Alex Barros-Curtis MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 May 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  May we have a debate in Government time on making the issuance of bilingual death certificates the default for deceased persons from Wales? I was recently visited by a constituent who was unable to get such a certificate for her late husband. She has been told that that is because of the circumstances of her case and that, unless there is a change in approach, her only way to get one will be to go the High Court, have the current process quashed and undertake another inquest. What support or advice can the Leader of the House offer me and my constituent, and does she agree that bilingual death certificates should be the default when the deceased person is from Wales?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am listening carefully to the hon. Member. I agree with what he started with, but I am curious to know how he thinks this will work in practice. What practicalities do the police have in place, resource-wise and operationally, in order to deal with this? Similarly, how feasible will it be for the police to deliver notice orally, under proposed subsection (4), in the midst of a protest, when they are busy managing the protest and ensuring that it is safe and secure?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell; after some excellent contributions on this set of clauses, I hope not to disappoint you. It will not surprise you to hear that I support clauses 32 to 34 and schedule 5. As we have heard from Members on both sides of the Committee, cuckooing destroys lives, destroys homes and serves as one of the most egregious examples of exploitation, especially of children, in society currently. It is a despicable and offensive practice, wherein criminals exploit the most vulnerable in our communities by taking over their homes for illegal activities, so I commend the Government for creating a new bespoke criminal offence to tackle the practice of home takeover. For too long, as my hon. Friends have said, cuckooing has been a subversive injustice in our towns. As the Government state in the papers supporting the Bill, unfortunately there is no centrally held data; I hope that, after the implementation of the criminal offence of cuckooing, we will begin to see such data for all the home nations. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West and Leigh said, many people may not even notice it is happening, at least to begin with. There are several signs to look out for that may indicate someone is a victim of cuckooing: frequent visitors at unsociable hours, changes in a neighbour’s daily routine, unusual smells coming from the property, and suspicious or unfamiliar vehicles outside an address—individually they seem innocuous, but in reality they are insidious and malign. Drug dealers, human traffickers and violent gangs all can prey on children, the elderly, the disabled and the most vulnerable in our society. They force their way into their victims’ homes, using manipulation, threats, coercion and violence to turn their homes into drug dens, bases for exploitation and centres of criminality. As both the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West and Leigh said, that is typically across county lines. The victims are left terrified in their own homes, their mental and physical wellbeing deteriorating in the very place that they are meant to feel most safe. Neighbours suffer as their streets are blighted by crime and antisocial behaviour, and are unable to feel safe in their own community. As was eloquently expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean, despite their tireless efforts, our law enforcement officers have lacked the legislative tools to tackle cuckooing effectively. Clauses 32 to 34 and schedule 5 will change that. Those vital clauses will introduce the specific criminal offence of cuckooing, ensuring that those who invade and exploit vulnerable people’s homes can face the severest of consequences. By making cuckooing a distinct offence, we send a clear message that we will not stand idly by while criminals hijack the homes of the weak and defenceless. I pay tribute to all the campaigners and organisations who have researched and campaigned for the creation of this specific offence over many years. The clauses will give police officers greater powers to intervene early, ensuring that victims are safeguarded and perpetrators are brought to justice; they will enable faster action by enabling authorities to have the necessary powers to arrest criminals, and they will allow homes to be returned to their rightful residents without the current muddy legal waters that are delaying and frustrating justice, as my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean said. The clauses should be seen not in isolation, but as part of a package of measures to protect children and vulnerable people. Last week, we discussed child criminal exploitation and the offence that the Bill will create in that regard. These are all essential legislative components of the Government’s safer streets mission, which should be supported across the House. I think we have seen a demonstration of that with the comments from both sides of the House in respect of these clauses. I reiterate my support for the clauses and welcome that cross-party support. Making cuckooing a stand-alone criminal offence, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison, sends the clearest signal that we are on the side of victims in furtherance of our safer streets mission.

• 8 Apr 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  When work has not been done to implement any of the recommendations of all the preceding investigations, and when the Government have announced locally led work on grooming gangs, on which the Safeguarding Minister gave an update in the House but an hour ago, it is imperative that we get on with implementing the Bill, as well as the other legislation and work to which the Government have committed. We must get laws on the statute book and get policies, training and funding in place. We must do the things that we have committed to, which the Tories should have done when in government. As I said, my hon. Friend the Safeguarding Minister, in her update just a moment ago, announced £5 million of national funding to support locally led work on grooming gangs. We should not duplicate work that is already done; we should get on with the recommendations that we have before us already. I am grateful for what the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan said, but I just wish that had been reflected in the House but an hour ago.

