Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Herbert of South Downs and Alec Shelbrooke

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

19. What estimate she has made of the potential additional time available for police officers arising from planned reductions in administrative burdens.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

The police should be focusing on police work, not paperwork. That is why, last month, the Government announced a package of new measures to cut red tape, saving up to 2.5 million police hours a year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

I welcome the steps being taken by Warwickshire police in this area and I would happily visit the force to look at what it is doing. We want to make sure that new technology is used in that way by police forces. We have inherited the problem that there is still multiple keying of data into different systems by police officers, as I heard this morning for myself, which is wasting their time. We still have 2,000 different IT systems across the 43 forces, which we have to converge and we have a programme to achieve that.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

What action has my right hon. Friend taken to reduce the bureaucracy that has historically inhibited the neighbourhood policing team in my constituency town of Garforth from moving on illegal Traveller encampments?

[Nick Herbert]

I would like to have a further discussion with my hon. Friend about what obstacles there are to that. We certainly want to ensure that the police are able to exercise their existing powers to move on Travellers who are in illegal occupation of sites, which is totally unacceptable and antisocial. We believe that the powers are there; if there are impediments or if the force is encountering some difficulty, I would welcome a conversation with my hon. Friend about that.