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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of the Dyfed Powys police helicopter.
I welcome the Minister to his place and congratulate him on his appointment following the general election.
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)
To give an opportunity for the Chamber to clear, so that I can hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying, I should say that I have been reappointed rather than appointed. I was in this role before the election. [Interruption.]
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order. Will hon. Members leave the Chamber quietly, please?
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby, in my first debate after being reconfirmed as Minister with responsibility for the police—and now for crime, too, including organised crime. I am at both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice—buy one, get one free, apparently. On a serious note, it works very well being the Minister both for the police and criminal justice.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) on securing this debate. If I were the MP for his constituency, I would probably call for a debate on this subject as well; I hope he understands exactly where I am coming from on that point. However, I am not an expert or a police officer—I do not believe there is one in this Chamber, unlike in the old days, when there would have been one—so I take my advice from the frontline.
I will try to address some of the issues raised, but if hon. Members do not mind, I will not address the personal attacks on the police and crime commissioner. I do not think they were appropriate for this Chamber, when we are trying to work together. The PCC is duly elected; when the next elections come, perhaps the party political stuff will start—who knows? At the moment, however, I am sure that he is trying to do the best job he can for the people he represents, as we all are in this Chamber.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
I thank the Minister for allowing me to intervene. As someone who represents a very rural constituency in the Dyfed Powys area, I thank the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) for securing the debate, because it is absolutely vital that we discuss this issue.
Will the Minister comment on just how hard our police and crime commissioner has worked to get benefits out of this system? I understand that the helicopter broke down—the gearbox had to be replaced—and was off-air for three weeks, during which we did not have any cover in Dyfed Powys. Under this new system, we would have cover constantly. The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr spoke of criminals escaping into the night, but said that we would have 24-hour cover under the new system, whereas there had been just 12-hour cover, so if anything, we will have a better system and larger coverage.
Mike Penning
My hon. Friend has been reading my speech—or perhaps he wrote it for me. He is absolutely right. As my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) said in his intervention and short speech, we need to get away from the constabulary boundaries—the old, artificial boundaries—as NPAS has done. The truth is that the helicopter was offline extensively; it was not available 24 hours a day. There will be facilities now; there will be more cover. The North Wales, Birmingham, South Wales and Avon and Somerset forces will all be providing cover, so with this new scheme, we have broken away from saying, “This is ours. You can’t have it, and if you do, it’s going to cost you a small fortune.” The police have bought into that, and it is a really important thing to have done.
There are obvious and understandable concerns. I remember when I did a review of the coastguard and everybody said to me, “This is a very dangerous situation”, but just because we had things in a certain way, it did not mean that that was right. The changes that we made to the coastguard stations have worked, not least—interestingly enough—because we get more cover at times than we had before.
It is not for a Police Minister or a Member of Parliament to tell the police their operational duties or how they should run their forces. We can only dream of having the sort of expertise that they have.
Mike Penning
I will give way, but I am conscious that because of the interventions that have been allowed, I will be cut off in a moment, and I want to try to respond to what has been said. Before I give way, I say to hon. Members that if I do not answer all the points raised, because of the time restrictions, I will write to them. I will meet the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, too; there is some logic to doing that once we have had the debate, rather than before.
Jonathan Edwards
I thank the Minister for giving way and for agreeing to meet; that will be welcomed in the communities that I represent. If it is not the role of Government Ministers to intervene in strategic decisions by NPAS, why has the review been held of the situation in north-east England?
Mike Penning
I will be perfectly honest: I have not had an opportunity to look at that, but I will find out and write. I am not in exactly the same role as I was before—I was responsible for this, but I had no opportunity to look at it. The Minister in the previous debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), was brutally honest, and anybody who knows me knows that I am brutally honest as well. If I do not know the answer, I will get back to people. There will be a review. It was due to be 12 months from when the scheme started, and it started slightly late. I will check and write to the hon. and right hon. Members here today, but my assumption is that it should be 12 months from when it started, so if it started after Christmas, that is when it will be.
The key to this is flexibility. As the Police Minister, I know the value of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. We should not undermine the value of fixed-wing aircraft. I was a Minister with responsibility for counter-terrorism in the Northern Ireland Office; I have to be slightly careful about how I say we use fixed-wing aircraft, but they are enormously useful in policing in particular parts of this great country of ours. We must not underestimate the fact that if there is 24-hour cover, there is the facility to fly anywhere. That is greater than having something on the tarmac at any base at any one time, but not being able to use it.
The police commissioners and chiefs bought into the scheme, and I think they were right to do so. I have looked at the plan that the hon. Gentleman alluded to, and I am comfortable with the situation. I have been judicially reviewed before, when I did not expect to be, but there we are. I am comfortable with the decision that has been made. I did not hear representations that caused me concern about that meeting. However, we never know what is in the post in the morning.
We have to be really careful and look at the big picture, which is what my role involves as Police Minister for England and Wales—for the greatest police forces, I believe, in the world. I say that day in, day out. They are let down occasionally by some individuals, but in general, we have by far the best police in the world. We police in a way that most other countries would love to, but do not. I am particularly referring to the fact that we do not have universally armed police.
The role of NPAS is strategic throughout. When it looked at the issue, it was particularly considering how to cover the gaps, for example when there is engine failure, as has been alluded to, or when we did not have 24-hour cover. Of course, it also looked at the costs. It is obvious that we are responsible for spending taxpayers’ money; we are sent here to monitor and be careful about how taxpayers’ money is spent. The police forces looked at the issue and said, “There could be this model”; then they looked at it again and changed the model. I fully accept that there was a change of model, which is why there will be a review.
We must all sit back, and, as emotive and difficult as it is, say, “This is what will happen. Let’s see how it works.” This is what the police are comfortable with, in relation to the myriad different roles that the helicopters have. They do everything from rescues—even though other facilities can be called on in this part of the world and in other parts of the country—to tackling organised crime and, in particular, cannabis growing. Hon. Members may not yet have had an opportunity to see some of the videos available from heat-seeking cameras, which help us to know exactly who is doing what in properties where cannabis is being grown.
Helicopters are vital for these things, but we all know that they are very expensive, so we must ensure that we use them in the best way. If fixed-wing aircraft are suitable, they should be used. As I said, we must not underestimate the capabilities of fixed-wing aircraft. However, a helicopter moves at great speed. Many of the assumptions are based on the idea that the helicopter would not already be airborne, but it might be airborne; it could have been on an exercise, or be coming back from another operation. The speed at which it could get to different parts of the country would therefore be much quicker.
Clearly, we need to keep the matter under review, and NPAS has agreed to do that. I fully understand individuals’ concerns, but if we want the police to do the job that we are asking them to do, we must listen to the police when they tell us what they need and then react to that. This has been an important debate. I am pleased that other hon. Members have had the opportunity to attend, if not participate. Half-hour debates are always difficult—so difficult that I have managed to gain myself an extra minute by congratulating those who have intervened.
The key is not boundaries; it is not individual constituencies or police authorities. Actually, the police authorities have gone; police and crime commissioners are in place; it was a slip of the tongue to refer to police authorities. It is a good thing that PCCs are in place. We await the elections next year, when I hope the turnout will be much better than it was before. They will coincide with local elections in many parts of the country. People will be able to see what the PCCs are doing for them in their communities. Hopefully, we can leave the politics out of that for a couple more years.
Question put and agreed to.