and simple way to make sure the law works for women.
Turning to the third of the three issues we are debating this afternoon, the right to noisy protest, we stand at a significant moment in history following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We were all humbled and deeply moved by the presence of President Zelensky on our screens in this place, showing us his country’s bravery in the face of tyranny. Last week, President Zelensky called on people across the world to take to the streets in the name of peace:
“Come from your offices, your homes, your schools and universities, come in the name of peace, come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life.”
We saw brave Ukrainians protesting where there were horrific reports of Russian troops opening fire on the crowd, and brave Russians protesting in their country in their thousands on the streets, and being arrested and detained for standing their ground. We saw tens of thousands of people on the streets in London this weekend supporting Ukraine. But here we are again debating amendments that could criminalise singing the Ukrainian national anthem. Under the provisions in this Bill, protesters could be criminalised—[Interruption.] The Minister is heckling from a seated position—
Kit Malthouse
You all heckled me from a seated position, so why can I not do the same?
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. At this significant historical moment when millions of people across the world are protesting against what is happening in Ukraine, we need, as mother of all Parliaments, to protect our right to protest.
The Minister said that we need to get the balance right, and of course that is true. There are laws already in place to manage protests to make sure they legitimately allow people to go about their business. We are talking tonight about protests being too noisy. [Interruption.] The Minister is heckling about the Labour amendments on harassment and intimidation outside schools and vaccination centres. That was about harassment and intimidation; it is not about noise.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. The Minister is being very noisy at the moment.
Geraint Davies
I have just come back from Lithuania. Hundreds of women have escaped to there, having lost their democracy as a result of Putin’s bombing and his oppressing his people at home. At the same time, we have a situation in Hong Kong where democracy is being taken away. Yet here we are taking away the right to peaceful protest, which has given us the suffragettes, climate change activists, peace campaigners and trade unions. This horrific bit of legislation will completely undermine the right of trade unionists to picket, at a difficult time in our economic evolution; it is purely terrible and it should not be brought forward. It is completely unnecessary, it will be very damaging to trade union relationships and it will drive protests underground, which, taken alongside the right for covert intelligence agents to act above the law, may lead to unintended consequences and will put the public at risk. Democracy and our public are at risk from this dreadful Bill, and it should be reversed as quickly as possible.
Kit Malthouse
It is traditional to express gratitude to Members for contributing to a debate, but after that nonsense, I am afraid that I cannot unequivocally offer that.
I welcome the support across the House for the amendments in lieu on food crime. I am afraid that amendment (c)—which was tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy)—in lieu of Lords amendment 72B is unnecessary and misdirected, despite her attempts to patronise me. It is unnecessary because, as I said, the Government have already committed to collecting the data that is described and they have additionally committed to consulting on a new public sexual harassment offence before the summer recess. It is misdirected because the Government’s original amendment responds directly to a specific recommendation of the Law Commission. Furthermore, our commitment to consult on a public sexual harassment offence speaks to another Law Commission recommendation that we explore the merits of such an offence, as well as the significant attention to that issue in our previous debates. I take into account the entreaties from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) to go faster and harder on this matter.
By contrast, the idea of contemplating that any additional new offence addresses
“intimidatory offences aggravated by sex or gender”
is untethered to any particular rationale or proper discussion to date. In fact, I would go further in saying that we need to move away from the preoccupation with hate crime laws. I was struck by the words of Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws in the other place:
“Most men do not hate women, but somehow from boyhood they breathe in this sense of entitlement”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 March 2022; Vol. 820, c. 797.]
However, Lords amendment 58B focuses not on addressing that entitlement, but on hostility—the legal test for hate crimes. The broader point by the Law Commission is that the concept is naturally unsuited to confronting the widespread and abhorrent behaviour most often directed against women and girls. Hate crime laws instead turn on those visceral occasions that befit the word “hatred”, such as a racial slur uttered during a crime.
The fact that hate crime legal models are poorly attuned to the sorts of behaviour that we want to tackle was put very well by Rape Crisis in the Law Commission’s report, which said of crimes against women and girls that
“these crimes are rooted in power and control, not hatred, making the gender/sex an ill-fitting protected characteristic in the hate crime framework.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) made the same point in the last debate on this matter.
