In the third of a series of articles about the Labour Government of 2024 in power so far, in terms of crime prevention, Mark Rowe goes through the second reading debate of the Crime and Policing Bill for clues to what members of Parliament might bring.
For all the ill-will expressed by Labour and Conservative politicians towards one another, and by Liberal Democrats towards both (Taunton police station was closed, Lib Dem Gideon Amos told MPs, which he blamed on a Conservative, Avon and Somerset police and crime commissioner), and point-scoring over what the previous, Tory government did or didn’t do, over the 50,000 or so words of the five-hour debate left the impression of how much agreement the politicians of the main three political colours have over what to do about crime, and that something needs doing. Chris Philp as Shadow Home Secretary summed up that ‘The Opposition broadly support the intent of the Bill, but what really matters is delivery’. As an aside, some Labour MPs noted that (in Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash’s words) ‘Reform members have not spent a second in the Chamber during today’s debate’. Nor did any Green members of Parliament speak. Nor any Scottish Nationalists, though the Labour MP for Kilmarnock Lilian Jones laid into the SNP in power in Scotland, for example for their ‘under-22 bus pass initiative, many of my constituents have told me that they are now afraid to visit Kilmarnock bus station or even use local bus services’.
There lies two themes: that many MPs were, understandably, local in what they said in debate (which may help them show themselves in a good light to their constituents) yet with few exceptions did not express, and were unable to reflect on the reality of, local work against crime, that routinely takes more than the police. Private security got next to no mentions. Partly that may be because MPs bring personal experience to bear, and family background; some MPs are the children or relatives of police officers, retired or serving. No-one seemed to have family or any work history of being a security guard.
Crime, and fear of crime, or put another way feelings of community safety, matter to people. More than one MP mentioned tool theft, from tradespeople’s vans. Amanda Martin, a Labour Portsmouth MP was among MPs who named streets and housing estates in her constituency, shorthand terms for deprivation and crime in each locality, that mean nothing to outsiders. ‘Parents are writing to me, terrified for their children’s safety and demanding action. Some have even raised concerns about the advertising of chefs’ knives on television.’
Doncaster Labour MP Lee Pitcher was another of many who described their constituencies, rural and urban parts, where ‘rampant crime’ and antisocial behaviour – and fly-tipping, which is both a crime and implies contempt for the property that’s dumped on – blight lives.
Callum Anderson, the Labour MP for Buckingham, as the son of a shop worker, dwelt on ‘the increasingly casual and habitual nature of shoplifting and other retail crime’ – the ‘other’ including two attempts on the cash machine at the Co-op in Winslow in Buckinghamshire. As that and numerous other examples by MPs show, crime against business is not only in the most deprived and crime-ridden big cities. Anderson in his closing remark – ‘we in this House, with our security guards and our armed police, have a particular duty to ensure that those who work in our shops feel just as safe as we do’ – was one of a handful of speakers to acknowledge private security.
Besides using their family background, MPs, junior and senior, expressed on what they come across in their constituencies that they respond to as humans when constituents are in distress as victims of crime, or bereaved. While one Croydon MP, Natasha Irons (Labour) complained that the place ‘continues to pay the price for the previous Government’s inaction on knife crime and youth violence’, another, the Conservative former Home Office minister Chris Philp, gave an example of a murdered teenage girl; ‘almost all honourable members will have encountered a constituency case’ of such knife crime, he added. In other words, compassion is felt across political parties. For women MPs, violence against women and girls (vawg) is evidently personal. To take only two examples, the Newport, south Wales Labour MP Ruth Jones said: “Violence against women and girls is endemic in our society, and we need to take it seriously and tackle it directly.” And Emily Darlington, Labour MP for Milton Keynes, who also shared that she had been stalked: “Women in Milton Keynes are scared of going out.”
While some MPs made grand statements (‘crime and policing in London is at a crisis point’, Sutton Liberal Democrat MP Luke Taylor said, ‘hoplifting is out of control’, said Jonathan Brash) Taunton’s Lib Dem MP Gideon Amos came at once as close as any to showing a grasp of what makes a town centre or high street tick (or not) to resist crime, and yet showed how far away that grasp is. He praised the town marshal, Nick Barber. Amos said: “He is doing an excellent job and covering a huge range of work, from people climbing all over the rooftops to retrieving thousands of pounds’ worth of stock by simply asking the person responsible to hand it over.” Nick Barber, pictured, featured in the February edition of Professional Security Magazine. Amos did not (in the limited, five minutes that an MP had to speak, totalling perhaps 600 words, perhaps it was impossible) pull out any lessons: that uniformed presences besides the police are becoming the norm. That would beg the question why on-street private, SIA-badged, security is necessary; Taunton’s police station (like so many others) has closed; the chamber of commerce in the county town felt it had to convene a ‘safe streets forum’, that Amos attended. Yet, as again Amos did not pursue, a forum (raising grumbles) is far from the same thing as a business crime reduction partnership (BCRP, collecting and sharing crime data, and generally getting things done) that Taunton has lacked for some time. Lacking because unneeded? No, as Amos said, Taunton businesses are ‘at their wit’s end because of the antisocial behaviour in the historic centre’.
The MP who showed most understanding of what’s called for against crime was Jonathan Brash of Hartlepool, who significantly declared a background in BCRPs. As a former local government councillor, he knows what it’s like in his local shopping centre, ‘plagued’ by a ‘small minority of disruptive individuals’; ‘I am fed up of hearing families and pensioners tell me that they are too scared to walk through our town centre’. Brash is chair of the Safer Hartlepool Partnership. Therefore he is familiar with the tools, the ‘targeted interventions’ to go after the minority, such as public space protection orders. Notably, he showed he knew of the work done by private security, in the name of wider community safety. He spoke of pushing for more powers of enforcement, such as dispersal orders, ‘which the Bill extends from 48 hours to 72 hours, and community safety accreditation schemes [CSAS], which grant police enforcement powers to council, shopping centre and other security teams, helping to free up police resources’.
