Police Funding

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) has said, this has been an interesting and thoughtful debate, with a large number of contributions from both sides of the House. Before my right hon. Friend rushes off to his important engagement, may I say to him that his chairmanship of the Select Committee over the past few years has been a model of how to chair a Select Committee? There are difficulties sometimes, because we all have party allegiances, but he knows that one of the strengths of the Select Committee system is the way in which it tries to bring some independence of thought to proceedings. That is particularly important when it comes to the Chairs of those Committees. He has chaired the Committee exceptionally well, and I look forward to reading its further reports on policing matters.

I also congratulate my hon. Friends from the west midlands, my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) and for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), who met and made representations to the Minister about their concerns regarding the policing reductions that we will see over the next few years. I hope that when he makes his winding-up speech he will comment in particular on the points that they made.

I shall not pick out every Government Member who spoke, but I found it interesting that the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for example, should make a plea for opening police stations—because the Minister is going to close them. I am sure he will have an interesting debate with the Minister about that, but he made an important point about the need for community and neighbourhood policing, and let us hope that, whatever happens over the next few years, neighbourhood policing and police presence on the street will be effectively maintained.

The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), whom I cannot see in the Chamber at the moment, made an important point when he said that this is all about choices. Indeed it is. He defended the choice before us on the basis of economic necessity, but our view is that the police have fared particularly badly in the budget settlement and comprehensive spending review. Other Departments have fared significantly better, so somewhere along the line a choice was made about the budget settlement for the police, as opposed to the budget settlement for other Departments.

I should like to praise the police service, police officers, police community support officers, police staff and, indeed, police authority members for the excellent work that they do. We have seen it in London, in particular, over the past couple of weeks, but in other parts of the country, too. When we have these debates, it would be remiss of us not to put on the record every time the wholehearted support of all Members for the police throughout the country, and for their hard work. To be fair, I know the Minister does that. There might be differences between us over how we provide that support, but we need always to recognise their dedication and public service, and the duty that they perform on behalf of all of us throughout our country.

Helped by a record number of police officers, crime fell by 43% under the previous Government, and the chance of being a victim of crime is at a 30-year low, but the Government’s cuts to policing, starting next year as the estimates for 2011-12 show, will put that progress at risk. By cutting police funding by 20% over the next four years, the Government are taking big risks with the public’s safety and undermining the fight against crime and antisocial behaviour.

The speed and scale of the Government’s cuts have put police forces and chief constables in an impossible position. A number of forces have already announced plans to lose thousands of police officers and police staff, blowing apart the Government’s claims that the front line can be protected. Indeed, many of the most experienced officers in our police forces will have to go.

People will be rightly worried that, at the same time as cutting funding for front-line police, the Government want to spend more than £100 million on bringing in directly elected police commissioners—a sum that, according to the Association of Police Authorities, is equivalent to 600 police officers. That controversial experiment risks politicising the police at huge cost to the taxpayer, and it will do little to improve police accountability.

The coalition’s spending review announced that central Government police funding will be cut by 20% in real terms by 2014-15. Funding allocations for individual police forces are expected to be announced in the next few days, so perhaps the Minister will enlighten us on when that will be. Following consultation, a further debate will be possible, as we will know more about the impact on all individual forces. The hon. Member for South Dorset and others, including the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), made the point about what that will mean for individual police forces throughout the country.

The biggest cuts will be next year and the year after, with funding reduced by 6% in 2011-12 and by 8% in 2012-13. Front-loading the cuts will make it even more difficult to minimise the impact on front-line policing through efficiency savings. The Minister has just received a letter from senior Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Labour and independent members of the APA, urging him to reconsider the front-loaded cuts in 2011-12 and 2012-13 in order to

“avoid long-term damage to policing capability”.

The letter warns that the current cuts timetable will also mean fewer police community support officers and could affect the

“safe and secure delivery of the Olympics”

in 2012.

Those cuts go way beyond what experts believe can be achieved through efficiency savings and better procurement. In other words, a 6% cut next year is too much. Coalition Ministers have regularly quoted from the report by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary, “Valuing the Police: policing in an age of austerity”, which was published in July, and it says that a “re-design” of the police system could

“at best...save 12% of central government funding, while maintaining police availability”.

The front-loaded cuts of 20% that will start in 2011-12 go significantly beyond that.

A number of Government Back Benchers have said that police forces across the country can make efficiency savings without impacting on the front line. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) asked what the Opposition have said about that. The previous Home Secretary made it clear that he accepted the 12% figure and the HMIC report. However, the present Government propose to go beyond 12% to 20%.

