Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mike Tapp)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her important question. I work closely with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and many sectors in agriculture to ensure that they can operate if they need access to foreign workers. Of course, we are looking to reduce the need for that, and I am happy to meet afterwards and talk more about the specific issue of scampi, which I love.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I thank the Asylum Minister for his professional courtesy in calling me on Friday to say that the asylum dispersal plans for Stoke Heath in my constituency have now been scrapped. I am grateful for that, and it is a great relief to many residents—it was a completely inappropriate location from the get-go. However, can I ask him to put on the record whether the Government have any plans to put asylum seekers into Clive barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire, which is currently home to the Royal Irish Regiment?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that question and the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman asked it. I recognise his advocacy in helping us to understand that it was the wrong thing in the wrong place, but I know that that is now followed by misinformation—it is not totally different from the contribution of the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart)—with people who are planning on creating division over asylum accommodation pointing at another site. To be clear to the right hon. Gentleman and his constituents, we have proposed three new sites and the extension of time at two others. Those decisions have not finally been made, but those named sites are the sites that are under consideration, not his.

Death of Ann Widdecombe

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I have not seen all the comments that the right hon. and learned Lady refers to, but I have seen some of them, and they were deplorable and completely unacceptable. I know that an apology has been made in relation to comments that were made, I believe, on Sky News. I know that others have reacted with horror and anger at comments that were designed to denigrate Ann’s political views, and to deny her dignity in death. I share the right hon. and learned Lady’s absolute revulsion at such behaviour towards an elderly woman who has lost her life in very distressing and deeply tragic circumstances. It has no place in our politics or our national life, and I know that all Members of the House will agree with that. I urge everyone, wherever they may sit on the political spectrum, to exercise calm and careful judgment before hitting the send button on social media messages. A little time for reflection is often the best thing in these circumstances.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I thank Mr Speaker in his absence, and indeed all the Deputy Speakers, for everything that the Speaker’s Office and the Parliamentary Security Department do to keep all Members, of all political parties, safe. I thank the Home Secretary and the deputy leader of Reform, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), for their warm tributes. As a west midlands MP, I also put on the record my thanks to the fantastic people at Counter Terrorism Policing West Midlands and in West Mercia police’s special branch, who do a fantastic job. I have been in the House for 21 years, but it has only been in the last two or three years that I have had to take serious and substantive security advice. That is an unwelcome development, and we all need to work together to tackle it.

Reference has been made to technology companies. Should we expect technology companies to act, given that some of their owners do not even believe in democracy? They want to undo democracy in order that they have ultimate power. That is not a conspiracy theory; it is on the record, because some of them have stated that. In defence of the mainstream media—particularly the so-called deadwood press, with whom I have had disagreements over the years—they have to regulate, with very limited resources, the comments that people put under stories. Why will tech companies not do so as well? For too long the mainstream media in this country have taken most of the blame, but the tech companies, which have more resources, should be doing more.

On a lighter note, I want to give a couple of stories from Ann’s life. We spent five years together as Members of Parliament, but I knew her before entering the House. I have two stories. First, I remember when there was a move to stop the first ever appointment of a Catholic as the British ambassador to the Holy See. Ann, David Amess, myself and others worked to overturn that. To paraphrase a Times diarist, I was the only Anglican in the village, and a middle-wicket Anglican at that—a very poor one. I wasn’t literally poor—well, actually, it was both. [Laughter.] As the only Anglican in the village, I felt that it was completely wrong that there was discrimination against Catholics being appointed to the Vatican. Thankfully, the decision was overturned, and Tony Blair and others allowed the appointment to happen. Francis Campbell was appointed the first Catholic ambassador to the Holy See and did a fantastic job.

I have a second story. Having seen David Austin—the founder of David Austin Roses, who has now passed—at the 2009 Chelsea flower show with the former Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans, we were coming back in a taxi when we heard that Michael Martin had resigned as Speaker. We both thought that Ann would be a great Deputy Speaker, but there was a problem: in 2007, she had announced that she was going to step down at the following election. We met with her and said, “Ann, we think you’d be a great Speaker. Would you do it?” She said, “Yes. What have I got to do?” We said, “Well, you’ve got to go and speak to all the different parties in Committee Room 14. Everybody’s stuffed in there, as usual, and you’ve got to do a pitch.” I said to her, “But whatever you do, don’t say you’re running for Speaker and then say you’re standing down in 2010.” As we all know, Ann was very wise. She completely dismissed that advice, stood up and said, “I’m running for Speaker, but I will stand down in one or two years’ time.” Of course, she did not have any success.

I will conclude by saying that Ann was a lady of conviction, clarity, compassion, integrity and authenticity —a lexicon of virtue. Of course, she was recognised by His Holiness the Pope with a papal damehood—a DSG—but unfortunately she was, I think unfairly, never recognised in this country in the same way. I hope that is something that, in her honour and memory, could be considered.

[Shabana Mahmood]

The right hon. Gentleman has shared with the House some lovely memories of his dear friend. As he was making his contribution, I thought I would follow what he said about Counter Terrorism Policing, and place on the record my gratitude for our counter-terrorism police across the country. We have a world-leading counter-terror policing operation in this country. We are very lucky to have them, and they do a great job keeping all of us safe. I know I speak on behalf of the whole House when I place those remarks on the record.

