Crime and Policing

Debate between Alan Johnson and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alan Johnson]

I thank the Minister for giving way. It will give him a chance to get his breath back.

I have said this consistently, and I will say it again very slowly. We set out in the November White Paper, the pre-Budget report, the Budget and other public documents savings of £1.3 billion over the next four years. That is about 12% of the Home Office budget. The HMIC report, to which the Minister referred, said that with a lot of effort it was possible to save 12% without affecting front-line services. That is the argument.

[Nick Herbert]

The right hon. Gentleman says that he would have protected police spending. So which budget would he have cut more deeply? Would it have been health? Would it have been defence? Of course Labour Members will not tell us, but we do know that HMIC has said that £1 billion a year—12% of the budget— could have been saved through better and wiser spending. We will not know the availability of resources until the outcome of the spending review on 20 October, but we are determined to protect front-line services.

When he was Home Secretary, the right hon. Gentleman would not guarantee police numbers. Perhaps that is not surprising, because we know that police numbers across the country were starting to fall on his watch. He knew that he could not guarantee the funding, and he knew what was around the corner.

The second part of the shadow Home Secretary’s contention was that we should make no attempt to protect civil liberties. His entire attack was based on what we planned to do in relation to the restoration of those liberties. The Labour party’s position is straightforward: the DNA that is taken from innocent people should be retained. The shadow Home Secretary based that on the argument that crimes would be solved, so why should he stop there? If the end justifies the means, why not take DNA from everyone? If the Labour party is suggesting that all people are potential criminals, they should believe that that would deal with crime. In fact, the end does not justify the means. Labour, the party that proposed 90 days’ detention without trial, still does not understand that if we undermine liberty and erode public confidence in law enforcement—if we take away freedom—we do not make people safer at all.

The third part of the right hon. Gentleman’s contention was that we should not accept the need for reform of policing. The Government believe that we must replace the bureaucratic accountability and top-down targets of which the last Government were so fond with democratic accountability, rebuild the bridge between the police and the public and reduce Home Office interference, so that we can give local people a real say over policing in their areas.

Labour Members raised various spectres. The hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) spoke of the risk of politicians being in charge of police forces. Who else should be in charge of police forces, other than elected people? Police forces must answer to someone, and I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that it might be right and proper for them to answer to democratically elected people. The shadow Home Secretary raised the spectre of extremism. That is a constant cry from the Labour party. The British national party won just 2% of the vote in the last election, but it suits Labour’s argument to suggest that extremists will be elected. We on this side of the House say, “Let us trust the people when it comes to who will be elected to these positions.” The people will decide who should represent them and hold the police to account.

We are determined that local authorities will still have a role on police and crime panels, and are determined to press ahead with this reform. The shadow Home Secretary said that the reform simply was not necessary. Why? Why, in 2003, did the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), propose directly elected police authorities?

“For many people”,

the Labour Government said then,

“the question of who is responsible for what in terms of keeping communities safe is simply unclear. We must rectify this. Strong, transparent accountability is vital for community confidence.”

In 2008 the Labour Government made the same proposal for introducing a form of direct elections into the governance of policing. The then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said:

“We are…committed to introducing a stronger link between those responsible for delivering policing and the public they serve. We will legislate to reform police authorities, making them more democratic and more effective in responding to the needs of the local community.”

Do Opposition Members think these arguments have changed? If they were right in 2003 and 2008, why are they not right now? Indeed, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) simultaneously said we should reject further restructuring—his motion says that—and proposed a third reform. He suggested just a few hours ago at the Dispatch Box that we should have directly elected police authority chairs. I say to the right hon. Gentleman, “Three strikes and you’re out. You’ve reneged on your promise to reform police authorities twice; why should we believe your latest back-of-the-envelope proposal to do it again?”