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

indicated dissent.

[Vernon Coaker]

The Minister will hide behind local precepting and councils raising money to make up some of the gap, but that is smoke and mirrors—a sleight of hand. There is a 20% reduction in central Government funding to police forces across the country. That goes beyond the HMIC recommendation. Hon. Members must understand that although some money can be saved through efficiency, that amount cannot be saved without impacting on the front line.

[Mark Reckless]

rose—

[Vernon Coaker]

I will give way after I finish this point. The Home Secretary failed to fight the police’s corner in the spending review negotiations, so it falls to Parliament to stand up for the law-abiding public against these reckless cuts.

[Mark Reckless]

Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that the difference between 20% and 12% that he describes makes no allowance for savings from things such as a pay freeze and changes in terms and conditions?

[Vernon Coaker]

I am quoting the Green Book and the HMIC report. We will see over the next one, two, three and four years whether the hon. Gentleman is right in the statistics that he has quoted from this book—that saving and this saving. We will see whether what he says stands up in police forces in Kent, Nottinghamshire, the west midlands and elsewhere across England and Wales, or whether we will see massive losses of police officers, police community support officers and police staff. Then we will see who has understood the statistics and figures correctly, and who is actually right. I will have a side wager with the hon. Gentleman, and it will not be me who is out of pocket, but him.

I repeat the call that has been made to the Home Secretary and other Ministers to go back and say to the Treasury that the police spending settlement is not acceptable, that it must be reopened and improved. Will the Minister give us that commitment in discussing the estimates for 2011-12, or does he just intend to carry on with the settlement as it stands? As the hon. Member for Hexham said, choices are available to the Government. The Minister can try to argue for a better deal, like those for schools, hospitals and the Ministry of Defence. The big casualty in the comprehensive spending review was the Home Office, and therefore the police service and police forces of this country. I know that the Minister says that there is no link between levels of crime and police numbers, but that is not what the public say.

Let us look at some examples. The hon. Member for South Dorset is already getting cold feet about reductions in police officer numbers in his area, and he will not be the only one. Hon. Members will have to go back and say that things will be tough. There will be police officer cuts across the country: Greater Manchester police have announced a cut of 1,387 officers and 1,557 staff; North Wales police have announced that 440 posts will be cut, made up of 230 police officers and 210 staff; Northumbria police have announced a cut of 450 civilian staff; Thames Valley police have announced 800 staff cuts, but there is no breakdown between police officers and police staff; and West Midlands police have announced a cut of 2,200 posts, made up of 1,100 police officers and 1,100 staff.

Whatever the book says, and whatever Government Members say, I am willing to go to each and every one of their constituencies and ask the public whether they want fewer police officers or more police officers on their streets. I will ask them whether they believe that the Government should have prioritised police spending more in the Budget so that police officer posts, police staff and PCSOs could have been protected, or whether they were a price worth paying.

A few months into this new Tory-led Government, I believe that people will be astonished that police recruitment has been frozen, thousands of police officer posts are to be lost and experienced police officers will be forced to retire, including in my own area of Nottinghamshire.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Could the hon. Gentleman help us by telling us what percentage of the budget his party would have cut had it been returned to government, and what the consequences would have been for police numbers? It is a fact, is it not, that Labour would have cut the budget by 20% and made as many reductions in police numbers?

[Vernon Coaker]

That is not the case. The hon. Lady will know, as I pointed out earlier, that we would have accepted what the HMIC report says. The previous Home Secretary made that clear. That report is clear that the level of savings set out in it can be made over four years without having an impact on the front line, but that if cuts go beyond that, they will have an impact on front-line and visible policing.

On top of what I have just mentioned, the number of police community support officers will go down and police staff numbers will fall dramatically. Coalition Members will have some explaining to do when they go back to their constituencies. The estimates for 2011-12 will be just the start, unless the Minister and his colleagues start to stand up for the police. They should stop defending the cuts and start defending the police and the communities that they serve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

He has been caught out. I note that, in his letter to the chief inspector of constabulary, the right hon. Gentleman did not apologise for describing the chief inspector’s report as a “smear” or “corrupt and erroneous”, but that is what he said on Monday. I hesitate, after Monday, to advise hon. Members about using their words carefully, but the right hon. Gentleman should learn that he needs to choose his words more carefully when talking about the inspector’s report. I am sure that he will do so in future.

