Undercover Policing

Debate between Jack Dromey and Mike Penning

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

Let me say to my right hon. Friend that I have never been coy; it is an attribute that I do not really have. On the Wilson doctrine, it is plainly obvious why we have to be careful. There is litigation in place, and we need to make sure that it goes further. By the end of July, Lord Justice Pitchford will set out his remit, including the sorts of things that my right hon. Friend alluded to. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will put them forward directly to make sure that they are part of the inquiry.

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

The allegations in the newspapers today will send a chill up the spine of all those who value free speech, democracy and campaigning for one’s beliefs. Being investigated not for crime but for political beliefs is quite obviously unacceptable.

Almost five years ago, before the last general election, the activities of what was then the special demonstration squad were reported in The Guardian. Over the past few years, we have seen horrifying allegations, many looked at as part of Chief Constable Mick Creedon’s Operation Herne investigations. They include allegations that SDS officers engaged in sexual relationships, and even fathered children, then leaving the women as if the relationship had never occurred; used the identities of dead children for covert identities; and spied on the Lawrence family—the grieving parents of a cruelly murdered son.

Two years ago, the shadow Home Secretary called for stronger safeguards on undercover operations. There remains an overwhelming case, further strengthened today, for more safeguards, including independent pre-authorisation, for example by the Office of Surveillance Commissioners, especially for the small number of long-term covert operations, and then continuous, not paper-based, independent checks. I hope the Minister can respond directly on that point.

Now we also want assurances that the inquiry into the activities of the SDS led by Lord Justice Pitchford will be extended to the allegations set out in the newspapers today. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) said, this is an affront to parliamentary democracy—to the sovereignty and independence of this House. It is also an affront to the vital principle, the breach of which can be very serious indeed, of confidentiality between a Member of Parliament and those he or she represents. Lord Justice Pitchford’s inquiry must be extended to look into the allegations as part of the investigation into the Met’s special demonstration squad. I stress again that undercover policing remains a crucial tool in combating serious and organised crime, but it must not be abused.

In conclusion, Labour has for years pressed for much stronger oversight of undercover policing, and that is all the more important in the light of today’s shocking revelations. Lord Justice Pitchford needs to be able to conduct an extensive and wide inquiry, which, crucially, should have the flexibility to investigate any allegations about undercover policing, in particular those relating to surveillance of Members of this House.

[Mike Penning]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and questions, and I think the whole House shares his concerns, but it is for Lord Pitchford to decide how he wants to take this forward. That is exactly why the concerns touched on—

[Jack Dromey]

What is the view of the Government?

[Mike Penning]

The hon. Gentleman is better than that. This is a really serious inquiry. There have been concerns for many years, including when his own party was in government, but it is this Government who have established an inquiry as a result of the work of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary. We shall wait and we shall work together. If Lord Pitchford asks for more, I am sure we will give him more.

Police

Debate between Jack Dromey and Mike Penning

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey]

Unlike what we heard from the Minister, my hon. Friend speaks from the heart about the reality in his locality, and it is unsurprising, given that the police service that covers the constituency he so ably represents has seen more than 1,300 police officers go, with more to follow at the next stages. There was a good inheritance on the police, but a generation of progress made—the formation of that British model of neighbourhood policing—is now being reversed.

I wish to make one other point about what the Minister said. He paid tribute to our police service and discussed remarkable innovation, which I have seen all over the country. Let me give but one example. Essex police, under its excellent chief constable, Stephen Kavanagh, has developed a groundbreaking system that tracks both the perpetrators and potential perpetrators of domestic violence, and the victims and potential victims of domestic violence, and enables the police to drill all the way down to hot spots of domestic violence to inform other interventions. We see such innovation by our police all over the country. But the Minister, who was previously a firefighter, will know from his experience that the police service in England and Wales is a demoralised one. It is demoralised by the scale of what is happening to the service and by the remorselessly negative tone set by the Government, from the Home Secretary downwards.

[Mike Penning]

rose—

[Jack Dromey]

I will gladly give way, but will the Minister confirm that every index, be it sick, stress or anxiety leave, is shooting up because of the combination of the growing pressures on the police service and the fact that the police feel—people tell me this all over the country—that the Government never have a good word to say about them?

