Police: Crime Rates

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not sure whether the noble Lord has read the report as well as the press release—which, incidentally, said only that police cuts “could” lead to a surge in crime—that Civitas produced. I quote from the report:

“The data suggest … A nation with a larger proportion of police officers is somewhat more likely to have a lower crime rate”.

When one examines the statistics—as an academic, I usually try to look at the statistics—one sees that, according to the report, crime in Romania is 10 per cent of the scale of crime in Britain and Cyprus has three times as many police officers per head of population as Britain. I suspect that the data are not entirely reliable.

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the example being set by Surrey Police, whose chief constable has introduced efficiencies that allow him to combine significant savings with an increase in the number of police officers on the beat? Does the Minister believe that that is a model that other police forces could follow?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am sure that everyone here is aware of the HMIC report, which suggests that there is potential for a 12 per cent cut in police spending without damaging police resources at all. In the other place, Vernon Coaker speaking for the Labour Party said,

“we would have accepted what the HMIC report says”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/12/10; col. 358.]

That is to say that he admits that Labour was committed to at least a 12 per cent cut. I think it likely that, if Labour had won the election, we would have been talking about 15 to 20 per cent cuts in overall spending, so we are not talking about a vast partisan divide here.