Police (Detention and Bail) Bill
Steve McCabe Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mrs May
Given his experience, the right hon. Gentleman will know that Ministers never confirm or deny when asked what legal advice or opinion they have sought. However, I can tell him that the Home Office is satisfied that the legislation is necessary. If it were not, we would not be introducing it.
One hour and two minutes after the Home Office received ACPO’s professional, legal and operational advice on Thursday 30 June, the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice delivered an oral statement to the House in which he announced our intention to introduce emergency legislation. The police’s professional and operational judgment, backed up by the legal expertise of two leading QCs, has guided the Government’s decision. Only fast-track primary legislation can give the police the necessary certainty and immediacy in restoring the law as it was understood to operate. As was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), what we seek to do is return things to how they have been for the last 25 years.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
What many Opposition Members find difficult to deal with is the time scale. The Home Secretary says that the Government acted as speedily as possible, but Ministers did not meet representatives of ACPO until 24 June. The right hon. Lady could have read what was said by Michael Zander on 18 June, when he made it absolutely clear that we would need an appeal or emergency legislation. If she is the person in charge, why did she know nothing about that, and why did she not meet ACPO representatives until 24 June?
Mrs May
The hon. Gentleman asked me the same question earlier this week when I appeared before the Home Affairs Committee. The issue has also been raised by a number of other Opposition Members, who are doing their best to suggest that there was a delay. There was no delay. It was necessary for all the parties concerned to examine in detail the judgment that had been made available on 17 June. Professor Michael Zander is well respected in this field, in which he has considerable expertise, but I think that if I had come to the House and proposed to the Opposition that the Government introduce emergency legislation on the basis of an article that had appeared in a journal, the Opposition would have rightly told the Government that they should take a rather more professional approach.
The Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday not to grant a stay in the case has made the legislation all the more vital and all the more urgent. I welcome the support for it that has been promised by Opposition Front Benchers, as well as the support given by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz).
Yvette Cooper
We are talking about wider issues here and, if I may, I will deal with those later. If my hon. Friend wishes to intervene then, I will be happy to take a further intervention from him. I wish to finish the point that I am making and then deal with his point.
The case for rapid action to resolve the situation is extremely clear. Nevertheless, it is important that we set it out in the House to make it clear to the courts what our view and judgment are. The costs and administrative burdens for the police in trying to manage this interim situation should also not be underestimated. There is also a significant risk that clever defendants or defence lawyers might use that interim period as a way to get off on a technicality, which would mean that justice would not be done, the House and Parliament not having clarified the situation for the police and the courts.
It would be irresponsible for Parliament to wait longer to deal with the situation. It is not possible for Parliament to take the risk of waiting for the Supreme Court hearing on 25 July, as thousands of domestic violence victims alone need the protection of enforceable bail conditions right now, not in several weeks’ time. So we do support the legislation, as I explained in Parliament on a point of order within hours of learning about the issue eight days ago.
However, we should reflect on some genuine concerns. We have not proposed any amendments, even probing ones, because we think that the most important thing today is to get the legislation on to the statute book and to restore the position for the police and crime victims as soon as possible. However, the House should also have concerns about the possibility of the use of endless police bail. There are cases, and there have been cases, where people have been left on police bail, including with conditions, long after another suspect has confessed to the offence. There are other cases where investigations have run dry but action was not taken to end the bail arrangements. Long bail can sometimes mean that delays are allowed to develop, and they eventually become counter-productive in securing justice.
Therefore, we should, in due course, have a wider debate about the appropriateness and proportionality of different lengths of police bail and what safeguards are needed. If Parliament, the Government and the police do not have those debates about what we think is appropriate, we risk the courts making those decisions for us. It is important that the police have the powers and the flexibilities to pursue those investigations, but we need to give them support in doing that, and make sure that that is properly reflected in the arrangements that we have. There are issues to do with the fact that the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 has been amended many times and clarity might be needed on wider matters, too. It would be helpful if the Home Office and ACPO considered more closely when, how and for how long police bail is used and whether the current framework is appropriate or needs amending.
In the meantime, the most important thing is to restore to the police the ability to operate in the way in which they have operated, and with the framework with which they have operated, for several decades.
Steve McCabe
I accept my right hon. Friend’s point about not tabling any amendments, but given what she has said about the application of bail conditions, is there not a persuasive argument for having a sunset clause in this emergency legislation so that we deal with the immediate problem but have proper time to debate the issues she mentions?
Yvette Cooper
That would have been one way to do it. When the issue came to light last week, we suggested that one option might be to introduce emergency legislation with a sunset clause before considering the subject more widely. The most important thing, given the time we have available, is that the Government have proposed a way to restore the system, and the whole House should support it. I hope that the Government will have further discussions with ACPO about whether any other developments are needed.
As several hon. Members have said, we should never legislate lightly when it takes retrospective effect. Changing the law retrospectively is, in general, undesirable and creates great uncertainty. It threatens natural justice if people end up breaking a law when they did not know of its existence, when it did not exist at the time the act was committed and when they could not have been expected to know that it would exist.
I have thought very carefully about the question and I know that members of the Government have, too. I am clear that a retrospective clause is justified in this case. Indeed, I urged the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice to include a retrospective clause when I discussed the issues with him last Thursday. In this case, we are simply restoring the law to what we in Parliament thought it was, to what we intended it to be and to that which the police, the CPS and others have been following in good faith for many years. We have made clear our intention and so in this period of uncertainty the police, suspects and others should know what Parliament intends. If we had not made our intentions clear, we would have opened the police and victims up to considerable uncertainty about the prospects for individual cases, especially those under investigation at the moment. It would be deeply wrong for a victim to be denied justice and for the offender to escape on a technicality simply because the crime was committed in the limbo period between 19 May and Royal Assent and the police interviews did not comply with the temporary legal position owing to any confusion.
