Extremism

Aidan Burley Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I suggest that the hon. Lady look closely at what I have already said, when it is reported in Hansard. I have been very clear about what happened as a result of the investigation by the Cabinet Secretary, which the Prime Minister required to be undertaken.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

Integration is not just about preventing young people from engaging in extremism; it is also about reintegrating them into their communities when they have been radicalised. What steps is my right hon. Friend’s Department taking to reintegrate people who have strayed in that way?

[Mrs May]

Within the Prevent strategy is the important Channel strand which works with people who are perhaps at risk of being radicalised—who are particularly vulnerable—to help ensure that they do not move down that path of radicalisation. Of course we also work with the National Offender Management Service on dealing with people who have been prosecuted and imprisoned under the terrorism legislation when they return to their communities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Aidan Burley Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Just to be absolutely clear, the right hon. Lady has put this case in certain terms, which I believe do not reflect the reason why the TPIM was originally put in place—to prevent fundraising and overseas travel. We do not believe that Magag’s disappearance is linked to any current terrorist planning in the UK, and it is important to put that point on the record. As the right hon. Lady will know, the TPIM regime introduced rigorous measures to manage the threat posed by terror suspects whom we cannot yet prosecute or deport by limiting their ability to communicate, associate and travel. The new regime was complemented by funding to the Security Service and the police, so we are maximising the opportunities to put these individuals on trial in an open court. The TPIM regime is, as the right hon. Lady knows, a package. To return to my earlier point, there were a number of absconds under control orders, so it is not right for her to contrast control orders and TPIMs in the way that she has.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

T3. This morning, on their way back into work, all MPs will have walked past the continued encampment on Parliament square. The banners, the flags and the tents were supposed to be removed by the time of the jubilee, yet they are still there today—over halfway through the lifetime of this Parliament. When does the Home Secretary intend to use the powers given to her by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 to remove these final eyesores, so that the square can once again be fully used by the public?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act introduced new powers prohibiting the use of tents and related items in Parliament square, while safeguarding the right to peaceful protest. The use of the powers is an operational matter for the police and Westminster city council, but they were used in January last year to clear the square of tents.

Police Forces

Aidan Burley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Little wonder that there is a collapse in police morale. They are being asked to do more at a time of rising crime and are now threatened with being paid less. They deserve better.

The latest casualties of Government policy in the west midlands are 16 senior officers—nine superintendants and seven chief inspectors, including the heads of counter-terrorism and of crime—why? Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary stated that we could experience a 12% reduction in expenditure over a period of years; instead, the Government have gone for a front-loaded reduction of 20%, with an inevitable serious impact on the police service. The consequences for the west midlands are that 2,200 will go from our police service, including 1,100 police officers.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is sailing close to the wind, and I would not want him to mislead anyone in the Chamber. He mentioned Government policy in the west midlands and repeatedly used the phrase, “forced out” in his opening remarks. To be clear, will he confirm that no Government policy whatever forces chief constables to retire officers with experience of 30 years or more and that the use of regulation A19, to which he alludes, under which such officers are being “forced out”—his words—is purely a matter for the chief constable of the police force and has absolutely no direction from the Government? The best chief constables can manage their work force without losing officers with the most experience.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Mills]

I have had some great times with the police going around the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, because we are advised on the police parliamentary scheme not to go around our own seats in case we attract more attention than the police do themselves. I would not go as far as he did in his intervention. Without doubt, we have a huge deficit, which has to be tackled, and there is no way that police forces can be shielded from that—they will have to pay their share, and I think that they accept that. I am sure that we will disagree about how large the share should be, but, when pay accounts for three quarters of police budgets, there is no way around the fact that that is what must take a fair chunk of the strain.

My point is that it is only fair on people to tell them what the changes will be as quickly as possible, rather than dragging out the uncertainty for months. Some things in the Winsor review and, in particular, the Hutton review are welcome. Hutton singles out the police force for a better deal on pensions than other public sector workers can expect, because they will be allowed their pension at 60, rather than the age rising to 66 or 67.

[Mr Burley]

Does my hon. Friend accept that some police officers may receive their pension as early as the age of 48? Police officers have unique job security. It the only job in the public sector that I can think of which people may start at 18, and have a job for 30 years, and a guaranteed pension of around two thirds of salary with no chance of being made redundant. Police officers cannot be made redundant, unlike people in every other job in the public and private sector. That unique job security should be reflected in the overall pay and conditions and, indeed, pension.

[Nigel Mills]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, but I think he is leading me down a line that would cause some difficulty. There is merit in considering whether police officers should sign up for 30 years, or whether they should join on a shorter contract. There is logic in signing up for 10 years, and if that works out for the force and someone wants to stay longer, they can do so. If it is not working out after 10 years, they may want to do something else. I was encouraged that Police Federation representatives from Derbyshire whom I met a few months ago were keen on that idea, and could see some advantages.

My hon. Friend tried to tempt me down the line of police redundancy, and my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) has introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on that topic. I think that that would probably add more uncertainty to police officers’ views on their future. Some to whom I have spoken have colleagues who are unfit for work or have lost their enthusiasm for it, and a mechanism allowing them to leave would probably be a positive step, but I suspect that that is not the general view of the police force.

I want to plead for police staff whose terms and conditions are not as generous as those of serving police officers, but who have borne the brunt of some previous savings rounds. They do not have redundancy protection, and they fear that they are being even more unfairly squeezed when police forces are looking to make savings. I have certainly had representations from them saying that they do not have the same generous pension to look forward to and cannot retire at the same time. We must ensure that the balance of savings is spread fairly.

When we talk about front-line and back-office functions, it is easy to blur the fact that some of those functions that are key to the front line, but are not strictly uniform, are being squeezed. I have had representations from scene-of-crime officers saying that compared with years ago when a team would sent to almost every burglary, there is now a squeeze on and it is hard to get an operative to go to a crime scene. Certainly that service is not available for many burglaries. That is not the way to improve the rate of crime detection.

There are many challenges, and at a time of funding constraint, it is important that the Government give the police all the necessary powers to tackle crime as efficiently as possible. I will cite one example from the burglary division of Derbyshire police. I am sure that the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) agrees that Derbyshire police has made great improvements in recent years in tackling burglaries and in providing a service to victims of such crimes. It has told me that many burglaries are carried out by people who want to steal jewellery to fund their drug habit. They rob a house, nick the jewellery and take it straight down to the local jeweller, who sometimes has a melting pot. The jewellery is sold for cash, and even if the police receive a tip-off about where the jewellery has gone, there is no trace of it or whom it was bought from. Previously law-abiding jewellers are being snared by the high price of gold into that route of crime. There are no regulations that the police can use to tackle jewellers or to force them to keep details of jewellery that they buy or whom they bought it from.

Regulations apply to scrap metal dealers, and even to pawnbrokers, but not to jewellers. If we are to help the police tackle crime, we must tackle the demand side and give them the powers that they need. I hope that the Minister will encourage his colleague, Baroness Browning, to look at the matter a little more closely than she suggested a couple of weeks ago.

