Kit Malthouse
MP for North West Hampshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“We have heard time and time again that the situation that thousands of our constituents live with every single day is so horrific and appalling that even the best palliative care cannot alleviate their pain. I urge colleagues to consider what their vote may mean today.”
“I will not. Some of those Members had just a few months before been specifically rejected by the electorate and replaced in this House by others, and I am afraid that they cannot be trusted not to do the same thing again. I grant my right hon.”
“The Health and Social Care Committee of the House of Lords found that in territories that have assisted dying, palliative care generally improves, because people become less afraid of talking about death.”
“One of the most affecting people I have met over the last 11 years of campaigning on this issue is Warwick Jackson, who came to our party conference a couple of years ago. Warwick’s wife, Ann, was diagnosed with terminal peritoneal cancer. She basically knew that she was going to die a slow, suffocating death at the end.”
“I respect my right hon. and learned Friend’s expertise in this matter, but, as he has already heard on the Floor of the House, it is perfectly possible for this House to suggest amendments, negotiate them with the promoters of the Bill, place them against the legislation in the House of Lords and then have them come back to this House for…”
“As co-sponsor of the Bill once again, I am acutely conscious that there is more at stake today than merely the fate of those who are facing their end, because the conduct of the other place means that our democracy is also on trial today.”
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“We are bringing a sharper focus to it this year, with the allocation of what we are calling GRIP funding, which is looking at hotspots where we want police to take a very targeted, analytical, data-driven approach towards dealing with violence in particular parts of their geography. That is now embedding and will be in place during the summer. It is part of our plan to deal with a possible resumption of violence, post release from lockdown. The hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) is right that we saw a significant reduction during the past year, with a spike in August as we were released from lockdown. We have put in place comprehensive plans with the police to ensure that we stay on top of any such repetition over the summer. That funding is rolling out now.”
“Although Scotland has had success on knife crime, sadly it is still plagued to a certain extent by this offence: we have seen machete gangs openly attacking people in the street in recent times, as we have across the rest of the United Kingdom. The experience of Glasgow is obviously something that we would love to learn from and benefit from across the whole of the country. Critically, we are rolling out significant resources to police forces across the land as we speak. Over the past couple of years, there has been a surge fund focused on those 18 forces in whose areas knife crime and violence is most prevalent, and that funding has been used to good effect by the police.”
“We believe that those police officers will make a big difference—including the 74 in Bedfordshire so far, with more to come—and that by having a significant police presence in a focused way, we can do an awful lot of preventive work tonight. The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans) has referenced the experience of Glasgow. I met Karyn McCluskey, who was leading the charge in Glasgow all those years ago. It is often forgotten that police enforcement played a very significant role in the fight against knife crime in Glasgow. Certainly in the early years, it was the use of heavy police enforcement, identifying and removing knives from the street, that created the space for some of those other, more supportive, therapeutic interventions to take place, and police enforcement still has a part to play.”
“We are well ahead of schedule on getting 20,000 extra police officers, with many parts of the country back to where they were pre-2010 in terms of numbers. In important parts of the country, of course, police officer numbers have remained high. For example, in London—we have three Members representing London here today—the number of officers in the Metropolitan police has been consistently higher than it was at the all-time low for murder in the capital, which was 2014. That number has been consistently higher ever since; much of that has been down to Government funding, and obviously, that number will go higher still.”
“We are taking significant steps, and I had hoped that they might be recognised across the House, because a number of Members here represent areas of the country that are particularly affected by knife crime—areas where we have been both putting in significant extra resources and galvanising effort to try to achieve a step change in the response of all the partners who are required to tackle knife crime: not just the police, or indeed the Government, but everybody else as well. That has involved personal effort as well as investment across the piece, not just with the police but in local government. I will begin by reflecting on the police. As Members know, we are recruiting a huge number of police officers at the moment: the latest published figure is approaching 9,000.”
“It should come as no surprise that it is an issue of importance, given that the Prime Minister was previously Mayor of London and dealt with a similar knife crime epidemic in the capital, which was reflected across the whole of the country, and he dealt with it successfully over that period, if I might say so. It is not enough, but we managed to get the number of teenagers stabbed and killed in the capital down from 29 in 2008 to just eight in 2012, and kept it at a low level. That is obviously eight too many, but nevertheless we learned a lot during that period, and we are trying to put that learning into effect as we do our work now.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I should begin by recognising the important reason that the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) referenced for raising this particular issue in debate, and expressing my condolences to the family of Humza Hussain on that horrendous event, recognising that his family are sadly going through something that too many families have gone through. Like the hon. Lady, I have sat with too many of those families over the years and seen the devastation that is wrought by these terrible acts, within the family, among friends and loved ones, and in the wider community that is affected by these events. It is clear from today’s debate that this is an important issue to lots of Members from across the country, as indeed it is to me and to the whole Government.”
