Police and Children

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on initiating the debate and on his distinguished track record on these issues. Most recently, he has championed the victims of child sexual exploitation and abuse, playing a role in helping to create the great national will to which we in the House must now rise.

I welcome the report of the all-party parliamentary group on children on building good relationships between children and the police. It is, dare I say, one of the finest examples of work by an all-party group in the House in a very long time. The inquiry took the best part of 18 months and involved going out, listening to, engaging with and learning lessons from young people and the police. The report is exemplary, and the hon. Gentleman and all those involved are to be congratulated on what they have done.

I start by telling a story from my constituency that I hope will warm the cockles of the hon. Gentleman’s heart. The November before last, we had the first Erdington convention; there are 10 devolved districts in Birmingham. We had a session on the police, with particular emphasis on the police and young people. In the spirit of the all-party group, a local councillor—I will not mention which party he was from—made a prolonged intervention with a five-point critique of the police for failing to deal with the problem of young people. He must have mentioned “the problem” at least a dozen times. Sitting to my left was Inspector Paul Ditta, who listened patiently. When the tirade ended, he said, “Councillor, you are entitled to your view, but I have to say, I could not disagree more. For us, young people are not a problem; they are a community to be engaged with.” I thought then, as I think now, “Wow. That’s exactly the kind of mindset you want on the part of the police.”

I remember another occasion when a sergeant was presiding over a meeting of the Castle Vale tasking group, which at one stage got quite heated on the issue of ball games. Two individuals in particular were arguing. One of them said, “It’s about time you felt their collar.” The sergeant, again, listened patiently and said, “I’m not sure that that is the appropriate response. What we’ll do is, one of us, together with the youth worker, will go and sit down with those young people, have a chat and help them recognise that they are inconveniencing local people by playing in this particular part of Castle Vale, and encourage them to take advantage of local facilities.” Indeed, one of the sergeant’s constable colleagues said, “We might even challenge them to a game of football.” Again, that is exactly the right mindset on the part of the police.

An oft-quoted Robert Peel maxim is that the police are the public and the public are the police. Effective modern policing is based on mutual trust and the building of good relationships—in this case, crucially, at the earliest possible age—between people and the police. Indeed, as the all-party group’s report states, children’s first encounter with police officers can have a lasting effect on how they view the police and how they subsequently engage with them as adults.

Again, I have seen such examples—good and bad. On the one hand, I remember in Rossendale and Darwen talking to a community group, and an excellent local community activist said that her daughter, who is now 18, had known the local police constable and the local police community support officer since she was eight. They were on first-name terms; in fact, they even sent each other Christmas cards. On the other, there are bad examples. I remember a young African man from Kingstanding in my constituency who came in with his mother to see me and spoke graphically about his experience of having been stopped and searched. He is a fine footballer of the future and an admirable young man who has never been in trouble; his behaviour is exemplary. He said to me, “Jack, I was out with my mum in the high street. I crossed the road to go to another shop. As I came out, I was stopped and I was searched, and I couldn’t believe it. I asked, ‘Why?’ I couldn’t believe it. Then, I saw my mum on the other side of the street, looking distressed.” He said, “I felt humiliated.” He went on to say, “I know bad boys, but I’m not one of them, Jack.” Fortunately, that young man from a good family will not draw the wrong conclusions, but too often there have been such bad experiences, which have poisoned the relationship between young people and the police.

Therefore, for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman spelled out in considerable detail, first impressions are crucial. It is vital that the police deal with their relationships with young people in the right way.

The report is balanced in its approach; it celebrates what is good and the progress that has been made, but it is also challenging. It is worrying that it found that there is a lack of trust in the police on the part of too many children and young people, and that encounters between the two can often be characterised by poor and unconstructive communication and sometimes, quite simply, a lack of mutual respect.

As set out in the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, children and young people have a distinct set of rights and entitlements. As the all-party group found, however, even if improvements are being made, the policy and legislative framework governing the police does not yet pay sufficient attention to the particular needs of children and young people. That must now change.

I will now touch upon certain areas of the report. First, there is the controversial issue of stop and search. The hon. Gentleman was absolutely right to say that only a small proportion of searches lead to arrest and are, to be frank, ultimately found to be justified. The fact that we have too often had too many stops and searches has been damaging to police relationships with young people; there is no question about that. There is that particularly stark statistic in London—someone is seven times more likely to be stopped if they have a black face. That cannot be right.

The resentment caused by that has created barriers between communities and the police. Police officers should act only where there are good grounds for them to do so, and they must ensure that the welfare of children being searched is their utmost priority. Therefore, I strongly support the recommendation of the all-party group that the rights and specific needs of children must be reflected in the guidance relating to the stop-and-search process. The hon. Gentleman is also right to refer to the fact that progress has been made, with support from all parties in the House in recent months for changing the framework governing stop and search.

I will move on briefly to the detention and custody of young people, with particular reference to those suffering from mental ill health. We agree with the recommendation in the report in respect of section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, which deals with detentions, and we also believe that it is inappropriate to detain young people in police custody. It is far better that they are dealt with in other, more appropriate ways; it is better not only for young people themselves, which is the main consideration, but for the police, as less of their time will be taken up.

Again, I see that situation in my own area. It is not based in my constituency, but the Oleaster suite in Birmingham is an excellent example of collaboration between the police, the local authority and the NHS to provide a non-custodial place of safety, and many of the people who go there are young people in distress. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman is right to remind us that so many of the children caught up in the policing system are often not only vulnerable, but suffer from mental health problems, so it is right that we assert that a police cell is no place for young people who are suffering from mental illness.

We welcome the work that is already being done to improve practice across the country. Greater Manchester has been particularly exemplary in its approach. There are many examples I could give, but I will give just one: 17 police constables have had comprehensive mental health awareness training to become crisis intervention officers. The police in the region have also had success with their triage arrangements. Elsewhere—for example, in Nottingham and Derby—I have seen really good examples of the police themselves learning lessons and working in collaboration with other agencies on how those going through trauma in their life should best be supported.

Next, there is the point about good practice. As I have said, the report is balanced, because—I stress this again—it is challenging but also reflects much good practice and urges that that good practice be generalised throughout the police service. I say again that the report is right to identify failures and shortcomings, but also right to celebrate admirable behaviour and practice.

