Police Funding Settlement

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I thank my hon. Friend for his representations on behalf of Staffordshire police. He knows how important it is for his constituents that the police are well supported. This is indeed a settlement that has the capacity to increase investment into Staffordshire policing by up to £13 million. The excellent PCC Matthew Ellis has got some choices to make, but he will be supported by an increased grant from central Government. I thank my hon. Friend for his support for this settlement.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The police Minister knows that I have seen for myself the pressures facing South Wales police, particularly in Cardiff, not just from the increasing demand from everything from county lines to spice to missing persons, but from the specific demands on it as a capital city hosting major events and as a seat of Government. The Minister met me, the chief constable and the PCC, and we made a very reasonable request to him; I wonder if he has had a chance to consider it further and has anything hopeful to say to us. On the police pensions gap, I appreciate what he said about next year, but beyond that the gap is projected to be £417 million a year, £10 million of which would fall as a burden on South Wales police. Where is that money going to come from in the future?

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Gentleman made a powerful representation on behalf of Cardiff, which I am genuinely and seriously looking at. The more specific answer to that and his broader question around pension costs is rooted in the strategy for the CSR, which is active work under way in anticipation of a spending review next year. He talks about a pensions gap; there is not a pensions gap in 2019-20 as a result of this settlement, and I am determined that through the CSR, with the full support of the Home Secretary, we will get a robust settlement for the police that allows them to increase their capacity and improve their response to changing demand.

Police Employer Pension Contributions

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

My hon. Friend is right that as time changes, the pressures on the police change, and the things they are asked to do are changing.

The Home Secretary’s admission this week is hugely important. Now that he has admitted that we need more police officers, it is up to the Home Office to secure the cash from the Treasury needed to deliver that pledge.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wholeheartedly agree with what my right hon. Friend is saying. I have spent time over recent weeks behind the scenes with South Wales police, as part of the police service parliamentary scheme, and I have seen directly the pressures they are facing and heard the concerns about their pensions, pay and conditions. To be fair to the Minister, I know that he has been listening carefully to concerns about funding for Cardiff in particular.

Does my right hon. Friend share my dismay that the permanent secretary at the Home Office yesterday confirmed that the Home Office had nearly half a billion extra over the last two years to deal with no-deal preparations for Brexit, and that he was putting in a bid for hundreds of millions of pounds of new funding just to deal with Brexit, not to pay for our police?

Leaving the EU: Rights of EU Citizens

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that question. Deciding who can vote in UK elections is a Cabinet Office competence. EU citizens currently have the right to vote in local elections and that will prevail until there is a change in primary legislation. However, such matters are for future discussion and negotiation, and I cannot set them out today.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Before I ask the Minister a question, Mr Speaker, I want to bring something to your attention. There are many EU citizens in Parliament today who were keen to hear this urgent question, but they are being told that the Gallery is full and that they cannot get in to watch proceedings. The Gallery is obviously not full, so I wanted to make you aware of that to see whether we can get a message to the Doorkeepers.

[Mr Speaker]

The Gallery is manifestly not full, and it would be much better if it were full. I hope that it will speedily become full in conformity with the wishes expressed by the hon. Gentleman, which I think would be endorsed across the House.

[Stephen Doughty]

Indeed, many of those EU citizens are here today because of the complete chaos and their worry about their futures, many of them having contributed to our society for decades. They are concerned about their immigration status, their right to work and their families here. Will the Minister admit that she gave incorrect evidence to the Home Affairs Committee the other day? Will she tell us how many EU citizens have already left the UK due to uncertainty around their status?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman is clearly a huge box-office draw if there are people outside still wanting to get in. He makes an important point—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue, it is important to say, as set out by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and, indeed, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union in his appearance at the House of Lords EU Select Committee on 29 August, that we want EU citizens to stay. We have already started the process of enabling them to go through the settled status scheme, and in the region of 1,000 people have already been granted such status.

[Stephen Doughty]

How many have left?

[Caroline Nokes]

I am just coming to the second part of the hon. Gentleman’s question. We still know that more EU citizens are coming than leaving—[Interruption.] As the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), just indicated, more EU citizens are working in the NHS today than at the time of referendum.

