Policing and Crime Bill (Fifth sitting)
Lord Beamish Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Mike Penning
I will not delay the Committee too long on this group of amendments, but I will bring joy to the shadow Police Minister in a second—something that I did not manage to do for the shadow Fire Minister on Tuesday. Clause 21 strengthens the protections for police whistleblowers by conferring powers on the Independent Police Complaints Commission to investigate concerns raised by whistleblowers without referral from a police force, to keep whistleblowers updated on the progress of the investigation’s outcomes, and to protect the identity of whistleblowers, as we would all wish.
I have looked closely at amendment 162, and there is an anomaly in it. Although I wish the shadow Minister not to press the amendment, I commit to coming back to the issue on Report, because there is a case for consulting the Police Advisory Board, on which the representative bodies—including the Police Federation, the Police Superintendents Association, police officer and staff associations and the Police Staff Council—are represented, to bring it in line with proposed new part 2B of the Police Reform Act 2002.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Will the Minister outline what he has in mind by “specific exceptional circumstances” in the regulations? What will be exceptional?
Mike Penning
It would have to be absolutely exceptional, such as for national security. With that in mind, I thank the shadow Minister for tabling amendment 162, and I will basically do what he is asking for on Report. So that I can formulate it correctly, I ask him not to press amendment 162 but to accept the Government amendments.
Policing and Crime Bill (Third sitting)
Lord Beamish Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. Amendment 156 is a probing amendment; I will not divide the Committee on it. As I said on Second Reading, I welcome what the Government are doing through the Bill to amend the Mental Health Act 1983, in particular ensuring that people in mental health crisis do not end up in police cells. I have a little bit of sympathy for the police in terms of how they deal with such individuals. The police are not the appropriate people to deal with those in mental health crisis, but sadly they are sometimes the only ones available. The dedication of our policemen and women is such that they will not turn away people in that type of crisis. The purpose of my amendment is to probe whether we can get more collaboration between the police, the health service and other agencies, including local government.
In February 2014, the mental health concordat was agreed between the third sector, the police, local authorities and the NHS. It is important to read the joint statement, which states:
“We commit to work together to improve the system of care and support so people in crisis because of a mental health condition are kept safe and helped to find the support they need—whatever the circumstances in which they first need help—and from whichever service they turn to first.
We will work together, and with local organisations, to prevent crises happening whenever possible through prevention and early intervention. We will make sure we meet the needs of vulnerable people in urgent situations. We will strive to make sure that all relevant public services support someone who appears to have a mental health problem to move towards Recovery.
Jointly, we hold ourselves accountable for enabling this commitment to be delivered across England.”
I accept that there is no statutory basis for the concordat, which is a problem, but I think it is important to draw the Committee’s attention to the final sentence of the joint statement:
“Jointly, we hold ourselves accountable for enabling this commitment to be delivered across England.”
Well, currently there is no mechanism by which those organisations—I am not criticising any individual—are held accountable for delivering what they promised in the concordat. There is a desperate need for that.
The concordat’s aims are very good. I have seen some very good examples of joint working between all services, including the police, fire service, ambulance service, NHS and local authorities up and down the country. There are examples of mental health professionals being co-located with police officers and triage teams, and that is certainly working very well. In my local NHS trust, community psychiatric nurses are appointed in A&E because, unfortunately, A&E is one of the places to which people in mental health crisis turn because they are unable to get help elsewhere—even though, as everyone knows, that is the last place they need to be. Having a mental health professional has clearly helped in my local hospital by ensuring that people in mental health crisis do not sit around for hours on end getting no form of treatment.
I accept that this is not necessarily just a police problem; it cuts across other Departments including Health. The amendment questions whether we can use the Bill to put the concordat on to some type of statutory basis and to provide for a presumption that local authorities and others should work together locally to deliver the concordat’s aims, to which most people would sign up. Is the amendment about money? No, it is not. Properly implemented, it could save money. Time that the police spend dealing with people in mental health crisis is time that they are not spending doing other things that they are perhaps better qualified to do. Perhaps the Minister could look at this issue and talk to his colleagues in the Department of Health, so that on Report we can have an indication of how this operation could be enforceable. I do not think that it should fall solely on the shoulders of the police.
Jack Dromey
My hon. Friend speaks with great authority on this crucial issue. He makes the point about police time. The Oleaster centre in Birmingham, a collaborative venture between the NHS, the police and the local authority, has seen the average police time spent on a section 136 incident reduced from 14 hours to five hours. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a powerful argument, regarding not just appropriate treatment of those suffering from mental illness, but the efficient use of police time, for having such facilities nationwide? What he proposes would be very helpful towards that end.
Mr Kevan Jones
I do. The example to which my hon. Friend refers is replicated in other parts of the country where the police have in many cases taken the lead, working jointly with the NHS to set up those facilities. They make the experience better for those individuals who are in crisis. As he rightly says, they provide a more efficient way to deal with police time. Without a provision to enable this, I fear we will do all the work in the Bill on changes to the Mental Health Act 1983, which I welcome, but end up saying, “This is what we want to happen but will it happen in practice?” The example in his constituency shows that where there is a will and local drive, this can happen. My fear is that we will get a patchwork quilt of provision across the country. It would be helpful if we could make co-operation to deal with these issues statutory. I will come to another point later when we talk to amendments relating to the Mental Health Act.
I commend the Government’s aim to prevent people in mental health crisis from going to police cells. However, unless there is alternative provision in place, that will not happen. The need to monitor what happens to individuals should be recognised. If we reach the point, which we all want, of having no one in police cells, but without the people concerned getting adequate care elsewhere, we will have failed them. I will address that point later. I am now interested to hear what the Minister has to say.
Mike Penning
I say at the outset that I understand the intention and good will behind the amendments. I put my hand up to a typo where “and” appears instead of “or”, which will be corrected later.
I say to the shadow Minister that the duty in clause 2 would be subject to the restriction in clause 3. Clause 3(1) sets aside the duty to enter into a particular collaboration agreement if that agreement would negatively impact on efficiency or effectiveness. Therefore, the Bill specifically addresses the point she raised. I will not dwell on that because it is not a matter of semantics. She is quite right, but clause 3 addresses that.
Mr Kevan Jones
I welcome the Minister’s point. Our amendments are the grit in the oyster, in the sense that they are going to force others to improve facilities. Having seen different Departments when in government, I know that without some direction from the Bill, it will not happen. The Minister and his colleagues have great intentions and I pay tribute to him and to the Home Secretary for addressing this issue, but without something on the face of the Bill or some movement during the passage of the Bill, it will not happen.
Mike Penning
Nothing would happen if we were not doing this. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments. We are starting to drive this. An inter-ministerial group on that specific issue was formed during the last Government. It still sits and it will push on with this. I do not think that the amendment is necessarily the right vehicle, but I agree that we must push it forward. Otherwise, the health and social services will be knocking at the door, saying, “We’ve got nowhere else to go,” as we often hear.
I used to experience that when I was in the fire service, and it still goes on. I have been stationed with the police when it has happened. It is usually at 4 o’clock on a Friday afternoon. Social services phone up saying, “We haven’t seen Mary or Johnny. Would you go round and check on them over the weekend?” The answer must be “No, that is your legal responsibility, not ours.” I know that that is a development of what we were talking about, but it is exactly what goes on: “Would you go in and open up for them?”. It is a difficult area, but one that we must touch on.
Mr Kevan Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point, as these things are already happening. In my local area in Durham, the fire and rescue service works closely with the police and ambulance services, particularly in co-location of appliances. For example, in Barnard Castle, which is in a rural area, the ambulance, fire, police and mountain rescue services work together, which improves the service but saves money for the estate.
Lyn Brown
I thank my hon. Friend for reminding me of my visit to Durham fire and rescue service. I was really impressed by what they were doing. They were clearly cash-strapped, but went out to maximise their impact and save money where they could by collaboration. Their most important focus was on saving lives and improving services to the local area, and I was very impressed.
The clause gives the impression that under this Government there is a hierarchy of services, and that the fire service is the equivalent of Lepidus—that is, the least in the triumvirate. That is from Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra”—I did it at A-level. The Opposition believe that collaboration between the emergency services is a good thing. Providing the funds to encourage and support collaboration, and giving an opportunity to evaluate the collaboration and disseminate good practice, are essential. Providing an institutional framework for supporting further collaboration has some merit, but it is likely to be superfluous and I honestly believe that there are dangers in making that mandatory. Local experts, who understand their service and their local needs, are best placed to make final decisions about collaboration—just as they have been doing effectively over the past few years.
Mr Kevan Jones
May I echo the points made by my hon. Friend? This is actually happening on the ground. As a former Minister, I have seen close up the tendency of this Government to think that all the pearls of wisdom are contained within Whitehall, when clearly they are not. As my hon. Friend says, in many cases this is being driven by cost. County Durham and Darlington fire and rescue service, whose budget has been cut by the Government, has had to look at new ways of delivering services. However, the driver has not just been cost; it is also the recognition that, working together, ambulance, police, fire—and, in this case, mountain rescue—services can deliver a better service for the public. That public sector ethos is alive and kicking in my local area, where the public come first in terms of the service they give. If they can do things to improve that, it is all the better.
What would the Minister judge as collaboration? I accept that he might want to give examples of where that is not happening and the reasons why. In Durham, we have tri-responders: the police, fire and ambulance services. In a large rural county such as Durham it is not possible to have a physical presence from all three services in all areas, and they have worked together very closely. That has been driven not just by the police and crime commissioner but by other services working together.
