UKPOL.CO.UK

Category: Criminal Justice

  • Kieran Mullan – 2022 Speech on Sentencing for Child Murderers

    Kieran Mullan – 2022 Speech on Sentencing for Child Murderers

    The speech made by Kieran Mullan, the Conservative MP for Crewe and Nantwich, in Westminster Hall on 11 October 2022.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered sentencing for people convicted of murdering a child.

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. The subject of this debate is a difficult one—a dark one. It is a subject that no one would rush to talk about, but I hope that I speak today for the families of children who have been murdered, and for future victims and their families, in calling for changes to our justice system, so that it actually delivers justice.

    In my view, along with protecting the public, delivering justice should be the absolute focus of our justice system. Yes, of course we should seek to divert people from offending, particularly those guilty of less serious crimes, but delivering justice is in and of itself a moral good.

    Child murder is one of the most horrific crimes and it must create unimaginable pain for the families who are left behind. I do not have children, but I am lucky enough to have a niece and a nephew, and they are the most precious members of my whole family. Millions of families across the whole country would join me in saying that protecting their children—keeping them safe—is the most important thing in the world, which we would give up anything, or do anything, to achieve.

    It is fair to say that the pain that must come when someone destroys a family by breaking through that wall of protection is something that people never really get over. Just imagine how you would feel if it happened to your family. Along with the loss of innocent life, there is the loss of a future, not just for the child but for their family. The imagined achievements: watching them grow and go on to live their own life, and their own family—all of that is gone; in fact, it is stolen. That haunts people forever.

    One such person is Elsie Urry. David McGreavy killed Elsie Urry’s children—Paul Ralph, who was four, Dawn, who was two, and nine-month-old Samantha—in 1973, at their Worcester home. Forgive the graphic nature of the details that I am about to give, but they need to be given—McGreavy strangled Paul Ralph, cut Dawn’s throat and fractured Samantha’s skull. The bodies of all three children were left on railings.

    Campaigning on this issue has given me the privilege of speaking to Elsie and learning how what happened has affected her. I spoke to her again yesterday, ahead of this debate, and she explained that she feels that she has been left with a lifelong sentence herself. It should come as no surprise that she was horrified that McGreavy was released from prison in 2019. She said that at the time he was sentenced she was left with the impression that he would never get out of prison and that was the sole source of comfort for her.

    It is likely to be the view of the overwhelming majority of the public that if someone brutally murders a child, they should spend the rest of their life in prison. There is sometimes a narrative that forgiveness and moving on are the answer. I welcome that narrative for people who feel that way, and I hope it gives them peace. However, I—and I think many other people—would get more solace from justice being done.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I commend the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. As he rightly suggests, a child’s murder hurts every one of us in our heart and we feel for their parent. As a dad of three and a grandfather of six, I understand exactly what he means.

    The Criminal Justice Act 2003 states that the only murder charge against a child that warrants life imprisonment is the murder of a child following abduction, or a murder involving sexual or sadistic motivation. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there needs to be greater emphasis on life imprisonment for child murders that take place within the household and that abduction, while a contributing factor, should not be the only reason for life imprisonment? Any child murderer should be in jail; that should be the only criterion. When the Minister responds to this debate, she should say very clearly that we need to have that in law, because that is what every parent wants—indeed, every non-parent also wants it.

    Dr Mullan

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and I wholeheartedly agree with him; indeed, I will go on to explain how we have made a tiny step in that direction but are still falling far short of what he says should happen.

    I return to the issue of how people feel when they or their family have been a victim of serious crime. After the murder of Sarah Everard—who, of course, was not a child at the time she was murdered, but obviously never stopped being a child to her loving parents—her family released the following statement:

    “We are very pleased that Wayne Couzens has received a full life sentence and will spend the rest of his life in jail. Nothing can make things better, nothing can bring Sarah back, but knowing he will be imprisoned forever brings some relief.”

    That is exactly how I would feel if any member of my family were murdered, not least if it was my niece or nephew. However, what is known as a whole-life order, rather than just a life sentence, is extremely rare in our justice system, whether the victim is a child or otherwise. Such a sentence was given to Couzens because the judge said that his use of his status as a police officer was of extreme seriousness.

    Across our entire prison population, only around 60 people who are currently in custody are there for the rest of their life, under a whole-life order. That is the suggested sentence when someone is convicted of the murder of two or more persons involving a substantial degree of premeditation, abduction of the victims, or sexual or sadistic conduct; the murder of a child that involves the abduction of a child, or sexual or sadistic motivation, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned; the murder of a police or prison officer; a murder carried out for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause; or when there is a murder by an offender previously convicted of murder. I cannot know, but I suspect that Sarah’s family would have felt exactly the same about wanting to see her killer spend the rest of his life in prison regardless of whether or not he was a police officer and was viewed by the judge as meeting that threshold.

    We frequently hear that a murderer has received a life sentence. That is often reported as their being “jailed for life”, but that is not what actually happens; in my view, that term is misleading. As I have said, to support the public understanding and media reporting of sentencing, we need to think about calling those sentences something other than a life sentence, because in reality, a life sentence means that someone is subject to recall to prison for life—that in theory, they could be in prison for life if they are never thought to be safe for release. The minimum term is actually the guaranteed sentence: in reality, people given a life sentence for murder serve an average of just 16 and a half years, which is very far from anyone’s definition of “life”. The idea that being on parole for life is in any way equivalent to being in prison is insulting to victims and their families.

    During the time I have been campaigning on tougher sentencing, I have picked up on what I will describe as an intellectual snobbery towards people who think that longer sentences serve justice—that it is small-minded thinking; that to think it, a person must somehow be unable to realise the moral and intellectual heights that can be reached through forgiveness; that it is obviously the wrong approach because it does not allow for rehabilitation, as if by default, no matter the crime, victims and their families should care more about that than they do about justice. That is misguided thinking. A society in which people who follow the law see those who do not punished is a noble and valid society. Making sure that victims of crime experience life with some relief, no matter how small, should be our priority.

    Those listening to my speech might be wondering what the point of today’s debate is. They might be aware that the point I am making—that child murderers should spend the rest of their lives in prison—is a deserving call that has already been responded to by the Government. The recently passed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 brought in a whole-life tariff for the offence of child murder, removing the requirement for child abduction or sexual or sadistic motivation. That measure should have been what would save people like Elsie from experiencing the heartache she has suffered watching her children’s murderer walk free.

    However, I am afraid that as welcome as that measure is, looking at the detail of it makes clear that it falls far short and will rarely do so, because it can be used only when a murder involves significant premeditation. That is why I have called for today’s debate: I am deeply unhappy that that decision undermines what would otherwise be a positive step forward in ensuring justice for victims and their families. Worse than not addressing an issue is giving the impression that we have done so, when in fact we have not. I am entirely unclear why the decision was taken to restrict the measure in that way. I would be grateful if in her response, the Minister would explain the Government’s thinking, because it only takes a casual observer to realise that that restriction is going to leave the public wondering whether in reality we have done what we pledged in our manifesto to do.

    Elsie tells me that her recollection of the case is that the murder of her children was a spontaneous act, without premeditation. More recently, I am sure the Minister and others will remember the horrific murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes at the hands of Emma Tustin, tragically with the help of Arthur’s father, Thomas Hughes. Arthur suffered 130 injuries in the lead-up to his death at the age of six. He was poisoned with salt, emaciated, and forced to sleep on a hard floor and stand all day in a hallway. The amount of violence used on him produced forces on his body equivalent to a high-speed road traffic collision. Tustin was convicted of murdering Arthur in December last year, and was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 29 years, before our measure kicked in. Every person I have spoken to and everyone who contacted me about the case wanted to see her locked up for the rest of her life. However, in his sentencing remarks, the judge was clear: there was no premeditation in the case.

    Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)

    Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot talk about sentencing in this case.

    Dr Mullan

    With respect, Sir Charles, the sentence is set, or resolved. It is a closed matter, so I think I can talk about it as a historical case.

    Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)

    I am sorry, but according to the Clerk, you cannot talk about sentencing. You can talk about the details of the case, Dr Mullan, but not the sentencing.

    Dr Mullan

    Okay—I had finished anyway. We know that if that crime were to be repeated tomorrow, the new measure we have passed would not apply, despite it being exactly the type of cruel, callous murder that the public would expect to be impacted.

    Significant premeditation, not just premeditation, is a very high burden to reach. I have reviewed some recent cases where, in sentencing remarks, premeditation was raised. Mohamed Jama was found guilty of murder with an element of premeditation because he armed himself with a knife and actively sought out his victim as part of a plot to avenge the robbery of his brother. Jason Cooper was found guilty of murder with an element of premeditation because he killed his former partner after telling people he would do exactly that, encountering her at a pub and returning home to get a knife with which to attack her. Thomas Dunkley was found guilty of murder with an element of premeditation because he was found to have searched, before the murder took place, for terms such as:

    “What is the fastest way for a human to bleed to death?”

    and:

    “How long does it take to bleed to death from a stab wound?”,

    alongside looking at things he could buy with the money he stole from the deceased. I hope those examples make clear what a significant hurdle premeditation is, let alone significant premeditation.

