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Mr Hanson
I appreciate that. I know that the hon. Gentleman took an interest in policing matters as a member of the police authority in Kent before coming to this place. I hope that he recognises that we tried to address some issues, such as pay and reward, overtime and a whole range of allowances, in the policing White Paper produced in 2009; that paper fell, due to the small event of the general election in 2010. I recognise that those issues exist and must be tackled. I simply say to him and the Minister that the pace of the changes, coupled with massive cuts in public spending generally, over and above the 12%, has added to morale difficulties and will affect the front-line policing service.
Last year, a 7.5% cut was made in the policing budget. This year, an 8.7% cut will be made if the police grant settlement is approved when it comes before the House in the next few weeks. I repeat for the benefit of the House that the HMIC figures for the future—they are not our figures—show a loss of 16,000 officers and a potential loss of 16,000 civilian police staff. That makes a difference. Greater Manchester will lose 1,592 officers over the next three years, the Metropolitan police will lose 1,907 over the next few years and the West Midlands police will lose 1,250. Even Sussex will not be protected by the Minister, who represents it; it will lose 500 officers in that period. Those are not my figures; they were produced by the HMIC independently. That must have an impact on the policing landscape. Forces operating the A19 scheme, such as mine in north Wales, could lose some of their most experienced officers, ultimately replace them with less experienced officers, and then spend money on training to improve skills.
We need to consider the Select Committee report in the light of those cuts and concerns. Crime fell year on year for 14 or 15 years, not only under the Labour Government but during the last two or three years of the Major Government, but what is the record for the Minister’s first year in charge? I say this with deep regret: in the first full year for which we have figures, crime has risen. Burglary has increased by 10%, household theft by 13%, and theft from persons by 7%. Even during the recession under the last Government, crime fell; normally, crime rises during recessions. In the policing landscape, due to confusion, change and the speed of change, funding and all the other issues that we have discussed, crime is rising. The reduction in resources is being implemented unfairly and too fast, which is causing great difficulties.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He always reminds me of the importance of measuring crime by the British crime survey. Will he tell me by how much crime has increased, according to the British crime survey, during this Government’s first year in office? He criticised the A19 procedure, under which police officers can be asked to retire after 30 years of service. Will he clarify whether he believes that that procedure should be scrapped?
Mr Hanson
The A19 procedure can be a useful resource; I am not against the general principle. The point that I am trying to make to the Minister, in a measured way, is that it is being used not because the principle is useful, but because forces such as mine in north Wales must save resources due to the budget cuts that he is imposing on them. However, that is background. This debate is about the landscape, not budget cuts, but I cannot divorce the budget cuts from the landscape, as I think the Minister will accept.
In addition, the inaugural election of the first swathe of police and crime commissioners will be held on a cold and possibly wet Thursday in November this year. I am not against elections on Thursdays in November; if they are good enough for the President of the United States, they might be good enough for police and crime commissioners.
Mr Hanson
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I wish the Minister well on these issues; I know how difficult they are. There are real issues of international crime, ranging from drugs to terrorism to people trafficking. There are real issues of inter-regional crime, which the crime agency can deal with. There are issues of e-fraud, too. There are things that I have not thought of that, in four years’ time, will be major crime issues and will have an impact on my constituents and the Minister’s constituents. I wish Keith Bristow well, in the sense that I hope that the Minister will provide clarity on the objectives and the mission, give an indication of the budget and the areas of responsibility, bring forward the legislative framework and give an indication of the outcomes and the governance of the agency. That would be very helpful.
I say that because at the same time that the Minister established the National Crime Agency, he gave a firm indication of notice to the National Policing Improvement Agency, which did a very good job in some areas, although—as with all of us—in other areas, there was the potential for criticism. It is one thing to have a bonfire of the quangos and to remove the NPIA from the policing landscape, but that announcement was made in July 2010. Fourteen months on, what progress is being made on the definition of the transfer and on the protection of the public as a whole? The NPIA is due to vanish in December 2012. Perhaps it is me, but I am still unsure where the home is for police training, leadership development, forensics, the police national computer and the DNA database. As I said, that might be me. I will give the Minister credit. I do not have the information flow that he has. Perhaps that information has been provided, but I would like to know from him what is happening on those points. I say that because the uncertainty means that staff are leaving. Staff will not stay on the ship when they are not sure where the ship is going.
