Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to combat the rise in hate crimes following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The Government is clear that all forms of hate crime, including antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate crime, are completely unacceptable. We expect the police fully to investigate these abhorrent offences and make sure those who commit them feel the full force of the law.
In light of the horrific Hamas terrorist acts in Israel and related reports of increased incidents of antisemitism in the UK, the Prime Minister has announced additional funding of £3 million for the Community Security Trust to provide additional security at Jewish schools, synagogues and other sites. The Home Secretary also chairs the Jewish Community Crime, Policing and Security Taskforce. This meeting brings together Government, law enforcement and the Community Security Trust in order to address Jewish community security concerns.
The Government is also concerned about increased reports of anti-Muslim hatred. The Home Office has extended the deadline for the protective security for mosques scheme and invite mosques and Muslim faith community centres to register for protective security measures. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has allocated over £6m to Tell MAMA since their inception in 2012 for their vital work monitoring and supporting victims of anti-Muslim hatred.
We are continuing to support the police to ensure they have the resources and tools required to tackle any incidents relating to the ongoing conflict. Where people incite racial or religious hatred or where people’s conduct is threatening, abusive or disorderly and causes distress to others, we expect the police to take action to ensure perpetrators can be brought to justice.
More broadly, the Government continues to fund True Vision, an online hate crime reporting portal, designed so that victims of hate crime do not have to visit a police station to report. We also continue to fund the National Online Hate Crime Hub, a central capability designed to support individual local police forces in dealing with online hate crime. The Hub provides expert advice to police forces to support them in investigating these offences.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she has made of the number of people employed by the Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner's Office; and if she will make an assessment of how that figure compares to Commissioners' offices responsible for a similar geographical area.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
PCCs are responsible for the totality of policing within their force area. This includes delivering an effective and efficient police service to meet the priorities of the local community. As the locally elected representative for policing, it is for PCCs, working with their Chief Constable, to set their priorities for policing in their area and hold their Chief Constable to account for their performance.
Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) are funded by the Government for their functions and this is distributed based on the relative needs of the police force they oversee. As a locally elected and democratically accountable individual, it is up to them to decide how to balance their expenditure on delivery of their policing and crime priorities, including the size and composition of the Office of the PCC.
Ultimately, PCCs are directly elected by the communities they serve, and it is the public that can hold their PCC to account for their decisions and actions at the ballot box.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner’s Model for Change.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
PCCs are responsible for the totality of policing within their force area. This includes delivering an effective and efficient police service to meet the priorities of the local community. As the locally elected representative for policing, it is for PCCs, working with their Chief Constable, to set their priorities for policing in their area and hold their Chief Constable to account for their performance.
Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) are funded by the Government for their functions and this is distributed based on the relative needs of the police force they oversee. As a locally elected and democratically accountable individual, it is up to them to decide how to balance their expenditure on delivery of their policing and crime priorities, including the size and composition of the Office of the PCC.
Ultimately, PCCs are directly elected by the communities they serve, and it is the public that can hold their PCC to account for their decisions and actions at the ballot box.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of neighbourhood policing levels in Portsmouth South constituency.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Improving visibility of policing in a targeted way should be a priority for all forces. That is why the Home Secretary and I wrote to all Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners in August 2023, asking them to set out their plans to increase visibility and confidence in local policing and report on their progress in this area by March 2024.
It remains vital that neighbourhood policing is tailored around the needs of local communities. Decisions about the deployment of officers, including in neighbourhood policing roles, are for operationally independent Chief Constables, as they are best placed to use their local knowledge and experience to best serve the public interest.
Police and Crime Commissioners are responsible for setting strategic policing objectives and for holding Chief Constables to account for their running of the force to ensure the public receives the high-quality policing they are entitled to expect.
The Home Office does not hold constituency level data regarding officer numbers. However, as at 31 March 2023, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary has the highest number of officers in local policing roles (which includes neighbourhood policing roles) since comparable data began (March 2015), at 1,596 full-time equivalent (FTE) officers. This represents a 5.4% increase compared to the previous year.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to improve visibility of police in Portsmouth South constituency.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Improving visibility of policing in a targeted way should be a priority for all forces. That is why the Home Secretary and I wrote to all Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners in August 2023, asking them to set out their plans to increase visibility and confidence in local policing and report on their progress in this area by March 2024.
