Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are short of time, but I want to accommodate the question on religious belief.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

8. What her plans are for equalities on the grounds of religious belief.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Maria Miller)]

We will continue to support religious freedoms strongly. For example, the Government believe that people should be able to wear crosses openly at work, and we are pleased about the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the Eweida case. The right of people to manifest their religion or belief at work is a vital freedom.

[Miss McIntosh]

What weight is accorded to religious beliefs in draft legislation such as the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill? Should it not be equal, in the context of discrimination, to the weight accorded to gender?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend, who takes a keen interest in this issue, will know that religious freedom is guaranteed under article 9 of the European convention on human rights. However, just as it is right for people to be able to express their religious beliefs, people in this country have a right not to be discriminated against. The recent rulings in the European Court show that, in law, we have the balance about right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

How many PCSOs should be employed by a particular police force is a decision that will be taken by that police force. The Metropolitan police force has indicated that it wants to change the number of PCSOs in order to increase the number of police constables it has available.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will the Home Secretary join me in paying tribute to the young police officer who sadly died on his way to an emergency call on Saturday? In recognising this tragic loss, will she also take the opportunity to recognise the role that rural police officers play in sparsely populated areas such as North Yorkshire?

[Mrs May]

Yes, I indeed pay tribute to PC Andrew Bramma, who, as my hon. Friend said, died following a collision while answering an emergency call. Once again, this shows the dangers that our police officers face on a day-to-day basis. Our sympathies are with him, his family and his colleagues. I would also like to offer my sympathies to the family of PC Tony Sweeney, QPM, who died on 27 December after falling ill on his return from work. Our police officers bravely go about their duties day by day; we owe them a great debt.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

As I have said, police forces must make savings because we have to deal with the deficit, but they can do so in a way that protects front-line policing. There is no reason why there should be damage to the front line if they drive savings elsewhere. I have pointed out to the House before, and will do so again, that a third of human resources in police forces are not on the front line. Some 25,000 police officers are in back-room jobs. That is where police forces should begin.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

In making the police settlement and deploying the police’s forces, will the Minister ensure that rural police forces have an element of funding related to rurality and sparsity?

[Nick Herbert]

We do ensure that, and I understand my hon. Friend’s concern about the issue. I will, in fact, be speaking about rural crime at an Association of Chief Police Officers conference later this week. It is important that we tackle such matters, and they will all be taken into account when we consider the specific allocations for police forces for the third and fourth years of the spending round.

Public Disorder

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

As I have just said and as I have made clear to the police from when I first took on this role, I will always back officers who do the right thing and operate within the law. Appropriate action must be taken against officers who do the wrong thing, but we will back officers who do the right thing and I will back them as Home Secretary.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs May]

I ask my hon. Friend to bear with me for a few minutes because I want to talk about another way in which the police response could have been better, which is in the harnessing, sharing and analysis of intelligence.

Even in the best of economic times, we would not have the resources to keep up this level of deployment continuously, so public order planning and intelligence will need to be considerably better. This is not the first time that criminals with plans to disrupt life in our towns and cities have used technology to plot their crimes. Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook and messaging services such as BlackBerry Messenger have been used to co-ordinate criminality and stay one step ahead of the police. I will therefore convene a meeting with ACPO, the police and representatives from the social media industry to work out how we can improve the technological and related legal capabilities of the police.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I noticed the hon. Gentleman’s nerves when holding his piece of paper to read out what was clearly another Whips’ question, but I say to hon. Members that serious issues need to be addressed in this House about what the Government are doing, and what this House should be doing, to address the serious criminality that is taking place.

Let us deal with the wider problems this raises about resources for our police and the views that are being expressed to us—and, I am sure, to Members on the Government Benches in their constituencies—about the scale and pace of the policing cuts across the country. The Prime Minister claimed that he was making only 6% cuts, but he used cash figures, not real figures, when he knows that inflation is high and that the cuts set out in the spending review—according to the Treasury’s figures, not mine—were for a 20% cut in the Government’s police budget. The independent Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary report makes it clear that 16,000 police officers are going as a result—the equivalent of every one of the police officers on London’s streets last night will go.

