I am going to make a short topical statement. The information that Meta and other tech companies give to UK law enforcement helps to protect around 1,200 children and leads to over 100 arrests of suspected child abusers every month. However, Meta plans to roll out end-to-end encryption soon, without safeguards, and it will no longer proactively detect and alert authorities to child grooming and abuse material on Facebook, Messenger and Instagram Direct. This will be a huge boon to anyone who wants to hurt a child. The Online Safety Bill will hold tech firms to account, but indifference to abuse is intolerable. I have written to Mark Zuckerberg—together with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), children’s charities and campaign groups—to outline our profound concerns. Last week, I was in New Zealand at the Five Eyes security conference where there was widespread support for working together to ensure that social media companies put child safety first.
Following recent knife crime incidents in my constituency and in the Medway towns, will my right hon. Friend meet me and our Kent police and crime commissioner, Matthew Scott, to discuss funding and how the Home Office can further support Kent police with the increased challenges we are facing in Kent due to our proximity to London?
I very much appreciate the particular challenges in Kent relating to knife crime. That is why I am glad that since 2019, Kent has received £5.5 million in core violence reduction unit grant funding, and £730,000 in additional support for targeted youth interventions. I have met the police and crime commissioner, and Chief Constable Tim Smith. They are both excellent at leading their forces, and there is now a record number of police officers in Kent. I am sure the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), will meet my right hon. Friend to discuss that issue. We have made a lot of progress, but we can do better.
The Home Secretary will be aware of the documentary last week on the relationship between Boris Johnson and others, and former KGB officer Alexander Lebedev, and about the meeting in an Italian villa, the ignoring of security advice on Lords appointments, and the decision not to sanction Alexander Lebedev. Given the importance of national security, will she tell the House whether she has any concerns about those reports? Will she set up an independent investigation into what happened, into who knew what, and into how far the security risk spreads?
At the Home Office, the Minister for Security and I take seriously the threats posed by hostile state actors. That is why the Minister for Security is chairing the Defending Democracy Taskforce, bringing together agencies and Departments in a cross-Whitehall approach to tackling the serious threats that we all face as parliamentarians and facing those in public office. I gently remind the right hon. Lady that one of her own parliamentary colleagues has a very dubious track record when it comes to working with the Chinese Communist party.
T2. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that police funding reflects rurality and the huge uplift in population experienced in remote coastal locations during the summer tourist season?
As I said in response to an earlier question, the Government intend to consult in due course on a new police funding formula, and part of that consultation will involve looking at the factors that should be taken into account. Those might include things such as population and crime levels, but things such as rurality, sparsity and seasonality, particularly seasonal tourism, are likely to form part of the new formula. I encourage Members across the House to engage closely with that consultation when it comes forward, to ensure that those factors are properly accounted for.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
T5. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. In recent weeks, the media have carried stories of patients who were receiving medical cannabis on private prescriptions, and who are now having their prescriptions paid for by the NHS. On the surface that is a great leap forward, but parents of children with intractable epilepsy who have been asking for such things for years are still being ignored. Will the Home Office consider reopening the 2018 licensing scheme to enable those children who are already being privately prescribed medical cannabis to have access to it via their NHS GP?
Many cannabis base compounds were moved wholesale to schedule 2 a few years ago, enabling them to be prescribed. The question that the hon. Gentleman asked about NHS prescription is perfectly reasonable and fair, but prescriptions on the NHS are a matter for the Department of Health and Social Care and for the NHS, including the NHS in Scotland. I would be happy to pass on his inquiry to them.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
T3. May I assure my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that the majority of my constituents in Sittingbourne and Sheppey understand that sending illegal migrants to Rwanda for processing is key to stopping small-boat crossings in the channel? Will she assure them that despite concerted opposition from the Labour party, she will deliver her plan?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. We are disappointed by the judgment of the Court of Appeal, but we are determined to follow through. He is right to say that we have to add deterrence to the system, as it is only by breaking the business model of the people smugglers that we will stop the boats.
T7. My constituents want community policing. Kim McGuinness, the police and crime commissioner for Northumbria, has put in place a redeployment programme to get an extra 134 officers into neighbourhoods, but that will not make up for the 1,100 officers and the £148 million that we have lost due to budget cuts. And before the Minister mentions “plans”, that will still leave us 400 officers short. Why have the Tories failed so badly to get police officers on to the beat?
As I mentioned in earlier answers, across England and Wales we now have record police numbers of 149,572. The previous peak was 146,030 in 2010, so we have 3,500 more officers than we have ever had before across England and Wales. In Northumbria, the number has gone up by 512 since 2015. Of course, many of the powers sit with the PCC, including powers over the precept. It is entirely open to police and crime commissioners to use those powers.
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
T4. Today, Operation Centurion has started across Lancashire, utilising £2 million from the Government to put more police officers on our streets tackling antisocial behaviour. In my constituency, that means almost 2,500 extra hours of police patrols in Padiham. It will have a major impact, but we can do more. Can I ask the Home Secretary whether the safer streets fund will have another round so that we can make physical changes, as well as getting more officers on the streets?
I am delighted with the progress being made to tackle antisocial behaviour in Burnley and Padiham. As my hon. Friend will know, we have allocated almost £1 million to roll out pilots of ASB hotspot response in 2023-24. A new round of safer streets will be announced soon. I take this opportunity to thank Lancashire police, which has launched an ASB problem-solving unit. It ran Operation Propulsion, which involved more officers patrolling locations dealing with motor nuisance and boy racers, and it has had a real good crackdown on residential burglary thanks to Operation Defender. Neighbourhood crime has fallen by 26% in Lancashire. Tribute must be paid to Chief Constable Chris Rowley and the police and crime commissioner, Andrew Snowden.
T9. Given the exchanges earlier, I am obliged to ask the Home Secretary whether she understands the difference between using a cruise ship for the temporary accommodation of Ukrainian refugees, with a shared language and experience, and who have the right to work and are being actively relocated in the community, and using it essentially as a prison ship for the indefinite long-term detention of asylum seekers, who have no right to leave, no right to work, no right to benefits and no recourse to public funds. Does the Department appreciate the difference?
I am disappointed by the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. He knows perfectly well that the proposition was not a prison ship. This is a ship that will be used in exactly the same way as the SNP Government did in Scotland, and in exactly the same way as the Belgian and the Dutch Governments are doing in their respective areas. If I may say, in Edinburgh today, there are 37 asylum seekers. That is disgraceful. If the SNP cared about this issue, it would step up, support asylum seekers and back our Bill.