Whatever its difficulties and challenges, the NPIA did bring together, for the first time, national support for change in people, processes and technology. It did deliver some technology and change programmes; it helped with the development of neighbourhood policing, for example. I am not sure where that strategic view is for the future. The NPIA is due to go in December 2012. Police and crime commissioners will be elected by their local communities, but anyone could be elected. We do not know what the individual qualities will be of each person elected. Where is the strategic examination for the future?
I worry about a changed landscape in which new police and crime commissioners are coming in, finding their feet and getting up and running at a time when crime is not just finding its feet, when the NPIA is exiting the stage, when the functions have not necessarily been finalised, and when the crime agency is not yet up and running. I worry that crime and criminals will continue to find ways to seep through the gaps. We need to be ever vigilant; criminals will be. I worry about the speed at which things are happening and the lack of clarity about the journey’s end.
We also have a concern about information and communications technology. Again, I can be helpful: the Home Secretary, on 15 December, confirmed that
“the Government…intend to establish an information and communications technology…company. The company will be responsible for the procurement, implementation and management of complex contracts for information technology”.—[Official Report, 15 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 126WS.]
Indeed, I saw a tweet—that new modern technology—only two hours ago from the chief of the NPIA, who says that he is in a hot room in London talking about ICT as we speak.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
I welcome the report of the Home Affairs Committee on the “New Landscape of Policing”, to which the Government have responded, as being a very considered and thoughtful contribution to the changing landscape of policing and the Government’s reforms. I also welcome the debate that the Chairman of the Select Committee has introduced today and the opportunity that it has given for the members of the Select Committee, the official Opposition and, indeed, the Government to consider, in a very constructive manner, the challenges that currently face British policing.
Precisely because right hon. and hon. Members have referred to the pace of change of the reforms and because those reforms are significant, as the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said, it is important for me to remind them of the reasons why the Government embarked on such a reform programme. It is not, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, because the Government wish to make their mark, because they are a new Government or because change for change’s sake is a good thing. None of those is an adequate reason to embark on a reform agenda of such a scale.
The reason for the reforms is that policing faces significant challenges, which have changed—some have changed recently and significantly—and we should ensure that British policing is equipped to change with them. Clearly, crime and the need to fight it are ongoing challenges, but new challenges are emerging in relation to new forms of crime. There is ongoing concern about certain forms of crime, not least serious and organised crime—hon. Members have mentioned cybercrime—and there is considerable public concern about antisocial behaviour, much of which is criminality that we must ensure the police can deal with.
Therefore, there is a challenge of dealing with a high volume of crime locally and ensuring that policing is equipped to deal with national problems and national threats. As that is a twin challenge, we have had to look again at the structure of British policing. The Government are not the only ones who have taken that view. It is also the view of policing professionals that the structure of British policing needs to adapt to deal with those challenges. However, there are differing visions of what those new structures should be, and I will return to that point later.
The second new challenge is an obvious one—it was referred to by the shadow Policing Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson)—and it is the funding situation. It is a fact that funding for policing is being reduced during the four-year period of the spending review, because the Government have to deal with the deficit. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that funding would have been reduced by his party if it had remained in power. Therefore, under any Government, the police would have to deal with significant reductions in funding. There is a debate about what the level of those reductions should be, but there is no doubt now that, under any Government, the police would have to deal with a very significant reduction in funding. At the end of a period of considerable expansion, during which policing resources have risen year on year and police numbers have risen accordingly, that reduction in funding is obviously a very significant change that the police have to deal with.