I want to touch on accountability, because it is important that the police are brought back closer to the communities that they serve. There have been many welcome developments on neighbourhood consultation, but the introduction of elected police commissioners will do that, and I hope that the Government will proceed with that and not bow down to Lords wrecking amendments. It will be an important development, and even serving police officers have told me that they are looking forward to it, because it will make the force seem more accountable. Perhaps even at chief constable level it will encourage focusing priority on the area and not on the national, high-profile matters that chiefs sometimes focus on. That reform is essential to bring the police back to their trusted status with the public. I urge the Government to progress with that.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on securing this important debate, which affects every community we represent in this House. In the time available, I want to make three brief and interrelated points: first, I want to discuss crime and antisocial behaviour in my constituency; secondly, I want to talk about how, as the long title of this debate hints, Government policies will place enormous strain on police forces at a time of drastic cuts; and thirdly, I want to point out that morale in the police force is at an all-time low, which has been alluded to in the debate.

Before doing so, however, like other hon. Members, I pay tribute to police officers throughout the country, and particularly in my constituency, who do so much on our behalf. I have been out on night shifts with officers, and I have seen at first hand the danger, anger and violence that they face. Some of the things that drunken thugs say about officers and their families are truly horrific. I admire the restraint and professionalism that they show in the face of such pressure and danger.

[Mr Burley]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Wright]

I do not have much time, and I know that other hon. Members are waiting patiently to speak, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not give way.

Hartlepool has experienced a pronounced drop in crime and antisocial behaviour over the past few years. Crime has dropped by 4% in the past year alone and by an astonishing half in the past seven years, and there are 6,000 fewer victims of crime in my constituency, with a reduction in the distress, ruin and low quality of life that crime produces. That is wonderful. In the past 24 hours, officers carried out a dawn raid in the village of Elwick in my constituency, where they uncovered a cannabis farm containing more than 1,000 plants with a street value of about £400,000. Officers from Hartlepool district drugs unit, the district support unit, the town’s dog section and Cleveland police helicopter all assisted in the raid. Cleveland police stated:

“These plants could have been destined for the streets of Cleveland, the co-ordinated and robust effort of officers has once again stopped the vicious cycle of these illegal substances from affecting our local communities.”

That great success in the past few years is a result of investment, co-ordination and that intangible sense that the police matter and are valuable—they should be seen as such. This is no time to be complacent, and much more needs to be done. Although criminal damage has fallen spectacularly in Hartlepool in the past five years, violence against the person has been on the increase in the past year after falling substantially since 2008. Despite the successes of the past year or so, and in the past couple of days, drug offences have risen sharply in the past two or three years.

Where there is economic deprivation, there is often crime, and we should all be mindful of the risk of crime when there is rising unemployment. Despite what Ministers say, there is a link between economic inactivity and crime, and it flies in the face of common sense to suggest otherwise. There are disproportionate cuts to public services in the north-east, and a particular and worrying emphasis on cutting early intervention schemes, which often nip problems in the bud. Youth unemployment is a particular concern in my constituency, with the risk of a generation of young people being lost to meaningful employment. With the cancellation of the education maintenance allowance, the abolition of the future jobs fund and so on, we are seeing the end of all possible help and support.

I am not suggesting for one moment that people who have lost their jobs or who are on benefits are more inclined to commit crime, but Government policies on matters such as welfare and housing benefit are socially divisive, making the lives of families who are already struggling even more difficult, with a threat to social cohesion. That is a risk, and we must have an effective policing system to address that risk.

My third and final point has already been mentioned. It concerns the appallingly low morale in the police service at the moment. Police officers have e-mailed me and come to see me at my constituency surgery. Many of them, often with decades of experience, have said that morale is on the floor. They have expressed concern that at a time of added risk and strain in terms of crime and antisocial behaviour, excessive cuts will mean the loss of police provision. In my area, a particular strength has been the number of police community support officers, which went from 37 in 2003 to almost 200 last year. They have made a real difference by providing a visible presence on the streets, and working closely with neighbourhoods and residents to provide reassurance, gain intelligence about an area and head off potential trouble and criminal activity. Because of the Government’s financial settlement, however, PCSOs in Cleveland police force cannot be guaranteed in their current form beyond 2012-13. The loss of those PCSOs would have a huge and negative impact on safety and reassurance in my community.

As we have heard, police terms and conditions are being attacked on all sides, including in the Winsor review and in the Hutton review of pensions. Officers have told me that the cuts seem to be ad hoc and piecemeal, and that the Government lack a vision for policing in the 21st century. That is why a royal commission on policing would be a sensible way forward. That possibility has already been mentioned in the debate, and I hope that the Minister will say something positive about such a commission.

Despite the pressures and cuts, police in my patch will do their job professionally, as they always do, and they will do their best. There is, however, an understandable feeling and growing resentment that the Government are making the police go out to do their duty with one hand tied behind their backs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) has said, at a time of growing pressure, and given the huge risks that they run when they go out on shifts, the police, and the communities that they serve, deserve better.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

I was not going to speak this morning, but before the winding-up speeches, I want to respond to a few points that have been raised. The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) mentioned the 12% savings suggested by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. We can have a political argument about whether cuts should be 12% or 20%, but as many people have asked—certainly in my constituency—if savings of more than £1 billion a year can be so easily identified, why have they not already been made over the past 10 or 15 years? Clearly, there is a lot of fat in the system and savings can be made. An analogy was made between that system and MPs and their researchers, and it was asked how we could do our jobs without back-office staff. Is it suggested that no savings whatever can be made? Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has identified savings of 12%.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Burley]

I will give way in a moment. Do people think that police forces cannot work more efficiently and be less bureaucratic, that we cannot get rid of some form filling and red tape, and that there cannot be greater efficiencies in procurement and when buying IT systems? I suggest to hon. Members that a lot of efficiencies can be made.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Burley]

I am sorry; I said that I would give way to the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley).

[Barbara Keeley]

The cuts announced in Greater Manchester last week will affect 900 jobs, including crime scene investigators, forensic scientists and call handlers. Does the hon. Gentleman think that the second largest police force in the country can support the loss of hundreds of such jobs?

[Mr Burley]

As I said, it is up to individual police forces to manage their work forces and budgets. For example, my constituency is in Staffordshire, where numbers of police officers are not being cut. Instead, the police estate has been reduced—quite controversially, given some of the comments about police buildings—and the number of police stations has been rationalised from nine to six. Locally, there has been an outcry over the closure of three stations, but the chief constable suggested that instead of having nine stations that are half used, under-utilised, dilapidated and made of old Victorian bricks, and which cost £1 million a year to maintain, it would be better to close three stations and put the money into front-line services, PCSOs and the police officers mentioned by the hon. Lady. It is easy to jump on the bandwagon on closing police stations, but the most forward-thinking forces manage their budgets and staff in an innovative way that protects the front line and reduces costs in other areas.

Police numbers have been mentioned several times. Let us be clear: the Labour party refused to guarantee police numbers at the last election. As hon. Members know, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) was famously asked by Andrew Neil whether he could guarantee police numbers, and his response was no. When the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) begins the winding-up speeches, perhaps he will tell us how many police officers would be cut under the Labour party’s proposals to cut by 12% rather than 20%.

There has been some debate about the front line, but an agreed definition of what constitutes the front line does exist. HMIC has stated that about 68% of police staff are involved in every day, visible contact with the public or specialist roles to keep people safe and within the law. That is the definition of the front line. It is important because some of the toughest front-line roles that I have seen in the police force are carried out not on the streets but on computers in police stations by those who watch hard-core pornography involving children being tortured and murdered. To me, that is the hardest front-line job within the police force.