“Member for Croydon Central pointed out, to stop those individuals who are known knife carriers, and are known to have been convicted in the past and to have shown a proclivity to violence. They are designed to discourage and deter people from carrying weapons, given the increased likelihood of getting caught, and to protect offenders—to give them an excuse to move away from being drawn into exploitation by criminal gangs.”
“That is a good question. It is certainly the case that violence reduction units, which are led locally, include wider education programmes, and I have seen good examples of that. They are there to generally educate young people about the dangers of carrying a knife, and the fact that someone carrying a knife is more likely to be a victim than to protect themselves. I have seen some imaginative use of such programmes. I was in the west midlands a couple of weeks ago, where a virtual reality set-up was used with schoolchildren to indicate to them the best way in which to continue their lives. I know that the hon. Gentleman has taken a strong interest in the Bill. It contains serious violence reduction orders, which give the police the power, as the hon.”
“The connection between knife crime and social structure is not as simple as people sometimes portray.”
“Although I understand the desire of Members present to push the Government to ever greater efforts, I would like to reassure everybody that there is an enormous amount of effort and commitment going in, both at the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, and more widely at the Department for Education and among all those partners who are required to drive down this problem. I know that there has been a lot of challenge this afternoon about the amount of resources going in. I just point out that when I was deputy Mayor of London dealing with a knife crime epidemic back in 2008, that was when spending under Gordon Brown was at an all-time high. Police officer numbers were similarly high and there were youth groups all over the place. Yet still our young people were stabbing each other in great numbers.”
“Last week, we commenced the provisions of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, bringing in a ban on a range of knives and other weapons: specific firearms; cyclone knives, which are a sort of spiral knife—Members may have seen those deeply unpleasant weapons for sale online—and rapid-fire rifles. Anyone who possesses these weapons could now face up to 10 years in prison. We think that this ban will help save lives and get more weapons off the street. Certainly, as part of the surrender programme, enormous numbers of these weapons have been surrendered to us.”
“They have been through significant scrutiny. Obviously, they will be rolled out subject to evaluation, as we are doing with knife crime prevention orders. As the hon. Lady said, we are piloting those at the moment in London. Those orders have both a positive and a negative impact. For example, somebody subject to a knife crime prevention order can be stopped from going into Croydon town centre, but at the same time in the same order be required to attend an anger management course or some kind of training course—some positive activity that would steer them in the right direction. We will look at any innovation that comes forward and pilot it and try it. Such is the urgency of the problem that there is no monopoly on ideas; we should be willing to try everything. We can also do more to remove knives.”
“No, because I am running out of time. I finish by posing a question. We think this is a priority and we are putting enormous effort into it, but the challenge has been made that the issue is very much about poverty. What if it were the case that violence causes poverty, not poverty, as a number of Members have alleged, that causes violence, and that our job, in order to create prosperity in Luton, Vauxhall and everywhere else, is to clear that violence out of the way so people can build the lives for themselves and their children that they deserve?”
“Fire and rescue professionals work tirelessly to protect their communities. Currently, the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services is responsible for negotiating the pay and conditions of fire and rescue authority employees, and central Government have no direct role in this process. The Home Office will be launching a consultative White Paper on fire reform later this year.”
“The hon. Gentleman has a long association with the trade union movement, which I know he has found rewarding in every sense of the word. As I said, we are not, as a Government, involved in pay bargaining for the fire service. There is a national joint council, where the Fire Brigades Union is represented 50:50 with employers. As I am sure he will know, the FBU has accepted a pay offer for the coming year that will be payable from the 1st of this month. There will be a White Paper looking at reform in the future and we will see what comes out of that consultative process.”
“Since 2019, we have invested over £65 million to tackle county lines and drug supply, including £40 million committed this year. Through our county lines programme, we have become smarter in our activity against these ruthless gangs, resulting in more than 1,000 lines being closed, more than 5,800 arrests and more than 1,500 vulnerable adults and children safeguarded.”