• 8 Apr 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I reiterate that I am grateful for the tone that the hon. Lady adopted when she congratulated Ministers on the progress that has been made. It is just a shame that other members of her team, so to speak, did not do the same in the Chamber earlier. The Government are committed to this cause, as I would expect every Member of the House to be. Perhaps she will reflect, in discussion with her team, on what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Justice said about redundancies in the new clauses, and their duplicating work that has already been done or detracting from work that is under way, but I just put it on the record that I think we are all singing from the same hymn sheet on this point.

• 8 Apr 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I completely agree, and I will take that as my cue to stop talking. My hon. Friend is right that we need action, so I will step down from my soapbox and move to conclude my remarks. I do not doubt that Opposition Members are committed to doing what is right by victims. However, what is not right by victims is the politicisation and weaponisation of such a heinous issue, as has been done by some Opposition Front Benchers—not those here in the Committee, but some in the shadow Cabinet. As the Ministers have said today, we should be working together, listening to victims, learning from their experiences, bringing about a culture change so that this can never happen again, and putting in place frameworks, rules, laws and policies to ensure that, if it does, the perpetrators are prosecuted to the fullest extent. I submit that new clauses 47 and 48 should not be moved, so that we can move forward with practical measures that do not duplicate work and get on with the important work of safeguarding and protecting our children.