Ending Exploitation in Supermarket Supply Chains

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. I have been talking to Nautilus International, the seafarers’ union, which has highlighted cases where people working on those ships are exploited. That is an issue in the oil sector, for example.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is detailing some horrific abuse. Unfortunately, I have seen examples of modern-day slavery in the agricultural sector in my constituency. Will she join me in praising the work of the Co-operative party, and particularly its charter on modern-day slavery? The charter raises issues of responsible procurement in food supply chains and the need to ask difficult questions about, for example, abnormally low tenders being given to ensure that modern-day slavery is not being used in those food supply chains.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I chaired a joint event last night between the APPG on human trafficking and modern slavery and the APPG on agriculture and food for development. One point made powerfully was that while we want the Government and the supermarkets to act—I will come to that in a moment—we must also look at procurement. The Government could be incredibly powerful if their procurement policies made it clear that they would not source from companies that could not give absolute assurance that there was not slavery in their supply chain.

I mentioned the Thai fishing sector. The Foreign Office should be doing more to support human rights defenders such as Andy Hall, whom I have been in contact with for many years. He has exposed some of the worst practices in food producing there, starting with the pineapple sector, and I think he is now writing about the chicken sector. He has been threatened, harassed and pursued through the courts as a result, and I do not think the Foreign Office is doing enough to support him.

The examples that I have given are clearly abhorrent and illegal, but it is also unacceptable that small-scale farmers and workers producing Indian tea and Kenyan green beans—common items in our supermarkets—are earning less than half of what is needed to ensure a basic but decent standard of living. When women working on grape farms in South Africa were surveyed, 90% reported not having enough to eat in the previous month. These are things that we take for granted; a grape is, to an extent, a luxury item, yet the women producing them cannot feed themselves or their families. If buyers were prepared to pay just three cents more per melon to a producer in Honduras and less than two cents on a banana in Guatemala, that would give those workers a living wage.

A big part of the problem is the supermarket model itself. It provides us with unparalleled choice. We can buy products from all over the world, all year round, at low prices and at our convenience. Retailers are increasingly operating in challenging circumstances, under threat from the discounters and online competition, and this is leading to over-consolidation. Tesco and Carrefour have teamed up to buy products. The planned merger between Sainsbury’s and Asda would see them control more than 30% of the UK groceries retail market. They have promised that, if the merger goes ahead, they will cut shelf prices on key items by 10%, which will cause yet more downward pressure on prices for suppliers. Supermarkets now keep an increasing amount of the money their customers spend—as much as 50% in some cases.

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[Kerry McCarthy]

One point is that there is just so little transparency. A limited range of goods is covered by Fairtrade certification. It tends to cover commodities such as coffee, cocoa, bananas and so on. We need far greater transparency. During the horsemeat scandal, there were stories about lasagne selling for £1 that had traversed about 13 or 14 EU countries, with dozens of small products going into making this probably highly unappetising meal. It is so difficult to trace that, but we do need to make a start.

[Stephen Doughty]

I am one of the vice-chairs of the all-party group on Fairtrade. Further to the points made by my colleagues, is my hon. Friend aware that in the Sainsbury’s case, it was actively attempting—in my view—to deceive consumers by labelling its tea as “Fairly Traded”, when it was not in fact certified as Fairtrade tea by the Fairtrade Foundation. In fact, Sainsbury’s was severely criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority, and I think one of its adverts was banned. I, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and others raised this with the ASA. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is totally unhelpful for supermarkets and others to be doing that and actively trying to deceive consumers?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I absolutely agree. I also think that big companies can have a Fairtrade brand that might account for 5% of its sales, but the rest of their coffee or tea does not carry that certification, so what does that say about the conditions under which that share of the market is produced?

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

New clause 1 would make our continued participation in the European arrest warrant a negotiating objective of the Brexit negotiations. There can be little doubt about the value of the EAW to this country. The Security Minister will be aware, for example, that it was vital to apprehending the man who helped to organise and co-ordinate the London bombings of 7/7. According to the National Crime Agency, between 2010 and 2016, the UK issued 1,773 requests to member states for extradition under the EAW and received 78,776 from member states. Of those the UK issued, 11 related to terror offences, 71 to human trafficking, 206 to child sex offences and 255 to drug trafficking.

