Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton and Lord Bradshaw

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw]

Will the Minister reflect on the fact that London is a unique area, with unique and very large media coverage? I ask her to think about places such as Devon and Cornwall and the distance from Barnstaple to Penzance and the distances to be covered in several other areas. People in different areas do not listen to the same radio programmes or read the same papers. It is only by having representatives of the divisions within an area that you will get any form of representative democracy.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, will the Minister accept from me that the fact that people checked on crime in their local area does not give an indication either way? My husband checked but I assure the noble Baroness that he would be very cross were she to assume from that that he is in favour of the Government’s proposals.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton and Lord Bradshaw

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, my noble friend has raised an important point. My title in your Lordships’ House is Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton, which is a district—a ward—within the city of Preston. However, in Ribbleton there are not exactly uniform views about what the priorities are. As a county councillor for that division of the county, I had to judge between different issues being raised by different parts of the community. I well remember a heated meeting where those who were aware of where drug dealers were operating were being asked to give the police access to their homes in order to watch and catch people. That applied to residents who did not live in the immediate area, but those who lived in the immediate area were, frankly, quite frightened about getting involved. It is very important that we recognise the local issues in terms of what the priorities are for local communities.

I am so grateful to my noble friend for raising this. It is critical that we allow a mechanism that is not top-down, where someone being elected on a manifesto based on A, B and C precludes people locally from raising issues that are of critical importance to their daily lives.

[Lord Bradshaw]

I wonder if I might follow that by bringing your Lordships back to policing as it actually happens. We now have the benefit of neighbourhood policing. People are invited to meetings with parish councils. They come along, identify their policing priorities and then take a vote among those present about which are the most important of, say, 10 priorities. That is then reflected in the way that the neighbourhood policing team is built up. The teams take their priorities from the bottom upwards.

Given the vast areas that we are talking about, even if the police and crime commissioner visited each district council twice a year, he would not have much time to do anything else—he would have to prepare for those visits and then act upon whatever he learnt. We are ignoring the fact that at district council level there is regular contact between the police superintendent for that area—or in some cases the chief superintendent —that those meetings are regular and that the police have learnt an awful lot about how things really happen. In addition to that, members of the police authority visit every district council, taking with them a superintendent and some officers, and they examine the patterns of crime in those areas in great detail. It is not a question of their not knowing where crime happens; they know exactly where the crimes are. This is then exposed to the elected members, who are able to answer questions. Any idea that this needs oversight from above and lots of activity departs from what happens on the ground. It would be worth people appraising what is going on now, rather than talking in somewhat abstract terms.