An even more troubling possibility is that historic cases, in which the standard practice was followed in good faith by the police and CPS, could end up being overturned or dragged back through the courts because of the Hookway judgment. In such circumstances, we should legislate retrospectively but we should be clear that we are doing so because we have considered the seriousness of the issue and that we have made the judgment after serious consideration rather than lightly.
I have some concerns about the process and about why we are doing this now, in such a way. I am concerned about the initial judgment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) mentioned the judgment of the judge in Salford, which was confirmed by the High Court judge. Judges, not Parliament, interpret the law and it was the role of the High Court judge to come to a view on what the legislation meant. The fact that the judge came to a new view on the interpretation of the law or a different view from experts, such as Professor Zander QC, is still part of the judicial process. It is possible for us to disagree with the judge’s decision while respecting his constitutional role in making such decisions.
My greatest concern is about the final paragraph of the High Court judge’s judgment, which the Home Secretary quoted. He does not simply interpret the law but makes a practical assessment of the impact of his judgment:
“It seems to me however...the consequences are not as severe as might be feared in impeding police investigations in the vast majority of cases. This is simply because in the usual case a suspect returning on bail will either be released because the evidence is not sufficient to warrant a charge or he will be re-arrested under statutory powers because new evidence has come to light.”
I strongly disagree with that practical assessment and the evidence of cases that the police have to handle at the moment disproves it.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I, too, will support the emergency legislation, but two questions seem to have been raised: first, what happened; and secondly, what are the implications of the legislation itself? On the question of what happened, there seem to be two different versions of events. The Government version suggests that they acted within one hour and two minutes, and we have heard a lot of support for that view, with Members telling us about the speed of events. Another version suggests that the clock started ticking on this issue on 5 April, when the judgment was made in the Salford court, and that it has been going on for three months. There has been a crucial judgment, albeit after a 25-year gap, about the interpretation of a piece of parliamentary legislation that identifies a drafting error that no one appears to have spotted in 25 years, which I find slightly strange.
Steve McCabe
I will in just a second.
I understand that the Government need to deal with the immediate situation, but I find it slightly strange that we are going to do so by simply sweeping the matter under the carpet, because it is worth holding a debate in the future about how the situation could have occurred.
Steve McCabe
They are queuing up for me, but I will go first to the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis).
Michael Ellis
Does the hon. Gentleman not realise that the alleged drafting error in the 25-year-old Bail Act has been referred to before in learned texts, and that other judges have used common sense in applying the law as they thought Parliament intended? That is where there has been a departure by the judge in the instant case.
Steve McCabe
All judgments depend on what the judge thinks Parliament intended; that is the point. We have someone who was able to draw a different conclusion, however, and as we have reached this position I am happy to deal with the legislation today, but it would be useful if the Government gave us a further opportunity to debate the implications of the situation.
Mr Buckland
I was going to try to help the hon. Gentleman by saying that the matter had never been ruled upon—it had never been a matter of controversy. Practitioners and everybody involved in the system had assumed that the clock would stop on release from custody, but, for the first time in 25 years, that particular decision was taken and it confounded everybody who has experience of the criminal justice system.
Steve McCabe
That is largely the same point as the hon. Member for Northampton North made. Does the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) still wish to intervene?
Bob Stewart
I was going to make just one point—about whether the public have been put at more risk because it has taken some time to bring in this legislation, and about whether the police have been able to manage the situation. It seems that no one has really suffered apart from the police, who have had to manage the situation, and that now we require to put the matter right. If the public have not been put at risk, that is great, and if the police have been able to manage, that is good, too, so let us get the legislation through as fast as we can.
Steve McCabe
We agree on getting the emergency legislation through; that is why we are here. But it is a little premature to say that no one has been harmed by what has happened, because that remains to be seen.
It can be argued that what happened on 5 April led to people thinking that they were dealing with a little local difficulty, because that is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw, but it is reasonable also to say that, when the judgment was made on 19 May, people should have started to think that it had wider implications and alarm bells should have started to ring. It appears, however, that at that point no alarm bells whatever rang in the Home Office.
On 24 June, by which time the written judgment was available, no one thought it sufficiently important to be dealt with on the Friday afternoon. The Home Office received it on 24 June and waited until the Monday—the whole weekend—before starting to consider its implications.
The Home Secretary was dismissive of my comments on Michael Zander’s article, but here was a respected legal expert giving a clear warning on his concerns about the judgment. I do not know whether the Home Secretary knows, and I am quite happy to table a parliamentary question, but I should be really interested to find out whether the Home Office takes that journal, Criminal Law and Justice Weekly. I imagine that it does, and I therefore presume that somebody whom the Home Secretary employs reads it, so we should not be quite as dismissive of Michael Zander’s piece as she suggests.
Mel Stride
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept, however, that the article was published after the written judgment? That is the critical point.
Steve McCabe
Presumably, one reason why that guy is one of the country’s leading legal experts is that he, rather remarkably, anticipated such a judgment and was able to give some advice and guidance on what might be necessary if it were so. I am not therefore too concerned with that point.
Are we seriously being asked to believe that Ministers and officials sit in the Home Office and wait to see whether the police have any concerns, and that if the police do have concerns, they e-mail, phone or send a carrier pigeon to the Home Office at which point Ministers suddenly start to take their responsibilities seriously? If that is what we are being asked to believe, I have a suggestion for the Home Secretary: why does she not make some cuts by sacking some of her useless officials, rather than police officers? It sounds as if they are not serving her particularly well.
