Office for Product Safety and Standards

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Andy Slaughter

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Carolyn Harris]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. It is my understanding that Peterborough actually has fewer than three trading standards officers.

Will the Minister please outline how trading standards will be boosted and supported by this new office? Will there be moneys for the training of more trading standards officers? Surely the Government realise that more people are needed on the ground, and now. Will any support for trading standards be backed up with a proper database of injuries that stakeholders can access?

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I am not surprised to hear that there are three trading standards officers in Peterborough, who of course have to cover everything that trading standards does. The time spent on electrical safety will be perhaps part of one post. We need to know from the Minister how the new office will actually fill that gap. At the moment, nobody regulates what is happening. It required Which? to start legal action before Whirlpool or the Government responded at all on this.

[Carolyn Harris]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Like him, I have struggled greatly with Whirlpool. Communicating with the company has been extremely difficult.

The APPG will shortly produce a report on what we believe the Minister and the new office should look at, in terms of electrical safety, based on evidence received from a wide range of organisations. I will invite the Minister to the meeting in July, but he is welcome at any meeting. As we did with his predecessor, perhaps we could have a roundtable discussion—perhaps along with his officials—on these issues, the strategy and our report. I hope the Minister will indicate whether that may be possible.

As I stated earlier, I welcome the new office, but there are concerns about its priorities and strategy and what it will do to protect consumers. Electrical product safety must be a priority area, given the tragic consequences we have seen of white goods fires. I wish the office well, but as I am sure colleagues will raise, more needs to be done to reassure consumers, stakeholders and the electrical products industry that the office will provide the necessary strategic vision, have real power for consumers, support trading standards and be listened to across Government to help to protect the public from electrical product safety problems and fires in their homes.

Police Grant

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Andy Slaughter

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris]

That would be welcome.

Meanwhile, crime levels, which the Government keep telling us have fallen, are actually about twice what they were previously presumed to be, as we have learned since January, following the inclusion of cybercrime. In London, the proposed settlement does not include the full cost of policing ceremonial and other national events that take place there simply because it is our nation’s capital.

[Andy Slaughter]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend on painting the correct picture, particularly in relation to London, which gets only half the money it should get nationally? Every Londoner pays a £61 subsidy through their council tax each year. One of the biggest costs relates to neighbourhood policing, which was destroyed under the previous Mayor of London and is being resurrected by the current Mayor, but that is happening under huge financial pressure and the Government’s failure to fund London properly.

[Carolyn Harris]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. A London citizen will end up paying more for national events through their council tax than anyone else. I am sure that my London colleagues will be pleased to know that the funding for trips such as that by President Trump will come out of their pockets.

The underfunding of our police services must stop. Our citizens deserve a police force that is fit for purpose, and our hard-working policemen and women deserve a Government who support them to do a job. The Minister is being disingenuous if he tries to imply that the cuts will not have a negative effect on our ability to police. In fact, we are starting to see real evidence that neighbourhood policing is suffering as a direct result of the Conservative party’s actions.

In its latest annual report, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary states:

“Neighbourhood policing is one area where the danger of across-the-board reductions in resources is apparent…As chief officers reduce their workforces, they will need to…include assurances that a smaller police workforce will not compromise public safety and explain any effect there might be on neighbourhood policing.”

I share those concerns. Neighbourhood policing matters. It is not just reassuring to local communities, but crucial for crime prevention. Unfortunately, however, I fear that the damage is already being done. Last year’s HMIC annual report went on to say that

“we found that there were too many forces where there were signs of an ever-larger proportion of the workforce being drawn into responding to incidents, leading to a reduction in crime prevention activity.”

I do not believe that the cuts that we are being asked to approve today will not lead to further reductions in neighbourhood policing. I can only assume that that is a price that the Minister is prepared to pay.

The problem is compounded by cuts to other frontline services. As local authority and mental health services are also pared back, it falls to the police to pick up the pieces when preventable problems become emergency incidents. That is a problem for police resourcing, but more than that it is a tragedy for the individuals, families and communities concerned.

The HMIC assessment continued:

“Society should no longer tolerate conditions in which these illnesses and disorders are neglected until they land at the feet of the police, in circumstances of violence, disorder and desperation.”

Under this Government, those desperate situations are tolerated because they have got their priorities wrong. As a result, police resources are used to respond to individual crises that do not count in the crime figures. Forces themselves estimate that crime accounts for only 22% of the number of emergency and priority incidents. When the Minister says that crime is falling, he is wrong. It is wrong to use that as the justification for funding cuts.

The Minister argues that it is okay to cut, because forces can raise local precepts to fill the gap, but that misses the point. Raising the precept, which most forces, for understandable reasons, are attempting to do, is simply a way of asking the public to pay more because of the Government’s political decision to give less from general taxation.