I wanted to intervene on the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) to point out that there is a difference in the roles done by police officers. I often hear comments such as, “If I am on the front line, there is a fight in a pub, it is pouring with rain and I am running towards that fight, I know that I will possibly get a kicking and be spat at.” That is a front-line, hard role in a big fight between drunk men in a pub on a Saturday night, and there is a difference between that and people sitting in a station working a nine-to-five shift. Front-line officers say that it is unfair that those in the stations are often paid more than those who run to the fight in a pub on a Saturday night, because they have done 10 years in the police service with an automatic pay increase every year. There are different roles within the police force, and I do not see a problem with people being paid according to the difficulty of their role. If people disagree with me about that, I would be interested to hear from them.

I will make just two final points to allow the Minister and the shadow Minister time to respond. First, on pay and conditions, it is not true that most police officers will face a £4,000 cut; a lot of officers will actually have a pay increase under Winsor’s proposals because they will be doing front-line duties. At the time of the last police review—such reviews seem to happen every 20 or 25 years—a special payment for front-line duties was given to about 89% of officers and rolled into the general salary. It could be argued therefore that the police already receive an extra 9% pay on top of their basic salary. Winsor could have removed that compounded extra payment, but instead he left it in the basic salary and proposed an extra increase in pay for some officers, based on the difficulty of their job and whether they are on the front line. The police get a fairly good deal, and some will get an even better deal under the proposals. Some, of course, will lose out because they are not undertaking difficult roles on the front line.

As I pointed out, there is amazing job security in the police service, and that should be reflected in the pay and conditions. I challenge any hon. Member to intervene on me and tell me another public sector job that someone can join aged 18, from which they cannot be made redundant—other than for gross negligence—and from which they can retire after 30 years, often as early as age 48, on two-thirds of their salary for the rest of their life. There is no single comparable job in the public sector.

[Teresa Pearce]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Burley]

If the hon. Lady has an example, I would love to hear it.

[Teresa Pearce]

My example is that, as we have said previously, policing is different. Does the hon. Gentleman think that it should not be different and that the retirement conditions are the only perk that the police have and that they should not even have that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burley]

I think the police have a lot of perks; I pointed out that the retirement conditions are a unique condition. Does the hon. Lady say that being in the Army, Air Force or the Navy is somehow less dangerous? Surely, fighting in Afghanistan is more dangerous than a lot of police jobs. The job security in the police service is unique in the public sector, as is the fact that police officers cannot be made redundant.

In answer to the hon. Lady, yes, I think that the police should change their terms and conditions. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) made a fair point when he alluded to the fact that if, as we are now seeing, chief constables have to manage their work force and make reductions in the head count, the only people whom they can make redundant are police staff and PCSOs. Those people have different terms and conditions from police officers, who are warranted officers of the Crown, and that is unfair. All hon. Members would agree that we need a mixed work force in the police; we need police staff, PCSOs and police officers. It is unfair on staff and PCSOs that their terms and conditions mean that, in times of cuts, they are inevitably the only people who can be made redundant. Chief constables are not able to get rid of some of the dead wood, as they may wish. If we believe in a mixed work force in the police, we should believe in the same terms and conditions for all parts of that work force.

[Barbara Keeley]

We are talking about regulation A19 of the Police Pensions Regulations 1987 and the retiring of experienced police officers. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman agrees with the constituent who came to see me, who finds himself, after four years, as the most experienced police officer in his unit and who was forced, as many police officers now are, to contact officers who had been retired through the A19 process to pick their brains about cases with which he was dealing. Does the hon. Gentleman think that that contributes to effective policing?

[Mr Burley]

No, I do not. A good chief constable should not be retiring officers who have such experience and who they think can make a huge contribution to their force. The point, as I said earlier, is that they do not have to do that. The Government are not forcing any police force to retire officers with loads of experience, and the best forces are not doing that. However, the point remains that they have to deal with the cuts.

We are not blaming police forces. We are not blaming Chris Sims for getting rid of his officers with 30 years’ experience. Police forces have to deal with the massive budget deficit that the Labour Government left us, so it is the previous Government whom we are blaming for the cuts having to be imposed on police forces, which are doing their best to deal with them. We blame not the police forces or the chief constables, but the previous Labour Government.

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

I am well aware that only one more Back Bencher wishes to speak. My difficulty is that we need to bring the Front-Bench spokesman in, so that he can get answers and responses to the questions that have been posed. However, as the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) is the only one and has quietly waited all through the debate, I shall call her to speak. I ask her to be very brief.

Policing Costs (Football Matches)

Aidan Burley Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Crausby. I am particularly grateful to Mr Speaker for granting me this debate on contribution to the costs of policing football matches by premiership clubs. It is my first Westminster Hall debate, as it was that of the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who secured the previous debate.

To set the parameters of the debate, my proposals this afternoon only relate to premiership football clubs. Policing costs are associated with other sporting events, including lower league football matches. However, premiership football matches require a uniquely heavy police presence, because of the number of fans involved and the rivalries. The policing requirements of Wimbledon, the Ashes at Lord’s or even an international rugby match at Twickenham are much lower compared with those of premiership football. In general, sports spectators are not violent or confrontational, and other sports do not have the same problems as football and hence do not need to separate fans or have strict alcohol laws.

Premiership games require a huge police presence, and I am challenging the idea that the taxpayer should pay for the adverse effects of one party on another. My contention is not that all sporting fixtures should pay for the costs of policing their matches, because at the poorer end of the scale that could wipe out the profit made on a small-scale fixture. However, with the average salary of a premiership footballer now estimated at £55,000 a week, and with some earning as much as four times that amount, or a salary of more than £10 million a year, the affordability of premiership football clubs paying the full costs of policing their highly profitable businesses cannot be questioned in any way. My simple contention is that the total police costs attributable to the policing of a premiership football match should be met by the clubs and not by the taxpayer.

To give some background, the provision of policing at a football match, or at any other commercial event such as a music concert, is a special police service. Special police services are governed by section 25 of the Police Act 1996:

“The chief officer of police of a police force may provide, at the request of any person, special police services at any premises or in any locality in the police area for which the force is maintained, subject to the payment to the police authority of charges on such scales as may be determined by that authority.”

In effect, special police services are extra that police officers provide for security at commercial events. The event organiser must pay for the service at a price determined by the chief constable. If the cost is not met, the organiser can be denied a safety certificate and therefore cannot hold the event.

In 2008, the Association of Chief Police Officers made a submission to the Home Office about the Green Paper on the future of policing, calling for the introduction of full-cost policing. Full-cost policing would extend the definition of special police services beyond the so-called footprint of the event to include consequential policing: policing that is provided beyond the event itself, at train stations or town centres, to deal with crowds arriving at and leaving a commercial event. How is that ACPO submission currently viewed in the Home Office? How would a similar submission by ACPO today—for recovery of full-cost policing from football clubs—be regarded by Home Office Ministers?

Under current arrangements, football clubs are only legally obliged to pay for the policing in their footprint, which usually means inside the stadium and the surrounding car parks. However, the provision of consequential policing outside a football match—for example, at the nearest railway or tube station, in nearby pubs and bars or even in the city centre—is currently the responsibility of the police and is provided at their discretion and their cost. Clubs do not have to pay for that extra service, so the cost is paid for by the taxpayer. That has led to a disparity between what the police estimate the total cost of policing a football match to be, and what the clubs currently pay. In the 2007-08 season, it was estimated that the policing of 13 premier league football clubs cost the police £3.2 million in consequential policing. That difference was met by the taxpayer.

