Policing and Crime Bill
James Morris Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
Thank you, Madam—[Interruption.] I mean Mr Deputy Speaker; I am sorry. All the flattery from my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) has befuddled my brain.
James Morris
We have a very close relationship.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne has pointed out, in my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on mental health I very much welcome the parts of the Bill that relate to sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. It is an issue in which I have long taken an interest in this House, and I had an Adjournment debate on it in Westminster Hall in 2013.
A number of people have influenced my thinking about the importance of the changes in the Bill, particularly as regards some of the work that has been done by West Midlands police. In particular, I want to mention Inspector Michael Brown, who has an interesting blog that other hon. Members might wish to look at. He is a mental health blogger and came to see me in my constituency office four or five years ago to talk about how the nature of policing was changing in society, the importance of dealing with mental health on the ground, and how the nature of policing meant that police officers were putting themselves in situations in which they were essentially having to make decisions about whether or not to use the powers under the Mental Health Act, as well as about whether they had the ability, knowledge and training to make such decisions.
If we look at the history of the Mental Health Act, we can see that it was initially conceived to cope with people who were absconding from asylums. It was updated in 1983, including through the section 135 and 136 provisions, and today’s changes are very important as the Mental Health Act needs to reflect the more modern experience of policing and of working with health professionals. Sometimes, we need to question whether we should go further in changing the Mental Health Act, because one downside of police officers specifically being given powers to detain people is that that raises issues to do with liberty and whether somebody is capable of making their own decisions, even when they are in mental health crisis. The fundamental point, which my hon. Friend also made, is that I do not think that any civilised person would say that there should be any circumstances in which a child suffering a mental health crisis ends up in a police cell. I welcome the changes to section 136.
The Bill also confers regulation-making powers on the Secretary of State to define when an adult should legitimately be placed in a police cell.
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and particularly commend the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker). Through the Bill we are trying to say—including to the other agencies to which the shadow Home Secretary referred—that a police cell or a police vehicle is not the place for someone in a mental health crisis. As the Ministers responsible for policing, we have to say that we are the port of last resort, not the port of first resort, which, I am afraid, is a situation that the section 135 and 136 legislation has got us into in some parts of the country. We need to get away from that.
James Morris
I thank the Minister for that intervention. He makes a powerful point. I have been a strong advocate of the street triage schemes that have been rolled out across the country. I was taken out by the street triage team in Birmingham and sped on a blue light to the centre of Birmingham, where a man was threatening to throw himself off the new Birmingham library. As the Minister knows, street triage is an effective combination of a police officer and a trained psychiatric nurse, both of whom present themselves at the point of crisis. That is the way we need to go, where we do more to get the police working with health professionals.
Mike Penning
I apologise for further delaying the House. Where it has not been possible for whatever reason to get the street triage team to the scene, we can have mental health professionals in custody suites. That point of entry gets around the data protection issues and people, who often know the mental health professionals, can be treated in a completely different, more civilised way, as we would expect our constituents to be treated.
James Morris
The Minister makes an excellent point. We need greater integration between policing and health. It should not be part of policing for police officers to make crucial decisions about an individual’s psychiatric state.
Bob Stewart
Street triage sounds ideal and superb. Am I correct in assuming that the psychiatric nurse and the police officer both have negotiator training? My hon. Friend mentioned an incident in which someone was threatening to throw himself off a roof. Is negotiation part of the training of the street triage team?
James Morris
Such teams find themselves in extremely difficult and often dangerous situations, in which they have to deploy negotiation skills, as well as assessing the condition of an individual. That is vital work being done at street level.
I very much welcome the changes and the reduction in the time that somebody can be detained under the Mental Health Act but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne and others said, we should aspire to reduce it further to less than 24 hours. We should seek an appropriate length of time for somebody to be assessed psychiatrically for the nature of their condition. The reforms in the Bill should be considered as part of a cross-government approach to dealing with people with mental health problems.