I have seen examples in my own constituency. I remember launching—quite literally—in a shaky canoe on Brookvale park a club run by Sergeant Simon Hensley, which was ultimately joined by a couple of hundred young people locally. Again, there was an incredulous councillor who said, “What’s a canoeing club got to do with police?” As a consequence of that initiative, young people came to have a different relationship with the police. They had a laugh with the police, canoed with the police and—depending on their age, of course—would go and have a drink with the police. In turn, the police were able to identify young people with particular problems in their lives and signpost them towards other routes they could take.

Classically, the role of neighbourhood policing has been not only to detect and fight crime, but to prevent it from occurring in the first place, and that initiative was highly successful. Also, when there was an outbreak of burglaries locally, young people in particular worked with the police to identify the wrongdoers. It is absolutely right that such good practice is showcased and promoted to show what is possible and what works.

The report is right to say that what we have to do at every level—from Government downwards, and at the level of the police service itself—is not only to showcase such examples of positive engagement but to drive that engagement in the next stages. The hon. Gentleman told us the story of some of the initiatives in Sussex. We strongly support the all-party group’s recommendation that there should be a lead for young people in each force.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned youth services and said that local authorities are now under financial pressure. Of course, it is not just youth services that are affected, but the police themselves. Other agencies are crucial to policing. The relationship of the police with young people is particularly important. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman is right to mention the mounting pressures on youth services. I gave the example earlier of police and youth services intervening in a situation before it became a problem, and thereby solving it.

I am bound to say that 17,000 police officers have gone and 32,000 will have gone by the general election. With the thin blue line stretched ever thinner, not only are the public seeing fewer bobbies on the beat—neighbourhood policing in many areas has been hollowed out—but there is potential for a lasting impact on relationships between children and the police. If we believe in the kind of neighbourhood engagement demonstrated in the report—I strongly support it—neighbourhood officers who are able to undertake that engagement are needed.

The report rightly highlights the work in local schools. In another example from my constituency, when the current North Birmingham academy was called College High, five or six years ago, parents were queuing up not to send their kids to the school, which was riven by gang warfare. A highly successful collaboration was instituted between the local police and the school, with a particular police officer attached to it for three years, although not for the whole time. There was an intimate relationship between the police and the school and, progressively, the culture of the school changed dramatically. The head said to me, “It was almost like there was a red mist on the path leading into the school. Whatever problems may have been in the community, they no longer came into the school.” But it is more than that. She said, “Because of how the police engaged with those young people, when going back into the communities from which they came, they had a very different perception of the police.”

Inevitably, the rapidly reducing number of police officers has an impact in terms of the necessary work that they have to do.

[Tim Loughton]

I should have mentioned earlier that, when filming a Channel 4 programme, “Tower Block of Commons”, with other hon. Members a few years ago—I was in Birmingham—eventually the police came along and played a football match against some of the young people I was working with. The hon. Gentleman might like to try the same in his part of Birmingham.

Can I try to tempt the hon. Gentleman away from being slightly partisan on this? This week the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, confirmed that the number of police officers in London, which had been at 32,000, had dropped to 30,000, but that within the next few weeks the number will have returned to over 32,000. The police force has saved £600 million in the process. So police numbers are on the rise in many parts of the country, but the police will have made considerable savings and will also have prioritised projects, such as some of those involving working with young people, which I have already mentioned.

[Jack Dromey]

In the spirit of the all-party group’s work, I am striving not to be overtly partisan, but I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me; I had to make the point. It is not just about resource, but if one is to achieve the type of engagements that are necessary, which are described in the report, resource is important. He said, in the context of youth services, that there can be false economies. That is right. What are the medium-term consequences? One must have regard to the avoidance of false economies. Incidentally, on getting it right and sensible economies, if we reduced youth reoffending by 10%, it would save £1 billion but, more than that, the pain often suffered by the victims of crime carried out by young people would be avoided. Therefore, neighbourhood policing is crucial in respect of everything said in the report about the importance of local engagement.

In conclusion—this relates to the point I just made to the hon. Gentleman—resource is important, but it is never enough. What is so good about the report is that it celebrates much that is good and it is profoundly challenging at every level, including in arguing for continuing and fundamental culture change regarding the interrelationship between the police and young people. He mentioned the role that the College of Policing plays in inculcating good practice in all police officers and in communicating to them the problems attached to seeing young people as the problem. The report is an excellent piece of work. I congratulate all those involved in its production. I strongly suspect that there will be a warm cross-party welcome for the proposals.

Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the United Kingdom) Bill

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Friday 6th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

When people come to Britain, they should abide by the law. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) is right that those who abuse our hospitality and commit serious crimes have no place in this country. Indeed, in my own constituency, if I am approached by someone seeking leave to remain in the country who, for example, has committed a serious crime and in particular has gone to prison, it is my practice to refuse to take the case up with the Home Office. It is true to say, I think, that the whole House wants to see foreign criminals deported.

The Prime Minister said that this would be a priority for his Government, but as with so many promises he has made, he is not keeping to his word. Last year more than 500 fewer foreign criminals were removed than in Labour’s last year in office in 2009. On top of that, the National Audit Office released a scathing report in October 2014 on the Home Office’s management of foreign national offenders. It found that more than a third of failed removals were the result of factors within Home Office control. The factors included poor use of IT, a lack of communication, failure to use the powers available, cumbersome and slow referral processes and inefficiency in processing—the list goes on. A third of failed removals could otherwise have been dealt with quickly and properly.

Worse still, more criminals have absconded under this Government—a 6% increase since 2010. In its very interesting report, the NAO stated that we have worse systems in our country than other European countries for preventing foreign criminals from entering in the first place, due in part to the delay in joining the second-generation Schengen information system, which we finally joined only a month ago. Our joining was delayed because of the Home Secretary’s decision to exercise the opt-out on co-operation with Europe—a fact that put border security at risk and has longer-term consequences for the safety and security of our country.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, therefore, to make the argument that he makes today, and we agree that there need to be more stringent controls on foreign offenders, but we do not agree with the proposals in the Bill, even if we agree with the intentions. It would put Britain in contravention of the European convention on human rights at the very time we are arguing in foreign policy terms that countries such as Russia and Ukraine should respect the European convention, and that countries such as Belarus should sign up to the convention. The Government’s legal advice on the matter has been clear. We agree with that advice and consequently cannot vote for something that is illegal.