According to the Government’s own White Paper, more than 12,000 individuals have been arrested, and for every person arrested on an EAW issued by the UK, the UK arrests eight on EAWs issued by other states. Without the EAW, extraditions can cost four times as much and take three times as long. The Security Minister will of course be aware that in counter-terror investigations speed really is of the essence, and it is therefore vital that we set the objective of continuing to play a key role on the European security scene.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I completely agree with what my hon. Friend has said, and I support the new clause. Does he share my concern that the current Brexit Secretary has a track record of voting against home affairs and justice co-operation before taking up his current post, and does he believe that that is reconcilable with the Government’s stated objective of close security co-operation? This is no-brainer stuff. We should be co-operating to deal with terrorist suspects and serious organised crime.

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[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am not aware of an area of law where there is currently a shortage of lawyers, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be able to tell me of one—I say that based on many years’ experience of practising as a lawyer. As for the second question, I have no issue with vetting people before they can join a panel. Indeed, it is the case now that people are considered for their expertise in professional matters before they join a legal panel. I am just making a perfectly practical suggestion that would deal with the Minister’s worries while preserving that highly important principle of legal professional privilege which, as I said in my opening remarks, the Supreme Court has said in recent weeks is vital to the rule of law in this country. We should not abrogate that as we seek to tackle the real terror threat before us. I hope that the Minister will at least undertake to go away and consider whether that could realistically be looked at in the other place. It is an important principle, and I do not want to divide the House on it, but whether there is to be a concession is a matter for the Minister.

[Stephen Doughty]

I do not want to detain the House for long, but having served as a member of the Bill Committee I wanted to put on the record some of my concerns about the new clauses and amendments in this group.

I wholeheartedly support new clause 1, tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds). I cannot see any reason why the Government would want to reject it given that the Chequers agreement and the White Paper—I have read both carefully—point out the 40 different areas of justice and policing co-operation that are so essential to our security and our counter-terror efforts across European borders. The White Paper suggests that some of that co-operation could even be strengthened and deepened, so I cannot see any reason why setting out in the Bill the importance of seeking participation in the European arrest warrant, one of the most crucial of those 40 instruments, would be a problem.

Given the transnational nature of some of the terror plots and serious organised crime that we have seen not only in my constituency, but in some tragic events over the past year at a UK level, I cannot see why we would want to diminish our security co-operation through, for example, Europol and Eurojust. As we approach the Brexit deadline that was set when the Government triggered article 50, we are potentially leaving a great deal of uncertainty around such issues. We do not want criminal or counter-terror investigations that are ongoing at the end of March next year to be jeopardised by the failure to secure participation in the European arrest warrant going forward.

As for my hon. Friend’s amendment 26, the Minister is aware of my concerns because we have discussed them both in person and in Committee. I fully support appropriate strengthening mechanisms to ensure that individuals can be detained at border points and that the police and security services have the appropriate powers to interdict those who might be trying to commit terror acts, serious organised crime or, indeed, espionage or other serious matters. However, it is important that that is balanced against ensuring that such powers are used carefully and effectively. Where problems exist, there should be appropriate appeal and oversight mechanisms to ensure that citizens feel that such matters are being used appropriately and securely and that individuals who are wrongly interdicted have appropriate restitution, which is important for confidence in the system as a whole.

My last point is an important one for the Bill as a whole. This part of the Bill includes many new powers and schedules, and there is cross-party agreement that our security services and the police need them to keep this country and other countries safe and to prevent us from experiencing terror attacks or the consequences of serious organised crime, but they can be applied only with appropriate resourcing.

We have seen what the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has had to say today about the 2% pay rise for police being a “punch on the nose.” We have seen the National Audit Office’s reports on the concerns about cuts in policing, and we in the Home Affairs Committee have been conducting an inquiry into police funding. The frontline policing community policing and specialist counter-terrorism policing that will be required to apply the provisions of the Bill, on which there is cross-party agreement, cannot happen out of thin air or by magic; it only happens if it is properly resourced.

