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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“We wanted to make that code of practice as strong as possible around a duty of candour, but there were many other things in it—for example, a duty on a chief constable to ensure ethical behaviour in a force, through their processes, policies, reward recognition, promotion, application of the victims code, challenging unprofessional behaviour, looking after staff welfare, dealing with misconduct and vetting properly. Even before we get to the duty of candour, which is very strong, this is the strongest lever the College of Policing can pull in order to bring about cultural change around standards in policing. We will be working with the launch of the second two parts of the code in January, which is different from the legal code.”
“Q Thank you. Let me ask Andy Marsh again, about the statutory ethical policing code contained in clause 73, which includes a statutory duty of candour, which was one of Bishop James Jones’s recommendations following Hillsborough. Can you tell the Committee what kind of impact you think that will have on police conduct in general and, specifically, the duty of candour going forward? Andy Marsh: It should be a very significant moment in policing. The first code of ethics was put in place in 2014. I could explain to the Committee why we think we are able to improve on that, but we have to talk about why it is going to make a big difference. The College is able to put a code of practice in place which requires a chief constable to have due regard.”
“Certainly, there has been a large reduction in the number of positive outcomes or detections for shoplifting over the last five or six years. That is not acceptable. It is in line with an awful lot of the other core charge and outcome rates that we have seen across policing. This is more about ensuring that the police across England and Wales treat this more seriously, particularly where there are aggravated offences alongside, such as assault. That is what Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman is attempting to do on behalf of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. Rather long-windedly, to come back to your initial question, without seeing the evidence for how that reduces offences or increases detections, I would not necessarily be in favour of a separate offence.”
“What is your opinion about whether there is any use in creating that separate, stand-alone offence? Andy Cooke: I think I am right in saying it is an offence in Scotland, but I do not know how much that has resulted in a change in offending behaviour. I have not particularly looked at that point. It is a question of where you draw the line. The key issue is not whether a new offence should be constructed for assaulting a shop worker. It is more about how well, or not, policing is dealing with assaults, full stop; and how well police officers are dealing with the offence of shoplifting and the ancillary offences that sometimes go with that. I am aware that the National Police Chiefs’ Council is doing an awful lot of work around this at the moment, working with the PCC for Sussex and yourself, Minister.”
“Q Great, thank you. May I ask Andy Cooke and Andy Marsh each in turn a question which has arisen a few times, both in this Committee’s proceedings today but also over the last year or two? It relates to the question of whether there should or should not be a separate offence for the assault of a retail worker. As you know, we made assaulting a public-facing worker a statutory aggravating factor for other assault offences in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. We have already created a separate offence of assaulting emergency workers. Some people now say that we should have a separate offence for assaulting a retail worker, to give it more prominence. Others say, “Well, where do you draw the line?” You could have an offence for assaulting a teacher, a local councillor—and so it might go on.”
“Whether that is the confidence and trust of shop workers or across neighbourhoods and communities, whichever way it is, a large part of getting that confidence and trust back is by the police showing themselves to be effective in what they do. The police need to increase their efforts to do so.”
“Andy Cooke: All those issues will be captured by the police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy inspections that we do every two years on every police force across England and Wales. We will look at reasonable lines of inquiry particularly and at the overall outcome rates—not just charge rates, because the out-of-court disposals are important as well, as it is whatever is the best sanction to fit the individual and the community at the end of the day. We look right across that to ensure that policing is doing what it should be doing, as we do every week of the year, and will continue to do so. This is a really important issue for me, because these are crimes that strike at the heart of communities and neighbourhoods. It is really important that policing gets confidence and trust back.”
“Q Before Andy Marsh answers the same question, you referred to the recently published retail crime action plan, which Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman authored in close consultation with me as Police Minister and with the Home Office. You highlighted the unacceptably low charge rates, which I agree with. What level of confidence do you have that that retail crime action plan will deliver those results? To what extent will you be able to follow that up in your regular PEEL inspections and your “all reasonable lines of inquiry” thematic next spring to make sure that that action plan, which is good on paper, is actually delivered in practice and delivers the results, which are more detections and arrests?”
“I think the second, more important reason is for Parliament to signal its concern about a particularly disruptive crime that damages the fabric of our communities and society. This sends out a signal that the police need to do better. I am supportive of the proposal.”