What would be an example of failure? The Bill talks about co-operation, but to what level? Is this about the response to incidents? There are good examples of the co-location of services. In County Durham, it is not just about ensuring that we get more efficient use of estates. Things such as open days and the provision of public information, including to schools, are now being done on a joint basis by the police and fire. As my hon. Friend rightly says, the incidents that affect many of our constituents are not just pigeonholed as requiring a police response, a fire response or an ambulance response. Those things are working very well, so I would like to know what will be achieved with this measure. Can the Minister point to examples of where that is not happening and, if it is not happening, has he examined why? I have outlined the great work being done in County Durham. What would the Minister see as failure or as not meeting the co-operation target? Is he laying down from Whitehall, as seems to be the tendency of this Government, a framework that local PCCs and fire authorities have to meet if they are to meet this test? I think that, without that, what happens in different areas will be pretty arbitrary.
I represent quite a rural constituency in County Durham, although the Government have not recognised Durham as a rural county in their local government funding settlements, possibly because it votes Labour rather than Conservative. Responses that work in London may not work in rural areas such as County Durham. Providing the flexibility to allow local fire chiefs, local fire authorities, PCCs and the NHS to collaborate on what works best locally would be the right approach. If the Minister tries to direct from Whitehall a template that each area has to adopt, it will not work.
Mike Penning
I will not detain the Committee long. I think that there were three main questions.
Lyn Brown
The Opposition do not believe that the Government have even begun to make the case for the fundamental governance reforms to the fire and rescue service that would be introduced by clause 6, so we will vote to remove it, and consequential schedule 1, from the Bill.
Clause 6 and schedule 1 contain provisions that allow for a police and crime commissioner to become a fire and rescue authority and, in so doing, effectively assume control of a fire and rescue service. I will have plenty to say in later debates about the lopsided process by which the Government are proposing that these takeovers should happen, and what the governance and scrutiny of the fire and rescue service would look like once the takeovers have gone ahead, but I will take this opportunity to discuss the merits of the proposal in the first place.
I know that that is not the way the Government think things should be done. They have been quite happy to go through a consultation exercise that does not ask stakeholders what they think of the merits of the proposals, and they have completely ignored the recommendation of Sir Ken Knight that these proposals need to be put through a rigorous pilot programme so that we can know whether they are likely to bring about any benefits.
It was not really a consultation, was it? It was stuffed full of leading questions that were not about whether the plans were right or about what should be done, but about how to implement them. The Government have ignored the evidence-based strategy suggested by Sir Ken. Why did the Government not undertake a pilot, as recommended by the Knight review? Why not undertake a proper risk assessment and outline the implications of the plans, alongside those of the budget cuts that are now starting to take effect and affect response times? The Government have acted on the assumption that it is a given that police and crime commissioners will get powers to take over the fire and rescue services. Why is that reasonable? They need to present arguments as to why that is a good idea. In whose interest is it? It is not right simply to propose reforms to a vital public service without producing a detailed set of arguments as to why those reforms are in the best interests of that service and the public.
Government impact assessments always start with the same two questions: “What is the problem under consideration?” and “Why is Government intervention necessary?” Those are two very conservative questions: if there is no evidence that something is not working as well as it should or that there is a problem that needs to be solved, the Government simply do not have reason to act. They should certainly not be legislating for its own sake. If the problem is London, legislate on London.
There is absolutely nothing in the impact assessment identifying tangible problems with the governance of the fire service, nor is there any attempt to explain why the legislation is necessary. The only relevant reason in the impact assessment is the fact that the Conservative manifesto pledged to “develop the role” of police and crime commissioners. Why is that? What did the fire service do to deserve this? It is an extraordinary way to go about the business of government. I am not surprised that civil servants at the Home Office could not come up with any tangible reasons why PCCs need to play a role in the governance of the fire and rescue service; there are plenty of reasons to think it is a bad idea.
Mr Kevan Jones
Although the clause refers to the fire and rescue service, it does not refer to ambulance services, for example. Does my hon. Friend agree that PCCs adopting ambulance services is a logical conclusion, if they are to encompass all the emergency services in an area?
Lyn Brown
I can only imagine that the Home Office lost the argument with the Department of Health. That is the only thing that comes to mind. The Home Office wanted a big takeover for PCCs, but it has failed to do so because the Department of Health said no.
PCCs are a nascent institution. With suitable caution, the Home Affairs Committee has said that it is
“too early to say whether the introduction of police and crime commissioners has been a success.”
If we do not know whether PCCs have been a success in their core duties, why are the Government proposing that they expand their portfolio by adopting fire services? We all hope that the turnout for PCC elections in May is better than the 15% managed the first time round, but before we hand over more powers to PCCs, would it not be better to see whether public support and interest in the institution has improved from such a dismally low level?
The Government may see things differently and want to bolster the powers and budgets of PCCs to help them through their difficult start, but a vital public service such as fire should not be pawned off to save struggling Whitehall inventions. What is next? Stretched NHS ambulance trusts running community volunteering schemes to rekindle the big society?
Lyn Brown
I totally and utterly agree with my hon. Friend. I think the Minister has done this Committee a disservice by not answering our questions properly. I urge him to get back on his feet and give us a much more reasonable and considered answer to the points that we have made.
Mr Kevan Jones
On a point of order, Mr Howarth. This is a habit of the Minister. On Second Reading, he gave a 15-minute—or even less—response to the debate, and we saw that again today. I thought the purpose of Committee was to scrutinise legislation and for the Government to argue their case for the Bill. That is not what we have seen today. I wonder whether you can give some guidance to the Minister. He needs to answer questions or even put a case for his proposals.
The Chair
As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is not a point of order. The Chair is not responsible for the Minister’s response. He is responsible for his own response, so I will not allow the matter to go any further.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Kevan Jones
It would be nice to hear the case for why PCCs should take over fire and rescue services, because we have failed to hear that from the Minister.
Lyn Brown
We have indeed failed yet again to hear a case from the Minister as to why this massive change to how our public services are run is to happen. I really am disappointed that the Minister did not take the opportunity in the previous debate to give us some decent reasons. But there are none—simply because of one obscure line in the Conservative party manifesto, the Government want to boost the role of PCCs. That is a really poor reason.
However, if the Government intend to go down that path and the reforms are to happen, the Bill could be strengthened if the Government accepted the amendments. They would make significant changes to the process by which a PCC can take over, and to the structures of accountability and scrutiny that they face once they have taken charge of the local fire service.
Amendment 174 would ensure that the Secretary of State could approve a takeover only if it was in the best interests of public safety and efficiency. The schedule currently requires it to be in the best interests of only one or the other. Amendment 181 would require a police and crime commissioner to pay the costs incurred by a fire and rescue authority in preparing information for a takeover bid.
Amendments 170, 171 and 172 all deal with the consultation process. Amendment 170 would require full consideration of people’s views. Amendment 171 would restrict the scope of the consultation to residents who are served by the relevant fire and rescue service. Amendment 172 would make workers and fire and rescue authorities statutory consultees. Amendment 180 would ensure that the panel the Home Secretary used to guide her through a business case was genuinely independent.
Amendments 173, 177 and 178 all deal with who must consent before a takeover can be approved. Amendment 173 would require the consent of local authorities, and amendment 177 would require local people to approve a takeover by a referendum. We have offered a compromise in amendment 178, which would require the approval of either the local authority or the local people. Either way, there must be local consent through a referendum or through the locally elected representatives.
I have outlined a lot of issues, but then again, there are a lot of problems with the Government’s proposals. I shall start with amendment 174 and the grounds on which the Home Secretary is to make her decisions, before I address the process. The amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State does not allow PCCs to take over control of a fire and rescue service unless it is in the interests of public safety. I tabled it because, as currently drafted, the Bill states that when the Secretary of State decides whether to allow a fire and rescue service to come under the control of a PCC, she must do so
“in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness…or…in the interests of public safety”.
The amendment is small, but its impact would be substantial. It would prevent the Secretary of State from making her decision on whether to allow a fire and rescue service to come under the control of a PCC solely in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, to ensure that it is also in the interests of public safety. Who could possibly object to that? As the Minister is in one of his collaborative moods, I expect that he will accept the amendment with gusto, because he will want to ensure that the interests of public safety are truly served.
I know I have made these arguments before, but it is really important to make our arguments as we go through the Bill, so I shall do so again, albeit briefly. The decision to allow PCCs to take over fire and rescue services must not be allowed to become a trade-off between economy, efficiency and effectiveness on the one hand and the interests of public safety on the other. If PCCs are to take over fire and rescue services, the interests of public safety should be paramount. There should be no other interest—certainly not the Conservative party manifesto.
Under the existing proposals, if the takeover is in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, that is enough to satisfy the Secretary of State’s requirements. That is simply not good enough for the fire service, and it is certainly not good enough for the general public. I am glad to see that the Government have recognised that consideration must be given to both efficiency and effectiveness, but I am concerned that they have once again misunderstood the meaning of efficiency. I reiterate that Sir Ken Knight stated:
“Efficiency does not just mean doing the same for less, nor is it just about one-off cashable savings. It is an entire approach to service delivery, achieving the best possible service for the public.”
I would hope all of us in this room can agree on that.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government are arguing that local people should have a say in electing a police and crime commissioner, while at the same time they are giving the Secretary of State powers to impose on an area a set of arrangements in which local people would have no say at all? It is another example of the Government looking both ways—they talk about devolution, but now they are talking about centralisation.
Lyn Brown
That is absolutely right. It is not a localist agenda at all.
Amendment 181 would require a police and crime commissioner to pay the costs incurred by a fire and rescue authority in preparing information for a takeover bid. The Bill places a statutory duty on the PCC and fire and rescue authority to work together in the preparation of a takeover proposal, although not as equal partners. The process is to be led by PCCs, and the fire and rescue authorities will merely be duty-bound to co-operate. The amendment is intended to clarify who will pay the costs of preparing the proposal.
Ensuring that proposals are put together to the desired standard when putting forward the case for PCC takeover of fire and rescue authorities will of course take time, and providing the information needed to prepare a proposal will inevitably carry a cost. The costs include everything from staffing and research costs to stationery and paperwork. Paragraph 2 of proposed new schedule A1, which schedule 1 would add to the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, sets out that a fire and rescue authority must provide information and documentation at a PCC’s request. That makes it clear that the application process could easily prove very costly to a fire and rescue authority.
