Crime and Policing

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Baroness May of Maidenhead

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I say to the shadow Home Secretary that I am deeply disappointed in what he is saying. I will tell him who that statistic means something to—it means something to my constituents, and to those of other hon. Members, when they do not see police on the streets. They know the reality, but sadly the shadow Home Secretary is not willing to accept it. The reality is that because of things that his Government did we have seen that police officers have been tied up in bureaucracy and red tape, kept in police stations filling in forms when they could have been out on the streets, where people want to see them and where they want to be.

This is not just about the bureaucracy faced by police officers; the previous Labour Government passed a record number of laws, but left office with nearly 900,000 violent crimes taking place a year. They spent a record amount on criminal justice, but they left office with 26,000 victims of crime every single day. Labour Members might think that that is a record to be proud of, but we do not and neither do the British people.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Could the right hon. Lady tell us how many of those victims would support her suggestion to get rid of antisocial behaviour orders or would support the reduction in the number of CCTV cameras? Has she ever come across a constituent who wants to see fewer CCTV cameras?

[Mrs May]

Once again, the trouble with the Labour party is that it is making up things about what our policy is, purely in order to meet the arguments that Labour Members want to bring into this House. On CCTV, we have said that we want better regulation of it and automatic number plate recognition—ANPR—and it is right and proper for us to introduce that. If the Labour party thought that there was nothing to be done about CCTV, why did it start looking at introducing somebody to examine the regulation of CCTV? The regulation of CCTV is important and I suggest to the hon. Lady that she does not go around trying to suggest that the Government are going to get rid of CCTV cameras as a result of our policy to regulate those cameras better.

The hon. Lady has given me a welcome opening here, because I wanted to go on to discuss not only the record of the previous Labour Government, but what we are going to do— that is despite the fact that this is an Opposition day debate. I want to talk about how we as the new coalition Government will deliver effective policing that cuts crime in an era of falling budgets, because we on this side of the House are determined not only to tackle the legacy of debt we have been left with by the last Government, but to make sure we deliver high-quality public services even as we reduce public spending. If we are to succeed, the policing reforms I announced to the House before the summer recess, which were so derided by the shadow Home Secretary, will be vital.

Despite spending more on criminal justice than any comparable country, we remain a high-crime country—the chance of being a victim of crime here is higher than almost anywhere else in Europe—[Interruption.] Those on the Labour Front Bench are making lots of comments from a sedentary position, but that is again part of the denial. The idea that this country is somehow a wonderful world where people do not experience crime or antisocial behaviour because of the impact of the last Government is completely false. We remain a high-crime country and we need to do something about it. The complacency on the Opposition Benches about this issue is, frankly, breathtaking.