Donald Trump

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. America is a great country—the land of the free and one of our oldest allies. Donald Trump is a fool. He is free to be a fool; he is not free to be a dangerous fool on our shores.

Here are some of the foolish things that Donald Trump has said:

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

“It’s freezing and snowing in New York—we need global warming!”

Of John McCain he said:

“He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, OK, I hate to tell you.”

Then he went on the offensive. He said about Mexico:

“I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively, I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall.

Mark my words.”

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent case as to why Donald Trump is a buffoon, not a criminal.

[Jack Dromey]

The remarks are daft and offensive. I defend people’s right to be daft and offensive. I was chairman of the National Council for Civil Liberties—now Liberty—and have fought to defend freedom of speech throughout my life, but freedom of speech is not an absolute. Neither is there an absolute right for Donald Trump or anyone else to come to our shores. Successive Governments have acted to exclude the preachers of hate whose presence would not be conducive to the public good. Preachers of hate, the effect of whose actions and words would be to incite violence, have no right to come to Britain.

I have some examples of the kinds of people who have been banned. Michael Savage, a US radio host, was

“considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour…and fostering hatred”.

He claimed that American Muslims “need deportation” and was banned from coming to our country. Yunis Al Astal, the Hamas MP and preacher, was found to be guilty of “unacceptable behaviour”. He had made a series of anti-Semitic remarks and was banned from coming to our country. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, founders of Stop Islamization of America and the American Freedom Defence Initiative, were banned in 2013 by the current Secretary of State for the Home Office when they were due to speak at an English Defence League rally to be held on the location of Lee Rigby’s murder, as their arrival was deemed not

“conducive to the public good”.

Safwat Hegazi, an Egyptian television preacher, was in the words of the Home Office

“considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by glorifying terrorist violence”.

He had called for violence against Jews.

What has Donald Trump actually said? Of course, legendarily he spoke about a total and complete shutdown on Muslims entering the United States. He went on to say that

“51% of those polled, ‘agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.’”

He said:

“Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won’t convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women.”

It is little wonder that after those remarks a rise in attacks against Muslims in America was recorded.

Why do I argue for the exclusion of Donald Trump? It is because of the context in which we are having this debate. Our country faces a uniquely awful threat—a generational threat of evil terrorism. Terrorist arrests are being made at the rate of one a day in Britain. A key to preventing terrorist attacks has been the patient building by the police service of good relationships with the Muslim community through neighbourhood policing. That has been a key to the successful detection of terrorist after terrorist. The terrorism confronting the country takes two forms: first, organised cells that are organised from Raqqa; and, secondly, a strategy of radicalising the vulnerable—and in particular those with mental illness, and those suffering a sense of victimhood, encouraged by ISIS.

[Sir David Amess in the Chair]

What makes Donald Trump’s presence in our country so dangerous is that in the current febrile climate, ISIS needs Donald Trump and Donald Trump needs ISIS. On the one hand, ISIS needs to be able to say, “Muslims, you are under attack.” On the other hand, Donald Trump needs to be able to say, “You are under attack by Muslims.” That is why I strongly believe he should not be allowed to come to our country. Just think what would happen in the current climate if he came to Birmingham, London or Glasgow and preached that message of divisive hate. It would be damaging, dangerous and deeply divisive.

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Gentleman makes some really interesting points. The examples he uses, however, are surely more about Donald Trump being a bigot than hatred. Britain is pretty good at roasting beef. Does the hon. Gentleman not think it would be better to just roast Trump?

[Jack Dromey]

I am sorry; I do not think that a debate such as this calls for flippancy. With the greatest of respect, when our police service and our security services are working night and day to prevent our country from being attacked, and when they need the support of the Muslim community, to have someone come to our shores who demonises all of the Muslim community would be fundamentally wrong and would undermine the safety and security of our citizens. That is not a risk I am prepared to take.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says powerfully. That has been echoed by the Muslim Members, who have given powerful evidence about how Donald Trump makes them feel. However, are not British values strong enough to stand up to that? Does it not help our Muslim community to hear voices on all sides of this House standing up for the values we believe in as a nation?