“Q I completely agree, as you know. Without the zero-tolerance approach, there is a risk of escalation. Andy Marsh, may I put the same question to you about the utility or not of a separate offence? Andy Marsh: The College is supporting policing with guidance around dealing with retail crime, particularly persistent offenders. I agree with everything that has been said: much more needs to be done in order to deal with this crime type. In relation to the specific offence, I can see that there are two purposes to it. The first is that it might well act as a deterrent. The College of Policing holds the evidence base for policing. We cannot categorically tell you there is an evidence base for deterrence, but that would be one of the reasons for putting it in place.”
“What goes alongside that is ensuring that the actions of the police on facial recognition are ethical and lawful. I am a big supporter of facial recognition used in the right way, and I think that opening up that database would benefit the detection of crime.”
“Q It is not a proposal; it is from the Government—it is an idea that has been floated from time to time. Moving on to a proposal contained in clause 21, which relates to giving police access to driver licence records—particularly the photograph—which currently are only readily accessible for road traffic purposes. The idea is that they can be used for facial recognition searches, where an image is retrieved from a crime scene from CCTV. That might include a shoplifting offence. This would make the DVLA driving licence database searchable by the police, in the same way that other databases are, including for facial recognition purposes. In your view, both Andy Marsh and Andy Cooke, would that assist the police in investigations? Is that a measure you would support? Andy Marsh: I am supportive. Andy Cooke: Yes, I support it.”
“Andy Cooke: It would certainly help in relation to that. At the moment, the only recourse is judicial review, which as we know can be exceptionally expensive and difficult, so I see no problem at all in having that right of appeal for a chief constable. Andy Marsh: The code of ethics, which we have just been talking about, puts a responsibility—in fact, a duty—on a chief constable to discharge their responsibilities around standards, conduct and behaviour; and I have been in a position, as a chief, where I have not been able to do that because ultimately I haven’t had the decision on who I ultimately have serving alongside me as a police officer. They are not employees—they are servants of the Crown. I have found that to be a deeply unsatisfactory position, so I am supportive of this.”
“Q Excellent. My final question relates to clause 74, which is concerned with the appeal mechanism after a misconduct hearing. At the moment, if an officer is dismissed by the panel—which remains an independent-majority panel with the chief chairing it—the officer who has been dismissed can appeal to the police appeal tribunals. If the officer is left in post, however, there is no appeal the other way, so if the chief constable wants to sack the officer for misconduct and disagrees with the panel, there is no right of appeal. This clause would introduce such a right of appeal. Do you agree with the Met Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, in saying that this measure will help chief constables better to manage their workforce and root out officers guilty of misconduct where appropriate and where necessary?”
“We obviously do think that the changes we recommended would make a difference in the ways I mentioned earlier, which included improving enforcement and the ability to seize offenders’ assets, limiting unrealistic and in some cases unfair orders, and allowing victims to receive compensation more promptly. We estimated at the time that the reforms could lead to an extra £8 million in funds being retrieved from criminals in England and Wales every year. That obviously helps to return more money that can be used on public services, for instance. I am happy to talk in more detail about specific recommendations if that would be helpful.”
“Q Penney, welcome to the Committee. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. Sorry if you got stuck in security downstairs. Can I start by asking about the proceeds of crime measures referred to in clause 32 and expanded on in the extremely long schedule 4, which takes up about 38 pages? Can I just check that those follow your recommendations and that you are happy with them? Can you give the Committee some sense of the impact you think the Bill will have if passed? Professor Lewis: Many paragraphs of the schedule do implement our recommendations. We are extremely pleased to see our recommendations implemented extremely swiftly. This project only reported over a year ago.”
“When the gain is only temporary their benefit from crime is not really £1,000,000, given that they do not get to keep that. At the moment, orders can be made in the amount of the temporary gain and that recommendation has been taken up. I will find the paragraph for you in a moment.”
“Enforcement plans, which largely implement our recommendations for contingent orders, are in paragraph 16; and allowing enforcement to take place in the Crown court as well as the magistrates court is in paragraph 17. We think that those will make the system much more efficient and will radically improve enforcement. In terms of fairness, it is really important that orders accurately deflect a defendant’s benefit from crime. There are two ways in which we have recommended, and the Government have introduced clauses to implement, improving the fairness of confiscation orders. One concerns where someone has made only a temporary gain—for example, a money launderer who allows their bank account to be used to transfer £1,000,000 but gets paid £10,000 for doing that.”
