Engagements — House of Commons, 2019-03-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: North West Leicestershire voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union and for the past two years the Prime Minister has told my constituents on over 100 occasions that we will be leaving on 29 March 2019 with or without a withdrawal agreement. At the last minute, she begs our EU masters for an extension to article 50, delaying our departure. Does my right hon. Friend realise that the good people of North West Leicestershire will forgive her for this? They are good people, but they are not stupid people, and they will never trust the Prime Minister again.; Will my right hon. Friend undertake to reform the Government’s online petition system, which currently accepts unverified signatures from across the world? This fundamental flaw can produce an inaccurate reflection of public opinion on important issues, such as revoking article 50, and leaves our democracy potentially under threat of manipulation by foreign state aggressors.; Under my right hon. Friend’s Government, 1 million more disabled people are in work, but I am sure she would like to do so much more. For example, can she get disabled access for Ledbury station so that disabled passengers can simply get off the train, saving them an extra 20-minute journey to Hereford and back? The Access for All programme is too slow, and disabled people need to go to and from work, too.; Violent crime has risen by 19% and robberies have risen by 17%, and we have all seen the devastating and tragic impact of the increase in knife crime in our communities. This is the reality of the Prime Minister’s reckless cuts since 2010, with youth centres closed, police budgets slashed and the closure of all early intervention services across the UK. I plead with and beg the Prime Minister to understand that we need more real investment—before any more lives are lost.; When I have asked on previous occasions why we cannot stop this ongoing, politically motivated witch hunt of our Northern Ireland veterans, the answer has always been, “We cannot interfere with the judicial process.” But surely the Good Friday agreement was entirely predicated on interfering with the judicial process, with convicted terrorists being let out of prison, royal pardons and letters of comfort being provided to terrorists on the run. I have a son who serves in the Royal Artillery, Gunner Michael Lopresti, the fourth generation of his family to do so. So can my right hon. Friend reassure him that when he goes on an operational tour, which he is very keen to do, if something goes wrong, officers lose control of the situation and terrible mistakes are made, in 50 years’ time he will not be dragged out of bed at six in the morning, taken to a police station, questioned and then charged with murder?; We all know that policing has changed significantly over the past 50 years; we have seen that with cyber fraud and cyber-bullying, and the recent tragic increases in knife crime. On the way, the public have lost trust in politicians when it comes to policing. There is a way to restore that trust, Prime Minister: will you commit to setting up a police royal commission, so that facts and evidence, rather than political spin, prepare our police to properly tackle 21st century crime?
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that the nature of crime is changing—or we are seeing new types of crime being introduced. The police need to have the ability and resources to deal with those, and the understanding of how best to do so. I do not think we need a royal commission to do that; one of the things I did as Home Secretary was to set up the College of Policing, and one of the points of that college is to ensure that it is identifying new types of crime and identifying how best to deal with all types of crime, so that we have the confidence that our police are using the best tools available to them.