A similar proposal was debated in the course of the Immigration Bill. The Home Secretary stated that it was incompatible with the European convention on human rights, and that she was concerned about the practical application of the new clause, arguing that it would

“effectively hinder our ability to deport people for a period of time because there would be considerable legal wrangling about the issue.”—[Official Report, 30 January 2014; Vol. 574, c. 1051.]

We support the principle behind the Bill that more foreign criminals should be deported, especially given how poor the Government’s track record has been, but if the Bill were passed it might well have the unintended consequence of creating legal barriers to deportation as foreign criminals tied up the courts with challenges to their deportation.

[Mr Bone]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for the principle, but he says that we cannot implement it, basically because of the Human Rights Act. I guess he is saying that he would rather foreign prisoners stayed here because of the Human Rights Act than agree with the principle of getting them sent home. Is that the position of the Opposition?

[Jack Dromey]

We are absolutely in favour of a rigorous approach to dealing with a problem that has rightly caused public outrage. There have been some very serious cases of foreign criminals who have come to our country, having committed appalling crimes in their own country, and then committed appalling crimes in this country. On the issue of principle, we are with the hon. Gentleman 101%. The question is what we do about it in practical terms. I gave the examples from the National Audit Office report, which stated that a third or more of the problems that had been identified were a consequence of Home Office practices. So we are in favour of a sensible debate about a much more rigorous approach. We agree with what the Government have said, but our concern is that we should not inadvertently create endless wrangling in the courts; rather, we should try to improve the system to ensure that those who commit serious crimes are sent back to their country of origin.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

A significant amount is being done. We are preventing a number of foreign national offenders from getting into this country in the first place by strengthening the data that we have at our borders through our warnings index and making sure that our Border Force officers have that information. There is the impact of the Schengen information system—the new means by which we are able to gain advantage from information from Europe such that people are unable to get into this country in the first place. There are also dedicated teams available to respond to those who abscond.

As my hon. Friend suggests, there is a further initiative to make the public aware. We have used that overseas to identify British citizens on the run in other European countries. I pay tribute to the work of the National Crime Agency in working with our counterparts in Spain and with Crimestoppers to ensure that those who are fleeing justice in this country are apprehended and brought to justice in this country. A significant amount of work is being done in-country on identifying those who would do us harm and on preventing people from coming in at the border—not forgetting those who are fleeing justice from our shores and who need to be brought to book here in this country. That is why this work is being undertaken.

[Jack Dromey]

I totally agree with the point about strengthening our borders. No doubt the Minister will welcome our proposal for an additional 1,000 border guards. He says that the Government have dealt with what he claims were past problems in relation to Labour’s track record. They have been in power for five years. Can he explain why more criminals have absconded under this Government—a 6% increase since 2010?

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Operational decisions are taken by the police, but I seem to recall that the police and crime commissioner in Greater Manchester is a former colleague of the hon. Gentleman on the Labour Benches. Perhaps he should talk to him about it.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Rather than reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and make sensible savings, the Home Secretary has chosen to inflict the biggest cuts to our police service of any country in Europe. Government figures out today show a sharp dip of 23% in the number of traffic police, and an increase in road deaths, including a 6% increase for children. Does she accept that she is letting the motorist down, and that under her tenure our roads are now less safe?

[Mrs May]

No. The hon. Gentleman comments on the cuts made to police budgets, but those cuts were necessary—as were spending cuts across the public sector—because of the situation left by the last Labour Government when we were left facing such a big deficit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

To be honest, I perfectly understand that any chief constable and PCC will campaign for extra money, but at the same time I cannot understand the sudden interest taken in Lincolnshire by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello). When this Government came to power, 91% of police were on the front line; that figure is now 93%. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) is absolutely right to say that there has been a 20% cut in crime in Lincolnshire.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Like many other chief constables around the country, the chief constable of an efficient and effective police service in Lincolnshire has made it clear that the Government’s proposed cuts will see meaningful neighbourhood policing ceased; response times get longer; officer safety put at risk; the ability to investigate historical child sex exploitation cases limited; and public confidence in policing severely eroded. Is he right to say that and is it right for the Home Secretary to spend £50 million on next year’s PCC elections when what the public want is for that money to be invested in front-line policing?

Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Serious and organised crime poses a severe and growing threat to those in our country. It poses a threat to the pensioner who is vulnerable to online financial scams. The hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) spoke of “the little people”: one vulnerable pensioner in his constituency was ripped off by £27,000. It poses a threat to the child who is vulnerable to those who prey on children, and to child sex exploitation. That obscenity, which has existed for many years and exists to this day in our society, was brought to life today by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), my hon. Friends the Members for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), and the hon. Member for Mole Valley. It also poses a threat to our economy, which is vulnerable to cyber-attack and, in particular, to the impact that it might have on our finance and our infrastructure. That was brought to life by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond). It was right that the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) said that there should be no hiding place, and it is also right for the House to act.

The Bill contains some welcome moves. We will support the Bill, but we will seek to strengthen it during its passage through Parliament, because this Bill lacks the ambition necessary to respond to the scale and seriousness of serious and organised crime. It contains some significant omissions, and the Government have failed to recognise the argument put forward by a number of Members today: that legislation is crucial, but so is enforcement, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe). As the shadow Home Secretary said earlier, we now have a situation where reported rape is up, but prosecutions are down, and violent crime is up, but prosecutions and convictions are down, because there is a justice gap—a simple failure to enforce the law. Indeed, the Chair of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), was right to refer to the fact that there have been two convictions for FGM.

I have to say that in addition to the failure to enforce the law, this is the worst possible time for the Government to impose the biggest cuts to policing in any country in Europe. With the mounting challenges of serious and organised crime, that is having a significant impact, in particular in areas such as tackling child sex exploitation. I have met the Association of Chief Police Officers leadership dealing with Operation Notarise and, as the shadow Home Secretary said earlier on, 20,000 people have been identified but 700 have been acted against at this stage. At the heart of that is the fact that the police service, with the immense pressures on it, simply cannot cope, and therefore those who pose a significant risk and whose identity is known have yet to be acted against. That cannot be right.