The hon. Member for Beckenham, who has left his place, asked whether it was true that no one had been harmed as a result of the judgment. We do know, as the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice said, that 80,000 criminal suspects were affected by the decision, and the implications of it are one obvious reason why we are here today.
I am not entirely sure that I agree with the hon. Member for South Ribble (Lorraine Fullbrook), who said that there were no problems with detention, because earlier this week I read a report stating that, certainly in the west midlands, the police are decommissioning detention cells as a result of the budgetary savings that they are required to make, so in some parts of the country there may be pressure on police cells as a result of the situation.
Lorraine Fullbrook
I was citing evidence that was given to the Home Affairs Committee, and the hon. Gentleman, as a fellow member of the Committee, was at the relevant session on Tuesday.
Steve McCabe
The hon. Lady may remember that during the same evidence session the police officer concerned referred to 5,000 as opposed to 80,000, but under further examination we discovered that he was talking about the Met police area rather than the whole country.
I plan to support the legislation, because we are where we are and I do not want to make the job of the police any more difficult. The Government’s police cuts, in what looks like a concerted attack on Britain’s policing institutions, are making their job hard enough, and I have no desire to make it any worse, but I do not accept the Government’s version of the events that brought us here.
I have a question about how the emergency legislation has been framed. Earlier, the Home Secretary cited Liberty as an organisation that supported it, and I think I am right that Justice is one of the others, but Liberty makes an interesting case about the lack of safeguards in the legislation and a persuasive case for a sunset clause, whereby we deal with the immediate problem but then, at a more leisurely pace, look at the wider issues. Given that the problem went undetected for 25 years, that may be a worthwhile route to pursue.
On the retrospective nature of the legislation, I agree that it is necessary in order to deal with those 80,000 cases—and probably even more so in order to deal with what happens between now and 12 July, when it comes into effect. However, our law—I think this is the point that the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) was alluding to—relies on citizens being able to predict in advance when the act of a public authority will be lawful. Introducing a retrospective clause, albeit for understandable reasons, creates a situation whereby something that someone was doing yesterday, reasonably assuming it to be lawful, could be unlawful tomorrow, so that retrospectively they could suffer the consequences. That has major implications for the way in which citizens should view their relationship with the state. I do not object to the retrospective aspect, but it leads to an argument for a sunset clause so that we could have an opportunity, at some point in the future, to consider the implications of having to make such judgments.
Members have mentioned the problem of the length of time for which people may be held on police bail, particularly where it has conditions attached. The shadow Home Secretary used the example of bail restrictions designed to protect the victim from the alleged offender in domestic violence cases. I can understand that. However, I can think of a case in my constituency where a constituent had a bail order applied to him for over 12 months, and one of its restrictions was that he could not use his bank account because the case involved a fairly complex fraud. As a result, he had immense difficulty in meeting his daily living expenses. In the end, all the charges were dropped and he was never brought to court for anything at all. There is already a provision in PACE whereby, when the police apply for an extension, they have to give assurances that they will not take undue time in dealing with the matter and having excessive periods of bail.
These provisions raise once more the issue of bail conditions. We are putting through legislation to deal with a very particular crisis, but in the course of examining it we are opening up wider questions that would merit a much broader debate at some point in the future. Even at this stage, the Government could consider a sunset clause. They are getting absolute co-operation today in dealing with the immediate problem that we face: whether that is partly their own fault or entirely the fault of the courts is a matter of debate. In return for that, the emergency legislation should be used only very sparingly. It is not unreasonable for Parliament to say that the issues that are raised while emergency legislation is being passed should be subject to much greater debate and scrutiny in future.
Oral Answers to Questions
Steve McCabe Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Mrs May
My hon. Friend raises a very important issue, and action is taken in two ways. The Ministry of Justice is now looking at drug-free wings in prisons, so work is being done on that, but in the Home Office we continue, through not just regional police forces but the Serious Organised Crime Agency, to fight the fight against drug dealers and those who import drugs to this country, and that fight continues.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
12. What assessment she has made of the potential effects of her plans for the national DNA database on the number of DNA matches.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
The Government’s approach is based on putting on the national DNA database more people who are guilty of crimes, rather than those who are innocent. Simply increasing the size of the DNA database does not necessarily result in more detections. We have been informed in the consideration of our plans by past statistics highlighting falls in DNA detections despite the huge increase in the number of profiles retained.
Steve McCabe
That is interesting. What is the Minister’s response to the Association of Chief Police Officers’ lead on those matters, Chief Constable Sims, who says that there will be 1,000 fewer cases solved because of the decisions that the Minister is going to take?
James Brokenshire
The hon. Gentleman may also know that Chief Constable Sims acknowledged that such estimates were
“notoriously difficult to put figures on”.––[Official Report, Protection of Freedoms Public Bill Committee, 22 March 2011; c. 8, Q1.]
The Protection of Freedoms Bill Committee also heard evidence from GeneWatch which pointed in a very different direction. I again point the hon. Gentleman to past circumstances and to statistics highlighting that, despite the huge increase in the number of people that his—the previous—Government put on the DNA database, DNA detections have fallen.
Oral Answers to Questions
Steve McCabe Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Does the Home Secretary plan to listen to the Deputy Prime Minister and delay the introduction of police and crime commissioners?
Mrs May
Starting on Wednesday, when the House of Lords Committee stage of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill begins, there will be proper and due consideration of every aspect of the Bill. However, it is our intention that police and crime commissioners will be introduced across England and Wales.