The third challenge, or issue, had been neglected, at least in part, for too long, although it was referred to by some Members during the debate, and it is the role of the public in partnership with the police to help fight crime. Indeed, what exactly is the relationship between the police and the public? That relationship can be tested and has sometimes come into focus when we have experienced or debated certain events in policing, whether they are highly controversial police operations—for instance, public order policing operations—or events in relation to the ongoing discussion about community policing and the importance of a strong connection between the police and the public, which is necessary to ensure that there is community policing that commands public confidence. As the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) reminded us, Peel—the founder of modern policing—bequeathed to us the important principle that the police are the public and the public are the police. The legitimacy of British policing is conferred by policing by consent and by public confidence in the great public service that is the police.
The Government did not believe that it would be possible for policing to rise to any of the challenges that I have mentioned—maintaining both public confidence in the police and a strong link between the police and the public, dealing with declining policing budgets, ensuring a continuing fight against crime and dealing with the new challenges in fighting crime—with the existing structures, nor with the means by which the previous Government had sought to drive up standards. I say that in a non-partisan manner, but essentially those means were top-down targeting and direction that sought to lever up standards by central control.
With that approach came a proliferation of bureaucracy and a level of direction that had not been experienced in policing before. The policing pledge is a very good example. It was a highly prescriptive central pledge that told police forces exactly how they should behave—for example, even how they should answer telephone calls. This Government have had a different approach to the delivery of public services, which is to seek to decentralise and reduce—or even eliminate—all that top-down central direction. Instead, we have tried to ensure that there is greater accountability, as a means of holding public services to account and making them responsible for the outcomes that they are required to deliver.
I entirely reject the suggestion made again today by the shadow Policing Minister that there is a lack of coherence—indeed, that there is a muddle—in the agenda that the Government have set out in relation to police reform. I would argue strongly that our approach is an entirely coherent one that enables the police to meet today’s challenges. I say that because, as I have argued before, there has been a paradox in policing in the last few years. That paradox is that central Government interfered far too much in local policing matters and were far too directive where they should not have been, while they were not always strong enough on the national policing matters that required central Government to exert a stronger view or influence.
We have sought to turn that paradox on its head and to restore local accountability, professional freedom and professional discretion where it is proper to do so, thus freeing up the police to be the crime fighters that they want to be and ensuring greater local accountability, while refocusing the role of the centre and the Home Office on those matters that they should be focused on, particularly national threats, to ensure that we have a strong policing response not only to the terrorist threat but to other threats—for example, serious and organised crime.
The alternative vision that has been set out by some, but not all, in policing was experimented with by the previous Government, and it is to create regional police forces as a means of addressing the new challenges that we face. That vision did not find favour in the country or in the House, and in the end the last Government decided not to proceed with it. I do not believe that it is a deliverable vision. In the absence of the creation of regional forces, if we say that we want to retain 43 individual forces—43 or thereabouts—we must then answer this question: how do we ensure that we have a structure that enables those 43 forces in England and Wales to be accountable to their local communities, where the chief constable is responsible for the totality of policing and those who are holding the chief constables to account hold them to account for the totality of policing, but that ensures that those 43 forces co-operate and collaborate, so that they can work efficiently, driving out unnecessary cost, and deal with serious and organised crime and those threats that cross force boundaries?
In my view, it is absolutely coherent—indeed, it is entirely the right approach—to say that we should on the one hand enhance local accountability through the election of police and crime commissioners, while on the other hand introducing a new national crime agency to strengthen the fight against serious and organised crime, to strengthen our borders and to deal with the new crime threats. Moreover, that new agency will not only work with police forces but have a significant new role in its relationship with those forces, as expressed through a new strategic policing requirement.
Alun Michael
The Minister is reflecting the tension that exists between ensuring that strategic national and regional issues are dealt with and ensuring that there is proper local accountability. Obviously, the Government have chosen the election of police and crime commissioners as their instrument to ensure local accountability. However, does he accept that part of the last Government’s approach—I suspect that it is something that he might agree with—was to strengthen the element of local partnership by requiring the police, down at local commander level, to work with the local authorities in their area, by putting a responsibility on local authorities and other agencies to engage in that partnership approach and by ensuring a connection between police interpretation and the public view of crime that needed to be dealt with? In particular, at that local level, the police should be judged on their success in reducing crime and disorder.
