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.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,811 lines we hold for Kit Malthouse, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 61 of 97.
“The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. As I have said, the technical complexity of crime has changed significantly over the past few years. One question we have to ask ourselves, both in the Home Office and in the UK policing family, is whether we have the skills and capability to deal with some of those issues. I will come on to the settlement later, but it is partly about investing in some of those capabilities, not least in tackling online economic crime, which we are sadly seeing become increasingly prevalent as the internet penetrates even more of our lives.”
“I would expect a no less challenging question from my county colleague, and he is right that the fight against fraud has perhaps not been as effective as it could have been over the past few months and years. We are giving a lot of thought in the Home Office to how policing should structure itself for a crime type that has become increasingly complex. A fraud might be perpetrated in one geography—perhaps in the New Forest, sadly—by a perpetrator in another geography who transits money through another country and draws that money in a fourth place. These are complex and technical difficulties that we will have to address in the years to come.”
“I think I am right in saying that recorded crime in the Thames valley is lower than in 2010, but that is not a cause for complacency. I recognise some of the problems that towns around London like Slough and, indeed, Andover in my constituency have experienced, much of it driven by the drugs trade. The hon. Gentleman will know that we have done a huge amount of work, and will be doing more, on the county lines problem that drives a significant amount of violence in towns like his. He will be hearing more from me on that in the future.”
“Overall funding for police and crime commissioners will increase by £915 million to £13.1 billion if they make full use of the council tax flexibility available to them. Total police funding will increase by £1.1 billion to £15.2 billion. Every single force in England and Wales will see a substantial increase next year. If their police and crime commissioner decides to maximise precept flexibility, Durham will receive an extra £9.7 million, Lancashire will receive an extra £22.6 million and West Midlands will receive almost £50 million more. These are serious increases, representing, on average, a 7.5% rise.”
“As I am sure my hon. Friend knows, money for policing is shared out on the basis of a funding formula. I have studied the formula in some depth, and it is incredibly complicated and hard to understand. He is therefore right to raise the issue of confusion in the public’s mind about how money is allocated. We have already said publicly that we believe the funding formula is outdated, and I hope and believe that, in the years to come, we can work to find a more equitable division of the spoils for policing and, critically, one that the people we serve understand. This settlement sets out the biggest increase in police funding in a decade. This £700 million will pay for the recruitment of the first 6,000 of the 20,000 additional police officers, an increase of almost 10% of the core grant funding provided last year.”
“I would, of course, be delighted to visit Derbyshire once again. I was there only a few months ago to visit the chief constable and the current police and crime commissioner. I have already agreed to attend a crime summit in Derby, and hopefully other Derbyshire MPs will be involved. In fact, I was there to see the striking “knife angel” sculpture, which was standing outside the city’s cathedral. I am more than happy to visit once again.”
“The best thing I can do is encourage them, once again, to elect a Conservative police and crime commissioner in May who will be focused on their priorities. I am pleased to note that, in the past couple of weeks, Lincolnshire police’s inspection report has significantly improved, which I gather was the cause of some celebration in the Lincolnshire media. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), was trumpeting the triumph of her local police force. We will be supporting Lincolnshire police in all its work, and it has made a special grant application that we will be considering in due course. I recognise that a county like Lincolnshire, which is very large and sparsely populated, faces particular challenges that we will want to address.”
“I know Belgravia police station very well indeed— [Laughter.] It was not through having spent any overnight stays there. During my time in policing in London, I visited it on a couple of occasions. The Met will be in receipt of a further 1,369 police officers, who will need to be accommodated somewhere. As I have said in the media in the past, perhaps to some hilarity, their lockers will need to go somewhere, and an expansion of the size that London will see over the next few years means that a general review of the property strategy is sensible.”
“The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has £500 million to spend over the next few years on youth intervention and youth projects, and we will be focusing, certainly in the Cabinet Committee that the Prime Minister is chairing, on that aspect of crime, alongside enforcement at the same time.”
“My hon. Friend, in his typically astute way, raises an extremely important point. Although we talk a lot in this House, and certainly in my job, about the enforcement aspect of crime, one key area—one of the twin pillars of success—is investment in young people, particularly in diverting those on the margins of criminality away from it and showing them that there is a better life. Obviously, the Government have committed significant funding to that, not least in the Home Office, where we have a couple of hundred million pounds to spend on it.”