The disparity is the result of current case law—in particular, the case of the chief constable of Greater Manchester v. Wigan Athletic—but also of Home Office guidance on charging for the policing of football matches. The result, according to a report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs on this issue in July 2009, is that

“some forces recovered less than half, some as much as two thirds of the costs of policing football”.

The current disparity, therefore, is between what the clubs are legally obliged to pay in policing costs and what the police actually estimate those costs to be, and it stems from grey areas in the current legislation and Home Office guidance. Can the Minister address that issue in his response, and ask his officials to look into clarifying such an important area?

What are the actual costs? Sunita Patel, the London correspondent for the Wolverhampton Express & Star, has recently submitted freedom of information requests to the West Midlands police on the issue. Her story, published yesterday, revealed some interesting results. Data obtained from the West Midlands police show that the force estimated costs of £1.14 million to police Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion’s home fixtures in 2008-09. However, the force was only reimbursed £875,655, leaving a shortfall of £266,111. That quarter of a million pounds alone would pay for 10 police constables or seven sergeants. In essence, the police are recovering only three quarters of the costs of policing Villa and West Brom.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the biggest challenge is the lack of transparency—that a freedom of information request had to be submitted? Coupled with that, if he was granted his wish and football clubs in effect had to pay for their own policing, surely they should also have a greater say in how that policing is carried out.

[Mr Burley]

That is a fair point. One of the challenges to such arguments is that defining the cost of consequential policing is difficult. Is a fight in a bar at midnight between two guys wearing football shirts, a long time after the match, the responsibility of Villa and West Brom or of the police only? However, my argument, and what we found in the FOI figures, is that the police calculate such costs quite accurately. They know the costs for policing in the ground—the footprint—and outside, because we have obtained those figures under the FOI requests. A simple test would be to ask a police force what its extra deployment would be if there were a home match on a Saturday. The police would tell us straight away: they would have an extra 10 coppers at the station, a sergeant to oversee, and everything else. Those officers would not otherwise be deployed, so it is quite easy to calculate the extra costs.

Further figures obtained by Miss Patel for the most recent season, 2009-10, showed that West Midlands police recovered £1.23 million for policing the home games of Wolves, Aston Villa and Birmingham City. That is an increase of 40% on the previous season because of an extra west midlands club being in the top flight—I accept that that might change by the end of the week if Wolves or Birmingham go down. If the policing costs outside the football club premises went up by the same ratio, the taxpayer bill for the 2009-10 season would be an estimated £372,555. Extrapolated across the country and the 20 premiership clubs, that would equate to £2.5 million, which is equivalent to 106 police constables or 68 sergeants—at which point, such figures start to appear rather significant.

ACPO itself, in a BBC news article in October last year, estimated that it costs the police up to £25 million to deal with all football matches, but that they only recover £12 million to £15 million a year from the clubs. That is for all football matches, whereas my proposal is for premiership clubs only. Hammersmith and Fulham council estimates that the total cost of policing football matches in its borough, which, uniquely, has three premiership clubs, will be £5.69 million a season. Either way, the cost of policing football matches ranges from £2.5 million to £5.6 million to £15 million, depending on how many clubs and matches are included, and according to the different estimates by different forces of policing their local games. However, one thing from all those figures is abundantly clear. The taxpayer is subsidising wealthy football clubs to the tune of millions of pounds a year, and my simple question to the Minister is: why?

There is an issue and a principle. The issue is the disparity between what the clubs are legally obliged to pay in policing costs, and what the police estimate those costs to be. The principle is that the polluter pays. On the taxpayer subsidy provided to clubs through extra paid-for policing, my personal feeling is that the estimated consequential costs are far higher than freedom of information figures from the west midlands suggest. Let us consider three recent examples.

At the derby match involving Arsenal and Spurs on 31 October last year, a large group of hooligans smashed up several pubs after their side’s 3-0 defeat, causing thousands of pounds of damage. Because of the nature of the derby rivalry at the previous year’s game, the police classified it as high risk, and almost tripled the number of officers on duty from 180 to 560. In the north- east alone this year, British Transport police has already overspent its football budget by around £400,000. In April, a dozen arrests were made after a town centre pub was forced to close when Wigan Athletic, Sheffield United, Barnsley and Manchester United fans turned violent, and the police again had to call in hundreds of extra patrols to deal with the disturbance.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on calling this important debate. As he is aware, British Transport police does not police football grounds—it is completely separate from that—but it estimates that in 2009-10, policing premiership games on Saturdays alone cost £8 million and involved deploying more than 300 police. That, as I say, excluded matches between Mondays and Fridays, and on Sundays. That is all extra expense for the public purse.

[Mr Burley]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is difficult to know how far the footprint goes. People catch trains to football matches, and one sees them at all the stations. That is why I contend that the consequential policing cost is far greater than we think. Whatever the figures, it is clear that it costs more than we recover from the clubs, and my question is: why?

We have all seen the extra police in tube stations and town centres on match days. They are there for one reason: because it is match day. They are doing their job of safeguarding the community, preventing trouble from occurring, and dealing with scuffles and fights between fans. My simple question is: why are the clubs not being billed for those extra policing costs?

In other walks of life there is a principle of, the polluter pays. A constituent, Nigel Clempson, runs a successful shop-fitting company in Rugeley. I am grateful to Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail for highlighting his case in the national press. He said that my constituent

“is the kind of businessman upon whom Britain’s recovery depends.”

His team of craftsmen work seven days a week, mostly at night, refurbishing shops and banks. All the debris that they strip out of the buildings they are refitting is taken back to the firm’s yard at Rawnsley, near Cannock, where it is dumped in a large skip to await recycling and disposal. Because of the nature of the firm’s business, the yard is accessible round the clock, and the skip attracts the attention of local rag and bone men and groups of Travellers who sort through it in search of salvage.

Nigel Clempson has never had a problem with scavengers, who are looking for scrap metal and other materials that they can sell for a few bob, but recently he had a visit from a police officer and an inspector from Cannock council’s environmental health department. The police had seen some Travellers loading scrap from his yard into a transit van, and he was told that he needed a licence to transport industrial waste. He assured them that his company was fully insured and licensed, but was told, “Ah, but the Travellers aren’t.” Nigel was informed by the police that it was his duty to ensure that anyone taking material from his premises had a waste transfer certificate.

We all know that Travellers come and go at all hours, so how was Nigel expected to keep track of everyone, and make sure that they were carrying the correct permits? The police said that that was up to him, but that if any of the material was fly-tipped and traced back to him, he would face a hefty fine. People might ask why the onus should be on Nigel, and not on the Travellers themselves, who probably do not tax their own vehicles, so they are hardly going to bother getting a waste disposal certificate. The principle is that a local businessman from the west midlands has been told that it is his personal responsibility to make sure that a gang of Travellers do not remove stuff from a skip, so he has reluctantly spent £2,000 on a special cage to encase his skip. My question to the Minister is: why are the same police not telling their local premiership football clubs that it is their responsibility to make sure that the local community is safe, that the streets are cleaned, and that the train stations are protected from damage as a result of their businesses?

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate, and I thank you, Mr Crausby, for chairing it. I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s principle, but I would like to hear his thoughts on some of the wider issues. He seems to have drawn a harsh line, although he has tried to address that, and my question is: why just premiership clubs?