The right hon. Gentleman is right, and many Members have made the point today about the unaccountability of social media platforms for their algorithms and for the type of content they host on their platforms. The Government have already done some work in this area, but I am sure we will have to go further. As I have committed before, I will make sure the House is updated in due course.

Asylum Accommodation

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Missing from the statement, unless I missed it myself, was the word “deterrent”. The Minister suggests that it is good news, and people moving out of hotels into other accommodation is just that. What he does not mention, however, is that other accommodation also includes houses in multiple occupation, and there are only so many military sites that may or may not be available.

Given that I wrote to him on 18 June, would the Minister meet me to discuss Stoke Heath in my constituency, a village—actually, a rural settlement—of about 352 people that is going to see the arrival of up to 121 asylum seekers? This rural settlement has no integrated public services and very few public services at all. The nearest bus stop, for example, is a 30-minute walk away. Will he accept that a community meeting being held on Thursday, chaired by myself, should at least have somebody from the Home Office or Serco in attendance? People are being kept in the dark. There has been secrecy—no consultation and no transparency. People have a right to know what is going on. Would he encourage a member of Serco to come along to that meeting and answer some of the local community’s concerns?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I am well aware of the matter concerning Stoke Heath, as he has pressed hard both verbally and in writing on that already. I will, of course, have the meeting with him that he asks for. I did not use the word “deterrent”, but I did use “pull factors” in the same context. We have to change the reality of the differential attractiveness that has seen applications for asylum in this country go up while they go down across the EU. This is part of that programme. The right hon. Gentleman mentions an upcoming meeting. Let me speak to the Department and see what we can do to ensure that he can have the fullest discussion possible.

National Security (State Threats) Bill

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 17th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Both the National Security Act 2023 and the measures we are debating today will ensure that we have the strongest suite of measures available to us to take action against those who come after people on our soil, including dissidents from other regimes and people to whom we have given sanctuary. Transnational repression will be caught by the measures in this Bill.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

As the Home Secretary will know, this is the fifth or sixth national security-related Bill in the past few years—the most Bills on national security issues that we have seen in any Parliament. She will also know that the UK intelligence community has more powers as a result of these Bills, as well as bigger budgets and more responsibilities than ever before. I commend all those serving in our agencies for their distinguished service. However, I am concerned that there are parts of Government that are currently not covered by aspects of the oversight of our intelligence community by the Intelligence and Security Committee. I commend the excellent members of that Committee; I am a former member, so I can commend them in the House today.

It is absolutely vital that the intelligence services have independent oversight. Unfortunately, the legislation that oversees the ISC is 30 years old and 10 years old. We are having all these national security Bills, but we do not have commensurate Bills to improve oversight and accountability of our intelligence agencies. It needs to change, because we cannot have an echo chamber in the UK intelligence community. There needs to be parliamentary oversight with the power of sanction—summons and sanction. At the moment there is no power.

[Shabana Mahmood]

Let me first associate myself with the right hon. Gentleman’s tribute to the excellent work and service of all those in our United Kingdom intelligence community, wherever they serve, and indeed all those who serve and put their lives at risk in order to keep the rest of us safe. I also pay tribute to the tremendous work done by the Intelligence and Security Committee—one of Parliament’s most august Committees—to provide vital scrutiny of our legal frameworks in this important area.

I must say to the right hon. Gentleman that, personally, as someone who signs warrants every day that are subject to both Secretary of State decision and judicial decision, I think that we have a legal framework that is sufficiently robust to provide oversight, without getting into the operational choices that must be made. Of course, these matters are always kept under review, and I take that review process seriously. If there are proposals that he wishes to make, I would be happy to discuss them with him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. The Bill seeks to create the legal framework by which designations will be made in future. The Bill will hopefully be approved quickly by Parliament, and I will seek to move forward with designations as quickly as possible, to deal with the threats that I am discussing in the House today.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman would agree that the fact that I have spent some time considering the different nature of the threat posed by these three states in particular shows that we are very alive to the ways in which they use their unique positions to pose a threat to us in the United Kingdom. He is right about the way in which Iran operates; it is different from how Russia and China operate. The Government have to be alive to the different type of risks posed by these three countries in particular. At the moment, those countries account for a large proportion of the hostile activities that are monitored by our security services, but those activities are not exclusive to those three countries.

On matters of oversight, I will repeat my starting position. I do think that our current framework is robust and has stood the test of time. Of course, things change, and we would review the framework all the time anyway. I repeat my general offer—I suspect that I am making it to the whole of the ISC, given how well represented it is in this debate—of a conversation to pick up any concerns that its members have. The Minister for Security and I will make sure that we consider any additional proposals fully, but I am mindful that we do not want a position in which the Government cannot act quickly, or to over-regulate what is necessarily an Executive function, as speed is often of the essence. With that understood, a sensible conversation is always welcome.

In relation to Iran, Members will be aware that two men await trial under the National Security Act for the surveillance of Jewish sites. While investigations remain ongoing, the police are exploring potential links between Iran and the spate of arson attacks directed at our Jewish community in London. Faced with this intolerable hostility, our nation has bolstered its defences. The National Security Act, brought forward by the previous Government and supported by Labour, rightly commanded support from both sides of the House. It has given our authorities new tools and provided the legal underpinning for a series of complex and sensitive investigations, and it has secured important convictions, including of two men for gathering information and conducting surveillance to assist the Chinese state.