The point is that we need to think carefully about the right model for the particular problem that we want to address. An entirely bespoke solution, which addresses the root drivers of this behaviour, is more likely to succeed. The alternative, as proposed in Lords amendment 58B, is an offence that is poorly targeted and consequently never used, so let us now do the proper groundwork—I give an undertaking that we will do that—in identifying the right legal solution to the particular nature of these crimes. I hope that all Opposition Members will contribute to the consultation that we have committed to introducing before the recess. We are already exploring whether a public sexual harassment offence is that solution, and that is what the Law Commission also spoke about.
On the Lords amendments relating to public order, we have heard yet again the ridiculously misconceived claims that are peddled about these amendments. The Public Order Act has always sought to balance the right to peaceful protest with the rights of others to go about their daily lives. All we are doing is a modest updating of a legal framework that is more than 35 years old—I thought that would have been supported by the party who banned any protest within a kilometre and a half of Parliament—and does not reflect the realities of policing protests in the third decade of the 21st century.
To suggest that any amount of noise and disruption is acceptable is saying to the British public, adversely affected by a protest, that their rights do not matter and that they should just put up with it. Their rights do matter. Of course, we must accept that protests can be disruptive and cause inconvenience, but a line must be drawn somewhere, and the provisions in the Bill simply enable the police to draw that line where it becomes necessary and proportionate to place restrictions on a protest to protect the rights of others.
It is more than a year since the Bill was introduced. It has been thoroughly debated and scrutinised by both Houses. The unelected and, as I said, partially hereditary House has exercised its right to ask us to consider certain matters again. We have done so once already. We should again send these amendments back to the Lords, and that House should now accept the will of this democratically elected House and let the Bill pass.
Question put, That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 58 and proposes amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.
A Division was called.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
There do not appear to be any Tellers, so I am calling the Division off.
Question agreed to.
Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the publication of the report of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services into the Metropolitan police’s counter-corruption arrangements.
In June last year, the Home Secretary came to the House to report on the findings of the Daniel Morgan independent panel. The panel’s report detailed a litany of historical failings by the Metropolitan police in respect of multiple investigations—failings that irreparably damaged the chances of a successful prosecution for Daniel Morgan’s brutal killing. My thoughts, and I am sure all Members’ thoughts, remain with Daniel’s family. I first met them over a decade ago.
As part of the Government’s response to that report, the Home Secretary commissioned the inspectorate to undertake an inspection of the Metropolitan police’s current approach to counter-corruption arrangements. I should note at the outset that the inspectorate did make some positive findings. The Metropolitan police remains an exemplar in investigating serious corruption and has good arrangements in place to support whistleblowers. It has also almost eliminated the backlog of officers awaiting security vetting, which was identified as a problem in a previous report. The inspectorate found no evidence that the force deliberately sought to frustrate the work of the Daniel Morgan independent panel, but the broad thrust and overarching conclusions of the report are troubling.
This inspection was commissioned to provide assurance for Daniel Morgan’s family and the wider public that the force had learned from failings in the past and had robust arrangements in place to prevent, identify and tackle corruption in its ranks. I am afraid that it is deeply disappointing that, in the light of the findings of this report, I cannot provide this assurance to the House. Indeed, the inspectorate felt that the Metropolitan police approach suggested
“a degree of indifference to the risk of corruption”.
This is alarming.
Corruption poses a significant threat wherever it rears its ugly head. If it is allowed to take root and wrap its tentacles around organisations and people, the potential impact is profound. This is especially true for policing—an institution that relies so heavily on public confidence and trust. The inspectorate’s report outlines a range of issues across all the systems that police forces employ to identify and manage corruption risks. This includes a failure to properly monitor recruits who could pose risks and to routinely share routine intelligence on officers.
The report paints a worrying picture of the Metropolitan police’s approach to exhibit and property management, creating opportunities for those tempted to abuse their position, and posing a risk to investigations.
The inspectorate found that there were more than 2,000 warrant cards unaccounted for. This is particularly concerning, coming as it does just over a year after a police officer abused his position to murder a young woman in a heinous crime that shocked our country to its core.
The report concludes that the Metropolitan police is not able to confirm whether officers working in the most sensitive areas of policing have the right levels of vetting. Furthermore, despite repeated recommendations and good progress made in this area in other forces across England and Wales, the force cannot proactively monitor its IT systems—a crucial tool in identifying corruption. In total, the report contains five causes of concern, two areas for improvement and 20 recommendations for change.