A recent English Defence League demonstration in Blackburn on 4 April cost a fortune to police. The hon. Gentleman asked why taxpayers are paying for premiership matches to be policed, but what about the EDL demonstration? What about other demonstrations that cost local taxpayers a fortune? What about large community events that must be policed? Where is the line to be drawn? Will he explain why he is referring only to premiership clubs, and why that is fair?

[Mr Burley]

I am more than happy to do that. I framed my debate narrowly to premiership clubs. In essence, the direct answer is that there are two reasons. First, they are unique in the intensity of policing and number of police required for their entertainment activities, which is very different from the number of police at Glastonbury, an athletics meeting or at Wimbledon. So one reason is the number of police involved and the regularity of matches, and the second is the clubs’ wealth. ACPO figures suggest that if the premiership clubs paid the total cost of policing their matches in the whole country, that would amount to some £15 million a year. I understand that Wayne Rooney is paid £10 million a year, and he is one striker in one club. Clearly, the clubs can afford it.

There seems to be a fundamental inconsistency in our messages to local businessmen and to premiership football clubs. Is that because it is easier to pick on small businesses than on giant football clubs?

[Graham Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Burley]

I must carry on to my conclusion. At the heart of this debate is a disparity between what clubs are legally obliged to pay in policing costs, and what the police estimate those costs to be. That stems from grey areas in current legislation and Home Office guidance. It is not clear to what extent football clubs and other holders of commercial events are liable for policing away from the footprint, and that leads to the disparity between the full cost of policing a match, and what the clubs believe they are liable to pay. There is also an issue of principle. If people like Nigel Clempson are being told by the police that they are responsible for putting cages on skips, why on earth are premiership football clubs not being similarly told that they are responsible for the policing costs incurred by their businesses?

Finally, the reality of the wider economic situation is that the police must make savings of up to 20%. We know that they are finding that a challenge, and officers in many forces are being retired after 30 years, while police community support officers and police staff are being lost. West Midlands police alone must save £125 million over the next four years. Why not provide extra revenue from a source that can afford it? That would help to mitigate the massive cuts being made to deal with the record deficit bequeathed to us by the last Government.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) on securing this debate on an issue that is important in itself. As a season ticket holder at Reading football club, and after last night’s play-off results, I hope to be taking a personal interest in premier league policing next season.

First, I will comment on the vital role played by the police in ensuring the safety of the public at all football matches, not just those in the premier league. Levels of football violence and disorder have fallen consistently over a number of years, particularly since the introduction of tough banning order legislation and the associated radical football disorder strategy in 2000.

Last season, total attendance at regulated football matches in England and Wales exceeded 39 million people, mostly in the premier league. Over the same period, football-related arrests fell by 10% and levels of football violence and disorder continue to be low. However, a lingering threat remains—it is perhaps more than lingering in some cases—and the police continue to play a crucial role in ensuring public safety. Let me take this opportunity to thank them for their continued hard work and dedication.

As my hon. Friend is aware, premier league football matches are policed on a public order basis where the aim is to prevent or deter trouble. Police adopt a visible but low-friction approach. They will intervene in stadia as appropriate—usually at an early stage to prevent escalation—and defuse, detain or eject anyone who is engaging in violent, disorderly or antisocial behaviour. Such policing is intelligence-led and based on a dynamic risk assessment. It means that football clubs and police authorities are able to agree on an appropriate level of policing in advance of each match, based on the level of risk as determined by the latest available intelligence. That ensures that the policing service provided is proportionate to the risk.

The provision of policing at a premier league football match, or any other commercial event such as a music concert, is considered a “special police service”, and it is governed by section 25 of the Police Act 1996. Special police services are those provided beyond the normal line of duty, such as when extra officers are deployed at a site to reduce the risk to public safety during an event. Where the event is seen as commercial—such as a premier league football match—the event organiser is responsible for meeting the costs incurred by providing that service. The cost of policing an event is determined locally by the police authority in negotiation with the event organiser, and not by the Home Office. That system allows flexibility and permits police authorities to take into account any benefits and the ability to pay of the event organiser when determining charges at a local level.

Should an organiser be unwilling to pay for the level of policing deemed necessary to ensure public safety, the chief police officer can refuse to provide policing services. That may mean that the event organiser is denied a safety certificate by the relevant local authority, and without that certificate the event cannot take place.

Although the Home Office does not have formal powers to mandate charging or the level of charging, guidance has been provided in the form of circular 34/2000. Chapter 13 of that guidance deals specifically with the policing of football matches. The Association of Chief Police Officers—ACPO—produced guidance on charging for special police services in 2005, as well as in the 2008 document referred to my hon. Friend.

Football clubs are currently required by police forces to pay only for the policing of their so-called “footprint” area. That usually refers to the area inside the stadium and, for example, the surrounding car parks or streets. In latter case, however, costs can be recovered only when there is an express or implied request from the club for that service to be provided. The provision of “consequential policing” outside a football match—for example, at a railway station or town centre—is currently the responsibility of the police. It is provided at their discretion and at a direct cost to them. Football clubs are not currently required to pay for that extra service, as my hon. Friend has made clear.

I appreciate that in some cases that ambiguity has led to a disparity between what a police authority estimates as the total cost of policing a football match, and what the football club actually pays. It is clear that there is considerable depth of feeling about the extent to which football clubs, particularly those in the premier league, should cover the full policing costs incurred, and there are strong arguments on both sides. The police argue that policing a football match results in extra expense, regardless of whether their presence is on the club’s “footprint” or not. The football clubs argue that the distinction is not so clear cut, and that if they neither require nor request police presence away from their “footprint”, they should not be liable for the cost of police services elsewhere.

[Mr Burley]

On that point, is not the distinction rather more clear-cut than the football clubs would have us believe? As I mentioned earlier, an inspector for an area with a premiership football club that holds matches on Saturdays will sit down with their team and decide to deploy a certain number of extra officers at tube stations, trains and town centres. They know how much that extra deployment will cost and that such costs are the direct result of the match that afternoon—if there were no match, the extra deployment would not be needed. It is not confusing, because the extra costs are clear-cut.

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend would be right if the number of police officers needed in anticipation of a particular crowd, disorder or other problem that might require special policing measures were unambiguous. I am afraid, however, that that is not the case. The police already provide a policing service, which is their job, and deal with crime and disorder in town centres, railway stations and so on. It would be easier if the situation were as clear-cut as my hon. Friend has suggested, but I do not think that it is.

Oral Answers to Questions

Aidan Burley Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

5. What steps she plans to take to increase links between police forces and local communities.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

14. What steps she plans to take to increase links between police forces and local communities.

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

Reconnecting the police with the communities they serve is at the heart of our police reforms. Regular beat meetings and new local crime maps are already enabling communities to hold their local police to account. We will build on this through the introduction of police and crime commissioners, providing an even more visible and accountable link between the police and the public.

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. Staffordshire police is a very good example of a force that has taken the decision to make savings while protecting neighbourhood policing. In so doing, it is ensuring the continuation of that visible presence that the public value.

[Mr Burley]

Under the current system, only 7% of the public understand that they can approach a police authority if they are dissatisfied with the standard of service provided. Will my hon. Friend outline what he is doing to improve this democratic deficit in police governance and end Labour’s woeful legacy on police complaints?

[Nick Herbert]

I agree: we are strengthening the police complaints system, while also proposing to strengthen police accountability through a democratic reform. Police authorities are invisible to the public. That will change when directly elected police and crime commissioners are elected by the people who will be able to hold their force to account; at the same time, the operational independence of chief constables will be protected.

