Iain Duncan Smith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2025 · Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment · Hansard source

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  I need not detain my right hon. Friend for long, but I very much supported the unions’ position on this, as I thought this was wrong at the time. Without straying into the issues of the bids, we should consider organisations such as CK from China. It now has links with and control over UK Power Networks, Northumbrian Water, Wales and West Utilities, and Eversholt Rail. The network it has now is intriguing, which is hugely around the power and communications networks. All of those are now falling into the hands of conglomerates that have nothing to do with the UK, but that are linked to Governments of a different country. This is the big problem we face: it is not that we do not like big businesses; it is just that so often now they operate from outside our legal empowerment.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  These bikes often accelerate fast, and only someone who is used to riding something that can move quickly on two wheels can do that. If not, they will go off the back. In a car, they would be restrained by the seat, but that is not the case on a bike or motorcycle. Knowing that does take some instruction—being ready, leaning into it and all the rest of it. My main point is that that is a good illustration of how we are being a bit too casual about these modes of transport, and too many young kids do not understand that they should have some training. For their sake, we should do more on this issue.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I am all in favour of public campaigns and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be a very good idea for people to know that what they were buying was illegal. I suspect many of them already do so. That notwithstanding, if such a campaign could be backed up by a penalty for selling illegal bikes in shops, that would be a far better way of dealing with it. Right now, lots of kids do not know that the bikes are illegal, and they go and take these things and they can pay for them, and that is where the danger comes from. We are shutting the door too late. These kids have gone on to the roads, they have created an accident and they have killed themselves. That is too late for us. What we need to do is get ahead of this and try to figure it out completely. The final bit of this issue is the fact that people can change the monitors inside the boxes, even on the legal bikes, and lots of them do so. We see them going down the road at 30 mph, which is incredibly dangerous. I am a motorcyclist, I have to say, but Members should not go looking for the leather jacket; I left it at home.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to new clause 5, which stands in my name and is supported by hon. Friends in different political positions across the House. But, before I do so, I want to congratulate the Government—that is unusual from the Opposition, but I will do so anyway. I think that the Minister will know what I am about to say. The cuckooing amendment, which was moved in the last Parliament—the previous Government and she, in particular, were in discussions on that—has been passported through, as it were, so that cuckooing will be a criminal offence. That will hugely help those who have their houses taken over—the vulnerable and the elderly—and, where crimes are committed from those houses, the police will have a reason to go in without explicit knowledge of the crime being committed other than the cuckooing. To that extent, I thank the Government for making that a law. Hopefully it will go through without too much problem in the other place. I and many others appreciate that enormously. New clause 5 is consequential to an amendment to an earlier Bill on reckless and dangerous cycling, because there were no offences that were relevant to that and people were being killed and injured as a result of cyclists’ bad behaviour on the roads. One person in particular who campaigned for that amendment was Matt Briggs, and he was the reason that I brought that amendment forward. The Government accepted that amendment and it is now bound into legislation. However, there was an issue at the time about the danger of e-bikes. We know from talking to the police that e-bikes are now becoming responsible for some of the worst crimes on the streets, involving antisocial and threatening behaviour. They are silent and they can creep up on people rather quickly, and a lot of things that were being snatched by people on motorised scooters are now being snatched using e-bikes.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I bow before my right hon. Friend’s greater knowledge in these matters, having headed up the Department. I simply say that for this particular purpose, I agree with her. I am urging the Government to take this matter away and look at it in the other place. Although I will not press my amendment, because legal bikes are incorporated in the earlier cycling amendment that I put forward and the Government accepted, we need more work on illegal bikes and e-scooters. My worry, as I have said again and again, is that people can buy these things without any qualification whatsoever, whereas if I as a motorcyclist buy a bike, I have to be able to demonstrate that I am qualified to ride it away from the shop. People are not required to do so with e-bikes and e-scooters, so there is a peculiarity. Everywhere else in our legislation, we follow through. This one has dropped through the grid, and I therefore urge the Minister and the Department to look closely at the matter and see whether we can define that better in the other place and ensure that shops are unable to sell those bikes. I will not press this new clause because I think we are at the right place so far with the Government.