Nick Herbert
I was going to come to that, but I am very happy to respond to the right hon. Gentleman and to repeat what I have said to him, to which he has kindly referred. The development of partnerships between the police and local authorities and, indeed, other partners was an important step forward, and he played a particularly central role in ensuring that that was delivered under the previous Government. I think that it is widely accepted that such partnerships can be effective in reducing crime, and the Government wish to see them strengthened and continued, in spite of diminishing resource.
Up and down the country, I have seen action-oriented partnerships with a purpose that are not bureaucratic and that can deliver the kinds of results that the right hon. Gentleman was discussing. Others are more bureaucratic, and they need to adapt to the new world in which resources are at a premium and to ensure that their focus is very action-oriented, but we wish the partnerships to continue. We also wish to ensure that the police and crime commissioners are part of the arrangements and do not work against them, and we have conferred duties on all sides to ensure that. I am happy to endorse the important principle of partnership.
We need action locally and nationally to ensure that policing is structured such that it can meet the demands both of the volume of crime and of the population, in relation to the day-to-day antisocial behaviour and crime issues affecting it. However, we must also ensure that policing is equipped to deal with more serious issues, which, in the end, also affect people’s everyday lives. Drugs issues, for example, are linked to serious and organised criminality. A new strategic policing requirement will ensure for the first time that police forces and the newly elected police and crime commissioners are equipped to deal with those national threats. The creation of the National Crime Agency, along with the Organised Crime Co-ordination Centre in an intelligence-led approach and the introduction of police and crime commissioners is a strong, coherent and powerful response to the challenges that I have described.
The Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East, reflected on the Government’s ambition to declutter the policing landscape, and I welcome the fact that he noted that that would not necessarily relate to the number of bodies but could involve a more logical ordering of the existing national policing bodies. I of course believe that the phasing out of the National Policing Improvement Agency was the right decision, and I have said so to the Select Committee. There were accountability issues, in spite of the many good things that the agency did and does—I certainly join others in paying tribute to its functions, and I have noted the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). Wishing to change the accountability arrangements for the functions, however, to find a better home for them, is not the same as saying that the Government do not value them. The agency clearly does important things, but it has become a kind of Christmas tree quango, with many policing functions loaded on to it and ownership and responsibility for what it was doing neither clearly with the Government nor with the police service.
We think that it is both coherent and right to seek greater accountability for the agency’s two principal functions. Of course, it is responsible for many other things. On the one hand there is IT and the development of improved information and communications technology for policing, which is so important, and has been referred to, and on the other is the training and development function, which is equally important to policing’s human resources. Separating those functions by creating a police-owned and led ICT company, for which the police service will accept responsibility, is the right solution to ensure better IT and a more coherent approach. These issues have bedevilled policing for too many years, and since we are having a sensible debate, we must reflect on why, even after more than a decade of rapidly rising resource for policing, we have still ended up with police IT systems that, frankly, are not good enough. They are disjointed, require multiple keyed entry by police officers and add to the bureaucratic burden.
Mr Hanson
I want to be helpful. Will the Minister address the question I asked: how many police authorities have signed up to or bought into the principle of a national IT company, and what is the scope for police commissioners, when elected, to withdraw from such a company?
Nick Herbert
We made the announcements about the destination of the functions and the establishment of a police-led ICT company in December, and we will make further announcements in due course. The principle, however, is clear: we wish police forces to buy into this—to use the right hon. Gentleman’s words—and we expect them to do so, because it is the means by which they can secure better IT in the future.
Nick Herbert
As I have said before, I might not have been in the House of Commons for as long as the right hon. Gentleman, but I have learned not to answer hypothetical questions, and I do not intend to answer that one. We expect that chief constables and police authorities, and in succession to them police and crime commissioners, will be incentivised and want to be part of this new arrangement for delivering IT, because it will ensure a better service for them. It is the right approach to securing better ICT in the future.
On the other side, we have the training and development function, and I am pleased that the Chair of the Select Committee and, I think, Members on both sides of the House have welcomed the idea of the creation of a professional body for policing. I am immensely encouraged that the approach has captured the enthusiasm of police leaders.