[Mike Penning]

If the hon. Gentleman has ever heard me run down the police in this country or destroy their morale, he should stand up and say so now, because I have never done that. The police force’s morale is being destroyed by the sort of commentary we have just heard from the Opposition Dispatch Box, but he is better than that. The first thing he should have done was congratulate the police, but he went into a political rant. That is what destroys morale in our police force.

[Jack Dromey]

Over the past 12 months, I have visited 34 of the 43 police services, and there is without doubt an unprecedented collapse of morale, from the chief constables to the police constables and PCSOs, because of that combination of the mounting pressures on the police service and the negative tone set by our Government.

We believe that a different approach and a fresh start are essential. Today’s vote on policing is a choice between a Tory plan to cut 1,000 more police officers next year and a Labour plan of reform and savings to protect the front line, so that chief constables can prevent those 1,000 police officer posts from being cut. The Home Secretary should be straining every sinew to protect the front line, but she is not. The Home Secretary and the Tories, and their human shield, the Liberal Democrats, just do not get what pressure the public services and the police are under, and they are turning their backs on obvious savings that could keep those much needed police on our streets.

The Home Secretary has said that it does not matter that thousands more police officers are set to go, on top of the 16,000 already lost, reversing a generation of progress under the previous Labour Government; she says that under her plans all is well because crime is falling. The truth is that crime is changing, pressures on the police are going up, and this is the worst possible time to inflict the biggest cuts on the police service of any country in Europe, just when the police are facing mounting and serious demands.

Over the past 20 years, volume crime, as it is often called, has indeed been falling. Cars are more difficult to steal than they once were, because crime has been substantially designed out, and homes are more difficult to burgle than they once were. That has been a worldwide trend over the past 20 years, because of a combination of advances of the kind I have described and the success of neighbourhood policing, with its emphasis on prevention. But the figures are clear: police recorded violent crime is increasing, and online crime has shot through the roof. For example, Financial Fraud Action UK has said that online banking crime has increased by 71%, e-commerce crime has increased by 23% and card crime has increased by 15%. We have also seen the mounting terrorist threat posing an ever more serious challenge to our police service, and just this weekend assistant commissioner Mark Rowley, the national anti-terror lead, warned that he needs more resources to respond.

At the same time, the police are struggling to deal with crimes that are ever more complex in terms of what it takes to investigate them properly. Hate crime, one of the most hateful of crimes, is up. I have seen this at first hand in my constituency. A fine woman was out with her disabled son, who was in a motorised wheelchair, when he had stones thrown at him because of a whispering campaign about how anyone who has a car or Motability vehicle on benefits somehow has to be a scrounger. I sometimes think that Ministers should be ashamed of the tone they set, because of what it leads to in communities all over the country.

Hate crime is up. Reports of rape and domestic violence are up, yet the number of prosecutions and convictions is down. Reports of child sexual abuse have increased by 33%, but referrals to the CPS from the police have decreased by 11%.

There are serious delays in investigating online child abuse. That means that victims are finding it much harder to get justice and more criminals and abusers are walking away scot-free. After the exposés of the past two years, there is now a great national will to tackle the obscenity of child sex exploitation and abuse, both historical and current. But, because of the mounting pressures on the police, there are serious question marks over the effectiveness of their response. The National Crime Agency, for example, has, thus far, failed to bring to account those identified under Operation Notarise. Some 20,000 people were found to be accessing child pornography, thousands of whom will be contact abusers of children, but only 700 have faced any action.

Police services in Lincolnshire and all over the country say that such are the pressures on their resources that they will find it difficult to do anything other than cope with current cases, and that they will not be able to look into historical cases of abuse and exploitation. I have seen the effect of those mounting pressures in my own police service in the west midlands, where 10% and rising of police resources are now dedicated to doing nothing else but dealing with child sex exploitation and abuse.

Even in basic responsibilities, such as road safety, the police are being over-stretched. The number of traffic police on our roads has fallen by 23%. The number of driving offence penalties has fallen substantially while the number of fatalities and casualties has gone up—the number of child fatalities and casualties has gone up by 6%. Neighbourhood policing is being badly undermined.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

The hon. Gentleman, who is a bit of a friend of mine, is actually reading out, word for word, the article that the shadow Home Secretary put in the press this morning. He is better than that. He should be talking about the debate today and not doing the lackey’s job for the shadow Home Secretary.