    Did Parliament, when passing the legislation, really mean to rule out cases such as Arthur’s? Did it mean that unless a murderer has a very clear plan to kill a child, we should be content to see them walk from prison? I am not content with that, and I do not believe that, had it been considered more closely, Parliament would be satisfied with it. Will the Minister say whether the Government remain happy with that position?

    I became aware of the issue as the Bill that became the Act passed through the House, and I raised it with Ministers, although I recognised that such a complex Bill, to which much had been added, was not suited to yet further amendments. However, I am determined that we should fix the issue now. Quite rightly, the public will ask us to explain ourselves when—heaven forbid that it should happen, but sadly it is likely—another poor child is murdered and justice, as most of us would see it, does not prevail.

    A cynic might conclude that an established view of the extremely high thresholds for the use of whole-life tariffs meant that, in reality, the caveat was introduced to continue the extreme restriction of its use while apparently satisfying a ministerial policy intention. I would not suggest that, of course, but others might. The impact assessment states that the Government estimated that, on average, some 10 adults per year commit the murder of a child. I am not clear whether that figure, or the policy development linked to it, took the caveat into account. It certainly does not seem to, and there is no mention of it in the impact assessment. If it seems that the Department was satisfied with the policy without the need for the “significant premeditation” caveat, it should not be such a burden to get it removed at the necessary legislative opportunity. Otherwise, we will have to answer difficult questions when the next case arises and angers public sentiment in a similar way.

    The issue reflects, for me, a need for a wholesale recalibration of our sentencing through the courts and the guidelines we set. What length of time in prison represents justice for different crimes is entirely subjective; no one can give a right or wrong answer. However, I believe the justice system is there to serve the public and our sense of what merits justice. That is the grand bargain that we make when we say we will follow the rule of law and not take matters into our own hands. Of course, the white heat of pure anger and vengeance should not be our guide or starting point, but reasonable, moral, decent people feel continually let down by what we offer them as justice when they and their families are victims.

    The Government can be proud of their overall record, in many ways, such as increasing Labour’s appalling halfway early release to two thirds for serious offenders. Again, I think most people would want that for all offenders, but it was progress none the less. We also introduced GPS tagging for some repeat offenders and brought in tougher sentencing options for child cruelty and dangerous driving. However, acting properly on child murder would have been a step forward that I thought was long overdue and welcome; my support for it was as strong, sadly, as my disappointment in how we ended up doing it.

    We can and must do better. That is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do for past victims and their families, to honour and recognise their suffering, and so that, when children are murdered, we can at the very least ensure that they and their families get justice.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2022 Comments on Violence in London

    Sadiq Khan – 2022 Comments on Violence in London

    The comments made by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, on 7 October 2022.

    I am committed to tackling violence and building a safer city for all Londoners.

    My approach of being tough on violence through the hard work of our police and tough on the complex causes of violence, is showing signs of progress. Overall, crime continues to fall in London, bucking the national trend, with knife crime with injury for under 25s and gun crime both down. However, it’s clear more needs to be done in partnership to continue making progress.

    Partnership work from prevention to enforcement is vital to tackling violence and the work my VRU does alongside the NHS and its violence reduction programme is a fantastic example of working together to identify opportunities to intervene early to divert young people and help them access positive life opportunities.

  • Suella Braverman – 2022 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    Suella Braverman – 2022 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    The speech made by Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, in Birmingham on 4 October 2022.

    It is such a privilege to be here.

    Being Home Secretary is not just a tremendous honour…

    …keeping the British people safe and securing our borders are the highest duties of state.

    Our Prime Minister understands those duties.

    And so do I. We stand for the law-abiding majority of Britons.

    And in doing so, I draw on a long tradition of Conservative Home Secretaries who were willing to challenge failing orthodoxy. They refused to accept defeat.

    Michael Howard, on his first day as Home Secretary, was told that there was nothing he could do about the inevitable rise in crime.

    He disagreed – and crime fell dramatically.

    They said that Theresa May couldn’t deport Abu Qatada, the Islamist extremist. But – despite setbacks along the way – she made it happen.

    Priti Patel negotiated a ground-breaking deal with our partners in Rwanda to bring forward a new solution to the challenge of illegal migration – providing protection in Rwanda for those that need it while breaking the business model of people smugglers.

    I am grateful to Priti and Boris for the foundations that they laid.

    Serious violent crime has fallen, as has overall crime, excluding fraud and online theft.

    And we are well on the way to 20,000 additional police officers.

    But a Home Secretary can never be complacent – and some things still need fixing. I’m pleased to be working with a brilliant team of Ministers who I am so pleased to see with us today: Tom Tugendhat, Tom Pursglove, Jeremy Quin, Mims Davies and Lord Andrew Sharpe, supported by our excellent PPSes – Gareth Davies and Shaun Bailey, they all bring talent and expertise to the Home Office.

    Now, the Prime Minister and I want to see homicide, serious violence, and neighbourhood crime fall by 20 per cent.

    Some of our most committed and courageous people serve in the police. In Belfast last week, I joined police leaders to pay tribute to those officers who have died in action. Their ultimate sacrifice is one for which we owe a huge debt of gratitude.

    So, yes I am immensely proud of our police.

    Many on the left want to defund the police.

    Well I say to the militants, I say to the anarchists and the extremists: I will always back our policemen and women.

    That’s what being on the side of the law-abiding majority means.

    But we also need to be frank when things go wrong. Some police officers have fallen devastatingly short of the standards expected.

    We need to get back to common sense policing, empowering the Police to tackle the real issues facing the public – not policing pronouns on twitter or non-crime hate incidents.

    That’s why I’m pleased that Greater Manchester Police, Hampshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire and the Metropolitan Police have all promised to visit the scene of every burglary.

    But the law-abiding majority expect every force to investigate every neighbourhood crime – and so do I. Drugs, car theft, vandalism and anti-social behaviour cannot be ignored.

    Perhaps the most unsettling, unspeakable crime of all is rape.

    As an MP and as Attorney General, I have already seen first-hand how the system needs to improve. I can’t change things overnight, but I will not accept the status quo.

    Policing is a public service, and must be accountable to you the public.

    That’s why it’s right to publish league tables that show how well every force in England and Wales is doing in their fight against crime.

    You all have a right to know. And greater transparency will drive up standards.

    The modern world inevitably brings new challenges. Our National Security Bill will ensure that law enforcement and intelligence agencies have the tools they need to stay ahead of our country’s evermore sophisticated adversaries.

    Yet everything starts from getting the basics right –

    We need common sense policing. Unashamedly and unapologetically on the side of the law-abiding majority.

    That means that the mob needs to be stopped.

    The police must have all the powers that they need to stop protestors who use guerrilla tactics and bring chaos and misery to the law-abiding majority.

    It’s not a human right to vandalise property. It’s not my ‘freedom of expression’ to protest violently. No – you can’t just start a riot or glue yourself to the roads and get away with it.

    Yes, friends, as Attorney General, I had to go to court to get some of these simple truths established.

    The judges agreed with me last week in the Cout of Appeal in the Colston Statue case. And that’s why our Public Order Bill will empower our police to stop this nuisance. So whether you’re Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain or Extinction Rebellion – you cross a line when you break the law. That’s why we will keep putting you behind bars.

    It’s very easy to say that the culture wars are a distraction.

    But make no mistake, the Left are attacking our profound, elemental values, wanting to replace them with the poison of identity politics. And when poison seeps into the public sphere, it distracts our public servants from doing their real job. That philosophy dominates the Labour Party, whatever Sir Keir Starmer pretends.

    And that’s why it is not only wrong for the police to take the knee. It is wrong for them to join in with political demonstrations; it is wrong for biologically male police officers to strip search female suspects.

    And it is not just that pandering to identity politics is a huge waste of time.

    They need to stick to catching the bad guys.

    To those who dismiss political correctness as a conservative obsession, I say this. Visit Rochdale. Visit Telford. The grooming gangs scandal is a stain on this country and it’s what happens when political correctness becomes more important than criminal justice.

    More PCs, less PC.

    My other mission is to control our borders.

    Firstly, legal migration.

    I backed Brexit because I wanted Britain to have control over our migration and to cut overall numbers. Brexit was meant to give us a say on how we determine our own migration policy.

    We should use our newfound control to deliver the kind of migration that grows our economy, for example that helps projects that have stalled or builds friendships and relationships with our allies.

    But the truth is parts of our system aren’t delivering. We need to end the abuse of the rules and cut down on those numbers that aren’t meeting the needs of our economy.

    And we mustn’t forget how to do things for ourselves. There is absolutely no reason why we can’t train up enough of our own HGV drivers, butchers, or fruit-pickers.

    The way we will build a high-skilled and high-wage economy is by encouraging business to invest in capital and domestic labour. Not relying wholly on low-skilled foreign workers.

    This isn’t just about policy or economics for me. It’s intensely personal. My parents came here in the 1960s from Kenya and Mauritius. They loved Britain from afar, as children of the Commonwealth. It was Britain that offered them security and opportunity as young adults.

    I’m not embarrassed to say that I love Britain. No Conservative is.

    It’s not racist for anyone, ethnic minority or otherwise, to want to control our borders.

    It’s not bigoted to say that we have too many asylum seekers who are abusing the system.