In answer to the question about the involvement of the Police Federation, it is true that the federation expressed concern about the Neyroud report, which we had commissioned and which first proposed a body of some kind, partly because it stated that effectively the Association of Chief Police Officers would be the body’s heart and soul—I think that that was the expression used. The federation expressed the concern, among others, that it would not, therefore, be a body for the rank and file.
Nick Herbert
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend; that was indeed the expression.
We have made it clear that we wish to reconceive the idea of a professional body for policing and to ensure that it is inclusive. That is one of the important principles that I have set out, and I have a working party looking at how we would set up such a body. I am very pleased that in spite of the continued reservations of the Police Federation, which I acknowledge because I do not wish to mislead Members, the federation’s chairman has been attending the working party meetings. The Police Superintendents Association is also represented, as are the ACPO representatives and UNISON, and we now have representation from the police and crime commissioners’ side as well. I am also seeking some independent advice for the working party.
Alun Michael
Unless I missed it, I do not think that the Minister referred to the Police Superintendents Association, and in my experience its contribution, at that level of senior but local management, can often provide a crucial element in such discussions. Is the association included?
Nick Herbert
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the value of the advice of the Police Superintendents Association. I certainly share his view and have mentioned that the association is represented, which is important. I want to make it clear that we envisage that this will be an inclusive body. It is important that we raise our sights and consider the great advantage of the creation of a professional body that will have responsibility for standards, professional development and training. That is something that I think has been absent from the policing world. It is surprising that policing does not have such a body, which will be immensely positive.
I will explain briefly why this is so important. The development of professionalism in policing—the acquisition of the right skills—is an important part of our agenda to ensure that police officers are equipped to deal with modern challenges without the kind of bureaucratic approach that we have seen in the past. If we are to develop in policing an agenda of trusting professionals and the extension of professional discretion, we must ensure alongside that that police officers are trained, equipped and incentivised in a way that reflects the exercise of professional judgment, skills and discretion that commands public confidence and trust.
Mark Reckless
The Minister has said that he has secured representation from the police and crime commissioners, but I am puzzled because they will not be elected until November. In his report, Mr Neyroud suggests that there could be ministerial representation on the body in charge of the professional body, but he is not so keen on the elected commissioners, whom he wants to see on a consultative panel on the side. Has that been reviewed? Will the Minister clarify his remarks?
Nick Herbert
I noticed my hon. Friend’s puzzlement, so I should have offered clarification. What I meant is that Kit Malthouse, the deputy Mayor of London who has responsibility for policing in London, now attends the working party that I have set up, as does the chair of the Association of Police Authorities, Mark Burns-Williamson, who is also the chair of West Yorkshire police authority. That side of the tripartite is now represented, as are the policing professionals, which is important. Moreover, on Monday the arrangements will change so that, effectively, the first police and crime commissioner will be created in London. That is what I meant.
Alun Michael
With the greatest respect to the Minister—I do not want to introduce a note of disharmony—to describe the deputy Mayor of London as equivalent to a police and crime commissioner is, frankly, ridiculous. The whole point of the principle of police and crime commissioners, as the Minister has spelled out, is that they should be elected and accountable for policing issues to the electorate of the police force area. My personal view is that the exclusion of the Metropolitan police and the City of London police demonstrates a lack of confidence on the Government’s part in the posts that they are establishing. I do not object to their engagement in what will be such an important function, but they really do not have the authority to be there as precursors of the police and crime commissioners. The engagement of the APA’s representative is sensible in terms of continuity, but there is still a gap.
Nick Herbert
I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. I know that he is keen to become a police and crime commissioner—I welcome that—but he must not get ahead of himself. It is sensible to ensure, as we did in the negotiations on the protocol, that there is representation from those nominated by existing police authorities and from the deputy mayor, because he has responsibility for holding to account a quarter of policing in England and Wales. As I have said, on Monday the Mayor will become the police and crime commissioner, in law, for London, so it is entirely appropriate to have that representation on the working party. I emphasise that it is a working party.