I will now turn briefly to the six sections of the Bill. The Proceeds of Crime Act was introduced by a Labour Government in 2002. At the heart of the action now being taken is two damning reports produced in the last 18 months, the first by the National Audit Office and the other by the Public Accounts Committee. There were some 673,000 convictions in the courts in 2012-13, but there were 6,392 confiscation orders, and only £26 in every £100 is recovered and, to add insult to injury, it tends to be the Costa del Sol bank robber who gets away with it most. That is why I think there are serious flaws in the legislation—the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) was right in relation to the incentive scheme and how it works—and that is why we have pressed for action on a number of fronts, and we welcome the fact that some progress is now being made on designer divorces, default sentences, the requirement to bring forward the determination of third-party interests from the enforcement stage, and reducing the time given to offenders to pay confiscation orders. However, we need to go further to ensure that crime does not pay and we will be tabling amendments in Committee, including for the burden to fall more heavily on the criminal to prove they do not have the assets that should be seized.

On computer misuse, cyber-crime is a growing area of concern in the UK. As we live in an increasingly digitised world, the nature of crime is changing. Credit card fraud, identity theft, phishing, child exploitation and industrial espionage are all perils of technological advancements. The hon. Member for Wimbledon was right to talk about the immense damage that can be done, including to our economy. As on the European arrest warrant, the Government are right on this front also to recognise the benefits of European collaboration, by implementing the EU directive on attacks against information systems. We therefore support the legislation the Government are bringing forward which creates a new offence of hacking that causes serious damage and makes it clear to UK citizens that they will be committing a crime whether it is in the UK or not.

However, an Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary report released last year found that, despite the growing risks, only three police forces had sufficient plans in place to deal with a large-scale cyber-attack. Furthermore, it revealed that only 2% of police staff across 37 forces had been trained in investigating cyber-crime. Resources are therefore key, and so too is a serious strategy to combat cyber-crime. We will argue, therefore, for police forces to provide annually details of their cyber-crime strategy and their progress to date, and also for the targeted recruitment of cyber-crime and financial experts and for the private sector to rise to the challenge. To this end, we want to see many more examples of what I have seen in the City of London police’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau—namely, the use of seconded experts from banks and insurance companies. Such institutions need to do much more to tackle those practices that damage their customers as well as their reputation.

On organised serious and gang-related crime, many criminal gangs involve corrupt and complicit professionals who support and benefit from organised crime. The gangs use their expertise and skills to help them to evade the law; those people are the professional enablers of crime. The Government have been right to act on this practice; they have also been right to shift on this matter during the debates in the House of Lords in order to get the balance right. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd was also right to say that it is important to ensure that those who are innocent and inadvertently caught up in illegal activity are protected.

We believe that we have reached the right place on that particular issue, but we want to explore in Committee the question of serious crime prevention orders. We shall also table amendments to the proposals for gang injunctions, not least because we have heard worrying reports from front-line professionals about the operational effectiveness of such injunctions and the impact of the abolition of antisocial behaviour orders. We will press those matters further during the passage of the Bill in Committee.

Part 4 of the Bill covers the seizure and forfeiture of drug-cutting agents. Certain chemical substances can mimic and resemble drugs and can therefore be used as cutting agents for bulking illegal drugs to maximise criminal profit margins. Those substances also pose a threat to drug users, some of whom pay with their lives. We support the Government’s proposal to allow law enforcement agencies to seize any substances reasonably suspected to be intended for use as a cutting agent. However, this part of the Bill feels very much like an empty promise, not least because the latest Home Office figures on drug seizures show a dramatic decrease in the volume of drugs seized by police forces over the past year. Indeed, with mounting pressure on resources, the number of heroin seizures between 2009-10 and 2012-13 fell by more than 50% despite the fact that there was only a marginal decrease in its consumption rate.

Part 5 covers the crucial matter of the protection of children. There is now a great national will to tackle the exploitation of children by evil adults who prey on their vulnerability. That has been reflected in the debate here today. We have heard excellent contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Stockport and for Rotherham and the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams). It is welcome that the Government have acted in the Bill, but it is surprising that they did not initially go far enough. For example, following a campaign by the NSPCC and Lord Harris of Haringey, the Government have now moved to include in the Bill an offence of sending sexual messages to a child, which is welcome. Similarly, following a campaign by the charity Action for Children, the Government changed their position on child neglect by updating the offence to include emotional neglect and psychological harm.

We have heard powerful testimony here today of the need for the Bill to go further, and for us to stop demonising the victims of child sexual abuse—for example, by branding them as prostitutes. We have heard of the need for a fundamental culture change. Crucially, however, this is about what we do, which is why we intend to propose a measure to make it a mandatory duty to report such abuse. This would make it clear that cultural change must take place in every institution. Anyone who knows something must report it, and not be tempted to think that such matters can be solved quietly and privately by brushing them under the carpet. A clear message needs to be sent that people should not put institutional reputation before protecting children.

In Committee, we will also press for further action on female genital mutilation, which is recognised internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. We have heard powerful examples today of the need to strengthen the Bill in this regard, but time does not permit me to go into further detail. However, we will seek to strengthen what are welcome steps in the right direction. The Government have moved, but they need to move further in the next stages of the Bill.

Let me refer briefly to part 6. We support the proposed new offences on extra-territorial jurisdiction for offences committed under the Terrorism Act 2006 and on possession of a knife in prison, and the proposals on mobile operators being obliged to disconnect those in prison.

In conclusion, this has been a well-informed debate on the scale and growing danger of serious and organised crime, with support from across the House—

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Gentleman will know that during my contribution I asked the Labour Front Benchers whether, in tackling serious and organised crime in Northern Ireland, they would commit any future Labour Government after May to legislate to ensure that the National Crime Agency is operational in Ulster.

[Jack Dromey]

We understand the concern expressed by the hon. Gentleman, and the Government should have sorted this issue a long time ago. We will talk to all parties in Northern Ireland about making progress at the next stages. We see the strength of the argument being deployed and are sympathetic to it, but this is about how then we might go forward and that is necessarily done in dialogue with the parties in Northern Ireland.