Government Reductions in Policing
Steve McCabe Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs May
I will make some progress before I give way to any other interventions.
Our reforms are also based on the premise that the police must be accountable not to civil servants in Whitehall, but to the communities that they serve. Last Thursday, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill completed its passage through the House. It is our hope that it will complete its passage through the Lords and receive Royal Assent in time for elections for police and crime commissioners to take place next year.
During the Committee stage of the Bill, the Opposition helpfully conceded the principle that we need democratic reform in policing, but their idea is just to add elections on top of the existing ineffective structures by having elected police authority chairs, which would add to the costs without bringing any of the benefits. Under our proposals, police and crime commissioners will have the power to set the police budget, determine local policing priorities and hold their chief constables to account. If they do not cut crime and help keep their communities safe, they will face the ultimate sanction of rejection at the ballot box.
However, slashing Labour’s bureaucracy and increasing accountability is not enough. The police will have to take their fair share of the cuts across Government to clear up Labour’s financial mess, so direct savings and efficiencies are also needed.
Mrs May
I am very happy to visit police forces, as I do, to talk to police officers across the board, and to hear directly what they are saying. When I next make a trip to the West Midlands force, I am very happy for the hon. Gentleman to arrange for me to meet those five officers. I am sure I will be meeting other officers as well.
It is important that we ensure that we make changes within our police force so that we have the police force that we need to face the 21st century, but it is also important that we make sure that taxpayers’ money is spent effectively. Our starting point for savings is the report by HMIC, “Valuing the Police” which estimated that £1.15 billion per year could be saved if only the least efficient forces brought themselves up to the average level of efficiency.
However, the fiscal deficit left by Labour is so dire that bringing all forces up to the average level is no longer enough—forces must go further. We must raise the performance of all our police forces up to the level not of the average, but of the most efficient forces. If forces improve productivity and adjust to the level of spend typical in the most efficient forces, we could add another £350 million to the £1.15 billion of savings that HMIC calculated.
This sort of thing is already happening. In Suffolk and Norfolk the police forces are creating a shared service platform for their back-office support functions, saving around £10 million per year. In Kent, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) who serves on the Kent police authority made clear, the police are streamlining and rationalising support services, enabling them to put more into the front line. The Kent force is also collaborating with Essex police to make savings and allow more resources to be devoted to the front line.
In London the Metropolitan police are getting more officers to patrol alone, rather than in pairs, and are better matching resources to demand in neighbourhood policing, increasing officer availability to the public by 25%. In Gloucestershire the police are putting 15% more sergeants and constables into visible policing roles and increasing the numbers of officers on the beat, at the same time as they are making savings. These examples show that it can be done and it must be done.
There were other aspects that were outside the remit of the HMIC report. I know that members of the Opposition Front-Bench team have not read everything that was in that report, so let me spell it out to them. HMIC did not look at the savings that could be made by joining up police procurement and IT, for example. Currently, the police have 2,000 different IT systems across the 43 forces, employing 5,000 staff. As my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) said, the police currently procure items from uniforms to helicopters in 43 different ways. That makes no sense.
Working with the police, we have already secured their agreement that the right way forward is a national, joined-up approach, with better contracts, more joint purchasing, a smaller number of different IT systems and greater private sector involvement. With these changes we can save a further £350 million. Again, that is over and above the savings that HMIC identified.
Mrs May
The other major item that HMIC did not look at was pay. In an organisation like the police, where £11 billion goes on pay, there is no question but that pay restraint and pay reform must form part of the package. That is why we believe, subject to any recommendations from the Police Negotiating Board, that there should be a two-year pay freeze in policing, just as there has been across the whole of the public sector. This would add at least another £350 million of savings to those calculated by HMIC.
All these savings, together with those identified by HMIC, give us £2.2 billion of savings, just over the £2.1 billion reduction in central Government grant that must be made. And even that ignores the contribution from the local precept.
Mrs May
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Our view is that it is important to get the balance right between what the centre does and what the local forces do. Of course we want to leave decision making with the local forces, but we are working with them and ensuring that they will collaborate on those aspects where it makes sense for them to do so in order to make the savings that enable them to reduce their budgets without affecting the front-line services that people want out there in the streets.
No Home Secretary wants to freeze or cut police officers’ pay packages, but with Labour’s record budget deficit these are extraordinary circumstances. That is why I commissioned Tom Winsor to undertake the most comprehensive review of police pay and conditions in more than 30 years—not because I want to make savings for their own sake, but because I want to protect police jobs and keep officers on the streets. We are doing everything we can to minimise the effect of the necessary spending reductions on pay. I have spelt out savings today, but we cannot avoid the fact that changes to pay and conditions have to be part of the package.
Steve McCabe
The Home Secretary is very generous. Following her comment on pay and trying to protect the police from the worst effects of the cuts, does she accept Winsor’s own comment that 40% of officers stand to lose as much as £4,000 a year as a result of the proposals she is putting forward?
Mrs May
Tom Winsor did not say that. He indicated that a percentage of officers could lose funding as a result of his proposals, which are about putting increased pay to those officers who are in front-line service or who are using certain specialist skills in their work. I want action on pay to be as fair as possible. We are determined not only to cut out waste and inefficiency, but to ensure that pay recognises and rewards front-line service and allows chief officers to put in place modern management practices.
The Opposition know that savings can and should be made by modernising police pay and conditions. Indeed, they have said so publicly. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford and the former Policing Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), have both said that Labour planned savings in the police overtime budget, but when Tom Winsor proposed those savings they attacked them. I am sure that not only police officers and staff but the public would prefer us to look at pay and conditions rather than lose thousands of posts. Given that the Opposition do not support reform of pay and conditions, losing more posts is exactly what they would do.