Nick Herbert
I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head. It makes sense to have those two individuals on the working party, given the acceleration of this process in London ahead of the election of police and crime commissioners, the date of which—this November—will, as sure as night follows day, be firmly noted in the right hon. Gentleman’s diary.
Alun Michael
As I have said, it makes sense for representatives of the police authorities to be involved in the discussion, because they have experience, which helps continuity. However, although the situation in London may end up in law via the attachment of the words “police and crime commissioner” to an individual’s name, that is not what the Minister is putting in place everywhere else in England and Wales, namely the direct election of somebody to be responsible for policing in a police force area. The situation in London is inevitably muddled, and the Mayor is also involved in decisions on a number of issues that are relevant to police in the rest of England and Wales. That may be reviewed in a couple of years’ time, but at the moment such decisions go well beyond the Metropolitan police area. The situation is not as clear as the Minister suggests.
Nick Herbert
Yes, it is. I am completely bemused by the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. The Mayor has responsibility in London. That will become an enhanced responsibility on Monday, because the Metropolitan Police Authority will be abolished and the Mayor will take full responsibility for policing and will become the police and crime commissioner for London—in law. The first police and crime commissioner will be created.
Nick Herbert
In law, on Monday. It is up to the Mayor whether he wishes to delegate that function. That power of delegation was, of course, established by the previous Government, so I am sure that there will be no criticism of it whatsoever. It makes sense for us to ensure that the deputy Mayor of London, as the person responsible, at present, for holding to account the country’s biggest police force and a quarter of all police officers, takes part in such discussions, because he can give voice to those who hold, and who will hold, police forces to account.
Mark Reckless
When I was a member of the Kent police authority, I was appointed by Medway council, which is an elected body. Surely that provides an analogy with Mr Malthouse, who has been appointed by the elected Mayor. The purpose of this reform is to increase democratic accountability. Although I welcome what is happening in London, it is different from elsewhere. I am not sure that Members are convinced by the idea that someone who is merely appointed by someone who is elected, or who is an independent member of a police authority, can somehow represent, in advance, elected commissioners. To the extent that there is to be an elective impact, whether with the protocol or other developments, that should come from hon. Members, who are elected, and we ask the Minister to consider our views, rather than look to people who are appointed by others.
Nick Herbert
I do not consider that to be an alternative. I pay attention to all views expressed on the issues, but I certainly have no intention of placing a Member of Parliament on a working party for the development of the professional body. The working party consists of policing professionals and representatives of policing organisations. I have sought to add, in a way that is entirely sensible, those who hold police forces to account. Of course, we will continue to discuss with the Committee and with hon. Members the development of a policing professional body, which is an entirely sensible thing.
That brings me on to the second part of my speech. The first phase of the police reform agenda was about structures and that work will continue as we set up the National Crime Agency.
Keith Vaz
I am sorry to take the Minister back to an earlier point in his interesting speech, but a number of us who were involved in the Committee report have raised the issue of where the functions of the NPIA will go, and he has said that he will announce the destination of the rest of those functions shortly. Can he be more specific than that? Some of us have been around for a long time and know that, when Ministers say that something will be announced in spring, summer or winter, the issue tends to go on beyond the season mentioned. Can we have a definitive date—perhaps the end of February or January—or something more specific?
Nick Herbert
I am sorry, but I will not be able to give the right hon. Gentleman a definitive date. I can give him three words in due course, and we will announce the destination of those functions. It is important to consider and consult on these matters carefully, and that is the approach we have sought to take.
An issue relating to the next phase of the police reform agenda that is so important and relevant to the discussion we were having on the professional body is that of people. Of course, people—police officers and staff—are the greatest asset of any police force. It is those people who enable us to fight crime, and it is important that we ensure that they are remunerated appropriately. We also need to ensure that they are motivated and are working in employment conditions and structures that reflect the demands of today’s age, that are up to date and that ensure that resources can be directed to the front line.