[Jack Dromey]

I strongly believe in the unity of all faiths, and indeed of those across the political spectrum, in rejecting terrorism. I welcome the initiatives in which I think all Members have been involved in their respective constituencies, and we have such initiatives in Birmingham. The simple reality, however, is that if a vulnerable radicalised young man who has mental illness and who believes in the victimhood promoted by ISIS hears Donald Trump in London or Birmingham, the consequences could be very serious indeed.

In conclusion, I do not think Donald Trump should be allowed within 1,000 miles of our shores, because he would embolden the EDL on the one hand and fuel the flames of terrorism on the other. Donald Trump is free to be a fool, but he is not free to be a dangerous fool in Britain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

When the previous Government announced a review—in 2006, I think—that was one of the reasons why they looked at the funding formula so closely. Yes, we most certainly will look at funding for rural constituencies and rural police forces, just as we will look at why that is so opaque under the present system.

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

The police were the unsung heroes of the floods crisis, which was the latest example of the growing pressures on a diminishing police service. The Policing Minister was right to apologise for the omnishambles of the chaos over the police funding formula. Will he also admit that it is simply not true that there will be, in the words of the Chancellor,

“no cuts in the police budget at all”?—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1373.]

[Mike Penning]

I visited Lancashire last Thursday on my first visit as the fire Minister as well as the Policing Minister. Although I absolutely praise the work of the police force, which went way beyond what we would expect any of our officers to do, all the other emergency services did so as well. The chief constable thanked me for making sure that there were no cuts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

The police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall found a mistake we had not noticed in the funding matrix and I fully apologised for that in the House last week. I will work very closely with the PCC for Devon and Cornwall, not only on the new policing formula, but on the nature of crime, which is changing around this country on a daily basis.

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

I strongly agree with the statement made by the Home Secretary earlier in solidarity with the French people, the victims of barbarism—a barbarism that will never be allowed to triumph.

Neighbourhood policing is the bedrock of policing yet, despite promises to the contrary, 12,000 police have gone from the frontline in the past five years. From Cornwall to Cumbria, police and crime commissioners of all parties are expressing concern. Does the police Minister agree with the Conservative PCC for Thames Valley, where the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister live? He says that the cuts have “gone too far”, run the risk of reversing a generation of progress on crime and will endanger investment such as that for combating child sexual exploitation. Is he right?

[Mike Penning]

What the police and crime commissioner of Thames Valley should be congratulated on is cutting crime by 31% in the past five years, with a very difficult spending round. As we develop the new funding formula, I am sure there will be lots of conversations across the House about how the process should be taken forward. There will be winners and losers, but at present it is suspended. I congratulate Thames Valley on the work it has been doing.

Policing

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I am very pleased to contribute to this debate on policing. I am a criminal barrister by training, as I should probably declare at the outset. I have prosecuted hundreds of offences—from youth robberies in the magistrates court to murders and terrorism offences in the Old Bailey—and I know as well as anyone that our criminal justice system owes an enormous debt of gratitude to our police officers, particularly officers who carry out their duties with a tenacity that is always tempered by fairness. I believe our best police officers, particularly the ones I worked with in counter-terrorism and homicide cases, embody the finest traditions of British policing, with a determination to pursue lines of inquiry wherever they may lead and to get to the truth, however inconvenient that may be. The officers I worked with in serious cases were, without doubt, among the finest to be found anywhere in the world.

The background to this debate is the difficult funding climate that the police, and indeed other public services, have faced. We cannot get away from that, or forget that despite having the fastest growing economy in the developed world—generating more jobs in Yorkshire alone, the county of the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), than in the entirety of France, and creating more employment for young people in the United Kingdom than in the rest of the EU put together—we are still running a very significant deficit. If we do not get the deficit under control, it will be a real and present danger to our financial stability. It is also right to say that if we do not get it under control, the deficit will do nothing to keep crime levels as low as we want them to be. Indeed, if we do not get it under control, we will not be able to continue to plough more money into our NHS and into protecting our schools.