“Q Were there any in particular you would like to draw the Committee’s attention to? Professor Lewis: One of the things we thought was most important, in addition to trying to make the system more efficient, was to balance it with also making it more fair. In terms of efficiency, we recommended things like expediting the setting of a confiscation timetable, which is in paragraph 12, and creating a settlement process, which already happens informally—we call it EROC, which stands for early resolution of confiscation. That has been implemented in paragraph 13. We note also that better enforcement will improve the recovery of funds. There have been several recommendations that have been implemented in order to improve enforcement.”
“The first two of those—assistance orders and requiring the defendant to attend enforcement hearings after serving the default term—are both in schedule 4.”
“There were some people who were in favour of that, but lots of people thought it extremely draconian; another sector thought that it really would not work, and within that was His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. In other words, probation is not really designed to get people to pay their confiscation orders; it has another purpose. It has a rehabilitative purpose. Ultimately, we decided that there are better ways to try to ensure enforcement. So, yes, there is the default term that remains, and that is a real threat to defendants. However, we also recommended confiscation assistance orders, requiring the defendant to attend enforcement hearings after the default term has been served and requiring the provision of financial information with penalties for non-compliance or providing false information.”
“In the consultation paper we cite a case where, as the person is being taken off to prison, finally the confiscation debt is settled. So, we do know that that does work—at least, anecdotally. In the consultation paper we provisionally proposed something that would be even more stringent than that. At the moment the defendant is released halfway through the default term. After that, there is no more threat of imprisonment. We provisionally proposed that the defendant should be released only on licence, similar to the way in which life prisoners are released, for example. I think that was probably our most controversial proposal.”
“That should not be double counted, so that the defendant then has to pay back something that has already been seized by the state. That is in paragraph 5. We are very pleased to see those fairness recommendations, as well as the efficiency gains. In terms of deadlines, ultimately there is a deadline: it is called the default term of imprisonment. When a confiscation order is made against a defendant, a term of imprisonment in default is set. The defendant may end up serving this period of imprisonment if it is activated by the court, on the basis that the defendant has demonstrated either wilful refusal to pay the confiscation order or culpable neglect in failing to pay it. The defendant can of course secure release from the default term by paying the confiscation debt.”
“Q While you are looking, Graeme Biggar raised a question in his evidence earlier today. I may have misunderstood his point, so perhaps you can clarify. He raised the concern that there was an absence of deadlines and an absence of penalty if a payment deadline is missed. He cited a case where an order was made in 2018 that got paid only earlier this year—five years later. Is that your understanding? Is there anything in here that addresses that, because he seemed to suggest there is not? Professor Lewis: I am happy to address that. The temporary gain issue is in paragraph 8. The other improvement to the calculation of benefit is in circumstances where the defendant has already disgorged some of the proceeds of their crime—so, for example, that may have been forfeited or seized by the state already.”
“Professor Lewis: Again, we do not have a view; it is not something that we have looked at. Obviously, in our hate crime project we looked at circumstances where sentences were aggravated because of hostility towards a protected characteristic, and we recommended equalising the protection that the various protected characteristics carry so that every protected characteristic would have aggravated offences, as well as enhanced sentencing for those offences that do not have aggravated versions. However, we have not looked specifically at the individually aggravated offences such as the ones for assaulting a police officer and so on, I am afraid.”
“Q That is very helpful, thank you. I have one further question on a different topic. We have discussed at different times today whether there is any merit in creating a separate offence of assaulting a retail worker. Obviously, in the past we have voted for a separate offence of assaulting an emergency worker, and in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 we made the victim being a public-facing person a statutory aggravating factor. Some people will say that we should go further and have a separate offence for assaulting a retail worker. The contrary argument is clearly that it is already a criminal offence, and where do we draw the line? What about assaulting a teacher or local councillor? You could carry on almost without limitation. What is the Law Commission view on that?”
“Q So you do not have a corporate view, or a personal view, on whether creating extra, specific and bespoke assault offences is merited. Professor Lewis: We do not have a corporate view, because we have not done work on it. You are right to worry that one is drawing very fine lines, and once one has added one offence, there is another group of people who are not included in the bespoke offences. One ends up with a proliferation of bespoke offences for different categories of function.”
“Q Taking all that together, what would be your personal view on the question—speaking for yourself, not the Law Commission? Professor Lewis: I do not think that I would go further than that. I think that concern should be considered, but I do not think that I am in a position to have a personal view, having not looked at it in any depth.”
“Good morning, Gavin. Let me start by putting on record my thanks to you, as chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and to all your colleagues in policing for the work that you and officers up and down the country do daily. You put yourselves in the line of danger to protect the rest of us, and I am sure that I speak for the whole Committee and the whole House when I put on record our thanks to you and to police officers up and down the country for the work that you do daily to keep the rest of us safe. Chief Constable Stephens: Thank you, Minister.”
