argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): I cannot do so because that is not part of the Bill. The Bill provides for agreements where they can be made. Where no agreement can be reached, as will happen in many areas, the PCC can make a business case to the Home Secretary, if the PCC decides to do so; frankly, if there is so much opposition in Gloucestershire, the PCC might see the writing on the wall and decide not to do so. The business case will then go out to independent review, and only then will the Home Secretary make a decision I am enormously keen not to make this a one-size-fits-all provision. However, there has to be a backstop provision in case no one can reach an agreement and no one can move forward. In a perfect world, we would not be in a situation where we had to make it a statutory requirement to collaborate, but, frankly, collaboration in some parts of the country is not of the standard we would expect in the 21st century. We therefore need measures to take forward such collaboration Finally, amendment 21 is about the concordat. I have talked about that, and other bits and bobs, particularly with the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). I do not think it would be good to put that on a statutory footing—in other words, to make that law. The concordat seems to be working really well, so let us see how that evolves with these agreements. The shadow Minister did not refer to that, but it is relevant. We spoke about it in Committee and I will keep a really close eye on how the concordat works, but I do not think that at this early stage putting that into law is the answer I hope that I have alleviated the concerns of my hon. Friends. I hope, although I do not expect, that the Opposition have listened to the assurances that I have given, not only here but in Committee.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): I have given categorical assurances in Committee and here that there will be two funding streams and that they will not be combined. Even so, whether it is a mayoral system or a PCC system, I would expect there to be better collaboration on how that money is spent. With that in mind, I hope that none of the amendments, none of which were tabled by the Government, will be pressed.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): At this stage I will speak to the Government new clauses and amendment, and I will respond later to the points that are made about other amendments Chapter 1 of part 3 will enable chief officers to designate police staff with a wider range of police powers. They will also be able to confer police powers, other than the core powers reserved for warranted officers, on volunteers. The intention is that the powers that can be conferred on employed staff and designated volunteers are the same. This includes the power to carry and use defensive sprays, such as CS gas and PAVA spray, where the chief officer considers that there is an operational case for this. It is already the case that chief officers can equip police community support officers with defensive sprays, and to that extent the Bill codifies the existing position New clause 31 makes necessary consequential amendments to the Firearms Act 1968 to ensure that police volunteers are civilian officers for the purposes of that Act. The effect is that they do not then need a certificate or authorisation under section 1 or 5 of the 1968 Act in order to carry a defensive spray.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): If the hon. Gentleman had been part of the Committee, he would have heard the extensive deliberations and debate that we had about that issue. In my response to the amendments later, I will come to the specific point about volunteers. I would like to hear the arguments before I respond, but I am aware that there are concerns, although I may not agree with them The new clause puts community support volunteers and policing support volunteers in the same position as police officers and police civilian staff. We are also taking the opportunity to make it explicit on the face of the 1968 Act that special constables are members of a police force for the purpose of that Act and therefore similarly do not require a certificate or authorisation under the 1968 Act when equipped with a defensive spray. This will avoid any doubt being created by the insertion of a specific reference to policing support and community support volunteers within the meaning of "Crown servant" in the Firearms Act.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. and gallant Friend makes an important point and I can assure him that appropriate training will be given Government new clause 32 clarifies that designated community support volunteers or police support volunteers may be subject to inspection, just like any other member of a police force, and can be served with a notice requiring information or access to premises. As with other members of a police force, they would have no right of appeal against such a notice As I said, I will respond to the other amendments in this group when winding up the debate.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making, although I do not agree with him. Does he accept that there are circumstances in which we all have police powers? If I witness somebody committing what I consider to be an indictable offence, I am able, as a citizen, to arrest them without a warrant. Does he agree, therefore, that if we are going to have volunteers among the police—unless he wants to do away with them completely—they should at least be trained? If they then find themselves in a situation of danger where they may have to act as a police officer, they can do so, perhaps using purely that power of citizen’s arrest?
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Social Welfare
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): The Labour-run Welsh Government have funded community support officers, who perform a very similar role to the one proposed. What is the distinction? Would the hon. Gentleman’s proposals not prevent the use of such community support officers?
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope that the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a great deal of respect, is not confusing reported crime with the prevalence of crime. The independent crime survey for England and Wales is very clear that prevalence of crime is down but the reporting of crime is up. I hope that he would welcome the fact that we have more reported crime, because it is only by getting those reports of crimes that the police are able to solve them.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that such crime was happening before but was not included in the crime survey under the previous Labour Government, that this Government are making sure that it is included, and that we need to be honest about prevalence so that we can tackle the problem?
