Today’s daily politics briefing
Boris Johnson’s new plan to clamp down on crime will “divide communities” and “compound discrimination”, campaigners have warned.
The government’s proposals include the removal of limits on the police’s stop and search powers and the introduction of “more visible” community service for offenders.
Liberty, a human rights organisation, said the strategy would “compound discrimination in Britain and divide communities”, while Labour leader Keir Starmer criticised the prime minister’s pledge to give crime victims a named officer to contact about their case as a “ridiculous gimmick”.
Another idea being considered is for some prison leavers to wear “alcohol tags”, which detect alcohol in a person’s sweat, in a bid to drive down alcohol-related crime.
Meanwhile, the EU has released proposals to simplify the North Ireland protocol, amid a dispute between the bloc and the UK on post-Brexit trade arrangements.
The UK government said the plans on food and animals need to go further.
Starmer calls government crime plan a ‘ridiculous gimmick’
The government has pledged to give every crime victim a named police officer as their point of contact, a proposal Keir Starmer has branded a “ridiculous gimmick”.
The Labour leader told LBC on Monday there are too many cases for the scheme to be viable. “This is just a gimmick by the prime minister yet again – he loves soundbites, he loves slogans, he loves gimmicks.”
“This one won’t work…if anything it will make things worse because individual officers work shifts, they’re doing investigations, they’re off duty. It will actually slow things down. It’s an ill-thought-through gimmick,” he added.
Rory Sullivan27 July 2021 09:03
Home office is ‘failing’ Windrush generation again, MPs warn
The Home Office “appears to be failing” the Windrush generation once more through its complex and inefficient compensation scheme, MPs have warned.
As of June, only 417 of the 2,367 claims submitted had been paid in full, two years after the process started.
In a report, the Public Accounts Committee said: “The Home Office promised to learn lessons from the Windrush scandal, but having failed the Windrush generation once, it appears to be failing them again.”
Meg Hillier, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, said: “Let’s not lose sight of the scale of wrongs that the Home Office has promised to right here.
“Lifetimes in this country were discounted, people’s homes, families and livelihoods were interrupted and uprooted, some were forced from the country.”
“Far from learning and applying lessons as promised, the Windrush compensation scheme is beset with the very same issues that led to the initial terrible mistakes,” she added.
Rory Sullivan27 July 2021 08:43
Expansion of stop and search powers ‘not the long-term solution’, policing minister says
The government’s plan to expand stop and search powers are “not the long-term solution”, the policing minister has said.
Speaking on Sky News, Kit Malthouse defended Boris Johnson’s new proposal, saying that it could stop potential killers.
Addressing critics of the policy, he added: “I would say look at the numbers, particularly somewhere like London, and tell us what the tactic should be instead. There’s long-term work, I agree, it is not the long-term solution. But in the short term it can have a big impact on suppressing knife crime.”
Rory Sullivan27 July 2021 08:25
Extra £82m a year needed to tackle rough sleeping, report suggests
The government needs to spend an additional £82 million each year to tackle homelessness, a new report has suggested.
The Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping says the government should maintain increased funding seen during the pandemic through the Everyone In scheme.
Lord Bob Kerslake, the former head of the civil service who chaired the independent panel, said it was a “pivotal moment”.
He added: “If we fail to learn the lessons of Everyone In, all the signs from the commission’s work are that the situation will get worse, not better, and homelessness and rough sleeping will increase.
“That would be an enormous lost opportunity for the government to deliver on its rough sleeping commitment, and a personal tragedy for those affected.
Rory Sullivan27 July 2021 08:10
Government clampdown on crime could do ‘more harm than good’, campaigners warn
The government’s plan to expand blanket stop and search powers will be “ineffective”, campaigners have warned.
While ministers say the policy will “empower police to take more knives off the streets”, the results of a pilot scheme which started in 2019 have not been published.
Nina Champion, director of the Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA), told The Independent: “The government must focus on tackling the root causes of violent crime rather than extending a power which does more harm than good.”
Our home affairs correspondent Lizzie Dearden reports:
Rory Sullivan27 July 2021 07:51
Good morning, and welcome to The Independent’s live UK politics coverage.
Rory Sullivan27 July 2021 07:43