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Don’t get excited—it’s not that great! Motorcyclists have to be tested even more than car drivers. There are balancing tests and they have to know everything like that. This is absolutely critical, because it is a slightly more dangerous mode of transport—more exciting, yes, but more dangerous. Someone cannot buy a motorcycle in a shop and take it away unless they are able to show their licence and that they are qualified to ride that bike, and that really requires instruction, but people can buy e-bikes—these electric vehicles—without any sort of licence. It seems bizarre that that should be allowed. Even though we want people not to use petrol, diesel and all the rest of it because of the environment, this goes beyond that.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  It is funny that my hon. Friend raises that point, because I was just about to get on to it. I am glad he has pinched my speech, but we are on the same side, so let me thank him for getting ahead of me. I reinforce that point: the Government now need to decide whether to do something about that issue in the other place. All non-bicycle electricity-supported cycles are legal, but all the others are either illegal or have to be used on the road and therefore have to qualify for road use, which means in many cases taking instruction and passing a test, or treating the e-bike like a car or a motorcycle. The problem is that most people do not know that. They are either ignorant of it or they deliberately do not care, and they can buy these illegal bikes in lots of legal shops in the UK. It seems bizarre that we are allowing people to buy these bikes—many are not bikes; they could be boards or all sorts of contraptions—and they then think they are able to use them. Most people do not check up on the highway code or the law; they just get on and use them. They are deeply dangerous to themselves, but also to other road users. I would press the Government to look at this again in the other place—it is too late to do it here—to see whether there is some way in which selling these things to people without proper licences could be made illegal.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Police Presence on High Streets · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to be here with you in the Chair, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton) on securing the debate. Some people might look at this debate and think that this is not really the most important thing in life, but our constituents want to be able to go down their shopping streets without the fear of any threats. They want to shop calmly without seeing the shelves stripped of goods, being threatened and watching shop- keepers pinned against walls. What they want is policing, which is their right. With the time limit there will not be enough time to cover everything. Police numbers are always the issue, but we should look at what took place in New York at one particular point. The key rule is not just more police, but more effective police. It is the effectiveness that I want to dwell on. Even when we have the police numbers, effectiveness is often not the priority. I have had a series of issues over the high streets in my constituency. One is in the Broadway in Woodford and the other one is in Station Road. A key element in a lot of these shopping areas is the position of the larger shops such as Boots, the Co-op or Tesco—the shops that bring people on to local shopping streets to get things. But then people go off to the smaller shops, so it is important for trade to get the balance right. The problem is that there are gangs now on the street sending people in—they walk in; they do not run. I have seen them strip between £3,000, £5,000 and £10,000 of goods off the shelves in Boots, or the Co-op. They go into all the big shops and they are photographed, but we discovered the other day that the shops had given up on sending that data to the police. As a result, the police said they did not think that this was a priority area because they did not get a full record of the crime. If the shops do not go to the police, the police do not record the crime and do not put police on the street. Without police on the street, crime increases and the likelihood of it being reported gets less and less. That is not down to the small shops, because they are the ones that bear the brunt of the violence. It is the big shops and the chains. We held a meeting the other day with three or four of the big shops in Station Road. When I say “big”, they are small, local versions of Amazon and other shops, such as Boots and so on. We discovered that not one of them was bothering to record any of the crime or to get it to the police. When we spoke to the police, they said, “We have had no record of this.” That is not to say they do not know that crime is taking place—they do—but the reality is they work on the statistics. We asked the shops, “Why are you not reporting the crime?”, and a manager said, “We are not rewarded for it by