In addition, the foreign influence registration scheme has been in force for close to a year. Russia and Iran are placed on its enhanced tier. Anyone now conducting activity on behalf of those states faces a clear choice: identify themselves and register their activity, or face the prospect of prison.

Sanctions remain a vital tool in our action against hostile states. The UK now has more than 550 sanctions against Iranian-linked individuals and organisations, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety. Through measures like these, we have made this country a harder target. However, as we improve our defences, our adversaries respond and change their behaviour to pose new threats to our country. That has been particularly evident in the rising use of proxy groups—criminal gangs, professional enablers and front companies that do the bidding of a foreign power, against the interests of this country, in exchange for money.

There has long been a desire to ban state-linked organisations from operating in this country, and to target those who facilitate them. That is why the Government made a manifesto commitment to deal with state-backed domestic security threats in the same way that we tackle terrorism. The question was how to create the right legal power to do so. My predecessor, now the Foreign Secretary, tasked Jonathan Hall KC, the Government’s independent reviewer of terrorism and state threats legislation, with answering that question.

[Mark Pritchard]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way again; she has been generous. Does she believe that the Bill sufficiently covers the areas of non-state actors and non-kinetic activity, which are being used more and more?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The combination of what we already have on the statute book in the National Security Act and this Bill means that all aspects of that activity will be covered. It obviously depends on how the activity presents. The Bill closes the loophole where a designated body is responsible. Where proxy groups are responsible, they will be caught by the measures in the Bill, and that activity will be liable to both prosecution and conviction.

Jonathan Hall KC examined whether tools available in our current terrorism legislation might be emulated or adapted to address state threats. He determined that we could not use the existing terror legislation to proscribe a state entity. He memorably described that as

“shopping in the wrong department.”

He said:

“For the Secretary of State to have or purport to have power to prohibit the existence of foreign State entities would be well beyond what Parliament could have intended”

when it passed the Terrorism Act. He went on to conclude that applying the power to a state entity would

“appear to overstep the boundaries of the principle of non-intervention at international law.”

Instead, he proposed a new regime: a power equivalent to proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000, but specifically designed to tackle state and state-linked organisations. Through this legislation, we seek to bring that new power into law.

I will now take the House through the Bill in some detail. Clause 1 introduces a power for the Home Secretary to designate a body. It will insert new section 33A into the National Security Act 2023. Such a designation will be possible if the Home Secretary believes that a body is, or has been, involved in foreign power threat activity and that designation is necessary to protect the safety or interests of the United Kingdom.

The definition of a body is purposefully wide; it cannot be targeted at individuals, but it can be targeted at a wide range of organisations, including foreign intelligence services, mercenary groups, front companies and criminal networks. The power to designate is of critical importance.

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

We support the ambitions in the Bill, we want the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be designated, and we want the Bill on the statute book, so the Government will find no enemies on our Benches today—only an Opposition determined to ensure that this law protects our people and our country. That is not a cause that belongs to those on one side of the House alone.

The Government are right to bring forward this legislation, but they must now have the courage to get it right. The head of MI5 warned us that state-based threats have risen by more than a third in a single year, and that since 2022 our security services have disrupted more than 20 Iran-backed plots to kidnap or kill on British soil. That is 20 plots in our country, and against people who came to this country precisely because they believed it lay beyond the reach of the regimes they had fled.

There is a national emergency of antisemitism in our country. Jewish families, many of whose parents and grandparents came to these shores fleeing persecution, now find themselves looking over their shoulders once more. They have endured threats, intimidation and violence on a scale that this House swore we would never see again, and Jewish lives have become smaller. The Bill is a step towards ending that, because much of the activity is fomented, funded and directed from beyond our borders.

In the face of that national emergency, and attacks on our Jewish communities, a Bill that confronts hostile state activity on British soil is not just welcome but overdue, because a hostile state is not a gang or a terrorist cell. It poses a different challenge, operating through proxies, the hired gun and the useful idiot, recruited to sow chaos on our streets—but all backed by a foreign state with a flag, an embassy, a seat at the United Nations, and resources beyond the reach of most terrorist groups. That is what makes this Bill so difficult, and why it demands such care.

If the Bill is found wanting, it will handicap our police and the security services in their work—work that is largely unseen and for which they are too rarely thanked. Those officers deserve a Parliament ready and willing to give them the tools required for the task. That is what the Bill is for and why, in principle, it is right.

But—I am sure the whole House heard the “But” coming—the Bill has gaping deficiencies. It was laid in the House at the end of last Tuesday, and the Government want to carry out all its stages in one sitting by the end of today. A law on how we confront the gravest threat, short of outright and declared war, is being published, debated and railroaded through in a matter of days. That is a serious point, not a procedural complaint, because if we get the scrutiny wrong, our country will pay the price. We exist to find the weaknesses before our enemies do, and the Bill is meant to protect more people.

More than a year ago, Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, set out in detail why this sort of legislation was needed, and the Government accepted all his recommendations. But then we saw nothing for a year. When the House is told there is no time to get this right, let me be clear that there was time—14 months, to be exact. There was not the will to use it, until a single day was chosen for reasons that have nothing to do with the tempo of the threat.