Yesterday, the Home Secretary wrote to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Mayor of London to set out her expectation that they respond to her with a clear action plan to remedy these failings. I welcome the deputy commissioner’s statement yesterday, recognising the need for comprehensive action. I put particular emphasis here on the responsibilities of the Mayor of London. Beyond the statutory responsibility on the Mayor to respond to the inspectorate’s report within 56 days, it is incumbent on City Hall to hold the Metropolitan police’s leadership to account for responding to past failings. This clearly has not happened here, and I urge the Mayor to work with the Home Office to ensure that a new commissioner can address these failings.
As she said in her statement to the House last year, the Home Secretary intends to update the House on the progress made in responding to the wide range of issues raised in the Daniel Morgan independent panel report. The Met Police published their response last Friday to the recommendations directed at them and, now that we have the inspectorate’s report, we expect to provide our overarching update soon.
Finally, I remind the House that the Home Secretary has also commissioned HMICFRS to undertake a wider inspection of vetting, counter-corruption and forces’ approach to identifying and tackling misogyny in their ranks. That is looking across England and Wales and will provide a crucial evidence base for part 2 of the Angiolini inquiry and inform any broader policy or legislative changes that might be required.
The report comes at a time when the Metropolitan Police are under intense scrutiny. I have found myself at the Dispatch Box discussing the force’s culture and standards all too frequently in recent months. As someone who over the years has worked alongside the Met and seen at first hand the incredible things that they are capable of achieving, I know there are thousands of officers, staff and volunteers across the organisation who perform their duties with skill, professionalism and pride every day. However, when things go wrong, it is vital to acknowledge that fact and take every necessary step to ensure that the failings of the past are not repeated. I commend this statement to the House.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement—three hours’ advance sight, which is very good.
Yesterday, some of us gathered on Westminster Bridge to remember the Westminster Bridge attack five years ago. We remembered how our police ran into danger to protect us, and we remembered PC Keith Palmer, who lost his life. It is with great sadness that we go from a day commemorating the very best of policing to discussing a report which, I am afraid, contains some very significant criticisms of the Metropolitan Police.
It is now 35 years since Daniel Morgan was murdered in a pub car park in south London—35 years for his family to wait for justice. I pay tribute to them, as the Minister has done. Daniel Morgan’s son lives in my constituency, and I know this report will be deeply upsetting for him and his family. The report lays bare issues of real concern. It is highly critical and tells a damning story of police corruption, of lessons not learned and of flawed procedures. The inspector noted with dismay that no one,
“had adopted the view that this must never happen again”.
The Met must accept all the recommendations included in the report and implement them in full with all possible speed.
As the Minister rightly noted, there was praise too in this report. For example, it was clear that the Met’s homicide investigation arrangements bear little resemblance to those of 35 years ago. The force solves the vast majority of homicides it investigates, as I can testify to in my own patch in Croydon.
Londoners need and deserve a police service they can not only trust, but be proud of. Whether on racism, homophobia, violence against women or corruption, we need to see the urgent reforms that will make that a reality. The outgoing commissioner must begin the process of implementation, but it must be a top priority for the new commissioner, who will carry forward the work.
However, the issues raised have national consequences. The Home Office must not stand back. Real leadership is needed. The Home Secretary and her Department must commit to engaging seriously with the issue of police reform, to avoid repeating such a scandal and to avoid a lifetime of pain and hurt for families like Daniel Morgan’s.
Labour has called for an overhaul of police standards, including reviews of vetting, training, misconduct proceedings and use of social media. It is vital that the Minister takes steps to identify whether the problems highlighted in the report are systemic in other forces across the country. The report shows that 50 people a year who had committed offences were recruited to the Met, including some who had connections to known criminals.
Given the seriousness of that finding, has the Minister asked all forces urgently to inform the Home Office of the number of new recruits every year who have committed offences? If he has, will he publish that data now? If he has not, why on earth has he not? We know that 2,000 warrant cards are unaccounted for. Has he asked all forces to inform the Home Office immediately how many of their warrant cards are unaccounted for? If he has, will he agree to publish that data?
In addition, the report notes that the Met does not know whether all those in sensitive posts have been cleared to the level needed. Is the Minister checking that nationally? The report also notes serious concerns about the storage and security of firearms in the Met. That is very worrying. Will the Minister commit to looking into that nationally?