the big shops. The truth at the end of it all is that we do not see any return.” We have now instigated a system where we have set up a WhatsApp group for shopkeepers on the street so they can report the crime in the small shops. They say they will report the crime, provided the police actually react to it, come on to the street and make arrests. There is a third element to this. The police often get disenchanted about it, because when they arrest these people and take them away, they get released pretty quickly as there is no space for their case—they are often back on the streets the same day as they were arrested. The issue is more effective policing. We asked them to go on to the street in civilian clothes, because the offenders just move around when the police are there in uniform. The police did that and they made a series of arrests, which sent a shockwave through the gangs. The point that I will end with is that there is a huge amount to be done, but antisocial behaviour—of which shoplifting is a critical component—is arguably the most dangerous element on our streets. As the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington said, if we lose control of that, drug dealing and gangs take over. Shoplifting should be the priority. Make our streets safe and there is fair chance we will be able to catch the big criminals later on.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to be called at this point, Madam Deputy Speaker. Others will want to speak, so I will be as brief as I possibly can. As I said earlier, the Minister is incorrect in believing that the Procurement Act gives any protection at all against modern slavery in the supply chain. That is a fact of life that we have known for ages. I was one of those who brought the Modern Slavery Act into being 10 years ago, but at that time we did not understand how bad the situation was in China. Over 90% of polysilicon is made in China, and we know for a fact that 97% of all the solar arrays being sold here contain polysilicon from Xinjiang, which will have been made by slave labour. There is no dispute at all about that. The question facing the Government is not— [ Interruption. ] I would be grateful if the Minister could listen. The question facing the Government is not whether they think that modern slavery is good—I do not for one moment accuse them of thinking that. What has gone missing, and what Lord Alton’s amendment focuses on, is recognition that there is no requirement on the Government to deal with slavery in the supply chain, and no way for them to do that. As has been said, America has turned the burden of proof upside down and said, “We assume you have slave labour in your product. You must prove to us that you do not.” That is the only way to deal with this. The Americans then sanction offending companies, but under our legislation, the Government do not have such measures available to them. The Procurement Act does not even do a whisper of that, because it needs a prosecution to have been mounted under the Modern Slavery Act, and that cannot happen because a company that is an agent for a Chinese-made solar array will not be prosecuted. Under the present laws, only the Chinese company that makes the solar array can be prosecuted. That means that no prosecution will take place; no company in China will be prosecuted by the Chinese Government, because the Chinese Government are the ones who set up this ghastly process. Why? Because it makes their arrays cheaper than anybody else’s in the world. That is how they have pretty much wiped out all other array production in the world. Let us ask ourselves: where will we get our arrays from? The answer is that we cannot get them anywhere else, but if we had to, we would have to pay a lot of money. I understand that there is probably a debate going on in Government about whether we go down that road, which would make arrays awfully expensive. In conclusion, the Government know the facts. I support amendment (b) to Lords amendment 2; I support the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), who brought it forward for the right reasons; and I support the way in which the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) brought forward her amendment (a) to Lords amendment 2. The Government must act. If we do not act, make forced labour illegal and punish the companies involved in it, directly or as agents, then we will be guilty of increasing slavery in China—that is what tonight’s debate is about. I am sorry that the Government will get rid of this Lords amendment. They could have done a deal to enhance it or whatever, but now they will have to commit to coming forward with legislation to increase and improve the Act that they already have, which will take another debate. I say to the Government: for goodness’ sake. By the way, I had this issue with my own party when we were in government, and I voted against it; I voted with the Labour party to put this provision in the Health and Care Act 2022. We did that together. I hope nobody thinks that I am being party political, because I am not. I am sanctioned by the Chinese Government because we raised this issue originally. I say to them that I and many in this House will not stop until the Government face up to one thing and one thing only: not one life through modern slavery is worth a lower cost on a solar array. That should be the epitaph of the ridiculous position that the Government are in.