It is essential that we address the bureaucracy—

[Vernon Coaker]

I should like to quote from the HMIC report, because the Minister disputed the 12% figure that I used in relation to central Government funding. The report stated:

“A re-design of the system…has the potential, at best, to save 12% of central government funding, while maintaining police availability. A cut beyond 12% would almost certainly reduce police availability”.

The 12% referred to central Government funding, so the Minister was wrong.

[Nick Herbert]

No, the Audit Commission and HMIC said that the savings that could be made available to police officers were more than £1 billion a year—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood is in no position to criticise anyone for misquoting people—[Interruption.] No, I did not.

The Opposition simply do not focus on the importance of reducing bureaucracy or of changing shift patterns. I want to give two quick examples. The action that we are taking to scrap stop forms and to limit stop-and-search reporting, with all the unnecessary bureaucracy that that has imposed upon officers, will save 800,000 hours of police time. Yesterday, the Assistant Commissioner of the Met, Ian McPherson, told the Greater London authority in an evidence session at which I was present that changing shift patterns in the Met will effectively increase staffing levels by an equivalent of 20% on Friday and Saturday evenings. There are things that we can do to improve the efficiency and deployment of police officers within the availability of constrained resources. That is why it is so important that we continue to reduce interference from the point of view of central Government, and why we have scrapped the remaining targets and the pledge. It is also why we intend to give more discretion to police forces so that they can make these important management decisions.

I want quickly to comment on what hon. Members have said about the use of the A19 procedure to enforce retirement for officers who have served for more than 30 years. There are only 3,000 officers to whom A19 might apply, out of a total in England and Wales of 143,000. It is not the ideal procedure, which is why we have set up a review of pay and conditions by Tom Winsor, which will report in February. It is important that we address issues such as the number of officers on restricted duties—more than 5,500—and the institutionalisation of overtime, when overtime costs are still in the region of £400 million a year. These are all areas in which considerable savings could be delivered to help to protect front-line policing.

Finally, I want to address the issue of police numbers and crime. I want to put on record what I actually said in the interview on “The World this Weekend”, which, by the way, was heavily edited. Nevertheless, as stated in the transcript of the interview that was broadcast, when asked about the link between reducing crime and police numbers, what I actually said was this:

“I don’t think that anyone, and no respectable academic would make a simple link between the increase in the numbers of police officers and what has happened to crime. There is no such link.”

The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood is not stupid, and he will know that I was quite clearly referring to that simple link. That was my point and I believe it was a correct point—one also made by the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). It was also made by one of the world’s greatest crime fighters, Bill Bratton, who was quoted earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley). If hon. Members believe that there is such a simple link, perhaps they can explain why police numbers have increased in Sweden and Spain, but crime has increased, too. Perhaps they can also explain why police numbers in the United States have fallen, yet crime has fallen, too.

It is obvious to anybody who thinks about it that there is not a simple link, and that what we should be concerned about is how officers are deployed, whether they are available and visible to the public and whether they are there on the streets when the public want them. What therefore matters is not the total size of the police work force, but the efficiency and effectiveness of their deployment and how much they are tied up by bureaucracy. That is an issue that the Opposition simply will not address.

Opposition Members talked about the cost of police and crime commissioners. May I point out that the £100 million costing by the hon. Member for Gedling for police and crime commissioners was for a period beyond that covered by the spending review. The annual additional cost of police and commissioners is reflected only in the election cost and there will be no greater cost for the police authorities themselves. The money will not come out of police force budgets. It represents £12.5 million a year on average—less than 0.1% of police spend. Pointing out that an election will cost too much money and should not be held in the first place is not a good argument for any hon. Member to advance against a democratic reform. That is a very weak and poor argument.

I say to my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) that we are determined to ensure a safe Olympics and that we will make further announcements about the police funding for the Olympics in due course. I would be happy to meet him to discuss any concerns about that.

While Labour Members continue to play politics, continue to criticise cuts, even though they would have made them themselves, and continue to criticise democratic accountability, even though they would have introduced it themselves, Government Members know that we must tackle the deficit. It is in our national interest to do so, not least for the sake of the future funding of police officers generally and of individual officers. We are determined to make the savings by reducing bureaucracy, giving forces more freedom and driving out cost. In so doing, we are sure that we can protect the front line and the visible and available policing that the public value. The public want to know that the police will be there for them, and we are absolutely determined that they will be.

Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54(4)).

