Police and Crime Commissioners

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, along with all my colleagues, I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, for proposing this debate and winning the ballot. I fully support his position in relation to Wiltshire.

I have to confess that when police and crime commissioners were introduced, in a Bill in this House, I was highly suspicious of the whole idea, but I have come to realise that they can be—although they are not always—a force for good. Clearly, they all need to learn from the terrible situation in Wiltshire, and, indeed, the other warnings that noble Lords have given this morning. I have been particularly impressed by Ron Hogg, the PCC for the Durham constabulary. He and Mike Barton, the chief constable, have shown that a PCC can think outside the box and support his chief constable to follow sensible but radical policies. If I dare say it, I think that chief constables can be a bit conformist. I am surrounded by three former chief constables and feel a bit hemmed in here—I do not want to misbehave.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

Whisper the next bit.

[Baroness Meacher]

I want to talk about Durham police service’s excellent drug policies—that will be no surprise to anybody—in the context of the recognition of Durham as the leading police service in this country. For three years Durham has achieved an “outstanding” rating for effectiveness in reducing crime and keeping communities safe, and Durham has the third-highest level of public confidence of all police forces. This outstanding performance has been achieved while leading the way with policies that could be described as being soft on drug users and even soft on low-level drug dealers, something I think police services generally are not keen to be reputed to support.

PCC Ron Hogg continues to call for drugs to be decriminalised, so that users will not fear being treated as criminals when considering whether to seek medical advice to help with their addiction. Portugal has proved the success of this policy over 20 years and I think we need to take it seriously. Increasingly, other PCCs are supporting the call for drug policy reform and this has to be welcomed. Durham has lots of other innovative programmes and I shall refer to just two. The Checkpoint diversion scheme has reduced reoffending by about 10%, releasing resources, of course, for more police officers. Under the Checkpoint initiative, introduced in 2015, offenders are selected for diversion to non-criminal justice interventions. The chief constable, Mike Barton, has proposed putting all drug addicts who are arrested through Checkpoint in order to stabilise their lives and get them into treatment. Even some low-level dealers and those caught up at a low level in trafficking are included in Checkpoint: this is really radical stuff, I would say. These people will have been intimidated, pressured or coerced into working for the big guys—we all know about that. This is truly humane, but again, it is a massive resources issue.

Durham’s other target for reform is long-term heroin users: it recommends heroin assisted treatment centres, pioneered very successfully in Switzerland. This programme is costly but highly cost effective. On average, heroin addicts commit 80 crimes a month, according to the Swiss research. Does not treatment, rather than locking someone up in a cell, sound like a good idea for this group? The new Home Secretary has made clear his determination to achieve reform, at least for medical cannabis. I hope our Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, will invite the Home Secretary to visit Durham police, if he has not already done so, and urge him to encourage all PCCs and their chief constables to follow Durham’s example. He could cut crime drastically and save huge resources, as well as saving lives.