Policing and Crime Bill

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry]

There is no drought in Lancashire, but if the hon. Gentleman wants me to come to Coventry to do the rain dance, I am more than happy to do so if it is required.

Amendment 2, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling), has been signed by right hon. and hon. Members across the House. Having been involved in the Bill since Second Reading, it is clear to me and probably to everyone who has spoken on the Bill or served on the Committee that the recognition accorded to police and crime commissioners is at an all-time high. We first went to the polls on a wet November evening in my constituency to elect a police and crime commissioner. When I went knocking on people’s doors saying, “This is an important national election. You must come out and vote”, I was met with blank faces. People did not know what the office had been created for and they did not understand what police and crime commissioners would do.

Everyone who heard the evidence session on the Bill, with some excellent contributions from police and crime commissioners all over the country, would say that that has now changed. I may fundamentally disagree with much of the evidence given by Vera Baird to the Committee, but I have heard of her. I listen to Radio 4 in the morning and I often hear her, usually beating up the Government. She is raising the profile of police and crime commissioners, as are police and crime commissioners across the country.

The general public like the idea of having one individual whom they can hold accountable for the performance of their local police service. The old police panel was remote. It was appointed and was therefore unaccountable. I compare that to the situation today with my local PCC. He has taken road shows all around Lancashire, going out there and talking to people about what they would like policing priorities to be over the next four years. I am slightly sceptical about his new-found fondness for going out and meeting the public. It seems like a last-ditch attempt to be re-elected. I hope that Andy Pratt, the Conservative candidate, who has 30 years’ service as a police officer, will win in Lancashire so that, like many other areas of the country, including Cheshire and Staffordshire, we can have our PCC all year round, not just every four years at elections.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

If a member of the public has a problem, are they no longer allowed to go to the police chief? Do they have to go to the police and crime commissioner, or are there two centres? Can people write to the chief of police and say, “I’m really worried about this”, or are they expected to go to the police and crime commissioner?

[Jake Berry]

There is nothing precluding people from writing to their local chief constable. As chief constables are primarily responsible for the operational work of their local police force, if the query related to an operational matter, I would recommend that people wrote to their chief constable. People like to raise matters with the police and crime commissioner as well, but that is one democratically accountable, known individual who can put pressure on the chief constable on their behalf. I am sure the chief constable would be happy to hear from someone living somewhere in Lancashire, but he might be quicker to reply to their letter if the police and crime commissioner had his foot on the chief constable’s throat about the issue—[Interruption.] Indeed, or the MP. Many people do come and see me.

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[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because that gives me the opportunity yet again to praise what the Fire Service College is doing in Moreton-in-Marsh. It is a large establishment on about 600 acres. It is on an old airfield, and it includes a runway used as a practice motorway on which motorway pile-ups can be simulated using real scrapped cars, so that the police, fire and ambulance services can then train in a big joint exercise. The college has offices they set on fire, and the police, fire and ambulance services can use that to train. It also has a ship it can set on fire. It has all sorts of huge facilities.

[Bob Stewart]

On a runway?

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Members of the fire service, the police and the ambulance service are amazing creatures. We often send them in one direction while we go in the other direction. The group of people who work in the fire service and in our other emergency services are a special breed. Many of them are ex-armed forces due to some of the training that we give in our armed forces. Sadly, not as many are coming through as there were in my time: I left the Army and went straight into Essex fire and rescue services. I applied to the Metropolitan police and the London fire service. I got accepted into both, but Essex offered me a flat. If the Met had offered me a flat, I probably would not be standing here now and would have retired a couple of years ago.

[Bob Stewart]

Friends of mine who are serving in the armed forces are finding it increasingly difficult to move into the police or the fire service. Could the Minister help in any way, because the training that the armed forces give to my friends is so important and should be utilised to make our police and fire services even better than they already are?

[Mike Penning]

This issue has been very close to my heart for some time. For instance, we have a real issue coming down the line with a shortage of heavy goods vehicle drivers, and yet some 40% of the armed forces leave with an HGV licence, as I did.

