Chris Philp
MP for Croydon South · Conservative · United Kingdom
“The Minister mentioned return numbers, but what she did not mention is that the return of 6,000 small-boat migrants in the past two and a bit years amounts to only 8% of illegal immigrants crossing the channel. That is to say, 92% of illegal immigrants crossing get to stay. There is no deterrent whatsoever in that.”
“I cannot give all the many examples, in the interests of time, but they cited one example in which apparently hundreds of Pakistani men claimed to be gay, based on a letter from an individual claiming to be the sexual partner of all of them. That is quite clearly fabricated with the assistance of immigration lawyers.”
“I was on the beaches of northern France just a few weeks ago, waist deep in water as one such dinghy embarked with about 100 illegal immigrants on it, while 10 members of the French gendarmerie nationale, who we pay for—who the Home Secretary pays for—with £660 million of our money, almost all of it unconditional, stood by and did nothing…”
“Numerous rapes have been committed by small-boat illegal immigrants, including the rape of a girl in Nuneaton aged just 12. The Government are using sleight of hand. They are moving illegal immigrants from hotels into apartments, then granting them asylum on an industrial scale.”
“I thank my constituency neighbour, the Minister for Policing and Crime, for advance sight of her statement. I am sure that we all agree that the right to protest is a fundamental part of our democracy, but the right to protest should never be violently exercised or cause serious disruption to other people.”
“Since the general election, over 80,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the channel, all illegally and all unnecessarily, because France is a safe country—nobody is fleeing persecution in France. Almost 20,000 have crossed this year alone, and 625 crossed yesterday, with more coming in the early hours.”
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“I thank my right hon. Friend for his very good question, and I will come on to that matter now. We want to tighten up the sale of knives online. The principal vehicle for that is not so much the Criminal Justice Bill, although we are increasing the criminal sanction for supplying a knife to an under-18 to up to two years in prison, as the Online Safety Act 2023, which was given Royal Assent in October and will be commenced in stages as Ofcom drafts its codes of practice. The Online Safety Act puts a duty on social media firms—including, critically, online marketplaces—to proactively prevent priority criminal offences from happening. For a time I was the Bill Minister for the Online Safety Bill, as it then was, and I think I am correct in recalling that the priority criminal offences are set out in schedule 7 to that Act.”
“There is also an opportunity to catch more perpetrators using facial recognition, including live facial recognition, which we discussed in the Bill Committee at some length.”
“Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) mentioned scanning technology. Technology is being developed—it is not ready for deployment yet, but it is being developed and we are putting funding into it this year—to scan people walking down the street, for example, semi-covertly. It is not a knife arch but is a much smaller scanning device, and it can scan people to see whether they have a knife somewhere on their person. That is obviously much less intrusive than a stop and search, does not lead to some of the tension stop and search can lead to, and it is obviously much quicker to do. I am hopeful that if we can deploy that scanning technology, it will make it near-impossible to carry a knife in a high-traffic place such as a high street in London. We are investing in that technology.”
“When we talk to the families of victims—who, sadly, often come from ethnic minority communities—they say, “If only my son’s murderer had been stopped and searched on the way to the murder.” That is the kind of thing we hear people say. If anyone is concerned about disproportionality—it was a topic I wanted to look at myself—the rate at which knives or drugs are successfully found on people who are stopped and searched is about the same regardless of ethnicity; whether someone is white, black, Asian or any ethnicity, the find rate is about the same, at approximately 22% or 23%. If there was disproportionality or unfair behaviour by the police, we would find a difference, but we do not. So I urge all chief constables and PCCs to use stop and search confidently and proactively. My hon.”
“I know, for example, that one of the parts of Essex where those hotspot patrols have taken place is Southend, and it has been effective at reducing antisocial behaviour there. Stop and search is another important part of this equation. It would seem that the Mayor of London and some Opposition Members do not like it, and I understand their concerns, but we need to use stop and search confidently and proactively—done lawfully and respectfully, of course—because it has taken 60,000 knives off the streets in the last four years. Every month, in London alone, 400 knives are taken off the streets by stop and search. We need to use it confidently and proactively and not pull back from using it, because it will save lives.”