[Jack Dromey]

The Minister may be surprised to hear that the Labour party is united in defence of our police service. That is in contrast to what we see all over the country, which is Government Members, including the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), expressing growing concerns over what is happening to the police service. [Interruption.] Members will hear my speech. Now, there are alternative ways to make those savings—[Interruption.]

[Jack Dromey]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I appreciate that this is an uncomfortable message for a Government who have been oblivious to the consequences of their actions. There are alternative ways to make smart savings, and that is what we will do. We will require forces to sign up to national procurement, and that would save—

[Mike Penning]

£100 million.

[Jack Dromey]

Is the Minister aware that the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners has brought forward a proposal on ICT savings alone that would save £400 million, so £100 million is a conservative estimate—please forgive the bad pun.

The Home Secretary has simply refused to go down that path and instead has promoted the view that 43 forces can be trusted to do their own thing with 43 police and crime commissioners arguing over contracts of the kind that make nonsense of any sensible approach towards procurement. That is not what we would see in the best of the private sector or, indeed, in the public sector elsewhere. The Government have failed to drive a strategic approach towards procurement, which has been heavily criticised by the National Audit Office, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and, increasingly, police officers across the country.

Let me move on to the next saving that we will make and ask the Minister a question—perhaps he will want to get up to defend this. Why should the police have to continue to subsidise gun licences? The Minister is not a member of the Chipping Norton shooting set, but perhaps he could justify to the House why it costs £50 for a gun licence and £72 for a salmon and trout licence—£22 more—when it typically costs the police £200 to process each application for a gun licence. Had the Government done the sensible thing and said that they would have full cost recovery, which is what the Association of Chief Police Officers has called for, there would have been substantial savings of £20 million, but that was vetoed by the Prime Minister who, as a fully paid-up member of the Chipping Norton shooting set, declined to do the best and most obvious thing. Would the Minister care to justify that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

What is the shadow Minister trying to say to anyone who has a shotgun licence and happens to be working class, like me? I do not have a shotgun licence, but I do shoot clay occasionally at my local shooting club and I enjoy that very much. For many people who are not from an affluent set and who did not go to public school, like those on the shadow Front Bench and on the Government Front Bench, this is an important part of their social life. People do not have to be part of the Chipping Norton set to have a shotgun licence; they just need to enjoy clay shooting or something like that.

[Jack Dromey]

Under this Government, proposals have been made in the Home Office to move on this matter but they have been vetoed by the Prime Minister. Why should the taxpayer subsidise gun licences? Why should the police service subsidise gun licences when we need to find ways to keep police officers on the front line? Does the Minister choose to come back to me on that point?

[Mike Penning]

All I would say is that there is selective memory loss of 13 years of a Labour Government. Did the Labour Government do anything about this during their last term? No, they did not.

[Jack Dromey]

I think that the public listening to the debate will find it incredible that the Policing Minister can get up and say that despite the fact that the police have been calling for movement on this for years the police should continue to subsidise gun licences rather than that money going into our police service.

We have made a number of other proposals, such as the £9 million from driver offending retraining courses, and we have also proposed not to proceed with the police and crime commissioner elections in 2016. All those things could be done and they could be done now. If they were, those 1,000 police officers who face being cut would not go. At a time when the overall police budget is being squeezed, sensible action on four fronts, as outlined in our proposals today, would mean that the 1,000 police officers who will otherwise go will remain in the police service and on the front line. The Home Secretary could do all these things now, but she has refused. Without those policies in place, we will not support the Government’s proposal today. That is why we will vote against the Home Secretary’s plans and why we will challenge Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates throughout the country on why they are voting to cut hundreds more police officers from their local force next year.

The Government are turning their backs on neighbourhood policing. The impact on our police service is ever more serious. The Government are taking us back to the 1930s. A Labour Government would not allow this to happen. We face unprecedented challenges as crime changes—from terrorism through banking and online fraud to the emerging child abuse and exploitation cases—and we must rise to them. We want to rebuild the neighbourhood policing that helped to cut local crime and helped our citizens to remain safe. We want to rise to those new challenges, which is why we have set out sensible reforms that better protect the front line, and stand up for communities that depend on public services. The first duty of any Government is the safety and security of their citizens where they live and work. Unlike the Government, we will not fail the public we serve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), for giving me early sight of his speech. I say that a little tongue in cheek because it was written by the shadow Home Secretary and issued this morning, and the hon. Gentleman would have read it out verbatim if I had not interrupted him.