    It’s not xenophobic to say that mass and rapid migration places pressure on housing, public services and community relations.

    I reject the Left’s argument that it is hypocritical for someone from an ethnic minority to tell these truths.

    My parents came here through legal and controlled migration. They spoke the language, threw themselves into the community, they embraced British values. When they arrived, they signed up to be part of our shared project because the United Kingdom meant something distinct. Integration was part of the quid pro quo.

    That didn’t mean abandoning their heritage, but it did mean adopting British identity. An identity of which we should all be proud. This is the best place on earth to come and live in, but I fear that we are losing sight of the core values and the culture that made it so. The unexamined drive towards multiculturalism as an end in itself combined with the corrosive aspects of identity politics has led us astray.

    I saw this when I went to Leicester recently. A melting pot of cultures and a beacon of religious harmony. But even there, riots and civil disorder have taken place because of failures to integrate large numbers of newcomers. Such conflict has no place in the UK.

    Or when we look at the Prevent scheme, we see how cultural tensions within communities are not being handled well. The murderer of our much missed dear friend Sir David Amess, had been referred to Prevent. But it couldn’t stop him.

    We cannot as a people be cowed into fear by vocal minorities who attempt to undermine our common sense instincts. And as Home Secretary, I will make sure that Prevent is fit for purpose.

    The law-abiding majority deserve nothing less.

    And lastly we have got to stop the boats crossing the Channel. This has gone on for too long. But I have to be straight with you, there are no quick fixes.

    The problem is chronic. Organised criminal gangs are selling a lie to thousands of people.

    Many are drowning in the Channel.

    Many are leaving a safe country like France and abusing our asylum system.

    So what is our plan?

    Firstly, our work with the French has prevented about half of all crossings. I know that alone will not work. So I will work closely with the French to get more out of our partnership. Both on the French coastline and further upstream against the organised criminal gangs.

    Secondly, we need to find a way to make the Rwanda scheme work.

    Thirdly, we need to do more to get asylum-seekers out of hotels – currently costing the British taxpayer £5 million per day.

    And fourth, we cannot allow a foreign court to undermine the sovereignty of our borders.

    A few months ago, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg did just that,

    By a closed process, with an unnamed judge and without any representation by the UK, a European court overrode our Supreme Court.

    As a result, our first flight to Rwanda was grounded.

    We need to take back control.

    But friends, I need to be honest with you. The Strasbourg Court is not the only problem.

    Now everyone agrees that we must fight the evil of modern slavery. I’m immensely proud of the UK’s global leadership in protecting genuine victims.

    But the hard truth is that our modern slavery laws are being abused by people gaming the system. We’ve seen a 450% increase in modern slavery claims since 2014.

    Today, the largest group of small boats migrants are from Albania – a safe country. Many of them claim to be trafficked as modern slaves. That’s despite them having paid thousands of pounds to come here, or having willingly taken a dangerous journey across the Channel.

    The truth is that many of them are not modern slaves and their claims of being trafficked are lies.

    And it’s not just illegal migrants.

    Since entering the Home Office I have seen egregious examples of convicted paedophiles and rapists trying to game the system.

    Making last minute claims of modern slavery to block their removal from our country.

    Some have even gone on to commit further crimes in the interim.

    In one case, we convicted a sex offender from South Africa who spent a year in prison.

    He was about to be deported from the UK – and lo and behold, he made a claim of modern slavery.

    Our removal was stalled – and in this time he went on to commit a further rape.

    He is now back behind bars – but when he’s released, well – it’s all so terribly predictable.

    In another case, a paedophile from Pakistan received 10 years in prison.

    But at the end of his prison sentence, he put in a spurious claim to be a modern slave.

    Even when they got through that process, he made a second claim – which blocked his removal.

    We simply can’t go on like this.

    We need to make sure that our system strikes the right balance. Our laws need to be resilient against abuse – while at the same time ensuring we help those in genuine need.

    We have got a proud history of offering sanctuary to those in need.

    From supporting thousands of BNOs fleeing persecution in Hong Kong; to welcoming nearly 20,000 Afghan nationals fleeing war and terror, to offering immediate refuge to thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s barbarism…

    …The UK, and this Conservative Government has always been there to hold out the hand of hope to those who need it most.

    But the law simply isn’t working.

    It isn’t working in the interests of the British people or people who need our help the most.

    Our laws are being abused.

    Abused by people smugglers and criminals pedalling false promises.

    Abused by people making multiple, meritless and last-minute claims.

    Abused by tactics from specialist, small boat-chasing law firms.

    This cannot continue.

    So, Conference, I will commit to you today, that I will look to bring forward legislation to make it clear that the only route to the United Kingdom is through a safe and legal route.

    And that’s so we can help support those who need our help the most, including women and girls.

    If you deliberately enter the United Kingdom illegally from a safe country, you should be swiftly returned to your home country or relocated to Rwanda that is where your asylum claim will be considered.

    UK policy on illegal migration should not be derailed by abuse of our modern slavery laws, Labour’s Human Rights Act, or orders of the Strasbourg Court.

    And we will always of course work within the bounds of international law, but we cannot allow this abuse of our system to continue.

    And of course, at the same time, we need to continue to stamp out illegal working practices.

    We already have some of the toughest penalties for those not playing by our rules, but we will redouble our efforts to go after them.

    I need to be straight with you, Conference. This won’t be easy. I cannot promise a solution immediately. We’ve all heard pledges and promises but this is a complex and entrenched problem. And there are many forces working against us.

    The Labour Party will try to stop this. The Lib Dems will go bananas. The Guardian will have a meltdown.

    As for the lawyers. Don’t get me started on the lawyers.

    And I’m a recovering lawyer.

    But what can I pledge to you is my total and undeniable and unfettered and unconditional commitment to doing whatever it takes. Despite the obstacles, I won’t give up on you and I won’t give up on the British people.

    The time for words is over. Now is the time for action. Time to put the will of the hard-working patriotic majority at the heart of all we do.

    It’s time for the police to stop virtue-signalling and start catching robbers and burglars.

    It’s time to tackle the small boats – no ifs, no buts.

    Friends, it’s time for common sense.

    I stand ready to serve you. I stand ready to deliver.

    The time is ours, the time is now.

  • Brandon Lewis – 2022 Speech at the Lord Chancellor Swearing-in Speech

    Brandon Lewis – 2022 Speech at the Lord Chancellor Swearing-in Speech

    The speech made by Brandon Lewis, the Lord Chancellor, at the Royal Courts of Justice on 29 September 2022.

    I would like to thank the Lord Chief Justice for that warm welcome. I look forward to working with yourself and other members of the Bench during my time in office. As I look forward to working in Cabinet with you, Mr Attorney – and I would like to congratulate you on your re-appointment.

    You bring with you not only your background as a respected barrister, but also your experience serving in the role during your predecessor’s time on maternity leave. I have no doubt that you will carry out your duties as a Law Officer with both the diligence and dedication that you are renowned for.

    And I’m also delighted to welcome my esteemed colleague, Michael Tomlinson, to his new role as Solicitor General.

    As the Lord Chief Justice has described, your role is historic and vital to our democracy – providing essential support to the Attorney and overseeing the work of our prosecuting authorities.

    I know you will bring the same commitment and enthusiasm to the role as you have throughout your parliamentary career.

    It is a huge honour to become Lord Chancellor and join such a long – if slightly daunting – list of names that includes Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Francis Bacon and Ken Clarke. The patron saint of statesmen and politicians himself goes before me – Sir Thomas More is also one of my predecessors.

    Like me, Sir Thomas was fortunate enough to be the Member of Parliament for the fantastic, stunning constituency of Great Yarmouth. He was famously beheaded for treason – so I’m hoping I cannot match that similarity!

    Today is, of course, the culmination of a years-long journey for me. From being called to the bar in 1997. To getting elected as a councillor in 1998 and leading Brentwood Borough Council. All the way through to the point where I entered Parliament in 2010, my first ministerial posting in 2012 and the four departments in which I’ve served since.

    I hope to bring all of that experience to this job, but I recognise that the English legal system does have about 900 years more experience than I do! Throughout that time it has evolved to offer a crucial mix of flexibility and reliability that guarantees citizens’ rights and allows businesses to thrive and grow as well.

    As we continue to pass it down through the generations, I hope to play my part in being both a good steward and a trustworthy custodian of English Law. That is why I take my responsibility to respect its enduring principle, the Rule of Law, so incredibly seriously.

    The idea that everyone is equal before the law and that public authorities must act lawfully is the foundation of our society. It guarantees freedom and fairness in a modern democracy like ours. And we must always be aware that it is not guaranteed and therefore must be protected.

    Judges are at the forefront of that work to safeguard the Rule of Law in our justice system, and I will do all I can to defend their judicial independence. I’m clear that the work of our judiciary matters…

    …As does the work of our world-leading legal professionals, who are also represented here today. Together they not only deliver justice, they each play a crucial role in the evolution of the law and making sure that it continues to meet the needs of our country.

    What this adds up to is a legal system that works. It is not just crucial to our success as a nation, it is one that is also recognised internationally, which is why the world looks to us to be its counsel and its courtroom.

    In fact, in 2019 English law was trusted to govern some £250 billion of global mergers and acquisitions, and in 2021, over half of the cases heard in our Commercial Court were international in nature.