“This settlement confirms that £700 million of that will go directly to PCCs to support the first wave of recruitment, and £168 million will be ringfenced to help pay for recruiting and employing additional officers. Forces will be awarded a portion of that in line with their funding formula allocation. It will be linked to results, with the money paid out as they make progress against their recruitment targets. That will ensure that forces make full use of this investment, delivering good value for money for taxpayers and the results they expect to see. In addition, £50 million of the settlement will deliver national elements of the police uplift programme to ensure that it is a success. That will include central co-ordination, national recruitment campaigns, Police Now training and College of Policing support.”
“If Members do not mind, I would like to make a bit of progress. I will allow others to come in a little later. This settlement will turbocharge the unprecedented recruitment of 20,000 police officers over the next three years. All forces will have the resources they need to meet rising demand. The impact of the extra officers should not be underestimated, with the recruitment targets showing how each area will benefit. By March 2021, West Yorkshire police aims to recruit some 256 extra officers, and the figure for Greater Manchester is almost 350. As I said, the Met, a force I know well, will soon be able to deploy an extra 1,369 officers on the streets of our capital. The spending round, which concluded in September, confirmed that an additional £750 million would be made available next year to deliver this uplift.”
“Obviously, these 6,000 officers are a down payment on a three-year protection plan, under which we will be recruiting 20,000 police officers. Just for clarity, I should point out that these are extra police officers—”
“This is on top of the numbers we need to recruit because of those who retire—we see 6,000 to 8,000 retire. At the end of March, or possibly April, we will be publishing details of our recruitment performance and the baseline figure where we believe we have started, agreed with forces, so that Members across the House and the public will be able to see how we are performing. We hope that by the end of the three-year recruitment process we will have a greater number of police officers than we did in 2010.”
“This Government want to level up our communities, but to do that we must tackle regional issues head on, including crime. PCCs have continued to ask for more flexibility and funds to respond to local priorities. We have listened to their pleas and empowered them to target the criminals plaguing their towns and communities. This settlement allows all PCCs to raise council tax contributions for local policing; it is less than 20p per week for a typical household—just £10 per year. If all PCCs decide to maximise their flexibility, the result will be £248 million of additional funding for local policing. Locally elected PCCs will decide how to use that flexibility, and will be accountable to their electorate for using it to cut crime and deliver real results in their areas.”
“To repeat what I said in my earlier answer, those 136 are the first instalment of a three-year programme. We are recruiting 6,000 and there are a further 14,000 to go. Although we have yet to decide completely how the remaining 14,000 will be allocated, it is not hard to surmise that all forces will receive more than in this year. I ask hon. Members to hold fire and rejoice in the fact that these first 6,000 will be recruited—we hope—in 12 months’ time. That is on top of the number of police officers baked into the very large financial settlement last year. It means that by the end of three years the number of police officers in this country should be higher than it was in 2010. No two areas of this great country face the same challenges.”
“The funding I have set out represents an unprecedented scale of investment in our police forces, but we must not lose sight of the fact that this is public money that we are spending, and the public expect to see a return on that investment. This Government are clear that the police must continue to focus on improving efficiency and productivity to deliver value for money for the people they serve. Members should be in no doubt: I will be holding the police to account for their spending and performance, because we are a Government driven by the people’s priorities. The demand of these hard-working, honest, law-abiding people is simple: they want to see more police on our streets and less crime, and they expect us, as public servants, to deliver. So, today we have provided the funding needed to do just that.”
“We are also investing in national policing priorities that benefit all forces across the country. That includes making sure we keep up with the criminals we are pursuing. Our systems simply must be up to scratch to help us stay one step ahead as crime evolves. We will invest £516 million to improve police technology in 2020-21, which will upgrade critical infrastructure such as replacing the Airwave communication system with the 4G emergency services network. It will also fund the development of the law enforcement data service, replacing the existing police national computer and police national database.”
“I know that all our thoughts are with the victims and all those affected, and I would like to pay tribute to the remarkably brave police officers who stopped the attacker before more harm was done. To keep people safe, we must also invest in our homeland security, which is why this settlement increases funding for counter-terrorism policing by £90 million to more than £900 million. That includes a continuation of the £24 million uplift in armed policing. We are also tackling high-harm crimes that devastate families, towns and communities. Serious and organised crime exploits the vulnerable and fuels much of the horrific violence on our streets, so we will allocate £155 million next year to help the police fight back—this includes funding new capabilities for tackling illicit finance.”