Student Visas

Aidan Burley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

A process will be set out for those legitimate colleges by the UK Border Agency. It will be necessary that they apply for highly trusted sponsor status and for accreditation, and we will set out the time limit for that application process soon. They will need to receive highly trusted sponsor status by April 2012 and educational accreditation by the end of 2012.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

Last and hopefully not least, I am sure that I am not the only Member of the House who is astonished by how widespread the abuse of the student visa system has become. May I ask the Home Secretary whether our policy to reduce net migration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands is supported by the shadow Home Secretary?

[Mrs May]

That is a very good question, and perhaps the shadow Home Secretary would like to answer it at some stage.

Sex Offenders Register

Aidan Burley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

No, there will be no appeal mechanism.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, the key phrase in which was that public protection must come first. We may compare that with judges who have instead ruled that paedophiles’ and rapists’ rights to privacy must come first. What would she say to those out-of-touch judges in the Supreme Court who are now openly, proudly and provocatively saying that a paedophile’s right to privacy is more important than children’s protection from those who have committed evil sexual acts?

[Mrs May]

It is important that we balance the public’s right to protection against the rights of the individual, but as I said at the end of my statement, it is time that we asserted that it is Parliament that makes our laws.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Aidan Burley Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

I agree, and effective accountability really ought to happen in the main in the basic command unit. We need to ensure that the police are accountable to their community, but that they can demand support from the local authority, the health service and the other agencies that are vital to tackling the causes of drug crime and wider youth crime. All that will be ripped up under the Government’s proposals, and we will end up instead with one elected person for a massive area, who will be able to visit each ward perhaps once every other year. That is not local accountability at all.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman has just said that a single elected individual could rip apart the policing in an area. Is that what he would say to Bill Bratton, who was the single elected individual who increased the detection of crime in New York and Los Angeles?

[Ed Balls]

The shadow policing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), read out to me earlier the views of Bill Bratton on the Conservative proposals and the risky and reckless way in which they are drawing conclusions from the American experience. Bill Bratton said:

“What I would suggest is create your own experience; don’t try to learn from us—seriously.”

He went on to explain exactly why the American policing model does not translate into a British context, and why it is dangerous to draw such a conclusion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ed Balls]

I fully agree about the importance of that middle tier of political accountability for chief constables. What I and many other experts fear, however, is that if one individual is elected on a direct mandate for policing, it will be very hard indeed to prevent their supposed mandate from crossing operational dividing lines. That does not happen now, because each police authority—half of which comprises independents, the other half of which is indirectly elected—covers a number of areas and often comprises a number of political parties. They ensure that there is a collective sense that operational responsibilities are properly respected. I have no doubt that some elected police and crime commissioners will want to respect operational independence, but I have no doubt that individuals might be elected on a mandate that explicitly crosses that line. Unless that element of the Bill is sorted out quickly, we will end up with an expensive politicisation of policing in this country that will overturn 170 years of policing tradition.

I have looked carefully to find support for the Bill. I have already quoted Sir Hugh Orde and ACPO. I have also quoted the Association of Police Authorities. Police superintendents take the same view, as do Liberty and the Local Government Association. I have spoken on this matter at two conferences where I have urged anyone in the room who supports the proposals to identify themselves to me privately afterwards, because no one will dare admit to it publicly. As a member of a responsible Opposition, I want to know the arguments, yet nobody will come forward. It is very hard indeed to find anyone who supports this policy.

As a result of assiduous research by our shadow team, however, I have identified three organisations that support the proposal. The first is a think-tank called Policy Exchange. Yes, it is the think-tank that was founded by the Secretary of State for Education, and the think-tank that said that the solution to unemployment in the north was for people to move to the south. Mr Blair Gibbs made the case for these commissioners on behalf of that organisation. He was in fact chief of staff to the Policing Minister between 2007 and 2010.

The second organisation is called Direct Democracy, which included in its book “Direct Democracy: An Agenda for a New Model Party” a chapter on the case for independent police commissioners. Yes, that is the Direct Democracy that was founded by the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) and by the Tory MEP Mr Daniel Hannan—he who described the NHS as a “60-year mistake”. Unfortunately, the chapter in the book was authored by the Policing Minister himself.

The third organisation is a think-tank called Reform. In its 2009 pamphlet, it also advocated this policy. Yes, the Reform think-tank is now headed by the former Tory central office head of political research, and it was founded by the Policing Minister. So there we have it: a former chief of staff to the Minister, a chapter written by the Minister and a think-tank founded by the Minister. Unusually for the coalition, the Minister responsible for the policy actually supports it, which is quite a turn-up for the books.

[Mr Burley]

The right hon. Gentleman has been talking about operational independence for the past five minutes. Does he not agree that, when Tony Blair summoned all 43 chief constables to a knife crime summit in Downing street and urged them collectively to do more about knife crime, he was illustrating exactly the way in which politicians could constructively influence the police?

[Ed Balls]

Of course the hon. Gentleman is right: Prime Ministers should take an interest in these matters, and I am sure that the Prime Minister of the time did that while fully respecting the operational independence of the police. The present Prime Minister is an advocate of individually elected police commissioners; in fact, it was in his 2005 manifesto. It is always good for the Home Secretary to support the Prime Minister if she can, but sometimes, as I know, it is important to say no. I am afraid that, on this matter, she has been remiss in her duties. It would have been much better if she had said to the Prime Minister, “I am very sorry, Prime Minister, but a policy that sounded good in opposition is deeply flawed and unimplementable in government.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Karl Turner]

It is convenient for the hon. Gentleman to suggest such a thing, but the reality of this Government’s proposals is that police numbers will fall substantially. He represents Humberside, as I do, and I am sure that he, too, will have heard the concerns of police officers about the risks to which this Government are exposing them. Police numbers will fall as a result.

The reforms are happening at a time when, despite the rhetoric that we hear, the Ministry of Justice is undertaking a massive shake-up of the system. Although the Home Office has claimed that the annual cost of running police commissioners and panels will be the same as the cost for police authorities, we understand that extra costs of £136.5 million will be incurred, owing to the need to hold elections. In addition, there is a further £5 million fund for redundancy payments. It seems that this Government cannot implement any policy without slashing jobs. The Tory manifesto stated: “Policing relies on consent.” My fear is that the Bill will stretch the public’s consent to breaking point. One has to imagine a situation in which police numbers fall and crime increases, while at the same time the public are asked to shoulder the cost of another level of bureaucracy in the policing system.

I also have grave concerns, as do many others, about operational independence and the politicisation of the police force. The political independence of the police is as important in our democracy as the independence of the judiciary. A crucial principle of UK policing is its operational independence and unwavering commitment to non-partisanship. If policing operations are overseen by someone who is politically motivated, maintaining police independence will become increasingly difficult.

[Mr Burley]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Karl Turner]

Not at the moment. I would like to make some progress.

Any change to police force operations must ensure that that independence remains. The Government’s proposals will not maintain that crucial division. Although they have stated at every turn that forces will retain their operational independence, I do not feel that their proposals can even remotely achieve that. The political interference begins from the very start of the process, with the selection of candidates. Even if election expenses are capped, prospective candidates will have to invest money and raise their profiles across the force area, as well as picking up issues that will help with their campaigning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

Thus far in today’s debate, we have heard some interesting comments about a wide-ranging Bill that covers increasing licensing powers, banning legal highs and ending the disgraceful occupation and vandalism of Parliament square—a situation that it is hard to conceive would have been allowed to develop had people decided they wanted to set up a campsite on any other pavement or public square in the United Kingdom.