It remains vital that neighbourhood policing is tailored around the needs of local communities. Decisions about the deployment of officers, including in neighbourhood policing roles, are for operationally independent Chief Constables, as they are best placed to use their local knowledge and experience to best serve the public interest.
Police and Crime Commissioners are responsible for setting strategic policing objectives and for holding Chief Constables to account for their running of the force to ensure the public receives the high-quality policing they are entitled to expect.
The Home Office does not hold constituency level data regarding officer numbers. However, as at 31 March 2023, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary has the highest number of officers in local policing roles (which includes neighbourhood policing roles) since comparable data began (March 2015), at 1,596 full-time equivalent (FTE) officers. This represents a 5.4% increase compared to the previous year.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of community triggers in reducing anti-social behaviour.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
On 27 March, the Government launched the Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/anti-social-behaviour-action-plan) ensuring the police, local authorities and other relevant agencies have the powers and tools they need to tackle the blight of anti-social behaviour facing communities across England and Wales.
The plan is backed by £160m of funding. This includes up to £60m to fund an increased police and other uniformed presence to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, targeting hotspots. Initially we are working with 10 police force areas, but from 2024 we will support a hotspot approach across every police force area in England and Wales. We are also providing up to £50m to support the provision of Immediate Justice, by issuing out of court disposals with conditions to swiftly repair any damage – the aim being for them to start within 48 hours of referral. This will start in a number of trailblazer police force areas and be rolled out across England and Wales from 2024.
As part of the Action Plan, we re-launched the Community Trigger as the ‘Anti-social Behaviour Case Review’, providing greater clarity on how and when it can be used, and encouraging agencies to automatically conduct reviews once the threshold has been hit. We updated the gov.uk pages https://www.gov.uk/guidance/anti-social-behaviour-asb-case-review-also-known-as-the-community-trigger to raise awareness of this tool to give victims and communities a say in the way that complaints of ASB are dealt with.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle anti-social behaviour in Portsmouth South constituency.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
On 27 March, the Government launched the Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/anti-social-behaviour-action-plan) ensuring the police, local authorities and other relevant agencies have the powers and tools they need to tackle the blight of anti-social behaviour facing communities across England and Wales.
The plan is backed by £160m of funding. This includes up to £60m to fund an increased police and other uniformed presence to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, targeting hotspots. Initially we are working with 10 police force areas, but from 2024 we will support a hotspot approach across every police force area in England and Wales. We are also providing up to £50m to support the provision of Immediate Justice, by issuing out of court disposals with conditions to swiftly repair any damage – the aim being for them to start within 48 hours of referral. This will start in a number of trailblazer police force areas and be rolled out across England and Wales from 2024.
As part of the Action Plan, we re-launched the Community Trigger as the ‘Anti-social Behaviour Case Review’, providing greater clarity on how and when it can be used, and encouraging agencies to automatically conduct reviews once the threshold has been hit. We updated the gov.uk pages https://www.gov.uk/guidance/anti-social-behaviour-asb-case-review-also-known-as-the-community-trigger to raise awareness of this tool to give victims and communities a say in the way that complaints of ASB are dealt with.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle verbal and physical abuse against shop workers.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Retail crime, including shoplifting and violence and abuse, is not acceptable and the Government takes this issue very seriously. I expect police to take a zero-tolerance approach to it.
Police forces across England and Wales have recently committed to pursuing any available evidence where there is a reasonable chance it could lead to catching a perpetrator and solving a crime. For retail crime this could include reviewing CCTV evidence and using the Police National Database for facial searches to identify suspects where appropriate to do so.
The Home Office works closely with retailers and trade organisations, including the British Retail Consortium, Association of Convenience Stores and USDAW, and police partners via the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG) to understand the trends in crime affecting retailers and to ensure a robust response. In recent weeks, I have met senior policing leads and retail sector representatives to discuss the recent increase in shoplifting and what we can do together to tackle it.