We have a Home Office inquiry into culture and standards in the Met, which the Home Office has refused to put on a statutory footing. How can the Minister be sure that the Angiolini inquiry will not fall foul of the same stumbling blocks encountered by the Daniel Morgan inquiry and mentioned in this report?
The original Daniel Morgan inquiry recommended a statutory duty of candour for police officers, but the Government opposed Labour’s amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to achieve that. Given the challenges faced to get information during the inquiry that we see in the report, will the Government change their mind and back our proposal?
The Home Secretary has promised a review of vetting standards, but the terms of reference have only recently been published and we do not know when the review will report. What is the Home Office doing in the meantime to ensure that vetting across the country is being carried out to the highest and most rigorous standards?
The Minister highlighted the role of the Mayor of London. The report clearly states that the joint MPS and Crown Prosecution Service review of the Daniel Morgan case in 2011-12 identified opportunities for organisational learning, but it is clear that the MPS paid little, if any, attention to the joint report when it was published. Why did the previous Mayor of London totally fail to ensure that action was taken after that 2012 report?
Finally, the Minister has said he will provide an overarching update in response to both this report and the recommendations in the panel report. That is welcome, but can he give us a concrete timeline for it?
I end by saying that the role of the HMICFRS was not to reinvestigate the murder, but to consider the lessons to be learned from what has happened. The family of Daniel have not seen justice done for his murder, and it is with them that our thoughts must remain.
Kit Malthouse
The various points that the hon. Lady raised in the first half of her remarks will be addressed by Her Majesty’s inspectorate as it looks at vetting procedures across the whole country. The purpose of the investigation commissioned by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was to show the leadership that she is looking for and to expose what we now know to be the systematic failings of the organisation and its failure to address the problems of the report over recent years. We will know more on the questions that the hon. Lady rightly asks about the worrying issues raised by this report when HMI concludes its national inspection, which I hope will be shortly.
On the hon. Lady’s point about the duty of candour, as I explained during the debate on the consideration of Lords amendments to the Policing Bill, we changed the regulations to make it a disciplinary offence, subject to dismissal, not to co-operate with an investigation, which we believe is a stronger sanction. The inspection report said that the Metropolitan Police had co-operated with the independent panel.
I am disappointed at the hon. Lady’s lack of attention to the oversight mechanism of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. Over the past five years, the Mayor of London has been in control of an entire organisation whose job it is to hold the Metropolitan Police to account and to drive standards up. Certainly, in the four years between 2008 and 2012, when I was Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, that was exactly what we tried to do. We initiated a race and faith inquiry that looked more widely at culture across the whole of the Met Police to try to drive improvement.
I would hope that the Mayor—[Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, is there any chance you could ask the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) to stop barracking from a sedentary position? This is a very serious matter that must be addressed and taken seriously by all levels of Government, and that includes the Mayor of London. Given that that is the entire purpose of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, I am afraid I am not willing to ignore the fact that the holding of the organisation to account is primarily the function of City Hall.
We at the Home Office have our part to play in setting national standards, and we will absolutely do that, whether that is reviewing with the College of Policing the professional practice around vetting, as we are doing, or changing the regulations if we need to do so. In the immediate short term, however, the statutory obligation to respond lies with the Mayor of London and I hope he will fulfil his obligations within the 56 days set in law by this House.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
As the son of a retired police officer, I know the incredible work that the majority of police do to fight crime and keep us safe. When officers breach the high standards expected of them, it fundamentally undermines the trust that their work relies on. Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning the behaviour revealed in this report, and send a clear message that this kind of behaviour cannot be tolerated in any police force anywhere in the country?
Kit Malthouse
I applaud my hon. Friend’s sentiment. As someone who, like me, has an intimate knowledge of policing, I am sure he will acknowledge that there will be thousands of police officers up and down the land who are as disappointed and distressed by the revelations today as we are. They want to work in a profession—a vocation—of which they can be proud and which they know is trusted by the public. Making sure that this kind of corruption and behaviour is rooted out will be as much a part of their motivation as it is ours.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
I was six years old when Daniel Morgan was murdered in my constituency just round the corner from where I lived. His brutal murder shocked our community, and it was made worse by the fact that no one was convicted and that last year’s inquiry cited institutional corruption in the Met. Daniel’s family have campaigned for justice for 35 years. No other family should ever have to go through this, yet yesterday’s damning report found that not nearly enough has been done to ensure that it does not happen again. Will the Minister personally ensure that the next Met commissioner cleans up this failing force?
