Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alun Michael and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I welcome that initiative, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising it. It is a very good example of how police forces are using innovative means to maintain, or indeed increase, their presence in local communities. Setting up such booths in supermarkets can bring a large number of people into contact with the police—far more than might choose to visit a police station.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I declare an interest as a candidate to be a police commissioner in south Wales. Does the Minister not accept that the best way of empowering police officers to reduce crime is to prevent reoffending? Instead of concentrating on bureaucratic requirements, such as having several reports before action can be taken, will he strengthen the use of antisocial behaviour orders, which have succeeded in preventing reoffending?

[Nick Herbert]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that we are strengthening the powers available to the police with new tools to deal with antisocial behaviour. Police and crime commissioners will play a lead role in giving a voice to the people and will be under statutory duties to co-operate with other elements of the criminal justice system to ensure a focus on preventing crime and reducing reoffending.

Police

Debate between Alun Michael and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

Let me make a little more progress, and I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman later.

Following careful consideration of all those responses, I have decided that force level allocations will remain as announced in my written ministerial statement of 8 December. Each police force in England and Wales will face an equal percentage reduction in core Government funding in 2012-13. I believe that that is the most transparent, straightforward and equitable means of apportioning the funding reductions. It is important to note that the allocations were set out last year and have remained the same.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister is talking about the level of cuts and maintaining the figures as originally set out. Does he accept that although it might not be his choice, it is the Government’s choice that the reductions are front-ended, and therefore place an additional burden which is more difficult for police forces to meet?

[Nick Herbert]

The profile of the reductions for police forces was set by the spending review. There are larger reductions in the first and second years than in the third and fourth years, and that reflects the overall need for the Government to get on top of the deficit and build credibility in this area. The position and allocations I have announced remain the same, so there are no surprises for police forces, which have been working on that basis since the spending review was announced.

Policing

Debate between Alun Michael and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Thursday 12th January 2012 Westminster Hall

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

I welcome the report of the Home Affairs Committee on the “New Landscape of Policing”, to which the Government have responded, as being a very considered and thoughtful contribution to the changing landscape of policing and the Government’s reforms. I also welcome the debate that the Chairman of the Select Committee has introduced today and the opportunity that it has given for the members of the Select Committee, the official Opposition and, indeed, the Government to consider, in a very constructive manner, the challenges that currently face British policing.

Precisely because right hon. and hon. Members have referred to the pace of change of the reforms and because those reforms are significant, as the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said, it is important for me to remind them of the reasons why the Government embarked on such a reform programme. It is not, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, because the Government wish to make their mark, because they are a new Government or because change for change’s sake is a good thing. None of those is an adequate reason to embark on a reform agenda of such a scale.

The reason for the reforms is that policing faces significant challenges, which have changed—some have changed recently and significantly—and we should ensure that British policing is equipped to change with them. Clearly, crime and the need to fight it are ongoing challenges, but new challenges are emerging in relation to new forms of crime. There is ongoing concern about certain forms of crime, not least serious and organised crime—hon. Members have mentioned cybercrime—and there is considerable public concern about antisocial behaviour, much of which is criminality that we must ensure the police can deal with.

Therefore, there is a challenge of dealing with a high volume of crime locally and ensuring that policing is equipped to deal with national problems and national threats. As that is a twin challenge, we have had to look again at the structure of British policing. The Government are not the only ones who have taken that view. It is also the view of policing professionals that the structure of British policing needs to adapt to deal with those challenges. However, there are differing visions of what those new structures should be, and I will return to that point later.

The second new challenge is an obvious one—it was referred to by the shadow Policing Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson)—and it is the funding situation. It is a fact that funding for policing is being reduced during the four-year period of the spending review, because the Government have to deal with the deficit. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that funding would have been reduced by his party if it had remained in power. Therefore, under any Government, the police would have to deal with significant reductions in funding. There is a debate about what the level of those reductions should be, but there is no doubt now that, under any Government, the police would have to deal with a very significant reduction in funding. At the end of a period of considerable expansion, during which policing resources have risen year on year and police numbers have risen accordingly, that reduction in funding is obviously a very significant change that the police have to deal with.