“I am always happy to meet police and crime commissioners and their Members of Parliament to talk about fighting crime, and I am very pleased that my hon. Friend is so embedded in the collective mission to reduce crime in his constituency. He is quite right that we are having enormous success with county lines, and that is off the back of significant Government investment. I am hopeful that police and crime commissioners can see the wider benefits of that programme in suppression of violence in their areas and will supplement the work that we are doing, but he should be assured that we will be making a very strong case in the spending round for continued investment. The one thing I have learned about the Treasury over the past few years is that it likes investing in success, and we are certainly having that with county lines.”
“It is proving to be a very strong deterrent. One of the key aspects of our work is gripping the transport network, in particular rail. We are finding that where we shut down their ability to use rail and they divert to roads, their likelihood of using young people, who cannot drive and are more likely to be arrested, is dropping. All our effort is being focused not just on restricting the supply of county lines across the country, but on rescuing and preventing young people from getting involved.”
“The hon. Lady rightly highlights one of the truly despicable aspects of county lines, which is the horrible exploitation and often victimisation of young people who are driven into the awful activity. She might be interested to know that we are very focused not necessarily on them but on those who control and victimise them. Much of the activity taking place in the three big forces we are funding—Liverpool, London and in the west midlands—is in targeting those line controllers who drive that exploitation. Interestingly, more and more of them are now not just being prosecuted for drugs importation or distribution, but for modern slavery or under child grooming legislation. That means that when they are convicted, they are put behind bars in the sex offenders wing, which is something not even they see as desirable.”
“That has been a very rewarding way of investigating those farms. I will look at his idea and pursue it further.”
“My hon. Friend is known for his innovative approach to policy and he certainly raises something that merits further investigation. He is quite right that we have seen a growth in the number of cannabis farms across the country in all sorts of buildings. Notwithstanding the drugs they produce, there is very often disgusting oppression and victimisation taking place inside—people who are trafficked across the world to tend the plants—and we need to do something about that as well. He might be interested to know, however, that in their off-hours when police helicopters are not dealing with other crimes, one thing they do is circle around using thermal imaging cameras to find houses that are strangely heated to full blast in the middle of summer, indicating that there may be something afoot.”
“The Government will not tolerate criminals lining their pockets while causing serious financial and emotional harm to victims. We are working closely with the industry, regulators, law enforcement and consumer groups to crack down on scam callers. Additionally, since its launch last year, the National Cyber Security Centre has shut down over 50,000 scams and taken down almost 100,000 websites.”
“Critically, we can all help the fight by reporting these emails and text messages, and I want to take a moment to say that anyone who gets a suspicious email should please forward it to the email address report@phishing.gov.uk and anyone who receives a similarly suspicious text should please forward it to 7726. The police and other services will be collating the texts and emails, and when they come from the same source, as they do on many occasions, they will act swiftly to shut it down.”
“As our lives have moved increasingly online, so has crime, as my hon. Friend rightly says. Can there be any Member in the Chamber who has not received a dodgy email or text or even a recorded message on their telephone, which is becoming increasingly frequent? It is typical of my hon. Friend to point out the particular vulnerability of elderly people, who are often coming to grips with technology—many have had to do so over the past year or so for the first time in their lives—and being taken advantage of. He is right to say that we need to do all we can to help them, and through the economic crime victim care unit we are doing exactly that. We are working with the banking sector to ensure that victims are not left out of pocket through no fault of their own.”
“Some people have been waiting too long for that to happen and that is not acceptable, as the Home Secretary noted in her letter.”
“For those dissatisfied with their compensation offer, an independent review can be conducted by the Adjudicator’s Office, a non-departmental public body that is completely independent of the Home Office. The scheme was set up and designed with the independent oversight of Martin Forde QC in close consultation with those affected by the scandal. Our approach was informed by hundreds of responses to a call for evidence and a public consultation. Earlier this year, we appointed Professor Martin Levermore as the new independent person to advise on the Windrush compensation scheme and ensure it is easy to access, fair and meets the needs of those affected. We continue to listen and respond to feedback about the scheme to ensure it is operating effectively. We are not complacent, however. We recognise the need to resolve claims more quickly.”
“Despite this progress, as a number of Members have claimed, a number of people would rather see the compensation scheme moved from the Home Office to an independent body. However, taking such action at this stage would risk significantly delaying payments to people. The first stage in deciding a claim for compensation is to confirm an individual’s identity and eligibility. This is linked to their immigration status. It would be difficult to decouple that from the Home Office without increasing the time taken to process an individual’s claim and issue payments. There would also be considerable disruption to the processing of outstanding claims while the new body was established and made operational. That is not to say we are operating without external scrutiny—far from it.”
