Speeches by Jones.

“The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) has done a piece of work. I welcome the work that he has done, and hope that he will pass on to the police and the inquiry any evidence, criminal or otherwise, that he has gathered. This is an independent statutory inquiry—it is a very different thing. It will be absolut…”

“Operation Beaconport is being led by the National Crime Agency, which is the very best of our serious organised crime operators, and we are treating this issue as we would treat serious organised crime, which is what it is. We are treating it with the utmost seriousness. The NCA is working with local police forces arou…”

“The inquiry, led by Anne Longfield, will look at previous inquiries and recommendations and bring them all into the inquiry’s remit. I encourage the hon. Lady to sit down and talk to Anne Longfield, if she has not done so already, to ensure that her concerns in that space are felt.”

“My hon. Friend can be reassured that this inquiry has all the powers it needs to go, without fear or favour, to find the answers we all seek. This issue is too important for us not to have ensured that, so we absolutely have. I know that the Minister for Safeguarding will be in contact with her counterparts in the Scot…”

“Thank you, Mrs Hobhouse. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. Members might be pleased to know that I probably will not take all the time available to me—perhaps I will give them a few minutes of their life back to do something else. I want to start by saying what an important debate this is. My hon. Frie…”

“The hon. Member is right that Victim Support and other organisations give really important support to people in such situations. Across different Departments, we all have a role to play in trying to stop this abuse and the retail crime that goes alongside so much of it. I will go into that in more detail. First, I will…”

“There is a wider question about social media and how it sometimes drives these kinds of behaviours. People are almost goading each other to do more extreme activities—I have heard about that in a number of areas. This week, I was told about a new trend that I find utterly extraordinary: people are breaking into houses,…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Dowd. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) for securing this excellent debate. The message I take away from it is, “You’ve done some stuff that we think is good, but we need to do a lot more.” This issue is undoubted…”

“Oh, yes—I forgot to talk about Northern Ireland.”

“Yes, of course. Forgive me; I should have responded to that earlier. The hon. Member also made the point about illicit trade across all our nations, and we need to work together to tackle that as well. I will end just as I began, by saying that we will be judged on this when we next stand before—”

“I will take one more.”

“Yes, of course. There are several areas for MHCLG to look at, and I know that it is already looking at what more powers we can have to close down the shops and stop them opening in the first place, as well as over the clustering of shops. We need to look at all those issues. I thank everybody again. I very much get the…”

“Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond, and a pleasure to talk about policing, which is one of the most important aspects of any Government’s function—it is certainly the priority of this Government. When we came to power in 2024, we committed to reform policing because at the moment it is not f…”

“My hon. Friend’s story about her constituent will not be the only one we hear about. I notice that Reform UK is quick to slam into the television stations as soon as something occurs, but its Members do not then come to this place to debate it in the normal way. Members of this House and those beyond have a critical ro…”

“As with all new technology, decisions about procuring and using AI are a matter for operationally independent chief constables. The Home Office is supporting the police to adopt AI rapidly and responsibly, with £115 million of investment over the next three years. That includes investing in the national centre for AI, …”

“I can assure the hon. Gentleman that Palantir is not buying the job. In the Home Office we have very robust processes, which were followed in full. The current licence management system is approaching the end of its life, and it is very important that we have a good one to maintain safety. There was an open and competi…”

“I agree with my hon. Friend that live facial recognition is an extraordinarily innovative new technology that helps us catch really nasty criminals in my constituency and in other parts of the country, and we are investing in it through our police reform agenda. We are also legislating for it, because we totally recogn…”

“Through our Crime and Policing Act 2026 we have new and enhanced powers to enable local agencies to tackle antisocial behaviour offenders, and our neighbourhood policing guarantee has ensured that every police force in England and Wales now has a dedicated antisocial behaviour lead and a local action plan to crack down…”

“I think we all share the hunger to tackle this awful crime, which blights communities. Through the Crime and Policing Act, we have strengthened police powers to swiftly seize vehicles that are used antisocially. We have stripped away the requirement to issue a warning, which enables officers to act immediately to take …”