I urge the Minister to make a strong case in the Home Office in the coming months that the police need more resources. We cannot continue cutting in this area, otherwise we put our national security at risk.

[Robert Neill]

I promise to keep my remarks short. Two important matters have been raised, and I take on board the force of the shadow Minister’s arguments in favour of the value of the European arrest warrant. My right hon. Friend the Security Minister will know that, in the last Parliament, the Justice Committee produced a report on the legal implications of Brexit, which included a strong case for retaining access to the European arrest warrant and its arrangements.

It is important that we stress the value of the European arrest warrant to our crime-fighting arrangements. It is particularly significant, of course, that the National Crime Agency, giving evidence to our Select Committee at the time of the report, stressed the value of the European arrest warrant. All the legal practitioners stressed its importance, and the Minister recognises that the European arrest warrant arrangements are infinitely superior to those that were available under the Extradition Act 1989.

It has sometimes erroneously been said by one or two Members of this House that the European arrest warrant can be used disproportionately, and my right hon. Friend the Minister will know that, since the reforms to the operation of the European arrest warrant back in 2013, that disproportionality has been removed and the UK is actually an overwhelming beneficiary of the proper use of the European arrest warrant.

The Prime Minister made it clear at the beginning of this negotiation process that it is her objective to achieve this, and I am sure my right hon. Friend the Minister will be able to say that whatever the mechanism, whether in the Bill or not, the Government are committed to maintaining access to the EAW and to the rest of the supporting mechanism of criminal justice arrangements, such as data sharing, information sharing and intelligence sharing, the European criminal records information system and other schemes. All those will necessarily be a crucial part of the Government’s negotiating strategy. Whether or not it is mentioned in the Bill is not the point—the Government are reaffirming their commitment.

Legal professional privilege is an important issue to be considered. Unless I am wrong, there are sometimes arrangements for counsel, such as in relation to some of the specialist tribunals dealing with these matters, to be specially cleared and vetted. Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister will take that away and consider whether further application of that scheme might offer a sensible and proportionate way forward.

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[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the tone of his comments. I am happy to give him as much assurance as he would like. I am very conscious as to the issue around the Irish border and its sensitivities. I will certainly seek to give him that reassurance in writing. If there is any further assurance that we can seek to give in relation to the PSNI, I will definitely do that.

SNP Members have made a similar point about their concern about the border. With all due respect to them, they make a strong point—and also with regard to the European arrest warrant—about the value of seamless sharing and the value of the Union, but there is an issue whereby they seek on a daily basis to erect barriers between our Union. It is no good their saying that they like the seamless tool of the European arrest warrant while at the same time seeking to split our great nation and erect barriers between a political and economic union. They should just remind themselves that they cannot have it both ways.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) made a clear point on the European arrest warrant. It is very clear that the Government’s offer on security to the European Commission is unconditional. We wish to have the European arrest warrant or something as identical as possible. Some Opposition Members made a point about the current Brexit Secretary’s position. I assure them that if that was not our negotiating position, I would not be standing here as the Security Minister. The key to good security is partnership, and not just on the European arrest warrant. One fault of the new clause is, why not say the Schengen information system II? Why not say Prüm? Why not say all the other sharing mechanisms that are really important to our security?

I do not believe that placing this in primary legislation makes sense, first because this is a counter-terrorism and hostile state Bill, and secondly because it is what we are asking for. If it was not what we were asking for, I might understand the pressing need for the new clause, to try to change the Government’s position, but it is what we are asking for. The message I urge all Members to give to the European Commission is, “How far do you want to cut off your nose to spite your face?” It is not a position of the members of the European Union. When I meet their intelligence services, police forces and Ministers, they all agree that they want to give us a security agreement.

It is not because we have better capabilities, which we do. It is because the sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts when it comes to security partnership, and this will benefit us both. It does not matter who has equity of capability. It benefits us both when we work together in a security partnership.