Kit Malthouse
I will certainly do my best to make sure that that is the case. As I say, the Home Secretary has written to the Mayor of London and the current commissioner asking for an assertive action plan to bring about these changes. I am sure the hon. Lady will have noted that HMI has put a limit of 12 months on the 20 improvements and changes that it needs to see, and it will require really assertive action by the Met police to get all that work done within that 12-month period. Many people in this House will have had involvement or contact with the Morgan family. I myself was privileged to meet his mother on a number of occasions when I was deputy Mayor for policing, and indeed, along with other Members across the House, I pressed for the original inquiry. Given our commitment to their campaign and the incredible dedication they have shown, we now have a duty to do exactly as the hon. Lady says and make sure it does not happen again.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
As the Minister himself has said, the regularity with which he has had to come to the Dispatch Box to answer questions about the culture, standards and misjudgments of the Metropolitan police is alarming. Yesterday’s shocking report is just the latest in a long list of recent failings. Thousands of dedicated rank and file police officers work very hard and put themselves at risk every day to protect us. They, and millions of Londoners, deserve leadership in the Met that they can trust and have confidence in, not leaders who have “indifference” to the risks of corruption. Will the Minister confirm today that the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner appointment will not just be made by the Home Office and a Prime Minister who is himself under criminal investigation but will secure the approval of the Mayor of London and be subject to a cross-party vote of the Home Affairs Committee and the London Assembly’s police and crime committee?
Kit Malthouse
The process and appointment of the Met commissioner are established in law, and we cannot obviate that, but we are all, I hope, committed to making sure that the person we appoint will bring about the changes that we are all seeking as well as continue the fight against crime in the capital. In the meantime, as the current commissioner exits, I believe that in the proposed acting commissioner and current deputy commissioner we have an individual of integrity and commitment who has already made very welcome public statements about driving forward change.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing convention to be waived so that I can speak from the Back Benches on this matter. Alastair Morgan, Daniel’s brother, has been campaigning for some justice for his brother for 35 years and I have stood alongside him for the past 17. The Minister referred to the “original report”. It was not the original report. There have been many, many inquiries. There have been inquiries into inquiries. This has been going on for years and years, with corruption layered upon corruption and nobody ever telling the truth. It is no wonder, in those circumstances, that Alastair has said that the Metropolitan police
“cared more about its own tatty reputation than solving my brother’s murder.”
Now what do we see? We see an official report that states that it has
“found no evidence that someone, somewhere, had adopted the view that this must never happen again.”
Nobody even cares if it happens again. What is the Minister going to do about that? What are we going to do about the Met?
Kit Malthouse
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her commitment to the family campaign as well. As I explained, we have written to the Mayor and the commissioner demanding a plan of action and that they respond, as they have to in law, to the inspectorate with exactly that—an assertive, committed plan for change. Certainly the public statements that I have seen from the deputy commissioner indicate his personal commitment. Pleasingly, he made a particular point of saying that the police have not given up on the investigation and their attempt to try to catch Daniel’s killers. I hope that we will see a conclusion to that investigation as soon as possible.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Daniel Morgan case is one of those that I am most familiar with as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on miscarriages of justice. If it were not for a Welsh solicitor called Glyn Maddocks, who has tirelessly followed this and never given up on it, we would not be where we are today. I pay tribute to him, his work, and the support he has given to the miscarriages of justice group. This is a very important occasion. I am a little sad that the Minister has made it a bit party political in blaming the Mayor. The fact is that we are faced with a tremendous crisis in the Met and in any police force where the relationship between the police breaks down and becomes sloppy, and we see—I did the research on this and I was astonished by it—the close links between senior Met police and organised crime. Surely that was wrong and it has to be sorted out.