This has mostly been a sensible debate in which MPs have rightly stood up for their constituents and praised, as I did in my opening speech, the fantastic work done by police forces across England and Wales, which are the countries for which I have responsibility.

I reiterate my earlier remarks that front-line policing is a vital component, but so much work is done behind the scenes that the public do not see. The hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) intervened on me on that issue. He should visit his chief constable. [Interruption.] I know he probably has already, but he should talk to him very carefully about the work done by non-uniformed police, including CID, the counter-terrorism and serious fraud units, and clerks and officers.

[Jack Dromey]

rose—

[Mike Penning]

The shadow Minister has had plenty of time to read someone else’s speech, so I am not going to give way to him.

I know where the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood is coming from, but there is no way that I would say that front-line police are not important.

I will touch on the shadow Minister’s comments later, but it is important that I first address some of the points raised by Back Benchers, because when I come on to some of his points I am afraid I will find it very difficult to keep a straight face.

[Jack Dromey]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mike Penning]

No, I am not taking interventions from the shadow Minister, because he made a complete fool of himself earlier and I am not going to help him make even more of a fool of himself.

I say to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) that Dorset police do absolutely fantastic work. I think he thought that I might have said, “It all happens here,” or something like that, but that was my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who had come in to listen to his speech. I understand that about 20,000 people go to Bournemouth on a Friday and Saturday to enjoy the night-time entertainment. That shows how diverse police work can be in Dorset, and I praise the work done there. Martyn Underhill will be on the review board, which is important.

My hon. and gallant Friend asked for a commitment until 2016-17, but that is difficult because there is going to be a review and his police and crime commissioner will be on the board. It would be wrong for me to pre-empt that review. As I said in my opening remarks, it is vital that everybody looks at the different types of policing needed, especially going into 2016-17, and at how the formula was formulated all those years ago. That will not be a tweak; we have to take a fundamental look at the changes needed.

[Mike Penning]

I am not going to give way at the moment. I might give way later if I make some progress, but I have been given a time limit by Madam Deputy Speaker, which is why I do not want to give way too much.

Let us not get into the semantics of the speech made by the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane): he was doing exactly what I would expect him to do in standing up for his force. It will be really interesting to see what happens when Manchester gets a mayor. It has clearly worked brilliantly in London, but we will wait to see what the Home Secretary decides. That sort of localism is very important. The PCC for Greater Manchester police does a good job, even though the shadow Minister said today—or was it the shadow Home Secretary?—that Labour wants to abolish the position.

The costings are very interesting. Several hon. Members talked about the number of police cut since the coalition came to power. Interestingly, the speech/article read out by the shadow Minister mentioned 100 new officers. The assumption is that Labour would make a saving of £100 million through procurement. I do not know where that figure comes from. There are always assumptions within procurement, but we are working very closely with forces on that; as I said earlier, it is absolutely fine for Governments to decide what should be done as long as we get it right. The shadow Minister talked about making huge savings on shotgun licences. That matter is currently under review, and an announcement will be made shortly. He said that the abolition of police and crime commissioners would save £50 million, even though I understand that Labour police and crime commissioners were told at the weekend that they were expected to be in place until at least 2017. That is another hand-brake turn following others. I am sure that Vera Baird and Paddy Tipping would love to know exactly what the policy is, because it appears to have changed since the conference.

Even on such assumptions, including that the shadow Minister is right to say that this horrible Government would cut 1,000 police next year—that is complete and utter rubbish—and Labour would put in 100 police officers, that works out at an average of 24 per constabulary. That will make a difference, but not quite the difference that some Opposition Members think the shadow Minister has announced today.

[Jack Dromey]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mike Penning]

I have explained why I will not give way.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) made some important comments in his very measured and sensible speech. When he talked about centralised control and such things, my mind drifted back to the regional fire control centres introduced by the previous Administration. As an ex-fireman, I have followed the issue very closely. I was absolutely fascinated by the sheer waste of taxpayers’ money caused by the disastrous policy of regionalising fire control centres. When I was the Minister with responsibility for shipping, I was very lucky to be able to add the coastguard to the centre in Gosport, which saved the coastguard a huge amount of money; however, it also cost the Department for Communities and Local Government a huge amount.