[Stephen Doughty]

If what the Government seek to achieve is no different from new clause 1, the Minister should just vote for it. I ask him in all seriousness, what message does he have for the 80 Members on his own Back Benches who threaten to vote down the Chequers deal because of their concerns about European Court of Justice oversight of those security arrangements? I see the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees- Mogg) in his place. What does the Minister have to say to those Members, who would wreck the security co-operation we have with Europe?

[Mr Wallace]

I would say to them and to anyone else that the first duty of a Government is security, and it is absolutely important that we maintain that. The message to Michel Barnier is that security is not a competition; it is a partnership. I hope he will reflect that in his negotiations with this country, but I do not believe that putting it on the face of primary legislation is the best way to go about it, especially as it is our Government’s ask to the European Union on that issue. I therefore urge the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) to withdraw his new clause.

Organised Crime: Young People’s Safety

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Vernon Coaker]

I agree. I am a Labour politician, and the cuts in policing and to local authorities have consequences, which we all refer to. The Minister has to accept responsibility for that, but however many police we have, however many things are going on and however many resources are put into local authorities, there has to be a Government drive to push them into tackling this issue as a major priority.

What caused me to attend the debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham was a National Crime Agency report published a few months ago. It talks about an intelligence gap—we do not know what we need to know. I asked a parliamentary question, and the Minister’s colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, said that the Government did not know. They thought there were many thousands of people involved, and there was an intelligence gap. That was just a few weeks ago. That report said nine or 10 months ago that there was an intelligence gap, and the parliamentary answer two or three weeks ago said that there was an intelligence gap. That is not good enough, and the system will not change unless the Minister gets civil servants and other people in, and demands that something be done. Otherwise, in the Minister’s constituency, my constituency and, indeed, all our constituencies, in Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England and in all the regions, these incidents will continue and we will have to come to this Chamber again in a few months saying how appalling it is that young people have died on our streets as a result of their involvement in organised crime and their involvement in county lines. We do not even have the data, yet we see on our streets what is happening.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is speaking with great passion. He strongly made the point that this is a phenomenon that is affecting the whole country. I completely agree with him. A young man was dragged out of his car, stabbed to death and left to die in a garden only a hundred metres away from my home in Cardiff, just a few weeks ago. That comes on top of many other attacks. This problem is happening across the country and we simply do not—as he says—have the intelligence needed.

[Vernon Coaker]

I quite agree. To be frank, that is what has driven me to come here. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham described eloquently many of the challenges and the impact that has had on her constituency. I want to feel, as a Member of Parliament—in this democracy of ours—that the system somehow feels the emotion that she portrayed. I hope that the Minister, as a human being, will also feel it.

Why does the system not respond? People have different ideas. The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) has particular views on drugs policy. That requires discussion. What is the most effective way of gathering intelligence? Why is it—as my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham says—that in all our constituencies young people cannot even get a basketball, a football, a kit or somewhere to go and play? We cannot even do that. We talk about diversion, we write a report and the next thing we know there is a 200-page document on the importance of children’s services and local authority provision to ensure that young people are not attracted to crime, because there are people working with them on the street. Goodness me! We don’t need a—I nearly swore there, Mr Evans. I will leave it at that. We do not need a report, do we? We must be able to do better on data and all of these things.

The Minister has a good briefing from the civil service. He has a speech prepared, and he will try to answer the questions as best he can. However, I want to know when we are going to be able to see, in each of our areas, that concerted and co-ordinated effort, in youth provision, diversion and dealing with these organised criminals. That is the main point I wanted to make.

Let me say this to the Minister, too. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 contains a provision that means that if children become involved in criminality as a result of coercion—through being duped, violence, threats or those sorts of things—they are seen as victims, not criminals. Many of these young people are victims—they are not criminals. I am not saying that we cannot hold people to account. I am not saying that saying sorry for murder is fine—do not misunderstand me. I am saying that many of these young people, who are very young, are exploited, frightened and terrified into doing some of the things that they do. It is about time that the people who are terrified are the organised criminals who are exploiting these young people. People are trying to help and work with the police, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham said, and I am sick and tired of criminals taking it upon themselves to terrify a community. It is not good enough.

I appeal to the Minister, when he goes back to his office, to call everybody in and say, “We have had one of the most serious debates that I have attended in recent years”—organised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham—“and as a personal mission, I will ensure that instead of writing a report, the system gets on with doing something about this national crisis.”