I have called for this legislation for years, so no one will accuse us of wishing to delay it, but I say to the Secretary of State with complete candour that the threat did not arrive in a hurry and it will not be beaten by rushing today. There is no prize for being first to the statute book with a law that fails in the first courtroom that tests it. A Bill passed fast but built wrong is not a blow to hostile states; it is a gift to them. That is why we have tabled 13 amendments, not one of them to stall the Bill or to blunt it, but all to better protect us.

I will take the House through the amendments in Committee, but let me now name the gravest gaps, so that we go into this first debate with our eyes open. First, extraordinarily, the Bill is gentler on hostile states than the law currently is on terrorists. Under the Bill as drafted, to convict a person who, for example, supports the IRGC, the Crown must clear a hurdle that it does not face when prosecuting someone for support for the very terrorist groups that the IRGC arms and funds. The IRGC, the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism, is being handed protection in law that the terror proxy is denied. I can find no version of that argument that survives being said out loud.

It should not be harder to prosecute the body that trains, funds and directs the terrorists than to prosecute the terrorist themselves. The provision on “prohibited purpose” sets a higher threshold, which lawyers for hostile actors will delight in. There is no reason beneficial to the UK for anyone to be engaging with the IRGC, so our amendments would simply bring the offence in line with the Terrorism Act 2000, from which it was copied and then weakened by the Government. The Secretary of State has just said that she wants hostile states to be treated the same way as terrorists, but that is not the case in this legislation.

Secondly, the Bill risks making Britain a launchpad for hostile acts against our friends—a state terror hub. A cell that conspires here, be it in Manchester or London, while directing its activity at Baghdad, Beirut, Berlin, Brussels or even Hong Kong will slip the net because the harm was meant for another state’s streets and not ours—it is not prejudicial to the safety of the UK. That is not just a hole in our law but an affront to our allies. Britain will not become a safe harbour for plots against our friends due to inaction from our side, and that is why we have tabled an amendment to close that gap.

Thirdly, as drafted, the Bill does not give the police the power to stop state-backed threats before they are enacted and therefore to secure a prosecution. Our terrorism law lets us intervene while an attack is still being planned, and that is among the most important powers our counter-terrorism police have. This Bill has no equivalent, so we could be powerless to charge a person who plans to assist the IRGC or another terrorist state organ unless they act. Our security services do not wish to clear up after plots; they wish to stop them and prosecute beforehand.

Fourthly, the Bill has not learned the hardest lesson of the last 20 years, which is that the most common danger that our security services have to deal with is no longer the directed plot but the lone individual who absorbs a hostile body’s propaganda and acts on it without specific direction. A hostile state brings sophistication and reach to its propaganda, yet the Bill catches only those commissioned and instructed, rather than those who are inspired by the climate created by the hostile state. It guards us against the plot that is ordered, but leaves us open to one for which no order has been given.

I will press the detail of these points in Committee, but I raise them now because they go to the heart of whether the Bill will work. I am afraid that Foreign Office lawyers, Home Office lawyers and Home Office officials have been unable to reassure me on any of these points. In fact, their answer—[Interruption.] If the Home Secretary wishes to intervene and clarify where I am wrong, she is very welcome to, but her own officials have said that it is “likely” the Bill may cope with these issues. I am not interested in “likely”. If someone is a traitor and they betray our country by supporting a hostile state, I want to make sure that they will be able to be prosecuted. Not one Government official has been able to reassure me or say that our concerns are wrong. I am glad that the Home Secretary of State finds that amusing. She is still very welcome to intervene.

[Mark Pritchard]

The shadow Minister is making an excellent contribution, as always, and I completely agree with her. I support the Bill, but I think it is thin. I also support the former Attorney General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), and the comments about legal ambiguity. That runs through the whole Bill.

The Home Secretary talked about diplomatic cover, saying that diplomats will not be affected by this, yet it is public knowledge that intelligence officers from certain countries operate under diplomatic cover. For example, if an intelligence officer from an embassy in the United Kingdom gave a great big bag of cash to a small criminal—I will not mention where they might be from—and said, “Go and commit some sabotage,” or “Go and commit some arson,” how would that be prosecuted in the courts? How is the Crown Prosecution Service going to disaggregate that? It would have to say, “This bit we can prosecute, but the other bit, the important bit, we cannot.”

[Alicia Kearns]

The reality is that an individual such as that would not be captured, because they would have diplomatic protections under the Vienna conventions. I admit that I have not been able to find an amendment that would correct that. That is why we have scrutiny of the House, because the shadow Front Bench is not the sole arbiter of where the gaps are. We would have been able to do this if we had had more time.

However, I will use this as a chance to touch on the fact that there is a protection in the Bill that if a person acts

“for or on behalf of, or holds office under, the Crown, or is in Crown employment”,

they are protected against any interactions they may have with the IRGC. However, there is a slight concern, because that is followed by:

“(whether or not they engage in the conduct in that capacity).”