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Garnier (Conservative, Centre-right): This is all very interesting, but surely the central point of the hon. Gentleman’s argument is that clause 35 should be deleted, full stop. All these pussy-footing little amendments that he has tabled are really designed to undermine the concept of the volunteer. He disagrees with the concept of volunteers; the Government clearly think they are a good thing. Why does he not just speak to that argument rather than wasting our time with amendments 11, 12 and 13, which are actually designed to make it difficult for someone to perform the function of a police volunteer?
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s experience of south Wales and his knowledge of the cuts made to South Wales police by the police and crime commissioner. If he comes to Cheshire, he will see that there have been increases on the frontline in my constituency, where there is a Conservative police and crime commissioner. If he goes to mid-Wales, he will see that there have been increases on the frontline in Dyfed-Powys, where there is a Conservative police and crime commissioner. Surely, the two are not linked.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman needs to realise that he is walking into a cul-de-sac, which may not be of his own making. Independent custody visitors are essentially police volunteers who visit custody suites, and a case could probably be made by a smart lawyer that they substitute for custody officers in their supervisory role. Are they the kind of people that he wants to get rid of I urge the hon. Gentleman to listen to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). We have a duty in this House not to create Heath Robinson legislation. Amendments 11, 12, 13 and 10 seem to me to be an extraordinarily roundabout way to disagree with what the Government are trying to do through the previous amendments. Surely the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) should simply vote against those amendments, rather than creating this Byzantine structure to negate what the Government are trying to do.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): Forgive me; my experience is not with the police, but I know very well that the police service, just like the armed services, would not issue CS gas or the like without very strict controls and very strict training. I am quite sure that volunteers would not be given any less training in the use of such chemicals in pursuit of their duty.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Garnier (Conservative, Centre-right): If I can just bring the discussion back to this planet, I accept that the Labour party does not want volunteers to be able to enter our police system in the way proposed by the Bill, but where on earth does the hon. Gentleman get that idea? I hope he is just making it up as he goes along, because if he has thought about his arguments I am even more worried than I was a moment ago. Where in the Bill does it say that anybody is going to be handed a noxious substance such as CS gas or the other spray without adequate training? It defies belief that anyone with common sense would advance that argument, and it is even less likely that a consequence of the measure would be that they would not get that sort of training. It is just bananas.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Garnier (Conservative, Centre-right): That, I respectfully suggest, is not a very clever question, because it is loaded to produce the answer that the hon. Gentleman wishes to receive. He is very fond of other volunteers, but he does not like clause 35 volunteers. If I asked anybody in his constituency or in mine, "What do you think about untrained people carrying shotguns, police weapons or CS gas?", of course they would say that that was not very sensible, but the question removes reality from the practical application of the Bill. No volunteer within the ambit of clause 35 is going to be walking around Market Harborough, still less the hon. Gentleman’s own constituency, without having been properly trained in the use of the materials, weapons or instruments to which they will be given access. That is just plain silly, and I wish he would move on to something rather better.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Garnier (Conservative, Centre-right): I can see that my hon. Friend is on to a good thing here. As someone who has not sentenced anyone to this type of order but has sentenced people to the drug testing orders under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, I would like to ask whether this should be a compulsory requirement. Is it that the police "must" or "may" charge? If it is the former, I think my hon. Friend will find that many people who fall into this sentencing remit will be so chaotic, at least to start with, that they will not have the finances to be able to reimburse the state for the charge.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
James Jacob Gilchrist Berry (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the role that special constables play in our police force. They are vital to policing throughout the United Kingdom. Will he join me in calling on the Government, when the Bill goes to the other place, to consider extending the protection of the Police Federation to special constables, who cannot join the federation unless there is a change in primary legislation? I think that that would be a good way of ensuring that when special constables go out there and take risks, they benefit from the protection of a proper trade union.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, when the public see a police officer, they simply see a police officer? They do not look at them and wonder whether they are volunteer police officers or not. Volunteers who man desks do not wear the uniform, but wearing the uniform immediately tells the public that someone is a police officer. They do not think, "Is that a reserve officer?" They think, "That is a police officer", and that is great.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
James Jacob Gilchrist Berry (Conservative, Centre-right): Will the hon. Gentleman accept that Parliament is not seeking to extend the power to volunteers? It is seeking to extend the power to chief constables to make the decision on whether volunteers should have CS or PAVA spray. How long does he think that a chief constable would be in office if someone—perhaps an accountant—came in to volunteer on a complicated fraud case and he said, "While you’re in here, take this CS gas spray."? I think the hon. Gentleman is being unduly alarmist.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
James Jacob Gilchrist Berry (Conservative, Centre-right): Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that Parliament should sit until the recess and come up with an exhaustive list of circumstances in which chief constables could use this power? Surely the appropriate thing to do is to trust our chief officers to use the power responsibly, which is exactly what this Bill does.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is making a peculiar point. If he is saying that, essentially, we should not give chief constables a particular power because, at some point in the future, they may well fall foul of it or misuse it, then there are lots of other powers that we give chief constables to which he may wish to apply that rule. For instance, a chief constable is able to license a police officer to handle a firearm. If that firearm is used incorrectly, as we have tragically seen in the past, then the chief constable faces the consequences—whether that be legal consequences or otherwise. Does he think therefore that this principle that we cannot trust these highly trained and highly experienced chief constables to use their discretion should be applied to other perhaps more critical areas of their operation?