Simon Hart
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Indeed, responsibility and irresponsibility lie at the heart of this debate. I cannot think of a more irresponsible approach than to try to frighten the most vulnerable in society, and the police service itself, with spurious claims that cannot be backed up by fact.
Steve McCabe
Does the hon. Gentleman think that the chief constable of Lancashire, who is the ACPO lead on performance management, was being irresponsible or misleading when he said on the “Today” programme on 29 March,
“we cannot leave the front line untouched and that is because of the scale of the cuts”?
Simon Hart
The hon. Gentleman may also be interested in the comments of the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), who said:
“I don’t think it’s possible to make a direct correlation between police numbers and crime reduction.”
It is being assumed that a reduced number of police officers means a reduced service. I would argue, as have chief constables across the land, including my own, that that is not as clear cut as the hon. Gentleman might suggest. In Dyfed Powys, there will be a different sort of policing as a consequence of these changes—it will look different, as I said last week. There will be a greater reliance on technology, and things will not be quite as they were before. However, it is irresponsible to suggest that the public are somehow endangered as a result, and that makes the motion something that the Opposition should be rather ashamed of.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Steve McCabe Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Justin Tomlinson
That is a valid point, and my hon. Friend speaks with first-hand experience and authority. The layout of the night-time economy is different in every town, which means that each town creates unique challenges that either the local authority or the local police must challenge. That is why I keep coming back to the need to ensure that venues feed into the system. The people who run them will know where the minority of people are generating problems.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman. Does he think it is important that nothing in the proposals detracts from existing models of good practice in arrangements involving the police, the local authority and the business community, such as the one in Broad street in Birmingham?
Dr Huppert
I agree, and I think that my hon. Friend and I share the same objective. We do not want to return to the alcohol disorder zone approach, which clearly did not work and involved having to draw a complex wiggly line that would have exacerbated the problems. That is why I am suggesting ward-sized boundaries, which, while never being perfect, would take us a lot further and allow the various areas of Portsmouth to be separated—I do not know the city as well as she does, and I am sure that she could say which wards were more of an issue than others.
Steve McCabe
If we accept that alcohol disorder zones were not a success—perhaps it is right to repeal them at this stage—is it not also fair to say that what we are hearing today are legitimate concerns about the unintended consequences of the new approach? Given the hon. Gentleman’s desire not to have ineffective legislation, does he feel that it would be in the Government’s interests for the Minister to promise an early review of the proposal?
Dr Huppert
It is hard to argue that alcohol disorder zones were effective, given that nobody used them, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman was not trying to make that case. I am not calling for an early review, because we have to give things a certain amount of time. I would not necessarily have said, for example, that getting rid of alcohol disorder zones at the beginning of 2007 would have been the right thing to do either. It takes time to realise that something simply has not worked. I am not calling for an early review, but I am sure that the Minister will comment on my suggestion of using ward boundaries. We did not discuss it in detail in Committee, either here or in the other place, but it might provide a way of making the scheme a bit easier for councils to use, because we want to ensure that what the Minister intends is, in fact, what we see in the end.
Justin Tomlinson
There would be obvious challenges. For example, if a local authority decided to charge any venue open after midnight a late-night levy but made it close at 12.15, that would not give it an opportunity to generate enough additional income to pay for the late-night levy. My proposal would be to bring the local authority, the police and the late-night venues together to discuss the matter. No venue will openly say that it wants to pay a late-night levy, because it adds an extra cost to its bottom line, but if that money were seen to be spent on improving the safety and enjoyment of the vast majority of people, allowing them to get home safely and quickly after a night out, they would be more likely to go out again and spend money.
I am trying to strike a balance between being proactively supportive of people going out and enjoying themselves and considering those who have to deal with the minority who cause problems. To ensure that this works, I would make it compulsory for those responsible for running venues—the managers, the keyholders, the licence holders—to sit round the table with the local authority, the licensing people and the police. This practice can encompass schemes such as Best Bar None and Pubwatch, and approaches that bar troublemakers from all the venues in an area if they cause trouble in just one. In that way, the vast majority who go out to enjoy themselves on Friday and Saturday nights will have their experience enhanced, and the industry will benefit because its perception and reputation will be greatly improved.
Steve McCabe
I agree with the comments made by the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson); his experience has been of benefit to all of us. This is not a party political issue. We all want to see successful pubs and licensed premises where people can enjoy themselves and the businesses can make money and provide the jobs that are very much needed in some places. Perhaps I did not make myself clear to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert): I am happy to accept that alcohol disorder zones were not a success. I think that they were genuinely conceived as an attempt to deal with a problem that we all recognised, but they were not a success. I am not in any sense troubled to see the Government scrapping them and trying a different approach. I honestly hope that that approach will work, and I wish it well.
There are some obvious concerns, however, and several of them have been mentioned today. Problems could arise when a rural area is adjacent to an intensively developed town, for example. The application of the rules in such a situation could be problematic. The west midlands has several local authorities in close proximity, and there is a risk that the application of certain levy arrangements in, say, Solihull could have a knock-on effect in neighbouring Birmingham. It is reasonable to say that we are concerned about how this will work in practice.