How have the police responded to this funding climate? They have risen to the challenge magnificently. Crime has fallen since 2010: there have been 2.9 million fewer crimes, 189,000 fewer burglaries and 465,000 fewer violent offences. The independent crime survey for England and Wales shows a fall of 8% in the year to the end of June 2015. In my own county of Gloucestershire, crime is down by 18%. That is a tribute to the police officers who have shown such resourcefulness and dedication in serving the people of Gloucestershire, and my constituency of Cheltenham in particular. It is worth noting that those stunning falls have been achieved in the context of a much improved reporting culture, with people feeling better able to report crime, particular sexual offences.

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

The hon. Gentleman, with his considerable experience, asserts that crime is falling. May I quote City of London Police Commissioner Adrian Leppard, who is the national fraud co-ordinator? He said in a circular to all police and crime commissioners and chief constables that the crime survey for England and Wales will shortly include at least

“an extra 3 million fraud and cyber incidents”.

That reflects for the first time the changing and true nature of crime and, in his words, is

“an increase of up to 40%.”

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that crime is changing. That is of course correct, and I will come on to that in a moment. However, the truth—the inconvenient truth for Labour Members, some might say—is that the figures cited are the very figures on which they relied, being those of the independent crime survey for England and Wales. It is no good saying, “Yes, we relied on those in the past but we are not going to rely on them now because they are inconvenient.” There has to be consistency across the piece. There is that consistency of reporting and the figures are unanswerable: crime has come down.

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. friend makes an important point, one that I was trying to make at the outset. We have to live within our means, not least because if we do not and the implications of economic instability befall our country, one thing that will rise, just as the sun rises in the morning, is crime. That is another reason why we have to live within our means.

How have the police managed to achieve this fall in crime? They have been innovative and forward-thinking. Savings have been made through improved procurement, which has delivered more than £200 million; the police have become less top heavy, rebalancing their forces in favour of rank and file officers; and they have redeployed their assets, putting a higher proportion of police officers on the frontline. As for the Government, it is right to say that the key priorities have been maintained and properly funded. I am particularly interested in counter-terrorism, and £564 million has been put towards supporting counter-terrorism policing in 2015-16. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has received additional funding, as has the police innovation fund. The College of Policing direct entry schemes have also been properly supported. Let us just look at what the police innovation fund has done. It is a multimillion pound fund that will consider proof of concept bids, as well as implementation-ready bids, to support innovation and breakthrough ideas.

[Jack Dromey]

The hon. Gentleman has asserted that counter-terrorism is fully funded. There is unanimity across this House in our determination to tackle the generational threat of terrorism, and there is effective funding of the national and regional strategies accordingly. But what does he have to say to Peter Clarke, the former head of counter-terrorism, who has said that what the Government are missing is neighbourhood policing? He said that if we hollow out neighbourhood policing, we

“risk breaking the ‘golden thread’”—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. That is a very long intervention and the hon. Gentleman’s time is running out.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the work of the West Midlands police and the men and women who protect communities across the west midlands. As HMIC has pointed out, police forces across the country have been facing significant challenges, but West Midlands police were singled out for praise for how they have responded to those challenges. Since 2010, crime has fallen by 17% across the west midlands. Certain categories of crime have shown recent increases, but that is due to the success of getting people to come forward more readily to report those crimes. West Midlands police have had to do more with less, and as a metropolitan police force has faced funding challenges.

[Jack Dromey]

HMIC has certified that the west midlands crime statistics are 99% accurate and they now show an increase of up to 5% in recorded crime. Would the hon. Gentleman therefore like to reconsider the comments he has just made?

[James Morris]

The hon. Gentleman knows that since 2010 crime has fallen across the west midlands by 17%. As I have just said, there have been some increases in crime such as domestic violence, which I think is a tribute to West Midlands police in encouraging people to report such crimes.

I welcome the Government’s plans to revise the funding formula. West Midlands police are a low council tax precept force and are dependent on Government grant to a large extent. One of the key criteria for the new funding formula is to take that challenge into account, so I look forward to seeing how the new formula will help West Midlands police with their funding settlement. There are big challenges for West Midlands police and I know that through the work they have done with Accenture they have carried out a comprehensive review of the future of policing in the west midlands and have mapped out some strategic priorities through a transformation plan. I support that work.