It is in that regard that we established a pay and conditions review led by the independent rail regulator, Tom Winsor. He reported in part one of that review and made proposals for changing pay and conditions. The Government accepted the principles that he set out. Those proposals were remitted to the Police Negotiating Board, which failed to reach agreement, so they therefore went for arbitration. As the right hon. Member for Delyn has pointed out, the Police Arbitration Tribunal has this week made recommendations in relation to the Winsor proposals. He will know that I cannot be drawn into giving him any indication of the Government’s response to those proposals, other than to say that the Home Secretary will consider them very carefully in line with her statutory duties.
Police officers do an immensely important job. They often do difficult and dangerous work, they are unable to strike and it is important that the country values them. They are relatively well-paid, and it is important that they should continue to be so and that they continue to be valued. I appreciate that this is a difficult time for those who work in the police service, given that there are budgetary reductions, to which I will come shortly, and given that police officers are being asked to accept a two-year pay freeze and changes to their pension, which is also true for other public services. I therefore appreciate the issues about morale that were raised by hon. Members from all parties. However, it is important that the Government take action to deal with the deficit and ensure police forces are equipped to deal with challenges and that resources are directed appropriately.
Nick Herbert
I am afraid that I cannot satisfy the right hon. Gentleman on either count. That is the second hypothetical matter he has raised this evening. As I have said, we will consider the recommendations of the Police Arbitration Tribunal very carefully, and it is absolutely right that we should do so.
I join right hon. and hon. Members in paying tribute to police officers and, indeed, staff. The Chair of the Select Committee referred to the reception that was held in No. 10 Downing street yesterday by the Prime Minister to mark the contribution of those who helped to deal with the disorder last summer—not only police officers, but police staff and those who worked in the other emergency services and local government. The Prime Minister spoke fulsomely about the importance of what they and their colleagues had done in the summer.
I myself was reminded of what police officers do for us by the dreadful stabbings of three officers that took place in the Metropolitan police area before Christmas. Those young officers bore serious injuries. We should always remember what an important job the police do for the country. It is also important that the Government restate to the police service that we are having to take difficult decisions in common with those that affect other public services. None of that should allow the police service to believe that we do not value police officers or want to do the best for the police service in the future. I certainly wish to do the best for the service in the future, and for those who work in it.
I will pick up one or two specific points before I conclude. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) mentioned the budget for police and crime panels and questioned how it is derived. It is important to restate that police and crime panels are not ongoing police authorities with the responsibilities of police authorities. Those responsibilities will be taken by police and crime commissioners. Police and crime panels have an important scrutiny role in providing a check and balance that is carefully defined in the legislation that we debated. Their role should not be expanded, and they do not need anything like the kind of resource that police authorities have. The limited funding that has been provided to panels will enable them to do their scrutiny job. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who intervened, made that point very effectively.
I agree with the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington about the police professional body and the importance of dealing with diversity issues. That is a very good example of the kind of thing we could expect a police professional body to take up. It is difficult to see where responsibility for those issues lies at the moment. One of the things a professional body could be responsible for is ensuring that we can make greater progress in recruiting a diversity of police officers.
My right hon. Friend spoke about the importance of collaboration with local authorities, to which I referred in my response to the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth. I endorse that. As my hon. Friend noted, I visited Sutton, where there is a very good example of police force and local authority co-operation. We would like to see more of that, but we are not going to prescribe it. We seek to enable and encourage such an approach, but we do not want to have a directive or master plan that tells police forces how they should go about it.
The right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth launched his campaign to be police and crime commissioner for south Wales. I wish him the very best of luck in that regard and genuinely welcome his candidacy. He raised again the issue of the status of Cardiff as the capital of Wales and made a bid for the force receiving some kind of grant in recognition of that in the same way that the Metropolitan police receives a capital city grant. He has raised that issue with me before, and my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) has also raised it with me separately. In response to my hon. Friend, I asked the chief constable to supply me with the financial information that would make the case for such a grant. Clearly, resources are tight. It is a difficult request, because it would require removing grant from those who would otherwise be receiving it. These are the decisions that Ministers have to take, but I have undertaken to consider the issue in a sensible manner—I am happy to reassure him about that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, whom I welcome to this debate of Privy Counsellors, spoke about the importance of evidence-based policy in policing, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington. I strongly agree with both of them on this matter. I welcome the ideas set out by Professor Sherman, whom I would like to meet again shortly to discuss these matters. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge can organise a convivial dinner in Cambridge, but I would be very happy to attend.