This well-informed debate has drawn on the experience of many Members of this House, and there has been much common ground. We want to ensure that the Bill becomes a strong Act, with strong action then taken to ensure the will of this House is acted upon. As we have seen time and again in today’s debate, times may change and the nature of crime may change, but we need to send an unmistakable message to those engaged in serious and organised crime: there will be no hiding place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I do congratulate Warwickshire police on the 15% cut in crime since 2010. They are doing a fantastic job, and I hope to visit them soon.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The Home Affairs Committee found that morale had sunk to its lowest ebb in recent memory. Surveys have demonstrated that 5,000 police officers want to leave the police service because of low morale. Figures have shown a staggering 63% increase in duty days lost to sickness owing to anxiety, while the sickness figures more generally are soaring. Does the Home Secretary accept that, with her demanding ever more out of a police service that she has cut by 16,000, she is making police officers sick?

[Mike Penning]

I get on very well with the shadow Minister, but what he has just said is appalling. He is running down the police force and the fantastic job they are doing. With less officers on the front line and less officers in the back-room staff, they are doing a fantastic job. He should be ashamed of himself, and he should praise the police.

Police Recorded Crime Statistics

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. I welcome the decision to make time available for this debate, and I congratulate the Public Administration Committee and its Chair on doing a service to our country by tackling a series of problems—I shall refer to them in detail—in a thorough, impartial and forensic way, rightly challenging all those with power to act, be that the police service or those responsible at area level, including police and crime commissioners and the Government. This debate is well timed, because it comes against a background of a year during which there has been, to say the least, lively debate about police statistics. There is the work of not just the Public Administration Committee, but the UK Statistics Authority, the Office for National Statistics and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary.

Why does accurate crime reporting matter? First, it is crucial that criminal activities in local force areas are identified properly if the police are to deploy their resources efficiently and effectively, according to real need. In the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), it is about an evidence-based approach to how we commit local police resource. Secondly, accurate crime reporting is vital with regard to the victims of crime. Proper recording has an effect on getting victims to come forward and, crucially, informs the decisions that have to be taken to support the victims of crime, particularly sexual crime. Thirdly, accurate recording of crime helps politicians—at area and local level, in Parliament and at Government level—properly to hold the police to account.

Fourthly, proper recording of crime also informs other interventions. The Chair of the Select Committee referred to the excellent chief constable of Essex. I had the pleasure of meeting him recently, and I can give a rather interesting example from that. As in Northumbria, there was a welcome focus on the rising problem of domestic violence. The assessment made was that it was a very significant and growing problem in the county, so Northumbria police introduced a world-class system. They brought in a systems engineer with a background at Ford to construct the ability to track perpetrators and victims, and potential perpetrators and victims, of domestic violence, and also to identify domestic violence hot spots, so that other interventions could take place. For example, if there was a particular problem on some estates, that might require interventions in the schools on those estates. Having an accurate picture of crime is absolutely key on all those fronts.

[Mr Jenkin]

We were briefed yesterday by the chief constable of Essex, and many of my colleagues were astonished to learn that whereas most people think of crime as burglary, auto theft or violence against the person, there are four times as many incidents of domestic violence as burglaries every day in the county of Essex. The scale of the domestic violence problem is something that all constabularies will have to spend much more time on in order to protect the public, who are becoming victims of these crimes.

[Jack Dromey]

I totally agree with the Chair of the Select Committee. Historically, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) said, this crime was simply not taken seriously enough; it used to be described as “a domestic”. There has been welcome progress in the past 10 years and more—of that there is no doubt—but it remains a crime substantially hidden from history. Ensuring that we have an accurate picture, that we encourage victims to come forward, and that they are properly supported when they do is therefore of the highest importance.

Let me turn to the police recorded crime statistics. It was absolutely right to strip those statistics of their national statistics status—the gold standard—on the back of evidence heard by the Select Committee. Considering the substantial weight of evidence that has come forward of significant under-recording of crime, it would have been dangerous to let ourselves be drawn into the false sense of security that those statistics were providing. I therefore commend the considerable courage of PC James Patrick, who alerted the Chair of the Select Committee to his concerns and then appeared before the Committee so that its members could hear at first hand, from the sharp end, just what was happening. It heard very powerful evidence of—the Chair used these words earlier—cuffing, nodding and skewing. As the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) rightly acknowledged, PC Patrick was a brave man who exposed what was clearly wrong.

The ONS has raised a number of hypotheses, including some very similar to what PC Patrick said, as to why the police were recording crime incorrectly, including the idea that there were performance pressures associated with targets. The time has clearly come to move on from that old-style performance target regime.

In addition to what PC Patrick, the ONS and others have said, there was compelling evidence to the Select Committee from Dr Rodger Patrick, a former chief inspector of the West Midlands police service. He set out his research, which suggested that

“the perverse incentives embedded in quantitative performance management…encourage a range of ‘gaming’ behaviours that result in under-recording of crime.”

As the Chair of the Committee said, there have been other “incentives”, including the desire for promotion.

Let me turn to the crime survey for England and Wales. That was historically relied on as more accurate. However, we must recognise that the situation is far from ideal. It is true that the CSEW stats are based on interviews with adults about their experience of crime, regardless of whether or not it was reported to the police, but the CSEW stats cannot give us a detailed indication of crime trends at local level. We are missing that vital piece of the puzzle.

Additionally and very importantly, several crimes are not included in the statistics, and that ultimately skews our understanding of crime and where it is headed. For example, according to an ONS study released in July 2013, the number of fraud offences could total between 3.6 million and 3.8 million incidents of crime a year. However, most fraud offences in England and Wales are now referred to a central organisation, Action Fraud, rather than being logged by local forces. It is therefore believed that if bank and credit card fraud were included in the CSEW stats, the estimated number of annual offences would jump by almost 50%. When we listen to Government rhetoric on crime being at an all-time low, we must remember that the Government tend to pick and choose which crimes to pray in aid and which statistics to refer to, ignoring these very significant and growing areas of crime, which are not properly reflected in the statistics. That is both wrong and dangerous.

Professor Marian FitzGerald, a criminologist at the university of Kent, was absolutely right when she said to The Times in August 2014:

“Ministers were readily persuaded that the Crime Survey represented a gold standard for measuring crime when it started to show a continuous fall from the time Labour took office in 1997. Yet here we have an admission from its own results that crime is 50 per cent higher than the figure it claims.”