“I reassure Members that everybody who accepts and receives a payment also receives a personal letter of apology from the Home Secretary. We are determined to get this right and that means taking action to improve our approach, where necessary. In December, in response to feedback from members of the community, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary overhauled the compensation scheme so that people would receive significantly more money more quickly. The changes have had an immediate impact. Within six weeks, we had offered more than we had in the previous 19 months. Since the end of December, we have offered an average of £5.2 million a month and have paid more than seven times the total amount that had been paid out before then.”
“Since then, we have provided documentation to over 13,000 individuals, confirming their status. In April 2019, we launched the Windrush compensation scheme to ensure that members of the generation and their families are compensated for the losses and impacts that they have suffered because they were unable to demonstrate their lawful status in this country. I reassure Members that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that everyone receives the maximum compensation to which they are entitled. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe mentioned a cap of £100,000. There is now no cap on the amount we will pay out. Since April 2019, we have offered more than £32.4 million, of which £24.4 million has been paid across 732 claims. They have been accepted by the individuals and, as I say, paid.”
“The Windrush generation have helped to shape our country. This is their home. Without them, we would be immeasurably diminished; and yet, despite all that, some of them suffered terrible injustices at the hands of successive Governments of all flags. The fact that so many people were wrongly made to feel that this country was not their home is a tragedy and an outrage. I know that the scars run deep. This sorry episode will not be forgotten, nor should it be. This Government have done and continue to do everything in our power to right those wrongs. I will set out some of the steps that we have taken. In April 2018, the Home Office established a taskforce to ensure that individuals who have struggled to demonstrate their right to be here are supported in doing so.”
“The passengers on that ship, their descendants and those who followed them have made and continue to make a unique and enormous contribution to the social, economic and cultural life of the United Kingdom. As someone who was brought up in the constituency of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) and who has spent many years in city and local government in central London, I have shared triumph and tragedy, hate and love with the descendants of and members of the Windrush generation, and seen what an enormous contribution they make to our national life. As the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) and others noted, many have been at the forefront of the fight against covid, working in the NHS, our emergency services and in other key frontline roles.”
“I thank the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for calling this debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for his co-sponsorship. I also thank colleagues from across the House for their insightful and passionate contributions to this vitally important subject. Last Tuesday, on Windrush Day, we came together to celebrate the Windrush generation. Events were held all over the United Kingdom and the sight of the Windrush flag flying above so many buildings, including here in Parliament—and, as we learned, Luton town hall—was a splendid illustration of what Windrush means to this country. The arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks 73 years ago was a signal moment in our history. It has become a symbol of the rich human tapestry that makes this country great.”
“We owe it to those who suffered as a result to deliver lasting and meaningful change, and to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. I am happy to say on Windrush Day, as we celebrate that generation today and hopefully in the years to come, that the Department for Transport is currently investigating whether the anchor from the Windrush can be recovered and restored to become a fitting memorial to that generation, in the hope that we will all aspire to the aspiration of my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) that in the future the colour of our skin will matter no more and no less than the colour of our eyes.”
“Each of the 30 recommendations has been grouped into different themes that are being delivered across the Home Office to ensure the lessons from the review are being applied across the Department. Despite what was asserted, Ms Williams did not say that the Home Office was paying “lip service” to her review, and she will be returning to the Department in September to review our progress. Alongside that, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the permanent secretary are also leading an unprecedented programme of change to ensure the Home Office is representative of every part of the community it serves. Our ambition is to transform the Department into one that puts people before processes, an organisation that has fairness and compassion at the heart of all it does. The Windrush scandal is a stain on this country’s conscience.”
“To do that, we are recruiting additional caseworkers and directing resources to maximise final decision output, as well as improving the evidence-gathering process by revising our data-sharing agreements with other Departments on our forms, guidance and processes. We also continue to do all we can to raise awareness of the Windrush schemes and encourage all who are eligible to apply. Last year, we launched a national communications campaign and the Windrush community fund, which was designed to reach further and deeper into the communities who were affected. We have now held 180 events, reaching 3,000 people. Last year, we also published the Wendy Williams “Windrush Lessons Learned Review”, to which a number of Members referred, which laid bare the failings and mistakes that led to the Windrush scandal.”
“As I outlined, the current total is actually 732 claims, but it has been too slow. That is why, as I said, the Home Secretary took direct action in December last year and we have seen a significant acceleration in payments thus far. We hope that that progress will continue. As a number of Members mentioned, the death of 21 individuals before we were able to offer them compensation does weigh extremely heavily on all of us and is a source of sorrow and regret. We are working with their families to ensure that compensation is paid out, while recognising that doing so can never provide adequate consolation. Now we have completed the implementation of the December changes I referred to, we are committed to reducing the time between submission and decision over the coming months.”