    We lead Europe in legal services and globally we’re second only to the United States. In terms of what this means for UK plc, the figures speak for themselves.

    Our legal services sector contributes over £29 billion gross value added to our economy each year, employing some 350,000 people. I want to make sure that justice continues to drive our economic growth as we recover from the pandemic and rise to the cost-of-living challenges that we see ahead of us.

    We’ve maintained our world-leading position because of the flexibility of our system and our willingness to embrace change. I’m clear that if we want to remain an attractive legal centre then we must continue finding those new and better ways to provide legal services.

    As Lord Chancellor, I will do all I can to support legal innovation – so that our legal services can be transformed, not just for the benefit of businesses and the public, but for our legal profession too.

    I want to see a modern justice system that is built around the people who use it. One where we do more online, with the right guidance and support.

    Whether that’s through making a claim or resolving a dispute. So that we can save time, cost, and stress to people seeking justice and reduce the burden on those who work in the system.

    And we’ve got to be agile enough to ensure that English Law provides clarity for businesses through a period of constant change – in particular when it comes to digital and emerging technologies such as blockchain and smart contracts.

    These technologies offer the opportunity for us to transform how our businesses operate, with more transparent and efficient ways of working.

    I’m very much aware that we have already begun a process of modernising the courts to make sure that they are in good working order for the digital age.

    As part of my duty for the efficient and effective running of the courts and tribunals, I intend to see through this ambitious and innovative programme.

    I am also cognisant of the fact that COVID-19 was an extraordinarily difficult period and time for the justice system, the judiciary and our hardworking court staff who played a huge part in keeping things moving. I want to thank you for your hard work and determination to meet those challenges head on, including through innovation that was delivered at rapid pace.

    While the knock-on effects of COVID-19 continue to be felt today, it is thanks to your dedication that we drove down the Crown Court backlog by around 2,000 cases from its peak in June 2021. This is a huge achievement – but there is still substantial work to be done. The family court sat to its highest ever level in 2021, and in the immigration and employment tribunals we have reduced the caseload from its peak during the pandemic.

    As Lord Chancellor I am hopeful to see an end to the disruptive strike action that risks undoing the progress we have all worked so hard to achieve, and that is delaying justice for hundreds of victims – and causing the backlog to start to increase.

    I’m pleased to have reached agreement with the leadership of the Criminal Bar Association today. They will be re-balloting their members quickly following new proposals for further reforms to criminal legal aid. These are generous and I would encourage CBA members to consider them carefully and positively.

    I would like to say something about prisons and probation, for which I am also responsible as Secretary of State for Justice.

    Prison and probation officers – some of whom were involved in the State Funeral procession – play a huge role in our justice system and are so often the hidden heroes of our society.

    I want to also take the opportunity this morning to thank them for their immense efforts throughout the pandemic – and for their continuing hard work – to keep our prisons and the public safe.

    I will continue to prioritise the creation of secure and modern prison places – ones that champion rehabilitation by equipping offenders to become active in the jobs market. This in itself will keep the public safe by preventing reoffending, but it will also help us play our part to drive the government’s agenda for economic growth.

    I also want to explore options for reforming the Probation Service, which is vital in steering prison leavers towards better futures.

    And I am determined to make public protection the overriding factor in parole decisions – so that we can be assured of the confidence of both victims and the public.

    Mr Attorney, I want to finish by thanking you all for your warm welcome and reiterating my dedication to the oath I have sworn today. As I step into this ancient role, I am very, very much aware of my constitutional responsibilities, as well as my duty to the judiciary, the courts, tribunals and to justice more broadly.

    I look forward to working with all of you as we each play our part in the justice system – to cherish and protect the ideals on which it was built and to carry on building it around the people who are using it every day. Thank you.

  • Suella Braverman – 2022 Letter to Police Leaders

    Suella Braverman – 2022 Letter to Police Leaders

    The letter sent by Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, to police leaders on 24 September 2022.

    Letter [in .pdf format]

  • Jeremy Quin – 2022 Comments on County Lines Programme

    Jeremy Quin – 2022 Comments on County Lines Programme

    The comments made by Jeremy Quin, the Home Office Minister, on 24 September 2022.

    I want victims of exploitation to know that we are on their side – and that there is a way out, a brighter future available.

    Since 2019, the government’s county lines programme has shut down 2,400 lines, made over 8,000 arrests and engaged more than 9,500 individuals through safeguarding interventions.

    These services will be relentless in their focus to carve out safe routes home for young people in danger and tear them away from the grip of these merciless county lines gangs, opening up their futures once more.

  • Oliver Letwin – 2002 Speech to Conservative Mainstream

    Oliver Letwin – 2002 Speech to Conservative Mainstream

    The speech made by Oliver Letwin, the then Shadow Home Secretary, on 19 March 2002.

    The Frontline Against Fear: Taking Neighbourhood Policing Seriously

    Introduction

    In this speech I intend to set out a vision for the future of policing. But before I describe that vision, I want to say something about our overall philosophy on law and order.

    The neighbourly society – Beyond the causes of crime

    Back in January I delivered a speech at the Centre for Policy Studies, in which I set out a framework for Conservative thinking on law and order.

    The opposite of crime

    I called the speech Beyond the Causes of Crime, because the central thesis was that – just as in economic policy we need to direct ourselves towards identifying and promoting the causes of wealth-creation rather than the causes of poverty – so, in the field of law and order, we need to direct our efforts towards dealing not with the causes of crime but with the causes of the opposite of crime – in other words, all those assumptions, attitudes and actions that make for what I call the neighbourly society.

    Overcoming crime

    The neighbourly society is the most important defence we have against crime. A neighbourly society is built upon strong and supportive relationships within families, between neighbours and throughout the wider community. A united, concerned and vigilant community not only guards against the depredations of the established criminal, but also prevents the development of criminality in its young people. A neighbourly society is self-sustaining because its responsible, adult members provide their young with a proper start in life and, thereby, a cycle of responsibility which sustains the neighbourly society from generation to generation.

    The frontline against fear

    Crime against community

    But there can be no neighbourly society without community, by which I mean the human networks that make a neighbourhood out of a physical network of streets and houses. And there can be no community without security, by which I mean, principally, the safety of the shared spaces of a neighbourhood where community takes root.

    The unequal struggle

    We need to understand crime and community as two opposing forces, one of which will overwhelm the other. In this struggle, crime has powerful weapons at its disposal: above all, violence and the threat of violence. In the face of such violence and intimidation, the peaceful community can only retreat, ceding more ground to the criminal, exposing young people to values wholly opposed to those of the neighbourly society. If crime wins the struggle and criminals take possession of the streets, the cycle of responsibility is thrown into reverse, with the result that neighbourhoods decay; the young are corrupted; people who can, get out; and people who can’t, live blighted lives. All this, because decent people are afraid.

    Crime in the real world

    The cause of this fear isn’t just the headline offences of rape and murder, or even the more common offences of mugging and burglary. It is also all the other crimes and near-crimes that affect the quality of life, conveniently filed away under the term social disorder: graffiti, vandalism, petty theft, fly tipping, drug dealing, intimidation, bullying, racial abuse, the corrupting influence of gangs, and the underlying, but entirely viable, threat of violence against anyone who stands up to the wreckers. Yes, of course, people do fear the headline crimes, but in many neighbourhoods there is another kind of fear, closer to despair, born of the knowledge that we must limit our lives or become victims; that the street is owned by the criminal, not by the citizen; that vandals can do what they will, even if everyone knows who they are; that thugs may torment their neighbours with only retaliation guaranteeing a decisive police response; that the gang is a stronger influence on our children than the school; that in the frontline against fear no one is on our side; that we are right to be afraid.

    Taking back the ground

    I have spoken of the struggle between crime and community. It is a struggle that the community is losing and the evidence of defeat can be seen most starkly in Britain’s poorest neighbourhoods. There is something desperately wrong with our society when the people we put in the front line against fear are those least able to stand up to the thugs – the poor, the very old and the very young. They need some one to fight for them, not just holding the line against fear, but taking back the ground lost to the forces of disorder.

    The role of the police

    Conventional policing

    Who will take on this role? In my view it should be the police. But the conventional view is that the proper role of the police is to confront serious, organised crime through the discipline of criminal intelligence.

    The strength of conventional policing is the development of high-tech, intelligence-led methods that seek out connections and pursue them to the criminals at the other end. But its strength is also its weakness – the targets are now so selective that the police can confront crime without engaging with society. Conventional policing in the UK has, I believe, ignored the deeper connections that lead back to the frontline against fear.

    The one-legged police force

    Do you remember the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch about the one-legged man who auditioned for the lead role in a Tarzan film? The casting director tries with great diplomacy to tell the aspiring actor that he is unsuitable for the part. Accentuating the positive he tells him that he likes his left leg: “it is a great leg, I have nothing against your left leg… the trouble is neither have you”.

    I have nothing against conventional policing methods. Indeed, I believe that they are integral to the vision of a neighbourly society. We need a combination of high-level policing, criminal intelligence and tough sentencing to take out the organised criminals whose interests are wholly opposed to the creation of the neighbourly society. But however intelligent the criminal intelligence, however tough the tough sentencing, high-level policing will never be sufficient on its own. And as long as it is on its own, we will only have half a police service.