We would all like to say, hand on heart, that no one who works for our country as a civil servant—a Crown servant—would ever betray us, but technically, under this legislation, we could not prosecute anyone who did so, even if they did so outside their official capacity and were therefore genuinely working to abet another organisation. Again, if the Home Secretary would like to clarify how we would prosecute rogue civil servants, I would be happy to take an intervention from her—but there isn’t one.

The Government decided that it was wise to attempt to pass such vital legislation in just one day, but we think that scrutiny is important because the Bill needs to work as well as it can. It is littered with omissions. I have already set out some of them. Additionally, Jonathan Hall said that we should give powers to the police to strip passports at the border, but the Government have not included that. It was proposed that there should be serious police protection orders, but they have removed them. We are gifting defences to would-be perpetrators, and the Bill should not be left as it is. These examples are only the gaping holes I could find in the two and a half days and late nights that I was given to find issues and table amendments.

There is one more thing that the Government and the House must hold in mind as we fix our gaze on Tehran. This power is rightly organisation agnostic. We must not write a law for the IRGC alone. We are writing a law for every hostile state organ that comes after it, and the next may look nothing like the last. I think of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist party, of whose reach I have spoken often, and I hope the day comes when the Government turn this power on it. I doubt that that will happen, but I set out that ambition. That day will come only if we build this Bill for the second designation, the third and the fourth.

As drafted, this legislation has been written with a single, already sanctioned organisation in mind, and that shows. There is no reference to sanctions read-across in the Bill because the IRGC is already sanctioned. The Government said, “We don’t need to do a read-across for sanctions because the IRGC is already sanctioned.” I am not just looking at the IRGC. There are more organisations that will need to be designated in future. The law must fit not just one adversary but all. Otherwise, it is a single-use power dressed up as a meaningful law.

We support the principle of this Bill without reservation, and we will support it on Second Reading, but we will support it in the right way, with scrutiny, attention and determination to ensure that a rushed process does not result in us not meeting the scale of the threats we now face. It is vital that the Government engage today in good faith and listen to Members on all sides. Their failure so far to accept any amendments does not give me cause for optimism, but there is still time for them to accept some. The delay of the last 14 months should not be undone by haste today, because a half-built Bill will not redeem that time; it will simply compound the danger.

Police Grant Report

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

Of course, policing itself is devolved, but addressing the risk of terrorism involves working across the whole of the United Kingdom. My hon. Friend the Security Minister will ensure we are working very closely across all four parts of this United Kingdom to offer the support that is needed.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

As the Policing Minister knows, West Mercia police—which covers Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire—is a very good force in many ways. However, is she aware that West Mercia is about to see the first fall in police numbers in over a decade, with approximately 20 frontline police officers likely to be removed as a result of what the local police and crime commissioner calls a “shortfall in Government funding”, and that this will affect The Wrekin constituency?

[Sarah Jones]

To repeat, every force in the country has had an increase in its funding this year, and we are making sure we have the right funding to support our objectives. On police officer numbers, what we saw under the last Government was a reduction of 20,000 officers and then a rush to recruit 20,000. The result was, for example, a 60% rise in retail crime in the last two years of the Conservative Government—that arbitrary focus on numbers did not result in the right outcomes. We are interested in police outcomes. We are interested in driving down crime and preventing it, and we believe that we should give our chiefs the flexibility to understand what roles they need within their local workforce. Police staff are exceptionally important in many different roles.

Under the last Government, the number of PCSOs halved. That was not even Government policy; it just happened because they did not have a proper workforce plan and did not think about these things, and then in the latter years they did not allow flexibility for local officers. We believe chiefs can make the right decisions about their workforce locally, and for the first time—the Conservatives failed to do this—we will establish a national workforce plan, to make sure we have the right resources in the right places at the right time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I suggest that we carry on that conversation over a cup of coffee another time.

We are also investing £1.4 billion in the wider policing system to continue our progress on adopting modern, cutting-edge technologies that will better enable the police to perform their most critical function of keeping the public safe. The Government are supporting the police in their ongoing fight against knife crime by maintaining funding for serious violence reduction activity in every force area. Alongside that, there is £28 million, through our county lines programme, to disrupt organised crime and protect vulnerable and exploited children. A total of £119 million will go towards our ambitious programme of police reform, in which we will establish a new national centre to support the use of artificial intelligence across policing, enable the national roll-out of live facial recognition and strengthen the way that data is used to support operational policing.

[Mark Pritchard]

The Minister is being very generous with her time, as she always is. I hope that she will also be generous in her reply. AI is already playing a part in policing, and I would hope that everybody who wants crime reduced supports that, but as far as I am concerned, that support comes with caveats. There needs to be legislative oversight to ensure that AI is regulated and not abused. When will the Government come forward with the legislation that was mentioned by the Home Secretary? Just very briefly on police reform, does she recognise that West Mercia oversees a rural and semi-rural area? In any reconfiguration, restructuring should recognise the unique challenges of rural police forces, as opposed to, let us say, those of the neighbouring force, West Midlands.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the two points that he raised in one question. On AI, he is absolutely right that we need to ensure—I hope this is now the policy of the Opposition; it was not when they were in government—that there is an understanding of what AI is and is not used for. Importantly, we are consulting on how live facial recognition is and is not used. On AI, a huge amount of work is going on in different police forces, and most areas have ethics committees and other such structures that consider and talk about the use of AI. For example, there are certain rules around the use of AI. It should never be used to make a decision or to pass a judgment; it should be just for giving information. That is very important. We saw in the recent West Midlands case how easy it is to end up making a mistake, and we want to avoid that.

