Crime and Policing

Debate between Anna Soubry and Hazel Blears

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate addressing issues that affect every one of our communities, and it is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart), who gave a thoughtful analysis, particularly in respect of big organisations not necessarily having to be remote and the possibility of their being underpinned by responsive local units, which is interesting in terms of policy development.

In common with many Opposition Members, I am disappointed and frustrated by the Government’s decision not to protect the funds for front-line policing. It has frequently been said today that, if Labour had won the election, we would have had to make cuts, and that is absolutely right, but the shadow Home Secretary was very clear that the cuts in the Home Office would have come from changing overtime patterns and from looking at procurement and issues such as effectiveness, productivity and efficiency, and that they certainly would not have come from neighbourhood police teams, police community support officers and all the other things every one of our constituents values. This Government need to think long and hard before cutting the number of police officers and PCSOs, who are the backbone of our police service at local level.

I want to say a few words about the Home Secretary’s recent speech at Coin street, in which she declared that it is time to move beyond the antisocial behaviour order. I understand that this Government are desperate to paint everything they have inherited from Labour as unfit for purpose, but I think that in respect of ASBOs they are putting politics before people. Over the last 13 years as Member of Parliament for Salford and as Police Minister and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, I have seen at first hand the damage that antisocial behaviour can cause to communities, with gangs thinking that they rule their estates and are the rule of law, and with innocent and vulnerable families being intimidated and harassed. The whole quality of life of a community can be brought down by the actions of a few.

I well remember the days when the police would turn up and officers would simply say, “I’m really sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. I haven’t got the powers to be able to deal with these ‘low-level, petty’ crimes, so there’s nothing I can do to help you and your family.” That is exactly why we introduced ASBOs in the first place—so that they could be part of a range of tools to tackle what were becoming intolerable pressures on communities.

The Home Secretary has talked about antisocial behaviour orders being a top-down, centralised mechanism from Whitehall, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Home Office guidance actually says:

“It is for local agencies to decide on the most appropriate intervention for tackling antisocial behaviour based on…what will work best locally.”

Local agencies do use ASBOs in very different ways: the approach is sometimes very different in inner-city areas, such as my constituency, from the approach taken in some rural areas up and down the country, and that is as it should be. Local agencies, including the local council and the probation service—all those people who work together—should be asking, “What is the problem? What range of tools do we have to deal with it? Where can they most appropriately be deployed?” In some cases, that will involve acceptable behaviour contracts, exclusion orders or parenting orders. We have introduced a good set of tools to tackle these problems, so to try to pretend that ASBOs are some kind of top-down, Whitehall-imposed mechanism is simply wrong.

In Greater Manchester, extensive use has been made of these powers and the result has been very impressive; we have brought safety and security to people who felt that they had been abandoned by the police in the past. In Salford, the level of antisocial behaviour has fallen year on year; since 2006, it has reduced by 22.6%, which is a massive shift. Crime and antisocial behaviour was the biggest issue facing my constituents, but in the past couple of years more people have moved into Salford than have left, reversing a trend of the past quarter of a century. One of the fundamental reasons why people are now moving to the city is that they feel safe and secure. It is a great place to live, and businesses and families are coming to it. Without the powers on tackling antisocial behaviour, we would not have reached that point.

Of course, I would be the last person to say that those powers are a silver bullet or the complete solution, because they are not and they have their flaws. The breach rate is pretty high, but that is going to be the case because ASBOs are often used on people who are out of control, people who are prolific offenders with hundreds of incidents behind them and, as the shadow Home Secretary said, people who have reached the severe end of punishment after many other approaches have been tried. Even so, more than 40% of ASBOs are not breached—the antisocial behaviour stops. Let us also look beyond the headline figures. When action is taken after a first breach, 65% of people stop their antisocial behaviour. The figure is 86% in respect of a second breach and, provided action is taken, after three breaches nearly 95% of people say, “Okay, enough is enough, we are going to start behaving reasonably.” So we have to persevere and we have to give ASBOs a chance to work. In conjunction with the range of other programmes available, including family intervention projects, which have been one of the most innovative things that we have done, bringing all the services together to tackle the underlying problems of antisocial behaviour, ASBOs have meant that we have been pretty effective.