“Obviously, it is a responsibility of the local PCC and the chief constable to make sure that they deliver the services they are mandated to deliver in an effective way. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that I held a meeting two weeks ago with the British Shooting Sports Council, and one or two of its constituent members, to discuss exactly some of the difficulties he raises. This is on my list; alongside being Policing and Crime Minister, I am the firearms Minister. The hon. Gentleman should be assured that I will be paying attention to that issue in the months to come. The horrific attack in Streatham just weeks ago showed that the threat of terrorism in this country remains all too real.”
“The recruitment of 20,000 new police officers is wildly popular.”
“That is obviously a judgment for the local police and crime commissioner to make. We chose to limit the uplift in cash terms so that even those forces that raise a relatively small proportion of their funding from council tax could benefit as well, but in the end it is something that, as I say, police and crime commissioners will have to decide for themselves and take their chances in May. I hope and believe that the British people are willing to pay an extra 20p a week to improve their security, but I should say that it is £248 million alongside a huge investment from the Government. In the end, it is all the public’s money. Our money is not magicked from anywhere; the public pay it. Whether they pay through council tax or other means, their priority is that we should invest in our police officers.”
“To ensure that they deliver, we have attached a number of expectations to the settlement: first, we expect to see continued efficiency savings by the use of collaborative procurement through a new commercial operating model, BlueLight Commercial; secondly, we expect forces to work with us to develop an approach to drive maximum value from the funding spent on police technology; thirdly, we expect forces to use the uplift in their core grant funding to cover the wider costs and infrastructure improvements needed to accommodate and deploy the additional officers effectively; and finally, we expect forces to improve productivity through digital, data and technology solutions, including mobile working. Through the National Policing Board, the Home Secretary and I will personally hold the sector to account for the delivery of improvements.”
“One of my key priorities is that forces that have large rural communities recognise that dealing with serious violence has to be top of their list, just as it is in London, Manchester or Liverpool. The police must now play their part.”
“As a Member of Parliament who also represents a rural community—220 square miles of glorious Hampshire countryside—rural crime is at the top of my list, too. The hon. Gentleman will know that across the police and crime commissioners community significant effort has been put into a rural crime network, and I will be keen to sit down with them in the months to come to see what more can be done. It is worth pointing out that although specific aspects of rural crime—whether that is poaching, machinery theft or whatever—are perhaps different, too many of our rural communities are now plagued by the sort of crime that we became used to seeing only in metropolitan areas.”
“There is, however, a wider sense that the platforms that enable these kinds of communications need to step forward, as everybody else in this country is going to step forward to tackle crime, and shoulder their share of the responsibility for making sure that our young people in particular but frankly everybody can live a life unmolested and untroubled by crime. It is certainly an aspiration of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport that that should be the case. Crime cannot be solved by the police alone; it takes us all, in a sensible and civilised society, to stand shoulder to shoulder with them, whether in a commercial guise or a personal guise, to help them in the mission of driving down crime and making sure that we live in a safe country.”
“The growth of online criminality in all its forms is alarming to us all, and not least to those of us who have teenagers or young people who are uniquely exposed to it in a way that perhaps we were not in the formative stages of our lives. The hon. Gentleman is quite right that the online harms White Paper will look at some of this stuff. There is no doubt about it: the police do not necessarily have all the capabilities that they need in what is a fast-evolving area of crime. We are having that conversation on an ongoing basis with the National Crime Agency and with policing more widely.”
“There are simple things that can be done, and we have £25 million to show what can be done in the hope that Treasury colleagues will then see it as an investable proposition for the future that if we make small adjustments to the way that we live, we can “design out” crime. The settlement demonstrates the strength of the Government’s support for our outstanding police. We are backing them to build a more secure Britain and empowering them to deliver safer streets for the people we all serve. Members should have no doubt that the settlement represents a new golden age for policing in this country and a dark day for criminality. I commend the motion to the House.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The police cannot fly blind; data is critical to their job. I well know the problems of Manchester and asked the chief inspector of constabulary to go and have a look at some of the issues there. I am pleased that my hon. Friend is encouraging the Mayor to make a bid to the safer streets fund. We know that relatively simple modifications to architecture or the built environment can significantly reduce some acquisitive crimes. I gather that, as long as residents use them, the fitting of gates to alleys can reduce burglary by around 40-odd per cent., and we know that better street lighting can reduce acquisitive crime by around 17%.”