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): In fact, those people are community support officers, not police community support officers. Policing is not devolved to the Welsh Assembly Government, so the position is that they are community support officers. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who is speaking from a sedentary position, might want to check that. The Welsh Assembly Government do not have devolved powers over policing or justice.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Nigel Adams (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to speak to new clause 19, which appears in my name and those of many right hon. and hon. Members from parties on both sides of the House. Members may recall my promotion of a ten-minute rule Bill on the subject in question a couple of weeks ago, so I hope they will indulge me while I provide a quick summary My new clause seeks to ban those attending live music events from carrying or using flares, fireworks or smoke bombs. In 2014 there were 255 incidents involving such items, which can be very dangerous as they can burn at temperatures of up to 2,000 °C. Although we are lucky that no one in this country has died from such incidents recently, such deaths have occurred elsewhere in the world, so we should try to act now to prevent that from happening here.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise to add my support to new clauses 7, 8 and 9. In particular, it is important that people who are not seen as a risk when holding firearms—I declare that I hold a shotgun certificate—do not suddenly become a risk overnight because their certificate has expired. New clause 7, and particularly subsection (5), is a sensible amendment to firearms legislation If an application to renew a certificate has been received by the local firearms team but it has been unable to deal with it in time, it seems wrong that members of the public who have exercised their responsibilities appropriately and within the terms of their licence should be criminalised overnight by the failure of the police force to deal with that application in time. I urge the Minister to take that into account. New clause 7 would make matters administratively simpler for the police, and avoid unnecessarily criminalising people who have otherwise done nothing wrong.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Charles Geoffrey Cox (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that in that situation, one way forward that the shotgun licence holder is given is to apply for a temporary permit? Yet that application is made to the same firearms department, which is already overburdened with work, and it requires the same amount of work as issuing a permanent permit. We need some mechanism such as that proposed in the new clause.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): I totally agree. The new clause would remove that unnecessary duplication of effort and allow the police to concentrate on getting through a backlog of licence renewals, or processing them quickly and effectively Let me highlight some of the anomalies behind new clause 9. As a landowner I could lend somebody a gun that is lawfully in my possession and that I am authorised to hold. Many children are taught to walk around with unloaded guns for many years, so that they learn how to use shotguns safely. Those guns are never loaded, but children are taught how to carry one, how to keep other people safe, and how to cross fences. That is a valuable part of training, and it makes a nonsense of the current unclear legislation on the term "occupier"—my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) spoke about how different police forces interpret that term, which indicates that there is something of a postcode lottery regarding where someone lives and how the law is applied The new clause brings much needed clarity to the process, and I urge the Minister to consider taking the matter further. If he cannot accept the new clause today, perhaps he will commit to it being considered in the other place. It is clear that these new clauses do not involve further risk—or indeed any risk—to the public The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) mentioned the police funding formula. In many areas, rural policing is like rural schooling and delivery of services. The policing formula does not support delivery of policing in rural areas—indeed, it tends to favour metropolitan areas. I have many examples of that. I know from previous experience that North Wales police were underfunded by £25 a head. It would be quite wrong, therefore, to give the impression that the leafy shires are better funded than metropolitan areas; that simply is not the case. The difference, particularly in Dyfed–Powys or indeed Cheshire, has been the way the PCC has allocated resources to frontline policing.
Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-04-26
Topic: Law and Crime
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): I simply do not accept that. The "damping" provisions have ensured that metropolitan areas have had substantially more funding, and rurality is not adequately accounted for in the funding formula to reflect the difficulty of policing often very large areas. After all, communities in rural areas deserve to be policed in exactly the same way and to have the same support and cover as those in metropolitan areas. I want to correct the impression that that is not the case In Cheshire, the PCC’s approach to services has led to a substantial increase on the frontline in the number of warranted officers. PCCs are making choices about where to allocate resources, but the examples from Cheshire and elsewhere, such as Dyfed–Powys, show that we can protect frontline services and even increase frontline policing using the funding settlements made over the last few years. The examples are out there, and I invite members of the public to check them out.