“We also trialled hotspot patrolling in 10 force areas, including Essex, Staffordshire and Lancashire, for antisocial behavioural last year, and those delivered reductions in antisocial behaviour of up to 36%. Because that is working, from April this year—just a couple of months’ time—we are putting new funding of £66 million behind it, over and above the record police settlement. By the way, that settlement will see an extra £922 million go to police and crime commissioners, with that £66 million to fund hotspot patrolling in every single police force area in the country, targeted against antisocial behaviour and serious violence, because we know it works. I am sure Members will be lobbying their police and crime commissioners to make sure that those hotspot patrols take place in areas of concern to them.”
“We have talked about prevention and about the law needing to be strong enough, and we must come on to enforcement because we must protect our fellow citizens from criminal activity, knife crime in particular. Clearly, it is important to make sure that the police have the relevant resources. An Opposition Member referred to police numbers, and in March last year we achieved a headcount of 149,566 police officers—more than at any time in history. In fact, it is about 3,500 more than under the last Labour Government. I would like those police officers to do a couple of things. I would like them to be patrolling in hotspots where crimes are a particular problem. We have been doing hotspot patrolling in 20 force areas, in what is called Project Grip and that has delivered very significant reductions in violent crime.”
“Yes, I am very willing to work with the hon. Lady and to look at detailed representations. I have been advised that those sections are quite broad-ranging. I have read them myself and—on the face of it, and reading them as a Member of Parliament would read any bit of legislation—they do strike me as very wide-ranging in their scope. However, I am of course happy to listen to particular representations and to discuss them. If those sections of the Serious Crime Act and the Modern Slavery Act contain lacunae, I would be willing to discuss that. I am looking forward to hearing from the hon. Lady on that topic and working with her if there are gaps to be filled.”
“Resolved, That this House condemns the Government for overseeing a 77 per cent increase in knife crime since 2015; recognises the devastating impact that knife crime has on victims, their families and the wider community; acknowledges that the Government recently announced measures to ban zombie knives and machetes; believes, nonetheless, that this legislation does not go nearly far enough, meaning that a number of dangerous types of knives and swords will remain legal and available on UK streets; therefore calls on the Government to address the shortcomings of the ban by extending it to cover ninja swords and consulting on a further extension; and further calls for the Government to establish an end-to-end review of online knife sales and introduce criminal liability for senior management of websites which indirectly sell illegal knives online.”
“I am very open to having constructive discussions such as those I have agreed to have with the hon. Member for West Ham, because I know all of us are united in our desire to fight the scourge of knife crime. Those of us who have attended the funerals of victims, as I did with Elianne Andam’s family a few weeks ago, and indeed all of us are under a moral obligation as well as a public duty obligation to do everything we can and leave no stone unturned in fighting that scourge, and I will work with Members on both sides of the House to make sure we do exactly that. Question put and agreed to.”
“I would politely and gently say that the largest police force in the country is London’s, and it has a Labour police and crime commissioner. Labour Members have said the way London is run is a model for a future Labour Government, but of the 43 police forces I oversee, Labour and Sadiq Khan’s stewardship of London is pretty much the worst. In the last year, knife crime in London has gone up while in the rest of the country it has gone down. It is the only police force to have missed its police uplift recruitment target. In fact it could have had an extra 1,062 police officers, for which there was Government money available, but it did not recruit them. If that is a model for a future Labour Government, heaven help us all. In the meantime, where there are measures we need to take to go further, we will.”