• 8 Apr 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  As has been said by Members on both sides of the Committee, and as was mentioned in the IICSA statement that my hon. Friend the Safeguarding Minister made on the Floor of the House an hour or so ago, clause 43 will introduce a new aggravating factor to be applied when the courts consider the seriousness of a specified child sexual offence and where the offence being considered was facilitated by, or involved the grooming of, a person under 18. The clause is to be welcomed, and I note what the Opposition have said about it. However, new clauses 47 and 48 are not to be welcomed, and I will go into my reasons for that. First, though, I want to put it on the record that, prior to my election, I worked with core participants in the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, in the first module, which involved the heinous part of child migration in the whole sorry saga of this scandal. The Child Migrants Trust did fantastic work to expose that scandal. I just wanted to put on the record my involvement in helping the trust with some of its work at that time, and to commend it—particularly Margaret Humphreys, its founder—for the fantastic work it does; and to commend every former child migrant, and the families of former child migrants, for their bravery in speaking out about the experience they went through. I admit that I thought new clauses 47 and 48 were missing a name—that of the acting lead of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), because we know that they reflect his driving ambition. I feel a sense of déjà vu because I am almost certain that the Opposition tabled identical new clauses in Committee on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. I am therefore somewhat surprised that they failed to copy and paste the amendments to table them on time last week. Fortunately, we are able to talk about them today. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) for the forensic way she went through, line by line, the equivalents to new clauses 47 and 48 in that Bill Committee, and for exposing the politics behind them—how this was not about getting a new national statutory inquiry, as was claimed. She exposed how, line by line, the Opposition are repeating and duplicating the work already done by IICSA and previous inquiries, including Rotherham, and the newly announced local-led investigations, on which my hon. Friend the Safeguarding Minister gave an update just an hour ago on the Floor of the House. She outlined how the Opposition are undermining the work that the Conservative party sat on for 20 months. When the Conservative Government got the IICSA final report in October 2022, with 20 concluding recommendations—107 in total—they did nothing with them. The faux outrage, the politicking and the weaponisation of the new clauses is infuriating. I should not be infuriated, because it is for the victims to be infuriated; they are being used for politics so that the populist Opposition can squeeze out votes. The Opposition are haemorrhaging votes, and they are trying to court and carry votes. We had the sorry sight of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. In the eight or nine short months that I have had in this place, I have never been as angry as I was on Second Reading when, through a wrecking amendment—which is now being replicated with new clauses 47 and 48—the Conservatives had the audacity to claim that we, the Labour party, which had been in power for just a couple of months, were doing nothing to protect our children, when for 20 months they had sat on their hands with the 20 concluding recommendations from IICSA and did nothing. Not only that, they go out and curry favour with the populist right. They go out placing Facebook ads and Twitter posts calling us defenders of paedophiles, and we are meant to believe that they genuinely believe this—new clauses 47 and 48 are about politics. I give credit to the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan, who has received this hospital pass, for saying that it is heartening to see progress being made on this issue. I only wish that she had been in the Chamber an hour ago, when she could have heard the sorry contributions from nearly all Opposition Members in response to the Safeguarding Minister’s update on the action plan. They focused on one specific element, no doubt for their clickbait Facebook and Twitter posts, and everything else that the right hon. Member for Newark will end up doing later. I look forward to being ridiculed and criticised for defending paedophiles because I am standing here criticising the Opposition’s politicisation of new clauses 47 and 48, but we do what is right for the victims, not what is right for the Tories.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I rise in support of clauses 10 and 11 and to speak against amendment 39 and new clause 44, well-intentioned though I am sure they are. The shadow Minister mentioned Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. I want to focus briefly on his March report, to which I believe the shadow Minister was referring. The explanatory statements to amendment 39 and new clause 44 state—I paraphrase—that the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation recommended an increase in sentence in his review following the Southport attack. His report, titled “Independent Review on Classification of Extreme Violence Used in Southport Attack on 29 July 2024” and dated 13 March this year, is one that I am sure many colleagues across the House have read. I put on the record my sympathies to everybody involved in that heinous attack and to the victims of the other attacks that the shadow Minister mentioned—and, of course, we think of Jo Cox, a friend much missed and loved in all parts of the House. There is a risk of misunderstanding in the amendments, albeit I am sure they are well-intentioned. If one looks at Mr Hall’s quite lengthy report in detail, it says a number of things about what is proposed in clause 10. He states that the new offence that we propose to create here “appears to fill an important gap”. He goes on to say that “where a killing is contemplated, the available penalty appears too low for long-term disruption through lengthy imprisonment.” He concludes by recommending that the Government bring forward legislation to create a different, new offence, “where an individual, with the intention of killing two or more persons, engages in any conduct in preparation for giving effect to this intention. The maximum sentence should be life imprisonment.” Importantly, he says: “If this offence is created, then there is no need to reconsider the maximum sentence for the proposed offence of possessing an article with violent intent under the Crime and Policing Bill.” I pay tribute to Mr Hall for his work. The Prime Minister and the Government have committed to acting urgently on the points that he has identified, and to considering the new offence that he references at the end of his report. Given the complexity and the interplay between terrorism and non-terrorism legislation, which Mr Hall acknowledges, they should do so with great care and in consultation with appropriate stakeholders such as the Law Commission. That must be done, in order to ensure that whatever new offence is arrived at is practical, workable and absolutely unimpeachable. That work must continue and conclude, but in the interim, clause 10 does the job. I point out to Opposition Members that the Bill does not just create a new offence in clause 10, which in itself is sufficient, but does much on youth diversion orders—we will come to those when we debate clauses 110 to 121—and, in clause 122, on the banning of dangerous weapons such as corrosive substances. In written evidence to the Committee, Jonathan Hall himself broadly welcomed those additional measures. For the record, the written evidence reference is CPB 02. He states that youth diversion orders are “extensions” to his original recommendations and that they “are justified”. In respect of clause 122, he states that this is gap that he has previously recommended filling and that the power is much needed. Of course, the Government have done other great work, often with support from both sides of the House. On the statute book right now is Martyn’s law, which will better allow venues to tighten counter-terrorism measures. There is a package of measures—some already on the statute book, and other important measures, which we are discussing today, that we will hopefully get on the statute book without undue delay. I therefore submit to the shadow Minister that, while they are no doubt well-intentioned, amendment 39 and new clause 44 are not needed at this time. Let the work that I have referenced, and that the Government have committed to, get under way, so that that can be done properly, in line with, and not in contradiction to, what Mr Hall has said, and let us proceed with clauses 10 and 11 as they stand.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. Will the shadow Minister clarify whether it is the Conservative party’s position that we should criminalise 16-year-olds but not give them the vote?

