Policing

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which shows what a shambles this is—a shambles that is costing money and that could have been avoided by choosing a different election date.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend will remember from his time campaigning for Tony Lloyd in Denton and Reddish over the summer my constituents’ concern about the 3,000 police jobs that will be lost in Greater Manchester. Would not the money have been better spent securing those jobs?

[Mr Hanson]

Indeed it would. The former Policing Minister, the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), writing in The Daily Telegraph only yesterday, made it clear that the Liberal Democrats tried to sabotage the poll, which is why it is now to be held in November. I think we should send the bill to the constituency office of the Minister of State, Home Department, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane, and ask him to pay the £100 million cost on behalf of the Liberal Democrats who, I remind the House, are standing in only 24 of the 41 areas.

The Electoral Commission has also said that the central website provided by the Government will not be sufficient because it requires people to access the internet. It is estimated that 7 million adults outside London have not used the internet in the past 12 months, but how do the Government decide to promote their campaign? By putting it only on the website. Which groups are least able to access the internet? People who live in the north, people on low incomes, people over 65, and women. There is disproportionality built in to these elections which the Government should be careful of.

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[Damian Green]

Yes, I do. We are in favour of democracy, and I accept that it is possible that police and crime commissioners will be elected who will do things with which I disagree. They will be democratically elected and have the mandate to do what they do, and if they get it wrong they will answer to their electorate in four years’ time. That is the point of democracy.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Green]

May I make some progress? I am conscious of your warning about going on too long, Mr Speaker.

The Opposition said that because of the cuts, emergency response times would increase, but they have held up. They said that neighbourhood policing would suffer, but there are more neighbourhood officers now than there were in May 2010. Most importantly of all—it is at the heart of the debate—they said that crime would go up, and they were wrong. Crime has gone down by 10% under this Government. That is the situation across key crime types, with recorded violence down 13%, burglary down 7%, criminal damage down 22%, vehicle crime down 15%, robbery down 5% and knife crime down 9%.

Much has been made of the situation in the west midlands. I know that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) will wish to know that crime there is down by an impressive 13% since the election. I hope that west midlands Members of all parties will welcome that.

Labour has been proved wrong on all its key claims. Police reform is working, and crime is falling. I am grateful to the Opposition for giving me the opportunity to point that out today. They were wrong to claim that forces faced 20% cuts. No force faces cuts of that level.

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[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy).

I would like to pay tribute to the police officers, police community support officers and staff at Greater Manchester police, who are doing a great job in increasingly tough circumstances. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex), I took part in the police service parliamentary scheme in 2007, and I found the experience invaluable. Sadly, I know how tough a job policing can be, because my home borough of Tameside recently saw the shocking murders of PC Nicola Hughes and PC Fiona Bone—two dedicated police officers merely going about their normal duties on what appeared to be an ordinary day on an ordinary street in Tameside.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) passionately outlined the difficulties facing Greater Manchester police and the impact on policing across the Greater Manchester county. That is why I am glad to be supporting Tony Lloyd, the former Member for Manchester Central, as our police and crime commissioner candidate in Greater Manchester. I wish him well in his campaign and—I hope—his successful election on November 15. This weekend, I joined a huge Labour team out on the doorsteps of Dukinfield in my constituency to campaign for Tony, and over the summer recess I was delighted to campaign in both Denton and Reddish against police cuts with both Tony and my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), the shadow Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice. Tony is right to focus on community policing, because he recognises that in Tameside, Stockport and across the whole of Greater Manchester, effective crime fighting has improved the quality of life for residents.

In the brief time I have, I would like to turn to a local issue that is a running sore: the closure of public police desks at police stations. That has happened at both police stations in my constituency, and I know from constituents who have contacted me that it concerns them greatly. The police desk in Denton police station closed in May, and the desk in Reddish closed in January, meaning that the nearest police desk to report crime for my constituents in Reddish is now in Stockport central police station, and in Denton my constituents must now travel to Ashton, making the service far more remote from both these communities. These are not back-office cuts; they are front-office cuts. My constituents consider the police stations in their communities front-line services.

We should take into account some of the other innovations put together by the previous Labour Government. We have excellent local crime and disorder reduction partnerships in both Tameside and Stockport taking a multi-agency approach to tackling crime. Among others, they include the local council, housing associations, the police, the NHS and third sector bodies. They have helped to reduce the rate of reoffending, especially in respect of key crimes, such as burglary, car crime and antisocial behaviour, and they have successfully utilised tools, such as antisocial behaviour orders and antisocial behaviour contracts.

Now, however, we find that community safety funding, which is allocated to every local authority in the country to tackle the causes of crime, has been cut by a massive 60% in just two years. I do not want to see all the progress undermined or even going into reverse. I fear that almost all these joint initiatives—patrollers and street wardens, CCTV, alley-gating and other projects—will be severely reduced or stopped altogether. We cannot afford to regress into a silo mentality, with the police pushing costs on to the NHS, councils and housing association, and councils pushing costs on to the police or other agencies. Total Place, an idea led by the Labour Government, ensured a holistic joint approach across agencies, and it worked.

It is clear that the Government are letting all their policies be driven by short-sighted cost considerations. As I said at the start of my contribution, the police officers and staff in Greater Manchester police and all across the country do a great job in increasingly tough circumstances. Surely it is only right that we give them the proper finance, resources and tools to do the job well. That is what our communities want, it is what they demand and it is what they deserve.