Many fire services around the country have not been recruiting recently, although I understand that some have started to recruit now, but the police are most certainly recruiting. The Metropolitan police have brought in the right policy of making sure that people serving in the police force in London can represent their community, so they come from the community they live in. When the commissioner first proposed this and said that it was the right thing to do, I said, “Be very careful, because you would have excluded me from joining the Met. Although I grew up in Edmonton, you would have said that I’d been away for five years and so would not be allowed to join the police force.”

The rule has been changed, and, quite rightly, the police force in London will now allow someone to join even if they have been in the armed forces for some time. This is a very important area, especially as the police are now recruiting extensively. Only the other day, I took the passing out parade at Hendon, with over 200 officers. I think that in excess of 2,000 officers are coming through training in London imminently.

Perhaps because of my background in the military and in the fire service, I understand that neither organisation likes change. I listened to the arguments made earlier about why there was opposition to PCCs possibly taking control of the fire service in a managerial way, in the same way as they took over from the police authorities. It is almost an identical argument that says, “What experience do they have? Surely it’s better that we let the councillors who have sat on the committee for 20 years, with all that experience, do it.”

The introduction of PCCs was fundamentally opposed by Her Majesty’s Opposition—I understand why—who had it in their manifesto to abolish them. They did not win the election for many reasons, not least because people such as Vera Baird and Paddy Tipping are excellent PCCs in their parts of the world. Vera Baird has absolutely transformed victim support in her part of the world, as have many others. I know the candidates up there will say, “You shouldn’t name names”, but actually we should give praise where it is due. There have been good independents. I want Conservative PCCs to win in every single seat, but we have to be pragmatic, and if others are elected, then let us make sure that we can work together.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) touched on the concerns about whether PCCs have the necessary experience. Some PCCs do have lots of experience within the police force, but that is not necessarily relevant. When the Prime Minister appointed me as shipping Minister, I said, “You do realise, Prime Minister, that my constituency is the furthest away from the sea in the whole country?” He said, “Yes, but you should question whether the way things have always been done is the right way.”

I use the example of armed guards on ships. When I arrived at the Department for Transport, we were having massive problems with Somali pirates. I simply said, “Why hasn’t the Royal Navy been able to do that job with the Marines—no navy in the whole world is more capable—and so allow people to protect their property?” So we convinced other countries and the International Maritime Organisation that we should allow that. I did not look at that from the perspective of a shipping person; I looked at it as an outside individual who was trying to say, “Let these people have an opportunity to do that.” That idea had been looked at by people who were much more experienced than I was in shipping, and it had been rejected on more than one occasion because it was not possible. I came in from the outside and said that it was possible.

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[Karen Bradley]

If the hon. Gentleman had been part of the Committee, he would have heard the extensive deliberations and debate that we had about that issue. In my response to the amendments later, I will come to the specific point about volunteers. I would like to hear the arguments before I respond, but I am aware that there are concerns, although I may not agree with them.

The new clause puts community support volunteers and policing support volunteers in the same position as police officers and police civilian staff. We are also taking the opportunity to make it explicit on the face of the 1968 Act that special constables are members of a police force for the purpose of that Act and therefore similarly do not require a certificate or authorisation under the 1968 Act when equipped with a defensive spray. This will avoid any doubt being created by the insertion of a specific reference to policing support and community support volunteers within the meaning of “Crown servant” in the Firearms Act.

[Bob Stewart]

I am sure the Minister will give an affirmative answer to my question. Can she confirm to people listening that anyone issued with such sprays will be fully trained in their use and that the sprays will not just be handed out?

[Karen Bradley]

My hon. and gallant Friend makes an important point and I can assure him that appropriate training will be given.

Government new clause 32 clarifies that designated community support volunteers or police support volunteers may be subject to inspection, just like any other member of a police force, and can be served with a notice requiring information or access to premises. As with other members of a police force, they would have no right of appeal against such a notice.