The third challenge, or issue, had been neglected, at least in part, for too long, although it was referred to by some Members during the debate, and it is the role of the public in partnership with the police to help fight crime. Indeed, what exactly is the relationship between the police and the public? That relationship can be tested and has sometimes come into focus when we have experienced or debated certain events in policing, whether they are highly controversial police operations—for instance, public order policing operations—or events in relation to the ongoing discussion about community policing and the importance of a strong connection between the police and the public, which is necessary to ensure that there is community policing that commands public confidence. As the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) reminded us, Peel—the founder of modern policing—bequeathed to us the important principle that the police are the public and the public are the police. The legitimacy of British policing is conferred by policing by consent and by public confidence in the great public service that is the police.

The Government did not believe that it would be possible for policing to rise to any of the challenges that I have mentioned—maintaining both public confidence in the police and a strong link between the police and the public, dealing with declining policing budgets, ensuring a continuing fight against crime and dealing with the new challenges in fighting crime—with the existing structures, nor with the means by which the previous Government had sought to drive up standards. I say that in a non-partisan manner, but essentially those means were top-down targeting and direction that sought to lever up standards by central control.

With that approach came a proliferation of bureaucracy and a level of direction that had not been experienced in policing before. The policing pledge is a very good example. It was a highly prescriptive central pledge that told police forces exactly how they should behave—for example, even how they should answer telephone calls. This Government have had a different approach to the delivery of public services, which is to seek to decentralise and reduce—or even eliminate—all that top-down central direction. Instead, we have tried to ensure that there is greater accountability, as a means of holding public services to account and making them responsible for the outcomes that they are required to deliver.

I entirely reject the suggestion made again today by the shadow Policing Minister that there is a lack of coherence—indeed, that there is a muddle—in the agenda that the Government have set out in relation to police reform. I would argue strongly that our approach is an entirely coherent one that enables the police to meet today’s challenges. I say that because, as I have argued before, there has been a paradox in policing in the last few years. That paradox is that central Government interfered far too much in local policing matters and were far too directive where they should not have been, while they were not always strong enough on the national policing matters that required central Government to exert a stronger view or influence.

We have sought to turn that paradox on its head and to restore local accountability, professional freedom and professional discretion where it is proper to do so, thus freeing up the police to be the crime fighters that they want to be and ensuring greater local accountability, while refocusing the role of the centre and the Home Office on those matters that they should be focused on, particularly national threats, to ensure that we have a strong policing response not only to the terrorist threat but to other threats—for example, serious and organised crime.

The alternative vision that has been set out by some, but not all, in policing was experimented with by the previous Government, and it is to create regional police forces as a means of addressing the new challenges that we face. That vision did not find favour in the country or in the House, and in the end the last Government decided not to proceed with it. I do not believe that it is a deliverable vision. In the absence of the creation of regional forces, if we say that we want to retain 43 individual forces—43 or thereabouts—we must then answer this question: how do we ensure that we have a structure that enables those 43 forces in England and Wales to be accountable to their local communities, where the chief constable is responsible for the totality of policing and those who are holding the chief constables to account hold them to account for the totality of policing, but that ensures that those 43 forces co-operate and collaborate, so that they can work efficiently, driving out unnecessary cost, and deal with serious and organised crime and those threats that cross force boundaries?

In my view, it is absolutely coherent—indeed, it is entirely the right approach—to say that we should on the one hand enhance local accountability through the election of police and crime commissioners, while on the other hand introducing a new national crime agency to strengthen the fight against serious and organised crime, to strengthen our borders and to deal with the new crime threats. Moreover, that new agency will not only work with police forces but have a significant new role in its relationship with those forces, as expressed through a new strategic policing requirement.

[Alun Michael]

The Minister is reflecting the tension that exists between ensuring that strategic national and regional issues are dealt with and ensuring that there is proper local accountability. Obviously, the Government have chosen the election of police and crime commissioners as their instrument to ensure local accountability. However, does he accept that part of the last Government’s approach—I suspect that it is something that he might agree with—was to strengthen the element of local partnership by requiring the police, down at local commander level, to work with the local authorities in their area, by putting a responsibility on local authorities and other agencies to engage in that partnership approach and by ensuring a connection between police interpretation and the public view of crime that needed to be dealt with? In particular, at that local level, the police should be judged on their success in reducing crime and disorder.