It is absolutely right to look very carefully wherever there is centralised control. That is why I have always said that forces should work together to make sure that they know exactly what is going on. Forces do not necessarily need to work with their natural partners on their boundary, because they do not have to be next to each other to do procurement, human resources or IT together, as is absolutely vital.

The key to this debate is that although we as constituency MPs quite rightly want to stand up for our forces, we must be aware that ongoing savings are required within police budgets, as the shadow Minister said. We must make sure that the review does what it says on the tin and that we have a proper review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and Mike Penning

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?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and Mike Penning

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and Mike Penning

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[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.

Public Transport (Disabled Access)

Debate between Jack Dromey and Mike Penning

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mike Penning]

That is right. The lift cost £25 million. One issue that has been raised is the age of our network. I do not know whether that applies to our buses. Actually, the situation in London has dramatically improved because all buses have disabled access now. Although we have more modern trains, our stations and platforms are a massive issue for all constituency MPs.

[Jack Dromey]

I thank the Minister for his constructive response to the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan for a wider discussion to take place and the establishment of a working group. That is welcome indeed. May I just ask him about the specific issue of the changes being proposed by London Midland? Given that the proposals are now on the Secretary of State’s desk, will he facilitate a meeting with the RNIB, Mencap and the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign because it is important that their voices are heard before a final decision is made?

[Mike Penning]

The point that I was going to get to is the urgency of some issues, including the one that the hon. Gentleman has just mentioned. It is the Minister of State who is responsible for that issue. I will put a note on her desk tomorrow asking if that meeting can take place. I am not responsible any further than that, but I will do what I say and anyone who knows me will say that that is the case.

I thank the hon. Member for Wigan, who is relatively new in the House, for giving the Minister a list of the questions that she wants answered; it is ever so helpful. Notes are flying back and forth and I must have 20 notes sitting on my desk here. Clearly, I will not be able to answer all of them in the four minutes that I have left and I am not going to try. I do not wish to have a pop at the hon. Member for Nottingham South. I remember sitting in the same seat as a shadow Health Minister for almost exactly the same amount of time that she has been in the House. It is an honour and a privilege to be in this place whether in government or in opposition. Sometimes it may seem difficult, especially when one thinks of the huge number of civil servants backing the Minister and writing his speeches for him. However, I must say that I have not read the speech that they wrote for me. Well, I read it last night and did not like it. They will get used to me; I am just that way.

Let me stress again that all the points that have been raised are about tone and about people’s rights. I know that we are not allowed to indicate who is in the Public Gallery in Westminster Hall, but we are privileged that people have come here, sometimes in very difficult circumstances, to express their rights and to say, “Why am I getting a bum deal compared with other people?”—I do not know how Hansard will work that one out, but there we are. The situation is fundamentally wrong, but it is not easy to resolve. I hate the word “targets” but we have targets for 2020, which the companies will have to meet. In the hon. Member for Wigan’s constituency, there will be a franchise change in 2013. I am conscious of her question, and the Minister responsible will respond to it. I also need to know what rail operator she refers to. Perhaps she can write to me and let me know. We got rid of guards vans in 2004. If that was a comment, it might have been sarcastic, but it was also manifestly incorrect. There are no guards vans to travel in.

The rail companies operate a taxi service—I do not like it because it is a cop-out for them—and the people to whom the hon. Lady referred should have been offered a taxi for the short distance that we are talking about. Instead of one person waiting to be shuttled to their destination, which is an appalling situation to be in, common sense should have prevailed and a taxi should have been ordered to take all four people to their destination. If the hon. Lady can write to me and tell me the name of the company, it would help. People are out there checking up on these companies. It is a huge rail and bus network, but there are people out there checking out what is going on and whether promises, commitments and franchise agreements are being met.

Instead of being typically British and just putting up with things because that is the way we are, we should perhaps be more like the German transport people whom I met earlier today. They would not put up with this because they have a completely different attitude. They expect a service and they tell people in no uncertain terms where they should be. Let us speak up on behalf of our constituents. Constituents need to complain to their MPs and their MPs should tell us. If that happens, perhaps we can have a service for the 21st century that everyone deserves.