“We are investing in vital victim support services to the tune of more than £150 million this year. The forthcoming victims Bill will enshrine victims’ rights in law and explore the provision of domestic abuse and sexual violence support. We are also working with the Home Secretary to develop new violence against women and girls and domestic abuse strategies to help to drive a step change in response to these crimes.”
“I hope that that will have an impact in Broxtowe, along with the rest of the country.”
“I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that organisation to prominence; I am grateful to it for the valuable work that no doubt it has done, alongside others, during these dreadful past 16 months or so. For our part, we have boosted funding for specialist services by £51 million to support victims through the covid-19 pandemic and beyond. That included £20.7 million for local community-based sexual violence and domestic abuse services and a £27 million investment over two years to recruit more independent sexual and domestic violence advisers. The landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 contains new measures to protect victims and will be followed by new violence against women and girls and domestic abuse strategies, while the victims Bill will further transform victims’ experience.”
“I recently visited its predatory offenders unit, which specifically targets those who commit domestic violence and abuse where the victim is too afraid to pursue a prosecution, and looks for other ways to apprehend the perpetrator and put them behind bars.”
“Obviously, I am very alarmed to hear about that incident. I hope that the hon. Lady will advise her constituent, if she is unhappy, to pursue a complaint about her treatment through the provisions available to her, both through the Metropolitan police and through the Independent Office for Police Conduct. As part of our work over the next few months towards a new violence against women and girls strategy, we will be engaging the police to ensure that, as the hon. Lady says, every victim who comes forward to the police and makes allegations of such a serious nature is taken into account. I have to say that, while I am sorry to hear about that experience, I have witnessed some very good and important work by the police, not least the Metropolitan Police Service.”
“We know that the perpetrators of murder in this country have, on average, seven previous offences. That means that we should be able, as she rightly says, to identify them before they commit that catastrophic and appalling act, and that is exactly what we are trying to do.”
“I obviously reject the assertion that violence against women—or, indeed, anybody—is an afterthought for this Government. I do not think anybody could look at what we have done over the past two years and think that we have done anything other than throw our entire weight behind the fight against violence. Specifically, the hon. Lady will have noted that one of the five key priorities set by the National Policing Board for the whole of the criminal justice system, including the police, has been the suppression and reduction of murders, a third of which are domestic. She will be interested to know that I am now entering the second round of homicide murder roundtables with police forces across the country and looking at their murder prevention strategies to ensure that they get ahead of exactly the kind of heinous crime that she points to.”
“We are working across Government to transform the response to the abhorrent crime of domestic violence. We passed our landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 in April, to be followed by the new violence against women and girls and domestic abuse strategies. The victims Bill will further transform victims’ experience. We have also provided unprecedented funding to support the sector.”
“I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising this case, and I am very sorry to hear this distressing story. He is quite right to say that the presumption of parental contact has been a cause of concern to many, on the basis that it might expose parents and children to greater risk, and we are reviewing this provision at the moment. I would be more than happy to meet him to discuss this case—and, indeed, the review—further in the hope that we can move to an improved situation.”
“We are taking steps to ensure that we tackle this horrific crime and restore confidence in the criminal justice system, as outlined in the rape review that was published 10 days ago. We will return the volume of rape cases going through the courts to at least 2016 levels by the end of this Parliament and are taking steps to improve the quality of investigations and reduce the time taken for victims to be given their phone back during the course of investigation. Furthermore, we are going to improve the culture of joint working among police and prosecutors and hold each part of the system to account through performance scorecards.”
“While we have not supported the measures that she put forward for the Bill, she will in time be able to see the performance and the timeliness of various parts of the criminal justice system through the publication of comprehensive scorecards, which will allow us to judge, over time, first, whether the number of cases in court rise, which I believe they will quite significantly, but, secondly, whether more measures need to be taken to drive further progress.”
“The hon. Lady is quite right that delay in the criminal justice system, both from report to charge and then from charge to court, has a significant impact on victims and is a driver of victim attrition and cases therefore not proceeding. We are very focused on compressing each of the various parts of the criminal justice system so that they work efficiently and speedily, in line with the need to get quality cases into court that will hopefully secure convictions.”
“It is an offence to publish any matter likely to identify a person who has made an allegation of rape or other sexual assault. The prohibition applies automatically from the moment the offence is reported and has effect throughout the complainant’s lifetime.”