I urge the Minister to review the provisions, not because I want to be able to come back here in 12 or 18 months to have a bit of fun at his expense. On many occasions, I would quite enjoy that, but in this context it probably would not be terribly useful. As I have said, this problem does not involve any party politics. We are all grappling with the same issue, and want to get to the same end point. I therefore urge the Minister to have a review, perhaps even a rolling review, so that we can see what problems are developing, what solutions are being tried, and whether there is a way of developing best practice. Instead of reaching a point at which we have to say, “Oh well, that didn’t work either. We’ll repeal it and start all over again,” I would much rather see the approach being modified as we go along. It might be in the Minister’s interest to agree to report regularly to us on the lessons that have been learned from the application of the measure, so that we can call on the experience of people such as the hon. Member for North Swindon, who could suggest adjustments that might make a difference.
I wish the measure well, and I hope that it will work, but I urge the Minister to think about introducing a regular review process that will allow us to learn lessons and ensure that we tackle the problem.
James Brokenshire
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) for his contribution. He talked about not wanting to have fun at my expense, but I genuinely take his point on board.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) was in the Chamber only fleetingly. Perhaps he did not want to be present at the denouement. I remember him, when he was a Minister, grappling to try to make the alcohol disorder zone policy work. I was an Opposition spokesman at the time, and I used to pick holes in it, saying that parts of it would not work and that it was too complicated. I asked how areas would be defined and which businesses would be part of the scheme. I also asked how the costs and charges would be calculated, and what steps would have to be taken to set the scheme up. I could almost see the beads of sweat forming on the hon. Gentleman’s brow, because those were all fair questions that many people were asking. I do not claim any great credit in that sense, because many outside agencies, including the Local Government Association, shared the view that it was a nice idea but that it really would not work. It is now right and proper to accept that, to move on and to learn the lessons from that time.
I respect the comments of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who I know probably wants to gloss over the alcohol disorder zone episode, as does everybody nowadays, and move on to a new chapter. The ADZ episode taught us that in seeking to apply a charge in that way, defining the area can seem quite straightforward initially but prove devilishly difficult. That was one of the issues behind the ADZ problem.
We have sought to take a different approach by looking at the issue on a time basis rather than at a specific area and by dealing with the problems of managing the late-night economy. Research showed that there were pressures on the police and increases in crime in the early hours of the morning, suggesting the importance of the time at which this was happening. That is why clause 126 makes it clear that the late-night levy must
“begin at or after midnight, and… end at or before 6 am.”
I hear the points made about rural areas, for example, where there might not be a problem. I note the question about whether, if the levy were applied more generally across the whole local council area, it would capture the well-run community pubs in the locality. If this were set to start only at midnight, I would suggest that those well-run community pubs are most likely to have shut by that time—before the levy comes into operation. If this is a problem, there is flexibility in the setting of the time at which the levy starts; it could begin from 1 am, for example. That flexibility is built into the measure.
James Brokenshire
In some areas, NHS organisations already share anonymised A and E data with the police. Such intelligence can highlight where violent incidents occur and any hot-spot premises, thus supporting police representations at licensing hearings and wider law enforcement. Making local health bodies responsible authorities will encourage the effective collection and sharing of anonymised A and E data and other robust and targeted evidence for licensing authorities to consider.
The hon. Lady specifically asked how the role of local authorities will be managed in the context of Public Health England. She will be well aware that licensing authorities become responsible authorities under the Bill and are therefore able, in essence, to make their own representations. Obviously, different functions are carried out by different parts of the local authority, as happens in planning. The licensing committee is able to consider applications and relevant legislative issues, so there is a broad read-across in how a local authority is able not only to make representations but to determine things. A local licensing panel will have an almost quasi-judicial role in that situation, as does a planning authority.
I want to return to some of the hon. Lady’s other points.
Steve McCabe
Whether or not the Minister accepts the new clause, does he accept the central point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson)? As the Bill stands, a local authority could license a supermarket to sell cheap alcohol, creating a problem. If that local authority then imposed a levy that applied to other premises in the near vicinity but not to the supermarket, the health sector would not necessarily benefit from any of the levy, but it might suffer some of the worst cost effects of the problem. Does he accept that he must do something about the central health issue?
James Brokenshire
I will come to that. If the late-night levy is effective in managing the night-time economy and in supporting the police, it will have an impact. For example, it might affect the accident and emergency attendances that might otherwise arise in an area. Indirect benefits could accrue from the operation of the levy in that way. Different points need to be discussed, but I will come on to the issue of price, which is a fair point and was raised by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson).
Protecting public health is a complex issue, and that was reflected in the mixed nature of the responses the Government received when, in our “Rebalancing the Licensing Act” consultation, we asked about adding the prevention of health harm as a fifth licensing objective. Although those who supported the proposal acknowledged the benefits of improving public health, reducing the burden on the NHS and increasing responsibility among licensees, those who opposed it were concerned that it would be onerous and unworkable.
Adding protecting and improving public health as a licensing objective, as the new clause proposes, would mark a fundamental change to the Licensing Act. The four existing licensing objectives underpin the Act and, as the hon. Lady highlighted, the licensing authority is required to carry out its functions with a view to promoting these objectives. We believe that before we make such a fundamental change, it is essential that full consideration is given to the potential impact to ensure that any changes are workable and do not have any unintended consequences. We should undertake such considerations alongside wider Government work to address the harm done by alcohol to health. For example, if we were to introduce the objective now, we would need to consider carefully—as we are—what the knock-on consequences might be.
If an area has public health challenges caused by deprivation, does that mean, strictly applying such a rule, that it should automatically have no licensed premises and is that acceptable? We need to consider such detailed factors carefully in the context of the consequences of making such a radical change. That is why we need to consider the question carefully and cautiously, albeit that I have sympathy with the points about public health. That was why we raised the issue in our consultation last August but felt, on the basis of the representations we received, that it was important to reflect on the matter and to consider it further in that context and in the context of the wider work that is taking place.