[Michael Ellis]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way so early in his remarks. Is he concerned, as I am, that the provisions to deal with the Parliament square encampment will not receive Royal Assent until the end of July, which means that the royal wedding in April could still be subjected to the awful sight of this encampment in Parliament square?

[Mr Burley]

I share the concerns of my hon. Friend, who makes a good point about the timing of this legislation and the effect or otherwise it will have on the royal wedding. We all heard the Prime Minister say that he hoped the encampment would be gone by April, so I look forward to seeing how this progresses. I understand that my hon. Friend has some ideas of his own, and he will no doubt inform the House of them at a later date.

I would like to focus my remarks on the provisions around police and crime commissioners, the direct election of whom will, I believe, mark one of the most significant and positive changes to policing in our country. The Jack Daniel’ s adverts currently on the tube billboards read: “No one built a monument to a committee”—and if they were intended to refer to police authority committees, it is not hard to imagine why. They are possibly the least effective, least visible bureaucracies in the public sector that I can think of—visible to just 7% of the UK public. I believe that the bold changes in the Bill will finally end governance by committee and instead enable transparent and accountable policing in this country.

Opposition Members—not that there are many of them left in their places—have advanced a few arguments against police and crime commissioners today, and I would like to address, in order, the three main criticisms that have come out of the debate. First, the Opposition have argued that commissioners will cost more than police authorities; secondly, they have alleged that PCCs will interfere with the operational independence of chief constables; and, finally, they have said PCCs will do nothing to bring the police closer to the communities they serve. Indeed, the shadow Home Secretary has said that this Bill

“goes against a 150 year tradition of keeping politics out of policing.”

The Opposition are mistaken on every single one of those counts, and I welcome the opportunity to explain why.

Let me first turn my attention to the issue of cost. Implementation costs, which are the price of shifting from police authorities to police and crime commissioners, are expected to be £5 million. The forecast cost of holding elections every four years is £50 million, but the running costs of the police and crime commissioners and their panels are predicted to be the same as for the current police authorities. Opposition Members would do well to remember that when Labour was in power, increased spending of any kind was slavishly hailed as a sign of automatic improvement in public services. They would be well advised to think carefully before voting against this investment, which, contrary to most of the Labour Government’s spending, will promote democracy, accountability and thrift.

I cannot recall many Labour Members arguing against the price of democracy when introducing elections for regional assemblies or indeed when it came to Lord Prescott’s proposals for regional government, which fortunately never made it through to the ballot box—although if they had, I am sure there would have been a price attached to them.

Where police authorities are invisible, police and crime commissioners will be high profile; where police authorities fly below the radar of public scrutiny, PCCs will be held accountable; and where police authorities are divided, wasteful, bureaucratic and inefficient, PCCs will be firm of purpose and leaner in expense. The reality is that police authorities are a costly collection of committees that are simply no longer fit for purpose. They cost £65 million and taxpayers fund all the generous expenses and allowances that individual members claim. In the light of the rising costs, we simply cannot ignore the value of bodies that fail to hold police properly to account and are invisible to the people they claim to represent.

Government Members need to counter the “scaremongering” myth peddled by some that election costs for these commissioners will come out of already stretched local authority budgets. This is unfounded and inaccurate: they will be funded by the Home Office budget and, as I said earlier, it is not the intention that PCCs should cost more than existing police authorities. In fact, it is quite the opposite: the intention is to give much better value for money.

Let me move on to the issue of independence. I agree with the Opposition’s stance on maintaining the importance of operational independence. For this reason, I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice emphasise in September the need to maintain the operational independence of policing. He said that

“someone has to hold the police to account. In my view that should be an elected politician. We cannot have the police answering to no one. Therefore what we are discussing is simply the nature of that accountability; but politicians will be involved in one way or another.”—[Official Report, 14 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 241WH.]

I believe that, far from interfering with operational independence and duty to act without restraint, I believe that this Bill will serve to improve it. Chief constables will have greater professional freedom to take operational decisions without fear or favour to meet the priorities set for them by their local community through their commissioner.

The Opposition’s charge of politicisation is, I am afraid, based on a fundamental misconception. The governance of policing is rightly, and by its nature, political. Deciding where to deploy limited resources is a political decision. Deciding whether to put officers in cars or on the beat is a political choice. Deciding whether they patrol in pairs or singly, on the same side of the street or the opposite side, is a political decision. As I mentioned earlier—I would have reiterated it later if the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) had accepted my intervention—when Tony Blair summoned all 43 chief constables to Downing street for a summit on knife crime to put political pressure on them to do something about the explosion of that crime, that was political interference, to use the words of Labour Members, with the police. It was entirely legitimate, however, because Tony Blair as a politician democratically representing the people of this country wanted to put pressure on our police to do something about a problem. It is precisely the same principle in the Bill.

[Mr Offord]

Although my hon. Friend is right to mention the influence of the former Prime Minister Tony Blair in the context of the street crime initiative, I think that members of the shadow Cabinet are concerned about the fact that he intervened in other circumstances where we know he exerted influence. I am thinking of, for instance, the Serious Fraud Office and the investigation into British Aerospace. Will my hon. Friend confirm that Government Members will not accept such actions either?

[Mr Burley]

I agree. Operational independence is about, for example, decisions to arrest people. No one is suggesting that we should give police and crime commissioners the power that Winston Churchill had in the Essex street siege to order police officers to arrest people, but I think it democratically legitimate for a police and crime commissioner to be elected on a mandate of, for instance, putting more police on the streets where they are visible and accountable, because that is what the public want. Over the past 10 years—indeed, throughout the 1980s and 1990s—there has been a move to put police officers in cars and say to their chief constables and senior officers, “This is my democratic mandate. We want more police on the streets. Tell me how you will achieve it.” That does not strike me as interfering with operational independence.

Let me now say something about transparency and accountability, both of which have been criticised by Opposition Members under whose Government any hint of either was lost in the mire of sofa government. Despite costs of between £52 million and £78 million a year, there is scant awareness, and therefore scant accountability, in relation to the authorities themselves, let alone their expenditure. Public input is exceedingly low. A significant proportion of police authorities received a meagre average of three letters or e-mails per week between 2007 and 2010.

When asked by the Home Affairs Committee how one individual could improve police accountability, Kit Malthouse, London’s effective police and crime commissioner, replied:

“It allows there to be a kind of funnel for public concern. For instance, when I was appointed to this job in May 2008, and given the job title Deputy Mayor for Policing, the post bag at City Hall on community safety went from 20 or 30 letters a week up to 200 or 300. The letters just came and came.”

According to Louise Casey’s 2008 crime and communities review, only 7% of the public are even aware that police authorities exist. According to MORI, however, 68% of people agree that a single person should be elected by local people to hold the police to account on behalf of the community.

For too long the fight against crime has been caught up in red tape, which has created a gulf between law enforcement agencies and the communities that they serve. The shadow Home Secretary himself said in Cannock that the work of police authorities

“isn’t always as visible as it could be. Around police landscape, around accountability, there is more to do”.

If he opposes the Government’s police reforms, may I ask what he proposes to do about that? Surely he cannot attack our plan without having a plan himself.