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who set out a fantastic action plan and spoke with great passion about the challenges faced by her constituents. The horror stories we hear, particularly from London, shame the whole country, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) just pointed out, represent a national crisis.

This is indeed a national crisis, happening in cities and towns up and down this country. This is a new phenomenon: we have not previously seen this level of violence and involvement of young people. That is borne out in the Government’s serious violence strategy, in the NCA report, in what we have heard from the Home Affairs Committee and in what I hear weekly from my own police officers and community workers. There has been a dramatic and very unfortunate shift in the levels of violence, grooming and involvement of young people over the last six years, while I have been the Member of Parliament for Cardiff South and Penarth. Sadly, many of us warned that that would happen because of the trends that we saw and because of the cuts that we knew were coming in the police and community services. I will come on to the point raised about youth services.

I too have a litany of horrendous cases just from the last few months. I will not say that each of them has the same characteristics. They are often complex cases, some of them ongoing. I mentioned earlier the case from just a few weeks ago in Grangetown, Cardiff, where an individual was dragged out of his car and stabbed in the street, and left in a garden to die. Just a few months ago, another constituent of mine, Fatah Warsame, was stabbed to death in Liverpool, having been involved in some sort of engagement between Liverpool and Cardiff, showing that this is an issue that crosses between cities—not only London, but other cities in the UK. Tragically, just a few months before that, in Adamsdown and Splott, Sean Kelly was stabbed to death, also in a drug-related incident involving other individuals. Those are three of the most serious cases, but there are many more to report.

Those cases sit with the national trends. The number of police-recorded crimes involving knives or sharp instruments increased by 22% in the year ending December 2017 compared with the previous year, continuing an upward trend since 2014. A lot of that increase is in the Met police area, but other areas are affected. Possession of an article with a blade or a point is up by 33%. Hospital data confirms that, with admissions related to stabbing and other incidents up by 7%. Trends involving firearms are also up. Those statistics are confirmed and acknowledged by the Government’s strategy.

This is not all to do with county lines, but that is a significant part of it. We need to be clear about what we mean by county lines. I had community workers come to me the other day and say, “What do you actually mean by county lines?” so I will read for the record the definition the Government use:

“County lines is a term used to describe gangs and organised criminal networks involved in exporting illegal drugs into one or more importing areas…using dedicated mobile phone lines or other form of ‘deal line’. They are likely to exploit children and vulnerable adults to move (and store) the drugs and money and they will often use coercion, intimidation, violence (including sexual violence) and weapons.”

That phenomenon of grooming young people and the involvement of young people unfortunately has many of the characteristics—I have seen this in my own constituency—that we see in the grooming of young people to be involved in terrorism, extremism and other forms of criminal behaviour. It is often the same tactics, the same methods, and the same insidious exploitation of often young and vulnerable people.

I have been told about a phenomenon that goes on in my local area called “blessings”, where people are given small items—a pair of trainers or a bit of money—but not asked to do anything initially; later, people who are higher up in the system come back to them and say, “I gave you a pair of trainers. How about you keep an eye on that corner for me?” or, “How about you transfer this package to someone?” It is a slippery slope. People get involved in more and more dangerous activity.

The Government’s own strategy suggests that the drugs and county lines phenomenon is very much behind the rise in violent crime. They say:

“There is good evidence that these dynamics are a factor in the recent rise in serious violence.”

The Government’s report—again, this bears out what I have seen on the streets of Cardiff—talks about dealing in new psychoactive substances, such as spice, the increased involvement of young people, the rise in crack use since 2014, the surge in illegal cocaine production and the increase in the purity of cocaine imported to the UK from places such as Colombia since 2013. The changing nature of drug markets has led to what we see in the geography—the nationalisation—of the problem.