On the reform point, we are baking into our structures the idea that, at the hyper-local level, everybody in the ward will have a named, contactable officer, and that there will be targets for 999 response times, 999 call-answering times, and response times for non-urgent calls. I have heard from several MPs that rural areas are concerned that where there is a larger force, they will get fewer resources. That is not the intention—indeed, it is quite the opposite. Instead of having 43 forces making 43 decisions, and 86 decision makers spending money in 43 different ways, we will make savings that will mean that we can put more money into frontline policing in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency.

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[Chris Philp]

I will happily give way quite a lot, but I have not even started, and I have given way a couple of times already.

I was going to start by echoing the Minister’s tribute to police officers up and down the country who, every day, put themselves in the line of danger. I have attended the annual police memorial service and met the families of officers who have tragically lost their lives while keeping us safe, and I think they should remain at the front of our minds during the debate.

The Minister threw around some big numbers earlier in respect of the increase in police funding that has been announced, but the 4.5% increase for frontline police forces—the increase being given to police and crime commissioners—is not enough to meet the funding and cost pressures that they face. Earlier today I spoke to Roger Hirst, the Essex police and crime commissioner, who is, as the Minister knows, the finance lead for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. He told me that, according to his assessment, this funding settlement is about £100 million short of the cost pressures that police forces will face, which means that they will have to find cuts—but it is not just Roger. The National Police Chiefs’ Council, the body that represents chief constables, said on 28 January:

“Many forces are planning service reductions, with consequences for officer numbers, staff capacity and…resilience.”

In other words, both police and crime commissioners and the NPCC say that the settlement is inadequate to maintain police resources. But it not just them either. The Labour police and crime commissioner for Avon and Somerset has just had to cancel the recruitment of 70 new officers because of “lower than expected” Government funding. The Cambridgeshire police and crime commissioner says that the settlement falls short of what is required. The chief constable of Cleveland says that his force faces a £4 million funding gap. The Essex police and crime commissioner, whom I mentioned a moment ago, says that

“the Government…settlement…is insufficient to cover rising costs”,

and Greater Manchester police say that they face a £32 million funding gap. In summary, this settlement is not enough to enable police forces up and down the country to maintain their level of service. They will shrink, and their services will be diminished.

The Minister mentioned the money being provided for the 1,750 neighbourhood policing officers, but did not say how much it was. In fact, the Government are providing £50 million for that purpose. If we divide the one number by the other, we find that it comes to £29,000 per officer. As the NPCC has pointed out, the cost of an officer is, on average, £68,000, so the Government are funding only 42% of the cost, leaving the other 58% completely unfunded. The Minister also forgot to mention that the Government are cancelling the funding for antisocial behaviour hotspot patrolling, which was introduced by the last Government and should have been continued.

As for the way in which the money is distributed, it remains the case that the funding formula is deeply unfair. Changes are long overdue, and I ask the Minister to introduce those changes to make the formula fairer. The Metropolitan police receive by far the highest amount in the country. Even if we account for the national capital city grant and counter-terrorism funding, they receive £439 per head. As for the lowest-funded forces, Dorset receives £255 a head, Essex £236, Cambridgeshire £237 and Wiltshire £235. They are inadequately funded, and the formula urgently needs to be updated. I ask the Minister—or her colleague the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), when she sums up the debate—to address that point.

The consequence of this inadequate funding settlement is just the same as the consequence of last year’s inadequate funding settlement, when my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers), my shadow ministerial colleague, stood at the Dispatch Box and warned the Minister’s predecessor that the settlement would lead to reductions in police numbers. We now know that that has come to pass. The most recent figures, published only a few weeks ago, show that in the year to September 2025—an entire year in which Labour was in government—the number of police officers fell by 1,318. Numbers are being cut under this Labour Government.

The Government say that they want to hire staff instead, to do jobs behind desks, but the number of police staff fell as well, by 529. They talk about police community support officers. Well, the number of PCSOs fell by 204. Special constables are down by 514 and police volunteers are down by 429. That is a reduction of 3,000 in the police workforce in just one year under this Labour Government. They are not funding the police properly, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

[Mark Pritchard]

It is true that a huge number of police staff are never seen—support staff, admin staff and call centre staff, for instance—and they play an important part in delivering police services to all our communities, but is it not the case that visibility in policing is needed, and only police officers who are warranted can make arrests when crime is committed? Notwithstanding all the wonderful people working in the back offices of all our police forces, we still need police officers in our communities, tackling the antisocial behaviour that my right hon. Friend mentioned and turning up at least occasionally at the parish council, where the local police officer still has a reference in the agenda. Visibility is critical to deal with the fear of crime, and a police officer with a warrant is critical in enforcing the law and making arrests.

[Chris Philp]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right. Only uniformed or warranted officers can make arrests, and that is why the fall in police numbers under this Labour Government is so shocking. They talk about neighbourhood police officers specifically, but that, of course, ignores activities such as crime investigation, 999 responses, and specialist officers who investigate, for example, sexual offences. When total numbers are falling, they focus on only one part of policing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her remarks. She will find very considerable support for the broad thrust of what she said, especially on streamlining and the new policing models. I know that she is thinking very seriously about how to get the best return on the reorganisation in order to tackle serious and organised crime, and she is alive to the regional specialisms and expertise that already exist. I thank her for that, and for her commitment to delivering better funding for our police force following the disastrous period of austerity under the Conservatives.