    Community policing

    Whether crimes occur singly or in some organised fashion, they do not arise out of nothing – nor do they return to nothing after the recorded event is over. For every crime there is a criminal, and for every criminal there is a personal history of unchallenged anti-social behaviour degenerating into a lifetime of crime. For every crime scene there is a neighbourhood, and every neighbourhood has its story too – one in which social disorder is allowed to multiply and feed upon itself as it feeds upon the community. In terms of both people and places, every crime is the product of a complex web of events, decisions, relationships and conditions – stretching back for years, even generations.
    This is a view of crime that defies conventional attempts to record, but any one of us would recognise the phenomenon in a neighbourhood that just isn’t safe anymore. The corollary is a view of policing which regards social engagement as necessary and inevitable.

    To distinguish this role from conventional policing, the catch-all term of community policing is often used. But this term is woefully insufficient, and the activities it represents are nothing like the serious engagement which I have in mind. At its best, community policing can involve worthwhile activities like harm avoidance education in schools. At its worst, community policing can amount to little more than putting PR consultants in epaulettes. But both forms of what we have come to call, in the UK, community policing suffer from an overwhelming deficiency. Just as conventional policing in the UK confronts crime without engaging with society, community policing engages with society, but without confronting crime.

    Neighbourhood policing

    What I want to talk about is distinct from conventional policing. It is also much more than what is commonly understood by community policing.

    I want to talk about something that is currently being practised only in small areas or for brief periods in the UK – something that, if practised universally, would constitute a virtual revolution in British policing. This is a type of policy that relates to real lives, led in real homes, in real neighbourhoods. I am going to call it neighbourhood policing.

    Neighbourhood policing is distinct because it both engages with society and confronts crime – and can do so because it operates within a tangible geographical area. Neighbourhood policing is integral to the Conservative vision of a neighbourly society.

    Fundamental reform – the extent of change

    We must view conventional and neighbourhood policing as two halves of a whole. Of course, this is a simplification; the conventional and neighbourhood methods of policing are not mutually exclusive and there are many overlaps. Nevertheless, the emphases are very different: One deals with specific crimes, the other with general disorder; one targets major offences, the other minor offences; one is reactive and remedial, the other proactive and preventative.

    I don’t think that anyone could reasonably claim that these respective emphases form two halves of a whole in today’s police service. Neighbourhood policing can only be restored to its rightful position through fundamental reforms that transform the police service from top to bottom. What I am proposing is the biggest change to policing since the foundation of the police service by Robert Peel.

    Returning to the root

    Appropriately it was Robert Peel who enshrined the ideal of neighbourhood policing in his nine principles of policing. For instance, the first principle is about prevention: “The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.”

    And the ninth principle sets out the ultimate objective of neighbourhood policing: “The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder.”

    Whatever happened to neighbourhood policing?

    These are not just the words of a long dead politician, but the basis of a system of policing that endured into living memory. So whatever happened to neighbourhood policing? The simplistic answer is that policing has moved on, because crime has moved on: There is more crime than ever before; it is more sophisticated than ever before; it is more brutal than ever before. But some things never change – it is still the case that failure to deal with minor crimes will create the conditions from which major crimes arise. We must continue to advance those conventional policing methods that deal most effectively with the major crimes, but unless we return to the roots of the police service we will never effectively deal with the roots of crime.

    Moving Forward to neighbourhood policing

    How are we to achieve this effect?

    I do not believe it can be done by re-visiting our own past. Circumstances, when we last took neighbourhood policing seriously in Britain, were too different from those we face today. We cannot go back to Peel.

    Instead, I think we need to invoke Peel’s near-contemporary, Canning. We need to call “the New World ……to redress the balance of the old.” It is American cities that have shown, over the past decade, how a true combination of conventional policing and neighbourhood policing can be used to crack crime.

    The achievement of the NYPD

    Two weeks ago, I was in New York as the guest of the NYPD.

    What did I see there?

    I saw policemen walking the streets.

    I saw patrol cars, which patrol small areas on a continuous, 24-hour basis.

    I saw the teams available to move in behind the beat-cops and the patrols to tackle crime on the street.

    I saw how the NYPD provides transparent diagnosis of street crime and forces policemen at all levels to produce strategies for dealing with it through the so called Compstat which is much more than just a matter of comparative statistics.

    I saw how the Police Department and other agencies tackle quality of life issues as well as crime.

    I saw a criminal justice system which exhibits vitality and a sense of urgency at all levels.

    The lessons of New York

    It is difficult to convey the full extent of the difference between what I saw and heard in New York and what one sees and hears in Britain. Let me try to illustrate some of the differences.

    Let me start with what we would call “the bobbies on the beat”. Every policeman in New York starts by walking the streets. A policeman typically has about four blocks to walk. There are no set hours. The beat-cop is regarded, from the first day, as a professional, entrusted with a task – the task of accumulating low-level intelligence that will enable the NYPD in his Precinct (and, if necessary, on a wider scale) to trace disorder and crime. If that beat-cop needs to deal with specific circumstances that require unorthodox hours, that is his or her decision.

    I also rode along with a patrol car. We moved, very slowly, up and down the narrow area, patrolled day after day by the two cops in the car, in one of three shifts, providing 24-hour surveillance of a small area. Drivers showed no surprise at seeing the slow-moving police car – it was evidently a sight with which they were fully familiar. Passers-by joked with the officers at traffic lights (perhaps it is significant that some of these passers-by were black and the cops, in this case, white; perhaps it is also significant that many of the policemen I saw in the Precinct Headquarters in North Harlem were black). As we went along, the patrolmen pointed out to me individuals with specific criminal histories: they knew them by sight. When I asked how long it would take to reach the scene of a reported crime if one came through on their radio, they said “a couple of minutes.” I assumed this was hyperbole. I was wrong. A call came through; a couple of minutes later, without even the need for a siren, we were at the scene.

    Back in the Precinct – and in other precincts – there were groups of policemen, some specialist, some generalist, ready to move in, or taking proactive steps to prevent crime and disorder identified by the beat-cops and the patrolmen, or through wider intelligence. Nowhere did I see evidence of a divide between conventional, high-level intelligence-led policing and neighbourhood policing. The two were interdependent. Neighbourhood policing was understood to be an intelligence-accumulating activity as much as any other – the focus of crime and disorder was specific and local – but the specific and local was tied into the fabric of general intelligence.

    At Borough Headquarters, I sat through a Borough compstat meeting. This was exactly as described in the literature. A Precinct Commander, whose precinct showed increases in particular types of crime over the previous week, was being subjected, in front of the other Precinct Commanders in the Borough and in the presence of representatives of other agencies, to a cross-examination by the Borough Commander and other senior officers, on the basis of statistics and maps showing the particular crimes committed on particular streets in that precinct over the previous week. The Precinct Commander and his two senior assistants were having to give (and were giving) a detailed account of the specific measures they were taking to apprehend the villains in question and to prevent recurrences of these types of crime in these and other nearby streets. To appreciate the full force of this experience, one needs to understand that the Borough Commander – who had spent a good part of the previous week, he told me, as in every other week, studying for this session – was in charge of 2,300 policemen and was therefore equivalent to a Chief Constable of a mid-sized UK Police Force: he ranked as a “2-star Chief” broadly equivalent to an Assistant Commissioner at the Met. He himself feared that, at little or no notice, he might be subjected to a similar demand for explanations from the Chief of the Department (broadly equivalent to the Deputy Commissioner at the Met).

    The transforming effect of a few simple statistics available and published on a weekly basis, transformed into maps showing exactly the hot-spots, and allied to a system of open and accountability was evident. Right from the top to the bottom of the NYPD attention is focused on crime, where it is occurring, when it is occurring – and on what is being done to stop it.

    I saw this same phenomenon played out at the lowest level when I met officers in the North Harlem Precinct, who had donned plain clothes in order to mount a immediate operation to deal with a specific form of crime that was occurring in a small area within the precinct. When I asked if this was because that form of crime had shown an increase in the compstat statistics, they explained to me that it had not because it had only occurred in the last couple of days. Their intention, they explained, was to stop this becoming the cause of an increase which would embarrass their Precinct Commander the next week in the compstat meeting.

    Neighbourhood policing – in the sense of directly addressing crime on the streets of New York and other American cities – is not an idea or a theory: it is a reality which has focused the attention of policemen at every level of the force on crime and on stopping crime, in real time.

    But the neighbourhood policing I saw in New York goes beyond attention to episodes of crime. New Yorkers have their equivalent of our 999 number – 911. But they have something we don’t have: they have a 311 number, for citizens to make complaints about quality of life issues. These are not regarded as unimportant, insoluble or low priority. The broken windows theory which governs policing in New York and many other American cities today – and which has very often been misrepresented as aggressive “zero tolerance” – stems from the progressive and liberating idea that citizens do not need to tolerate low-level disorder and that in order to reclaim the streets for the honest citizen from the criminal or low-level disorder needs to be tackled with the same energy that is applied to dealing with episodes of crime. Once again, I did not find any of the NYPD regarding low-level disorder as something separate from crime. I met police officers at all levels who saw these phenomena as intrinsically intertwined with one another, and who understood very well that low-level intelligence, derived from street-cops and continuous patrolling was intrinsically related to an understanding of the location and causes of low-level disorder.