“The shadow Minister is worried that I am going to spend the next 20 minutes describing it; I am not going to do that, but I will say that in the last week there has been a further deployment of live facial recognition in Croydon and it has caught wanted people. Over the past few weeks, people have been caught who were wanted for knife offences, rape and other very serious offences who would not otherwise have been caught. So live facial recognition can help us there as well. A strong approach to enforcement is critical, too. We heard some political points from the Opposition Members. I have tried to deliver these concluding remarks in a spirit that is not too political, but a few Members said they thought the solution to this problem was a general election.”
“I will happily raise that point with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the National Fire Chiefs Council, and will commend the model for consideration by rural forces and fire services around the country. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay has set out the good work going on in Devon and Cornwall, and the positive impact of tri-service safety officers. Again, I commend police and crime commissioner Alison Hernandez for making this happen. I will do everything I can to assist colleagues in Devon and Cornwall, and rural forces around the country, in making sure that as many places as possible can benefit from this excellent initiative. Question put and agreed to.”
“That applies less to large urban areas, where police forces and ambulance services are already very densely concentrated. However, even in urban areas, the fire service tends to be under-used, so there is an opportunity to get the fire service to do more to assist the ambulance service in providing responses. I have been discussing that with my colleagues at the Department of Health and Social Care. However, as he eloquently described and explained, tri-service safety officers could work well in other rural or sparsely populated areas. Cumbria, which now has a police, fire and crime commissioner, springs to mind [ Interruption. ] I hear support for Cumbria from my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson).”
“Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay said about value for money: each of the three services has to contribute only about £16,000 per TSSO, which is a great deal cheaper than funding a position each. I very much hope that the police and fire services in Devon and Cornwall will continue to fund that. I am sure that he is making the case, both to Health Ministers and to the local integrated care board, for that funding to continue. If he wants any assistance from me in lobbying my ministerial colleagues, he has only to ask, and I will be happy to do that, but I am sure that he and his colleagues in Devon and Cornwall are doing that. I agree with my hon. Friend’s point that other rural forces in England and Wales could learn from what has been happening in Devon and Cornwall.”
“I pay tribute to the fantastic police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, Alison Hernandez, who has worked very hard to make this happen. The work of police and crime commissioners can really make a difference, as hers has. In parts of the country such as Essex and Staffordshire where we have police, fire and crime commissioners, this kind of co-operation between police and fire becomes quite a lot easier. I also pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), who is sitting next to me. He has campaigned successfully to reopen Bude community police station; it recently reopened, and has a tri-service safety officer based in it, for the benefit of all residents of Bude and the surrounding neighbourhoods. I agree with what my hon.”
“In fact, in the year to September 2023, fire and rescue services in England attended 16,000 medical incidents, in addition to 34,000 incidents affecting entry or exit to premises, so there is some co-operation around the country already. In our White Paper, we strongly encourage further co-operation between blue light services. As my hon. Friend said, in rural areas, where there is not such density of coverage, it makes a great deal of sense for police, ambulance and fire services to work together to provide a response. The tri-service safety officers in Devon and Cornwall, whom he described, are a shining example of how that can work in practice, benefiting residents the length and breadth of both counties. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in encouraging and supporting those tri-service safety officers.”
“Let me start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on securing this evening’s Adjournment debate, which has come slightly earlier than we would normally expect. He has done a very good job of explaining the benefits of tri-service safety officers in Devon and Cornwall, who set an example that, as he said, the rest of the country can follow. We in the Home Office are keen to see a lot more co-operation between blue light services; that is happening in some other parts of the country as well, but not in such an integrated way. In Humberside, Bedfordshire and the wider eastern region, fire and rescue services already work with the health service on dedicated falls and bariatric teams, helping the ambulance service to deal with incidents.”
“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Latham, as we commence our final day of line-by-line consideration of the Bill. [ Interruption. ] I see that colleagues are very enthusiastic about undertaking the last lap. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury, who would ordinarily have moved this Government new clause, has just arrived. With your permission, Ms Latham, might I hand over to her so that she can speak to it?”
“The way it is drafted goes beyond what I would expect in a cuckooing offence, where I imagine there would be some form of coercion, and non-consent by the person who owns the property.”