“This is such an important issue that I think all candidates should be apprised of it. We should put it on their agenda, so I will write to them as well. That is the start of what I hope will be a huge collective effort to combat violence in retail and generally across the country.”
“Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) raised the issue of making sure that our police and crime commissioners and chief constables are aware of the issues around the £200 limit. I will write to them all to point out that the £200 limit is optional. It is no brake on their ability to prosecute or arrest somebody, which is effectively for their judgment. I will also include in that letter a requirement for chief constables and police and crime commissioners to examine their data too, to understand what is happening and to respond to concerns in their own communities about this kind of crime in the priorities that they set in their police and crime plans. Hon. Members will be aware that police and crime commissioner elections are coming up in May.”
“Critically, we said that those first 6,000 police officers, whom we are relatively confident we will get in the first 12 months, have been designated to be territorial police officers, so they will be out in our communities and on the streets, able to respond to incidents that take place in a retail environment. That is an investment of something like £750 million, and it is the first instalment of a three-year programme that we hope and believe will significantly increase the police presence in our high streets and shops. We have also given the Crown Prosecution Service an extra £85 million to enhance its ability to prosecute. I am conscious that my hon.”
“Thirdly, there is a big job for policing in terms of violence generally across our streets, but in retail in particular. As a couple of Members mentioned, we are recruiting 20,000 extra police officers by the end of the next 36 months. We will have to replace all the ones who retired as well, so the overall target will be to recruit between 40,000 and 50,000 over the next three years. It is a huge task, but it has nevertheless started well, and the first batch of recruits are already out and in training, on top of some of the recruits put in place last year off the budget settlement that policing got then.”
“I will set up an intelligence-sharing group, made up of some members of the steering group, to work through what the data tells us and some of the practical solutions that we need, and then to report back to the wider group, which can help to implement this on a national scale. Another thing that came through was about messaging effectively—to customers and staff—about the unacceptability of violence in a retail environment. As mentioned by the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), we should take a zero-tolerance approach towards this sort of violence, so a second group will try to develop some of that effective messaging, which we then hope to promote among retailers, learning from some of the good practice we have seen in sectors elsewhere and trying to bring the worst up to the standard of the best.”
“I hope that that will be the start of action, not the end. I refer everybody to the speech I gave back in November, which indicated some alarming developments in violence towards retail workers and, sadly, the sense that that community of workers is starting to feel that it is just an acceptable part of their existence, which, from our point of view, is completely unacceptable. There is much more that we can do. Secondly, as I am sure Members know, we co-chair the national retail crime steering group with the British Retail Consortium, through which we can do a number of things. One key theme coming through from the call for evidence is about really understanding the data and what is going on and disseminating that to the organisations that need to be doing something about it, both private and public.”
“As an MP representing a constituency with a small town in it, I am aware of the violence prevalent on the high street, and particularly in retail premises. In the debate back in November, on the last day of the last Parliament, I took Members through the initial findings of the call for evidence. To be honest, although my speech was going to rehearse that again, it sounds as if people are a little more interested in a sense of action and movement, so with the forbearance of Members I will skip to that part. Having sat as a Back Bencher through a lot of ministerial speeches, I have found that there is quite a lot of flannel in a lot of them, and this is an area in which we need to see action more swiftly. First, we will publish the response to the call for evidence next month; it will come shortly, in the next few weeks.”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I make no complaint that this subject has been brought up twice in three months. It is obviously extremely important and affects all our constituents in many ways. Frankly, I have experienced this issue myself. When I was a young man, as a relatively penniless student, I worked behind a bar in a pub for about six months. I well remember the tension when denying another drink to those who had perhaps drunk a little too much. I am a big fellow, and if I felt threatened, there is no question but that people who do not quite have my physical stature might have felt deeply anxious and threatened. Fortunately, I never faced violence, but I am aware that lots do.”