The schedule places duties on fire and rescue authorities, but gives them no powers in return. For example, while a fire and rescue authority must co-operate with a PCC and provide him or her with documentation and support, the fire and rescue authority is given no corresponding powers whatever in return. I find that quite astonishing. Fire and rescue authorities have a legal responsibility to oversee the strategic direction and policy of their local fire service. How can they possibly carry out that duty if they are not even allowed to ask for documentation on staffing, finance and plans from the person who plans to take over the fire and rescue service?
In response to the Government’s proposed process, amendment 181 would place responsibility on the PCC to pay the costs incurred in producing a takeover proposal. There are two good reasons for that. First, as the PCC is actively seeking to take over responsibility for the fire and rescue authority, it is fair that those costs fall on them. Secondly, PCCs have larger budgets than fire and rescue authorities. They are therefore presumably better staffed and better able to absorb costs. If PCCs are not to be responsible for the costs, the Government need to work out how they will fund what could be a fairly costly process, especially when our fire and rescue services are under the cosh from spending cuts.
Mr Kevan Jones
I know that this issue will be considered later, because the Government have tabled amendments on it, but if we are to get a full idea of efficiency, one of the tricky areas is unpicking fire authorities’ budgets. To give an example, in Northumberland one PCC covers two fire authorities. One, Tyne and Wear, raises its fire budget by precept and the other is part of the county council. Does my hon. Friend recognise that unpicking those budgets will be a hugely expensive exercise?
Lyn Brown
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why East and West Sussex fire authorities failed to merge when both wanted to do so—it was impossible to unpick one of their budgets, and the Government were demanding back £2 million of the local authority’s money. That completely floored the opportunity to do something that both fire and rescue authorities wanted. They could not do it because it was too expensive.
The other point I would make to my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right, is that many of the fire and rescue services that are integrated within a local authority structure have already found back-office cost savings. Their emergency services departments are fully integrated into the fire service. If fire services are dragged out and given to the PCC, that will have a massive cost for many of those local authorities, which will find themselves short in the pocket, just like in the case of the East and West Sussex merger.
Perhaps more presciently, being given responsibility to pay the costs of any takeover may stop police and crime commissioners from using the risk of cost escalation as a means of coercing fire and rescue authorities to support their takeover bid. The Government’s proposal is a recipe for hostile takeovers. We can imagine a situation arising under the Bill where a PCC requests that a fire and rescue authority produce a constantly escalating amount of information and documentation. As it does so, costs will spiral for the fire and rescue authority, possibly to saturation point. There may come a time when the fire and rescue authority decides it is no longer viable to continue paying such costs simply for the creation of a proposal and agrees to a takeover in order to stop haemorrhaging funds. The Government have been worried about the use of freedom of information requests as a deliberate tactic to burden public institutions, so they should be receptive to my argument and the picture I am painting.
Amendment 181 would take away PCCs’ ability to abuse their power, but it would also take away any fire and rescue authority’s suspicion that that might be happening. That would not only avoid PCCs coercing fire and rescue authorities but make fire and rescue authorities more receptive to working together with PCCs in putting together proposals. It would help to mitigate any conflict of interest. If the Minister is truly interested in collaboration between our emergency services—frankly, I doubt it—he ought to support it.
The amendment would solve two problems. It would clear up the ambiguity around who will pay for costs incurred in putting together proposals and help to mitigate the potential for hostile takeovers by PCCs when the fire and rescue authority—
Police Funding Formula
Lord Beamish Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)
I welcome this report, and let me start by saying that the Minister was brave to tackle the issue of police funding, for two reasons. The first is that it is always going to be difficult to resolve a funding formula without acrimony unless one has at one’s disposal sufficient resources to fund every force to the level of the best funded; clearly, those resources were not going to be available to him. The second reason is that funding a police force across the whole UK—or certainly in England and Wales—is always going to be intensely difficult, given the great diversity in policing needs across the counties of those countries. But it is right that taxpayer funds for an essential service such as the police are allocated fairly and transparently.
I agree with the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), that the police need to provide evidence of the work that they actually do. Often that work will go well beyond what we understand to be traditional policing work in the office of constable. The police pick up a large amount of slack that is not picked up by other public services or private sector organisations, and they do a huge amount more than many people appreciate.
The National Audit Office published a report showing that a significant number of police forces were not aware of the demand on their own services. It is incumbent on police forces to ensure that they are aware of that demand, whether for classic policing or wider functions. They must make their demands clear to the Home Office, and, as the right hon. Member for Leicester East said, the Home Office must then make it clear to those forces what services they are actually funded to perform.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he recognise that cuts being made in other public services—in the area of mental health, for example, where there are problems in accessing beds—is putting pressure on police forces up and down the country, as in extreme circumstances they have to use cells to house people with mental health problems?
James Berry
In fact, there is more mental health funding for front-line policing than there has ever been. It is very important that the police work in tandem with clinical commissioning groups to ensure, for example, that there are nurses who can go out on patrol with them to tackle mental health issues, rather than bringing in those people to police cells—often the very worst place for someone suffering from a mental ill health episode. In my neighbouring borough of Richmond, I know that the police are already doing that in conjunction with the CCG.
There was a pause in the review of the funding formula, the financial implications of which were worked out by one police and crime commissioner. I did pause before signing up to the suggestion in our report that the likely figures should be revealed before the end of the consultation. The aim is to arrive at a sound set of principles, but it is difficult to obtain a balanced response from people who stand to lose out from an allocation based on a principle, however sound it might be, because their elected responsibility as police and crime commissioners is to maximise the amount of funding available to them to perform their statutory functions.
The funding formula needs to recognise the diversity of policing in the UK, which is very difficult when we are trying to reach a formula at a national level. Our report references the need for additional funding in areas where policing of minority communities is a prevalent issue. In my constituency of Kingston, we have the largest Korean population in Europe. We have an excellent Korean liaison officer provided by the police, which would not be needed elsewhere in the country, and they provide a vital function in ensuring a link between the police and the Korean community.
The hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) made it clear that there are many other issues in London that provide a positive case for ensuring that the capital grant in London is protected and that the special position of the Metropolitan police is respected. The issue of diverse communities was raised by the right hon. Member for Leicester East, and the issue of policing pubs and bars was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax). That is plainly volume policing.
We need more police officers on the streets at kicking-out times for the pubs and clubs, which are more numerous in London than anywhere else in the country. The same applies to the threat of terrorism, which is most significant in London. I am pleased that the Metropolitan police have responded to that matter in the light of the Paris atrocities by significantly increasing the number of armed response vehicles and armed officers keeping us safe.
The same applies to the various types of crime tackled centrally on behalf of other police forces, such as online fraud. We have seen a massive explosion in such fraud over the past four or five years and although much more needs to be done and much more funding needs to be made available to deal with it anything like comprehensively enough, a large part of it is tackled by the Metropolitan police’s very impressive Operation FALCON and the City of London police’s Action Fraud. Such crime is perpetrated across the country, but is largely dealt with by the police in our two capital police forces. There is a need to protect the special status of London in any new funding formula.
Where I depart from the comments made by the hon. Member for Harrow West is where he painted a rather less than rosy picture of the state of policing in London. Although there has been a reduction in officer numbers, a less rigid approach to neighbourhood policing has allowed a more nimble model that certainly works well in my borough of Kingston and elsewhere across London. Of course, crime has dropped dramatically over the past five years and we have the police to thank for that. Even if they have lower overall numbers, they have a significantly larger proportion on the frontline and do a fantastic job that has resulted in a massive reduction in crime.
Steve McCabe
It is certainly true that the Minister gave me a glimpse of some of the figures and I am extremely grateful to him for that, but let me reiterate my point: the Conservative PCC said that he had been tipped off that there would be a transfer of funds from urban to rural forces. My constituents want to know why more money is needed to police Surrey and Northamptonshire than to police the west midlands. Why do we get less while they get more?
Mr Kevan Jones
We could ask the same question about the local government formula, which gives more money to Surrey than to deprived areas such as Durham and my hon. Friend’s area. The suspicion is that this funding formula will also be used to divert money away from Labour areas to Conservative areas.
Steve McCabe
If we look at past form, we will see that that is certainly the implication. I was interested to hear the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) implore the Minister to think again about fair funding, on the basis that a fairer funding arrangement would give the force in Dorset an extra £1.9 million a year. I remind the Minister that, under the same fairer funding formula, the west midlands would get an extra £40 million year. When it comes to the transfer of resources, I hope he will bear that in mind.
The reality is that, far from getting extra funding, over the past five years our force has had to contend with £180 million of cuts—the highest in the country. The workforce has been reduced by 3,000 and the incoming chief constable has been clear that the force will need to reorganise to “cope with the gaps”—those are his words—that it now has to carry. The mistakes in the formula mean that forces are now planning against a one-year rather than four-year profile, which will be a much more difficult challenge. I would like to hear the Minister explain how he thinks the chief constable of West Midlands police is meant to plug those gaps.
I want to be clear that I do not deride the Home Secretary for saying that volunteers with specialist skills in IT or accountancy might be useful in helping to tackle cybercrime. I am curious to know why it is necessary to create a new position of police support volunteer, rather than simply recruiting more special constables with particular skills and expertise. Is that part of a wider volunteer plan?
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
We know that the UK Government have consulted on the funding formula for police forces in England and Wales, as they seek to simplify funding arrangements for the service. We also know that any changes in the funding arrangements have been delayed until 2016-17. Indeed, that was set out very eloquently by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). Because of Barnett consequentials, which are so important for funding services across the UK, I want to say a few words about policing in Scotland.