Any of us who were on London’s streets last night will know quite how many police officers were on the streets of our capital. We have heard the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary tell us that front-line, visible policing will not be hit, but, with respect, it is being hit already. The HMIC has confirmed that front-line officers will be lost this year. The Prime Minister himself used a figure of 7,000 officers in back-office jobs, but 16,000 will be cut.

We agree that the police need to make savings and efficiencies, that they need to do more to get police officers out on to the streets and that they can sustain sensible reductions in their budgets, but the cuts set out by the Government go too far, too fast, and we do not agree that now is the time to cut 16,000 police officers across the country.

[Miss McIntosh]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, if she can tell me whether she supports cutting 16,000 police officers at a time such as this.

[Miss McIntosh]

I think the right hon. Lady would agree that recent events have united those of us living in the north and the south and in rural and urban areas. May I take her back to the time of the previous Government, who introduced a raft of community support officers with no power of arrest and had a load of police officers with the power of arrest filling in forms? Does she think that that was the best use of police resources at that time?

[Yvette Cooper]

I think it was right to increase the number of police officers and to introduce police community support officers. PCSOs have done an excellent job across the country, working with police officers and communities, and have been an important part of addressing some of the tensions, concerns and difficulties that we have faced in the past few days.

Today, the Prime Minister again ruled out reopening the police budget. I implore him to think again. The newspapers report that Ministers now have doubts, and I urge him to listen to them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I do not accept that the reductions in head count in that police force or in any other will impact on the front line, and I very much doubt that the chief constable would agree with that. I remind the hon. Gentleman of what the Home Affairs Committee concluded in its recent report:

“We accept that there is no simple relationship between numbers of police officers and levels of crime. The reduction in the police workforce need not inevitably lead to a rise in crime.”

That is a cross-party Committee.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend that this is about how police forces are deploying their officers. In North Yorkshire, we have a particular problem with rural crime. I would be most grateful if he would meet me and other rural Members to discuss this issue. Farms and farm property, in particular, are being trashed because we simply do not have enough cover in rural areas.

[Nick Herbert]

I would of course be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the issue. I understand the importance of dealing with crime in rural areas just as we must deal with crime elsewhere. The police cannot act alone, and it is very important that there are effective partnerships with, for instance, the farming community so that, where possible, there can be a concerted effort to deal with this problem.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I will not be drawn on the European budget, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman what the previous Government spent too much on—red tape that tied up police officers and wasted police time. When we had a position whereby police officers were spending more time on paperwork than on patrol, we knew that something had gone wrong: it was costly and it reduced police availability.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Can the Minister tell us how we got to the sorry state in which warranted police officers are inside the building doing the police work and non-warranted officers—community support officers—are on the streets without the power of arrest?

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I agree that the British crime survey plays a valuable role, but the problem is that, as the hon. Gentleman knows, it is not complete. For instance, it misses out the recording of crimes against young people. Last week, the experimental figures showed that there may be up to 2 million crimes that were previously being missed by the British crime survey. Police recorded figures also have their problems. We need measures of crime in which the public have confidence, and we will be making further announcements about that in due course.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that many crimes that were previously dealt with as breaches of the peace are now dealt with as antisocial behaviour? Will the Government now grasp the nettle and tackle such crimes using police forces, rather than councils, which are not open over the weekend and in the evening, when most of those crimes are committed?

[Nick Herbert]

It is important to convey the message that antisocial behaviour may be activity that is criminal and should be treated as such. The public still feel that there is too much antisocial behaviour in their neighbourhoods, and they want it to be prioritised by police forces. The best way to do that is not only by policing but through effective partnerships on the ground, using the full range of resources that can be provided by local authorities, other agencies and the police family working together.