The changes that the Bill introduces should be seen not in isolation, but in the context of the availability of places of safety, which my hon. Friend talked about. The £12 million or £14 million identified by the Home Office in conjunction with the Department of Health is a start, but we need much more emphasis on further funding to provide acute psychiatric places, including the roll-out of liaison psychiatry in accident and emergency departments.
The crisis care concordat introduced by the previous Government has been an effective mechanism for bringing together various partners to improve crisis care. Much more work across government is needed to increase its effectiveness.
Although the number of deaths in custody has not been high, some of those have been of people detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act. We should be mindful of the issues raised by the use of restraint by police officers in such cases. I highlight that to the Minister as an issue that needs to be considered. There is some evidence that in certain circumstances the police have used excessive restraining powers when dealing with people under sections 135 and 136 of the Act.
I welcome the broadening of the definition of a place of safety under section 135, which can mean somebody being kept in their own home, or in close proximity to where the crisis incident took place in order for them to be assessed appropriately.
These are changes which many people have called for over many years. I am very pleased that the Home Secretary and the Front-Bench team have listened to the representations made by police officers on the ground and by health care professionals. The way we treat people in a state of mental health crisis says much about the sort of society we want to build. These are significant steps in improving our approach to dealing with people in mental health crisis, but they are only one part of the story.
We need to do more work to achieve parity of esteem between mental and physical health, and we are some way along the route. The Government have made a series of welcome announcements on mental health in the past few weeks, particularly on crisis care and community care, but we must go further. People in mental health crisis should receive compassionate care. They should be taken to an appropriate place and dealt with with dignity and humanity, which is very important to the way that we treat mental health in Britain today.
Policing
James Morris Excerpts(9 years ago)
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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.
Mr Jim Cunningham
The hon. Gentleman talks about the closure of police stations and desks, but that has been going on in the west midlands for the past five years, as we have experienced in Coventry.
James Morris
My view is that the police and crime commissioner is making some short-term decisions on the basis—[Interruption.]
James Morris
I will not give way, because I have done so twice already, and I have not even finished responding to the last intervention.
The West Midlands police and crime commissioner is making some short-term decisions in order to generate lurid, populist headlines about Government cuts, rather than taking the right decisions for the people of the west midlands and the broader black country.
James Morris
I have already given way twice.
Would it not be better for the police and crime commissioner to have a more strategic response by exploring how local police stations could be used more readily as community hubs, bringing together different services and allowing police visibility, but also allowing the involvement of other partner agencies, because modern policing does not happen in isolation; it happens with partners, whether mental health services or local authorities? Can we not be more strategic about this? I have met the police and crime commissioner in order to try to persuade him of the need for a more strategic approach. We need a decentralised model of policing in the west midlands that does not centralise everybody in an expensive headquarters. The West Midlands police and crime commissioner should avoid the temptation to make these short-termist decisions, grab lurid headlines and consistently campaign in a politically motivated way, as he has done, in opposition to everything the Government are doing. That is not in anyone’s interests, including the public, who the police are meant to serve.
As other Members have pointed out, there are opportunities for other cost savings to be made by West Midlands police and other police forces across the country. As HMIC pointed out in its recent report, there are too many antiquated IT systems, and there are huge opportunities for efficiency savings in procurement. One example of a very successful collaboration in the west midlands has been the street triage system for mental health services. That pioneering collaboration between West Midlands police and the health service has led to a massive reduction in the number of people being taken to police cells after being sectioned under section 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983. It is an example of strategic thinking leading to cost savings and it is bringing a massive benefit to front-line policing. It is therefore in nobody’s interests to take a non-strategic view of what is happening. We need more innovation and creative thinking, especially at a time of fiscal challenges.
I will fight to save Halesowen police station from the decision taken by the West Midlands police and crime commissioner because I think that is the right thing to do in the long term to protect the visibility of policing in the west midlands. However, if he insists on his decision, I will continue to campaign for a successful high street presence in Halesowen. A successful example of that was when the local police took a shopfront and used it as a community hub. Why can we not make the right decisions?