Dr Huppert
I am not sure that I have ever had a Minister make a request for such a meeting before—not that way around. I would be delighted to host him and Professor Sherman. I am sure that we can arrange that.
Nick Herbert
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. That is a deal. I would be delighted to come up to the town of my birth and discuss these issues with Professor Sherman, because they are important. The absence of greater academic co-ordination and interest in the evidence for good policing practice is something that we should collectively seek to try and redress.
Nick Herbert
That is a very good question to which I do not have an immediate or off-the-cuff answer. I am loth to suggest the creation of some kind of Government-sponsored body for obvious reasons—we are seeking to reduce the number of quangos and declutter the policing landscape—but that is not to say that there is not a value in looking at who might be responsible for, or encouraging in academia, this kind of work. I am not necessarily endorsing Professor Sherman’s call for some kind of British institute as an additional policing body, but it is worth having the discussion about where this kind of evidence-led approach could be developed. It could be that there are aspects that can be led by the professional body. Professor Sherman thought otherwise—he thought that it would be for others—but these two things might not be mutually exclusive.
May I turn—briefly, because I am aware of the time moving on and I apologise for that—to some of the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Delyn? I have sought to deal with some of them in relation to what I consider to be the coherence of the Government’s policing reforms and the issue of the morale of police officers. I cannot leave unremarked his point about police numbers and the cuts in policing. Of course, the kinds of reduction in police funding that the previous Government have admitted that they were considering —cuts of £1 billion a year in police funding—would inevitably have resulted in fewer people working in policing. It is impossible to see how they could have made savings year-on-year without a smaller work force. Therefore, it is important that those in policing should understand that reductions in manpower were going to happen under any Government. Of course, the issue is the extent to which that has to happen, but I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary’s report on what has happened so far in those reductions in funding shows just a 2% reduction in officers on the front line.
We know that in the back and middle offices of policing, using the definition supplied to us by the inspectorate of constabulary, there are approximately 25,000 police officers. It is therefore simply wrong to suggest that a reduction in manpower necessarily means that the front line will be affected or damaged. The right debate is about how policing should be transformed, restructured and made more efficient so that resource continues to get to the front line. Police forces up and down the country are showing that that is possible, and that the kind of characterisation of the debate we have seen from the Opposition is wrong and will be shown, in the end, to be wrong. I believe that police forces are rising to the challenge of reorganising, driving out cost and ensuring that they can continue to deliver a service to the public.
The right hon. Gentleman raised the issue of who would be responsible for ensuring that police and crime commissioners would deliver value for money. Of course, there is the ongoing responsibility of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary in that regard, but ultimately police and crime commissioners will answer to the public—that is the force of this reform. We are not appointing police and crime commissioners, because the public are electing them. The commissioners will be strongly incentivised to deliver value for money for the British public. The right hon. Gentleman asked whether we are going to set further targets. No, we are not going to set targets for police and crime commissioners. We have abolished policing targets, because we seek a different approach that gives greater freedom.
That concludes the remarks that I want to make in the debate. I apologise for speaking at some length, but I wished seriously to engage with the points made by hon. Members. I welcome the Home Affairs Committee’s interest in these matters. I note that its report is not critical of the changes in the policing landscape, although it has things to say about the pace of change and so on. The Government have taken those comments seriously and have responded. Some of the reforms relating to the establishment of police and crime commissioners have been controversial, despite the cross-party buy-in to the new office. However, other aspects of the reforms command the support of the whole House, such as the creation of the police professional body, the better way of dealing with policing IT, the de-bureaucratisation of policing and the creation of the National Crime Agency. Far from being matters of party division or contention, we can have a good debate about how to make the reforms work while recognising that those are the right changes to ensure that policing can rise to the challenges of the 21st century and continue to ensure that crime is fought effectively and that the public are kept safe.