In addition, the CSEW does not cover a range of other things. It does not cover those living in group residences such as care homes, student halls of residence and prisons, or crimes against commercial or public sector bodies. The CSEW figures exclude murder and manslaughter because the victim is dead; figures on rape and other sex offences, which are calculated separately and differently because of their sensitive nature; and crimes, such as drug possession, that are considered victimless.

Both the Chair of the Select Committee and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East referred to no-criming. Another important issue identified by the Select Committee in its report was the prevalence of no-criming. In response to the

“damning indictment of police complacency, inertia and lack of leadership”,

the Select Committee recommended that the Home Office undertake a comprehensive analysis to explain the extraordinary disparities in no-crime rates for sexual offences across all police forces.

The gravity of the impact of no-criming should not be underestimated. Let us consider this example given by HMIC of a case that was no-crimed. A woman alleged rape by a man in a car after she changed her mind about having sex following a discussion about use of a condom. The rape was recorded as a crime. She reports that she did not run away because she was scared of being beaten up. There had been no violence or pinning down, although the woman said that her chest was sore and she had felt intimidated. The incident was no-crimed because the man said that he did not know that she did not consent to having sex, but there is no additional verifiable information to show that the victim had in fact given consent. That was “no crime”.

Let us imagine, first, the difficulty of coming forward to report a rape during which the woman was so afraid for her well-being that she felt powerless to do anything. Let us imagine then what happens if the authorities doubt her, in effect favouring the perpetrator, despite no evidence being given to disprove her allegations.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East rightly praised the excellent work of Vera Baird in Northumbria. When the issue that he referred to was looked into as a consequence of her action, more than one in three rape allegation cases initially deemed to be no crime were reopened, following a review of 153 separate cases. An audit by HMIC identified that the force may have incorrectly no-crimed many of those cases. As a result of the action taken by Vera Baird, the chief constable ordered a review of all such reports going back three years, and a team of experienced officers have now checked 153 cases. In addition, 48 officers involved in the incorrect no-criming and failure to act have been warned that they may face disciplinary action as a result of the inquiry by the force.

Concern about this issue is all the greater today; statistics show a 29% increase in rape, and a worrying justice gap: in the last year on record, there was a fall of 28% in referrals for prosecution, and a fall of 14% in prosecutions.

On unreported crime, in its interim report released earlier this year, HMIC noted a “significant under-recording of crime”. Basing its comments on the assessment of 13 police forces, HMIC stated that up to 20% of crimes may be unrecorded. Only yesterday, I had the privilege of attending an event organised by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, at which I heard some heartbreaking cases of violence against shop workers, including the case of a man whose whole life was ruined as a consequence of being seriously assaulted at work. A survey by USDAW of its members revealed that one in five of those who had been assaulted did not report the incident, not least because they often lacked confidence that any action would be taken if they did.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about shop workers, having visited the USDAW meeting the other day. On the tube, there are now notices saying that if staff are abused, the perpetrators will be prosecuted. We ought to adopt that approach for everyone who is abused while doing their job.

[Jack Dromey]

I absolutely agree. It is important that people have confidence that if they report an assault, they will be taken seriously. The police may spell out a good reason why they cannot investigate, but it is critical that the victim has the right to appeal against that decision. There is disturbing evidence to suggest that a culture has been created in which people feel that except in very serious cases, violence against shop workers is not taken seriously. It is not surprising that shop workers who have been assaulted do not come forward as often as they should, as the USDAW survey showed.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I accept entirely what my hon. Friend says. Does he agree that even abusive language can be terrifying and upsetting, particularly, for example, if it is used by a male against a female shop assistant? Does he agree that even that is not acceptable?

[Jack Dromey]

Again, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. I want to make a general comment about the under-reporting of crime. The Conservative police and crime commissioner for Suffolk, Tim Passmore, has said that he would not be complacent about a drop in crime in Suffolk because in his assessment, half of all offences go unreported.

As we know from tragic experience over the past two to three years, the scale and obscenity of some crimes—including domestic violence, sexual offences and child abuse—have been hidden from history. I welcome the growing focus on those obscene crimes that are the legacy of history and that sadly persist to this day. When it comes to tackling child sexual exploitation—I say this with all respect to the Minister—I have no doubt whatever that the Government are taking the matter seriously, but it is the worst possible time to cut 16,000 police officers; demand is rapidly growing. In the West Midlands police, 10% of officers are working on nothing but historical and current CSE cases. In the words of the chief constable, that is the tip of the iceberg. The debate today reinforces the need to take action on sexual crime and crime against children. To do that, the police need determination and focus, but they also need the resources that will enable them to do their job.

[Mr Jenkin]

We all share the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the pressure on resources. However, the chief of the Metropolitan police has reported that he has been able to take all the savings out of the back room, and there are just as many officers on the front line as there were before the spending reductions. In Essex, we are finding that technology can enable police officers to do much more. Technology can release resources for the extra tasks that we are demanding of the police, despite the overall reduction in resources. Furthermore, there are still huge savings to be made in the way in which police forces buy technology and communications equipment. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but I do not think that we need to despair about it.

[Jack Dromey]

The Chair of the Select Committee makes an interesting point. It is true that the police have coped remarkably so far, in the circumstances. There has been some interesting innovation in the use of technology; I mentioned a classic example in the Essex police service. In addition, there remains significant scope to develop the use of technology. For example, the 19 basic technological requirements provide remote access and allow police officers to operate in the field with all necessary support, intelligence and access to intelligence, so that they do not have to go back to police stations. The electronic submission of witness statements is speeding up the criminal justice process, as the Camberwell project has shown. Video-link evidence can allow cases to be brought quickly and effectively to court, particularly domestic violence cases; some interesting experiences have arisen out of the Camberwell project in that regard.

Having said all that, I want to provide one example from the West Midlands police service to illustrate why resources matter. In the west midlands, 40 people have been brought before the courts for serious terrorist crime in the past five years, and there have been 31 convictions. That conviction rate was the result of highly effective and patient building of relationships with communities—all bar one of the defendants were of a Muslim background—and good neighbourhood policing. Year in, year out, the police have patiently built trust and confidence with the community, to the point where the community now comes forward and identifies wrongdoing in its ranks.