The hon. Lady made a good point about the Scottish licensing laws, which have an objective to protect and improve public health. We are keen to learn any lessons from the Scottish experience. The Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 only came into force in September 2009, it will be evaluated and we look forward to learning from it. There are other differences in the Scottish framework, such as the powers to control density of premises, which raise their own issues and would need to be taken into account.
As announced in the “Healthy lives, healthy people” document, we want to improve alcohol treatment services through a greater focus on outcomes and payment by results. We also want to improve the commissioning of preventive services, including brief interventions by health professionals, so there is a broader focus that we wish to take on board. The hon. Lady mentioned the responsibility deal, but this is only a first step. The initial pledges will form an important platform for future work. Networks are already developing the next tranche of pledges, which we expect to go much further and to demand much greater commitment and action on the industry’s part.
Mrs May
I completely reject what the hon. Gentleman says, particularly the idea that people who live in high-crime areas will somehow have less incentive to take an interest in the way in which their local area is policed or in going out to vote for PCCs. It is in precisely those areas that people are concerned about what is happening to local policing. We need a properly elected and accountable individual, with the mandate, the capabilities and the powers to set police priorities locally and to hold their chief constable to account for police performance.
Oral Answers to Questions
Steve McCabe Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Damian Green
As ever, I agree completely about the helpfulness of my hon. Friend’s question. He presents the House with an extremely good example of what should happen, in that a foreign student came here to learn on a high-quality course and to develop skills that he can take back to his country. As is crucial, he is planning to leave at the end of his course. That is precisely the sort of thing that benefits our university system and brings confidence in the immigration system. What does not do that is students coming here and simply staying. Published information shows that of the students who came here in 2004, more than 20% were still here five years later in 2009. That is the kind of thing that we must investigate, to establish whether those people are still genuine students or are just exploiting the system to work in this country.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Last week, the Minister for Universities and Science told the Home Affairs Committee that he wanted foreign students to come to this country, but admitted that he found Government policy in the area “fuzzy”. The Select Committee was told on the same day by the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), that he wanted a cut in immigration but an increase in the number of students coming from Latin America. What exactly is the Government’s policy on the future of the student visa entry system?
Damian Green
Under the student visa scheme, we want good students to come here to study genuine courses at genuine institutions. Under the previous Government, of whom the hon. Gentleman was such a distinguished supporter for so long, the student visa system became the single biggest loophole in an already chaotic immigration system. That is why we are having to deal with it. It is significantly the biggest route of immigration into this country—about 60% of visas are issued for students. That is why it is so important that this Government get a grip on the failures of the previous Government.
Sex Offenders Register
Steve McCabe Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I congratulate the Home Secretary on adopting a much tougher approach than the Scottish authorities. Does she have any regrets that she did not overrule her officials and similarly reject the much weaker Scottish model for the retention of DNA profiles?
Mrs May
We have not in fact absolutely adopted the Scottish model in relation to DNA, and we have gone further than it has. We have adopted protections for those who are innocent, and that is different from the situation that we are considering today, which is about people who have been found guilty and are at risk of reoffending. We must deal with public protection in that regard. The rules that we propose for the retention of DNA are about enabling the police to have the tools that they need, but at the same time not putting the DNA of a lot of innocent people on the database.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Steve McCabe Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Ed Balls
I will do no such thing, and I will tell the House exactly why. We are consistently told by the Home Secretary that she has protected the counter-terrorism budget. What she means by “protected” is that it is cut by only 10%, unlike the police budget, which is cut by 20%. That is what the protection is all about.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I note that the Policing Minister’s letter says that he hopes to make savings and not to use the £600 million. Today’s Birmingham Mail points out that despite an earlier promise that the Pope’s visit would be subject to a special grant for security, that grant was never provided, and west midlands police have virtually exhausted their contingency for special events. If that happens around the country, how can the Government possibly hope to make savings on the Olympics?
Ed Balls
I do not know the answer to that. When I spoke to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell), the shadow Olympics Minister, about it this afternoon, she said that she was assured that any reduction in the £600 million budget would be briefed on in advance with the details of the savings, but she has had no such briefing. It looks to me as though the commitment to keep £600 million in principle was rushed in at the weekend.
The reality of the position is that the Home Secretary is seeking to achieve a 20% cut which will further stretch Policing around our country at a time when the largest cut in our police budgets in peacetime history over the past 100 years has just been announced. In the west midlands and Greater Manchester, 2,500 officers are already set to lose their jobs, not to be appointed, or to be removed through regulation A19 powers, with equivalent numbers among PCSOs and other public staff. Other forces around the country will be considering today’s announcement of 20% real-terms cuts. The health budget was broadly flat, although falling slightly; the schools budget was broadly flat, although falling slightly; and the defence budget was cut by 8%. People around the country are asking where the Home Secretary was and how come the police budget was cut by 20%.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I should like to use this opportunity to thank the police for performing the difficult role of policing our country while ensuring that people’s civil liberties are observed.
I thank the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) for mentioning Oldham East and Saddleworth, because it gives me an opportunity to tell him that I was there on Saturday; and Sunday. I can assure him that the circumstances that led to the by-election are at the forefront of the minds of residents. They are reflecting at some length on the action the Labour party took in the general election campaign, and I am sure that they will continue do so as they walk into the polling stations to cast their votes.
The bulk of the Bill clearly deals with the elected police and crime commissioners.
