Offensive Weapons Bill — House of Commons, 2018-06-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): Many of my constituents in Chelmsford write to tell me how concerned they are about the changing nature of crime. They know that crime overall has dropped, but they see more crime happening online and more violent crime. This morning, I spoke to my police and crime commissioner to make sure that I was fully up to date with what was happening on the streets. Violence with injury has increased by over 10% in Chelmsford in the past year, although that is lower than the national increase of 15%. Possession of weapons has increased by nearly 50%, and there has been a rise in wounding with intent My police and crime commissioner says that the police are doing a great deal. Operation Raptor is under review, while Operation Survey, which is targeted at serious violence, has also been helpful. They are launching their new violence and vulnerability framework, and they believe that they can get ahead of this surge. However, they want to make more use of stop-and-search, and a commitment to more policing resources. We know that a lot of this is related to county lines, and that the increased crime is related to the more complex ways in which drugs are moved around the country by gangs. The Government and Parliament need to take a lot of action As elected politicians, our top priority is to care about the safety of those we represent, who expect us to act. The police and crime commissioner made a comment about extra resources. I was pleased to work last year with colleagues from across Essex in making a strong statement to the Policing Minister about the need to increase the cap on local police funding so that our police would get the resources that they need. Those extra 150 police officers are now being recruited and are going into action across Chelmsford We can do more about some of the causes of crime. In an intervention, I mentioned the young people who are being recruited into drugs-related gangs through online platforms. The evidence in the Science and Technology Committee was to do with drill music being played through YouTube; those who had written it could then directly message the young people. The point made in the Committee was that that could happen to any teenager and that no one is immune. That has definitely been seen in Chelmsford. I believe that we will act on this issue through the internet safety strategy, about which I have just had a meeting with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport There is also the issue of what weapons are being used—that is why we are discussing this Bill about offensive weapons. We need to strengthen laws to prevent the possession and sale of knives in particular. I have seen many images shared by my local police of knives that they have intercepted—particularly the "zombie killer" type. I am pleased that the Government are taking action on knives There is also the issue of acid attacks. A few months ago, I visited Chelmsford mosque and spoke to some of the young people about what they felt as they went around the streets these days. I was taken by how many young members of that community referred to how concerned they were about recent acid attacks, particularly those carried out on some sort of religious grounds. If I can go back to that group now and say that we are strengthening the law to make it illegal for young people to buy acid and to carry it in a public place, that will be an extremely important and positive message. I am glad that such provisions are in the Bill I turn to firearms legislation. I never expected to spend a lot of my life as a politician working on that issue, but I do spend an enormous amount of time on it. I led the reform of European firearms legislation through the European Parliament a couple of years ago following the Paris attacks in the Bataclan theatre, where firearms that had supposedly been permanently deactivated—they therefore could be bought and sold without licences in many parts of Europe—were actually not deactivated. Pins had simply been put through the barrels; they were pulled out and the firearms were reactivated by the terrorists. Ninety people were murdered in that attack In the UK, we were not immune: 35 of those same firearms were found in a marina on our shores, having been smuggled here. The then Home Secretary—the current Prime Minister—went to Europe and said that we needed to tighten up European gun laws because those affect our own security. I must make one point: those incorrectly deactivated firearms could not have been bought and sold under our law without a licence because the UK has among the strongest—if not the strongest—firearms legislation of anywhere in Europe. It was absolutely in our interest to make sure that the rest of Europe rose to that challenge.