With all respect to the Chair of the Select Committee, all over the country neighbourhood policing is being hollowed out; that is eroding the ability of the police to form relationships that are crucial not only to the detection of wrongdoing—in the cases that I have just mentioned, serious wrongdoing—but the prevention of crimes and the diversion of people from crime. I have been conducting a tour of police services all over the country, including Essex. Everywhere I go, I hear that we are getting close to what the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers has called the “tipping point”. The Government must reflect long and hard on the continuing trajectory of significant cuts to our police service.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the benefits on the Isle of Wight is that police officers cannot get away? For them, there is no difference between “during working hours” and “outside working hours”. They are there, and people will collar them in the street and ask them to do things. They cannot pretend that they are not working, because they are there. What can we do about the fact that London’s policemen are brought in from Hampshire, Berkshire and so on?

[Jack Dromey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point, and I will say two things in response. First, it was Robert Peel who said:

“The police are the public and the public are the police.”

In the past 25 years, we have seen the importance of the evolution from those principles of neighbourhood policing. The emphasis is on the notion of local policing, local routes, local say, local familiarity and the building of relationships of trust and confidence. The police are entitled to go home, but if they come from the communities that they serve, they are better able to understand the nature of those communities.

Secondly, there is a problem in the Metropolitan police. My view of the police service is different from, and perhaps more positive than, the Government’s view. However, I also believe that there are many things wrong with the police that have to be put right. I remember telling the ACPO conference the maxim:

“The police are the public and the public are the police,”

but saying that the only problem was that they did not look like the public. The Metropolitan police is a classic example of that, because it does not look like the communities that it serves. Frankly, due to housing pressures and the cost of housing, too many Metropolitan police officers live in counties adjacent to London, up to 50 miles away. We can address that in a range of ways, including with affordable housing.

Steps must be taken to widen the pool from which we draw police officers, including in London. Last week I met an impressive chief inspector from Police Now who is doing exactly that by, for example, targeting universities in London—including the old polytechnics in north London, which have diverse student populations—with the notion that students can become a police officer for two years and then have the option of continuing with a career in the police service. Police Now is reaching out and targeting communities within those geographical areas to encourage people to become members of the police service. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) makes a powerful case and, going back to my starting point, I believe in Robert Peel’s maxim, but we must ensure that the police truly reflect the people.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

rose—

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, I remind Members that this debate is about the recording of crime statistics, rather than a general debate about policing. We have plenty of time for the debate, but we should focus on the content of the Select Committee’s report and the Government’s response.

[Jack Dromey]

That brings me neatly to my concluding remarks. Frankly, there is a problem with the stats, which simply cannot be relied on. The debate over the past 12 months is therefore hugely welcome, in terms of ensuring that in future the stats can be effectively relied on. I counsel the Government not to be overconfident in their reliance on some of the stats. More importantly, I echo the words of the Chair of the Committee. It is not only the Select Committee saying this; the ONS, HMIC and UKSA are saying it, too. There is a widespread view that the stats, and the culture giving rise to the stats, are deeply problematic, and in those circumstances it is ultimately about responsibility and accountability from the top downwards. The Select Committee is therefore right to challenge the Government on what they intend to do about it. I wait to hear precisely that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Baker]

I do not pretend that the crime survey is perfect, but I think calling it far from ideal is over-egging the pudding.

As to whether plastic card fraud is covered, evidence from the crime survey on such crime shows a fall, from 6.4% of card holders falling victim in 2009-10 to 5.2% in the year ending June 2014. That fall is broadly in line with the reduction in crime in the survey during the same period. It would be disingenuous to imply that that such crime is not captured, or that including it would skew the figures dramatically. Indeed, the Office for National Statistics, which is of course independent of the Government, made the point in a press briefing this morning that the pattern of plastic card crime and victimisation in recent years would not change recent downward trends in the overall crime survey figures. It was fairly strong on that point.

Figures for the number of victims of plastic card fraud have been published since 2005-06 but have not been included in the headline count in the crime survey, for several reasons, including concerns about double counting of frauds and thefts, and questions about whether the victim is the card issuer or the issuing bank. However, we know that the number of holders of plastic cards who have been subjected to such fraud has declined during the relevant period.

[Jack Dromey]

The Minister is selectively taking one area of fraud and online crime. It is true that there has been significant progress in chip and pin technology, but does the Minister agree with the opinion of the ONS that about 3.5 million crimes—fraud and online cybercrime—are not properly recorded in the statistics that he regards as gold plated?

[Norman Baker]

No other national crime survey that I am aware of, including that of the USA, covers fraud as well as the crime survey for England and Wales. It is not true that fraud is not included, although more certainly needs to be done to ensure that our society is aware of the extent of fraud, which is potentially much greater because of online activities. That is certainly true. This morning, the Office for National Statistics recognised that the transfer of fraud recording from forces to Action Fraud has led to an increase in the number of recorded fraud offences, although that is beginning to level out now. There was underreporting of fraud, but Action Fraud has been taking steps, by its very existence, to deal with that matter to some degree. Yes, there is more work to do on fraud—I fully accept that—but it would not be fair to suggest that the crime survey’s overall trends, which I have mentioned, would be skewed if fraud were fully captured in the way that the hon. Gentleman wishes to see.

If the Committee wants to return to how the crime survey is conducted, that is a perfectly legitimate exercise, which no doubt it will wish to carry out. Even if I did not want the Committee to carry it out, it would still do so anyway. I look forward to that happening in due course.

In conclusion, we have an independent crime survey in England and Wales, which is the gold standard and has run since 1981, producing figures that can, I believe, be relied upon to a large degree. We also have police recorded crime, which has varied in quality; I fully accept that. We have taken steps, as a Government, to try to deal with that matter, along with the HMIC. I welcome the Committee’s work on that as well, which will lead to good results in due course. We are working with the ONS to develop a separate fraud module for the crime survey for England and Wales. We have already identified more work that has to be done in that regard and that is coming through in due course, to try to make that better as well. I think the public at large can be confident that the crime survey for England and Wales is a fair reflection, that police recorded crime is now improving and, most of all, that crime in this country is down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I have the hon. Gentleman’s interests in mind; he need not worry.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The first duty of any Government is the safety and security of their citizens, but with the Home Secretary having imposed the biggest cuts to the police service of any country in Europe, including a cut of 8,000 from response alone, the police are taking up to 30% longer to respond to calls for help. Does the Home Secretary accept that she is failing in her duty and that, as a result of her swingeing cuts to our police service, sometimes desperate citizens dial 999 only to be let down in their hour of need?