Department for International Development

Police (Public Trust)

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

It is good to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. As in the film, I am back to the future in coming back to a role that I had 15 months ago. It is good to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, still in his place. He made his contribution in the thoughtful way in which he normally tries to take forward debates. Many of us will be in Cannock Chase to contribute to the seminar that he has arranged. Some interesting points have been made, and I would like to deal with some of them before the Minister responds.

The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) made some important points and discussed important challenges for the police. The concern that my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), I and one or two others have is that, despite the hon. Member for The Wrekin’s making a caveat at the beginning and end of his remarks, about individual cases and about casting aspersions on the whole police service, some of the high-profile cases and incidents to which he referred do just that.

The hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) asked why fear of crime goes up when crime is actually falling. I shall refer to that further in a minute. If a particular problem or scandal is splashed all over the newspapers every day—such things should be publicised, of course; I am not saying that they should not—that is what happens.

I was the police Minister when we had the horrific spike in knife and gun crime. Unfortunately, I understand from the figures that there is some suggestion that it is happening again this year. One would go to areas of the country where there had not been a stabbing for years, yet people were frightened of being stabbed.

The language and tone of any debate about trust and confidence in the police are fundamental; that was the problem to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East referred. He raised several serious issues. No one would condone corruption, brutality or police officers thinking that they are above the law. That is why my hon. Friend gets so cross about the phone hacking, and why he wants answers and a proper discussion of the matter. At the end of the day, it is knowledge that enables public trust.

The House of Commons Library pack to inform this debate on public trust in police forces is excellent. It highlights several unacceptable things that have happened and which have seriously undermined confidence and trust in various areas. However, if we let those become the narrative and the story for the whole of the police, we will have a real problem.

I have the Home Office’s crime statistics from July, which were published by the Minister. He needs to answer this question, because it goes to the heart of the matter. One of the reasons why people do not believe the crime statistics is that politicians often play around with them and pick out bits that prove their points. If they do that, why should people believe the statistics?

According to the British crime survey, crime has reduced by one half since 1995. Does the Minister agree with that? The report states:

“The most striking new finding within this report is that both the 2009/10 BCS and police recorded crime are consistent in showing falls in overall crime compared with 2008/09. Overall BCS crime decreased by nine per cent…and police recorded crime by eight per cent”.

Does the Minister agree with that?

Does the Minister agree that the same report shows that the fear of crime is going up, despite those figures? That is exactly the point that the hon. Member for Newton Abbot made. I am trying not to be party political, but, to be honest, when the new Government saw the figures, they took the bit that was not such good news and headlined it, rather than going for a big banner headline that crime fell by one half since 1995 and that recorded crime and BCS crime were down by 9%. Is not that one of the things that we should be doing, instead of tucking it away in a little press release? That is part of the problem.

We have to use the figures and what the crime statistics tell us. The UK Statistics Authority said that the crime statistics are reliable and that therefore we should use them more than we do.

[Mark Pritchard]

I dispute some of the hon. Gentleman’s suppositions and comments, but if he accepts that the current statistics are complex and confusing, and that there is a variety of ways to collect data on a range of things that the police deal with, why did he not make changes when he was the police Minister?

[Vernon Coaker]

The point I am making is not so much that the statistics are confusing but that people pick out bits from them to prove their point. The overall crime statistics reflected in both the BCS and recorded crime figures show significant falls in crime. What should we do, if we want to ensure people’s trust and confidence in the police? What confidence can one have in the police?

At a recent conference, the Home Secretary said that the biggest factor was whether crime is falling in police force areas. She said that that is the measure that we should use to give the public confidence and trust in their police force, and to know whether police forces are being effective.

The hon. Member for Newton Abbot spoke about crime falling in her area. That has to be the banner headline. If we try to undermine the statistics all the time, it is no wonder that people’s fear of crime rises.

In discussing how we keep confidence and trust, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East said that some aspects are not hugely difficult. What seems to be difficult is for it to happen in every community in the country consistently and persistently. The things that drive confidence and trust are neighbourhood policing and a visible police presence, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) said. There will be a debate about whether that has happened or not, but we need neighbourhood policing, visible policing and police being around and responding properly when phone calls are made about antisocial behaviour by a few kids on the street.

