State Pension Age (Women)

Alan Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Howarth]

I was going to come on to that very point.

The second point my constituent makes is that she was

“Hit by 2 pension age increases first to 65 and rapidly in succession to 66 resulting in the loss of over £35,000”.

The final point she made that I want to highlight is that she is

“No longer eligible to receive the old state pension into which I paid full contributions for over 40 years. I will not receive a full new state pension due to the shortfall of contributions between the ages of 60-66. A factor in my decision to retire at 60 was that I had paid in excess of the 39 years contributions that were required for a full state pension at that time.”

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

This is a crucial debate not least for my constituents Jackie Williams and Debbie Watkins who are active in the WASPI campaign. My right hon. Friend might be pleased to know that the Minister responsible for this issue says the reason she cannot carry out the terms of this motion is that it would be impossible. He and the House might care to know that, as Ros Altmann, she was a very effective advocate on pensions issues when I was the Work and Pensions Secretary, and when we were arguing that the pension protection fund we had introduced should not be applied retrospectively, as she wished, I said it was impossible. Ros said to me, “That word doesn’t—”

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order, Mr Johnson; come on, you are in the next debate as well. In the interests of fairness, we have a very tight time limit and must have short interventions so nobody drops off the list—and I know you would not want to do that to anybody.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vara]

I have only a short time left and I must press on.

As for people being aware of the 1995 changes, I should add that research carried out in 2004 by the Department for Work and Pensions found that 73% of people aged 45 to 54 were aware of the changes to women’s state pension age. It is regrettable that people have sought to put this on a political basis and have conveniently forgotten that after 1995 we had 13 years of Labour government. I have here a list of some 10 Labour Pensions Ministers who totally failed to do anything, yet Labour Members conveniently seek to put the blame on the things that have happened post-2010. The shadow Home Secretary made comments earlier, but he was a Labour Cabinet Minister, and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who also made comments today, was also in the Labour Administration. He is a former Pensions Minister, yet he did nothing then.

[Alan Johnson]

rose—

[Mr Vara]

I am afraid I will not give way. [Hon. Members: “Give way.”] I have only a few seconds left, but I will give way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alan Johnson]

Indeed, I was the Work and Pensions Secretary, but we introduced measures that did not include this anomaly—it was introduced in 2011.

[Mr Vara]

The right hon. Gentleman spoke earlier of being lobbied, but he took no action on that. Furthermore, big issues arise as to whether notice was given in respect of the changes in 1995, and when he was Work and Pensions Secretary he did nothing to make sure that those women were informed. All the blame has been put on Conservative Members.

I wind up simply by saying that this matter was debated thoroughly and properly in 2011. A concession was made then—by way of time period and financially—which was worth more than £1 billion, and it was thoroughly debated in both Houses of Parliament. I very much hope that I have put the Government’s position on the record. I simply say to some people that they, too, should learn to take responsibility, given that they were in government for 13 years. With that, I shall allow time for the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South to speak.

Vince Morgan

Alan Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

Vincent Morgan died on the night of 28 December 2012. He was found hanging in his prison cell in A wing of Northallerton prison. He had also swallowed a plastic knife that was found in his oesophagus. Vincent Morgan had committed suicide at 29 years of age.

There has since been an investigation by North Yorkshire police, a report by the prisons and probation ombudsman, a verdict of death by misadventure, and a coroner’s report from which flowed a couple of regulation 28 letters to the Department of Health and the Ministry of Justice. There has been a great deal of activity with practically no light thrown on the central issue, which is why we deal so badly with young people who have mental health problems. How little respect we pay to the wishes of parents in the way we treat these young people in our criminal justice system.

Vincent Morgan was involved in a serious road accident when he was four years old. It was suspected then and is obvious now that this damaged his brain in a way that would become more pronounced as he grew older. However, it was not until 2005 that he was finally diagnosed with chronic long-term psychotic illness—schizophrenia with daily auditory hallucinations—and was prescribed drugs to deal with his conditions. In April 2012 Vince went out with his parents to a local pub and when they returned home he assaulted his father. The community psychiatric nurse allocated to Vince said that his behaviour that night was a response to a new drug he had just been prescribed. The police were called. They advised Vincent’s parents to press charges against their son as the only way to get the medical help he needed. Mr and Mrs Morgan reluctantly signed statements and the case went to court.

The mental health care co-ordinator—the mental health professional—advised against a prison sentence and said that a hospital order would be more appropriate. However, a so-called independent expert, with no knowledge of Vince Morgan and without even examining him or meeting him, said that his mental health condition could be managed in prison. What I can only describe as a vicious sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment was handed down and Vincent Morgan found himself separated from his loving parents for almost the first time in his young life and placed in a prison cell.

Mr and Mrs Morgan came to see me in the summer of 2012 and together we tried to get Vince released on a home detention order. His parents had redecorated his room. Having cared for their son in the eight years since his condition was diagnosed, they wanted him home for Christmas. This was refused, but the date for release was set for 28 January 2013, only a few weeks into the new year. After liaising with various parts of the NHS, Vince Morgan was receiving the mental health treatment he needed in Hull prison and his parents continued to prepare for his release.

