Government to Crack Down on Antisocial Behaviour and Shoplifting

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper delivers her speech during the Labour Party Conference at the ACC Liverpool in England on Sept. 24, 2024. Peter Byrne/PA Wire

The government will bring in new powers to tackle antisocial behaviour, shoplifting, and nuisance off-road biking, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced.

Cooper outlined her “mission for safer streets,” telling Labour conference attendees in Liverpool on Tuesday that her government would put neighbourhood police back into communities “and back on the beat.”

“For too long rising town centre and street crime have been driving people away from our high streets, corroding the fabric of our communities,” the home secretary said, adding that the government will introduce a new law on assaults on shopworkers.

“Everyone has the right to work in freedom from fear,” Cooper said, with the measures coming as a result of campaigning from the Union of Shop, Distributive, and Allied Workers and the retailer, Co-op.

Earlier this year, Co-op said that its stores had seen rising violence and criminality in 2023, with an average of three or four staff members being attacked or assaulted every day.

Knife Crime

The government will also bring in new laws to crack down on dangerous online sales, including a ban on “ninja swords” under what Cooper called “Ronan’s Law,” named after Ronan Kanda, the 16-year-old stabbed to death in Wolverhampton in 2022 by two other males the same age in a case of mistaken identity.

New laws will also target gangs who draw children into their criminal activity, as well as introducing new youth hubs “to steer young people away from violence - a teenage Sure Start to build hope for the future.”

Cooper said the measures form part of her department’s endeavour to halve knife crime in a decade.

On Monday, a ban on zombie knives and machetes came into force, with the weapons being added to the list of already banned items, such as butterfly knives, Samurai swords, and push daggers.

Under the new legislation, it is an imprisonable offence to own, make, transport, or sell a wide range of these and other “statement” knives.

Violence Against Women and Girls

During her speech, the secretary of state called violence against women a “national emergency,” saying it was an “ambitious Labour mission ... to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.”

She detailed the story of Raneem Oudeh, who had called the police four times the night she and her mother, Khaola Saleem, were murdered by Oudeh’s ex-husband in 2018.

“So in Raneem’s name, this Labour Government will put domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms,” the minister said.

Last week, Cooper and Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips announced plans to tackle violence against women, including launching a pilot scheme to embed domestic abuse specialists in some emergency service control centres.

Raneem’s Law will also see the introduction of new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders which will put tougher sanctions on abusers, such as stricter punishments on those who breach orders to stay away from their victims.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper delivers her speech during the Labour Party Conference, at the ACC Liverpool in England on Sept. 24, 2024. Peter Byrne/PA Wire

This will build on powers that police already have at their disposal to forbid abusers from contacting victims for up to 28 days, but these new orders will have no maximum duration.

Immigration

The wide-ranging remit of the home secretary also puts Cooper in charge of the UK’s borders as well as crime and counter-terrorism.

During her speech, Cooper criticised the previous Conservative government for its “gimmicks,” amid rising net immigration and “an asylum system in chaos.”

“A serious government sees that net migration has trebled because overseas recruitment has soared while training has been cut right back, and says net migration must come down as we properly train young people here in the UK,” she said.

Cooper echoed election campaign pledges from Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who said in June that a Labour government would end the long-term reliance on overseas workers in some parts of the economy by bringing in domestic training plans for sectors such as health, social care, and construction.

Labour has also sought to target criminal gangs smuggling illegal immigrants into the UK, telling conference attendees, “In three months, we’ve set up the Border Security Command, launched new investment in covert operations, high tech investigations to go after the gangs, with proper enforcement and returns.”

Last week, Starmer appointed Martin Hewitt, the former chairman of the National Police Chiefs Council, to lead the Border Security Command.

Earlier this month, the multi-agency unit received a cash injection of £75 million to support its work in tackling organised illegal immigration and the criminal smuggling gangs that facilitate it.