“I am not at the moment. I will consider the seven points raised by the hon. Member for Harrow West to see what more can be done, whether that is a specific sentence or whether we need the Sentencing Council to look at assault and think about aggravating factors that might be taken into account. I definitely recognise that asking shop staff to arbitrate or to enforce legislation puts them in a particular position of vulnerability that may induce violence. There is a case there that needs to be addressed, and I am certainly happy to talk to the Lord Chancellor about his views on sentencing. We obviously have a general offence of assault, which can be used, and aggravating factors in particular circumstances should also be taken into account in sentencing, but we will certainly have a look.”
“This extremely serious phenomenon contributes in many ways to the lack of health of our high streets and the unwillingness of our constituents to use their high streets, set against the internet retail and shopping phenomenon, which is already cutting away at the foundations of the health of the high street. If we can make high streets peaceful and attractive places where people want to go, we will put the heart back into our communities. Hon. Members have my commitment that we will do our best to make that so.”
“I definitely think that part of our response and the work that we need to do following the publication of the call for evidence will be to look at not only Scotland but other countries around the world. This phenomenon will be common to most countries, certainly in Europe and elsewhere, and it will be interesting to see practices from across the world, to see if there is anything we can do to improve. We should not believe that if it is not made here, it is not any good. In my time in policing in the past, I found that learning what other countries do is often helpful, so we will definitely look for that evidence.”
“It is often forgotten or taken for granted by many that behind every police officer stands a proud but anxious family. We want to recognise their bravery, commitment and sacrifice by introducing the police covenant. The covenant will be brought forward through the police powers and protections Bill, placing it on a statutory footing and ensuring that Parliament can scrutinise its progress. We will launch a consultation on the principle and scope of the covenant in the coming weeks.”
“My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. The death of Andrew Harper last year on the very edge of my constituency was a terrible and tragic event. She will know that there are already measures in place to assist families in that position, not least the police injury benefits scheme, as well as welfare support offered by particular forces and the Police Federation. But there is always more we can do, and we would welcome submissions to the consultation on the covenant, to address any gaps that may exist.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important point. As I have said in this House before, it is my view that anybody who raises a malevolent finger against any emergency service should face the full weight of the law. He is right that there is general concern about the increasing number of attacks on emergency service workers of all types, and we will review what steps need to be taken in the near future to sort that out.”
“The Government’s pledge to put an additional 20,000 officers on our streets sends a clear message that we are committed to giving police the resources they need to tackle the scourge of crime. Hampshire will receive up to £366.5 million of funding next year, an increase of up to £26.1 million on the previous year. In this year alone, the county will benefit from 156 more police officers.”
“It is obviously an operational matter for chief constables to address where and how they allocate their resources, but I would certainly hope that an increase in the number of police officers will allow them to spend more time on the sort of crimes that assail both my hon. Friend’s community and mine in the county. They perhaps do not attract the attention of the headlines, but nevertheless cause consternation in the communities we represent.”
“We believe that the entire country, including Lancashire, could do with a boost in police numbers to address the changing nature of crime, and as a result we have provided enough money to recruit 6,000 police officers over the next year. Of that, Lancashire will benefit from 153 more.”
“The funding formula has been in place for some time, and there is obviously consternation across the House about the impact it may have, along with a number of the other formulas on which we allocate resources. We will keep this under review, and will do so on this formula, but for the moment the quickest and most efficacious way for us to share out this huge uplift in the number of police officers across the country was using the existing formula, and I hope those 153 officers will be put to good use.”
“The Government are determined to stop the terrible exploitation of children and rid our streets of criminal county lines gangs. That is why we are augmenting significant police activity with an extra £25 million of targeted investment across the next two years to uplift the law and enforcement response to county lines and increase the support available to children, young people and their families.”
“One of the most significant deterrents that we think will be available to us is differential sentencing. A judge, on giving a sentence to somebody who is involved in county lines, can already take into account culpability factors, such as the use of children. My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that the Sentencing Council is currently reviewing those guidelines, and we hope and believe that the most severe penalties will be meted out to those who exploit children in this way.”
“The co-ordination of the effort across Government and indeed, across all the arms of government, including local government, will be one of the primary tasks of the new Cabinet committee that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has established. The hon. Lady is right that dealing with this phenomenon, which spans force and local authority boundaries, will take a united and concerted approach, and we will be doing so over the next few weeks.”