I want to put some challenges to the Minister, because I have some local concerns. However, after hearing the shadow Secretary of State’s remarks about police numbers, I have to say, in all candour, that the reduction of 20,000 police officers in the name of austerity was one of the most reckless and stupid things a Government could ever do. I would like him to come to the Dispatch Box and apologise for that gross dereliction of duty. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) chunters and laughs from a sedentary position.

[Mark Pritchard]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy McDonald]

I will in a minute.

Perhaps the shadow Secretary of State would like to apologise to the country for the damage that was caused. I can tell him that removing so many officers at a stroke had a devastating impact. Looking at the raw numbers—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member chunters, but he fails to comprehend.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

I pay tribute to the organisation in my hon. Friend’s constituency and to all such organisations across our constituencies, and I pay tribute to her for doing that work in her own surgery. I encourage everybody to do the same—I am sure many do. Rural communities experience domestic abuse the same as those in urban areas, but they have different needs that have to be met. That is why the Government—I invite her and all Members to join me in this—will work with Members from rural areas to consider what specifically needs to be done to make sure that, when police standards are written, that isolation is fully taken into account.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

How the police respond to domestic violence incidents at the first instance oftentimes is critical for the criminal justice process, but also for interpreting events on the ground. I know the Minister—who in my view does a very good job, by the way—likes to look at best practice from across the world. Will she look at best practice in Europe, where academics have proven that when a male and a female officer respond to such incidents, the process of prosecuting is often far easier as a result of having, where possible, a mixed-gender patrol?

[Jess Phillips]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that suggestion. I will ensure that our officials look up that particular study. I will do anything that shows an improvement in this area. It never surprises me that gender parity makes things better. That is another thing I have committed my life to.

Police Reform White Paper

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

The absolute bedrock of these reforms is local policing through the local police areas, which will be part of our proposed regional forces, with neighbourhood policing embedded within them. My hon. Friend will know that legislative changes are coming in to deal with some of the issues she raised about quad bikes specifically. The intention of all these reforms is to ensure that whether people live in a rural area or an urban city, as I do, they get an exceptional standard of service at both the neighbourhood level and the regional level, with national policing through the new National Police Service that will keep us all safe.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

We all want to see more effective and efficient policing, but I am not quite sure whether this White Paper will deliver it. Clearly, the devil will be in the detail. The Home Secretary will know that West Mercia police, covering Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, is a high-performing police force. Can she reassure my constituents that she understands the difference between, for example, West Midlands urban policing—she obviously oversees it, but she also lives in that jurisdiction—and the rural and semi-rural policing of forces such as West Mercia police? In my experience, regional counter-terrorism policing works very well in the West Midlands, which oversees that for West Mercia police as well, and so does the National Crime Agency under its excellent leadership.

Finally on the reforms, can I ask the Home Secretary to review the effectiveness and efficiency of the 101 service, and as the Official Secrets Act covers some police officers, but not all, is this not an opportunity to ensure that all police officers are covered by a duty of confidentiality and secrecy?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I respect the right hon. Gentleman’s views, but it is precisely because I understand the difference, which he raises, between areas such as those he represents and those I represent that I am bringing in this new model for policing. I believe this is the right model to ensure that it does not much matter where people are in the country—whether Shropshire or inner-city Birmingham —because they will always have excellent, high-quality neighbourhood policing, with a local force entirely committed to policing their local area day in, day out, and dealing with all the crimes that we know are tearing at the fabric of our communities; a regional force, which can do the specialist investigations at scale, so that they do not get a different standard of service depending on which part of the country they are in; and a National Police Service that I believe will bring in the NCA and counter-terrorism policing in a way that will make sure we are all kept safe. We are the only major country that does not have those two functionalities together, and I think it is the right change to make.

West Midlands Police

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank my fellow Birmingham Member of Parliament for his comments and questions. There is no broader finding of systemic failure in Sir Andy’s report. The failures that have been highlighted in the approach to evidence and the way in which the risk assessment was carried out relate to this specific event. He gave us no cause for concern about broader West Midlands police practice. However, I am sure that the police and crime commissioner and others, myself included, and all Birmingham MPs will want to assure themselves of the robustness of the procedures that the West Midlands police have in place. I am sure that we will return to these matters as this case develops further.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I commend the Home Secretary for her robust statement and the leadership she has shown this afternoon. On community relations, can she assure me and other Members that lessons will be learned from this report and that other chief officers of other forces will look upon it as a reminder that they should be acting on behalf of the whole community that they seek to serve? She said that she was not able to direct the west midlands PCC to dismiss the chief constable, but is she confident that there will be no conflict of interest and that the PCC will not feel conflicted in removing the chief constable? Of course, I am sure that the chief constable still has honour, and therefore might choose to resign.

