Victoria Atkins
MP for Louth and Horncastle · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Oh dear. This may be the last time the Secretary of State gets to give such an inadequate answer to what is a reasonable question about her grip on her Department. But let us look at Labour’s wider chaos.”
“In recent weeks, DEFRA’s quangos have made headlines: the Environment Agency is failing to prosecute waste criminals, instead going after virtuous volunteers who are cleaning up the rivers for it; Natural England is demanding more madcap fish schemes at Hinkley Point C, on top of its recommended £700 million fish disco policy, all of whic…”
“There are many questions still left unanswered in this report, and I hope that the Secretary of State will try to answer them rather than deflect, because that has been noticed. The plan looks to double the funding for Environment Agency inspections. Why are this Government focusing on bureaucracy rather than helping farmers survive?”
“In another leap from reality, the Government’s negotiations with the EU get barely a mention in this document, despite the enormous consequences they will have for farming businesses. CropLife UK has estimated that this EU reset could drain £810 million from UK farms and sacrifice almost 9,000 jobs from our rural constituencies.”
“We Conservatives view DEFRA as a vital economic Department, so we agree with its efforts to recalculate farming and food producers’ contributions to the economy. By the way, I note that Reform calls itself the farmer’s friend, yet there is not a single Reform MP in the Chamber.”
“As Labour MPs and Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs voted repeatedly for the family farm and family business taxes, DEFRA Ministers shut down farming payments without notice, including the SFI. Sadly, the record of this Government is rising food prices and a record number of farms closing.”
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“The requirement to consult is an important safeguard to ensure that the youth offending team has a chance to influence the process, and we expect the YOT’s view to be before the court when it is considering the application. We will state in guidance that we expect the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to share with the court the outcome of the consultation with the youth offending team, and we will reinforce the message during the pilots that the applicant police force should share the outcome of the YOT consultation with the court. Amendment (c) to Lords amendment 12 would also set down a requirement in relation to a pre-injunction report.”
“Gentleman more details regarding the operational aspects of the pilots at this precise moment in time, but I want to deal with the amendments tabled by the shadow Minister. Amendments (b) and (c) to Lords amendment 7, and amendment (a) to Lords amendment 14, would make it a requirement for the police to obtain—and, by implication, for the youth offending team to produce—a pre-injunction report, including an assessment of the defendant, before making an application on conviction, or otherwise than on conviction if the defendant is under the age of 18, and to provide that report to the court as part of their application. It follows from this proposed amendment that the outcome of the consultation should be available to the court.”
“Yes. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the pilots. Some of the concerns raised today were also raised in the other place, so their lordships saw fit to insert an amendment regarding piloting. I hope that it gives some comfort to the House that we will pilot the provisions in one or more specified areas in England and Wales. We have not yet determined which forces will have the privilege of starting these pilots. The second condition of piloting is that the Secretary of State will lay before Parliament “a report on the operation of some or all of the provisions” relating to KCPOs, so the House will be fully updated on the progress. I am sorry that I cannot give the hon.”
“On the proposal that a full report should be laid out, I am afraid that, in the usual way, such regulations are not subject to any parliamentary procedure, and the Government see no reason to adopt a different approach in this case. There are of course other provisions that I have not even begun to address, although I may well have a chance do so at the end. However, I hope that my focusing on the three main issues arising during the passage of the Bill meets with colleagues’ approval. I very much look forward to hearing their contributions in the rest of the debate.”
“I think the hon. Lady is talking about the amendment tabled by the shadow Minister. We do not agree with that amendment. We believe that piloting and then the Secretary of State laying a report before the House is a perfectly proportionate way of assessing the pilots’ success. Let us not forget that we are talking about youth courts and magistrates courts using civil orders, with all the safeguards that are in the regime. This regime mirrors similar regimes used in, for example, gang injunctions. We should have trust in our youth courts and others that they will be able to meet the expectations of the House in terms of ensuring the wellbeing and the welfare of the young people they are looking after. The aim of these orders is to protect young people and also the wider community.”
“To correct the record, these orders have been discussed in the serious violence taskforce, which is attended by the Children’s Commissioner and many of the others that the hon. Lady mentioned. This is action that the police required of us. We turned it around as quickly as we could to get it into the Bill, in order to protect children. We are doing it on the advice of the police.”
“The point of the orders is that there is information suggesting that these children have been carrying a knife on two or more occasions. The criminality, if we are talking in those terms, would be in the fact of the possession, and a magistrates court or a youth court would consider that very carefully. A child who is carrying a knife may well get into terrible trouble with the police because he or she has used it against someone, and we are trying to get to children before that happens.”