“First, as it is currently drafted, there would be no requirement for there to be any coercion. For the proposed new offence to be made out, it would simply be sufficient for somebody—the perpetrator or alleged perpetrator—to occupy a residential building lawfully occupied by another, and then to commit a criminal offence. The new offence of cuckooing would be made out even if there was no coercion and, in fact, even if it was done consensually. If the person who owned the house gave their free consent, without coercion, to the alleged perpetrator, the new offence proposed by the new clause would be committed. As I say, there is no requirement in the drafting for any form of coercion or even non-consent, whether or not there was coercion or exploitation.”
“It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I thank the hon. Member for Stockton North for the thoughtful and considered way in which he moved the new clause. He and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley both expressed sentiments about protecting vulnerable individuals from the practice known as cuckooing, and I will start by saying that the Government are just as concerned as they are. We are united in our shared desire to protect vulnerable people from the exploitation that they both described, so we are unanimous in our objectives in this area. As the hon. Member for Stockton North said, most commonly the practice of cuckooing is associated with drug dealing, but it can be associated with other forms of criminality. I will raise a couple of points about his new clause.”
“I think the Committee can see that because of that word “or”—”
“With respect, those sub-limbs of paragraph (b) say “or”. It is only one of those requirements that needs to be met, not all of them. Although it is true that in the hon. Member’s drafting, subsection (1)(b)(iii) does require coercion or duress, the other sub-limbs—(i) and (ii) in particular—do not require duress. If that had been an “and”, it would be different. That would require all the conditions to be met, including criminality and duress. However, because the end of the line in sub-paragraph (iii) says “or”, that is only one possible sub-limb that can be met. The other sub-limbs, which the criminal offence includes but is not limited to, could be engaged as well. For example, if somebody was dealing drugs, that would engage paragraph (b)(i) even if there was no control or coercion.”
“The offence there is where the person trespassing on land, which definitionally includes buildings, has the intention of “intimidating”, “obstructing” or “disrupting” the lawful activity of others, which will include the right to quiet enjoyment of their premises. Critically, the word “intimidating” is included in that aggravated trespass offence. Clearly, if somebody were coercively cuckooing a vulnerable person, it would be very likely—indeed, near certain—that they would be intimidating them. Not only would we be able to prosecute them for the primary offence, such as drug dealing, but possibly for aggravated trespass under section 68.”
“If a criminal offence such as drug dealing is being committed, that is illegal. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the production or supply of controlled drugs is an offence, so if somebody were occupying another person’s flat or house for the purpose of drug dealing, they would be committing an offence under that Act. Similarly, if they were trying to compel the victim—that is, the vulnerable person—to do something they did not want to do, it is quite likely that sections 1 or 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 would be engaged as well. Another offence that would likely or could be engaged is that of aggravated trespass, under section 68 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. That section rather confusingly refers to “land”, but the definition of land in that context includes buildings.”
“That is not exactly the definition of cuckooing that we would ordinarily recognise, which would involve duress and/or coercion of a typically vulnerable person. For that drafting reason, we could not support the new clause. There are a number of elements of existing criminal law that provide protection here or that are relevant. For example, sections 44 to 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 create various so-called inchoate offences, such as encouraging or assisting the commission of offences, which would likely be engaged here and the maximum penalty for which is the same as the primary offence. Even if the person doing the cuckooing is not committing the offence but is organising or encouraging others, including the vulnerable person, to do so, an offence is committed.”