As I said, I will respond to the other amendments in this group when winding up the debate.

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[Jack Dromey]

That is absolutely right. I will mention something similar in a moment. If we have volunteers—I again stress that there is a long and honourable tradition of volunteers working in and with our police service—we must, to be frank, go the extra mile to ensure that they are not subject to risk or harm. If they are ill-trained and there is no framework of accountability, issuing them with CS gas and leaving them to get on with it might lead to very serious consequences indeed, not just for members of the public but for the volunteers themselves.

[Bob Stewart]

Forgive me; my experience is not with the police, but I know very well that the police service, just like the armed services, would not issue CS gas or the like without very strict controls and very strict training. I am quite sure that volunteers would not be given any less training in the use of such chemicals in pursuit of their duty.

[Jack Dromey]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I used to be chairman of the defence unions. I am proud of my long association with members of our armed forces, of which he was an admirable example. It is extraordinary—I have given some reasons for this, and I will come on to others—that there is no clarity about training and accountability. A proposal has simply been inserted in the Bill for volunteer PCSOs to be issued with CS gas and PAVA spray, which raises fundamental issues of concern. I suspect that if this was raised with members of the public in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, they would say, as was the case in Hove and in my constituency at the weekend, “What planet are they living on?”

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[Jack Dromey]

With respect, I disagree with the hon. Lady. If we look at the training received by the police, PCSOs and police staff, we see that there is guidance and that an agreement has been reached. The existing framework is very helpful, but as the Bill stands there is nothing for the new breed of volunteers that the Government seek to introduce. The hon. Lady might want to put that question to her own Front-Bench colleagues.

It is our very strong view that the use of CS gas and PAVA spray should be undertaken only by officers who are regularly trained in their usage and, importantly, in the law surrounding their use. In the words of Vera Baird:

“We have lost 861 police officers and 940 police staff since 2010 through government cuts which can’t be replaced by volunteers”.

She also said:

“many volunteers want to support the work of police officers—not to do their jobs for them. The use of CS gas and PAVA spray is something that should only be undertaken”

by sworn officers,

“who are regularly trained on their usage and importantly in the law surrounding their use”.

She is absolutely right. She went on:

“Rather than extending the role of volunteers, the Government needs to start funding police forces properly, to allow Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners to recruit more police officers, who can go on the beat and serve local communities.”

The Government need to have a proper conversation with the police and the public about what they see as the acceptable use of force by volunteers, in a context in which institutions such as the Independent Police Complaints Commission have already raised serious issues about the use of force by fully trained warranted officers. With regard to that proper conversation, only today we received a briefing from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which has already said about the proposals in the Bill that

“the development of volunteering in policing needs to be driven by a clear vision and strategic direction”

and that the Government have not fully articulated

“what role the reforms will play in moving towards a different and improved model of policing beyond how it may offer forces greater flexibility and reduce costs.”

To return to the proposal on CS and PAVA, our police service has and needs the power to use force where necessary when carrying out its duty to protect the public. It is clear that the public understand that, and indeed, expect and rely upon it. However, under the UK’s tradition of policing by consent, they also expect that those who use force will be properly trained and qualified, and there will be proper accountability. The Government simply have not made the case for the proposal and we will therefore be voting against it.

I hope that, even at this late stage, the Government will listen to, for example, Winston Roddick, the chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, who said about the proposal:

“I have serious reservations about it... I think that the proposal raises points of principle about arming members of the public to do something by the use of arms, which goes further than the common law principle of acting in reasonable self-defence.”––[Official Report, Policing and Crime Public Bill Committee, 15 March 2016; c. 51, Q67.]

[Bob Stewart]

The hon. Gentleman—he is actually a friend of mine—and I both know that we arm members of the public in our reserve forces. With training, they do exactly the same on operations as any normal regular soldier, and they are sent on operations into really dangerous positions.

