Labour’s Rachel Hopkins MP welcomes tough new measures to combat crime within flagship Crime and Policing Bill
Labour’s Rachel Hopkins MP has welcomed the government’s flagship Crime and Policing Bill for the people of Luton South and South Bedfordshire, which will introduce a raft of new measures to prevent crime and improve safety in our local community.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s Bill will introduce Respect Orders, enabling police and councils’ swift enforcement powers to ban persistent antisocial behaviour offenders who blight our town centres, high streets and parks.
There will also be tough action taken on shoplifting, including introducing a new offence of assaulting a retail worker. Labour will also scrap the Tory ‘shoplifter’s charter’, a law which deprioritised the theft of goods under £200. Statistics show there were 5,275 incidences of shoplifting in Bedfordshire in the year ending September 2024, around 101 per week.
As shocking statistics show that knife crime rose by 78.89% in Bedfordshire under the previous Conservative government, the proposed laws will deliver a range of tough new measures to combat knife crime.
This includes giving police new powers to seize, retain and destroy knives held in private when the police believe the knife will be used in a violent crime and strong new rules to prevent online knife sales, including personal liability for managers of online platforms who fail to act on illegal content including knives and offensive weapons.
It will also introduce Ronan’s Law - named after 16-year-old Ronan Kanda, stabbed to death in Wolverhampton by a boy who had used his mother’s ID to purchase a 22-inch sword online, and will strengthen age verification requirements for online sale of bladed products.
The Home Secretary will also introduce a new offence of possession of an offensive weapon with intent to use unlawful violence and increase the maximum penalty for offences relating to the sale of offensive weapons.
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.
Rachel Hopkins, Labour MP for Luton South and South Bedfordshire, said:
“After fourteen years under a Conservative Government, our town centres and neighbourhoods are plagued by anti-social behaviour. The people of Luton South and South Bedfordshire will welcome the tough new action included in Labour's bill.
Too many children's lives are being lost, and we know the devastating impact this has on families and communities as a result.
Our Labour government has set an ambitious mission for the country to halve knife crime over the next decade and we will pursue every possible avenue to save young lives.
The flagship Crime and Policing Bill is a vital step towards the safer streets promised in this Government’s Plan for Change”.