Kit Malthouse
I also pay tribute, as the hon. Gentleman has, to the entire team that have supported the family. I met them when I was deputy Mayor for policing. I have to confess that when I heard the story I was open-mouthed at what was revealed, hence the strong support I gave to the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), for an inquiry. Admittedly, as the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) said, it is not the first, but hopefully it will bring us to some kind of conclusion on this matter. I was not seeking to make a party political point, merely to point out that there is a direct responsibility at City Hall—one that I took when I was doing the job—to drive forward the conclusion to this matter not only to reach some kind of closure for the family, but to ensure significant change in the organisation that will mean that this can never happen again.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
We are back here again discussing the police. Some of the issues in this report about the vetting of police officers and the fact that some had links to known criminals will be quite shocking for a number of my constituents, who continue to be stopped and searched. Some of those constituents are on the gangs matrix, which had such a massive impact on their life in terms of finding jobs, access to benefits, and ability to rent. The Minister will know that in 2019 a freedom of information request revealed that a person as young as 13 was on the gangs matrix. How will he help to restore confidence in our communities who want to work with the police in addressing some of the issues, when we have known criminals involved, people not being vetted properly and some of my young people continuing to be on the gangs matrix?
Kit Malthouse
The solution to the problem of building trust between London’s various communities and the police is complex, but there are a variety of tools that we can deploy. First, we can make sure that the force better reflects the population of London. I am pleased that we are working closely with City Hall and the Met on their recruitment and diversity agenda, which is an important one that has been ongoing for some time. At the same time, we need to make sure that we are recruiting the right people, and this investigation has unearthed problems in our doing that. We need to make sure that the vetting net is as tight as possible so that we are getting in the right people with the right values who are able to deal with the hon. Lady’s constituents and others with integrity and respect to achieve the end we want to achieve, which is lower crime in the capital. That does require, as she says, that people know that when they meet a police officer in the street, or they are dealt with even under stop and search, they are dealing with somebody who has been through a rigorous process. Over the next 12 months we will monitor this closely and work with City Hall to make sure that that is exactly what it introduces.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
We have to rely on an efficient and effective police service that has the trust of all its communities, and we know from recent reports that the Met in particular has taken an absolute battering. Over the past decade, we lost 20,000 police. In the past couple of years, there has been a rapid ramping up to get back those police numbers and to deal with the issue of natural wastage. This is an incredible pressure on recruitment and vetting. What assessment has the Minister made of the capacity—not only within the Met, but nationwide—to ensure that speed of recruitment is not leading to the inclusion of people who have no right to be on the streets of our capital, policing it?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady is right that the rapid recruitment has put strains on the system, but we have been monitoring it very closely to ensure that the system is able to cope, and I believe that it is. I know she is not suggesting that the vast majority of recruits are not right-thinking and correct in their values, and I hope and believe that is the case. One of the improvements that the inspectorate did note that the Metropolitan police has achieved over the past couple of years is an elimination almost of the vetting backlog, which just three or four years ago stood at something like 37,000, astonishingly. That has now been almost eliminated. That is a silver lining to the cloud of this report. As far as vetting is concerned, we have debated that just recently in the House. There are improvements that need to be made, not least on the monitoring of social media, which has just started in the Metropolitan police. It is an area to which we need to pay constant attention if we are to build that trust with London’s communities.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
This review today is rightly about what the Metropolitan police is doing now, but it has resulted from the Daniel Morgan report, and there are still outstanding issues arising from that report, as referred to by the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who is no longer in her place. Indeed, my constituent, a former serving police officer, approached me for support because he had a complaint in relation to his treatment by the Metropolitan police while he was involved in the Morgan inquiry, and he has had no satisfactory outcome. He has now approached the IOPC. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can get some degree of finding for my constituent?
Kit Malthouse
I am hesitant to intervene in an independent process. Given the hon. Lady’s experience in policing, she will know that. If she thinks a meeting with me and her constituent would be useful once the IOPC has concluded, I would be more than happy to do so.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It has been a torrid time for the Met, but I am not so concerned about the Met; I am concerned about constituents of mine and those of us all who worry about policing. We had the report just last week about child Q. People in my constituency and elsewhere, and particularly black parents, black pupils and parents of black pupils, are worried about what the impact is on them. I know that the response has to be done in 12 months, and I worry that that will divert the Met to dealing with corruption, which obviously has to be dealt with. Can the Minister give some comfort from the Dispatch Box today that the issues of racism and inappropriate action against child Q will be dealt with much quicker than waiting for an IOPC report? Action needs to happen quicker. Tackling corruption has to happen, but not just that.
