UK Elections: Abuse and Intimidation

Debate between Andrew Percy and Lord Hanson of Flint

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Westminster Hall

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

I will try to be brief, and I have already made a couple of interventions.

I am a Tory in Humberside, which is not an easy place to be a Tory. I was a councillor for 10 years—one of two Tories on Hull City Council—and have been through four council elections and four general elections. I am not afraid of abuse and insults, something I am pretty used to, but what is happening now is on a different scale.

I have been called “Tory scum” for years and had insults in the streets, and I am pretty used to that. It is part of the process, and although we might say that it should not happen, it does. What happened at this election, however, was different. I never thought that in my own constituency someone would come up to me and shout the name of the Leader of the Opposition, then describe me as, “Israeli and Zionist scum.” I never thought that my posters would be ripped down and posted on social media under the phrase, “Fuck the Tories #CorbynIn”. I never thought that my staff would be spat at in the street by activists, by people naming the Leader of the Opposition as their motivation for calling my staff “Tory fucking scum.” That is what is happening in our democracy.

It is true that there is abuse on all sides, on the left and on the right. I condemn it absolutely. What is different about what is happening now is that there is an assault on our democracy and on one particular political party. This dehumanisation of my side of politics is being motivated and encouraged by the language of some of the leaders of the Labour party. There are very decent Labour members—the vast mass of them—and Members of Parliament, but the abuse has been happening to some of them as well.

To have leaders addressing rallies where there were images of the severed head of the Prime Minister, but that not being called out, and to have leaders accusing people of murder or saying, “Ditch the bitch!”, but that not being called out, is an assault on our democratic values and our processes. It has to stop. It is the worst I have encountered in any election and it is not acceptable. In this particular regard, it is coming from one particular faction. We should be honest about that.

[David Hanson (in the Chair)]

Luke Pollard and Rehman Chishti have literally three minutes between them. Luke Pollard, you have a minute and a half, maximum.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Percy and Lord Hanson of Flint

Monday 24th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

My understanding is that we hope to complete the passage of that legislation before the Dissolution of Parliament. The change the hon. Gentleman refers to has been broadly welcomed by very many people, including, of course, the hon. Gentleman, who campaigned for it.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

9. What assessment he has made of trends in the number of affordable homes to (a) rent and (b) buy since 2010.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Percy and Lord Hanson of Flint

Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Last week, I chaired my first future high streets forum, where we heard about the excellent work undertaken in the digital pilots across Gloucester, Cheltenham and Stroud. That is an important tool through which we can attract people back to our high streets. We will be doing further work through the forum on these digital roll-outs.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

In my constituency, many small towns, such as Flint, Mold and Holywell, have to impose car parking charges because of the financial situation that they are in, yet large, out-of-town retail developments such as Cheshire Oaks, which is just over the border in England, have free parking. Has the Minister had a chance to look at how we can help to support small businesses on the issue of town centre parking?

[Andrew Percy]

I would be more than happy to welcome the right hon. Gentleman to North Lincolnshire Council, where, when we took control from the Labour party, we scrapped parking charges, introduced two hours of free parking and all-day free parking on Saturdays and Sundays. It had a wonderful effect: it brought people back to the high street. I would be delighted to see him in Brigg and Goole any time soon to discuss the matter further.

Agricultural Wages Board

Debate between Andrew Percy and Lord Hanson of Flint

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I am genuinely worried that wages will fall when the AWB is abolished, and I am not the only one: the Farmers Union of Wales, which I will come on to later and which represents the bulk of farmers in my area and other farmers in Wales, supports the official Opposition’s stance against the abolition of the AWB. There is a division of opinion and we need to expose it.

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

I am not sure that I follow the right hon. Gentleman’s logic, so could he talk us through it a little more? If 90% of pay is already above the AWB’s minimum, how come it has not already fallen back to that minimum?