The West Midlands police and crime commissioner has made some decisions that have been characterised by short termism. They have been driven by a desire to generate political opposition rather than being taken in the long-term interest of West Midlands police. I would put the police station closure programme being considered by the police and crime commissioner, which includes the police station in Halesowen, in that category. It cannot be right that West Midlands police are spending £33 million on refurbishing their central base in Birmingham while proposing to embark on a closure programme across the west midlands and the black country that will probably deliver savings in the region of £3.5 million to £4 million. It is vital across the west midlands and the black country area, part of which I represent, that the police are not seen to be losing their footprint in local communities. The Halesowen chamber of trade has expressed concern, which I share, about the lack of police visibility in the town centre.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

I welcome today’s debate on this important matter.

The headquarters of Lancashire constabulary are in my constituency of South Ribble. Indeed, I can see the building from my bedroom window. I have many neighbours and friends who are members of the police force. Lancashire constabulary was rated an outstanding force as recently as last month. I commend the work of Chief Constable Finnigan and Chief Superintendent Lee, and all those in the Lancashire police family who put their lives on the line every day to protect our communities.

I welcome the fact that police reform is working. Crime is down in South Ribble and down in Lancashire by over a quarter since 2010. Lancashire constabulary has made significant changes in the last five years. There is a centralised control room and there have been innovations using mobile technology. I know that the chief constable talked about that when he addressed the Home Affairs Committee yesterday. Such innovations, including those that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) spoke about, free up time for other police work. I know that there is more to do. The chief constable has told me that there is more to do in terms of real estate, particularly in respect of the large site at Hutton that the constabulary owns.

Lancashire has been mentioned many times in this debate, including by the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper), who is not in her place. Some of the figures that have been bandied about are speculative and slightly unhelpful.

[Jack Dromey]

The chief constable of Lancashire, Steve Finnigan, is one of the most outstanding chief constables in Britain. When he says that the proposed cuts will make Lancashire a less safe place to live, is he right?

[Seema Kennedy]

The word is “proposed”, but the problem is that a lot of what the police and crime commissioner says is based on figures that we know nothing about. There is a lot of speculation about what will come out in the autumn statement in three weeks’ time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

As possibly the only person in the Chamber who has actually handled a police budget, I must say that over the past few hours I have had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. In my first week as deputy Mayor for policing in London I was told by various senior police officers that if I even thought about touching the budget, it would be the end of life as we know it. The first thing they would wave in front of me was safer neighbourhood teams. In every one of the four budgets I handled during my period at the Met, safer neighbourhood teams were the first saving to be rolled out. Of course, that was designed to frighten me and put me off making the much-needed savings and efficiencies in the force. Despite the fact that during my time I took something like 12% out of the overall Met budget, crime fell very significantly.

I also got used to armchair chief constables giving their views. Opposition Front Benchers have today made much of Peter Clarke. Lovely man though he is, Peter Clarke retired over 10 years ago, so he has not seen a budget for over a decade. Opposition Members would do much better to rely on more up-to-date expertise.

[Jack Dromey]

The concerns expressed by Peter Clarke about the impact on counter-terrorism of the hollowing out of neighbourhood policing have been echoed publicly in the past three months by the current head of counter-terrorism, Mark Rowley. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that good neighbourhood policing—forming relationships, gathering intelligence and being the eyes and ears—is key to counter-terrorism?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We need interventions to be short, because I am worried that the hon. Gentleman will not have enough time to respond to the debate in his own speech.

--- Later in debate ---

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

Last night in Alum Rock in Birmingham, the shadow Home Secretary and I saw British neighbourhood policing at its best, and a community transformed from a troubled past to a safe place to live with a thriving economy. Why? Because of 10 years of the patient building of good community relationships, as well as outstanding neighbourhood police officers such as Inspector Chris Smith and Sergeant Ifti Ali, who both said, “We love the job”. Local residents and retailers were waxing lyrical about their relationship with their neighbourhood police officers—my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) was right about the importance of good neighbourhood policing to strong local economies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) is right to say that one of the great legacies of the last Labour Government was neighbourhood policing. The Labour Government provided 17,000 more police officers and 16,000 PCSOs. They introduced local policing with local roots, giving people a local say and creating strong partnerships with the community and other key stakeholders. We were given evidence of that by my hon. Friends the Members for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff), both of whom made excellent speeches.

