Policing

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

As it happens, I was in Gloucester yesterday supporting the Labour candidate in Gloucestershire, and one of the main aspects of her campaigning was to keep policing in touch with local people by maintaining police stations in areas where there are high levels of crime. The same will be true in London. That is because Government Members have forced through 20% cuts in the policing budget. That means the loss of 15,000 officers by 2015, which is a conservative estimate. Ultimately, the number of front-line officers lost in the past two years—6,778—is already more than the police inspector intended to date.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is bandying a lot of numbers about. We have a candidate standing in the county formerly known as Humberside who spent £500 million trying to close down our regional fire control centres. That would pay for a large number of police officers. What does he think about that candidate, Lord Prescott?

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[Damian Green]

I do not need to give the hon. Gentleman a prediction, because I can tell him what is happening to crime in Leicestershire. Crime in Leicestershire is down 5% under this Government and I hope that he will welcome that change.

The inspectorate has confirmed what Ministers have said all along—that the front line of policing is being protected. We know that chief constables are prioritising the front line, because they plan to increase the proportion of officers on the front line from 83% in March 2010 to 89% in March 2015. Protecting the front line does not mean staying exactly the same, it is about the service that the public receive. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary says that the service is being maintained, and I hope that Opposition Members will have the politeness to listen to it.

[Andrew Percy]

May I take the Minister back to policing numbers? My dearly valued colleagues from the Labour party in Humberside will be able to confirm that police numbers there fell in 2007, for the very same reasons that he has outlined here today, and there was zero opposition among local Labour politicians.

[Damian Green]

As ever, my hon. Friend points out the inadequacy of Labour arguments in Humberside and elsewhere. Since he brings up the subject of numbers, I am happy to tell him that in this Government’s time in office, crime in Humberside has fallen by 12%—a particularly good performance, I think he will agree.

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[Andrew Percy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Karl Turner]

Not at the moment.

In the time remaining, I want to concentrate on police and crime commissioners. Despite my reservations about police and crime commissioners, I am reassured that Labour has chosen so strong a candidate as my predecessor, the right hon. Lord Prescott, who I know will definitely act as a final line of defence against privatisation.

[Andrew Percy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Karl Turner]

Not at the moment.

Lord Prescott is worried about the fundamental changes to policing and considers them to be extremely alarming. It is unacceptable to put private security officers in areas where police have responsibility. Lord Prescott was quite right to point out recently that private employees will not be accountable and will be responsible only to private employers.

In conclusion, there are serious concerns about creeping privatisation in the police service. The Peelian principles of policing with the consent of the community must be upheld. I am absolutely sure that Lord Prescott will not only do that, but raise awareness of the campaign in Humberside. I am convinced that he will be duly elected.

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[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). She made a thoughtful speech and although I did not necessarily agree with everything she said, I have an image of the hon. Lady on a horse single-handedly fighting crime in Wigan. I hope it will not come to that but, if it does, I am sure she will do a wonderful job.

The elections for police and crime commissioner are incredibly important. When the proposals were first suggested I was a little nervous about them because of the cost involved in putting the elections together. However, as the campaign developed—a very vigorous election campaign is going on in east Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire at the moment—I became sold on the reforms for a number of reasons.

I was interested in comments by the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who said, I think, that if turnout is low, we should perhaps consider revisiting the issue and look at whether we should abolish the proposals. If that is the case, I simply point to low turnouts in European parliamentary elections—I would support the right hon. Gentleman were he to propose abolishing the European Parliament on the basis of turnout alone. I do not think, however, that we should necessarily read too much into the turnout figures, and there are plenty of councillors up and down the country who were elected on a low turnout. Given the timing of the elections, I believe there will be a reasonable turnout in the former county of Humberside area. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) said, there is appetite for the elections in our area.

Replacing the police authority had become necessary. In 10 years serving as a local councillor, I never served as a member of the police authority, and nor did my Labour or Conservative ward colleagues. Therefore, the residents of the ward I represented never had a direct link into the Humberside police authority. Some people were fortunate enough to have a councillor who happened to be on the police authority, but the likelihood of that happening was minimal.

Similarly, police authorities could not be held to account at the ballot box, because most members were not elected members of local authorities, and independent appointees and people from the Home Office were also members. I never bought the idea that the police authority was electable. I suspect that many more of the good burghers of Brigg and Goole can name the candidates for the PCC elections than can name the last chairman of the police authority.

That is partly owing to the fact that Lord Prescott is doing what the Government want—he is ensuring a high-profile campaign in Humberside. I have found a good appetite in east Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire for the elections. People want to know why somebody who spent £500 million trying to close our regional FiReControl should get the job. They want to know why somebody who spent £60,000 on foreign trips should get the job. They want to know why somebody wants the job when, in the Yorkshire Post in August this year, he described his current job in the following terms:

“The House of Lords is a bit like a job centre, you have to go down there to get paid expenses, and it just gets totally tiring.”

I can understand why the people of Brigg and Goole want to know why that man should have the job.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend raises some good points. He is absolutely right that interest in the candidates for the election is very high. Many of my constituents want to know why the wife of the former Member of Parliament for Gloucestershire, who campaigned specifically to abolish to Gloucestershire constabulary, is now standing to be the police commissioner for that very force. Does my hon. Friend agree that some curiosities are emerging?

[Andrew Percy]

All I can say in response to my hon. Friend is that you literally could not make it up. It gets more ridiculous by the day.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes has made clear, the Conservatives have a very good candidate. They have lit the touch paper on the campaign locally with an exciting idea to charge drunks for wasting police time—that very good proposal needs to be explored. The shadow Minister talked about raising the turnout. I do not want him to come to Brigg and Goole, but he should visit my website, where he can learn of the vigorous campaign in the area. We have had a lot of street surgeries in Brigg and Goole, and many of my constituents have received four or five communications in the past few months. We are finding that there is a lot of interest, and we have a responsibility to try to get the turnout up.

The right hon. Gentleman might find—because of the high-profile Labour candidate and the exciting ideas of the Conservative candidate—that there is an appetite for the campaign. It might not manifest itself in an 80% to 90% turnout on 15 November, and I am not pretending we will get to those figures, but people know about the election, and if they want to take part in it, they can.

As I have said, I served as a local councillor for 10 years in my area. In some ways, the previous Government’s record on crime was very good. I was a bit nervous about the introduction of PCSOs and wondered what would happen, but it was a very good idea. I pay tribute to the previous Government for their work on PCSOs. However, it is not quite as has been presented. As I pointed out in an intervention, there was a reduction in police numbers in the Humberside force area back in 2007, but we did not see a single Labour Member locally campaigning against it. Labour Members now campaign against reductions in police numbers, but in 2007 they made the case for removing police officers and replacing them with civilians.

Although good things happened on crime under the previous Government, there was a 400% to 500% increase in the local police precept. The good people of east Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire could not hold anyone to account for that directly. When they get a police and crime commissioner, they will at least be able to hold to account the person who is charging them for their local policing.