“The shadow Minister intervened to draw attention to subsection (1)(b)(iii), which requires duress or coercion, but the other limbs of the test do not require duress or coercion and the clause is worded as an “or”. That is to say, if any one of limbs one to four are engaged, the offence is made out. For example, if limb one alone is engaged—if there is drug dealing at the premises—the offence is made out even if there is no coercion, because the test is structured as an “or” rather than an “and”, and any one of the four limbs may apply. The way the new clause has been drafted means that, even where there is no coercion or duress and even where consent has been freely given by the person living in the residential building, the offence would none the less have been committed.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Graham, at the start of what is the final session of the 16, including the evidence sessions, that we have had on this Bill. I am sure that if there is popular demand, we can agree to have some more— [ Laughter . ] No, I did not think that that would be terribly popular. We were in the middle of discussing new clause 19, moved by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), on a new criminal offence of cuckooing. As we ran out of time, I was saying that the way in which the new clause is drafted does not require there to have been duress, coercion or consent.”
“What is certain is that under the new clause, as drafted, a criminal offence of cuckooing could be committed even where there is no coercion and consent is freely given. I will be interested to hear the hon. Member’s response to that, if he plans to speak. On my other points, if a criminal offence occurs at a premises because they are being used as a base for criminal activities, it is not likely but certain that that criminal offence will be prosecuted. That is a certainty. If a criminal offence has been committed, that can obviously be prosecuted as a matter of certainty.”
“Those are civil measures, but they are in addition to the various criminal measures that I enumerated. In conclusion, the Government accept the spirit of the concern that has been raised. Cuckooing is a concern; it happens, and it needs to be stopped. It is worth saying that we have closed down a very large number of county lines over the last four years—I think about 3,000. Enforcement action is happening. There is scope to go further, but numerous existing criminal offences give the police the powers they need. We need, collectively, to make sure that the police always exercise those powers where cuckooing occurs.”
“Even if it were drafted to include a requirement for duress or coercion or that consent had been withheld, we could legitimately debate whether it does or does not fill a lacuna. In addition to the criminal sanctions that I have just enumerated, there are a very large number of civil orders available to try to prevent a property being misused. I will not go through the detail of them all because that will take too long, but I will list what they are. They include closure notices, community protection notices, public space protection orders, civil injunctions under part 1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, criminal behaviour orders, gang injunctions, a section 8 notice under the Housing Act, and slavery and trafficking risk orders.”
“On the inchoate offences under sections 45 or 46—that is, where someone is incited or encouraged to commit an offence—the maximum penalty is the same as that for the primary offence. So, it is not true that the maximum sentences available in this sphere are in any way light or incon-sequential. This matter obviously concerns everybody. It is as much a matter of enforcement as anything else because, as I have explained, we have a number of different laws on the statute books that cover such behaviour with significant penalties attached. The question is how we make sure that they are properly enforced. As drafted, the new clause probably does not have quite the intended effect, because it is widely drafted.”
“The antisocial behaviour plan, published in the spring of last year, committed to engaging with stakeholders on that question. That engagement has happened and continues to happen. On the point about penalties, if someone is occupying someone else’s house and is dealing, for example, class A drugs, the maximum penalty, wherever that happens, is life. Under the Modern Slavery Act, the maximum sentence under sections 1 and 2 for making another person a victim of modern slavery is life imprisonment. The penalties available are severe. In the two examples that I just gave, the maximum sentence is life imprisonment. The maximum penalty for participating in the activities of an organised crime group under section 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 is five years.”
“I would point primarily to the criminal offences I enumerated, but, on the question of civil orders, other agencies such as local authorities, or in some cases the police, could of course apply for the civil order. Obviously, we would not expect the vulnerable person to apply for the civil order themselves, but there are agencies, which include local authorities, that could certainly do so on their behalf.”
“The algorithm is now very good, and matches can often be obtained even when a visual inspection would suggest that would be difficult. I have seen some extraordinary examples. We expect police always to do that facial recognition matching. We also expect them always to physically attend a scene where there has been an assault on a retail worker, if attendance is necessary to secure evidence. If it is just CCTV evidence, it can be emailed, but they should attend to secure evidence if they need to. Where store staff, including security staff, have detained an offender, we expect the police to attend as a matter of urgency to pick up that offender.”