[Nick Herbert]

I was going to come to that, but I am very happy to respond to the right hon. Gentleman and to repeat what I have said to him, to which he has kindly referred. The development of partnerships between the police and local authorities and, indeed, other partners was an important step forward, and he played a particularly central role in ensuring that that was delivered under the previous Government. I think that it is widely accepted that such partnerships can be effective in reducing crime, and the Government wish to see them strengthened and continued, in spite of diminishing resource.

Up and down the country, I have seen action-oriented partnerships with a purpose that are not bureaucratic and that can deliver the kinds of results that the right hon. Gentleman was discussing. Others are more bureaucratic, and they need to adapt to the new world in which resources are at a premium and to ensure that their focus is very action-oriented, but we wish the partnerships to continue. We also wish to ensure that the police and crime commissioners are part of the arrangements and do not work against them, and we have conferred duties on all sides to ensure that. I am happy to endorse the important principle of partnership.

We need action locally and nationally to ensure that policing is structured such that it can meet the demands both of the volume of crime and of the population, in relation to the day-to-day antisocial behaviour and crime issues affecting it. However, we must also ensure that policing is equipped to deal with more serious issues, which, in the end, also affect people’s everyday lives. Drugs issues, for example, are linked to serious and organised criminality. A new strategic policing requirement will ensure for the first time that police forces and the newly elected police and crime commissioners are equipped to deal with those national threats. The creation of the National Crime Agency, along with the Organised Crime Co-ordination Centre in an intelligence-led approach and the introduction of police and crime commissioners is a strong, coherent and powerful response to the challenges that I have described.

The Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East, reflected on the Government’s ambition to declutter the policing landscape, and I welcome the fact that he noted that that would not necessarily relate to the number of bodies but could involve a more logical ordering of the existing national policing bodies. I of course believe that the phasing out of the National Policing Improvement Agency was the right decision, and I have said so to the Select Committee. There were accountability issues, in spite of the many good things that the agency did and does—I certainly join others in paying tribute to its functions, and I have noted the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). Wishing to change the accountability arrangements for the functions, however, to find a better home for them, is not the same as saying that the Government do not value them. The agency clearly does important things, but it has become a kind of Christmas tree quango, with many policing functions loaded on to it and ownership and responsibility for what it was doing neither clearly with the Government nor with the police service.

We think that it is both coherent and right to seek greater accountability for the agency’s two principal functions. Of course, it is responsible for many other things. On the one hand there is IT and the development of improved information and communications technology for policing, which is so important, and has been referred to, and on the other is the training and development function, which is equally important to policing’s human resources. Separating those functions by creating a police-owned and led ICT company, for which the police service will accept responsibility, is the right solution to ensure better IT and a more coherent approach. These issues have bedevilled policing for too many years, and since we are having a sensible debate, we must reflect on why, even after more than a decade of rapidly rising resource for policing, we have still ended up with police IT systems that, frankly, are not good enough. They are disjointed, require multiple keyed entry by police officers and add to the bureaucratic burden.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend; that was indeed the expression.

We have made it clear that we wish to reconceive the idea of a professional body for policing and to ensure that it is inclusive. That is one of the important principles that I have set out, and I have a working party looking at how we would set up such a body. I am very pleased that in spite of the continued reservations of the Police Federation, which I acknowledge because I do not wish to mislead Members, the federation’s chairman has been attending the working party meetings. The Police Superintendents Association is also represented, as are the ACPO representatives and UNISON, and we now have representation from the police and crime commissioners’ side as well. I am also seeking some independent advice for the working party.

[Alun Michael]

Unless I missed it, I do not think that the Minister referred to the Police Superintendents Association, and in my experience its contribution, at that level of senior but local management, can often provide a crucial element in such discussions. Is the association included?

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the value of the advice of the Police Superintendents Association. I certainly share his view and have mentioned that the association is represented, which is important. I want to make it clear that we envisage that this will be an inclusive body. It is important that we raise our sights and consider the great advantage of the creation of a professional body that will have responsibility for standards, professional development and training. That is something that I think has been absent from the policing world. It is surprising that policing does not have such a body, which will be immensely positive.