Then two things happened. Without any consultation the probation service wrote to this vulnerable young man in his prison cell. Vince, who had a mental age much younger than his years—some have said he had a mental age of eight, some have said 10—and was known to be passive and acquiescent to any request, was told in that letter that upon his release he would not be going home, but to a bail hostel. Vince told his parents about this in a letter from prison dated 5 November. This is important because the Minister will probably have been briefed that this is not the case, but I can tell him quite categorically that the probation service has got this totally wrong.

Incidentally, I wrote to Humberside probation trust on 22 November 2013, just after the coroner’s report, which is the only time I could get seriously involved in these issues. I wrote to the Secretaries of State and all the local agencies, and they all responded within weeks. Humberside probation trust replied to my letter of 22 November 2013 on 27 March 2014—over four months later. In a case such as this, with a young man killed in his cell, and when we are trying to get to the bottom of lessons to be learnt and reasons it happened, one might have thought that the probation trust would take it more seriously.

The probation trust stated in its letter, “No, that’s quite wrong. Vince’s parents were informed of the intention to release him to a bail hostel when he finished his sentence.” It should be borne in mind that I had been campaigning on their behalf to get him released early, but now he was being told that he would not be able to go home, even at the end of his sentence. In a further letter to me, the trust’s chief executive stated:

“Vincent Morgan’s parents were involved in a telephone discussion as early as 6^th November 2012 about the possibility of placing him in an Approved Premises. This intention was confirmed at a MAPPA meeting on 21 November 2012 and communicated to Vincent Morgan at the meeting in the prison on 7th December 2012.”

That is entirely wrong. I have the letter from the prison trust given to Vince Morgan in his prison cell, and it is dated 24 October 2012.

With regard to 6 November, I have the postmarked letter that Vince Morgan received—dated 5 November—and that was sent to his parents’ home in Hull to inform them that he had just received a letter stating that he would be going into a bail hostel. The reason they spoke to his parents on 6 November is that the parents had rung the probation trust to ask, “What the hell’s going on? Our son has just told us that he won’t be coming home at the end of his sentence.” That was entirely wrong. I was also told that the parents had been informed in the telephone call, but that was as a result of them ringing the probation service. That was a real failing on the part of the probation service.

The second thing that happened was that Mr and Mrs Morgan received a phone call from Vince to tell them that he had been moved to Northallerton prison. Nobody had informed them. In a statement to the coroner, the offender supervisor at Northallerton, Phil Reeve, said that nobody knew why Vince had been transferred and that

“we wanted to get him back to Hull because we knew his parents were his main visitors and that they might find the travelling to Northallerton difficult.”

Perhaps I should mention at this point that Sharon Morgan, as well as being Vince’s mum, was his registered carer. They did indeed find the travelling difficult, but they were at least pleased to discover that Vince was sharing a cell on C wing with a prisoner who became a mentor to him and who was, together with other prisoners, watching out for his welfare.

It was at Northallerton on 7 December that Vince was told again that he would have to go to a bail hostel, rather than home, when his sentence ended. As was the case with the original sentence, the mental health expert, in the shape of Vince’s care co-ordinator, expressed the view that release to an approved hostel would cause him to reoffend and that, in her view, the preferred option was for him to be returned home.

The ombudsman asked the senior officer in charge of the residential unit at Northallerton whether she knew that Vince had been told that he would not be going home to his mother and father when he finished his sentence. She replied that she did not know. She told the ombudsman that she definitely should have known

“because I know right now that if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have made the decision that I did.”

What decision was she referring to? That is the final act in this tragedy. On Boxing day 2012, Vince Morgan was removed from C wing, from the mentor who had watched over him, and, once again without any contact with his parents, was transferred to what was, in effect, solitary confinement in A block, where he hanged himself two days later.

As was related again and again in the ombudsman’s report and to the coroner, prison officers wondered what Vince Morgan was doing in prison. Health service professionals disagreed with the decision to place Vince in a bail hostel. The offender supervisor at Northallerton said in a report to the coroner:

“Another thing that was discussed in the meeting was the accident that Vince had when he was a child and this might be a cause of his learning difficulties. I couldn’t understand why that link hadn’t been made earlier and why the report hadn’t been completed for court. However I was told that it was done for court but none of it came to the judge. My question, based on my knowledge from working in courts was, why wasn’t a hospital order made against Vince rather than a prison sentence?”

It was not just a prison sentence but an 18-month prison sentence. I echo that: why indeed? Why were not Mr and Mrs Morgan kept fully informed and involved in all the decisions that affected their son? Where is the mysterious report that never came before the judge?

Northallerton prison no longer exists. That is why the ombudsman made no recommendations—there is no prison to make recommendations about. The Humberside probation trust folded in May. The chief executive is now retired somewhere.

