On Monday evening, the Government’s new Crime and Policing Bill received its Second Reading in the House of Commons and, as Policing Minister at the Home Office, I will be prominent , alongside Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, in taking the Bill through its Parliamentary stages at Westminster over the coming months.
The Labour Government’s Bill introduces a raft of measures including new Respect Orders and action against shoplifting.
Respect Orders – promised in Labour’s 2024 manifesto – will enable swift enforcement against persistent anti-social behaviour offenders and reverses the weakening of the powers available to police and communities that happened under the Lib Dem/ Tory Coalition Government in their Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.
The Respect Orders come as shock data shows that Humberside Police Force handed down just 55 Penalty Notices for Disorder for Anti-Social Behaviour in 2023 – a fall of 98% from 2010.
The Bill also includes action on shoplifting, including introducing a new offence of assaulting a retail worker and scrapping the Tory ‘shoplifter’s charter’ - which deprioritised the theft of goods under £200. Statistics show there were 9,276 incidences of shoplifting in the Humberside Police area in the year ending September 2024 - around 178 per week.
Labour’s Bill will also give the police new powers to enter premises without a warrant, enabling the police to search and seize stolen property swiftly that they believe is at an address. Labour’s action comes as the number of snatch thefts last year reached 85,000 across England and Wales.
The Bill also introduces new measures to crack down on the anti-social use of off-road bikes, on knife crime and new powers to combat violence against women and girls – including a new offence of spiking.
The new measures will be supported by the Government’s plan to recruit 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles over the course of this Parliament. This comes after the loss of 21,000 frontline police as a result of Coalition cuts after 2010. For 2025/26, Humberside Police have been granted a 6.5 % increase in funding to help start delivering the reforms.