• 27 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Returning briefly to police accountability, you already expressed support for what the Minister said about amending some of the restrictions, in terms of the thresholds for referral and for whether a final investigation has been completed. On placing the IOPC victims’ right to review scheme on a statutory footing, presumably you would support that to build public confidence in the IOPC and what it exists to do for the accountability of police forces in our country. Emily Spurrell: The system does not work very well for victims at all at the minute. The language used and the way that we approach it is very bureaucratic. Anything that can empower victims and ensure that they feel like they are being heard and that they have a right to have their concerns addressed is very welcome. Roger Hirst: I absolutely agree with that. Making it more accessible would involve, as Emily said, using better language. Also, having shorter timeframes is really important. Matthew Barber: I completely agree.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Returning briefly to mandatory reporting, as I understand it, the reference in clause 45(2) to “a relevant police force or a relevant local authority” is directly from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse set of investigations. I believe that that is because of the typical provision of children’s social services in practice in England and Wales. It can be either/or, but obviously we need to ensure that there is a linkage between the two and that there is cross-reporting. I just want to check that that is not out of the norm—that, if a referral or reference was made at the moment, it would come into the local authority—and so, from your respective positions, putting this into law does not add an excessive burden on local authorities. Councillor Garratt: When I expressed my concern earlier, it was not so much about a burden on the local authority as about wanting to expedite the process that, ultimately, that disclosure is setting in motion. If the way to get there faster is by going directly to the police, that would seem to make sense, but I would not argue to remove the ability to report to the council. If someone does that, you would imagine that the council would be able to pass it on to the police. Councillor Conway: Again, we can send more detail on this and look into it to see how councils do it. The way it is structured in my area is that we have a community safety team and a family services team, a relationship with the police, and so on, so we are structured in a way that means that we have very natural conversations and share trust. Again, I note that a collaborative, proactive approach on the ground is vital to enabling that.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Mr Sexton, I want to go back to what you were saying about the administrators and moderators aspect, and needing to look at people in the chain. Could you talk a bit more about that? Is that people who host websites? I have another question for both of you—not to pre-empt what you are about to say—but presumably that will be not just domestic but international, so what could the Bill do, if anything, through partnerships and cross-agency working, both here and abroad, to target that issue? Dan Sexton: On the clear web, in order to get a website, you need to have an IP address and a domain name, which will come from a registry. In the UK, we have .co.uk, run by Nominet. It is about just removing the registrars, for instance. There needs to be some liability for them enabling a site that is hosting child sexual abuse material. We work with those companies every day to say, “There’s child sexual abuse material here.” Some of them are very good and some of them are less good: “It is really not our problem; we don’t deal with the content.” So it is about anything that encourages them to act proactively rather than reactively—but even reactively, if you take away the domain name, there is no website and it disappears. A lot of those sites are hosted on public clouds, so they might be on Cloudflare, Amazon or Google. There are lots of parts to the chain. Most of them are content agnostic—“We’re just offering a service”—but really it takes a lot of people to collude to create a website of any type. If that website is hosting criminal content or child sexual abuse material, all those parts of the chain should be taking more responsibility. We hear a lot of, “This is not our fault; it’s the people downstream,” or, “It’s the people upstream.” Obviously, the administrators are the ones who are running that stuff, but there are lots of other people who had to be part of it for the sites to work. I would like to see more reason for those sites to take action. That would be extremely helpful for our work of finding and removing that content, and getting it down as quickly as possible.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I want to follow on from that point about assault on a retail worker. In relation to what you said, Minister Davies-Jones, and what we heard in evidence about equivalence with the emergency worker assault provision when that was introduced, I used to serve on the Justice Committee, and because of the shocking court backlog—one of the inheritances from the last Government—the chance of getting a prosecution for that and getting through to a conviction at the Crown court was very, very slim. What cross-Government working will the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and so on be doing to try to tackle that so that the equivalent does not happen with the provision for assault on a retail worker? On police accountability, we have had some very public examples of PCCs and chief constables falling out, and the fall-out affects confidence in policing and has a pecuniary impact on the taxpayer. What confidence do you have, Minister Johnson, that these measures will not cement that but will help to restore confidence and ensure that there is adequate confidence in our policing, and that they will not lead to further fracturing in that relationship? Alex Davies-Jones: Shall I take the courts point first? Of course, conversations have been happening incredibly closely—hence why we have two Departments represented on the Bill Committee—on the court impact from this. As I said, all the impact assessments have been published on the gov.uk website, but we have also taken measures to free up capacity in the Crown court system by allowing magistrates bigger sentencing powers. We also have the independent review being done by Sir Brian Leveson to look at what other steps we could take to address the issue in our court system. We have also funded, in the next financial year, the Crown courts to sit to their highest ever capacity, in terms of what we can give as a Department. We are making sure that for the court sitting days that are available, we fund them to the highest level that they have ever been at. Dame Diana Johnson: On the point about PCCs, chief constables and restoring confidence in the police, one reason why we have a White Paper coming down the track later in the spring is that we do need to do some work around the relationships between PCCs and chief constables. We think that there is work to do there. We also think there is still more work to do around vetting. We said, as one of our manifesto commitments, that we would bring in mandatory vetting standards for police officers—for when they come into police forces. There is a whole range of things we need to do alongside the restoring of police officers in all our communities. We have those 13,000 officers in our high streets, villages and communities because, again, that visible presence is how you start to restore confidence generally.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I trust the Minister will expand on that when she comes to wind up the debate. As I said, public health policy must be based on evidence and not just spin or perception, so moving forward, I urge the Government to ensure that as part of their work to implement the legislation, as well as promoting vaping as a smoking cessation tool they must also undertake work to research the consequences of vaping on both the physical and mental health of the individual, its financial impact and, as was said, any regional and national inequalities that have become entrenched by vaping. When she comes back to this matter in her wind-up, will the Minister also assure me that in so doing she will work with the four home nations to ensure that that data is as thorough as possible? If that research shows, as I have no doubt it will, that vaping is significantly damaging to the nation’s health—perhaps less so than smoking, but none the less still significantly damaging—we must act to curb it. We cannot afford to wait decades and decades for that truth to come out in the way that it took decades for big tobacco to be found out. I would be grateful if the Minister could provide some reassurance on that point. In conclusion, I am proud to support this legislation. As has been said, there is no liberty in addiction and there is no freedom in being victim to a craving that kills. The Bill takes an unprecedented step forward to curb that damage and I urge colleagues from across the House to support it.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Prevent: Learning Review · Hansard source