The case of Vince Morgan is a tragic example of the appalling way mental health is treated as a poor relation not just of the NHS, as many say, but of every other public agency. The mental health professionals sit round a table with the probation service and others, and their views are discarded: they are overruled. I want to meet the Minister to discuss this case further. I hope the Government use the case of Vince Morgan as the clearest example of how to get things wrong so that we can start to get things right.

Finally, I want to read an extract from a letter that Trevor Morgan, Vincent’s father, wrote to all the various agencies on 27 December, the day before his son died. He had spent the whole of Christmas composing this letter. He says:

“My son is a gentle giant and is well liked by everyone who knows him. Before he became ill…he had a job as a van drivers assistant, which he loved. Since his illness started 8 years ago, my wife, Sharon, and I have looked after him ourselves. Vince very rarely leaves the house, he is a very quiet man and keeps himself to himself. What happened on that night”—

the night he attacked his father—

“was very out of character for him. But, if Vince had been having the right medication at the time, it would never have happened in the first place.”

He ends by saying:

“Please forgive me if you think I sound bitter, my wife and I have never lived for so long without our son, who we love and care for so much. Please, let our son come home on the 29th January 2013. Don’t put him in a hostel, which will be rife with drugs and where Vince would be at risk from others. Once again”,

he says in closing,

“I beg you to let Vince come home to us, the people who love and will look after him.”

If that simple request had been granted, Vincent Morgan would be alive today, and he would be in the care of his devoted parents who remain completely devastated by his death.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Andrew Selous)]

Let me begin by thanking the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) for securing this debate, which raises some very important issues. First, I would like to offer my profound condolences to Mr Morgan’s parents, Sharon and Trevor, and his whole family.

Every death in prison custody is a tragedy for that individual and their family and friends. Let me assure the House of how seriously the Government take such deaths, which are all independently investigated by the prisons and probation ombudsman and a coroner’s inquest, as the right hon. Gentleman said.

I would like to offer a few comments on Mr Morgan before turning to some of the wider issues highlighted by this very sad set of events. Mr Morgan was serving concurrent sentences of 18 months for actual bodily harm and four months for battery—offences that he had committed against his parents. Initially remanded to Her Majesty’s Prison Hull in April 2012, he served several months there after his conviction before transferring to HMP Northallerton in November 2012 as a standard progressive move. HMP Northallerton was a specialist resettlement prison that has now closed.

[Alan Johnson]

That, of course, raises a question for the parents. Vince was 28 coming up to 29, so he was an adult, but everyone knew that his severe, chronic mental health problems meant that, in effect, he was acting like a child. Why would the prison service not consult his parents—his mother being his registered carer—about the need to transfer him from one prison to another? How could the transfer of such a vulnerable prisoner go ahead without the parents being consulted?

[Andrew Selous]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a proper issue about the way in which the families and carers of people with mental health issues are treated generally in our society. Very similar issues have been raised in my constituency. If he will allow me, I will go back, make further inquiries at the Ministry of Justice about that specific point and write to him following this debate. I absolutely understand the very important issue that he properly raises.

Mr Morgan’s conditional release date was 29 January 2013, and planning for his release was under way. However, on 28 December 2012, Mr Morgan was, tragically, found hanging in his cell. The emergency response was prompt, but Mr Morgan was pronounced dead.

Mr Morgan suffered from schizophrenia, and his treatment for this condition continued during his time in custody. As with all prisoners, he was assessed on entry to custody, where he was referred for assessment by the prison mental health in-reach team, and considered for any risk of self-harm or suicide. Staff kept an eye on his behaviour and potential vulnerability to bullying. An assessment for learning disabilities was requested. At the time of his death, Mr Morgan had recently moved wings and a few weeks previously had been informed that he would be required to live in an approved premises, rather than return to his parents house, when he left prison, though that aspect of his release planning continued to be kept under consideration by Humberside probation trust and the multi-agency public protection panel that considered his case.

The coroner’s inquest into Mr Morgan’s death concluded in November 2013. The cause of death was hanging and the jury’s conclusion of death by misadventure noted that there was a failure in the system of transfer of information from health care staff to discipline staff, and that, consequently, problems regarding Mr Morgan’s behaviour were treated as a discipline issue rather than medical.

The coroner made two recommendations to the Secretary of State for Justice. The first was on the involvement of health providers where prisoners requiring in-reach mental health support are to be transferred between prisons. There is a “clinical hold” system in place, which can be used where there are concerns about the suitability of health care provision in the receiving prison. The second was on the information flow from and to prison officers within HMP Northallerton. As has been said, HMP Northallerton has since closed, but a review was undertaken at HMP Hull.

The prisons and probation ombudsman completed his report on Mr Morgan’s death in May 2014. It identified some deficiencies in communications between staff at Northallerton about Mr Morgan’s management, but concluded that it would have been very difficult to foresee Mr Morgan’s action and prevent his death. No recommendations were made.