As many in the House will be aware, the SNP Scottish Government have carried out a reorganisation of policing in Scotland, with eight area forces merged into a unitary force in 2013. The Scottish Government now fund policing directly through the Scottish Police Authority. It is worth pointing out that that had cross-party support, although—perhaps this is in their nature—the Lib Dems subsequently withdrew their support. I would point out, if I may, that in Scotland, despite the major reform implemented by the Scottish Government, which has delivered significant savings, the Scottish Government have continued to protect their commitment to 1,000 additional police officers, all in the teeth of harsh Westminster cuts.
There is no doubt that we are having to make some very hard decisions in Scotland about the police budget, but, under the recent budget, the police revenue budget will be protected in real terms in every year of the next Parliament, with a boost of £100 million between 2016 and 2021. However, it must be said that some of the hard decisions the Scottish Government have to make are a direct consequence of the UK Government’s refusal to give Police Scotland the same VAT status as every other police authority in the United Kingdom. The same applies to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.
Patricia Gibson
I can hear somebody chuntering from a sedentary position. If the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene, I would be delighted to hear what he has to say.
Patricia Gibson
For the avoidance of any doubt, I want to point out that although the Scottish Government were aware of that, it does not make it right.
Patricia Gibson
No. Perhaps the Minister will let me finish my point before he starts chuntering. The Scottish Government agreed to that because they had no choice. They are working within the constraints imposed on them by Westminster. I should say—I am moving forward now—that like so many other deals in Scotland, it was imposed by a UK Government who are detached from Scotland and neither understand nor care about Scotland’s public services. I shall leave the matter there.
Patricia Gibson
If you do not like giving fair funding formulae to Scotland, you had your chance last September, when you kicked and screamed to hold on to us. In the light of that decision last September, all we ask for is fairness. We are of course a valued and equal partner—well, let us be so.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. If the hon. Lady wishes to give way, she will give way. If she does not want to give way, we all have to respect that.
Patricia Gibson
I would simply add that holding an axe over someone’s head because they do not—
Mr Deputy Speaker
As you well know from the numerous—[Interruption.] I will deal with it, Mr Arkless. It will be easier if I do. As you well know, Mr Jones, that is not a point of order. If we were to rely on something that we believed not to be correct, we would never—[Interruption.] We would never, ever get through a debate. You and other Members in this House will continue to have different views. We will not always agree. On this occasion, it is not a point of order for the Chair.
Patricia Gibson
No, thank you. I want to progress beyond this point.
Uniquely and therefore unfairly, the Scottish Police Authority is the only police authority in the United Kingdom that cannot recover VAT. It is therefore liable for an annual cost of £25 million, which is equivalent to almost the entire forecast savings gap. Importantly, it seems that the Treasury based its decision on the fact that single services will be funded by central Government. However, the Treasury introduced a new section in the Value Added Tax Act 1994 to ensure that central Government-funded academy schools in England could recover VAT. Why is there not the same provision for the Scottish police and Scottish fire and rescue services?
Patricia Gibson
Well, I’m asking for it now. Why do I mention all this, apart from the fact that it is about fairness?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Mr Jones, it will be easier if I can hear what is being said. I was hoping that you would speak next. We do not want to spoil that, because I want to hear from you.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) prayed for your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker—but indulgence was not what I was praying for. What we have just seen is what we usually get from the SNP when they turn on something that they agreed to with the victim mentality that, as I have said on numerous occasions, it has raised to a new art form in this House. We end up with the idea that somehow this measure is everybody else’s fault, but the hon. Lady’s Government agreed to it so I do not think that she can try to delude electors in Scotland that it is somehow the fault of English Members and the Government at Westminster. Apart from the sense of grievance, which we have heard on many occasions from the Scottish National party in the House in recent weeks and months, the hon. Lady did not cover anything that was relevant to the debate.
I congratulate the Home Affairs Committee on its report on reform of the funding formula, and I pay tribute to its Chair for his opening speech. It has been said numerous times that this issue needs to be considered for years and in a logical way. I do not disagree with that, because we must consider in detail how we fund our police, as that is an important issue for our constituents. I do not believe that how the Government went about that had anything to do with having a serious hard look at putting forward a fair funding formula.
One of the Committee’s criticisms—it was made not only by chief constables but by many PCCs—was that the consultation was rushed. It started on 21 July 2015 and closed on 15 September, a period of eight weeks. The Minister then wrote to PCCs and chief constables on 8 October, three weeks after the consultation closed, providing detailed refinements, setting out for the first time indicative force levels and inviting further comment.
James Berry
I asked the permanent secretary why the consultation was over such a short period when he gave evidence. He said that the Government could have gone for a much longer period or tried to have the funding formula arranged before the spending review. The Department made that decision. Whether or not it was the right decision is a matter for debate, but the decision was to have the formula in place before the spending review.
Mr Jones
I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman. That is exactly what was going on. We were to have the formula wrapped up going into the spending review, but what we are in store for is exactly what has happened in local government funding. We did not get a fair local government funding formula: we have a skewed formula that moves resources from the most deprived communities in this country to—lo and behold!—the more wealthy parts, which are represented by Conservatives.
In local government funding, just by chance—hon. Members should not ask me how this has happened— 85% of the gainers happened to be in Conservative seats. I suspect that that is what was going on with the police funding formula. The Government had not reckoned with the PCC for Devon and Cornwall, who questioned the process.
We must also put the formula against the other things that the Government and their previous incarnation, the coalition, have done to policing in this country.
Steve McCabe
Like me, I am sure my hon. Friend recognises that the Minister is a pretty straightforward guy. Given that we have ended up in this situation and that we have been unable to resolve it—it will be four years before police forces can plan a long-term budget—would not the fair thing be to remove any doubt or suspicion and subject the formula to independent scrutiny? In that way, we could all be absolutely certain that it was fair.
Mr Jones
I agree with my hon. Friend—I will come back to that in a minute—but the real issue is that what was envisaged is exactly what we have seen in local government. Under the new formula, the resources would not have been devolved to the areas that needed them, but the blame for the cuts would have been. The Government have used that formula for many years now.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) is not in the Chamber, which is regrettable. He complained about the formula and the distribution. In my local authority over the past five years, we have had five times the amount of cuts that South Dorset has had. I am fearful that the police funding formula will do the same to policing as the Government did to local government.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. That was exactly what was designed in the formula. The Government were found out by the PCC for Devon and Cornwall. I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) said about the Minister, but he is just a small cog in the huge machine. The machine is about devolving blame but not resources to local authorities. They devolve the blame to local decision makers and point the finger at them when cuts have to be made. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is the real villain of the piece, can stand back and say, “Not me, guv!”
Since 2010, £2.2 billion—22% of the funding—has been taken out of police budgets in this country. I do not accept that an average constituent of mine understands how police funding is arrived at. It is unique in the sense that two-thirds of it—the bulk of it—comes from central Government. Many people feel that what they pay, for example in local rates, pays for local services. We know that that is not the case.
The system is very uneven. Some authorities are able to raise more in local precept than others. Areas such as mine are unable to raise a large amount. In Durham, 55% of properties are band A, so a 2% increase in the budget would raise nothing like the amount that could be raised in Surrey or in other parts of the country. That leads me to one of the issues highlighted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the autumn statement: the ability to argue that some of the lower precept local authorities can now not be bound by the 2% limit but by a £5 increase.
Again, all that does is help the wealthier areas. If we were allowed to do that in Durham, it would raise hardly anything compared with some of the more well-off forces such as Essex, Herefordshire and others. Again, that needs to be looked at.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is another issue that relates to vulnerable and deprived areas, which is the top-slicing of grants? Next year, there will be a 69% rise in the top-slicing of police grants. In my area of Greater Manchester, that means a reduction of £16.2 million. Does he agree that we need an assurance that top-slicing for national projects, such as the transformation fund, does not come from local police grants?
Mr Jones
I agree. That is another sleight of hand by the Chancellor. We have only to look at local government and the new homes bonus, which is trumpeted as a great opportunity for local authorities to raise money. What do the Government do, but top-slice it in exactly the way my hon. Friend describes?
In Durham, the ability to raise extra funds from precept is limited and any future formula needs to take that into account. In the autumn statement, the Chancellor said that policing would be protected and that money would fall from heaven. I am sorry, but that is not going to happen. As my hon. Friend says, there will be top-slicing. It is clear, from what police and crime commissioners have said, that there will still be pressure this year on the police budget. Any type of formula needs to consider the local tax yield and the ability of places such as Durham to raise additional expenditure.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) raised the issue of disproportionate cuts. In Durham, since 2010 we have lost 350 officers and another 25 police community support officers. Before anyone says that Durham is a profligate, fat and inefficient police force, let me say that it is the only one in the country to receive three “outstanding” ratings for efficiency from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker) highlighted in his speech, great steps have been taken by police forces, working with local authorities, health services and other police forces, to drive up efficiency. I am not opposed to that—indeed, it is to be welcomed. However, police forces will come to the point where they cannot be any more efficient. At the end of the day, local people want police on the streets. They want police who are responsive and they want localised policing. That cannot be done. There comes a point in the process where the service that local people desire cannot be delivered.
We have seen the same happen in local government, where many local authorities are being pared back to delivering statutory services alone. Are we going to see a similar situation in policing? If a drive to a small state Conservative Britain is the Government’s ultimate aim, they need to be honest about that, rather than hide behind this type of funding formula.
The police community, local politicians and police and crime commissioners have lost all faith that the Home Office can conduct this review properly and fairly. I support what the Select Committee has suggested—taking it out of the hands of the Home Office. Otherwise, it will lead to a suspicion that the Chancellor is in the background and wants to use this as a way of driving out not efficiency but cash from the police service.
It is possibly a terrible thing to say, but I think it is true that if it had not been for the tragic events in Paris, we would have faced even deeper cuts to police forces. With the greatest respect, it was not down to my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) or the Labour party that this U-turn took place; it was because of the Government’s fear that after the tragic events in Paris, there would be an outcry if they persisted with the cuts they intended to put through.