“Given the broad array of experts and interested parties, we have been working across government in recent days to ensure the right arrangements are in place. I am pleased to confirm that the summit will take place in the week commencing 1 April, and that we will provide further details shortly, in the normal way. This underlines this Government’s absolute commitment to tackling knife crime and serious violence with our partners across the country, because we all want this violence to stop.”
“We have already announced a multi-agency public health approach and will be consulting very soon on a new statutory duty of care to ensure that all agencies play their part. We are investing more than £220 million in early intervention projects to stop the most vulnerable being sucked into a life of violence. We are also addressing the drivers of crime, including the drugs trade, with the launch of our independent drugs review. But we continue to look for new ways to tackle this epidemic. The Prime Minister announced that she would be hosting a serious youth violence summit. The event will champion the whole community public health model, which is crucial if we are to address the root causes of youth violence, as well as disrupt it in our neighbourhoods and local communities.”
“We are listening to what the police need, which is why we are introducing knife crime prevention orders on their request, in the Offensive Weapons Bill; we have increased police funding by up to £970 million next year, including council tax; and in the spring statement we announced there will be £100 million of additional funding in 2019-20 to tackle serious violence. This will strengthen police efforts to crack down on knife crime in the areas of the country where it is most rife. The funding will also be invested in violence reduction units, bringing together agencies to develop a multi-agency approach. It is important, however, that we recognise that greater law enforcement alone will not reduce serious violence.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. The urgent question is the gift that keeps giving. Before I start my reply, may I, on behalf of the Home Office, reflect on the very sad anniversary that we mark today of the events that occurred in this place two years ago and the terrible loss of PC Keith Palmer? Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones, and with the wider policing family. We all want our children and young people to be safe on our streets. As the Home Secretary has said, there is no one single solution; we must unite and fight on all fronts to end this senseless violence.”
“It is interesting—is it not?—that this urgent question is essentially about process. If we focus on what the hon. Lady has just said, we can see that she applied for this urgent question because she wanted to know the date of the knife crime summit hosted by the Prime Minister. As I say, I can confirm that the summit is going to be held in the first week of April. I wish the hon. Lady had just asked me quietly in the corridors of this place. I am always happy to speak to any colleague about tackling serious violence. We did not need to have an urgent question about setting a date for a meeting.”
“We announced in the spring statement last week a further £100 million. That came about because chief constables told the Home Secretary they needed help with surge policing. They need it. We have delivered it. I remind the House that we are about to welcome back the Offensive Weapons Bill next week from the House of Lords. I urge—I implore—the shadow Minister to support the knife crime prevention orders that the Metropolitan police have asked us for to help that small cohort of young people who can be helped through those orders. I hope that the Labour party will stand by its words at the Dispatch Box and help us to pass those orders into law so that we can help exactly the young people I think we all want to help.”
“Only last week, I met the Premier League, which is working with us to get the message out through its vast network of contacts, including through its Kicks programme. We are working with the Department for Education to publish best practice guidance for alternative providers, because we are well aware of the problems that seem to be arising with alternative provision. We are about to consult on a new legal duty to require a multi-agency public health approach to tackling serious violence. We have launched an independent review into drugs misuse because we know that the drugs market is the major driver of serious violence. We are launching the youth endowment fund: £200 million over 10 years for intervention on young people at various stages of their lives to move them away from gangs or prevent them from being ensnared by them.”
“I do not have the figures for the latest iteration, because it ends at the weekend, but the previous week of Operation Sceptre resulted in more than 9,000 knives being taken off our streets. We are funding Redthread to offer services in accident and emergency departments in hospitals with a particular problem with knife crime. We are funding projects across the country through the £22 million early intervention youth fund and smaller projects across communities through the anti-knife crime community fund. We have a long-running social media campaign—#KnifeFree—targeting young people most vulnerable to being ensnared by criminal gangs or to being tempted to leave their homes with knives and walk up the street with them.”
“The hon. Lady is saying that I do not like speaking to the House. Come on, let us not be silly about this. This is such an important topic and it requires collaborative work. Frankly, urgent questions and press releases may be very helpful to the hon. Lady’s profile, but that is not what the hard work of tackling serious violence is about. The hon. Lady wants to know what the Government have been doing. Last autumn, we set up the national county lines co-ordination centre, which has seen more than 1,000 arrests and more than 1,300 people safeguarded. Last week, there was the latest iteration of Operation Sceptre, as part of which every police force in the country adopts knife crime investigation methods appropriate to their areas to tackle knife crime.”