The Government legislated to introduce a statutory aggravating factor for assault against any public facing worker via section 156 of the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. This ensures the courts treat the public-facing nature of a victim’s role as an aggravating factor when considering the sentence for an offence.
This week is Safer Business Action Week, where the National Business Crime Centre, police and partners across the country are joining together to tackle business crime in their communities, which has my full support. The week of action will involve Business Reductions Partnerships (BCRPs), Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and the private security industry working with local police forces to deliver a focused operation with joint patrols, the targeted intervention of offenders and a range of crime prevention activity including raising awareness with the public. This week also promotes the ShopKind campaign, which signals to everybody how important this issue is and reminds customers to consider their behaviour towards shop staff.
This Government has also given the police more resources to deal with crimes, including retail crime, and, thanks to our successful uplift programme through which we recruited over 20,000 additional officers, we now have a record number of officers across forces in England and Wales.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the causes of increased levels of retail crime.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Retail crime, including shoplifting and violence and abuse, is not acceptable and the Government takes this issue very seriously. I expect police to take a zero-tolerance approach to it.
Police forces across England and Wales have recently committed to pursuing any available evidence where there is a reasonable chance it could lead to catching a perpetrator and solving a crime. For retail crime this could include reviewing CCTV evidence and using the Police National Database for facial searches to identify suspects where appropriate to do so.
The Home Office works closely with retailers and trade organisations, including the British Retail Consortium, Association of Convenience Stores and USDAW, and police partners via the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG) to understand the trends in crime affecting retailers and to ensure a robust response. In recent weeks, I have met senior policing leads and retail sector representatives to discuss the recent increase in shoplifting and what we can do together to tackle it.
The Government legislated to introduce a statutory aggravating factor for assault against any public facing worker via section 156 of the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. This ensures the courts treat the public-facing nature of a victim’s role as an aggravating factor when considering the sentence for an offence.
This week is Safer Business Action Week, where the National Business Crime Centre, police and partners across the country are joining together to tackle business crime in their communities, which has my full support. The week of action will involve Business Reductions Partnerships (BCRPs), Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and the private security industry working with local police forces to deliver a focused operation with joint patrols, the targeted intervention of offenders and a range of crime prevention activity including raising awareness with the public. This week also promotes the ShopKind campaign, which signals to everybody how important this issue is and reminds customers to consider their behaviour towards shop staff.
This Government has also given the police more resources to deal with crimes, including retail crime, and, thanks to our successful uplift programme through which we recruited over 20,000 additional officers, we now have a record number of officers across forces in England and Wales.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the use of ultrasonic anti-social behaviour devices on the health and wellbeing of young people who are not engaging in anti-social behaviour.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The Government is committed to ensuring that all products placed on the market in the UK are safe and a comprehensive regulatory framework exists to ensure this is the case. Products such as ultrasonic devices, including those used to deter anti-social behaviour are regulated by the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 (GPSR), and may be covered by other product specific laws, such as the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016. GPSR require that only safe products, in their normal or reasonably foreseeable use, can be placed on the market. The laws place obligations on producers, manufacturers, importers, and distributors to ensure consumers are provided with safety information including instructions for assembly, installation, and maintenance.
Concerns and questions about the safety of any product should be directed to the manufacturer in the first instance. The manufacturer should be able to provide some reassurance or take action to address these. Consumers and members of the public may also liaise directly with the Citizens Advice consumer helpline (https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/get-more-help/if-you-need-more-help-about-a-consumer-issue/). Citizens Advice may, if appropriate, send a copy of the information to the local trading standards service on their behalf. It is the responsibility of the trading standards service which receives the details from Citizens Advice to determine whether there is evidence of an offence, and to decide what further action to take. Alternatively, Citizens Advice themselves may be able to provide advice on consumer rights.
The Department of Business and Trade can confirm that there have been no reports relating to these products on the UK product safety database, which is a system used by regulators to notify information about safety risks and actions taken.