[Mr Hanson]

If the hon. Gentleman will let me develop my argument, he will see that this is not just about pay. He was not here at the time, but the Secretary of State kept me up for 36 hours so he could vote against the minimum wage. He did not do that so that wages could rise; he did it so that wages would not rise. My worry about the abolition of the AWB is based on exactly the same principle: it will remove a floor that protects the work force in my constituency.

As I have said, my constituency depends on agriculture and more than 11% of my constituents work in agriculture. Courses in horticulture and agriculture at Northop college bring in people to train in agriculture. These are key issues. Although Government Members may view minimum rates of pay, overtime, holiday entitlement, sick pay, rates of pay for young workers, compassionate leave, rest breaks, maximum deductions for tied housing, allowances for keeping working dogs and payment of on-call and night allowances as issues of regulation, to my constituents they are bread and butter matters that impact on their lives and they want their representative and others who represent rural areas in Parliament to stand up and speak on their behalf. They are not idle issues.

I am getting a bit long in the tooth. I have been here for 21 years and the first Bill Committee I sat on was for the 1992 employment Bill that abolished every single wages board apart from the AWB. That Bill was taken through this House by the then Member for Stirling, the now noble Lord Forsyth, who is not known for his left leanings, but who decided to maintain the AWB because he recognised, even at that time, that it was crucial for conditions as well as wages.

The national minimum wage has been mentioned. I was very proud to vote for the national minimum wage and am grateful that my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) is here. It was one of the greatest achievements of the Labour Government. The then Opposition kept this House up late into the evening because they did not support it. Why should we trust a party that does not support the national minimum wage when it says that this measure will maintain or improve pay and conditions?

Policing

Debate between Andrew Percy and Lord Hanson of Flint

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?

Police

Debate between Andrew Percy and Lord Hanson of Flint

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I spent 10 years as a local authority councillor, representing an area in the city of Hull where there was a huge increase in antisocial behaviour. I spent most of my time campaigning to get more police on the streets. My primary concern throughout was visible, effective policing. I suspect that we—my constituents in my council ward and I—never obsessed about total numbers; we obsessed about getting people on to the streets to fight crime. I have the same obsession today.

I note the bizarre position of Labour politicians. They oppose cuts but have confirmed in the House that they would significantly cut the policing budget. They were also very supportive of cuts before the election. In the run-up to the general election, the probation service in Humberside had its budget cut by 20%, but not a single Labour politician was on the streets in Brigg and Goole or elsewhere in Humberside to criticise that. Perhaps—heaven forbid—people say one thing in government and another when they are in opposition.

On the previous Labour Government’s record on policing, I was intrigued by the intervention of the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley), who spoke of those glory days of policing in North Yorkshire. The beauty of being a born-and-bred Yorkshireman—I have lived there all my life—is that I remember seeing on television, during those Labour years, North Yorkshire police force condemning its traffic officers and vehicles to the yards because it did not have enough money to pay for diesel.

[Mr Hanson]

rose—

[Andrew Percy]

I will happily give way to the shadow Minister—he can tell us whether he is in line with the shadow Home Secretary on freezing police pay, because the House is entertained by that spat.

[Mr Hanson]

Will the hon. Gentleman check the facts when he goes to the Library of the House after this debate? He will find that there were 126,000 police officers in 1997 and 144,000 to 145,000 in 2010, which is an increase of about 20,000 police officers on the beat and on the streets. He will also find that there was a reduction in crime of 43% over the period.

[Andrew Percy]

I am disappointed that the shadow Minister did not take that opportunity to explain why the same Labour politicians who now criticise police cuts in Humberside failed to utter a word in 2009 about the reduction in numbers. I will gladly give way again if he wishes to explain that to the House and my constituents, who I am sure are watching.

I turn to the record of policing and the crime figures, which people often bandy around. I am a cynic when it comes to crime figures because I think that what people see on the ground is different from recorded crime, although I note that I used to criticise crime figures while in opposition and that the Labour party is now criticising this Government’s crime figures—so perhaps we are all guilty of flip-flopping on this matter.