I reiterate my profound condolences to Mr Morgan’s family. As I have already said, every death in custody is a tragedy for that individual and their family and friends. Safety, decency and security will always remain the priority for the National Offender Management Service. However, every year a number of people die in prison—some through natural causes and some self-inflicted. In 2013, 215 people died in prison custody. Of those, 123 were as a result of natural causes and 74 were self-inflicted.

As the House may be aware, the number and rate of self-inflicted deaths in prisons in England and Wales increased in 2013 and the Government are committed to understanding the reasons for that rise and are seeking to address it. We have put additional resources into safer custody work across prison establishments; this issue affects the whole estate of public and private prisons. The rise comes after a period of some years during which the rate of self-inflicted deaths has been relatively stable, at its lowest level in the last 25 years. In recent years, better treatment of prisoners with drug-use problems and the use of safer cells, with reduced ligature points, have contributed to the reduction in the number of self-inflicted deaths.

There has been recent comment about whether population pressures, organisational changes in prisons and reductions in the number of prison officers have contributed to the rise. However, the picture is not so straightforward, and there is no clear correlation between the existence of such pressures and prisons where self-inflicted deaths have occurred. Known factors appear in a number of deaths. For example, the early days of custody are known to be a period of higher risk. Self-inflicted deaths in custody occur most often in males aged 30 to 39, and most occur by hanging. However, overlaying these known factors are reasons for each self-inflicted death, which are as individual as the person involved. It is therefore essential to support prisoners as individuals—many of them have complex needs, as the right hon. Gentleman outlined in this case—by identifying whether they have particular risk factors, and if so, responding appropriately.

Prisons use the ACCT—assessment, care in custody and teamwork—system to keep prisoners safe. Individual ACCT plans should be opened and closed in line with the assessment of an individual’s risk of self-harm or suicide, and their needs. It is a dynamic process.

[Alan Johnson]

The Minister is a decent man, and I appreciate that he has come to the Chamber with a brief. It was kind of him to offer to write me a letter, but there is no need for that if he will give me a meeting. We need to discuss these matters in more detail. I have read all that stuff about wraparound care and all such really good stuff. We said the same thing in government, so this is not a party political point. Vince Morgan is a perfect example of how all of that means nothing when it comes to a vulnerable young man, whose parents were concerned but were ignored, and specifically when it comes to the decision not to let him go home at the end of his sentence.

I am sorry that this is a long intervention, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister says that Vince Morgan was told of that decision a few weeks before, but I now have absolute proof—from a letter sent to this mentally ill young man back in October—that he was told in his prison cell. All that puts a new complexion on the case, and I would be very grateful if the Minister met me to discuss it.

[Andrew Selous]

Of course I will meet the right hon. Gentleman. If he contacts my office after this debate, I will make arrangements for us to meet as soon as possible.

I want to respond to a point that the right hon. Gentleman made about Vince’s move to A wing. I think that the right hon. Gentleman referred to it as solitary confinement. Vince was moved to a single cell, but not to solitary confinement. He was deliberately placed near the wing office, and the move was for his own well-being. Prisoners on C wing had complained about Vince, so there were genuine concerns for his safety. It is important to put that on the record.

It is through such individual assessment that staff can be alive to the often overlapping and interconnected factors that may contribute to an individual’s distress, and which can on rare occasions lead to suicide. Those factors may include mental health needs, addressing any disabilities or disadvantages, or simply being sensitive to potential trigger or pressure points that they may experience during their time in custody.

As is well known, the prison population is not representative of the general population in a number of ways. The prevalence rates for personality disorder, psychosis, attention disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder and self-harm are notably higher than in the general population, as are problems with substance misuse and alcohol. Almost 50% of adult prisoners suffer from anxiety and/or depression, compared with 15% of the general population. Experts estimate that prisoners with a learning disability or difficulties may represent as much as 30% of the prison population.

Liaison and diversion services are a vital way in which the Government seek to ensure that when someone first comes into contact with the youth or adult criminal justice system on suspicion of having committed a crime, their health needs are identified, assessed and provided for by appropriate treatment services, and that the police and courts are enabled to make informed decisions about charging and sentencing.

We are investing £25 million in a trial scheme that will place mental health professionals in police stations and courts, and improve identification, assessment and referral services, so that access to health care and social care interventions are improved. That is not about individuals avoiding the appropriate sanction from the criminal justice system, but about tackling some of the underlying issues that can cause people to offend.

For some prisoners with severe mental illness, the most appropriate treatment setting will be a secure hospital. About 900 transfers are made from prisons to secure hospitals each year. However, not all serious mental illness needs to be treated in a secure hospital, and most serious mental illnesses are treatable within prison under the care of a consultant psychiatrist. Prisoners are considered for transfer to secure units only when a prison cannot provide appropriate treatment in the judgment of a responsible clinician. In such circumstances, good liaison between health care teams and other prison staff is essential to ensure that events and decisions that could affect a prisoner’s risk of self-harm or suicide are considered and are known by others.

The whole-person approach to individual case management continues into release planning. The most serious offenders are subject to multi-agency public protection arrangements, which ensure that relevant statutory partners and interested organisations are properly involved in pre-release planning.