The Government’s report states that one of the most striking findings about the rise in serious violence since 2014 is that it has not been limited to the main metropolitan areas. We are seeing drug-selling gangs from major urban areas such as London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, perhaps driven by excess supply, by technology or by new opportunities, spreading their evil networks out to other cities and towns across the UK. The NCA report is clear that the majority of police forces are identifying that the involvement of vulnerable children and people is one of the key hallmarks of county lines activity. The trend has arisen in just the past few years. The problem is very new and politicians, the Government and agencies are struggling to catch up with the shifting trends and changes. As the evidence shows, a crucial feature, again acknowledged by the Government, is that drug-selling gangs are now generally much more violent than the local dealers who had previously controlled the markets.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham spoke passionately about the importance of multi-agency working. There are no easy answers. We often have to have localised and carefully calibrated responses to deal with local circumstances, but I want to put on the record my praise for the group of agencies in Cardiff and the Vale, particularly in Cardiff in Butetown and Grangetown. I praise our police commissioner, our local police officers and our local council. I particularly praise Councillor Lynda Thorne, a cabinet member on Cardiff Council, and Councillor Saeed Ebrahim, one of our local councillors in Butetown. He is a former youth worker who worked with many of the young people involved. Those councillors are really trying to get to grips with the problem and bring together all the relevant agencies. I look forward to meeting them again in the next couple of weeks to discuss the progress they have made on the various strategies in different areas that they are putting forward.

I am proud that the performance of South Wales police in dealing with violence with injury and other issues is strong, but like many other police forces, it is struggling to cope. I have spoken to individual police officers and senior officers who tell me about the strains that they face in crime demand and non-crime demand. We all know about the pressures from mental health and missing persons. The Government can argue about this all they like, but the reality is that the number of police officers on our streets has come down substantially in the past few years, as has the number of community police officers, PCSOs and others. In individual areas, we have been able to keep the numbers up. We have PCSOs funded by the Welsh Government who are doing a fantastic job in our communities, but unless we have police officers on the ground who have relationships with young people, with other agencies and with the families, and who have that crucial local intelligence that my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling talked about, we will not be able to deal with the problem, which has been magnified by particular challenges in Cardiff.

We in Cardiff do not get the capital city funding that Edinburgh, Belfast and London get, yet we host major events We put huge strains on our police force when we host events such as the UEFA Champions League and the Anthony Joshua fight. Those wonderful things come to our city. We all love them. They are all great, but they have a knock-on effect on day-to-day policing. Although additional money is sometimes provided, we see a knock-on effect on our shift patterns and holiday time and so on, which has a direct result in the communities facing problems. I look forward to meeting the Police Minister shortly with our chief constable, Matt Jukes, and our police commissioner, Alun Michael, to discuss Cardiff’s specific needs.

Alongside the challenge for police funding is the challenge of other services facing cuts. We have done a great job of trying to protect services in Cardiff. We have a Welsh Labour council doing a fantastic job, but we need statutory youth services. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) has spoken out about this. We must have that resource going into community youth workers. My father was a youth worker and I have worked with young people. Unless we have youth workers outside schools, having relationships and knowing what is going on in the crucial communities, we know what will happen. We warned of this years ago, and unfortunately we are now seeing it on the streets of Butetown, Grangetown, Splott and other areas of Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan.

Lastly, I will re-emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham said about social media companies. I have spoken a lot about such companies and their responsibilities this week in cases ranging from the Lucy McHugh case to terrorism and the abuse of public figures. The social media companies are simply not taking their responsibilities seriously when it comes to the dissemination and sharing of information online that leads to intimidation and grooming of young people. Young people have told me about the challenges of closed Instagram groups where music videos and threats to individuals are shared, and closed YouTube videos are shared, making threats back and forth. Language is used that perhaps we would not understand, but it is very clear to people of a certain age and disposition, and they see it as threatening or encouraging or dragging them in.

As a Government, as a Parliament, as local representatives, we must get a grip. Social media companies have a huge responsibility, and we need to provide the police with the training and resources to be able to treat the cyber world in the same way as the physical world, because there is a direct overlap. We heard yesterday in the Home Affairs Committee about a direct overlap between domestic violence, violence against women and girls and the cyber world and the physical world. Exactly the same thing goes on when it comes to young people, county lines and drug-related violence. We have to get a grip on this. I want to hear from the Minister what he is doing to bring in those social media companies and make sure they live up to their responsibilities. Again, I praise my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham for securing a debate on a national crisis. There should be more Members in the Chamber. I hope this will not be the last debate on this subject.