I will explain briefly why this is so important. The development of professionalism in policing—the acquisition of the right skills—is an important part of our agenda to ensure that police officers are equipped to deal with modern challenges without the kind of bureaucratic approach that we have seen in the past. If we are to develop in policing an agenda of trusting professionals and the extension of professional discretion, we must ensure alongside that that police officers are trained, equipped and incentivised in a way that reflects the exercise of professional judgment, skills and discretion that commands public confidence and trust.

[Nick Herbert]

I noticed my hon. Friend’s puzzlement, so I should have offered clarification. What I meant is that Kit Malthouse, the deputy Mayor of London who has responsibility for policing in London, now attends the working party that I have set up, as does the chair of the Association of Police Authorities, Mark Burns-Williamson, who is also the chair of West Yorkshire police authority. That side of the tripartite is now represented, as are the policing professionals, which is important. Moreover, on Monday the arrangements will change so that, effectively, the first police and crime commissioner will be created in London. That is what I meant.

[Alun Michael]

With the greatest respect to the Minister—I do not want to introduce a note of disharmony—to describe the deputy Mayor of London as equivalent to a police and crime commissioner is, frankly, ridiculous. The whole point of the principle of police and crime commissioners, as the Minister has spelled out, is that they should be elected and accountable for policing issues to the electorate of the police force area. My personal view is that the exclusion of the Metropolitan police and the City of London police demonstrates a lack of confidence on the Government’s part in the posts that they are establishing. I do not object to their engagement in what will be such an important function, but they really do not have the authority to be there as precursors of the police and crime commissioners. The engagement of the APA’s representative is sensible in terms of continuity, but there is still a gap.

[Nick Herbert]

I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. I know that he is keen to become a police and crime commissioner—I welcome that—but he must not get ahead of himself. It is sensible to ensure, as we did in the negotiations on the protocol, that there is representation from those nominated by existing police authorities and from the deputy mayor, because he has responsibility for holding to account a quarter of policing in England and Wales. As I have said, on Monday the Mayor will become the police and crime commissioner, in law, for London, so it is entirely appropriate to have that representation on the working party. I emphasise that it is a working party.

[Alun Michael]

indicated dissent.

[Nick Herbert]

I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head. It makes sense to have those two individuals on the working party, given the acceleration of this process in London ahead of the election of police and crime commissioners, the date of which—this November—will, as sure as night follows day, be firmly noted in the right hon. Gentleman’s diary.

[Alun Michael]

As I have said, it makes sense for representatives of the police authorities to be involved in the discussion, because they have experience, which helps continuity. However, although the situation in London may end up in law via the attachment of the words “police and crime commissioner” to an individual’s name, that is not what the Minister is putting in place everywhere else in England and Wales, namely the direct election of somebody to be responsible for policing in a police force area. The situation in London is inevitably muddled, and the Mayor is also involved in decisions on a number of issues that are relevant to police in the rest of England and Wales. That may be reviewed in a couple of years’ time, but at the moment such decisions go well beyond the Metropolitan police area. The situation is not as clear as the Minister suggests.

[Nick Herbert]

Yes, it is. I am completely bemused by the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. The Mayor has responsibility in London. That will become an enhanced responsibility on Monday, because the Metropolitan Police Authority will be abolished and the Mayor will take full responsibility for policing and will become the police and crime commissioner for London—in law. The first police and crime commissioner will be created.

[Alun Michael]

In law, but not reality.

[Nick Herbert]

In law, on Monday. It is up to the Mayor whether he wishes to delegate that function. That power of delegation was, of course, established by the previous Government, so I am sure that there will be no criticism of it whatsoever. It makes sense for us to ensure that the deputy Mayor of London, as the person responsible, at present, for holding to account the country’s biggest police force and a quarter of all police officers, takes part in such discussions, because he can give voice to those who hold, and who will hold, police forces to account.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Alun Michael and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Monday 12th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

We are hardly setting up a bureaucratic system. It is one that involves direct democratic accountability. The two things that the hon. Gentleman describes are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to maintain neighbourhood policing and local accountability while still introducing direct democratic accountability and governance, for the reasons that I set out.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I must say that I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on the usefulness of PACT meetings. The Minister referred to accountability and to the Metropolitan police. There is an issue with the governance of the Metropolitan police, because they do not and will not have a police commissioner, as that is part of the Mayor of London’s muddle of responsibilities. Of course, the Metropolitan police’s activities go far beyond London and have implications not only for other parts of England but for Scotland and Wales, yet we have a Mayor with devolved responsibility getting rid of a Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Is there not a bit of a muddle over the accountability issues right across this new pattern of policing?