I would like to say a few words about families, about which the right hon. Gentleman rightly spoke. We know the importance of family contact and support to prisoners. Phone calls and visits with family and friends make a huge contribution to prisoners’ well-being. Close family members who are on low incomes can apply for assistance towards visits. The support of families and friends is an important component in helping someone to avoid re-offending when they are released from prison. Wherever possible, families are involved in the decision-making process when a prisoner’s accommodation post-release is being considered by the MAPPA panel.

I know that Members will share my concern about every death that happens in prison custody. The prisons and probation ombudsman, to whom I spoke this afternoon, has conducted a lessons learned review of deaths in custody and will publish his report next month. I look forward to seeing the report and to reviewing the recommendations fully so that we learn every possible lesson from what he has to say.

We must remember that prison staff save lives, sometimes through swift intervention when a vulnerable prisoner is literally on the verge of taking his own life and sometimes—this is less easy to know about but is no less real—through the careful and caring management of some of the most vulnerable individuals in society, who have been placed in custody because of the harm they have caused to others in society. That, of course, is no consolation to the family of Mr Morgan, whose death no one was able to prevent.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for securing this debate, which has allowed us to consider the complexities of such cases. I may be new in post, but I share his determination to learn the lessons of this tragic incident and similar incidents of this nature so that we can reduce the number of self-inflicted deaths in custody as much as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Interpreting and Translation Services

Alan Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to enter this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) on producing this report. I am not a member of the Select Committee on Justice or the Public Accounts Committee, and members of those Committees will have given far more detailed scrutiny to the issues covered in the report. However, a constituent of mine, Madeleine Lee, a court interpreter, told me in my constituency surgery in 2009 that a de facto pilot was going on in Greater Manchester, and she explained what the consequences would be, were it spread across the country.

All Members of Parliament diligently follow what our constituents wish, but when we are in government we have responsibility. I was Home Secretary at the time, but I spoke to the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). The previous system emerged from the Runciman royal commission after a scandalous miscarriage of justice due to the absence of interpreting services, and it was set up not too long ago, in the late ’90s. As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn accepted that the system was not perfect and that we needed to consider efficiency savings. We concluded that we would have to be very cautious about destroying something that, since Runciman, had given court interpretation a level of quality that it did not have before; that was largely the result of setting up the national register of professional service interpreters. I have followed the issue from a distance ever since.

As a former Minister, I have been at the rough end of several Select Committee reports in my time, but I have never known three reports—the National Audit Office memorandum, the Public Accounts Committee report and now the Justice Committee’s report—to be so consistent in their condemnation of a Government policy. A number of conclusions can be drawn from those reports. First, there were no fundamental problems with the original procedures. Secondly, the Ministry of Justice changed those procedures without understanding their complexities, or indeed the professionalism of the people providing the services. This is a caricature, but it seems that someone who knows a bit of holiday Spanish can now come in and do a job in the courts, which has proved to be disastrous. Thirdly, the MOJ awarded the contract to a company, ALS, that is totally incapable of fulfilling its requirements. Surely there can be little doubt about that. I do not think there are many people in this debate who will be arguing on the Government’s side, apart from the poor Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant).

The final conclusion is that justice and the right to a fair trial have been seriously compromised as a result of this debacle. The added dimension, which the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed mentioned, is that the MOJ sought to prevent a Committee of this House receiving first-hand testimony on the contract’s failings, which is a very serious allegation that the House must treat with due seriousness.

Following the damning series of reports, the Lord Chancellor’s latest letter to me—I have kept up correspondence on the issue since the 2010 general election —tells me that there has been a £15 million saving. Quality standards have diminished, the courts have made 6,417 complaints about poor standards, and 608 magistrates court trials and 34 Crown court trials were recorded as ineffective in 2012 because interpreters were not available, which is a 100% increase. There is a great deal of doubt about the £15 million figure, as the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed and others have suggested. We hear that 48% of cases are now dealt with outside the contract, and there are various other factors that make the £15 million figure questionable. Even if the figure is true, £15 million is the kind of small change that falls down the back of the sofas in the offices of Secretaries of State. Even if the measure has saved £15 million, the resultant chaos in the Courts Service and the destruction of the quality of what was a very highly regarded system surely does not justify that level of savings, and it is doubtful whether such savings have been made anyway.

I see that the Lord Chancellor’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott), is in his place behind the Under-Secretary, who just happened to be in the Department when the music stopped. She was not in her present position when it started; I believe she was then a member of the Select Committee that has been scrutinising the matter.

Perhaps we would have made the changes, too. Who knows? Despite my discussions with the Lord Chancellor, we should not be trying to score party political points. In government, Ministers reach a stage where they see that the only way to salvage their reputation following a clearly big mistake is to accept that it is a big mistake and do something about it. The Government should pull out of the contract, negotiate with professional linguists and do all the things that should have been done beforehand. My conclusion, following the grand reports from different Committees, is that my constituent, Madeleine Lee, was right.