Protecting people so that they can live in peace and safety in their communities has to be the top priority of any Government, and the Home Secretary has to live up to that challenge. If her desire to re-examine the powers on tackling antisocial behaviour is about making things easier and simpler, and about stripping out the bureaucracy, sorting out the criminal justice system and making sure that we are not mired in all of that difficulty, she will have my support in doing that. If, however, it means that we are going to water ASBOs down, diluting them, making them more difficult to obtain and putting obstacles in the way of the police and local authorities, I will oppose that tooth and nail, because our responsibility is to protect the communities that we serve.

We have heard a lot today about the further regulation of CCTV. I am none the wiser as to what “further regulation” means, but I know that CCTV, in my city and up and down the country, has made a huge difference to protecting local people. The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) confirmed that she wanted less CCTV, whereas other Members have said that they do not want that. I am not sure what the coalition view is, but this is beginning to sound like a jigsaw of policies to me and I would welcome some clarity.

In March, an incident in Eccles was caught on CCTV. Six violent males with a huge history of prolific offending were involved in a stabbing, and the information was collected on CCTV. Two of the men were seen in possession of large kitchen knives, waving them around and going into a store. A stabbing took place and no complaint was made—the person who was stabbed did not want to co-operate with the police—and the only possible evidence was from the CCTV. As a result, a prosecution was brought. They were charged with section 18 wounding, violent disorder and possession of an offensive weapon. They were sentenced to two years in prison and received ASBOs on conviction that prevent them from associating in the future. None of that would have been possible without access to the information from the CCTV.

[Anna Soubry]

The right hon. Lady will know that I said that I want fewer CCTV cameras. That should be the aim of everybody in this Chamber, because people should be able to walk the streets free from the fear of crime and from actual crime. That should be our ultimate aim. She makes a big mistake if she thinks that CCTV is some great panacea. In my experience as a criminal barrister, in many cases involving CCTV evidence, I have had clients who have told me that they went down that alleyway to commit the offence because there was no CCTV. The danger of CCTV is that it pushes criminality down the alleyways into other places. The real solution is to tackle the causes of crime.

[Hazel Blears]

Well, I wish the hon. Lady the best of British luck when she goes to her constituents and says, “We’ll do nothing for years and years; we must tackle the issue of the causes of crime.” Of course we must, but if she wants to stand up in front of her voters and say that she wants to see less CCTV in her community, I wish her all the luck in the world in putting forward that argument—it certainly would not wash with my constituents in Salford.

The Government’s policy on DNA is an absolute mistake. The shadow Home Secretary has gone through all the detailed evidence on that and the overriding factor for me is the fact that in Scotland the Scottish police want to change to the system that we were promoting. They see that it makes sense, that it is evidence-based and that it will result in the capture of more serious murderers and rapists. Some 10% of the 800 people who were caught through DNA would have escaped under the Government’s proposed system and the prospect of having 80 murderers and rapists roaming the streets of this country who could have been brought to justice is one that I would find difficult to defend.

The list goes on. Not only will we have cuts to funding, but we will have cuts to police powers on antisocial behaviour, CCTV and DNA. I want to say some words about the most serious threat that faces our communities and about counter-terrorism. What happened on 7 July brought fear to our communities and devastation to many families. I would say to the Government that there is no easy way to combat terrorism. The threat to the UK has not diminished and that is why, when we are considering the review of counter-terrorism powers, we must be extremely careful to get the balance right between security and liberty and must not be tempted to shy away from difficult and sometimes controversial choices, such as control orders, that are not easy but might be necessary to protect our citizens from harm. When the Government are considering that review, I urge them to be prepared to think very carefully about getting that balance right.

We have talked about the cuts in police numbers. I understand that in Greater Manchester that would lead to something like 300 fewer police on our streets, which would have a huge impact in our city.

My final point is about coherence. When we were in government, we did not do everything perfectly. I am sure that we did not succeed in everything that we wanted to do. However, we had a strategy to tackle every level of crime in this country, from antisocial behaviour to crimes against the person, serious and organised crime and terrorism. I do not feel that under this Government we have any kind of coherent strategy in place at all. It is about cuts, about pandering to this lobby and about caving in to this bit of populism. I genuinely feel that, if we are to protect the people of this country and to meet the highest responsibility of Government, we need a proper strategy. We will have less money, fewer powers, less effectiveness, more crime and less safety for the people whom we represent.