Nevertheless, I recall that when I was a local councillor trying to deal with a significant increase in the number of recorded cases of antisocial behaviour, police precepts in Humberside rose by 500%, and our local police force spent lots of money building police stations for its so-called neighbourhood policing agenda before abandoning or having to find alternative uses for them after changing their minds again.

I also recall £6 million of Humberside’s policing budget being spent on policing overtime, despite the huge waiting list of people wishing to be specials. I remember chairing the licensing committee when 24-hour drinking came in and seeing the huge impact that it had on city centre drinking in the city of Hull, as it was known then. No resources were provided for that.

I also recall a huge amount of central control. Despite what was said about policing numbers, in the area that I represented and in many rural areas of Humberside, across east Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire, under diktats from central Government, policing resources were drawn into Hull city centre and other town centres, at the insistence of the Home Office, in order to deal with volume crime. That left communities such as mine with no police cover during evenings and weekends.

I question whether these increases in police numbers resulted in an increase in the numbers of front-line officers. Perhaps it is a generational thing, but people always say to me, “You never see a police officer on the street.” People said that 10 years ago when I started as a councillor, but perhaps they said the same thing 10 years before. Perceptions vary, however, so I note that Labour’s record on policing and crime might not be quite as presented by some Opposition Members.

It is interesting that the shadow Home Secretary confirmed that she would cut police budgets across the country. That might be some welcome honesty in the politics of the Opposition—we do not often hear much clarity on their budgetary policies. Nevertheless, she admitted that she would cut the policing budget significantly, so we all seem to agree that we cannot continue to invest the same amount of money as we have in the past three years, and that we must find another way forward.

As the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice made clear, people need to work more closely together. Over the past 10 years in one east Yorkshire community, a new fire station, a new ambulance station and a new police station have been built—nobly, perhaps—but with public money and in isolation from each other, with all the extra costs that that entails. I meet with some resistance when I talk to the police, because although they talk about wanting to work together more closely, it is always with other police forces. I am not sure that they fully understand the need to work together more closely with other emergency services and local authorities.

It always struck me as a bit bonkers that we had a chief executive for the fire authority, a chief executive for the police authority and different financial officers. Surely those back-office costs could be merged. My chief constable, Tim Hollis, is an excellent chief constable and I support a lot of his work in Humberside, but although he is open to working together more closely, it concerns me a little that that seems to be about working with other police forces, because there are real opportunities to engage with local authorities in order to reduce some of these costs.

Local authorities have a role as well. One of the two local authorities that I represent, North Lincolnshire council, which, as Members will remember, was the only council to go from Labour control to Conservative control last May—thanks to all the gains in Brigg and Goole—is considering using some of the council’s budget to support community policing across my area in order to meet the policing challenges. Admittedly, that is not new—for several years from 2000, despite the apparently fantastic settlement from the Labour Government at the time, the Labour council in Hull still felt the need to put £1 million of council tax payers’ money into policing. Therefore, there is a role for local authorities.

We have a choice. We can stand up and do the cheap politics, while also wanting to cut the police budget significantly, or we can try to find local solutions. I would love it if we could pepper money around all over the shop and put police officers on every street corner—we would all like that to a lesser or greater extent—but in reality policing budgets are under pressure, so we can either moan from the sidelines or we can engage with our local police forces and local councils, and have them come up with solutions and ways of doing things smarter and more cheaply, and, if necessary, use some of the additional resources. Local authorities employ thousands of people, and there is the potential for working together more closely than has been the case, although I accept it happens in some areas. That will be the challenge for us all as we move forward.

We might not like the position that we are in, but we know why we are in it, although I have not felt the need to remind the House of it. We have to be grown-up about this. What concerns me most is that by making cheap politics out of it, people are undermining confidence in policing, which we all know is very important.