There is a drive for simplicity in the formula. I have always been in favour of making things as simple as possible in public policy. If making things simpler makes them less accurate and less transparent, however, I would be against it. Clearly, the interaction with other budgets is important—I mentioned mental health earlier—and it needs to be looked at. A policing element is needed. We cannot say to mental health trusts, “You will have to pay for part of your local area’s policing”. It is important that the interconnections are taken into account.
Deprivation is another crucial issue. Durham is a rural county, but under these proposals it is obviously not rural enough—or perhaps I should say that it is not blue enough—to get much money out of making representations about the formula. Rural areas such as Durham are unique. I describe parts of County Durham and parts of my own constituency as being very rural yet having urban problems. The problems would be recognised in any urban area—drug and alcohol-related crime and even organised crime, along with deprivation and the high level of crime associated with it. That is why we need to take into account not only rurality, but the realities of what is happening on the ground.
The argument about using licensed premises as an indicator of alcohol problems is, I think, complete nonsense. The public image that comes through from many of our national newspapers is that the real crime problems arise as people spill out of wine bars after a happy hour. No, they do not. People should speak to the police locally. One of the biggest issues is alcohol in the home, but how to reflect that in a formula is going to be difficult. Reflecting alcohol disturbance in an area according to the number of bars in it will not provide an answer to the problem.
Let me finish by paying tribute to the men and women of Durham constabulary, who have had a tough last six years. There are 350 former colleagues who no longer pound the beat in Durham, yet it has met the challenges when it comes to driving efficiency and interacting with the community, which has been reflected in the HMRC report that rates the force as outstanding. I pay tribute to Chief Constable Mike Barton and to the Labour police and crime commissioner, Ron Hogg. They have worked closely together not only to drive innovation and efficiency in the delivery of service, but to look at innovative ways of providing alternative justice, for example. They are making a real impact locally: when initiatives are launched, they are not always popular, but they are having a real impact on the ground.
Finally, let me touch on the relationship with other forces. I am in favour of reducing costs, and if Durham police can work with those on Teesside to form a joint firearms or dog handling unit that is great, but I have a problem with some of the proposals to merge other blue-light services that the Government are driving through. Obviously some efficiency savings can be made through the merging of back-office functions in, for instance, the fire and rescue services, but we must be careful not to repeat the imposition of cuts on those services on the grounds that their job can somehow be merged with, or massaged into, a policing role. If sensible things can be done in back offices, I am all for that, but blurring the edges when it comes to the front-line delivery of fire services, and other services, is a different matter altogether.
I hope that we have a proper look at the funding formula, and the sooner we do it, the better. Any review must be independent, because the Home Office thinks that credibility has been shredded. The one thing that I do not trust at all is an arrangement whereby the Conservative Government and the Chancellor are behind this, driving forward not a fairer funding formula but a formula that will divert resources from areas like mine and into leafy Tory suburbs.
Gerald Jones
That was not the situation that the shadow Home Secretary described, and I think the hon. Gentleman knows that. He is trying to misrepresent what was said. The Conservatives were talking about cuts of 20%-plus at that point, so let us get this into perspective.
Mr Kevan Jones
Non-ring-fenced Departments were asked by the Chancellor to find cuts of up to 40%. If such cuts had gone through in the Home Office, policing budgets would certainly have been cut by more than 10%.
Gerald Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I think we are seeing a lot of smoke and mirrors from the Conservative party. In closing, I urge the Government to address the concerns that I have outlined, and to provide the fair funding formula that the police need to do the job that we ask them to do.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
I took part in the debate last week, and I will repeat something that I said at the time. I want to put on record again a big thank you to the staff and officers of Merseyside police. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) has today given the House a measured and generous analysis and exposition of the funding formula debacle. I am not of a mind to be as generous as him, however, because the tensions that that created right across the police service are still being felt. There is a fear that we shall find ourselves in a similar situation again and that it will be just as unfair and just as much of a debacle.
I should like to apologise in advance to either the Home Secretary or the Home Affairs Committee. I say that because one or other of them is trying to sell the House a very large pup. Last week, the Home Secretary led the House to believe that the police service was awash with money, regardless of the review. She said that in any event it is the quality of police officers, not the quantity, that counts—I particularly remember that one. She said, in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham):
“When the right hon. Gentleman calls on the Government to provide real-terms protection for the policing budget, I can happily tell Members that we have done just that.”—[Official Report, 24 February 2016; Vol. 606, c. 389.]
Of course, I heaved a sigh of relief at that reassurance—after all, she has the responsibility for keeping the Queen’s peace, and I am sure she would not want to let Her Majesty down in that regard. However, the Home Affairs Committee report appears to take a different view from that of the Home Secretary, saying:
“The real terms reductions in central grant to police forces as a whole has only varied between 24% and 26% since 2010/11…However, the range for real terms reductions for individual forces was from 12% for Surrey to 23% for Northumbria and West Midlands, the two forces most reliant on government grant.”
The Home Secretary is therefore being proactively selective, with the air of an amnesiac about her, and it is a disingenuous approach if ever there was one.
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice told us that the West Midlands police and crime commissioner—this, to some extent, reinforces the point my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) made—had
“not spent part of the £153 million reserve in the West Midlands”—[Official Report, 24 February 2016; Vol. 606, c. 412.]
Again, my relief was palpable, as the Minister had pulled the Home Secretary’s chestnut out of the fire. Clearly, the implication was that police services right across the country had secret stashes of cash, gleaned from the ill-gotten gains of chief constables.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does what my hon. Friend is suggesting not reiterate that we are seeing something that is happening across government? The same arguments are being used by those in the Department for Communities and Local Government when they attack councils for having large reserves, even though a reserve can be spent only once and in cases such as Durham’s a lot of those reserves are already earmarked?
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that, but I am too much of a gentleman to call what the Government are doing claptrap. Clearly, the implication being given was that all this money has been stashed away: serving officers have, with malice aforethought, picked the pockets of the poor, unsuspecting council taxpayers, with the nefarious intention of protecting them from—wait for it—crime! Of course, what the Minister, mimicking the amnesia of the Home Secretary, forgot to mention was that a comprehensive public report brought before the West Midlands police and crime panel on 15 October last year by the PCC’s chief finance officer clearly set out that:
“This report details by 2020 it is forecast over 80% of the WMPCC’s reserves will be used to support the MTFP—
medium-term financial plan—
“transformation programmes or other initiatives.”
Therefore, out of a turnover of two thirds of a billion pounds, the West Midlands PCC will, by 2020, have reserves of about £27 million, or just 4.5%.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend comes from a local government background, so does he also find it remarkable that, in respect of not just the Home Office, but local government, the Government seem to mix revenue and capital willy-nilly? Like me, he knows from his time in local government that one of the cardinal sins was using capital for revenue purposes, unless it was for investment to save—
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend just set out clearly the jiggery-pokery finances of this Government. That is what it is—it is hocus-pocus. By 2020, this Minister, or his successor, will no doubt be accusing the West Midland police of flying by the seat of its pants for having such small reserves. In any event, the West Midlands PCC was already doing what the Minister was, post-hoc, suggesting that he should do. Evidently, there is a contagion of disingenuity in the Home Office.
More shocking were the contents of the Home Affairs Committee report of December 2015. In last week’s Opposition day debate on police funding, we had this Minister refusing to take interventions, with the exception of those from one or two of his own Members, in full obsequious mode. I am afraid that his insouciant and dismissive attitude towards Members of this House has antecedents—in other words, he has form.
Richard Arkless
I know that in Scotland the distinction between blue and red is becoming increasingly blurred, but that was ridiculous.
Last week we had a debate in the Chamber on the police, and there was a difference of opinion between the two sides. The debate was predicated on the words of the Chancellor in the autumn spending review on 25 November:
“there will be no cuts in the police budget at all. There will be real-terms protection for police funding.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1373.]
The Opposition say that that was not true and that there was a real-terms reduction. The Government say that there is a real-terms reduction of 1.4%, but that will be offset by the ability of local authorities to raise the council tax precept portion that can go towards police funding. It seems to me that it is not this place that is protecting the real-terms allocation for police funding, but the poor council tax payers across England and Wales who are doing so.
From a Scottish point of view, unless I have got this dramatically wrong, we in Scotland will not get Barnett consequentials from an increase in council tax spending. Perhaps the situation was not made as clear by the Chancellor on 25 November as it ought to have been. In terms of democracy, millions of people watch the autumn statement. The public and Members of this House should be able to rely on every word that comes out of the Chancellor’s mouth at the Dispatch Box. Clearly, whether by omission or by misunderstanding, it has turned out that his words were not 100% accurate. That is plain wrong.
I have nothing further to add—I know that the Policing Minister will be absolutely devastated at that assertion—other than to request that whatever the House agrees in relation to police funding, it should please be protected it in real terms. Cybercrime, terrorism and a new range of challenges make that essential. Scotland will then have more money to spend on police. It will keep our streets and our children safe, and that is one of the core responsibilities of all Members.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I thank all those who have spoken in the debate. My hon. Friends have detailed the impact of cuts to police funding on their constituents and their police forces. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) for reminding us that the police are trying to do an incredibly difficult job despite the cuts and pressures that they face. The whole House thanks them for that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) was extremely helpful in setting the broader context for the debate, which could not take place at a more important time. Any debate about police funding must be put in the context of the crucial role that the police play, protecting children and vulnerable groups, getting justice for victims and keeping communities safe. As the Home Affairs Committee report says,
“The demands on the police are many and various”.
To give just one example, through my own campaigning work I have found out more and more about the scale of child abuse in the UK. It is truly shocking. The most recent data from the NSPCC estimate that half a million children are being abused. Reports of domestic and sexual violence are increasing across the country.
Mr Kevan Jones
I commend my hon. Friend for her work in that area. Does she agree that that puts pressure on regional forces such as Durham’s, which is involved in Operation Seabrook, investigating abuse at the Medomsley detention centre—an operation that has cost more than £2 million?