    Finally, I saw something that would have warmed the cockles of the heart of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. I spent time in the District Attorney’s office, and I talked to police officers responsible on a daily basis for arrests and for taking people to court. The sense of co-operative effort and of urgency was unmistakable – and very different from the pattern obtaining in the UK. The aim of the system as a whole, from the moment of arrest, was to achieve speedy justice. I stress both elements of that proposition. There is a deep and fine tradition of civil liberties in the United States and perhaps the strongest concept of due process in the world. The aim of the system is to deliver justice, not arbitrary punishment. But the aim is to deliver speedy justice. And that is just what happens.

    In timescales that would seem impossible in Britain, arrests are turned into arraignments, summary justice, or indictments and plea bargaining, or trials. The police have not given up on the courts, and the prosecutors and the courts have not given up on the citizen. There is a sense of common purpose to identify, comprehend and convict the guilty.

    Does all this mean that, in New York and other cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, San Diego as well as other municipalities on a much smaller scale, such as Lowell in Massachussetts, the result is unpleasant, aggressive, intolerant policing? The mythology on this side of the Atlantic would often have it so. But that was not my experience in New York. You will recall the black officers of whom I spoke: the NYPD has a record of employing black officers of which we would be proud in the UK and which we have yet to achieve. I spent instructive time in the Community Affairs Department – I was told of activities mirroring the best practice in the UK used to establish and maintain appropriate relations built between the police and the communities they serve. New York, unlike some English cities, has not seen riots in recent years.

    The cities I have mentioned where the model first initiated by William Bratton has been implemented are cities in which policing is conducted very largely by common consent. You have only to walk the streets of North Harlem, or drive with the cops at night, to see, as I saw, a city in which the police benefit from far higher public esteem than our own.

    Does it work? The figures speak for themselves. Over 9 years, murder in New York has reduced by 80%; robbery, burglary and car theft by over 70%; theft by just under 50% and rape by just under 40%. Across these crimes as a whole, the reduction is 60% since the new methods were introduced. New York is now noticeably a safer and more pleasant city to live in than London. The city is cleaner; there is less low-level disorder. The morale of the ordinary policeman is far higher. Ordinary New Yorkers report vast improvements. The crime surveys show a trend that matches those of the official figures.

    Are we dealing with cause and effect? New York and other American cities have seen the reinvention of neighbourhood policing and, with it, the prevalence of transparency and accountability throughout the force – together with the provision of low-level, continuous, timely intelligence allied to the 311 reports. Has all this been responsible for the significant decrease in violent street crime? No doubt this will be debated for many years to come. But in a ground-breaking study produced last December by the Manhattan Institute, Kelling and Sousa subjected the disaggregated New York statistics to rigorous analysis – using the fact that the various precincts have significantly differing social compositions – to eliminate non-predictive variables. Their work deserves intense study from anybody interested in such analysis. Its results can, however, be summarised in one sentence: “the average NYPD precinct during the 10-year period studied, could expect to suffer one less violent crime for approximately every 28 additional misdemeanour arrests made.” If anyone needed to put a nail in the coffin of scepticism about the effectiveness of the broken window thesis and of properly organised neighbourhood policing, that does it.

    How do we apply the lessons in England?

    Let us, then, turn our attention from the United States to our own little island.

    What do we need, here in the UK? We need that same virtual revolution in policing which American cities began to undergo a decade ago.

    What does it take to foster such a revolution?

    Let me start with what it does not require. It does not require – and, indeed, it cannot be achieved by – Clauses 5 and 7 of the Police Reform Bill, which give the Home Secretary the power to intervene at every level of the police force and, in effect, seek to run the police forces of this country from a desk in Whitehall. I know of no reason to suppose that an effective revolution in policing methods can be delivered by the Home Office, which has given us an Immigration and Nationality Department that cannot process applications in a timely fashion, an asylum system that is, by the Home Secretary’s own admission, in a state of chaos, a prison system whose recidivism rates, particularly for young people, are the envy of criminals everywhere.

    I do not believe that a revolution can occur in any way except through enthusiastic sponsorship and initiative by the Chief Constables and their senior officers, supported and enthused by Police Authorities. Such enthusiasm will not occur if efforts are made to achieve this virtual revolution through bureaucratic imposition.

    Nor will this virtual revolution be brought about by trying to achieve neighbourhood policing on the cheap through community support officers with limited training, limited powers and limited duties. I see no reason to suppose that such people can properly do the job of the policeman on the beat. But, beyond that question, lies the far deeper question: How can our police forces be expected to take neighbourhood policing seriously if it is plastic policemen who are to carry it out? On the contrary, if neighbourhood policing is to be taken seriously in the UK, as it is in American cities, the very best people entering our police forces will need to see the accumulation of low-level intelligence, the provision of rapid response and the taking of effective action against localised crime as part of the essence of good policing, and will need to see training in such activities as fundamental to the achievement of the glittering prize of the policeman’s profession. To be taken seriously by policemen, neighbourhood policing needs to be policing by policemen.

    What the virtual revolution for which I am calling does require is a fundamental cultural change in our police forces, led from the top, achieved by consent and pursued with enthusiasm. I have no doubt that the Home Office will need to play its part in increasing transparency and accountability – perhaps through its own version, on a national scale, of real-time compstat. I have no doubt that the Home Office will need to provide better means of opening up to public and professional view examples of good and bad practice. I have no doubt that the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor’s Department will need to look at serious changes in the methods employed by our criminal justice system. Very possibly, we may need to look again at the internal structure of our Police Authorities to see how they can be provided with the means to hold Chief Constables to account.

    All of these questions – and many more beside – will need to be addressed if we are to create and then to sustain the virtual revolution that I have described. But I am sure that, so far from moving towards the establishment of a single national police force in the way prefigured by the Police Reform Bill, we should expect to see, and we should welcome, the blooming of many different flowers. In the United States, there are about 20,000 police forces. We have less than 50. There is every reason to suppose that we shall see 50 different models emerging – and every reason to suppose that the virtual revolution will be best achieved in 50 different ways, each responsive to the differing configuration of the area and population served by the police forces in question.

    I argue for common aims: a level of attention to neighbourhood policing not seen in this country for many years; a level of attention to the timely identification, analysis and effective resolution of street crime and disorder not witnessed in our police forces today, and a sense of urgency to address crime and disorder through the criminal justice system which we do not have today. But I do not argue for uniformity of method.

    There is one enemy. But against that enemy many battles must be fought on many different turfs under many different generals. Victory will be achieved only by the implementation of tactics suitable to each turf.

    Unless we begin to achieve that victory, we will never reclaim our streets for the honest citizen. We will never recreate a neighbourly society for Britain. We will fail this generation and the next. We cannot let that happen. This is a war we have to win.

  • Jefferson Bosela – 2022 Comments on Shooting of Chris Kaba

    Jefferson Bosela – 2022 Comments on Shooting of Chris Kaba

    The comments made by Jefferson Bosela, a cousin of Chris Kaba and spokesman for the family, on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme on 13 September 2022.

    INTERVIEWER

    [How did you hear about the death?]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    The police claim that Chris died around midnight, but the family found out at 11 o’clock, you know, so that was 11 hours later. So his Mum would have woken up, gone to work not knowing that her son wasn’t alive anymore. You know, and yesterday at the vigil, that that’s one thing that she kept saying, ‘I didn’t even spend the last few minutes of your life with you, what was you saying Chris, was you asking for me?’ and that was like heart wrenching.

    INTERVIEWER

    [Did the police come and tell her the news?]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    I’m not sure if it was the IOPC [Independent Office for Police Conduct] or the police. One of them came in eventually and told her.

    INTERVIEWER

    [Asked what the family felt like now that a police officer had been suspended and an investigation had begun]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    Well, we welcome that decision. Let’s be honest, I think the second a criminal investigation was opened he should have been suspended from there. In fact, the IOPC are moving a bit too slow. You know, first we wanted a criminal investigation opened and that took for three to four days, and then the officer being suspended took another two days. So it seems that there is no urgency in the dealings of this quite tragic matter.

    INTERVIEWER

    [Asked whether the family were happy to let the investigation run its course or whether they had questions of their own]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    We definitely have questions, for example, you know initially we wanted to find out whether the car had been searched on Wednesday, even though the incident happened on Monday night, they couldn’t tell us that. Eventually they told us that the car was searched, but they couldn’t tell us if whether found a weapon. They then told us after three hours, so you know, they’re very slow, but the question we’re asking now is, were they following the car or were they following Chris? Because what they’re saying is that the car was flagged in our ANPR[ Automatic Number Plate Recognition] system, but now we know that the car was not registered in Chris’s name. So that means that it could have been anyone in that car. We need to know the difference between whoever they were following Chris, or whether they were following the suspected owner of the car.

    INTERVIEWER

    [This is crucial, was Chris in his own vehicle?]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    It wasn’t registered in his name, I can tell you that much. He was alone in the car as well at the time, but whether or not that was his own car I can’t confirm or deny. But, I can say it wasn’t registered in his name.

