Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

As we saw in the ugly scenes outside this building last Thursday, the police deal with people at their worst, when they are in states of anger, violence, grief, shock and fright, and frequently when they are unpredictable because of drug or alcohol use. Through all that, they have to retain their composure, sense of perspective and humanity. Many of us here today have had the opportunity to go on patrol with our constabularies better to understand the pressures that they routinely face on our behalf.

A Saturday night patrol gave me a unique insight into the diverse range of incidents that a two-man team can be called upon to deal with. As we went from one incident to the next, I was impressed by their patience and professionalism, and their ability to maintain a sense not only of perspective but of humour. I went home exhausted, with a feeling of achievement at just having survived the night, while they, of course, had to go and do it all again the following day. I have spoken at length to my local chief constable and other police officers about the Bill. Why? Because it is too important to get wrong. No one knows when they will need to call upon the police for assistance, but we do know that, at that point, we will expect them to be there.

Budget reductions are never desirable, but in the current economic climate they are necessary to get the country back on track. Some forward-thinking chief constables might see it as an opportunity to rethink traditional practices, restructure management hierarchies, get the best out of support infrastructure such as HR and procurement, see opportunities for cross-boundary collaboration and information sharing, and run things better and more effectively.

The scope of the Bill is vast, but there are three main parts that I want to talk about, beginning with the proposals on licensing. In a previous life, I sat on the licensing committee of the local council, and local residents would often cite their frustrations with the antisocial behaviour of people leaving bars and clubs late at night. At present, the responsibility of the landlord ends outside the bar or club, and short of ushering customers away from their premises with a plea to leave quietly, they are essentially free to make their money while others are left to clear up the undesirable after-effects.

What taxpayer in their right mind would prefer to see their money pay for police in yellow jackets spending all night dealing with teenagers who have drunk themselves stupid on alcopops, rather than catching burglars, rapists and murderers?

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Scenes such as those my hon. Friend has just described are all too typical and do much damage to the night-time economy. Does she agree that the late-night levy will help to deliver a safer night-time economy, which will be a boost to the vast majority of law-abiding customers who are all too often put off by the actions of the disgraceful minority?

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is important that the levies are imposed only on venues that supply alcohol between midnight and 6 am. That means the responsible pubs and clubs that shut earlier and are managed well, are able to go about their business without any such levies. The funds generated by the levy will be payable to the police and crime commissioners to help to fund the necessary policing, as well as to other organs of local government that address the effects of alcohol-related crime and disorder.

Another positive outcome of the Bill is the reduction in centrally set targets and in bureaucracy. The mass data collection prescribed by the previous Government is one of the biggest frustrations for our police. In Hampshire, it amounts to 130 weeks’ worth of extra work per year—two full-time members of staff—just to satisfy the demands of the Home Office. And I have no idea who reads all that stuff. The plea from local police is that this great advance towards common-sense policing needs to be reflected in changes to the criminal justice system. At the moment, our police spend thousands of hours preparing court cases in which the perpetrator says nothing on arrest or at interview but pleads guilty in the Crown court. All the preparation work was therefore an utter bureaucratic waste of time. There has to be some way of mitigating that.

Hampshire has the sixth biggest force in the country, policing about 2 million people, and substantially more during the summer.

[Chris Bryant]

Is the hon. Lady really suggesting that police officers should not do any preparation because they think that someone might plead guilty? What then happens when the person does not plead guilty?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I suggest that far too much police time is spent preparing for an inevitable guilty plea.

[Chris Bryant]

Why is it inevitable?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Well, in some cases it is an inevitable guilty plea. It is thousands of police hours—not in every case, but in many.

There are clear benefits from increased collaboration between forces, not least improved efficiency, the driving down of costs and the avoidance of reinventing the wheel. Police forces can do a lot by sharing back-office functions and procurement. In Hampshire constabulary there will be collaboration with the neighbouring Thames Valley force on facilities such as dog teams, firearms response, IT and surveillance aircraft.

We also need to ensure that the collegiate approach is backed up with shared local information. So many times, the police talk of the frustrations of the record management system, with local criminal information not being available across county borders, which the bad guys are happy to exploit.

There is a tendency for people to view the police as “them and us,” but the police are us; the us that is prepared to deal with humanity at its worst. As both Robert Peel and the Home Secretary have said,

“The police are the public and the public are the police.”

In Gosport, our local police work hard to build up trust in traditionally wary neighbourhoods. The Bill starts to recognise that work and build on it, and is joined up in both its approach and its delivery.