[Shabana Mahmood]

The right hon. Gentleman is right about community relations. Many people acting in bad faith and with malign intent across our country want to set Britain’s Muslims against Britain’s Jews. It is incumbent on all of us to ensure that we do not allow those efforts to succeed. On the police and the approach to community relations, I am clear that all of us, whoever we are and wherever we are in the country, must be able to rely on the police when they tell us that the foundation of their risk assessment is robust and secure. If we cannot trust the police on that, we have lost much more than just good and effective policing.

The right hon. Gentleman will know that I do not want to comment from the Dispatch Box on what the police and crime commissioner might wish to do; that is a matter entirely for him. He will make that choice independently. I am sure that he will have to ask questions about that. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is no conflict of interest simply because I have set out a view. It is important that I set out my view in the House, having commissioned a report from the independent inspector, but the police and crime commissioner is unfettered in how he approaches things. That is a matter for him, as I have made clear to him and as I am sure all his legal advice will tell him.

Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Matters pertaining to local authorities and police forces are, of course, devolved, so a large part of the inquiry is necessarily only on devolved territory, but it will make national recommendations. I note the work happening in Scotland in relation to grooming gangs. I am sure that the chair and the panel, while respecting the boundaries of devolution, will ensure discussion where there is best practice to be shared. Of course, this criminality does not respect borders, and I am sure that will be very much taken into account.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, and associate myself with her reply to the Father of the House. No community, whether ethnic or religious, should be stigmatised as a whole. She mentioned “British Asian” in her statement. May I say that some members of my British Asian Hindu and British Asian Sikh communities are rather fed up with remarks and statements made about generic “British Asians”, both in the media and in this place? I hope that the inquiry will be more definitive and descriptive; she mentioned religion in her statement.

As the Home Secretary will know, Telford and Wrekin had its own local inquiry, led by Tom Crowther. Her predecessor, to paraphrase, said that there were still gaps to be filled, after that inquiry. Will she support me in calling for the national inquiry to come back to Telford and Wrekin, to ensure that everything that needs to be done is done? Finally, the Home Secretary mentioned a three-year timetable, taking us to March 2029. Will she give victims, the House and all our constituents a commitment that if there is an election in May 2029 and Prorogation in March 2029—she may be the Labour leader by then—the inquiry will still report?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the right hon. Member for his questions. I have heard much the same complaint from Asian men in my constituency who are not Muslim or of Pakistani heritage but are of Asian heritage—that the descriptions confuse and stigmatise a wider group of people. I think we should all agree that we should not stigmatise innocent, law-abiding citizens in our country, no matter who they are, because that is wrong in every way. We should go after the criminals who have committed these atrocious crimes.

In the end, the best way to resolve these matters is to collect accurate ethnicity data. That was the gap that Baroness Casey found in her national audit. It is a gap that has existed for many years, and I intend to put that right. As I said in my statement, the Home Secretary does not have the power to mandate the collection of good-quality ethnicity data. I will legislate to change that, and will ensure that every Home Secretary in future has that power. It is my view that we should collect ethnicity data for all offences, because the best way to deal with suggestions of a conspiracy—people thinking that some communities are allowed to get away with certain types of behaviour, or that the state does not wish to know the full facts of any case—is to have transparency, and accurate data that put all those claims and counterclaims to bed. That is how the Government will seek to proceed.

On Telford, I heard the right hon. Member’s case. I will resist the temptation to tell the chair and the panel where they should go; where they go for their local investigations is a matter for them. They will set out the criteria for making those decisions, in accordance with the draft terms of reference. However, he made his case powerfully, and I am sure that will have been heard by the chair and the panel members.

On the three-year timetable, we have closely followed Baroness Casey’s recommendation. She said that three years was the right amount of time to do a good job, get the work done and make recommendations, and nothing—not even a general election—should get in the way of that.

Huntingdon Train Attack

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

Thankfully, incidents like the one on Saturday are very rare, and our train system is generally very safe—millions of people use it every day without incident—so we have a strong base to build on. Of course, given what has happened—the horrifying nature of the attack, and the indiscriminate way in which victims were stabbed—the British Transport police’s decision to increase the police presence across the railway network is important. How extensive that increase is, and how long it goes on, is an operational decision for British Transport police, but we have a good working relationship with it, and I have been impressed with its response to this attack. We have been working closely with it over the weekend, and I pay tribute to it and all its officers. I will be led by British Transport police on the operational decisions that it is making. On the wider policy questions raised by my hon. Friend, as more of the network is nationalised, I will of course pick up those conversations with the Transport Secretary.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

More generally on knife crime and on magistrates, is there a disconnect between the fact that under the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959, someone can be given a custodial sentence of 51 weeks, and the presumption under the Sentencing Bill that a 12-month custodial sentence will not be required? What might the Home Secretary do to get around that and ensure that magistrates have more sentencing powers? Possession of a knife is not use of a knife, but sadly one so often leads to the other. There is clearly a legislative disconnect, and I hope the Home Secretary will look at that.

[Shabana Mahmood]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the average sentence for threatening with a knife is more than a year—it is around 15 months—and it would not be caught by the presumption in the Sentencing Bill. Also, the Bill creates a presumption against, not a blanket ban on, sentences of under 12 months; there is still discretion for judges in all cases. The Bill sets out the circumstances in which that presumption can be overridden, and that will always be a matter for the independent judiciary, based on the facts of the case in front of them.