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  First, I want to put on the record my sympathies for Sir David’s family and friends. As a new MP, I did not have the privilege of knowing him, but I vividly remember the day he was murdered. From the warm words spoken across the House, he was clearly highly regarded and is sorely missed. I thank the Security Minister for his detailed statement. Can he assure me that the lessons from these Prevent learning reviews are learned, that all recommendations are implemented, and that there is appropriate tie-in not just between local authorities, police, national security and national crime agencies, but with the defending democracy taskforce, so that we can work collectively to ensure that tragedies such as this can never happen again?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Drones: High-security Prisons · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his statement. The Conservatives are doing another faux outrage, as they were the ones who ceded the airspace after 14 years of colossal failure in our justice system. What lessons can we learn from that failure so that we tackle the problem of drugs in prisons, which are a big driver of drone drops?

• 12 Dec 2024 · Prison Capacity Strategy · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I was just going to refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a qualified solicitor, and I am also a member of the Justice Committee under the excellent chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter). I thank the Minister for the statement and the commitments she has made. I must admit that my head is still spinning from the extraordinary response from the Tories’ spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), given their absolute failure over the last 14 years to build the prison places that they legislated for, so we will have no more of that hypocrisy. I welcome the publication of the 10-year prison capacity strategy, which I know the Justice Committee will scrutinise carefully. Concerningly, however, it notes that we could run out of prison spaces by as early as November 2025. Aside from the findings of the independent sentencing review, when they come, what other steps does the Minister anticipate the Department taking to bridge the potential gap in prison places?

• 22 Oct 2024 · Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity · Hansard source

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  I welcome the announcement of the bipartisan sentencing review panel and thank my right hon. Friend for her continuing work to fix the mess of the last 14 years in this Department. The evidence shows that 55% of adults on short sentences go on to reoffend, while community orders have a 34% reoffending rate. Can she assure me that the panel will consider that as part of its remit?

• 17 Oct 2024 · Criminal Justice System: Capacity · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement, and commend her and her ministerial team for the work they are doing to fix the last 14 years of Tory mess in this Department. In her statement, she talked about the withdrawal of victims from the process. On that point, 60% of rape victims are dropping out of their cases, partly because they are waiting years for justice. Will the Secretary of State explain how independent legal advocates will support victims to see their cases through to trial?

• 29 Jul 2024 · Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her answer, and I would like to associate myself with the comments made by the Home Secretary in respect of Southport. During the election, my constituents in Cardiff West repeatedly raised the issue of antisocial behaviour. I know they will be grateful for the Minister’s answer, but can she assure me that this Government will work closely with the South Wales Police and our new police and crime commissioner, Emma Wools, to deliver on this vital mission?