“There needs to be something more than that that we would want to address in partnership with others.”
“In different localities, they take different forms, but generally, in most borough and district areas, for example, there will be a meeting that talks about places that need particular attention from a range of partners. If rough sleeping was causing a nuisance, we would not see that as an issue for policing solely, but we would take part in any joint problem-solving plans in order to address concerns. The issue for us would be if, for example, it was a place where criminality was being orchestrated or where people were particularly vulnerable to becoming victims of crime themselves. Clearly, there is a policing interest in that. We would support local partners, but what we would not want to see is a position where communities turn to policing in order to address the issue of rough sleeping on the streets.”
“Q Let me move on to one or two of the provisions. You mentioned a moment ago the provisions concerning nuisance rough sleeping, and you rightly said that partnership working would be needed to ensure that people get the support that they need. Could you first just outline the kind of joint working that you would expect to happen to address that? Secondly, would you agree that where rough sleeping or begging is causing a nuisance to the public, it is reasonable to expect some action to be taken to prevent it? Chief Constable Stephens: Clearly, at local level, the work of community safety partnerships is really important to this.”
“Q Would you accept that antisocial behaviour in general is something that the public and Parliament expect police to act on? Chief Constable Stephens: Absolutely, yes. My experience in many years of policing is that communities often do not make a distinction between criminality and antisocial behaviour. If things are affecting their day-to-day lives, they often consider some of those things to be a crime, even if they are not on the statute book, and expect action against them. In this particular instance, we just need to be cautious that we are not using policing powers in order to address a wider social problem—particularly, for example, where it might be due to mental ill health and other complex factors.”
“There would need to be careful consideration about the interfacing with existing policing powers and the level of authority needed to exercise the powers. Fundamentally, in exercising those powers, we would need to maintain the consent of communities that they are being used proportionately, lawfully and only where absolutely necessary.”
“The Bill mentions an inspector authority, which would be commensurate with other search powers following arrest, for example. That would need to be used in conjunction with additional intelligence, bearing in mind that that power could be used at premises where we might not suspect the people inside to have anything to do with the crime. If we suspected that they did, other powers are available to us, such as power of arrest, power of search following arrest and inspector authority to search the premises. The powers contained in the Bill around searching the premises would not cover searching people within those premises, or, again, multiple occupancy. The general tenet is, yes, this would be very operationally useful.”
“One of the topics about stolen property that has led to this provision is the theft of mobile devices that might emit a signal as to where they currently are. It is the view of police that those systems are not currently accurate enough to give a precise location on every occasion. Clearly, there will be a significant difference between a rural area with dispersed properties and a dense urban environment where you might have maisonettes and blocks of flats when it comes to being able to precisely locate a stolen item. There are available to us under other legislation very intrusive techniques, to be used covertly, whereby we can accurately pinpoint devices, but that is not what is envisaged, I believe, in this particular provision, and we would need to exercise the powers carefully. Such a provision needs some level of authority.”
“Q In relation to recovering stolen goods, members of the public often express surprise and frustration that when, for example, an iPhone is stolen and they can see where it is, the police do not necessarily go and retrieve it as quickly as the public would like and expect. Would you agree that the warrantless powers of entry contained in the Bill, to enter premises to recover stolen goods where there is no other quick way of doing that and where there is a reasonable suspicion that the stolen goods are on the premises, will help the police to recover stolen goods and to arrest thieves who might otherwise go undetected and unpunished? Chief Constable Stephens: Such a provision would be supportive to operational policing if implemented carefully and thoughtfully, and in conjunction with the other powers that currently exist.”
“We are clearly taking action, but there is much more to do. I would be concerned if we started adding to a list of additional assault categories, because where is the limit? People who provide vital public services—I would say that retail is a vital public service, and it is important to the vibrancy of local communities and so on—are worthy of particular consideration, but it is a question of where the limits would be.”
“From a policing point of view, do you consider that that provides adequate protection for retail workers? Do you think that there would be any benefit in creating a separate offence of assaulting a retail worker, or would you be concerned that, if you did that, you could then ask, “What about teachers? What about local councillors? What about minors?” and so on? Chief Constable Stephens : On additional offences, we have provisions relating to emergency service workers, which is right and proper. In relation to retail crime, the important thing for policing is that we get a grip on the scale of the emerging problem, hence the action plan that you mentioned, Minster. Police received over a quarter of a million reports of retail theft in the financial year 2022-23, and there has been a 29% rise in the number of arrests.”