[Nick Herbert]

I do not accept that there is a muddle. The right hon. Gentleman will know that it was the previous Government who set up the current governance arrangements in London. The Metropolitan police have national policing responsibilities and therefore answer in part to the Home Secretary, which makes them unique. However, the reforms in London to give greater local accountability have been popular with the public, and it is that principle that we seek to extend. Indeed, the principle of having one accountable individual directly responsible for the totality of force activity is crucial to the Government’s vision. Policing governance by committee has led to an unelected body having power over the precept, with no one being properly held to account for decisions or poor performance and no one truly being in charge.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alun Michael and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

We have to strike the right balance between civil liberties and the effectiveness of these crime-fighting tools, but it would simply be wrong to characterise the Government’s approach as increasing the burden on police. We are returning charging decisions to the police and our aim is that 70% of all decisions will now be made by police without having to go to the Crown Prosecution Service, so we are giving more discretion and control to the police and we are reducing bureaucracy.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister accept that some of the reporting requirements placed on police are about accounting for the very serious powers that we give them to act on our behalf? In the past, a lack of such requirements led to deaths in custody, stop-and-search practices and other things that brought the police into disrepute. How is the Minister going to make sure that he achieves the balance of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater and not allowing the police to go back to old ways?

[Nick Herbert]

I accept the force of what the right hon. Gentleman says. It is important that we have proper processes and accountability, but we must trust officers as trained professionals to exercise their discretion and we need a proportionate approach to risk-taking. The stop-and-search form is a good example, because we have reduced the amount of data required, not scrapped it entirely. That will save hundreds of thousands of hours of officer time, but it will still keep in place important safeguards to ensure community confidence in policing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alun Michael and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I am aware of the Downham Market scheme. If sentencers and the public are to have confidence in community payback, we need to make it tougher. We need to ensure that the work done is meaningful and challenging, and that there is rigorous enforcement of community payback orders. We are also keen on ensuring that as much as possible is done, like in Downham Market, to encourage members of the community to nominate projects and therefore take an interest in them.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

In view of the Minister’s comments earlier about embedding best practice in the mainstream, what will he do to ensure that judges and magistrates have a full understanding of the outcome of restorative justice projects and make full use of them?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alun Michael and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. What steps he is taking to ensure the effectiveness of complaints systems for victims of crime and others within the criminal justice system.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Nick Herbert)]

Policies are in place in individual criminal justice agencies to respond to complaints from victims and others. Improving the ability of victims to hold services to account and gain redress when things go wrong will be considered as part of a full review of victim and witness policy and services.

[Alun Michael]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. If somebody has a complaint that their situation is being dealt with badly by the system, it is often difficult to know whether that is the fault of the police—in which case there is the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is an effective system—or the Crown Prosecution Service, which does not have an adequate complaints system, and that means that people fall through the gaps. Will the Government take that into account as part of the review?

[Nick Herbert]

We will. I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s long-standing interest in such issues and some of the proposals that he has made in relation to them. We aim to improve the accountability of service providers and redress for complainants through the criminal justice system. It is important that we should address the fact that there can be confusion on the part of victims about whom they should complain to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alun Michael and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I know of the close interest that my hon. Friend takes in these matters, having been the author of a publication that proposed better arrangements to deal with serious crime. We will not pursue the Labour party’s policy of compulsory mergers of police forces. We believe that it is necessary for police forces to collaborate better to deal with organised crime, just as better collaboration has been achieved in counter-terrorism activity, and that is the policy that we shall pursue.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister accept that the internet is increasingly being used by those who get involved in serious and organised crime? Does he agree that a partnership approach, making use of the talents and expertise of people in business, is essential to reduce the extent of internet use for the purposes of crime?

[Nick Herbert]

I know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), is already in correspondence with the right hon. Gentleman about this matter. E-crime is a serious and growing problem, and it must make sense to tackle it on a partnership basis, with law enforcement agencies and business working together, and that is what we will do.