Establishing commissioners will only serve to improve the alarming statistics that I have mentioned, and to raise the profile of the police force as a whole. It will enable us to turn our backs on a corrosive legacy that has done nothing to prevent the British public from being misinformed about, and unaware of, how to influence directly the strategy of policing in their areas. It is impossible to conceive that after just one term of police and crime commissioners, only 11% of police officers will still be visible and available, only 7% of the public will know how to contact their police and crime panels, and there will still be record dissatisfaction with the police despite the existence of a record number of them.

Locally elected police commissioners will be transformative. They will ensure that the police concentrate on the crimes that most affect local people’s quality of life. The existing top-down, target-ridden culture will be replaced by something altogether preferable: accountability to the public. The Home Affairs Committee’s report concludes with the words:

“Police and Crime Commissioners will be judged on whether they succeed in bringing the police closer to the public they serve.”

It is clear that the proposals for police and crime commissioners and their supporting panels will go a huge way towards achieving that aim.

Controlling Migration

Aidan Burley Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I think that we will have to look at that matter again closer to the September 2011 deadline. I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that the more exceptions to the rules that people claim, the less effective the overall rules will be. We are absolutely clear that, within the rules that we have set, there are groups of very specialist workers. A number of issues have been raised with me about people with very particular skills who are needed by certain industries, and who we believe can come in, within the routes that we are setting out.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

Tony Blair’s adviser once said that the sharp increase in immigration over the past 10 years was partly due to

“a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural”.

Can the Home Secretary confirm today that so-called social objectives are no longer acceptable as a reason for immigration, and that it should be based instead on the economic benefits that immigrants can bring to this country?

[Mrs May]

As I said at the beginning of my statement, controlled migration can benefit this country economically, socially and culturally, but we are absolutely clear, in looking at the routes into the country for economic migrants, that the people who are coming in will bring a genuine economic benefit to the UK.

Identity Documents Bill

Aidan Burley Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier]

If the hon. Gentleman had had the courtesy to listen, he would have heard me deal with that point at the beginning of my comments.

We also suggest an alternative, so the Government have a choice. The Minister has two options in order to be fair to those members of the British public who bought a card in good faith. The alternative is to allow cards to continue for 10 years and, again, with the permission of the individual cardholder, for data to be migrated to the passport database, which is not a terribly difficult transaction, so that ID cards can continue as passports. We recognise that that is not a perfect solution, because with few cards already out there and, given all the points that we rehearsed in Committee about someone’s ability to recognise the document, there might still be issues. However, that would represent a choice for the individual who had paid their £30 to have the card.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

We learned in Committee that of the 14,670 ID cards that were issued, almost 3,000 were given free of charge, so only 11,000 cards were paid for. Are the Opposition, in the second of their two options, suggesting that we maintain the card infrastructure for the next 10 years just for those 11,000 people, at a cost of £50 million to £60 million for 16 people per constituency?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burley]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his decision to buy an ID card, whether or not he intended to claim the money back, was entirely a free choice? He had a choice whether to buy one, and he chose to do so. These are the consequences.

[Mr MacShane]

I am terribly sorry, but I obtained my ID card and paid my £30. The new Government are rightly seeking to confiscate it, but they owe me modest compensation for doing so. I would never be allowed, under your stern tutelage, Mr Deputy Speaker, to accuse the Ministers of misleading the House or not being straight with us, but may I say that they are being a right pair of tea leaves at the moment? They are going to steal my money and not hand it back. [Interruption.] I mean that they are fond of tea and coffee. A very sound principle of British law is that if the state changes regulations and confiscates an individual’s property that was bought in good faith, forms of compensation are normally paid.

That is not just my view but that of a distinguished Conservative adviser, Lord Levene, who I believe the Prime Minister has hired to advise him on reducing defence expenditure, or perhaps more accurately to achieve smarter procurement in defence, which is his speciality. He wrote a very cross letter to The Times, about which we later had a very nice telephone conversation, in which he said that it was quite preposterous that having bought his identity card in good faith, he should now have it confiscated without any compensation. I bow to Lord Levene as a banker, a man of affairs, a business leader and a distinguished Government adviser, and shelter behind his outrage. Frankly, it does not matter if we are talking about one person or 14 million people. I put it to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire that the Government could do themselves no end of good by accepting the new clause, because 14,000 or 15,000 people, in good faith, took out ID cards—[Interruption.] Sorry, 11,000 people paid money for cards and others got them free. They have used the cards for three months, so compensation could be made pro rata. It would do the Government no harm—they have sent letters to Lord Levene and me, but they will be sending more—to put a little cheque in the post for those people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe]

There is a principle here, and that is my point. People bought these cards in good faith. It is all very well for other hon. Members to say that it was clear that if the election results went a certain way they would be abolished, but everyone—including the hon. Members for Hexham (Guy Opperman), for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and indeed for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart)—must remember that no one won the last election. The Conservatives did not convince the electorate of the merits of their manifesto, nor did the coalition partners. That is why we have a coalition. The election result was not clear cut and no single party succeeded in convincing the electorate that they had a right to govern by itself. In that context, it would be reasonable to show a bit of humility in the proposals the Government make.

I have no objection to the Government choosing to abolish ID cards, but I do object to them seeking to penalise and punish those who bought cards in good faith. The electorate will remember all these grand speeches saying that those people do not count for anything and the derogatory remarks—although I am sure that they were made in jest—of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire. Hon. Members should recognise that those people acted in good faith and it is not appropriate to penalise them.

We do not want to make a massive deal of this, but the Minister has had quite a lot of time to think about it. We are talking about a relatively modest amount of money, but the precedent it would set is very important. If the precedent is set that people will be punished if, after having acted in good faith by doing something that the Government of the day encouraged, it will cause paralysis in many other areas.

[Mr Burley]

The hon. Gentleman said that this proposal would cost a relatively modest amount, but does he have any idea how much it would be? The current cost of maintaining the present system, as we know from Committee, would be £50 million to £60 million over 10 years. Other hon. Members have suggested migrating the data to the Passport Service, but I have no idea what that alternative proposal would cost. Does the hon. Gentleman know what the cost of maintaining the system for 11,000 people would be?

[Steve McCabe]

Fortunately, I do not suffer from the voodoo economics of Conservative Members, so I do not have a clue where the hon. Gentleman gets the figure of £50 million or £60 million. We are saying that there should be a £30 discount when the person who currently holds a card next applies for a passport. Under whichever education system hon. Members operate, they should be able to work the figure out for themselves.

I like and respect the Minister and I trust what he says, but clause 3 states that the information on the national identity register will be destroyed. It is fair to say that when this was discussed in Committee his knowledge of the technical detail of the register was almost as good as mine, and neither of us is likely to get a job with Bill Gates any time soon. We know from the information that was presented to the Committee that there is some doubt in Government and in Government organisations about what is meant by the national identity register. We cannot pass legislation in good faith and then discover that it cannot be implemented because the Minister has been asked to do something that he is not technically capable of doing.

I make this point for two reasons. First, since the election, my colleagues and I have listened to the grandstanding from the Government Benches about their civil libertarian credentials. That will work in the early months of government, when it is easy to run around saying that they are against speed cameras or DNA testing, but it will not work when they face constituents who have suffered and want to know why the Government are not on their side—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire wants to come to the defence of his new-found friends again, I will give way.