“We do not want young people leaving their homes with a knife because it is more likely to be used against them than against others.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for raising mandatory minimum sentences. I note that they are not universally accepted. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition voted against them—I think—when they were first introduced. The point of mandatory minimum sentences is to send out a clear public message that people will go to prison if they are twice caught carrying a knife. We have also ensured—this is important—that the judiciary, which of course is independent and must be able to sentence on a case-by-case basis, has flexibility if the facts of a particular case require it. I note, however, that since mandatory minimum sentences were introduced, the number of people going to prison on the second occasion of carrying a knife has increased, despite the statistic he just cited. The message must be consistent.”
“I will not comment on attendees at this stage. I have said that this is the ultimate in process questions, and we are in the process of arranging that summit. We work on a collaborative basis across the House. I am delighted that Members from the opposition parties join us at meetings of the serious violence taskforce. I am delighted, too, that we work collaboratively. I was delighted to visit the hon. Lady’s constituency only last week to observe the police conducting a weapons sweep. This is about collaboration. I know that my announcing a date for the meeting is of interest to Members of the House—I will happily share that information—but my point is that the work of Government continues over and above the date of the knife crime summit. A tranche of work is going on.”
“It will—very much so. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I think that everyone agrees that there is no single solution to this matter; it is about short, medium and long-term work. That is why it is so important that we are funding the youth endowment fund that we have announced and that we are giving long-term commitments to those projects that work with young people, intervening and making sure that they are steered away from both carrying knives and greater paths of criminality. With regard to interventions, we are very much looking at education, health, local government and the charitable sectors because we know that, by working together, we will stop this violent crime on our streets.”
“I am so grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. Her experience in the magistrates court will help, I hope, to give her comfort as to how these orders are drafted. These are civil orders, deliberately so, because we do not want to criminalise these young people. Young people are being intervened on when there is intelligence or information from anyone—it could be anyone in the community—who is worried that they are involved in these gangs. This is about putting in place a structure around these children to help steer them away from criminality. Youth offending teams will, of course, be absolutely critical to that, and we will be working through it when it comes to the statutory guidance on how these orders should be used.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Stop and search is a vital tool in the police’s armoury in keeping people safe on our streets. We want to give confidence to our officers that they have this power and that they can use it in accordance with the law. Interestingly, the rate of arrests arising out of stop and searches has increased in recent years with this intelligence-focused approach, but it remains a vital tool and the police have our absolute confidence should they choose to use it within the law.”
“I will happily look at that suggestion. Only last week, the Minister for Policing and I held a roundtable with police and crime commissioners from across the country. It was a really useful for cross-party PCCs to share their thoughts and ideas about what is working in their local areas, so I will certainly follow up with them to see whether they are doing something similar.”
“This is a really interesting idea. There has been success in rolling up these powers—for example, in the cases of the Mayor of Greater Manchester and of course the Mayor of London—so there is a lot of evidence that it can work. My hon. Friend is right that decisions about reserves are made by police and crime commissioners. How they spend their money is their decision, and they are accountable to the public. I am delighted that police and crime commissioners are committed to recruiting more officers with the increased funding that they will receive this year. If that is what the public want, that is what police and crime commissioners should deliver.”
“We are working through the details of how the £100 million is to be spent and sent out. Last week, we listened to police and crime commissioners, who put forward some interesting suggestions, and it would only be right for us to consider those suggestions carefully. The structure of the allocations is also being worked through. I have ideas as to how we will communicate information on the summit to the House. I am clear that this is an important topic for the House to hear about, and we will be letting the House know through a variety of channels.”
“This is another example of the use of the PCCs meeting last week. Alison Hernandez, the police and crime commissioner covering my hon. Friend’s constituency, explained to us that she was using what I think she called parent care contracts to include parents in the conversation about preventing knife crime in the local community. Such ideas are really interesting, and other police and crime commissioners were interested to hear about them. We will make a real difference in communities across the country through that collaborative approach.”
“If colleagues want to work with us to send the message out through their constituencies that carrying a knife is not usual, I urge them to use that hashtag to refer people following them on social media—young people, parents, those who work with young people—to the websites that can get help for people they are worried about. We can all take responsibility for such measures as leaders in our local communities to help tackle knife crime.”
“The hon. Lady will know that decisions about how her borough is policed lie at the feet of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Mayor of London, because the Mayor of London is the police and crime commissioner for London, so I hope that she has raised this matter with him. The hon. Lady mentioned urgency. The knife crime summit is really important, but it is not the only thing happening in Government to tackle knife crime and serious violence. The national county lines co-ordination centre has been set up, we are spending £220 million on early intervention, there are local projects for the anti-knife-crime community funds and there is the #knifefree social media campaign.”