Sarah Champion
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that issue, which I have tried to raise in this Chamber. Such cases are incredibly expensive and incredibly important, and that work needs to be done, but there is no additional money, so the money is coming from the existing pot. The Government really need to look seriously at funding those cases.
The numbers of serious and violent crimes are soaring. In the last year alone there has been a major increase in knife crime, which is up 9%, and a 27% rise in violent crime, including a 14% rise in murder. Devastatingly, 50% of those cases close without a single suspect ever being identified.
Central Government funding for police forces was cut by a quarter in the last Parliament, resulting in the loss of 18,000 police officers—12,000 of them operational front-line officers. Thousands of PCSOs and civilian staff have also been cut. We have ever fewer police officers trying to do ever more.
The value of local neighbourhood policing, with officers working in partnership with local authorities and other agencies to tackle the challenges we face, cannot be overestimated. However, neighbourhood policing teams—a proud legacy of the Labour Government—are being eroded. Serious crimes are up, but victims are being let down.
Despite all that, and after cutting the police by 25% in the last Parliament, the Government were threatening to cut at least a further 22% right up until the night before the comprehensive spending review. We were on the brink of catastrophe, but the Chancellor U-turned under pressure from Labour, the public and the police [Interruption.] And London MPs.
The Chancellor then made a promise:
“I am today announcing that there will be no cuts in the police budget at all. There will be real-terms protection for police funding. The police protect us, and we are going to protect the police.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1373.]
That promise to the public and the police has been broken. The Chancellor said he would protect the police, but police budgets are still being cut. Police force funding for 2016-17 has not been protected in real terms. Budgets are being cut again—for the sixth year in a row—at a time when the country faces increased risks.
Figures from the House of Commons Library show that the overall Home Office grant to the police next year will not be protected in real terms or even in cash terms. The Library’s analysis shows that forces in England and Wales will receive £30 million less in cash—a cut worth £160 million in real terms. Even the extra council tax that Tories expect local people to pay to make up for the cuts will not compensate for that.
Mike Penning
I will come on to the report’s recommendations. Whether we use the organisations referred to by the Home Affairs Committee or others, it is crucial that we have the confidence to say, “This is where we are, this is what we think is right and the chief constables are with us.” I reiterate, however, that whenever the contents of a pot of gold are dispersed, there are winners and losers. At the end of the day, though, we must make sure that it is fairer.
Mr Kevan Jones
The Minister is right to raise the important issue of the pressures put on police forces by historic abuse cases. Durham faces a £2 million-plus bill for Operation Seabrook. Is it right that such a complex investigation, which is clearly needed, should fall on Durham? Should there not be a central pot to refund it for such operations?
Mike Penning
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Some forces have much larger percentage costs for historical cases and they have an opportunity to apply to the Home Office for assistance. It is right and proper that the investigations are done by the forces. Some investigations were not done correctly early on, which is even more reason why we should address them. I know about the inquiry referred to by the hon. Gentleman and I am more than happy to look into it. A piece of paper will probably be passed around my back while I am speaking, but I do not think I have had a request from Durham.
On the subject of Durham, it has done fantastically well, hasn’t it? If someone from the moon had landed here this afternoon and listened to this debate—some people probably wish they had travelled in the other direction—they would have thought that Durham had really struggled, so let us say from the outset that it has done fantastically well. It has even done really well in the latest independent reports on police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy. It has been rated outstanding on nine of the 12 points, good on another two, and the other one, which relates to a serious error on stop and search and the use of a Taser, requires improvement.
The force has done all that with a reduced workforce and a higher percentage of officers on the front line. It has experienced a substantial reduction in numbers, from 1,705 to 1,057, but it has massively reduced crime, including during this year. When the hon. Gentleman gets to his feet, I am sure that he will praise the police in Durham, as I have done.
Mr Jones
The Minister cannot have been listening to my speech, in which I praised the great leadership of the chief constable, Mike Barton, and the Labour PCC, Ron Hogg—and, more importantly, the men and women of Durham police. That is no reason why the force should not be fairly funded, however. It has done things well, but that has not been achieved easily. Clearly, it would not have got a fairer funding formula under the Government’s proposals.
Mike Penning
Durham has done more with less, and it has done so excellently. I agree with the hon. Gentleman completely, as I have said at the Dispatch Box on more than one occasion, that we need a way of funding our police that is fairer than the existing formula. He has said on more than one occasion today how difficult things have been for Durham. He is quite right to say so, and things have been difficult for other forces as well. I believe in giving praise where praise is due, and Durham has done fantastically well. It has reduced crime with fewer police but a higher percentage of officers on the front line than in 2010, and that is great.
Mike Penning
I hope I did not say that because that is not what I intended to say. I intended to say that forces that have already collaborated should not be worse off by anything that we bring forward. The chiefs are doing their own capability review across policing—the collaboration with other services is a slightly different thing. Once I know where that delivery point will be and, in other words, where they think the services will be—they could be in ROCUs or local collaboration, as in my hon. Friend’s part of the country, or within the NCA, or within a force—we will have a basis for coming forward with a fairer formula.
Mr Kevan Jones
I want to ask a question about what the Minister is trying to achieve. If he is doing that now, why was it possible in the previous review to think that he could come up with a fair funding formula in eight weeks? What is the role of the Treasury? Is it still sitting on his shoulder trying to get savings, or are we starting with an entirely new process? One key thing that has been raised in the debate—I think the Minister realises it—is that he has to get the confidence back of chief constables, PCCs and the police family.
Mike Penning
I have broad shoulders, but they are not broad enough to take on the whole Treasury. However, the Treasury’s influence is only that it is a flat cash terms agreement for four years, not one year. That is the agreement we have. All the chiefs and PCCs know it. They did not know—they do now.
It would be wrong if I did not mention Scotland, not least because we heard a very interesting contribution from the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) and another one. I did not allow myself to get involved in the spat between the Labour party and the Scottish National party. All I can say is that I thought the SNP position was—I am almost lost for words—ridiculous. That is being polite. Suppose someone goes to their bank manager and asks for a loan of £10,000, £100,000 or even £1 million and he agrees it after looking at the business plan. If, as they walk out after presenting their business plan, they say to the bank manager who is giving them the money, “By the way, I want another 20%,” he will laugh. I laughed when I first read that that is exactly what the Scottish National party has done.
Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women
Lord Beamish Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Owen Smith
I cannot believe for a minute that the hon. Lady is old enough to be one of the women concerned. It tests the credibility of the House that that could be so. I am nevertheless grateful for her intervention.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend recognise that there are a lot of women like Jayne Manners in my constituency, who assumed she was going to retire at 60, is now disabled, and has no ability whatsoever to make up the difference for the six years she has lost because of these changes?
Owen Smith
That is the case for thousands of women across this country. That is why this is more than a small campaign: there is a fundamental injustice that must be changed.
Mr Kevan Jones
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) just said to the Minister that we need at least 10 years for these notifications to be brought in. Is he confirming that this group of women, some of the poorest people in the country, are paying for the planned deficit reduction? What does he say to my constituent, Jayne Manners, who is disabled and cannot make up the six years that she has lost from this scheme? What transitional help can he give her?
Mr Vara
The hon. Gentleman in part repeated a question that was asked earlier, and I refer him to my previous answer. I will turn to other issues later, given the opportunity to make progress with my speech.
We need a pensions system that recognises the changes that have been made, in the same way that we have responded to the need to support older workers in the labour market. We have abolished the default retirement age and extended the right to request flexible working to all employees, and we are working with businesses to encourage the employment and retention of older workers.
Police Grant Report (England and Wales)
Lord Beamish Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. May I join in the welcome to the Serjeant at Arms? We served at the Ministry of Justice together many years ago. I very much welcome his presence today.
This debate is about the police grant—an issue that the Policing Minister skirted around. He talked about a range of issues, including rationalisation and making the police service more efficient, but he avoided the central question of the level of police funding that the Government are committed to for the next few years.
However, I do not want to start on a negative note. On a positive note, I share with the Minister and the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) an admiration for the work of the police and the professionalism of the police service. They do a marvellous job. We must never forget that the police put their lives on the line every day. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), as a Merseyside MP, will note that, because we recently lost an officer in Merseyside. Anyone who has been to the National Police Memorial Day, as the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and I have, will know that the police do a great job and put their lives on the line every day.
This debate is about the level of financial support for the police service across England and Wales. It is clear from what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington said that the level of support is not sufficient to meet the needs of the police service over the next few years. Nobody will deny that crime has fallen in certain key areas, and that the police are trying their best to reduce crime in key areas. However, a key point has been missed in this debate: policing is not just about crime and whether crime is falling or otherwise.
The hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) put his finger on it when he spoke about the difficult circumstances that Cumbria has faced with the recent flooding. In such circumstances, the police are the first port of call. When there are public order events, such as football matches and parades—my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington spoke about the recent events in Birmingham—the police are the first port of call. When there are road accidents or deaths in our communities, whether in houses or on the streets, the police are the first port of call. Because social services and health services are not always operational at weekends, on mental health issues the police are the first port of call 24 hours a day.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington spoke about the golden thread of neighbourhood policing that runs through the service. The police are about reassurance, visibility and evidence collecting, not just about solving crime. My worry is that today’s settlement will put the level of service at risk. No one can deny that the service is under pressure.
I happen to live in a relatively low-crime area in north Wales. The police force there does a great job under Mark Polin. I met Inspector Dave Jolley in my local area last week. The police are doing a great job and the level of crime is relatively low. However, the budget is putting great pressure on the level of service. It is important to examine that, rather than to duck around the issues, as the Minister did today.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
This Government clearly have a small-state Conservative view of the world, as we have seen in local government, which will be changed radically by this week’s settlement. Does my right hon. Friend agree that what the average member of the public wants is the reassurance of having police in their communities, and that what is being proposed in the small-state Conservative world that is being put forward is not what our voters want?