Policing

Alan Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) for his kind words at the start of his speech, and I agree with him about the police. This Government recognise the vital job that the police do to protect the public. The courage and dedication of the thousands of men and women who work in police forces across the country make them outstanding. Police officers risk their lives in the line of duty every single day, and this year, more than ever, we have been reminded of the dangers they face. The tragic deaths of PC Ian Dibell, PC Fiona Bone and PC Nicola Hughes show just how brave our officers can be and the debt of gratitude we owe them all.

This year, with the Olympic and Paralympic games, we have seen the best of policing, but in the response to phone hacking and Hillsborough real questions have been raised about integrity and accountability, and we are determined to get to grips with both.

Before I talk about this Government’s positive agenda for policing to introduce reforms to deliver a more professional service responsive to the public and accountable for their actions, I want to address some of the points made by the right hon. Member for Delyn. He reminded us that his party opposed the introduction of police and crime commissioners—the introduction of democracy into police accountability. This is a fascinating conversion, because when Labour was in power the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who was then police Minister, said that

“only direct election, based on geographic constituencies, will deliver the strong connection to the public which is critical”.

He was absolutely right then and the Labour party is absolutely wrong now.

The right hon. Member for Delyn also had the cheek to complain about privatisation, on which I do not need to quote his Labour predecessors on policing, because I can quote him. In 2009 he said that he was “very relaxed” about police collaboration with the private sector and that the police had Labour’s “blessing to do so”. His remarks should be put in that context; he thought something completely different three years ago.

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

Will the Minister confirm that the previous Government’s consultation was on whether the whole police authority, not just one person, should be elected? Will he also confirm that it was a proper consultation and that because of the outright opposition of parties of all persuasions in local government the proposals were dropped?

[Damian Green]

The Opposition, who were then in government, expressed a view, changed their mind and have now changed their mind again. I am fascinated that the right hon. Gentleman did not address the issue of privatisation, which started under his tenure as Home Secretary but which I assume he is now prepared to attack as a loyal supporter of his party’s Front-Bench representatives.

What we have heard so far is the Labour party’s central obsession with spending more money. The right hon. Member for Delyn has made no admission that the Opposition are, in fact, committed to the same level of cuts as this Government, or to any level of cuts at all. There was no honest admission that police numbers would have gone down under their plans, and no expression of regret for the 25,000 police officers stuck in back-room functions under Labour’s top-down management of the police service. Most of all, there was no apology for causing the financial mess that led to these cuts in the first place. We have had no transparency or apology from the Labour party, and just one solution—spend more money. It is as clear as ever that Labour is not learning and is not capable of learning.

We cannot even credit the Opposition with being consistent on that point. As we have heard, the police and crime commissioner elections will deliver accountable policing that responds to public demands. Labour Front Benchers are arguing for both more and less spending at the same time. They complain about what they describe as the waste of money on holding elections, which is an interesting attitude for a democratic party, at the same time as they argue that we should spend £30 million more on publicising the elections. I suppose that they could, with intellectual coherence, hold one or other of those views, but they cannot hold both of them at once, as they appear to want to do.

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[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman has not quite got with the democratic project yet. As he knows, policing in London is the responsibility of the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor. The hon. Gentleman had his chance earlier this year to put his arguments against the Mayor of London’s crime policy, but those arguments failed. The people of London voted to re-elect the current Mayor of London, and he has an excellent Deputy Mayor who is dealing with those matters.

[Alan Johnson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Green]

I will give way one more time as the right hon. Gentleman is a former Home Secretary.

[Alan Johnson]

I am grateful to the Minister, but I thought I just heard him say that there are no cuts of 20%. In his speech last Monday, the Prime Minister said,

“in real terms, central police spending cuts are around 20 per cent”.

Does the Minister disagree with the Prime Minister?

[Damian Green]

No. The right hon. Gentleman should listen to what I say. The claim is, I think, that forces are facing 20% cuts, but no force is facing cuts of that level. As he knows as well as anyone in the country, the police service receives about a quarter of its income from the police precept element of council tax, the exact proportion—[Interruption.] I am glad that I am able to educate the Labour party about how the police are funded in this country. That funding is not all from the Home Office; some of it comes from the police precept. As the right hon. Gentleman and, I hope, those on the Opposition Front Bench know—although there is no evidence that they do—the exact proportion that comes from the precept varies from force to force, and the level at which it is set is, I stress, a matter for individual police and crime commissioners to decide. In short, no force has seen anything like a 20% cash reduction.

We on this side of the House have long argued that there is no simple link between police numbers and crime rates, and I am happy that that view is shared by the Home Affairs Committee. The figures I have quoted show that that view is correct and widely accepted—the one place it has not yet been accepted is inside the Labour party.

Let me turn to the elections for police and crime commissioners. On this side of the House, we are getting behind our candidates and campaigning hard to ensure that the elections are a success and that the public get the PCCs they deserve—hard-working, dedicated people who want to deliver for their communities and improve policing. Opposition Members should decide whether they support or oppose the elections. I assume that they support them, and I am delighted that the right hon. Member for Delyn has said that he does. A huge number of former Labour Ministers are standing, determined to make 15 November the night of the living retreads.