The Home Secretary has described the police as crime-fighters, but we have a wider vision than that. Policing is about preventing crime and diverting people from crime. That model is celebrated worldwide and is often celebrated in the House, but now, tragically, a generation of progress in the reduction of crime is being reversed.

The first duty of any Government is to maintain the safety and security of their citizens, but in the last five years this Government have made swingeing cuts. A total of 17,000 police officers have gone, which broke a promise given by the Home Secretary, and 4,500 PCSOs have gone as well. We have seen the progressive hollowing out of neighbourhood policing. Communities complain increasingly that there is no longer any visible presence of police officers, and they are right. There are profoundly worrying signs that the Government are ignoring repeated warnings, and that—in the words of a past president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sir Hugh Orde—the “tipping point” is now being reached. I shall say more about that later.

It seems that the Government are determined to blunder on regardless, oblivious to the consequences of their actions. As for the Chancellor, who gives hubris a bad name, he appears to be impervious to criticism as he presses forward with his ideological agenda to shrink the state. The cuts of between 25% and 40% that are currently being discussed will result in catastrophic consequences for our police service in the next five years; indeed, forces have warned that they could reduce the service to its lowest level since the 1970s.

These cuts are not just huge but unfair, as is clear from the fiasco of the funding formula. Only this Government could acknowledge that the current formula was opaque and unfair, and then, having made a complete mess of the consultative process, replace it with a formula that was opaque and unfair. That process has been described by Conservative police and crime commissioners as unjustified, deeply flawed and shambolic. It now faces a legal challenge, and the hon. Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) admitted that it gave rise to concern.

I pay tribute to the way in which the police service has coped with immense difficulties in ever more difficult circumstances, but we are now talking about the cumulative impact of the last five years and what is proposed over the next five years. What will that mean? As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), it will mean the end of neighbourhood policing as we have known it. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), PCSOs are becoming an endangered species. And as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), we are seeing a return to a reactive and discredited model of policing, with Robocops touring estates in cars rather than engaging with the community.

The thin blue line is being stretched ever thinner. The police are ever more removed from the communities whom they serve, and fewer and fewer of them are struggling to do ever more. As cuts in public agencies bite ever harder, the demands on the police, as the force of last resort, are becoming ever greater. We have already seen some of the consequences. Chief constables talk increasingly of becoming a blue light service. In some forces, response times have gone up by 57%, and in a number of forces, police are no longer turning out to deal with reported crimes such as burglary.

The Government cannot say that they have not been warned. In recent weeks, we have heard a chorus of voices from London to Lancashire. Police officers have spoken out, and powerful contributions have been made to today’s debate by my hon. Friends the Members for Burnley (Julie Cooper), for Halifax (Holly Lynch), for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), and for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith). The message is clear: the growing impact is serious, and will become ever more serious during the next stages of this process.

Thus far, the Government have sought to hide behind a false alibi. They say, “Yes, we cut police, but we cut crime as well.” It is true that, as is the case in the western world, volume crime is falling. We have also seen the benefits of a generation of good neighbourhood policing in reducing some crimes, but the statistics do not give a full picture. The latest ONS statistics show a 5% increase in police recorded crime, and increasingly as police recorded crime is cleaned up with more effective recording, we are seeing a 9% increase in knife crime, sexual crime up 12% and hate crime up 18%, but it is the crime survey of England and Wales that the Government repeatedly depend upon. The only problem is it does not reflect the full extent of rapidly growing fraud and cybercrime. It is now being said by the police—by the national co-ordinator for fraud—that as 5.1 million crimes are included from the first quarter of next year, the crime survey will show an increase of 40%.