“I will say a word or two about the action the Government are taking and then talk about the specifics of the new clause. Last autumn, working together with policing, we published the retail crime action plan. That contained several important commitments from the police, including a reaffirmation of their commitment always to investigate retail crime, in common with other crime, where there are reasonable lines of inquiry to pursue—not sometimes, not maybe, but always. That includes always retrieving CCTV footage and running it through the facial recognition database we discussed a few weeks ago. Most stores have CCTV and where there is even a partial image of an offender—perhaps it is fuzzy, or there is shade, or they are wearing a hat—it should always be run through the various databases.”
“I thank the shadow Minister for tabling the new clause and for his introduction. The Government certainly share the Opposition’s concern. Whereas crime as a whole has been declining over the last 13 years, the last four years and the last year, the past year or two have seen an increase in both shoplifting and assaults on retail workers. That has been seen not only in the UK, but around the world, including in Europe, Australia and the United States of America, and that is of deep concern to us all. I have repeatedly met retailers, including the Co-op, and I met Paddy Lillis, the USDAW general secretary, and some of his members who work in shops, including Tesco and Sainsbury’s stores in various parts of London, at the Home Office just a week or two ago, so we are engaging on this matter.”
“It would not make any difference to or replace other, more serious forms of assault. Those include assault occasioning actual bodily harm, which causes a temporary injury such as a bruise; assault occasioning grievous bodily harm, which causes a lasting injury such as a broken bone; and grievous bodily harm with intent to cause serious injury. The maximum sentences for those other forms of assault are five years for ABH and GBH, and life for GBH with intent. The new clause would not affect those maximum sentences, which are much higher than its proposed maximum.”
“Those are the operational steps being taken. We are working very closely with unions, retailers and representative groups, as I said. Turning to new clause 41, I have a lot of sympathy for where the shadow Minister is coming from. I understand the desire to strengthen the law in this area, but I will make one or two observations. First, passing laws is the easy bit. The hard bit is creating change on the ground. That applies to a lot of the things we have talked about today, including this issue. Of course, it is already a criminal offence to assault a retail worker, just as it is an offence to assault anybody. The proposed new offence would replace only common assault—all assault is serious, but that is the lowest level of assault—where the victim is a retail worker.”
“The third element is targeting prolific and repeat offenders using facial recognition and analysis of data so that we can go after organised criminal gangs. The fourth element is Operation Pegasus, a nationwide project funded partly by about 16 retailers and run by police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne from Sussex. Again, its aim is to identify criminal gangs and go after them specifically. The police made a lot of commitments in the retail crime action plan, published two or three months ago, and we will have meetings every three months of the retail crime steering group, which consists of leading retailers, the British Retail Consortium and many others, to hold the police to account for delivering the action plan that they have signed up to. I think the next meeting is in a week or two—it is relatively soon.”
“Yes, I would. In fact, I think both those sectors have been invited to the larger six-monthly meetings of the retail crime steering group. I should have added that my first job in south London was in a Sainsbury’s very close to what is now my constituency —I must have been about 16 or 17—and the first business I ran was a wholesale distribution business whose main warehouse was on the Lichfield Road industrial estate in Tamworth. I recall on one occasion someone trying to drive a JCB through the wall to steal cigarettes and alcohol. That was 20-odd years ago, so I am very apprised of the dangers posed to the wholesale sector as well as the retail sector. As I was saying, more police attendance is the second element of the retail crime action plan.”
“There are quite a few other workers with an equally strong claim. When it came to the statutory aggravating factor, which I will talk about in a moment, we orientated it towards all public-facing workers—not just retail workers. If we accept new clause 41 as drafted, reasonable questions might arise about teachers, who sometimes suffer assault at school, or bus, tram or tube drivers. What about refuse collectors, local councillors, social workers, and all these other workers who do an important job on behalf of the public, who sadly are often assaulted? They might say, “What about us?” In the previous bit of legislation, which I will refer to in a moment, we directed it towards the inclusion of all public-facing workers, not just retail workers, important though they are of course.”