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I take my right hon. Friend’s point into consideration. The point I was making is that we have had deaths on the street yet cyclists could not be prosecuted for having killed someone, because we are still using a piece of legislation from the mid-19th century to address offensive and wild carriage driving. That is not acceptable and it hardly ever convicts anybody, so I encourage the Government to look again at dangerous cycling, because people genuinely abuse the Road Traffic Act 1988 and nothing ever seems to be done to them. That is particularly true for e-bikes, which are very dangerous when used on pathways. Even if people are not committing a criminal offence, they are causing major danger. Antisocial behaviour is a big thing which our constituents notice; they feel threatened by people who ride those bikes on the pavements. It may seem a small thing, but it is not. I will end by congratulating the Government on introducing the offence of cuckooing. The Home Secretary will know that I tabled an amendment to the previous criminal justice Bill, and I am pleased that the Government have picked that up and put it into this Bill. There are big issues regarding people who feel threatened by brutal individuals who take over their houses and commit criminal offences from there. In the end, some of those threatened people get arrested themselves, having had no control over that house. Many of them have mental health problems; many are stuck in backrooms and abuse themselves. Having such an offence allows the police—I have said this all along—to move into the house if they have a suspicion that such things are taking place and deal with the issue straightaway. I congratulate the Government on that. The previous Government accepted my amendment. Hopefully, we can all join forces. I have one question for the Minister responding to the debate. Offenders often use coercion, grooming and manipulation. The Bill refers to an absence of consent. Does she think that an absence of consent alone will be good enough to convict people who have carried out coercion, grooming and manipulation? That is the point I am slightly concerned about. I raise it with the Minister and I hope she can respond at the end of the debate. At the end of it all, a criminal justice Bill is a good thing.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I will be as brief as possible because I know that others want to get in. Let me start with a general point. I have sat here long enough—not today, of course, but over the years—to know that every Government come in with a criminal justice Bill, then another a year later, and then another, before the next Government come in and start with a criminal justice Bill. I will not get into a political knockabout on that, but, as Members who have been here long enough will know, the reality is that there is always a reason why we need another criminal justice Bill, and so it goes on. To be a little more rational about it, if passing laws did the job of ending crime, we would have managed it long ago. This is about how we deal with the things that get behind the crime. The Centre for Social Justice recently published a good report called the “Lost Boys”. It is about the generation, particularly post-covid, of young boys who have become dysfunctional with serious mental health problems, and who often end up on the street being sucked into gangs. The attitude and behaviour of those boys gives rise to the violence and subsequent murders that take place on the street. Putting a knife into someone’s hand does not make them a murderer; putting a knife into the hands of someone who has already been broken in the wrong attitude—that is where murder and violence come from. I recommend that Ministers read that report, because it makes staggering reading for us all. Those young boys are becoming men. They will live in and out of prisons, and violence, drug taking and drug abuse will be a part of their lives, as will abuse towards women. It is boys and men who are responsible for the crime. Young women and girls are a tiny proportion of the criminals—the problem lies with men and boys. That is critical. If we want to get ahead of this problem and solve knife crime, we must understand that crime is committed in the heads and brains of those young boys, who are subsequently men, and the knife is only the final act. I say to those who recommend the rounding of blades, well perhaps, but a young guy will just go and grind that rounded blade into a sharp point and get on with it if that is what they want to do. Nothing will get in the way of that. I simply make that observation. It is right that the Government are tackling assault on retail workers. I have struggled endlessly to get the police on to the streets and to arrest people who are shoplifting. People are not shoplifting for a sandwich; they are stripping stores of thousands of pounds’ worth of goods. It is a serious offence of antisocial behaviour, and anything more that the police can do to crack down on that is important, because it is the first crime that most of our constituents notice, and indeed fear. Shoplifters threaten people in the shops and those serving them, and it is important that we get on top of the issue. I tabled an amendment to the previous criminal justice Bill on cycling and dangerous cycling. Has that gone? I have also spoken to the Department for Transport, and we need to sort out e-bikes and those dangerous fast bikes and cyclists on the road who commit offences.