[Mr Nigel Evans (in the Chair)]

This is a powerful, strong debate, but if everybody keeps to about five minutes, everybody will get in with equal time.

Windrush

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The Home Secretary has been absolutely clear: nobody applying to the Windrush compensation scheme will be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is worth noting that the 164 figure for those wrongfully removed or detained is still provisional and may change. Does the Minister expect the figure to go up? More importantly, the scandal goes well beyond the Windrush generation; this is about the impact of the hostile environment and of the lack of a right to appeal. Can she tell us how many non-Windrush cases have been wrongfully removed or detained in the last year?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman makes a specific point about whether we expect those numbers to change. It is really important that we have an independent assurance exercise once the review has completed. We are determined to find out the exact number and to do our absolute best to make sure that any people identified are encouraged to go through the Windrush taskforce and, if eligible for compensation, to apply for the scheme when it is open. The hon. Gentleman asked a specific question about the number of people who may have been wrongfully removed in the last year. I cannot provide him with that information right at this moment, but I am very happy to provide him with the latest statistics that we have.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I assure my right hon. Friend that we are looking at all our options on a spectrum. We have a set of regulations on the use of airguns, but we are considering how we can strengthen them in a proportionate way that gives greater protection particularly to children and, to answer my right hon. Friend’s point, animals, which are often the victims of those guns.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

14. What steps he is taking to tackle the fraudulent use and sale of British passports.

[The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)]

The Home Office shares reports of the loss or theft of UK passports via Interpol to prevent the illegal crossing of borders. We also work closely with partners here and overseas to share information and intelligence on that threat and the websites that purport to sell false and genuine documents for criminal purposes.

[Stephen Doughty]

There have been some very worrying reports in the past month that British passports have been stolen and sold for large sums of money in countries around Europe. How many passports have been stolen and subsequently suspended in the past year? Does the Minister agree that it is crucial to co-operate through Europol as well as Interpol to ensure that those stolen identity documents are not used?

[Mr Wallace]

In 2017, less than 1% of passports were reported stolen, but to tackle the threat and the abuse of stolen passports overseas, we have based immigration enforcement officials at international locations—embassies, high commissions and key transit points—to work not only with law enforcement to try to catch the people committing the fraud, but with airlines and border points so that they can spot what a false passport looks like.

Immigration: Pausing the Hostile Environment

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is not the only pause that the Immigration Minister has tried to sneak out in the past month. She admitted to me in a written answer on 4 June that she had paused deportation flights to the Caribbean. She said in her answer that this was because of the need for “added levels of assurance”. Some 991 flights were booked in the past year to deport individuals to the Caribbean. Why did she pause the flights? Will they remain paused? And how many of those 991 individuals does she now believe were deported wrongly?

[Caroline Nokes]

It is absolutely right that, at a time when we were looking very closely at whether anybody of the Windrush cohort had been negatively impacted, we paused flights to the Caribbean. It is important, going forward, that we look at those flights with utmost rigour, and we are determined to do so.

Visit of President Trump: Policing

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

That is certainly not my wish. The comments I have seen from the National Police Chiefs Council make it quite clear that it considers the situation to be unacceptable, and Essex police are working on a better solution.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Just to be clear, I love America and Americans. Indeed, my grandfather was a GI in the second world war. This President is racist, divisive and sexist, and if we were not rolling out the red carpet for him in so many locations, we would not have these costs and pressures on the police. I have a very serious question about far right activity. The President has shared content from a vile fascist organisation whose leaders have now been jailed. What assessment has the Minister made of the potential for far right groups to use the visit as a rallying opportunity?

[Mr Hurd]

The police have made an assessment of all the protests. As I have said, they estimate that there will be more than 100 protests across the country. Their biggest concern, with regard to what they call “spiky activity,” is about two protests in London on Saturday by groups that have different views on the subject. They are managing the risks in the professional way that we would all expect, including by imposing some conditions on the route of the marches in order to keep the protesters separate and reduce the risk of confrontation.