“The demographics of victims and perpetrators will be examined not just at the knife crime summit; we think about them carefully and try to reflect them in our policies. I urge a note of caution: we know that, sadly, girls are involved in gangs, and the youth workers and former gang members I meet have emphasised to me that girls are beginning to be ensnared in these gangs as well. The way in which some of those girls are treated by those gangs is utterly horrific—beyond most people’s imagination. We need to support those girls who are ensnared in gangs as well.”
“I am delighted to hear about the activity in the hon. Lady’s constituency. She is absolutely right: what is so worrying about the growth of county lines is that criminal gangs that have exploited the drugs markets in large urban centres are now filtering out to rural and coastal areas. Part of the reason for setting up the national county lines co-ordination centre is to help law enforcement and those who safeguard to co-ordinate better and share best practice. We are also hosting regional events across the country, bringing all the agencies together to discuss exactly how to get best practice. We have just had one in Birmingham, which is probably the nearest to the hon. Lady’s area, but I will happily write to her about other events in the future.”
“What the hon. Lady mentioned are not proposals, but things we are doing. I was delighted to hear from the chief constable of Merseyside and also its police and crime commissioner in the last two weeks. The chief constable was urging the Home Secretary and others to assist with surge policing, and I am delighted that in the spring statement we secured that extra funding for Merseyside. Last week, the police and crime commissioner for Merseyside gave her views on what can help. The reason we are focusing on the seven metropolitan forces is that they account for a great deal of the knife crime that we are seeing at the moment. If we can share their best practice with other forces that are seeing the county lines phenomenon, that will, of course, help those forces get up to speed quickly too.”
“I cannot, in that that is not my Department, so it would not be right for me to make financial commitments at the Dispatch Box. I have discussed this with the Secretary of State in the last 48 hours, and we are very clear about the value that that sort of intervention can and does have for families who need a bit of extra support. If I may, I will ask the hon. Gentleman to contact the Secretary of State for a precise answer to his question about the future of that programme.”
“I am very sorry to hear of the events that the hon. Gentleman has witnessed in his constituency in recent weeks. On resources, we are putting up to £970 million extra into policing next year, and the £100 million is in addition to that, to help those areas that are seeing the highest surges in violent crime. The youth endowment fund is important because it will run over 10 years. We want to lock that money in for the next decade, so that it is a funding source for organisations that can make a real difference in young people’s lives.”
“I hope I will be in a position to say a bit more, perhaps in a few weeks’ time. I am very conscious of that point, and I will update him when I am able to.”
“I accept the point about the phrase “county lines”, which has been used over a couple of years. It does not do justice to the horrors of the exploitation of the children involved in it, but it is the terminology used, and it seems to have gained credence among the police, law enforcement and the charitable sector. For the time being, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will use it as a short-hand, but I always acknowledge that this is child exploitation. The role of parents is something I am very concerned about, having met far too many mums, dads and grandparents who have lost loved ones. There is much more that I want to do to help parents and family members spot the signs of a child who may be beginning to take the wrong path, and I am trying to bring to fruition various ideas at the moment.”
“I met the Children’s Commissioner yesterday to talk about her recent report and the role of education in this problem, but also about providing life chances—the hon. Lady and I have talked about them—for the young people we are steering away from carrying a knife and from crime. Those life chances are critical to this, and will of course be an important part of the summit.”
“I get on very well with the hon. Lady, and I hope she knows that I am not in any way dissatisfied with being at the Dispatch Box on my birthday or on any other day. My frustration, such as it is, is that this is essentially a question about a date, and had the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) asked me quietly, I would have happily provided her with the date. However, this gives me the opportunity to explain the work that the Government are doing to tackle serious violence. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) is right. I think alternative provision is key to this. We have our next serious violence taskforce meeting on Tuesday, and we will look at this issue in detail.”
“A whole roster of work is happening nationally to tackle serious violence. Some of it we have seen having an immediate impact, such as Operation Sceptre last week, and some of it will be longer term, as we know from the Glasgow model. Our efforts to improve alternative provision in education, and to intervene on children and their families if they need a bit of help, will all take a bit longer. However, we are very clear that we have an immediate, a medium-term and a longer term approach to tackling serious violence.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right. For the sake of the families, the victims and the young people who tell me that they are worried about walking around without a knife, it is important that this summit is done properly, and that takes a bit of time to arrange. We have a huge array of experts in this field, and getting everybody into one place on the same day takes a bit of organisation, but that is what will happen. It will be a summit that looks at all areas related to the causes of knife crime, the consequences of serious violence, and the efforts we can make to intervene on young people and those who may be on a wayward path. The hon. Gentleman should not think for a moment that the knife crime summit is the only thing that is happening in Government; it absolutely is not.”