“That is not quite what I was saying. I am going to point out a number of potential weaknesses in the new clause. That is one of them, but it is not the only one. I am just saying that it does not address any of the more serious assaults from ABH upwards. It would not affect probably 100% of the assaults of most concern, and probably 90% of all assaults. The second issue is equity between retail workers and other public-facing workers. Retailers do very important work. As the shadow Minister rightly said, they do things such as age verification, which we in Parliament asked them to do. They put themselves in harm’s way, and they have been suffering from appalling abuse, which we all want to stop. All of those things are absolutely true. This new clause, however, targets only retail workers.”
“I know I am not supposed to show props or exhibits, so I will not do so, but I have some data on shoplifting prosecutions in Scotland and England over the last seven or eight years that has been indexed. The Committee may want to know that the graph in Scotland and England basically tracks one for one, including the two years after 2021. Certainly, the prosecution of shoplifting offences, which is different from assaults but gives a sense of police action, does not seem to be any different in Scotland and England over the period concerned. If there is evidence, from USDAW or otherwise, on the effect of that Scottish law change, I would be very interested to see and consider it further.”
“Prior to this offence going on to the statute book in Scotland, offences where a retail worker was the victim would have been recorded just as assaults, in common with all other assaults. I do not know how it is possible to strip out the baseline to understand how many retail worker assaults were being prosecuted before the new law compared with afterwards. Before the new law in Scotland, they would all just have been counted as regular assaults. I do not know how those that had a retail worker as a victim could be isolated. Maybe the shadow Minister could write to me or we can discuss it later, because I would be interested to hear how that data is derived.”
“Member for Nottingham North, so eloquently talked about, this ensures that there is a longer sentence—the person concerned will go to prison for a longer period of time. That came into force less than two years ago, so we have taken action. It would be reasonable to consider just how that is bedding in before going further, much as I sympathise with the intent behind this new clause. Mention has been made of the offence in Scotland on which the new clause has been modelled, which I think came into force in 2021. The shadow Minister referenced the fact that there has apparently been some uplift in charges in Scotland as a result. I would be interested to find out—maybe outside of this Committee—how that has been established.”
“Other public-facing workers sadly suffer from assault—bus drivers being an obvious example. I will come on to the legislation we introduced. The hon. Member for Stockton North and I were both on the Bill Committee for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. He will recall that, recognising this concern about retail workers and others, we passed a measure that made it a statutory aggravating factor where the victim of any assault—not just common assault—was a public-facing worker. When judges pass sentence and the victim is a public-facing worker—that includes retail workers—they are obliged by primary legislation to consider a longer sentence than they otherwise would. Reflecting the seriousness of this issue that the shadow Minister, the hon.”
“First, I put on the record my thanks to Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman of North Wales police, who leads for the NPCC in this area and was instrumental in publishing the retail crime action plan. On the hon. Gentleman’s question about the deliverability of all reasonable lines of inquiry, the approach was based on that taken by Chief Constable Stephen Watson in Greater Manchester, starting about a year and a half ago—perhaps two years now. You might be familiar with this, Sir Graham, but it worked successfully in Greater Manchester, to the point that arrests went up 44% year on year, and I think two magistrates courts had to be reopened, because of the volume of arrests. We saw that working under Chief Constable Watson’s leadership, and we want to replicate the success across England and Wales.”
“We are therefore not ready to accept legislation, but we are committed to giving it further, very careful consideration, so that if changes are needed, we can make them in a way that does not inadvertently create loopholes. On protections for people engaged in legitimate activity, I remind the Committee that prior to bringing a prosecution, the Crown Prosecution Service applies the public interest test. If somebody were engaging in legitimate cyber-security activity and inadvertently fell foul of the Act, it may well be that the CPS applied that public interest test and therefore did not proceed with the prosecution. However, this does need some more thought, and I do not think we are ready to legislate yet.”