Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Jack Dromey

Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

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

I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making, although I do not agree with him. Does he accept that there are circumstances in which we all have police powers? If I witness somebody committing what I consider to be an indictable offence, I am able, as a citizen, to arrest them without a warrant. Does he agree, therefore, that if we are going to have volunteers among the police—unless he wants to do away with them completely—they should at least be trained? If they then find themselves in a situation of danger where they may have to act as a police officer, they can do so, perhaps using purely that power of citizen’s arrest?

[Jack Dromey]

The problem is that the Government have failed to spell out how they will ensure that these volunteers are properly trained and properly accountable, or how there will be clarity about their role—as I will say later, the Government have ruled out nothing in terms of the role volunteers might play in the next stages. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt want to come back on that issue, but on the particular point he raised, perhaps he will wait until I get to the relevant part of my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey]

Absolutely. Under the current arrangements in the police service, there is an agreement between the Home Office, the National Police Chiefs Council, the College of Policing and the police staff unions that police support volunteers should bring additionality to the workforce but should under no circumstances replace or be a substitute for paid police staff. The Government claim that they have protected police funding and that they are not using the provisions to plug holes left in the workforce from funding reductions. If plugging gaps in our hollowed-out police service is not the Government’s aim in these ill-though-out proposals, there should be no reason whatsoever for them not to support amendment 10.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman needs to realise that he is walking into a cul-de-sac, which may not be of his own making. Independent custody visitors are essentially police volunteers who visit custody suites, and a case could probably be made by a smart lawyer that they substitute for custody officers in their supervisory role. Are they the kind of people that he wants to get rid of?

I urge the hon. Gentleman to listen to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). We have a duty in this House not to create Heath Robinson legislation. Amendments 11, 12, 13 and 10 seem to me to be an extraordinarily roundabout way to disagree with what the Government are trying to do through the previous amendments. Surely the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) should simply vote against those amendments, rather than creating this Byzantine structure to negate what the Government are trying to do.

Policing

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Jack Dromey

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

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

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

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

[Jack Dromey]

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

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

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