    INTERVIEWER

    [Is it possible that it was the car which had been linked to a firearms incident earlier?]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    If that’s what the police watchdog are saying and, you know, they’re carrying out a criminal investigation and I’m not here to confirm or deny that. But that’s not necessarily the matter here, the matter is whether Chris was unlawfully killed by a police officer. There is no evidence the car was linked to firearms because I’ve known people and heard of people who were in vehicles which were linked to firearms and they came out alive. So the question is, what went on in the night that led to him being killed? This is why the family are immediately and urgently demanding that we see both body cam footage of the incident and also aerial footage that was taken from the helicopter.

    INTERVIEWER

    [Asked whether the family had asked the Met for this or whether it was now part of the investigation]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    As much as the property belongs to the police, and the IOPC right now are dealing with the investigation, so they have the property or the information, so we’ve demanded it from them. I think it was yesterday that we we sent a request, or the day before, so we’re waiting for updates on that.

    INTERVIEWER

    [Asked if the family had been given a timescale for the investigation]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    No, no, we have not. They’ve been extremely vague throughout the whole investigation in terms of just very simple details, for example, was the car registered to Chris? It took us nearly a week to find out. So equally when it comes to them explaining how long the investigation will take, they’ve been just as vague, telling us it’s like how long is a piece of string. They’re not really being helpful and I think that definitely causes a lot of upset, not just for the family, but for the local community as well.

    INTERVIEWER

    [Asked how close he was to Chris]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    I was really close to him, he was my cousin, he was more more like a best friend. We’re really, really tight and even though we didn’t speak every single day, when whenever I saw him it was always love. I always say that he had a gift of making people feel special and I definitely felt that.

    INTERVIEWER

    [Asked if they were the same age]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    I’m 27, he’s 24, or he was 24.

    INTERVIEWER

    [Asked if they grew up closely together]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    Yes, 100%, we grew up extremely close as we’re Congolese. For those who know the Congolese community, we’re quite a small community in London so everyone knows each other, which means we’re probably a bit closer and more tight than the the ordinary community or the ordinary family.

    INTERVIEWER

    [Asked how his mother was coping]

    JEFFERSON BOSELA

    She’s just absolutely gutted, she’s just devastated and she doesn’t know why this happened. She’s questioning God, she’s asking God like what did I do so wrong for this to be for me? She’s just in pain, she’s just inconsolable. Every meeting we’ve had with the IOPC in which his Mum has been attending, she’s just been crying throughout. She’s cried throughout every single meeting, whether it was with the lawyers or the IOPC.

     

  • Michael Ellis – 2022 Comments on Becoming the Attorney General

    Michael Ellis – 2022 Comments on Becoming the Attorney General

    The comments made by Michael Ellis on 7 September 2022.

    I am honoured to have been appointed as Her Majesty’s Attorney General for England and Wales and delighted to join the Prime Minister’s Cabinet which will get our economy growing, deal with the energy crisis and put the health service on a firm footing. I look forward to working again with the superb civil servants in the Attorney General’s Office who will support me in my role as Attorney General, making law and politics work together.

    I am also delighted to take up my role as Advocate General for Northern Ireland. Strengthening our Union, protecting the security and prosperity of all its nations, and levelling up every part of the country are important to me. I look forward to working with my fellow Law Officers as we carry out our functions across the whole of the United Kingdom.

  • Priti Patel – 2022 Statement on Home Office Work Over Summer 2022

    Priti Patel – 2022 Statement on Home Office Work Over Summer 2022

    The statement made by Priti Patel, the then Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 5 September 2022.

    Today I am updating Parliament on Home Office delivery since my statement of 31 March 2022. The Department is committed to delivering better outcomes for the public and will continue to work to deliver a safer, fairer and more prosperous United Kingdom.

    Reducing crime

    The first job of any Government is to keep its people safe, which is why we have made it our absolute priority to get more police on our streets, cut crime and protect the public. Over the last three years the Home Office has worked hard to achieve these priorities and improve confidence in policing.

    In July 2021, my Department published the “Beating Crime Plan” which sets out our approach to driving down crime, restoring confidence in the criminal justice system and better supporting victims. It balances the prevention we need to keep our citizens safe, with the enforcement required to deliver swift and certain justice for those who choose to break our laws.

    We are delivering the commitments we made in the plan. As of 30 June, police forces in England and Wales have recruited 13,790 additional police officers, 69% of the 20,000 officers targeted by March 2023 under the police uplift programme. Moreover, we are focused on cutting crime in areas with the highest levels of crime.

    As part of our commitment to excellence in the basics, every neighbourhood in England and Wales will have a named and contactable police officer and league tables have been introduced for 999 call answering times.

    I removed restrictions on section 60 searches that have been in place since 2014. These restrictions have limited when officers could use the vital power and decreased their confidence in deploying it. Since 2019, stop and search use has increased by around 85% and has contributed to over 70,000 deadly knives and offensive weapons being taken off our streets.

    In January 2020, we launched the place based safer streets fund, directing £120 million of investment to the worst affected areas to tackling acquisitive crime, neighbourhood crime, antisocial behaviour, and violence against women and girls, and improving public safety for all.

    Since 2019, we have invested £170 million into the multi-agency violence reduction units and a further £170 million into bolstering the police response to serious violence in the areas most affected by serious violence. The Government will invest £130 million in 2022-23 to tackle serious violence, including murder and knife crime. Together, these programmes have prevented 49,000 violent offences in their first two years of activity, providing a saving of £3.16 for every £1 spent.

    We are continuing to invest in the future of young people and intervening early to divert them away from a life of crime, including through the £200 million, 10-year youth endowment fund, which has supported 195 projects and already reached more than 64,097 at-risk young people.

    We know that the drugs trade is at the heart of much of the homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crime that blights our communities. Our 10-year cross-Government drug strategy provides £300 million of dedicated investment over the next three years, to drive work on tackling drug supply and reduce drug demand.

    Our work is achieving results on the ground. Under our county lines programme, between November 2019 and March 2022, the police closed 2,400 lines, made over 8,000 arrests, and safeguarded more than 9,500 people. Our work on Project ADDER, which focuses on the response to addiction, diversion, enforcement and recovery has supported over 700 organised crime group disruptions, more than 12,500 arrests, 6,000 out of court disposals started by police, more than 14,000 drug treatment interventions by outreach workers, and diverted people away from offending and into recovery support between January 2021 and February 2022.

    Our work at the border has delivered consecutive annual increases in drug seizures in each of the past three years. Last year, thanks to our investment, the police and Border Force made 223,106 drug seizures in England and Wales during 2020-21, a 21% increase on the previous year. We have also launched the new conflict stability and security fund counter supply of illicit commodities programme to enable priority countries to disrupt priority threats’ supply chains more effectively, focused on class A drugs, illicit firearms, and cash trafficking.

    The Home Office has supported important legislation through Parliament, to reduce crime, support victims, and put the law-abiding majority first.

    The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 was passed in April. It doubles the sentences for assaults on emergency workers, introduces Harper’s law, and puts the police covenant in statute. It equips the police to combat crime and create safer communities, while overhauling sentencing laws to keep serious sexual and violent offenders behind bars for longer.

    Meanwhile the Public Order Bill will further enhance the police’s ability to deal with disruptive protests that prevent ordinary people going about their daily lives and divert police resources from communities where they are needed most to prevent serious violence and neighbourhood crime.

    Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act was passed in March. Hundreds of individuals and entities were designated within hours of it becoming law. The Government has sanctioned over 1,000 individuals and over 100 entities. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill will allow us to bear down further on kleptocrats, criminals, and terrorists who abuse our financial system, strengthening the UK’s reputation as a place where legitimate business can thrive while dirty money is driven out.

    Tackling violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse, has been supported by major funding and the landmark Domestic Abuse Act. It means action to prevent and raise awareness of these crimes, including investing £3 million per annum in prevention projects, improved support for victims, directly supporting thousands of victims and children, and tackling perpetrators through an ambitious £25 million package of behaviour change programmes and research to reduce further violence. The Home Office provides funding for a number of helplines and online services to support victims of VAWG, including domestic abuse. This includes specialist domestic abuse helplines for elderly, deaf and disabled, LGBT and male victims, as well as teachers and employers. In 2021-22, over 81,000 people used the national tackling VAWG helplines for support.

    The tackling child sexual abuse strategy, published in January 2021, has driven improvements in education, social care, health, law enforcement, and industry. We are working with international partners, to ensure we are doing all that we can to keep children safe online and in our communities in the UK and around the world.

    Reducing the risk from terrorism to the UK & UK interests overseas, securing a safe and prosperous UK

    The threats we are responding to are becoming more complex and they increasingly overlap. In May, this year, the National Security Bill was introduced to Parliament. It completely overhauls and updates outdated espionage laws and provides updated investigative powers and capabilities so that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies can deter, detect, and disrupt a wide range of modern-day threats from hostile states.

    The US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and I released a joint statement in July announcing that the UK-US data access agreement will enter into force in October. It allows UK and US law enforcement to directly request data held by telecommunications providers in the other party’s jurisdiction for the exclusive purpose of preventing, detecting, investigating, and prosecuting serious crimes such as terrorism and child sexual abuse and exploitation. It will have a transformative effect.