“That is why, as well as the serious violence strategy, we also have the serious organised crime strategy. We must help young people to build resilience and intervene on them, but we must also get the criminals at the very top of those gangs.”
“I was delighted to visit Morecambe, which is next door to the hon. Lady’s constituency, and to speak with its wonderful local MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), about issues pertaining to crime and the causes of crime in his constituency. I was also delighted to meet the Chief Constable for Lancashire Constabulary, and to hold a conversation about the range of challenges faced by Lancashire—I should perhaps declare an interest, as that is the county in which I grew up and that I adore. When I visited Blackpool I saw some of the real issues that are affecting our coastal towns, such as transient communities and the impact of the drugs market. We must be clear that those behind this criminality are the gang leaders and criminals who exploit children for profit.”
“We are providing up to £970 million next year in the policing settlement. We provided a further £500 million last year, and we are providing an extra £100 million through the spring statement to give the police the extra resources they need. I ask Opposition Members to do the right thing next week and support the Government’s efforts to introduce knife crime prevention orders. Those have been asked for by the police—the police want them. We have considered them carefully and introduced the legislation as quickly as we can. We just need the House to pass it.”
“As I have said, education plays a vital role in our efforts to tackle serious violence, and I know that colleagues across the House are concerned about off-rolling. There are good examples of providers of alternative provision across the country, and my challenge to those in the education sector is that if those good examples and that best practice exists, we should share it and let every child have the same quality of standards from which some children seem to benefit.”
“It is important to note, however, that the Supreme Court recognises that the regime balances public protection with individuals’ right to a private life. It applies only to certain protected jobs, and it is for employers to decide someone’s suitability for a role once they are armed with the facts.”
“The disclosure and barring regime plays an important part in supporting employers to make informed recruitment decisions about roles that involve working with children or vulnerable adults, and in a limited range of other circumstances. The criminal record disclosure regime seeks to strike a balance between safeguarding children and enabling individuals to put their offending behind them. The House will be aware that the Supreme Court recently handed down a judgment in the case of P and others that affects certain rules governing the disclosure regime. We are still waiting for the order from the Supreme Court, but we are considering the implications of the judgment and will respond in due course.”
“I am conscious that, as you outlined, Mr Speaker, this question relates to an ongoing legal case, and that as such it would not be appropriate to comment on the specific case or cases. I assure you that the Government want all victims and survivors of sexual abuse and exploitation to feel that they can come forward to report abuse, and get the support they need when they do so. We are committed to working across Government to ensure that victims can move on from the abuse they have suffered, and that professionals, including the police, who come into contact with a victim recognise exploitation when they see it and respond appropriately. The Government are committed to acting to protect the public and help employers make safe recruitment decisions.”
“I am afraid that I am not able to comment on individual cases at this moment—it is a matter of timing—but the Government are considering the Supreme Court judgment very carefully. Sadly, I am not in a position to comment on other aspects of the urgent question, but we have, I think, acknowledged as a society that when children initially present as suspects, the police and others must ask questions to see whether there is more to the picture. I am sure that we all agree on that, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to reiterate it.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her urgent question. She knows, because we have discussed the issue behind the scenes on many occasions, the concerns, feelings and sympathy that the Home Secretary and I have for victims of child sexual exploitation and abuse, and that this Government have done more than any other to tackle it. By setting up institutions such as the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, the Prime Minister, when she was Home Secretary, sought to uncover these terrible hidden crimes. We know of the experience in Rotherham, of course, and I note that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) is in her place. I have seen for myself the vital local work to support victims and bring the perpetrators of these terrible crimes to justice.”
“My hon. Friend feels—and, in fairness, has campaigned—strongly on this subject. I have read the report. She will appreciate that given the timing, I am constrained in what I can say, but I would be very happy to meet her. I should have said in my initial answer that I had the privilege of meeting Ms Woodhouse last year; she described to me in great detail her experiences as a child, and their impact on her as an adult. I very much valued the time she gave for that meeting. I look forward to meeting my hon. Friend and others to discuss their views on the disclosure regime, and any submissions that they wish to make to Ministers.”
“and learned Lady will know the Home Secretary’s personal commitment to ensuring that industry’s response matches our expectations. That response should include a range of actions, such as stopping child grooming from taking place on companies’ platforms, building artificial intelligence to stop this material getting on to the web, and having much greater openness and transparency about how they are clearing out their backyard. Of course, the online harms White Paper is coming up as well, and I am sure that many colleagues will take a great interest in it.”