This is the worst possible time to cut the police service, not just because fraud and cybercrime are rapidly growing—RBS has said by 40% a year—but also because of twin challenges. First, there is the generational threat of terrorism. Powerfully evidenced by Peter Clarke, former head of counter-terrorism, and Mark Rowley, the current head is the fact that neighbourhood policing is the eyes and ears of the police service engaging with local communities. I have seen the success of that in the west midlands, which I am proud to represent. Secondly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax said—she is from a police family—there are the immense challenges of child sexual exploitation and abuse. There is a great national will that we act, and the police are doing so, but in the west midlands alone the size of the public protection unit has gone up from 300 officers to 800 and they are struggling to cope. So it is the worst possible time to cut the police service.

The evidence is clear: the Government are putting public safety and the vulnerable at risk. I have searched high and low in the manifestos of Conservative Members and I cannot find one of them saying to his or her community, “Vote for me and I will support the cutting of 22,000 police officers.”

The time has come for the Government to listen to the growing chorus of concern, including from within their own ranks. The Home Secretary’s own PCC, the delightful old Macmillanite, Anthony Stansfeld, says he just cannot get home to the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister, who also lives in the Thames valley area, just how serious the mounting consequences are of what their Government are doing.

The Government may be impervious to the mounting concerns and oblivious to the consequences of their actions, but Labour is not. Of course, as the shadow Home Secretary has said, sensible savings can be made. We identified that ourselves in terms of a national procurement strategy, which was rejected by the Government. Of course we need a sensible reform agenda. We need to raise standards, hold the police to the highest standards and root out wrongdoing. We also need greater diversity. The Home Secretary was right to challenge the police to rise to the challenge of greater diversity, but it is wrong then to make it nigh-on impossible for the police to do that because, effectively, most police forces cannot recruit to achieve it.

The Government have to stop blaming the police for things that the Government are responsible for. All over the country I meet police officers who say to me, time and again, “They never have a kind word to say about us.” That remorselessly negative tone, combined with the growing pressures, is seeing morale plummeting and sickness and stress leave soaring. The Policing Minister says on many occasions that somehow Labour are criticising the police; on the contrary, we are standing up for a police service that is under immense and growing pressures from his Government.

We are rooted in the communities we serve and we listen to the voices of the police and the public because, ultimately, this is about the kind of country we want to live in and the kind of police service we want. We want policing by consent, in the great tradition of Robert Peel. The British model of policing is the expression of British values. Tonight, all Members have the opportunity to search their conscience and decide whether to stand up for the British police service. We will vote to do precisely that. Our position is clear: Labour is the party of public safety, and the Tories are putting public safety and security at risk.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

Domestic violence is one of the more difficult crimes to prosecute, not least because the victim very often changes their mind or does not want a prosecution to take place, but when they see the video evidence of what they look like when the police officers arrive, their confidence often grows, which means that we see more convictions going forward, so I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

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

For the past five years, the Government have claimed that they have cut the police and cut crime. Now we know the truth: once fraud and online crime are included in the crime statistics next year, crime will have risen by up to 40%. Will the Home Secretary finally admit therefore that crime is not falling but changing, and that with the threat of terrorism, the demands of protecting our children and of growing violent and sexual crime, this is the worst possible time to cut another 23,000 police officers?

[Mike Penning]

This Government are not cutting 23,000 police officers, as the shadow Minister knows full well. Yet again I have to say that he is much better than his comments. We would be really happy—I would be really happy—if more people had the confidence to come forward and report domestic violence and those figures went up. I am sure that that would be welcome across the House. It is also right and proper that this Government, unlike the previous one, include fraud in the figures.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

One of the things we definitely want is for hon. Members, the police and crime commissioners and local communities to be part of the consultation, and my hon. Friend’s comments could well be part of that commentary.

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

Recorded crime has risen in the west midlands and Northumbria and fallen in Surrey, yet West Midlands police and Northumbria police have been hit by Government cuts twice as hard as Surrey police. The Prime Minister now talks of fairness in one nation, but how can it be fair that the areas of highest need are the hardest hit by his Government?

[Mike Penning]

The funding reductions were the same across the country. We are making sure—I hope Her Majesty’s Opposition take part in this—that we look very carefully at the changes we are proposing to funding and the funding formula. I look forward to sitting with the hon. Gentleman, which he has not taken the time to do in all the time I have been the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice, and talking about the funding formula that he goes on and on about.