[Mike Penning]

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, and outside the Chamber we are actually quite good friends. I am sure he would agree that the police service do an absolutely fantastic job. There has been a reduction in police officers, and there has been a reduction in crime. Two thousand police officers who were in back-office roles are now in front-line roles, and that is what we want to see, along with crime coming down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The decision to close the custody suite at Selby was first taken in 2000, under the previous Government, and it has been a source of some controversy ever since. The custody suite was reopened, but, as my hon. Friend says, the chief constable has now decided to close it again. I would be very happy to look at the case, and to discuss it with the police and crime commissioner.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary introduced police and crime commissioners. Tragically, Bob Jones, the PCC for the west midlands, died last week. He was an outstanding champion of all that is best in British policing, and a man of great personal integrity. He has yet to be buried, but the Home Secretary’s legislation obliges a by-election to be held on 21 August. How much will a by-election for an electorate of 2 million cost, and does the Minister anticipate a turnout higher or lower than the 13% who elected Bob Jones?

[Damian Green]

I absolutely echo the hon. Gentleman’s tribute to Bob Jones, who gave his life to public service over many decades. He held his beliefs very strongly, and he expressed them very strongly. My condolences and those of the home affairs team go to his wife, and his friends and family.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that a by-election is triggered by two people calling it. He will also be aware that, frankly, it was not done at the behest of either his party or mine. I take the point that the by-election will take place in the middle of August. It is therefore the responsibility of all politicians—particularly, I should say, of Members of Parliament in the west midlands—to ensure that people get out and vote. As people now realise, the police and crime commissioner is an important post, and it is important that the people of the west midlands have a say in who the next police and crime commissioner is.

Public Administration Select Committee

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for this opportunity to launch the Public Administration Select Committee’s report entitled “Caught red-handed: Why we can’t count on Police Recorded Crime statistics”. The Daily Telegraph has already described our report as “devastating”. That is because this is not just about inaccurate numbers; it is about the long crisis of values and ethics at the heart of our police force.

Crime statistics are central to our understanding of the nature and prevalence of crime in England and Wales. They provide crucial information for the police, without which they would have no way of knowing how to deploy their manpower and resources. We found strong evidence that the police under-record crime, particularly sexual crimes such as rape, in many police areas. Lax supervision of recorded crime data means that the police are failing in their core role of protecting the public and preventing crime. The main reason for this mis-recording is the continued prevalence of numerical targets. They create perverse incentives to mis-record crime, so a police officer is presented with a conflict: does he or she record “attempted burglary”, as was originally reported, or subsequently downgrade it to “criminal damage” in order to achieve the burglary target? That creates conflict between the achievement of targets and core policing values. We deprecate the use of targets in the strongest possible terms. But most police forces are still in denial about the damage that targets cause both to data integrity and to standards of behaviour.

The Home Office must accept responsibility for the quality of police recorded crime statistics and do more to discourage the use of targets. As a result of PASC’s inquiry, the UK Statistics Authority has already stripped police recorded crime data of the quality kitemark, “National Statistics”. The Home Office, the Office for National Statistics and the UK Statistics Authority have all been far too passive in addressing this problem, even though they have all known about it for years. Leadership by targets is a flawed leadership model, and that is what really must be addressed, because poor data integrity reflects the poor quality of leadership within the police. What does the institutional dishonesty about police recorded crime say about their compliance with the core values of policing, which are meant to include accountability, honesty and integrity?

That comes on top of all the other controversies that have raised questions about the values and ethics of the police and their leadership: Hillsborough; Stephen Lawrence; the attempt to hide the cause of Ian Tomlinson’s death in the G20 protests; Plebgate; Operation Elveden, about the police accepting payments from journalists to leak unauthorised information; just last month, four police officers under investigation for allegedly getting a burglar to confess to 500 crimes he apparently did not commit; and many other instances.

I yield to no one in my admiration and respect for so many police officers. They put their lives at risk in the line of duty while they serve our communities. We see them around this Palace, ready to throw themselves between us and the terrorists if the need arises. Yet these same officers are deeply cynical about the quality of their leadership and its honesty and integrity.

That is why we recommend that the Committee on Standards in Public Life conduct a wide-ranging inquiry into the police’s compliance with the new code of ethics and, in particular, into the role of leadership in promoting and sustaining those values.

The most depressing part of our inquiry is the way in which the Metropolitan police have treated my constituent, PC James Patrick, who was our key witness. He says he has been forced to resign from the Metropolitan police. Acting as a whistleblower, he tried to highlight serious concerns about police recorded crime and the target culture. We record the fact that we are indebted to PC Patrick for his courage in speaking out, in fulfilment of his duty to the highest standards of public service despite intense pressure to the contrary.

I am pleased that the Minister for Crime Prevention has now written to me—he is on the Front Bench at the moment—to say that the Home Office is looking at a range of what he calls radical proposals to strengthen the protection of whistleblowers within the police. But this has all come too late for PC Patrick. By a quirk of the rules, police offices are denied what is called “interim relief” in constructive dismissal cases, so he will cease to be paid from 6 June while he awaits his tribunal, which will not be until August or September.

We are calling for Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to investigate the Metropolitan police service in respect of the treatment of PC Patrick. We do not believe that the Metropolitan police service has treated him fairly or with respect and care.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I have a brief question, but first may I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and PASC for a forensic report which charts a long-standing and deep-seated problem? Sir Andrew Dilnot said in evidence to the Committee that the more accurate crime statistics become, the more likely they are to show that crime is rising. Now that we have the Committee’s verdict that we can no longer rely on crime statistics, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be most unwise, until such time as the system has been changed in the way the Committee recommended, for Ministers to rely on the crime statistics to assert that crime is falling?

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his compliments, but I am not sure that that is quite what Sir Andrew said. What the Office for National Statistics has said is that crime may not be falling quite as fast as police recorded crime suggests, but the crime survey for England and Wales, which is a survey not a recording system, does corroborate the fact that crime is falling. That is the figure the Labour party relied on when in government and it is the figure the Government of any party are entitled to rely upon.

On the substantive point that we need to improve the auditing of police recorded crime statistics in order to make them a more reliable source of data, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right.