We are all constituency MPs. How many people come to us about terrorist incidents? Not many. How many come to us because they phoned up about what may seem a trivial incident but, to the member of the public, is fundamental? If that is responded to, even though it may seem trivial, confidence and trust in the police go up. People are not stupid. They know that sometimes things are difficult to deal with, but they expect that if they are worried about a kid who keeps banging on their door, somebody will say, “Yes, it should not happen. We are very sorry.” In the best cases—in an increasing number of cases—the police are recognising that and responding in the way that we would all want.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Member for Edinburgh West discussed the targets set by central Government, which he felt were unhelpful to policing. However, as I mentioned in my speech, during the previous Administration I found that central Government were able to pass on good practice. From his experience, does my hon. Friend believe that it could have been done better? There needs to be a better understanding of the fact that the Home Office has a role in ensuring that good practice in one part of the country is occurring elsewhere. If it does not have such a role, who does?

[Vernon Coaker]

I was coming to the point about good practice. My right hon. Friend is right. The Home Office does have a role, as do the police, police authorities and others, in disseminating good practice and good information. We have talked before about good community engagement, good communication, informing people about what is going on and having meetings. All those things are fundamentally important, as is answering letters, and so on.

The Home Office has a responsibility for disseminating information, whether through websites or in other ways. I am interested in whether the Minister believes that that is so and whether he will deal with some of the issues that right hon. and hon. Members have raised this afternoon, notwithstanding his not agreeing with certain cultures and targets. What role does he think the Home Office has to play in driving up confidence and helping restore trust?

Briefly, on trust and confidence, my experience is that the Minister has responsibility both for police and criminal justice. In respect of confidence and trust in the police, the issue is not only about what the police do, but what other bodies, including local authorities and local councils, do. What those bodies do drives trust as well. For example, the clearing up of graffiti and things like that makes a difference.

How the police interact with the criminal justice system is fundamental. There is a big issue here. Sometimes the police get blamed for the criminal justice system not working effectively with respect to the police. We need to get better in respect of one thing in particular. One of the biggest confidence and trust builders is for local people to know that somebody who is causing real problems in their area, and is arrested by the police and taken to court, has been dealt with by the courts and taken through the criminal justice process.

I should be interested in hearing what the Minister expects from the spending review. Other hon. Members have mentioned what will happen with respect to the coming cuts. We have all talked about visible policing and the importance of officers on the beat. How on earth are we going to maintain police numbers and the current numbers of police community support officers? How are we going to cut bureaucracy if police staff are going to go? What will happen to the number of police stations? What will happen to police station opening hours? What will happen to confidence and trust in an environment where all that is happening?

We are talking about trust and confidence in the police. Part of the modernisation of the police has been the establishment of a number of specialist units, which some people regard as a waste but I think are fundamental. Domestic violence would not have been tackled to the extent that it has were it not for the training and development of specialist domestic violence units in many police force areas.

The same is true of sexual violence. Victims of sexual violence want to know that a specialist officer is dealing with the case. What is happening to child protection? All those things are fundamental. If we want confidence and trust, it is all very well to say that that should be mainstreamed into police business and into their main work, but often when that happens there is a loss of focus with regard to such matters.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East mentioned the new national crime agency, which is supposed to take in the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and the National Policing Improvement Agency. I thought that the national crime agency was to be an operational crime-fighting body. The NPIA deals with training, the police national computer and so on. Why would something like that be put into the NCA? If people are to have confidence in the NCA, they want to see a crime-fighting body, not one that encapsulates some of the necessary functions of the NPIA.

Finally, on accountability, the hon. Member for Edinburgh West mentioned elected police commissioners, said that he went along with that proposal and then slightly qualified what he said. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East asked whether those commissioners would have operational independence. We oppose the creation of elected police commissioners. First, will the Minister clarify whether the Government’s policy is still, as it was when they were in opposition, to have the power of recall so that another election, to get somebody acceptable, can be held if somebody unsatisfactory is elected as a police commissioner?

Secondly, if the police are still operationally independent, which they should be, of course, what can an elected police commissioner do if he does not agree with what the chief constable does? If the chief constable operates ineffectively, either the commissioner can do something about it or he cannot. How can the elected police commissioner be held accountable if the chief constable is operationally independent—something over which the commissioner has no influence? What will the role of the elected police commissioner be with respect to a chief constable, if the former sees the latter acting unsatisfactorily?

I shall finish where I started, by congratulating the hon. Member for The Wrekin on prompting the debate. He raised some real issues, as did other hon. Members. I say to all police officers out there that the vast majority do a good job in difficult circumstances and they have the full support of every Member of Parliament, notwithstanding some of the difficult incidents that we hear, see and read about. We know that there are bad officers, but we also know that they are not a reflection on the police force as a whole.