Devolution and Growth across Britain

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

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

Birmingham is a great city, with a great history, at the heart of England. It is the city of Chamberlain—the city that saw the foundation of municipal governance and municipal enterprise; the city of a thousand trades; the workshop of the world. It is a city with great strengths to this day—world-class companies such as Jaguar Land Rover, world-class sectors such as life sciences and world-class universities—but it is a city that has been hard hit. It was hard hit in the 1980s by Thatcher’s closures, when half our industrial base went. It is a city that still has high unemployment, and one in which too many are on low wages: about 24,000 are on the minimum wage, and in my Erdington constituency, average earnings are £60 less than the national average. It is a city now suffering the biggest cuts in local government history, with every single household losing £2,000 as a consequence of what this Government did in their first term. But, together with the region, it is a city that is ambitious for the future and determined to transform the west midlands into an economic powerhouse. It is determined also that we will not end up like the Ohio of Britain—a place that people fly over, but never touch down in.

My appeal to the Government is this: England cannot succeed without its heart beats, so that all of England succeeds. It is likewise with Great Britain, as all of Scotland and Wales must succeed.

Labour was the party of devolution—for Scotland, Wales and London. I welcome the more recent conversion of many Conservative Members, although the new Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, a man of great integrity, has been a long-standing supporter of this agenda. The Government’s approach, however, is still characterised by a poverty of ambition. There is still a reluctance to ensure a settlement for all of England, Scotland and Wales. There is a real danger of dividing our nations, as mentioned in a brilliant speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson).

There is also a fundamental inconsistency. The Secretary of State will remember that when we debated the Localism Bill, I said that the Government were sometimes more Leninist than localist. How can the Government say, “All power to the people” and “Let the people decide”, and then say about the issue of mayors three years on, when people in the west midlands have decided—Birmingham and Coventry did not want mayors—“It does not matter what you have decided. We are going to decide for you, and if you want that radical devolution deal, you will have to embrace what we want, whether or not you want it”? That cannot be right.

There is another key problem about the new settlement: the Government cannot both empower and impoverish. What we have seen, following the general election, is a damascene conversion. What is the mantra now? It is “One nation, working people and compassion”. One nation? How can it be right that every household in Birmingham has lost £2,000, while in Cheshire East, which includes the Chancellor’s constituency, spending power has gone up? How can it be right that the west midlands has seen cuts to our police service twice as severe as those in leafy Surrey?

Still on the notion of one nation, how can it be right that carers and the disabled fear what the announcements might be when the Government finally spell out where they are going to get the £12 billion of benefit cuts at the very same time as this Queen’s Speech includes a Bill on tax that says to millionaires, “You need not worry for the duration while we are in power”? The broadest shoulders should bear the biggest burden, but that is not a characteristic of this Government.

As for the Conservatives being a “party of working people”, it is a party that would rob working families of benefits, rob workers of their rights and attack their trade unions in the world of work. A party of working people? Do not make me laugh! As for being a “party of compassion”, this Government will never be able to call themselves that, so long as the scandal of the bedroom tax remains on the statute book.

In conclusion, I saw the Chancellor today with a cock-sure Cheshire cat grin on his face. To be frank, he is out of touch with the uncertainty of the country, blandly asserting that the long-term economic plan is working. Millions of people are still struggling. There is uncertainty for them and uncertainty for our country now, with the European Union referendum ahead. Is it working? We have the biggest housing crisis in a generation, with home ownership falling and housing benefit bills booming, not least because so many people on low pay and in insecure work are paying high rents and cannot survive without housing benefit. Is it working? We also have a major problem with productivity in this country.

One thing I learned a long time ago in the world of work is that we can never succeed as a low-wage, insecure-employment, bargain-basement economy. What works for companies and countries is a high-wage, high-productivity economy. Ours, therefore, is a very different vision: a vision of a dynamic, devolved Britain where everyone has a chance to get on, where no one is left behind, and where there is true compassion. We are our brothers’ keepers. We will never abandon those obligations, no matter what the Government say or do.