We, however, are determined to drive forward with our programme of reform, and it is reform that does not end at the greater accountability of local police forces. It includes measures to deal with serious and organised crime, the creation of a national crime agency, and placing police forces under strong duties to collaborate so they can cut costs and tackle crimes that cross force borders. It also includes a serious programme to tackle bureaucracy and to give the public more information through crime mapping and information about crime that is really happening in their streets—not statistics, which, frankly, the public no longer believe. It includes, too, proposals to reform the pay and conditions of police officers, and we start from the position, as we do across the public services, that we trust the professionals. That is why we want to return charging decisions to police officers, as was mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and for South Swindon (Mr Buckland).

The reforms move beyond policing, too. There are reforms of the licensing laws to deal with the problem of 24-hour drinking and reforms to the toolkit of antisocial behaviour measures to ensure the police and local authorities have the ability to deal with that problem.

We do not accept the right hon. Gentleman’s rose-tinted view of the years of the last Government. We do not accept what he described as the “glorious year of Johnson”. Where did that glorious year end up? It ended up with 10,000 incidents of antisocial behaviour every day, 100 serious knife crimes every day, 26,000 victims of crime every day and 1 million victims of violent crime a year. That is not a glorious record. Five million to 10 million crimes a year is not a glorious record; that is not a record about which the Labour party should be remotely complacent, yet Labour Members rise from the Opposition Benches and suggest nothing more needs to be done to deal with crime other than the ineffective remedies they proposed before.

What did the Labour Government spend their time doing? They spent it wasting money by amalgamating forces, creating bureaucracy with reams of guidance, introducing a policing pledge and spending £6 million a year on doing so, and, of course, creating new laws: 50 Acts of Parliament and 3,000 new offences, and not just offences that would help deal with crime. After all, did these offences make people safer? No, they did not. With their new laws, the Labour Government introduced 24-hour drinking and the so-called café culture, and they downgraded cannabis. They also released 80,000 offenders early under their end-of-custody licence scheme, which, of course, they scrapped just before the election was called. Above all, they spent and wasted industrial sums. They are in double denial: they created the deficit and they are failing to deal with it. We say that we cannot go on like this, spending more than three times the entire budget of the criminal justice system—that of the police, courts and probation service—on debt interest every year. We are determined to deal with the deficit and it is our responsibility to do so. That is the difference between the two sides—we are driving radical reform and they are stuck in the past.

Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.

The House proceeded to a Division.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alan Johnson and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

As the hon. Gentleman may know, we are considering peaceful protest and ensuring that rights of peaceful protest in this country are protected. However, extremist activity, or activity that can inflame and damage communities, is not acceptable. We will ensure that we achieve the right balance in relation to peaceful protest.

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

If the Conservative party believes so fervently in direct accountability, why is the unelected deputy Mayor chairing the London Metropolitan Police Authority?

[Nick Herbert]

It is entirely a matter for the Mayor whether he wishes to delegate those functions. That is permissible in London, but ultimately the buck stops with the Mayor and Londoners know that.

[Alan Johnson]

Yes, well, it is not very reassuring that the most prominent, high-profile Conservative Mayor—the Minister and I agree that the Mayor should take responsibility for the police—steps down and allows his unelected deputy to chair the Metropolitan Police Authority. That person, Kit Malthouse, says that chief constables are “mini-governors” who “control a standing army”. Does the Minister agree with that? Does he think it right that the deputy Mayor of London should chair the Metropolitan Police Authority when he says that elected commissioners would be able to “wield the rod” over chief constables? Is that the purpose of the reforms?

[Nick Herbert]

First, I should say that the Labour Government’s legislation introduced the arrangements that allow for the transfer of functions to the deputy Mayor. The right hon. Gentleman seems to have changed his mind about that. On our proposals, he knows that we want to enhance the accountability of local policing. Police will remain operationally independent.

“Strong, transparent accountability is vital for community confidence”—

they are not my words but those of the previous Government’s Green Paper when they proposed direct accountability and then reneged on that pledge.