The confusion on the Opposition Benches is summed up with a pleasing touch of nostalgia by a dispute between Blair and Prescott. Prescott is having an argument with a new Blair, Lord Blair, who is arguing that people should not vote—I think that is disgraceful, and I hope the Labour party will agree that to tell people not to vote in a democratic election is deplorable. [Interruption.] I am glad that the right hon. Member for Delyn disagrees with Lord Blair. I hope that will continue and that everyone in the Labour party will condemn Lord Blair for what he said, not least because, as we have seen in recent articles, Lord Prescott is—of course—campaigning in his unique and energetic fashion around Humberside.

The introduction of PCCs is the most significant democratic reform of policing ever. It will introduce greater transparency and accountability to a service of which we are all rightly proud, but which can sometimes be too distant from the public it serves and fail to reflect adequately their concerns and priorities. As I told the House in a debate last week, only 7% of the public know what a police authority is. That figure represents a huge failure in democratic accountability, because it is the job of a police authority—as it will be of a PCC—to spend the public’s money in a way that guarantees that the police in that area are doing what the public need. It is impossible to do that when 93% of the public do not even know what police authorities are.

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[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, whom I welcome to his new position, finished his speech by saying that Labour’s policies did not work in government. I remind him that we were the only Government in the modern era—going back to the first world war—who presided over a reduction in crime. That is to say that the amount of crime was less when we left office than when we assumed office. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who was an excellent Policing Minister, understated the case. The Home Office statistics published in July 2010, from this Government, showed that overall crime fell by 50%, violent crime by 55% and domestic violence by 64%. The chances of being a victim of crime fell from a peak of 40% under the Tory Government to 21.5% under us. The murder rate in London was the lowest since I was wearing a tank-top and flares in the early 1970s.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last week?

[Alan Johnson]

Indeed; It was a retro week.

We can now all celebrate that success. The Conservative party—I do not include the Liberal Democrats in this criticism—argued year after year that the statistics were wrong. I remember the Prime Minister standing at the Dispatch Box in opposition saying that crime was not falling but rising, and that when they came into power they would change how the statistics were correlated, but they have done absolutely nothing. They have changed the name of the British crime survey to the England and Wales crime survey, but the statistics are collected in exactly the same way.

That is why the Prime Minister was able to celebrate a 6% fall in crime this year in his tribute speech to that great woman, “Laura Norder”, on Monday. That figure was based on exactly the same formulation of statistics that he once criticised. We should recognise that the momentum of falling crime seems to have continued into this Government, whereas crime doubled under the previous Tory Government between 1979 and 1997, with violent crime increasing by 168% and burglary by 405%. The downward trend has been maintained. It is crucial that all our constituents understand why that has happened and how we can ensure that crime and disorder continue to fall.

When Tony Blair became Prime Minister, he held a meeting with civil servants in the Home Office. They told him that if the economy was successful, crime would increase, and that if the economy was unsuccessful, crime would increase. No matter which way the economy went, people believed that it would inevitably rise. That counsel of despair convinced successive Home Secretaries until Michael Howard’s appointment that rising crime was an inevitability. The economy is weak now but crime has continued to fall, just as it did in the 2008-09 recession when it went down by 9%. We can compare that with the recession in the ’90s, when it went up by 16%. There is no doubt that advances in technology have helped. Car thefts have reduced dramatically thanks to computerised security systems and CCTV has been an effective tool—it is of course not the whole answer—as has the DNA database.

Police reforms have made the biggest contribution to the dramatic reduction in crime. People trot out the tired old phrase, “The police are the last unreformed public service,” but anyone who has been a Member of this House over the past 20 years will have seen a huge change in policing. The principal change has been the move away from a reactive force, whose main preoccupation was to respond to crimes that had already been committed, to a force with a role more in keeping with Robert Peel’s original concept of a police force, whose primary objective was the prevention of crime and the maintenance of what he described as “public tranquillity”. It was the “Life on Mars” culture of the 1970s that took police away from communities and off the streets and challenged the Peel ethos, whereas the introduction of the dreadfully named crime and disorder reduction partnerships and neighbourhood policing—a huge change in how the police operated—did the most to restore it.

Over 15 years, we have moved from a police philosophy that stated that antisocial behaviour and low-level crime were nothing to do with them to a recognition that the police have an important role to play in working with other agencies to tackle such behaviour, which has a far greater impact on people’s perception of crime than some more high-profile offences. We have moved from an era in which domestic violence was considered to be nothing to do with the police and to be a matter for the adversaries to sort out to its being a major focus of attention for police forces across the country. Plenty of evidence suggests that that concentration on domestic violence has had a far wider impact on the reduction in other crimes.

