Extract from Urgent
Question (Commons) on deaths amongst homeless people
(Edinburgh East)
(SNP): My question is about violent assaults on rough
sleepers. I am sure that most Members—indeed, most right-minded
people—have been horrified and felt revulsion at the recent
attacks on people who are already in an extremely weak and
vulnerable position and, in particular, at the fact that some of
the perpetrators have filmed their attacks and circulated them on
social media as though they were some perverted form of sport or
entertainment. What further action can the Minister take on this
front? Will he ensure, for instance, that the relevant statutory
agencies have drawn up plans to identify the potential threat and
to offer protection against it for vulnerable homeless people?
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local
Government (James Brokenshire): Such examples are
utterly repugnant and will, I know, be absolutely condemned by
everyone in the House. We are talking about some of the most
vulnerable people who are out on the streets, and the fact that
they can be preyed upon and the purpose is somehow to provide
entertainment is disgusting. We are working with the Home Office,
which is taking steps to bring together Police and Crime
Commissioners to deal with the policing aspects. We need to look
at the issue on a number of fronts to ensure that action is
taken. The rough-sleeping strategy refers to the number of
assaults and the greater propensity to victimise those who are
out on the streets. That is unacceptable, which is why we will
continue to work with the Home Office.
Extracts from Lords
debate on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual
Abuse
(Con):...Subsequently, we have found ourselves in
a ludicrous impasse where everyone agrees that someone impartial
with judicial authority should examine the seven remaining
accusations against Ted Heath, but no one is willing to initiate
such an inquiry. The police and crime commissioner for Swindon
and Wiltshire, , has repeatedly said that
he too accepts that there should be such an inquiry, but he has
consistently refused to fund it. In 2017, he wrote to IICSA
asking it to take on responsibility for establishing whether
there was any substance to the accusations. I must confess I
found this a shameful abrogation of responsibility and felt
confident that, when it came, the answer from IICSA would be
pretty dusty, and so it proved. Quite rightly and properly, IICSA
has declined Mr Macpherson’s request to undertake a line of
investigation for which it would lack statutory authority. The
Inquiries Act 2005 does not empower an inquiry such as IICSA to
commission a review of accusations by a retired judge. It is also
not for such an inquiry to establish the likely innocence or
guilt of any individual...
(Con):...The
Government frequently emphasise the operational independence of
the police, sometimes almost giving the impression that they
think it has become almost a separate estate of the realm—a
result, in part, of the arrival of those newcomers,
the Police and Crime Commissioners, whose
performance varies so widely across the country and for whom
hardly any elector wishes to vote.
We surely must ensure that the police are called effectively to
account when operations have been concluded and there is serious
reason to believe that injustice may have been done to those who
have been investigated. Often, large sums of public money are
spent on these operations. Failure by any crime commissioner to
make provision for proper review of completed operations in these
early days of the new system should lead to intervention by the
Government; otherwise, public confidence in the police will be
seriously eroded, and many Police and Crime Commissioners will come
to feel they have no need to bestir themselves to arrange for
serious criticisms of completed operations to be properly
investigated...
...The injustice that has been inflicted posthumously on a
Conservative statesman should come within the remit of the
independent inquiry, as the inquiry itself has recognised and my
noble friend Lord Hunt has explained. Yet, perversely, the
Conservative police and crime commissioner for Wiltshire keeps on
saying that the inquiry should investigate, despite its clear
refusal. It is a measure of this man’s extraordinary
irresponsibility. He could set up an inquiry himself but keeps on
passing the buck. Since he will not act, the Government obviously
should, and yet they constantly refuse...
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