Mr Hanson
The constituents of north Wales and, I am sure, of Durham want a visible police force that engages with them locally, works with them locally and provides reassurance, as well as solving and preventing crime. The Minister has missed something extremely important. He has focused on crime falling in certain areas, which I accept it has—I will come on to the areas where crime has not fallen—but policing is about much more than solving crime.
Christopher Pincher
You may be surprised to learn that, Mr Deputy Speaker. However, when police and crime commissioners were first mooted, I have to admit that I was sceptical. I am a Conservative and, like all Conservatives, wary of change, so I was not sure whether we should employ this radical procedure of appointing police and crime commissioners. I always remind myself of the words of the former Prime Minister, the great Marquess of Salisbury, who, when officials and Ministers visited him at Hatfield House to encourage him to do this, say that or think about the other, would press his fingers to his chin and say after a moment’s thought, “’Twere better not.” Governments of all stripes would do well when considering officials’ ideas to say, “’Twere better not.” We might all be better off.
However, the Home Secretary was right, on police and crime commissioners, to say “’Twere better to do this” because they have transformed our police forces around the country and the way in which they spend their money, not least in my county of Staffordshire, where Matthew Ellis has done a tremendous job in introducing new technology. Hand-held tablets have reduced the amount of time that police officers have to work in their stations and has put them out on the beat. At a fraction of the cost, that has effectively created 100 new police officers in Staffordshire. As a result of Matthew Ellis’s reforms, there has not been an increase in the precept in the past four years, and he can balance the budget for the next four years without an increase in the precept.
Other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), have mentioned body cameras. We call them “bobby cameras” in Staffordshire, which led the way with that innovation. They not only make it easier for the police to prosecute crime, but make it far more challenging for people to bring malicious and false accusations against the police. If the police are wearing cameras and can film their own behaviour, angry, often young people are far less likely to make untrue claims about the police.
In Staffordshire, we have also led the way in introducing a cadet force. There are now 240 cadet officers between the ages of 14 and 17 working in and with the police to build their skills and work out whether they want a career in the police service. If money is spent effectively and considerately, we can have better policing, a community that feels safer, and a police force that has the tools it needs to do the job.
Mr Kevan Jones
I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but will he address the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson)? The central grant to counties such as Durham is far more important than the precept, given that even a large increase in our precept will not generate much cash because of the number of band A properties in County Durham. Does that not mean that there is no level playing field across the UK, given that the precept is not a way of generating any extra cash in places that contain large numbers of band A properties?
Christopher Pincher
I hear the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I feel that he may be thinking that Staffordshire is some sort of green and leafy county. Staffordshire has Stoke in it, and areas of deprivation in Tamworth, Stafford and Burton. That county, which is led by Matthew Ellis, has managed to make a saving of £126 million, which is invested in technology and makes policing better in Staffordshire and—dare I say this?—better than in County Durham?
Christopher Pincher
I will not give way because the House does not have much longer to debate this matter.
James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)
I rise to make four brief points. First, on the level of funding, before the autumn statement, the Home Office, like many other Departments, was asked to model reductions in spending, and the police were preparing for cuts of 20% to 25%. Labour said that the police could withstand cuts of 10%, but the Chancellor protected police funding, and I welcome that protection, as do many police leaders. The most impressive responses from the policing community came from people such as Chief Constable Sara Thornton, who recognised the need not only for sufficient funding, but for the police to reform and to adapt to the changing demands on their services.
My second point is about flexibility. It is important that the police are flexible to meet the demands on their services. A National Audit Office study reveals that the police do not have a sufficient understanding of those demands, so it is important that they both understand and adapt to meet them.
James Berry
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who was wronged earlier, because Durham is, in fact, the most efficient police force in the country. I think he wanted to make that point earlier.
Mr Jones
I wanted to put the record straight for the hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher). As the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) rightly says, Durham is the only constabulary in the country that has received an “outstanding” rating for efficiency five times from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs inspectors. In spite of that, however, it is going to have to save about £3 million over the next year. The hon. Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) has said that the cash settlement has not been reduced, but other demands mean that the number of officers in County Durham will have to be reduced, even though it has already been cut by some 400 over the past 10 years.
James Berry
I am sure the Minister will deal with that in his response. I do not recognise those statistics, but I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s chief constable for running such a fantastically efficient force.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. That is very kind.
As the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, the police protect us, and the Government have indeed protected the police. I believe that the settlement strikes the right balance between ensuring that police forces are properly funded and can plan for the future, and maintaining the impetus and the tempo of reforms.
When I was listening to the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), it struck me that it would be helpful to put the settlement in context. Back in 2010, this country was truly staring into the abyss. Youth unemployment had doubled, and Britain was the basket case of Europe. [Interruption.] I hear the scoffing of Opposition Members, but the important point is this: the impact on public services would have been felt if the Government had not introduced some degree of order. Let us remember what the position was like back then. People were talking not just about trimming the police force, but about the wholesale meltdown of some of our key public services, and that is precisely what has not happened.
On 25 November the Chancellor announced that police spending would be protected in real terms over the spending review period, when the precept was taken into account. No police and crime commissioner will face a reduction in cash funding next year, and funding will have increased by up to £900 million in cash terms by 2019-20. As has already been pointed out, counter-terrorism funding will increase in real terms to £670 million in 2016-17. We have moved from a time when the country and policing faced disaster to a time when we have a strong funding settlement that will give proper funding to our most important services.
Mr Jones
I know that the present Government find it difficult to distinguish between revenue and capital, among other concepts, but the hon. Gentleman has said that no one will lose cash. Durham, for instance, has an “outstanding” force—the only one in the country—but that force must take £3 million out of its budget this year because of wage increases and other pressures. “Flat cash” does not constitute an increase.
Alex Chalk
As I have said, it is important to put the settlement in context. Back in 2010—[Interruption.] May I deal with the point? In 2010, the country was bringing in about £600 million in tax revenue and spending £750 million. If that had not been addressed, the country and policing would be facing meltdown, but policing is now on a sound footing to protect the people of our country.
Speeches are sometimes as interesting for what is not said as for what is said. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington did not mention, even as one of his own apocalyptic scenarios, the kind of cut that he would himself have countenanced. At the Labour party conference in Brighton, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) declared that savings of up to 10% could be found. He said that that would be doable. That is not what is happening under this Government. Funding is now on a sustainable footing and capability is being enhanced.
Police Funding Formula
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Mike Penning
One reason that the funding formula was not changed by the previous Administration or any other Administration is that it is so damned difficult. I know that that is not parliamentary language, Mr Speaker, but it is true. I have experienced this in the past couple of months. The fact that it was hard was not an excuse not to do it, however, and we do need to get it right.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement today, but he must realise that the buck stops with him and not with his officials. I find it remarkable that it took 24 hours for him to find out about the problem, and that his officials did not tell him sooner. Does he not realise that the Home Office has now lost all credibility among the police and the police and crime commissioners—the police family—over this process? Is it not about time he took up the suggestion of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), and established independent oversight of the process?
Mike Penning
I do not accept that the whole police family has no faith in the Home Office or in me. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, however, to suggest that, so far as ministerial oversight is concerned, I am ultimately responsible. That is why I have not blamed an individual civil servant or any Department. At the end of the day, this is my responsibility, which is why I am standing here now.
Immigration Statistics
Lord Beamish Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Mike Penning
We will talk about the selective memory loss of the Labour party in a moment.
Such mass immigration makes it very difficult to maintain social cohesion. The Government have set about reforming the immigration system and made it clear that it will be fairer for British citizens and legitimate migrants. These rules are tough. We would like to see net migration reduced to what it was in the 1990s, as the Prime Minister has set out. As successive net migration statistics have shown, where we can control net migration, our reforms are working. Net migration from outside the EU has dropped by 25%, but net migration from inside the EU has grown. It is a really difficult situation and we are trying desperately to control it.
Although net migration from outside the EU is down, net migration from within Europe is up by 75%. It is not just about the figures that were released yesterday—that is the indication in all the recent figures. That is why the Prime Minister is outlining today the action he will take when he becomes the next Prime Minister in his negotiations with the EU on the benefit system for migrants coming to this country.
We have already taken unprecedented action to control benefits for those from the EU and outside the EU. We are continuing to consider how this can be done and how we can control it even better. We have reformed benefits, health care and housing rules to make them among the tightest in Europe and we intend to go further. The reforms we have made, including cutting EU jobseeker entitlements, will save British taxpayers £500 million over the next five years. We are proud of that record, but we need to do more. The shambolic situation we were left by the previous Administration must be addressed, but we inherited it and we are trying to make sure that we get things right.
Mike Penning
By making comments from a sedentary position, Labour Members are showing their selective memory loss about the mess they left this country in. Perhaps they would like to ask me in a moment about the mess they left us in and how we will try to resolve that.
Net migration from outside the EU is down and this morning the Prime Minister has outlined his plans to deal with the high levels of migration from within the EU. We intend to do that and to ensure that this country is a safe place to come for migrants when they need to come here but that it is not a soft touch.
Mike Penning
I have known my hon. Friend for many years and his views are well known. I agree with many of his views, but not with some of the views he has made public today. I do not think we can just stand back and say that we will not renegotiate at all and that we will just walk away from the EU. However, the Prime Minister has said today that the changes he has made are quite specific.
The Prime Minister made the statements he made in good faith, as I am sure we would all accept, but he could not have predicted the catastrophic eurozone economic catastrophe—
Mike Penning
Yet again, from a sedentary position a Labour Member talks about the banking crisis that started under his party.