Kit Malthouse
As I said in the urgent question on child Q, I am hopeful that the IOPC will conclude its investigation on that matter shortly, and then we can quickly learn the lessons from that, exactly as the hon. Lady says, and hopefully ensure that that does not happen again. Just to be clear on the timeline, the Mayor has a statutory duty to respond to this inspection within 56 days with an action plan. The IOPC has put a 12-month time limit on implementing its 20 recommendations for change. Some may be done quicker than that, and some have already started. For example, my understanding is that inexplicably, the Met police is the only force in the country that does not have the software in place to monitor the inappropriate use of its systems. The work to implement that has started already, and I hope that will done before 12 months. Such is the importance of this issue, I am happy to commit to coming back to the House at some future point, when completion is in sight or done on all these 20 matters, and report that to the Members who are concerned.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
A corrupt network of police officers, including senior officers, and journalists, including their senior management, private investigators and senior management at News International were all involved in the cover-up here. It is one of the biggest instances of corruption and one of the most painful ones we have witnessed in many years. Is it not time that we introduced into statute law a new offence of misconduct in public office? It is a common-law offence that is difficult to prosecute and to lay out the parameters of. We should put it in statute so that those who commit it and those who incite others to do it can be sent to prison.
Kit Malthouse
I cannot comment on the hon. Gentleman’s claims, not least because happily, as the deputy Metropolitan Police Commissioner has confirmed, this is an ongoing investigation. They have not given up, and they should not give up. However, I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making in general. While a number of offences could be committed in a similar hypothetical situation, such as conspiracy, it may be the case that he has a point that we need to consider.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
We have yet another report raising serious concerns about the Met, but also a number of questions that are applicable to all police forces in the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) said. One issue that has been raised with me by a senior officer, and that applies nationally, is that officers who are found guilty of gross misconduct are often not only reinstated, but sometimes promoted. What is the Minister doing with the Met, police forces around the country and the complaints system to address this issue?
Kit Malthouse
I am sure the hon. Lady understands that where the office of constable is concerned, matters of discipline, dismissal or other punishments are effectively an independent process. The punishment is decided by panels that have independent legally qualified chairs. It would be inappropriate for me to comment on the various decisions she has talked about. Having said that, we constantly pay attention to how the disciplinary process is impacting on the integrity of UK policing. If adjustments are required, as they were two years ago, we make them.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Daniel Morgan was murdered 35 years ago, and this whole inquiry has been consistently bedevilled by police corruption. I do not think this report gets us to the bottom of the issue. We have to go much, much further. The report tells us that there has been a loose association with confidentiality and security for evidence, and that has been consistent over all these years that we have been trying to get to the bottom of this case. The Minister now has to accept that we have to have a root and branch inquiry. He has admitted himself that he has had to come to this Dispatch Box too many times to apologise for the Metropolitan police. This single investigation will not get to the bottom of it; we need something much more fundamental, such as an independent inquiry.
Kit Malthouse
As I say, HMI is looking at these issues more widely across the whole of UK policing, and we will learn some lessons from that report. But we should not forget that the Commissioner of the Met herself has commissioned Dame Louise Casey to look at the internal culture of the Met, and that will give us some indications of where we should go next, if at all. Beyond that, similarly, stage 2 of the Angiolini review, which will look at this issue more widely, will be able to give us some information as to where we should go next, if at all.
This is a building picture. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that this is a very distressing, alarming and scandalous story that has run for far too many years. We have a duty in this House to try to get to the bottom of what happened and to make changes to ensure that it does not happen again, but that will not be a silver-bullet revelation; it will be a building picture, and this report is part of that. The report informs our work for now, and we will look to the future to see where we go next.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his statement. While an apology is, I am sure, welcomed by the family, perhaps what would be more welcome is steps being taken to prevent this from happening again. Does he accept that there is a duty of care, and will he undertake to implement the necessary changes, which the report highlights in great detail, to ensure that the Met police continues to be a premium police service that is respected globally, as it has been for many years?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Gentleman asks his question very eloquently, and I completely agree with him. My primary concern in this affair is to get justice for the family of Daniel Morgan, who have campaigned for many years on this issue—a truly scandalous story that has involved many of us on both sides of the House. My second concern is to ensure that the Metropolitan police is fit to serve Londoners and that they can have trust in it. As somebody who, I must confess, has great affection for the Met, having worked for it in the past and seen the incredible things of which it is capable, I say to the officers of the Metropolitan police who want to know that they are working for exactly the organisation that the hon. Gentleman describes—one that is deeply respected across the world, not just for its ability to catch every murderer or to stop knife crime in London or to put more rapists behind bars, but for its internal conduct and culture of ethics and integrity—that that is what we have to be about.