I recognise that the challenges of modern policing are complicated and that crime is falling in the west midlands, but let us not take short-term, politically motivated decisions that undermine public confidence in the police. Let us do the right thing for the communities of the west midlands and the black country.
Reports into Investigatory Powers
James Morris Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
May I say what a pleasure it is to follow the maiden speeches we have just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) and the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson)? Given their contributions, I am sure they are both embarking on very solid parliamentary careers.
One of the most striking things about the Anderson report was the early chapters describing the technology landscape that we face across the world and that is faced by our security and intelligence services. That landscape is changing almost daily in its innovation and capabilities: new applications are emerging; new methods of encryption are being developed as we speak; and more and more data are travelling around the world, connecting people together and often connecting our enemies together. In the past 25 to 30 years, technology has provided massive opportunities for our society, but it also represents a profound threat to our future national security. It provides opportunities for our enemies—for countries operating and wanting to develop cyber-attacks against our infrastructure; it enables terror groups to communicate below the radar in encrypted chatrooms on the dark web; and it allows networks to develop which are difficult to detect and to analyse.
Before I came to this House, I worked in the IT and technology industry for 20 years and I have seen the changes taking place. Our enemies are very skilled in the use of this technology. They use it to disseminate their message through social media and through other networks. They are very skilled at creating methods of cyber-attack and at avoiding detection, and they are becoming increasingly skilled in collaborating across the world. The key challenge facing us, therefore, is: how do we respond to that ever-changing and complex landscape, and how do the Government and the state respond?
As other hon. Members have said, David Anderson’s review is an excellent, magisterial piece of work, which really sets out the landscape. He focuses on the fundamental principles we need to be following to ensure that our security and intelligence services have the tools necessary to do the job, within a legal framework that not only protects privacy and the freedom of the individual, but, as other hon. Members have said, is integrated under a single new law which is comprehensible. Our enemies can use technology flexibly and innovatively, and can respond to new trends without constraint, so the Government and the state face a challenge because we cannot afford to be static and unresponsive in the light of the new challenges we face, as ultimately our citizens will pay the price.
The Anderson review is therefore right to call for a new set of laws—or a new law—that consolidate the myriad different pieces of legislation that have built up over time; clearly articulate the correct balance between enabling our security and intelligence services to do their jobs and having the necessary transparency; are written in a language that a layman can understand and which is comprehensible; and that ensure that we have a framework where not only can the security and intelligence services operate, but where the police and other public bodies are clear about their legal responsibilities and operate proportionately.
The freedom of the individual and freedom of expression are absolutely fundamental to our democratic society. But a mature democratic country such as Britain, with all the connections that we have around the world, needs to have the capability and the framework to combat its enemies, wherever those enemies may manifest themselves.
As David Anderson says in his report, it would simply not be acceptable for a modern democratic society to allow paedophiles, for example, to operate on the dark net with guaranteed impunity, or to allow terrorists to render themselves undetectable simply by selecting an application that encrypts their communication history so that it is inaccessible. It would not be acceptable for a modern democratic society and Government to cede responsibility, and say, “All this is too complicated and we will allow our enemies or criminals to act with impunity.” But we do not have to become a totalitarian society to achieve our goal. As David Anderson also says, if the UK is to set an example to the world, it will not be by withdrawing from those dark spaces that we see emerging on the web, but by demonstrating that our democratic society has the ability to patrol those spaces in tightly defined circumstances and with sufficient safeguards against abuse. That is one of the fundamental underlying principles that needs to drive our thinking when we come to debate the new legislation that will be introduced in the autumn.
As the Government consider the recommendations made by Anderson, the challenge for us all is to enable a debate to take place, so that the state can engage in the complex battle against very intelligent enemies, especially those operating in this newly emerging dark space on the internet. That dark space has the danger of allowing our enemies to act with impunity. Fundamentally, we need to create the appropriate legal framework to ensure that our enemies are held accountable for their activities, because that is what a democratic society demands.