Mike Penning
They are going to be achieved by having a Conservative Government. The Prime Minister made his speech this morning at the JCB factory rather than here because it was obviously a party political speech. All the reforms that he outlined will create a fair system in which we are in control of immigration and our benefits. That is what we should all be looking forward to.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Have we not just heard more false promises from the Prime Minister this morning? One of his proposals is that he will restrict the access to universal credit. Given that there are only 17,850 people on universal credit now, and that it will not be fully implemented until 2028, how will his proposal actually affect EU immigration?
Mike Penning
I was a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions until a very short time ago, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that universal credit will be rolled out correctly and it will not be a mess, unlike the IT projects under the previous Administration. What the Prime Minister talked about this morning was post-election; that is exactly what we expect to do when we win the election.
Probation Service
Lord Beamish Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
I know that a lot of work has gone into the hand-outs, but let me make some progress.
Another concern is that the big multinationals will dominate, just as they did in the Work programme, because they are the only ones that have financial clout. Smaller companies and charities will be used as bid candy to sweeten the less palatable bids of the big corporations. People should not take my word for it; the deputy chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Ben Kernighan, has said that
“under its most significant public service reform so far, the Work Programme, many charities have found themselves squeezed out by large commercial providers. In the interests of helping ex-offenders who could benefit from charities’ expertise, the government must ensure the mistakes of the Work Programme are not repeated.”
Nothing has persuaded me that those mistakes will not be repeated.
Our concerns do not end there. Another £600,000 a year of the Ministry’s budget will go to companies that have let us down before over electronic tagging, Olympic security, prisoner transport and the Work programme. Those companies will be beyond the scope of freedom of information requests, which will do nothing to lessen the chances of fraud or irregularities.
We are also concerned about the length of the proposed contracts. The Official Journal of the European Union states that the contract lengths will be between seven and 10 years, with an option to extend them to 13 years. The estimated value of each contract is between £5 billion and £20 billion. Imagine what great work the public sector could do if it was awarded similarly long contracts and such stability, rather than having a year-to-year, hand-to-mouth existence.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that local charities in my constituency are doing good work with offenders. However, those charities will not be able to bid for the contracts because of their size and complexity. In the past few weeks, the large companies have tried to sign up the charities as providers. Effectively, the large companies are becoming middlemen in the delivery of the service.
Sadiq Khan
What my hon. Friend describes is a repetition of what happened with the Work programme. Small companies, charities and voluntary groups are used by the big boys as bid candy to get the contracts and are then elbowed out. We saw that with the Work programme and we will see it again in probation.
Do Members know who will be able to bid? G4S and Serco. The allegations against both companies are so serious that the Serious Fraud Office is investigating them, and yet the Justice Secretary is refusing to rule them out of the bidding process. By the way, there is no obligation for the staff of those companies to be trained or experienced in this area. Those companies have no track record of providing such services.
We are not confident in the ability of the MOJ to procure the contracts, given its poor track record. Last year, we had the scandal of court translators under this Government’s watch. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) is busy reading her texts, but I will read what the Public Accounts Committee, of which she is a member, said of that debacle. She can correct me at any stage. It stated:
“The Ministry was not an intelligent customer…The Ministry failed to undertake proper due diligence…The result was total chaos…the Ministry has only penalized the supplier a risible £2,200.”
There is no guarantee that the big private companies will not run rings around the MOJ yet again.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats want a rehabilitation revolution. We want to toughen up community sentences and make them a genuine alternative to custody, to embed restorative justice throughout the justice system and to open up rehabilitation services to a wider range of providers to ensure that the most effective and innovative measures are available.
It is clear from the comments of hon. Members from both sides of the House that the justice system, as it stands at the moment, is not working. Nearly half of offenders reoffend, but the figure for short-term prisoners is even worse, at 60% and they are the ones who currently get no help with rehabilitation at all. The result is a huge cost to society and to the economy. We need help for all ex-offenders to enable them to build their lives on release and not fall into the same traps that got them into trouble in the first place. That is why I welcome our current proposals to change the law to ensure that all offenders released from custody, regardless of their sentence length, will receive at least 12 months of supervision on licence. It is to be done by making probation cost-effective, by extending the service to lower-risk offenders on a payments-by-results basis. That additional help that offenders receive should, literally, pay for itself.
I am a member of a Select Committee considering prisoner voting, and I can tell hon. Members that when it comes to the issues that will determine the amount of reoffending, the right to vote, although that is an important human right, is way down the list. The important factors are having somewhere to stay, meaningful work, training and education, supportive personal relationships, a mentor, continuing health care and so on. Ex-offenders will now have the opportunity to access such things through a structured programme of help. The private and voluntary sectors as well as those who now work in probation trusts can bid for the care of those low-risk offenders.
Mr Kevan Jones
I do not disagree with the hon. Lady about the excellent work done by many voluntary organisations, as I certainly have one such organisation in my constituency. I am being told, however, that such organisations cannot bid for the contracts, as they will not take that financial risk, but, ironically, some of the big private sector companies are asking them to be on the sub-tender list. The idea being suggested is that such organisations will come forward, but that will not be the case.
Lorely Burt
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was listening very carefully when the Secretary of State made his remarks on that point. I can only concur with the Secretary of State’s comments—they worked for me.
The importance and value of probation officers in protecting the public and helping offenders reintegrate into society should not be underestimated. We are clear that we need to obtain the skills and expertise of probation professionals as we move into the new system, which is why we are establishing a national probation service.
I want to address a phrase in Labour’s motion that is, I feel, misleading. It states that it is a
“fact that under the Government’s plans supervision of dangerous, sexual and violent offenders may be undertaken by inexperienced and unqualified staff and by companies without any track record in this area”.
I believe that the important factor is whether they are “high risk”. The Justice Secretary has explained very clearly how the system would work. The established probation service will handle all high-risk ex-offenders and to imply that they would be entrusted to inexperienced and unqualified people is, in my view, scaremongering. Let us have none of that.
Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill (Programme) (No. 2)
Lord Beamish Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) on, and welcome him to, his new Front-Bench position. He has said that he has nothing in principle against programme motions, but had he been in the House before the last election he would have had to sit through the long debates in which Members who now sit on the Government Front Bench used to argue that programme motions were an evil of our age. They have not taken long to embrace programme motions or to use them as a way of curtailing debate.
It is universally acknowledged that the Queen’s Speech was not jam-packed with proposed legislation, to the extent that we now routinely have Back-Bench business debates and Opposition days. This Government are reluctant to ensure that this House properly scrutinises Bills. If that is to happen, time has to be provided for it.
A number of Bills have been rushed through this place with undue haste this Session, only to then be filleted in the other place, where more time is given for scrutiny. Sometimes that has been down to bad draftsmanship, and this Bill is a good example of that. My hon. Friend has already referred to the 89 pages of amendments and new clauses that have been tabled, which smacks to me of there being something wrong with the drafting of the Bill.
My hon. Friend said that this is a Christmas tree Bill, but I would say that it is a dog’s breakfast—a dangerous dog’s breakfast—of a Bill. If we look back at previous attempts to legislate on the serious issue of dangerous dogs, we will see that getting it wrong can cost lives, so it is very important that we get it right this time. That can only be done through proper scrutiny by the House.
Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (Ind)
In the absence of any amendment to the programme motion, what could the House possibly gain from voting against it? If we did so we would, in effect, lose a whole day.
Mr Jones
I welcome the hon. Gentleman, whose presence in the House has been limited because of illness, to his place. The fact is that there is a general trend under this Government to limit the time to consider all Bills, not just this one.
The Bill raises serious issues and has a wide scope, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) has said. It covers everything from the important issue of dangerous dogs to forced marriage and major issues of police reform, including a provision allowing foreigners to become police chiefs. Also—I know this is an issue of huge concern to some Government Members—it relates to the Terrorism Act 2000 and extradition. If we are to have a serious debate about such issues and ensure public confidence in us, we need more time than that allotted by the programme motion.
The Minister has said that the programme motion is generous because it gives us an extra day, but that is not the case, unless the Minister’s day usually finishes at 5.30 pm on a Tuesday. Why can we not extend the time available for consideration until the usual time of 7 pm, which would at least give us nearly two extra hours? I understand that Government Members are keen to attend to certain social engagements. I was surprised to read in the press at the weekend that the Opposition had agreed to the programme motion when they clearly had not. It has been a trend of this Government to believe that if they say something, it must be true, and if they keep saying something, it most definitely is true.
This House must do a proper job of scrutinising this large piece of legislation, which contains some crucial issues that will affect our constituents directly. The allocated time is not sufficient to ensure that we do that.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Mr Blunt
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the advice on Nottinghamshire. I confess that I was not aware of that work, although I am aware of very good practice in the north-east, for example, and elsewhere in the country. But, of course, we do not propose those changes to the sentencing regime for that offence except to send a very clear message that it is an offence that can do very serious damage indeed.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
22. What discussions he has had with the Lord Chief Justice on the potential effect of his planned changes to legal aid on the number of litigants in person.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I thought that I had already answered this question, which was grouped with Question 10. I said that a substantial number of cases already—
Mr Clarke
The courts already deal with litigants in person, and they are very used to dealing with that situation. We accept that the legal aid changes currently before the House of Lords will increase the number of litigants in person, but the evidence on the issue is very mixed, indicating that some cases are dealt with more quickly and others take longer. In fact, many such cases do not require legal representation at all.
Mr Jones
The Justice Secretary is clear that the number of litigants representing themselves will increase. In drawing up his cuts in legal aid, did his Department make any assessment of increased costs, given that the Lord Chief Justice is concerned that courts could be swamped and that the cost to the taxpayer could be higher as a result of those cuts?
Mr Clarke
We see no evidence at all that this would give rise to increased costs. It is extremely difficult to anticipate precisely the effect of there being more litigants in person because the evidence is so mixed. We are concentrating, particularly in the family division, on dealing with more cases by way of mediation. Adversarial litigation is not always the best way of resolving problems; there are many better alternative ways of resolving disputes in suitable cases. We are putting more money into mediation and less into taxpayers paying for lawyers.