[Jack Dromey]

I am very familiar with what the hon. Gentleman has said. I am proud to have many friends who are reserves; they play a very important role in the armed forces. Crucially, they are properly trained and equipped, and work within a framework of accountability. That is exactly what has not been proposed—or at least spelled out—by the Government for volunteer PCSOs. That is precisely what we are seeking to draw out, and for that reason we will be voting against the Government’s proposals.

I will say one final thing on volunteering before I move on briefly to other provisions in the Bill. I return to what the NCVO has said; to be frank, it has captured our concern:

“The proposed approach to volunteering, through the creation of volunteer positions that are ‘equivalent’ to or ‘mirror’ paid roles, risks misunderstanding the nature of volunteering and the full contribution it can make. Rather than the language of equivalence we hope the government will recognise this and start to reflect a language of distinctiveness and complementarity. This will help ensure a more successful police volunteering programme.”

The NCVO is absolutely right that the Government have, in this respect, simply got it wrong.

I turn now briefly to other issues dealt with in Committee by my formidable colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham. Our new clause 21 and amendments 7, 8 and 9 would help to ensure full cost recovery of the licensing of guns. That is a crucial objective of the Gun Control Network. It is also a goal that the Government profess that they wish to achieve. In Committee, the Minister for Policing, Fire, Criminal Justice and Victims told us:

“We are as one on the fact that the taxpayer should not subsidise licensing.”––[Official Report, Policing and Crime Public Bill Committee, 12 April 2016; c. 259.]

We will hold him to his words, and so look for an assurance on when the Government will move to full cost recovery. We note that some forces are already moving in that direction. It cannot be right that an overstretched police service that has lost 18,000 police officers and 5,000 PCSOs should have to subsidise gun licences, and we look forward to the Minister’s response on that. He says that the e-commerce scheme will deliver full cost recovery, but we will see. Are we moving to full cost recovery, and when will that be achieved?

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[Andrew Gwynne]

I entirely agree. I am very proud that the headquarters of the Greater Manchester Police Federation are in the Reddish part of my constituency, in Stockport. The work that the federation does in supporting police officers is absolutely brilliant, and, as the hon. Gentleman says, it is crucial that we extend that support and protection to special constables. After all, they are doing the job of a police constable. When we talk about the role of volunteers, it is important for us to do so in the context of what we expect volunteers operating in the police service to do.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington, who spoke passionately about these issues, was right to draw attention to the important role of the home watch. In all our constituencies there will be home watch schemes led by dedicated members of the public and volunteers, working alongside the police and police community support officers. They provide a vital connectivity between the community and the police service, which, even following the introduction of neighbourhood policing, is still considered by too many of our constituents to be fairly remote from public concerns. So I support volunteers being the eyes and ears of the police on the ground and in schemes such as home watch.

Also, in my constituency, we have some very dedicated volunteers manning the front desks at the few police stations that are still open. They are playing an important role in ensuring that continuity of service is provided to members of the public. We often hear Ministers talking about protecting the police frontline, but to a number of my constituents who have experienced police station closures and front desk closures, that actually was their frontline. That was where they could get face-to-face access to the police service when they needed it. Were it not for police volunteers in Dukinfield in my constituency, for example, that police front desk would have closed in the same way that ones at the Denton and Reddish police stations have done. Those closures are a retrograde step for the communities that I represent.

[Bob Stewart]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, when the public see a police officer, they simply see a police officer? They do not look at them and wonder whether they are volunteer police officers or not. Volunteers who man desks do not wear the uniform, but wearing the uniform immediately tells the public that someone is a police officer. They do not think, “Is that a reserve officer?” They think, “That is a police officer”, and that is great.