    The Government are committed to tackling the threat from all forms of terrorism. In the last three years, I have proscribed four extreme right-wing terrorist groups, including Sonnenkrieg Division and Feuerkrieg Division. I also proscribed the Islamist group Hamas in its entirety and we supported the successful US prosecutions of two members of Daesh: Alexanda Kotey and Elshafee Elsheikh.

    We opened the world-leading counter-terrorism operations centre in June 2021, including a cutting-edge counter-terrorism operations suite and state-of-the-art forensics laboratory. For the first time it brings together all the London-based elements of counter-terrorism policing to ensure they can discover and disrupt threats more quickly.

    The Home Office delivered the first UK policing counter-drone capability, which was used effectively at the G7, COP26 and the Commonwealth Games. A combination of deterrence communications, effective use of airspace restrictions, and new police equipment, powers and procedures is reducing the incidence of misused drones and facilitating their tracking and seizure.

    We have passed key pieces of legislation such as the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Act 2020 ended the automatic early-release of terrorist offenders. In addition, the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act was passed in 2021 and which ensures that sentences reflect the severity of the offence and strengthens the monitoring of suspects.

    To enhance our ability to protect the UK we have also passed the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021, which provides the police powers to better protect the UK from malicious drone use. We completed a call for information last year on the Computer Misuse Act 1990, to ensure that our legislation and powers continue to meet the challenges posed by the threats in cyberspace.

    Tackling illegal migration, removing those with no right to be here, and protecting the vulnerable

    The Nationality and Borders Act is the cornerstone of the Government’s new plan for immigration. Since receiving Royal Assent on 28 April 2022,1 have wasted no time in implementing the Act, delivering a fair but firm system to ensure that we can better support those in genuine need of asylum, deterring illegal migration, especially dangerous small boat arrivals; breaking the business model of vile criminal gangs; and removing from the UK those with no right to be here.

    We have already achieved significant changes in the system with the first raft of reforms, including: the introduction of fixes to the asylum system; new and tougher criminal offences for illegal entry and people smuggling; and nationality law changes that allow fairer access to British nationality.

    The reforms will build towards a new national age assessment board and scientific age assessment methods to protect children, modern slavery reforms and a new one-stop process and appeals to stop repeated, unmeritorious and last-minute claims seeking to frustrate removal.

    In July 2021,1 signed a new agreement to strengthen UK-France co-operation on tackling illegal immigration across the channel. Through our joint action with France, we prevented more than 23,000 crossings in 2021. So far in 2022, over 17,000 people have been prevented from crossing the channel in small boats, around 70% more than to this point in 2021. In addition, the UK-France joint intelligence cell, established in July 2020, has, with France, dismantled 21 small boat organised criminal groups, securing over 500 arrests. In the few months it has been operational, the NABA has already resulted in a further 82 arrests, 62 charges, 10 convictions with sentences handed down of 5.9 years following the introduction of the NABA legislation. This includes 38 arrests, 32 charges and 1 conviction for facilitation. Also there have been 23 arrests for illegal entry, 17 charges and 7 convictions.

    We successfully transferred primacy for operations in the channel to the Ministry of Defence, as part of the whole of Government effort to counter channel crossings by irregular migrants. This sees border force, immigration enforcement and service personnel working side-by-side to ensure the UK’s borders are protected and to effectively manage pressures in the channel.

    In April 2022, I announced the world-leading migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda. It is part of a suite of measures under the new plan for immigration to tackle the increasing number of small boats arrivals since 2019 by deterring them from making dangerous crossings. The partnership will see those travelling to the UK through illegal, dangerous and unnecessary methods considered for relocation to Rwanda, where they will have their asylum claim processed. While there are ongoing legal proceedings, the partnership arrangement fully complies with all national and international law and we prepare for delivery.

    We deported 11,532 foreign national offenders between 2019 and March 2022. Since April 2020 we have used 151 charter flights and so far this year, we have returned 1,741 FNOs and other immigration offenders. To support this work, we have agreed new international returns agreements with international partners Albania, Serbia, Nigeria, and most recently Pakistan.

    In addition, since 2019, we have helped over 11,000 people return home through our voluntary return service and other initiatives; offering practical support and assistance to those who wish to return to their home countries but have no means to do so.

    The UK continues to welcome refugees and people in need of protection, Our safe and legal routes have resulted in over 320,000 people coming to the U.K. Since the Hong Kong BN(O) route was set up in January 2021, over 140,000 BN(O) status holders and their family members have chosen to take the UK up on this offer and have applied for the BN(O) route as of 30 June 2022.

    In February 2021, the Home Office completed our commitment to resettle those 20,000 people fleeing conflict in Syria. An additional 1,838 refugees were resettled through the vulnerable children’s resettlement scheme.

    Through the UK resettlement scheme (UKRS), we have expanded our geographical focus beyond the middle east and north Africa to continue to offer safe and legal routes to the UK for some of the most vulnerable refugees around the world. 1,685 vulnerable refugees have been resettled through the UKRS since the launch of the scheme in March 2021 and since January 2019, 8,710 refugees have been resettled across all the Government’s resettlement schemes, not including Afghan schemes.

    We helped over 15,000 people to safety from Afghanistan in the biggest and fastest emergency evacuation in recent history. A further 5,000 more people have been helped to enter since the evacuation. This January the Government launched the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme which will see up to 20,000 people from Afghanistan and the region resettled to the UK over the coming years. This is in addition to individuals relocated through the Afghan relocations and assistance policy. In less than a year, almost 7,400 Afghan evacuees have been provided with permanent homes.

    In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine we set up some of the fastest and biggest visa schemes in UK history. The Ukraine family scheme had received 58,600 visa applications by 23 August 2022, of which 50,100 visas had been issued. We had received 149,900 Ukraine sponsorship scheme visa applications, and issued 128,800 visas, by 23 August 2022.

    In June we also announced that the Homes for Ukraine scheme will also allow eligible children under the age of 18 who are not travelling with or joining a parent or legal guardian, to come to the UK in carefully defined circumstances.

    This record of delivery demonstrates the efforts of the Home Office to get on with the job of protecting the public, keeping our borders secure and the British people safe from harm.

    Enabling the legitimate movement of people and goods to support economic prosperity

    In 2019, we had uncontrolled immigration from the EU. Since then, we have ended free movement and launched a points-based system, creating a single, global immigration system, attracting and retaining the brightest and best global talent, while realising the enormous potential of our domestic workforce.

    We have made significant progress in digitising the immigration system, making further improvements to how applicants apply for, access and prove their immigration status to others.

    In terms of operational processing, between January and July 2022, 96.4% of UK standard passport applications were completed within the published processing time of 10 weeks. The Passport Office is working hard to investigate and conclude the reducing number of cases which fall outside 10 weeks. We plan to recover work in progress (WIP) to base levels across all workstreams in time for year-end WIP target levels, so that we are prepared for the levels of intake next year which we anticipate will be similar to those of 2022.

    We are currently facing extremely high pressure globally across our visa network, caused by a significantly increase in visa demand following the easing of travel restrictions and the prioritising of Ukraine family scheme and Homes for Ukraine applications in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine. We are working hard to reduce the current processing times as quickly as possible by flexing staff resource and utilising agency across our visa routes as well as pursuing a programme of transformation and business improvement initiatives which will speed up decision making, reduce the time people spend in the system and reduce the numbers who are awaiting an interview or decision. We have also recently reintroduced priority and super priority services in a number of our visa routes to improve the customer experience.

    Ahead of our exit from the European Union, Border Force recruited 1,570 new staff and trained a total of 8,000 in new policy and processes. We worked with HMRC to operationalise new inland border facilities, effectively creating 5 new ports; and delivered complex and interrelated change across a total of 125 ports.

    We have further expanded our points-based immigration system to attract the most promising international talent to the UK and maintain our status as a leading international hub for emerging technologies. In May 2021, we expanded our global talent route to allow recipients of international awards, including the Nobel prize for physics, to automatically qualify for the visa. In 2022 we introduced the global business mobility, high potential individual and scale-up visa routes.

    Since 2019, we have continued to increase border efficiency through the increased use of eGates, expanding their use to passengers from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea & USA, in addition to British, Irish and EU nationals, and with Border Force now operating 288 eGates at 15 ports. National rollout of the eGate upgrade, which has introduced a new operating system, Border Crossing, and upgraded the software, was completed six months early.

    Since I overhauled the Windrush compensation scheme in December 2020, interim payments rose from £250 to £10,000. As at the end of June 2022, £53.8 million had been paid or offered under the Windrush compensation scheme, with £43.9 million paid out across 1,098 claims. Our One Home Office cultural transformation programme features an increased focus on ethical decision-making with new routes for colleagues to escalate concerns and think more about the “face behind the case”.

    By 30 June 2022, we had concluded nearly 6.5 million EU settlement scheme applications, granting status in over 5.9 million applications. Over 450,000 individuals have been supported to apply to the EUSS by our network of grant-funded organisations across the UK. This includes victims of human trafficking and domestic abuse.

    In 2021, we removed the ability for EU, EEA, and Swiss nationals to travel on an ID card, unless the holder is protected by the citizens’ rights withdrawal agreements, given they were one of the most abused documents at the border.

    All these achievements represent a record of delivering on the people’s priorities, a record of which I am very proud.