Merseyside Police Funding

Debate between Victoria Atkins and George Howarth

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

May I, too, say how good it is to serve under you in the Chair, Sir Edward? I add my thanks to Jane Kennedy, the police and crime commissioner for Merseyside and to Merseyside police. My hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) have given us a comprehensive survey of the current situation, particularly the financial problems that Merseyside police faces, which I will say a bit about in a moment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby made the point that a police officer was stabbed in my constituency, which brings home, sharply and regrettably, the risks that police officers face when going about their everyday business of trying to keep us safe. I will return to knife crime in a minute.

As has already been said, Merseyside police has had to make more than £110 million of savings since 2010 and as a consequence, the police officer establishment has been reduced by 1,120, which is a fall of 24.4%. That must have consequences; it cannot simply be brushed aside as, “Well, we don’t need them.” I want to talk about how some of those consequences affect my constituents.

I will make three points. On gun crime, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby has already stated the statistics, but I will repeat them for emphasis. In Merseyside, there were 79 firearm discharges in 2018 and 94 firearm discharges in 2017. Of the discharges in 2018, 13—16%—were in Knowsley, and in 2017, 22% were in Knowsley. That means that guns are now considered something relatively normal in some sections of the community, which was unthinkable when I was growing up in the area and cannot be right. There must be some connection between that and the level of policing that Merseyside police can provide.

Knife crime has become commonplace, and 88 knife incidents in Knowsley in one year is really frightening. It is frightening, first, that the knives seem to be readily available, and secondly, that the—mainly young—people who use them seem to think that doing so is perfectly normal. Again, that must be linked to the level of policing provided. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby rightly referred to the policing model. Neighbourhood policing has now been abandoned, so the intelligence needed to deal with this problem, such as who has the knives, where they are getting them from and all that important information, is not being gathered to the same extent. That is not the police’s fault; they simply do not have the resources.

I will make one further point on knife and gun crime before I move on. This is not unique to Knowsley or to the Merseyside police force area; to a different scale in different places, it exists everywhere. There are a group of young people in this country who will probably not get any GCSEs. Most will get an apprenticeship, find work and make their way in the world. However, there is a sub-group within that who, maybe because of family influence or other influences in the neighbourhood, see a life of crime as being a perfectly normal progression. We need to do much more with those young people, to make them appreciate that, first, that is not normal; secondly, that they have the potential to do other things—really good things in some cases—with their lives; and thirdly, that they need to be in a position where they can provide for a family in later life, and not by the haphazard means of the proceeds of crime.

My second point is on antisocial behaviour. Merseyside police says, and the statistics show, that there has been a recent 32% reduction in the number of reported incidents of antisocial behaviour—[Interruption.] I have to say that that is not my experience as a local MP, and I can see from the reaction of my hon. Friends that they feel the same. I simply say that I held two advice surgeries on Friday evening—one in Huyton and one in Kirkby—and most of the cases brought to me were in some way related to antisocial behaviour.

I also think that the term “antisocial behaviour” often does not properly describe the sort of problems we are talking about. For example, with the local social housing provider, Knowsley Housing Trust, I have been dealing with a case of a woman in north Huyton who cannot step out of the door without a volley of abuse being thrown at her by neighbours. The police might classify that as a neighbourly dispute, but when someone is literally afraid to step out of the door because of the abuse they will get from neighbours, that is serious.

People have a right to a reasonably quiet life in which they should not expect daily abuse to be normal, yet in some cases it is. There are people in housing need who might be in a perfectly nice, well-maintained house that they pay the rent on, but they want to move out to get away from the trouble. That cannot be right. There cannot be places in this country where those subjected to antisocial behaviour feel that the only way they can escape it is to move house. Again, it comes back to whether the policing resources are there to deal with the problem. The police are honest about that and say there are not.

There is some light at the end of that particular tunnel, certainly in Knowsley. Knowsley Council, as my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood is aware, is looking within its resources to see what more support it can provide to the police to get on top of antisocial behaviour. However, should that be the responsibility of the local authority?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Yes!

[Mr Howarth]

The Minister nods her head and says yes from a sedentary position. Perhaps up to a point she is right, but at the end of the day Knowsley Council does not have the powers to intervene in such cases without the support of the police. All it can do is to help to point the police in the right direction, perhaps building up a case with some evidence, but in the end it has to be a policing matter.

Finally, I agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, West Derby and for Garston and Halewood in that I welcome the increase in the precept and that it is not how policing should be paid for. The increase will not have the impact that we need, but nevertheless I welcome it. Late last week, Merseyside police announced that they were going to downgrade Kirkby police station in my constituency, so that it will be open to the public on only two days a week. I recognise that we do not want police to sit in police stations; we want them out on the streets doing things. To be honest, however, if people want to report a crime, to get into a dialogue with the police about antisocial behaviour that they are experiencing or to give information on gun and knife crime when PCSOs are not out and about on the streets, the only place they can do so is at the police station.

I also question the way that the announcement was made on social media. The local councillors and I were alerted to the announcement on social media, but was that any consultation whatever? Is that any way in which to do it? I know why the police had to do it—because they have problems with resources—but I question the method.

A group of local councillors has been invited to meet Merseyside police tomorrow. Those councillors will put the case against the downgrade strongly. The leader of the council, Councillor Graham Morgan, has written to Jane Kennedy, and I will quote from what he said, because I agree with him. This relates back to the decision about the increase in the precept:

“The Chief Constable, and yourself for that matter, had the opportunity to let Cllr Aston know that you were planning the same thing for Kirkby ahead of her formally considering your Precept proposal on Knowsley’s behalf. Nothing at all was mentioned!

As you know, Cllr Aston moved the proposal and Knowsley reluctantly supported you, noting that colleagues in St Helens were not in a position to do so given the issues relating to Newton Police Station”—

which my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) raised in a debate in this very Chamber. The letter continues:

“I ask myself would we have taken this course of action”—

to vote for the increase in the precept—

“if we were made aware that we too were going to see a reduction, almost identical to that faced by our colleagues in St Helens?”

For the leader of Knowsley Council, the sort of person who tries to be reasonable with everyone, to write in such strong terms is an indication of how annoyed the community are about that. I share that annoyance. When the police meet the local councillors tomorrow, I hope that they will reach a solution that does not involve virtually closing down Kirkby police station for most of the week.

Unless Ministers appreciate the terrible circumstances in which the police have to operate throughout the Merseyside police force area, and do so quickly, I am afraid that we will have this debate repeatedly, with some of the problems that we are concerned about just going up and up. That cannot be right.