In that context, I believe the Government have made a mistake in cutting the number of warranted officers. The work the police do on crime prevention in schools, in homes, as part of family intervention projects and in youth clubs and hostels will suffer as a result of those cuts and the partnerships that require the police to work together with local authorities, the NHS and the voluntary sector to tackle the underlying causes of crime will be placed in jeopardy. I predict that such cuts will eventually feed through to the crime statistics, to the detriment of our constituents across the country.

The Minister mentioned privatisation, and in the context of what is happening in Lincolnshire, the west midlands and Surrey I am bemused and amazed that the Home Office has not stated categorically that the tasks of patrolling our streets, the investigation of offences, and arrest—together with the use of firearms and the control of public disorder—must remain with police officers. Of course there can be co-operation with the private sector in other spheres, but that is what the police want to see and the reassurance has not been given.

[Julian Smith]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the four Yorkshire forces could do much more to share and reduce costs? In his role as a local MP, will he call on those four forces to get their acts together?

[Alan Johnson]

Yes, I do. I completely agree and that was in our White Paper when I was Home Secretary in November 2010. I also believe that there are too many police constabularies. Charles Clarke tried and failed to reduce the number of constabularies, and we need to do it.

The late, great Conservative head of the Local Government Association, Sir Simon Milton, said that through the police and crime commissioners the Government were introducing

“a parallel and potentially conflicting system with a competing mandate”.

I believe that is true. I do not agree with Lord Blair, but I think that the public will register their disquiet by failing to turn up at the ballot box. I sincerely believe that after November’s elections, the Government will need to rethink the question and that part of the solution might be to recreate a form of machinery to run the police authorities that represents all parts of the patch. That should not be done by only one person and, if we elect anyone, we should elect the chair of that organisation. I also think that there should be closer working on prisons, probation and fire services so that there can be joined-up accountability for a wide range of these issues.

I genuinely welcome the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice to the Dispatch Box. I think he is a good Minister. He had an unfortunate experience with the police a few years ago, which always reminds me of the Tom Wolfe quote:

“A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested.”

The right hon. Gentleman has a huge role to play in improving the relationship between the Government and the police. It is in a terrible state, and I believe that if the right hon. Gentleman works hard, with all the charm for which he is famous, he could make a great contribution to dealing with crime and disorder in this country.

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[Mr Browne]

I think that what matters is what one does with the police. The team that wins the premier league is not the one with the biggest squad; it is the one that gets the best results, and that is what we are trying to do in policing.

We see a hallmark of old Labour, new Labour and the exciting latest version that is somewhere in between in the second criticism in the motion: the casual authoritarianism of criticising the Government for

“restricting the use of CCTV”.

Yes, we do believe that there should be some restrictions on CCTV. We are striking the right balance between enabling the police to use modern investigative techniques such as CCTV and DNA evidence, and the police are using those techniques to great effect, but at the same time protecting the right of innocent members of the public to not be subjected to constant and unregulated surveillance.

Labour’s third criticism reveals hostility to the idea of having democratically elected commissioners to increase accountability and give the public greater say in the policing of their community. That was a recurrent theme of the debate. That hostility, it must be said, is not shared by many Labour ex-Ministers, including two recent MPs, Tony Lloyd and Alun Michael, or by the former Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Prescott. If Labour Members are concerned about the election turnout, perhaps they should start by getting those three to pull their fingers out, get campaigning and explain the rationale for their candidacy. Every Member of this House, elected as we are, should want election turnouts to be strong, and I am delighted that the profile of the elections is rising in Cleethorpes, Brigg and Goole, and Denton and Reddish. I believe that it will rise across England and Wales in the coming weeks.

Labour has to make up its own mind. During the debate, we have heard criticism of the Government on the one hand for spending too much money on PCC elections, and on the other hand, for not spending enough. Whatever the turnout, the House can be sure of this: the new PCCs will have a stronger mandate than the police authorities they are replacing. Many police authority members from all parties have done sterling work on behalf of their communities. We recognise and applaud that, but with the best will in the world, police authorities were hardly delivering public accountability and transparency: in the most recent survey, only 7% of the public were even aware that police authorities existed. We should not be fearful of giving the public a say, and parties in this House should not be discouraging people from participating in a democratic process. I hope that people will find out more and that they will vote.

[Alan Johnson]

Probably less than 7% of the public are aware that the hon. Gentleman exists. Does that mean he is doing a bad job?

[Mr Browne]

In the area where I stood for election, I got 49% of the vote, and I hope the figure will go up next time, but we will see; one can never take anything for granted. Labour got 5% in my area, which is 1% more than UKIP.

The final theme that runs through the Labour motion is deep, cautious, conservative resistance to fresh thinking and change. Beyond spraying around more and more borrowed money, we see no ideas, no imagination and a closed mind to reform. It is easy for Opposition parties to lapse into idle oppositionism—we have all been there—and in many ways Labour today reminds me of what the Liberal Democrats were like before we became a serious party of Government. The House may be interested to know that that trait is not new to Labour in opposition. Let me quote what a previous shadow Home Secretary said when his party was last out of government. I shall reveal the name: Tony Blair—