[Andrew Gwynne]

It is great, and I think that the hon. Gentleman is inadvertently making my case for me that we should not be giving CS gas to volunteers who are not wearing the police uniform. My point is that we already have volunteer police officers. They are called special constables and they have the full power of a police constable and wear the uniform of a police constable. They wear the uniform with pride and they volunteer with pride, and we should be supporting the extension of the special constable programme rather than extending powers to other volunteers, which I do not think is appropriate. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point that, when people see someone in a police uniform, they do not care whether they are a special constable or a paid member of the police force. They just see them as a police officer. There is an important distinction that we must consider in examining some of the powers that Ministers are proposing. That is why we need clarity from the Minister before we decide whether to support the extension of these powers. I sincerely urge Members to exercise caution before we extend them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington also mentioned the parliamentary police service scheme. I was pleased to be able to take part in that scheme back in 2007, when I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith. That seems a long time ago now. Taking part in the scheme provided an invaluable insight into the work of the police. I was posted with my own police force, Greater Manchester police, although I was a bit gutted that I was unable to go out on the beat in my own constituency. I was told that that was in case the police ended up nicking any of my constituents. I was gutted because I had a long list of people I would have liked to call on. Leaving that aside, it really was an invaluable experience. I had not appreciated just how complex the police service in an area such as Greater Manchester is. Indeed, it was not really until the end of my experience on the police service scheme that I began to appreciate not only the complexity of the organisation but how it all fitted together.

I want to talk about one experience that really changed my view of the police. Before coming to this House as a Member of Parliament, when I was a local councillor in Tameside, and following my election to this place, I took the view that the police were a pretty remote service, because when my constituents needed them, they never seemed to call on them when they were expected to arrive. On one day, I called in at Oldham police station, where I was posted on the parliamentary scheme, and was to go out on response calls with a very dedicated police officer. We looked at the computer screen and 14 jobs were waiting for the police officer. We took the job at the top of the list, but just as we were about to set off, he received a call on the radio to go to the local hospital, because a girl—a teenager of a similar age to my eldest son—had been picked up by the police and it was suspected that she had been raped at a house party.

The police officer had received Nightingale training to deal with such cases, so we did not go to job No. 1 on the computer screen; we went to the hospital. It was inspirational to see the officer’s work. He was able to get the girl to open up and to get the necessary information out of her. The father in me wanted to bash the girl around the head and say, “What on earth were you doing at that house party instead of being at school where you should have been?” That is the paternal instinct, but the police officer was so caring, gentle and professional that he was able to get the information.

That story is relevant because I was back in my constituency that afternoon at a public meeting in Reddish and one of my constituents started complaining about a neighbourhood nuisance issue in the field at the back of her house. She had called the police at the time, but an officer did not come round. Indeed, the police officer did not come round until two days later. I had to gently remind that lady that she might have been job No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3 on the computer screen—it was in a different borough, but it is just an example—and that we might have been going to head out to her when the police officer got called off on Nightingale duty. I asked her, “If that was your granddaughter, what would you think was the most important job for that police officer to go to?” She conceded that it was to go and look after the girl in hospital rather than to come and see her. That is where the public’s perception of the police’s work is out of kilter with the real pressures on the police service, not just in Greater Manchester, but across the country, and that is why we must tread carefully when considering how we move away from the traditional policing models. The development of neighbourhood policing has been invaluable, and a move away from it would be a retrograde step.

I suspect that part of the reason that the Minister has come to the House to try to extend the powers of police volunteers is to fill the gap that the Government have created. I will provide an example from my constituency. Greater Manchester lost the equivalent of five officers every week over the course of 2015 and has lost 1,445 officers since the Government came to office, which has an impact on what the police service can provide. I appreciate that this is where the Government are trying to fill the gap with volunteers, but I ask them to think carefully about how they approach the matter. If their approach—it is not clear in the Bill—is that volunteers will be trained to become special constables, that is different from a member of the public, with good intentions no doubt, being taken on by a police force and trained to a certain level, but not actually becoming a police officer. That is what most people outside Parliament will be concerned about.

I will use another local example. Back in 1998, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council—a Labour local authority —decided to complement the Labour Government’s neighbourhood policing team policy with a team of council officers called the Tameside patrollers. They were to be trained in a similar way to PCSOs, and were to wear a uniform that, although in Tameside council’s corporate colours, rather than the police colours, looked similar to a police uniform. They were also to work as part of the neighbourhood policing team.