“Thank you, Gavin. I have one more question. As you know, we have been debating retail crime a great deal. The retail crime action plan, which Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman, in consultation with the Government, published just a few weeks ago, was extremely welcome. One thing that we have debated in Parliament, including during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which the hon. Member for Stockton South—I mean the hon. Member for Stockton North; we have to be very careful when referring to Stockton these days—and I remember very fondly was whether we needed a separate offence of assaulting a retail worker. In that piece of legislation, we ended up not creating a separate offence and instead making it a statutory aggravating factor where the victim is a retail worker.”
“It is very helpful to see that the Bill allows a mechanism for secondary legislation to be brought forward in order to add other items. One issue that we are looking at currently is childlike sexual abuse dolls. We can seize them, as it is an offence to bring them across the border, but it is not an offence to possess one in the UK. That is an issue we would want to look at adding to that section.”
“Q Graeme, thank you for all the work that you and your colleagues at the NCA do—and thank you also to the CPS for the work that you do prosecuting cases. Graeme, you mentioned in response to the shadow Minister, who covered many of the points I would have asked about, the articles used for serious and organised crime, including 3D printing templates for firearms. Do the clauses as drafted contain everything you would want to see in that regard? Are there any areas where the drafting could be improved or does this do the trick as it is drafted? Graeme Biggar: The drafting for those items does everything I think we need to see regarding both possession and supply. There are other issues that, over time, we will want to think about adding.”
“Q Thank you. There is a power in clause 21 to allow police and law enforcement, including the NCA, to access driving licence records to do a facial recognition search, which, anomalously, is currently quite difficult. When you get a crime scene image from CCTV or something like that, do you agree it would be useful to be able to do a facial recognition search across DVLA records as well as the other records that can currently be accessed? Graeme Biggar: Yes, it would. It is really important for us to be able to use facial recognition more. I know that is an issue you have been championing. We use it within the NCA, but there is more we need to be doing within the NCA and across police forces in the round.”
“In the code for Crown prosecutors, it is a public interest factor in favour of prosecuting—where the crime is committed against someone who is conducting a public service—so we already treat that more seriously, and obviously there are a range of offences that cover a range of different assaults.”
“Q Great. Can I just turn to the CPS? You probably heard us a moment ago asking Gavin Stephens about whether there is any merit in considering a separate stand-alone offence for assaulting a retail worker. Obviously, we made it a statutory aggravating factor in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which has really only just begun to come into force now. What is the view of the Crown Prosecution Service as to whether a separate offence is merited, or do you feel that we have an offence that covers it and continuously adding new groups of people through stand-alone offences might be counterproductive or unnecessary? Baljit Ubhey: I think it is probably unnecessary. I would echo what Gavin has said about building confidence with the retail community.”
“Gregor McGill: It mirrors the offence in the Firearms Act 2023, which prosecutors use a lot and which is a very useful tool, so there is no reason to think that this would not be an equally useful tool.”
“Q No? Okay. Thank you very much indeed. My next question is again for the CPS. In relation to the knife crime provisions, some of them are in this Bill and others are being taken forward via secondary legislation, of course; I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West for her campaigning on this issue. Do you feel that the new offence being created, of possession of a weapon with intent to use unlawful violence, is a helpful addition to the statute book and might enable those who intend to use serious violence but have not yet committed it to be given longer sentences? Baljit Ubhey: We recognise that this bridges the gap between simple possession and the different circumstances where violence is threatened, so we think it is a helpful addition.”
“Q In relation to the firearms offence, do you find that in practice that has led to prosecutions with commensurately higher sentences? Gregor McGill: Yes.”
“Therefore, by the time you have gone through all that and you are up near the criminal standard, if you have got the evidence, often you can prosecute rather than going for the civil sanction, and that is part of the problem. However, I do not think any of this is not resolvable with proper communication between ourselves and our law enforcement colleagues. But these orders are a useful tool.”
“They have been used a lot after a conviction in a Crown court trial, but they have not been used a lot as a stand-alone measure in the High Court, so there is more that we can do in consultation with our law enforcement colleagues to make sure that we use these measures more frequently. There are some risks in using them in the High Court. As you know, costs follow the event in the High Court and cost orders can be high. Also, although the standard of proof is said to be on the balance of probabilities and the civil standards, we are seeing that what is required to obtain an order inch up in the High Court to close to the criminal standard.”