Steve McCabe
Is the action that the hon. Gentleman has in mind the legal action mounted by the Liberal Democrats several weeks after they lost an election they thought they would win?
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), which is becoming a regular occurrence. We seem to be making quite a habit of it.
I am not sure that I share the hon. Gentleman’s views on police commissioners, because I believe, as Conservatives used to believe, in the old maxim, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. That is why I have real doubts about police commissioners. I invite any Conservative Member to show me a recent inspection report that raised major concerns about the functioning of police authorities. I am not saying that there are not things that we could deal with, but there have not been major concerns.
Even if there is some merit in the idea, I should like to know what the hurry is, especially at a time when we have so many other matters to contend with, such as massive cuts in the police budget, increasingly violent demonstrations, renewed terrorist threats and, I believe, a likely explosion in crime, especially if the Secretary of State of Justice gets his way and we have reduced prison capacity and reduced community justice budgets. I do not see the urgency at all. The Home Secretary said earlier that the money is not coming from police budgets, but surely the question is why she thinks she has any money to fritter away on non-essentials at a time like this.
I can see the reasons for the London arrangements in the Bill, because the Mayor doubles as the commissioner. However, little thought seems to have been given to the situation in other parts of the country that could also have powerful directly elected mayors. What will be the situation there, especially if there is a fundamental disagreement between the mayor and the commissioner? If I read the Bill correctly, a commissioner could well be nearly six months into his or her first term before their first policing plan was signed off. That does not sound like a model of urgency or efficiency. What would happen if a chief constable were profoundly to disagree with elements of the plan? That could be a recipe for stalemate.
We want the public to feel more engaged with the process, but, as I read the Bill, the police and crime commissioner will determine the manner in which their response to any recommendations on or criticism of their plan is published. That obviously means that they could choose to bury the parts to which they do not want to give exposure. Equally, I understand that they will be allowed to publish the plan itself as they see fit. If the idea is to ensure that people become more engaged with this process, I would have thought that the commissioners should be urged to publish the plan in a way that guaranteed maximum public access to it, rather than in the way that they see fit.
As this Bill begins its parliamentary route, we still have no idea what the salaries or pensions of the police and crime commissioners will be. Nor do we know anything about the salaries of the chief executives or the chief finance and accounting officers, but if they are anything like their equivalents in Birmingham, those people are going to be earning salaries greater than that of the Prime Minister, and I am not sure that that would be very smart at a time like this.
I welcome some of the measures in the Bill, particularly those relating to licensing powers. It is a good idea to give communities greater input and to listen to their representations and calls for the review of a licence. I shall be interested to see how that works, however, because my experience of licensing authorities is that they do not always pay anything like sufficient attention to local communities. I also welcome the doubling of the maximum fine for those who persistently sell alcohol to under-18s, and the increase in the period of suspension of the licence for premises involved in that activity. What most people want, however, is for the licence to be permanently revoked from premises that are persistently causing trouble and selling alcohol to under-18s.
I am slightly worried by what might be an unintended consequence of the powers for licensing authorities to impose conditions on a temporary event notice on environmental or health grounds. In a place such as Birmingham, that could result in the local authority tying good, honest charity events up in ridiculous bureaucracy and red tape. That must surely be an unintended consequence of the Bill that we would not wish to see.
I think it was the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) who referred to clause 15, which covers the power to commission the supply of goods from any source. That sounds good on the surface, but what will be the safeguards against illegal favours or monopoly arrangements? That is not the sort of thing I want to see. I also wonder about the powers in clause 16 for the commissioner to appoint persons who are not on the staff of the local policing body. I am sure that that is intended to deal with joint appointments, but it could be a consultants’ charter. I notice that clause 22(3) gives the Home Secretary the power to intervene if the budget is set too low and could endanger public safety. If this is such a good Bill, and if we can be so confident about the performance of police and crime commissioners, why would she have to take a power like that? It suggests to me that the Government have their own concerns about this matter.
Much in the Bill requires far more scrutiny in Committee. The Government need to explain a lot to reassure us that, while some of the measure’s intentions are good, its practice will not prove wrong.
For me, the centrepiece of the measure is the wrong policy at the wrong time, which, I fear, will lead to the wrong outcomes. The Government’s focus should be on preventing a rise in crime, helping victims and safeguarding our communities. It should not be on political experiments that waste money, risk politicising the police and take attention away from the need to bear down constantly on violent offenders and career criminals.
Oral Answers to Questions
Steve McCabe Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. The Minister of State will resume his seat. His purpose here is to answer questions about the policy of the Government, not that of the Opposition. I hope that that is now clear to him.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I know that some members of the coalition have trouble understanding what a pledge means, but after a bit of probing, the Home Secretary gave the House a commitment the other week to reduce immigration to tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament. Does that commitment still hold this week?
Damian Green
I think that the hon. Gentleman was in the House when my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made that commitment. [Interruption.] No, she said by the end of this Parliament; I was here. All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I do not propose to go into the French accent that my right hon. Friend used, but I am more than happy to repeat the commitment that she gave the House on that occasion.
Controlling Migration
Steve McCabe Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mrs May
As I said in my statement and have said in response to a number of questions, we are tightening the rules relating to tier 2 entry to the United Kingdom, as well as those relating to intra-company transfers. We will ensure that those who come here really are the skilled and highly skilled workers who are needed. However, my hon. Friend’s point echoes one made by a number of other Members about the need to ensure that businesses in the United Kingdom seek the skills that are available here.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I should hate to misrepresent the Home Secretary. To avoid confusion, will she tell us whether she will reduce net migration to tens of thousands by 2015—or has she just dropped the Government’s specific commitment to that date?