Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am very pleased to hear the right hon. Gentleman echoing the very words that I have used to the Association of Chief Police Officers conference and other conferences when I have been speaking about the key aim of the police, which is indeed to cut crime.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I shall not echo what the Home Secretary has been saying. One of my big anxieties is that she talks about accountability in relation to the commissioners, but each of the forces in our land is a rather curious geographical unit. For instance, in the South Wales police, the demands of Swansea and of Cardiff will be completely and utterly different from the demands of valleys communities such as those in the Rhondda. It will be extremely hard for one person to reflect that better than a body of people who come together from the different communities.

[Mrs May]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will shortly deal with part of the point that he makes.

Earlier today, we announced police force funding allocations. These ensure equal treatment across all forces, as each force will receive the same percentage reduction to its core Government funding. At the same time, we are giving the police service greater freedom than ever before over how to use its resources. With this new budgetary freedom, police and crime commissioners will be able to make real decisions about funding local priorities.

Concerns have been expressed about placing this degree of power in the hands of one person. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made the point about an individual representing, in some cases, a large area with competing and different requirements within it. The Bill will ensure that there are appropriate checks and balances on those powers.

At the core of our proposals is the establishment of new police and crime panels. These will ensure that there is a robust support and challenge role at force level, and that the decisions of the police and crime commissioners are tested on behalf of the public on a regular basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I am going to make some progress; I have been very generous in giving way to Opposition Front Benchers.

The running costs and day-to-day expenditure of police and crime commissioners’ will be less than 1% of the total costs of policing. What will be different is the value that the public get for that money. Police and crime commissioners will need to demonstrate value for money to local people or they will simply not be re-elected. The only additional cost of police and crime commissioners will be the costs involved in running the elections because, as we know, democracy costs money. That cost will be £50 million over four years, compared with the £50 billion that will be spent on policing in the same period.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

rose—

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[Ed Balls]

If, rather than framing his intervention, the hon. Gentleman had listened to the previous one, he would have known the answer to his question and would not have had to bother asking it. HMIC said that a 12% reduction in the central Government grant over four years was deliverable without cuts to front-line policing. That advice has not been taken by the Government: they have gone not for 12% but for 20%, and it will be front-loaded on the first two years. The coalition policy will mean not 3,000 more police officers, but visible, front-line police officer cuts in police forces up and down the country. That is not the manifesto on which Government Members were elected, and they will be held to account.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the cuts not be more savage in particular areas? In police forces such as South Wales, the work that absolutely must be done, such as policing major sporting events, looking after the Welsh Assembly and the continuation of anti-terrorism work, will not be cut, meaning that the neighbourhood policing that happens in ordinary people’s streets will end up being cut?

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[Ed Balls]

As I have said, we are looking carefully at this proposal. We have investigated it in detail, and we have concluded that it is a bad idea because it risks politicising our police and it is a waste of money. The money would have been better spent on police officers on the front line. We had a record number of police officers, and now we are seeing the biggest cuts in peacetime history.

[Chris Bryant]

Is not the absolute proof that the Government know that these are to be politicised posts the fact that the Bill allows for the Home Secretary to make provision for the candidates for the posts to be included under the terms of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000? They will effectively become politicians; they will be party nominees.

[Ed Balls]

As I understand it, though, the drafting of the Bill has not taken into account the fact that funding needs to be restricted on third-party campaigning. This issue needs to be cleared up and properly brought into line with other political elections. We know that the matter will be politicised by those on the Government Benches, because they have said so.

It is the job of the Home Secretary to stand up for public safety, to fight for police numbers and to resist barmy political reorganisations that get in the way of progress. Instead, we have seen her standing back and giving in to the Chancellor on huge and disproportionate cuts to policing, and being steamrollered by the Treasury into proposing front-loaded cuts. We have seen her stand at the Dispatch Box and recite a script that was written by the Prime Minister before he was Leader of the Opposition, back in 2005. To agree to any one of record police cuts, front-loading of cuts or a risky change to political accountability would be a foolish thing to do, but to sign up to all three at the same time is very reckless indeed. That is what the Home Secretary has done over the past six months in the job. It is time that she got some operational independence and started to do the job that she was appointed to do. She must stand up for our police and our communities, and resist these barmy proposals. We oppose giving the Bill a Second Reading.

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[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.

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[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

There would have been no proposal to change the universal jurisdiction law if Tzipi Livni had not been scared away from this country after committing appalling war crimes against the people of Gaza. It is as simple and as plain as that.

As I said, the Israelis have just snubbed the President of the United States by refusing to halt the illegal building of settlements. The Israeli regime uses its powers of arrest without charge arbitrarily. Two Members of the Knesset, including the Deputy Prime Minister, were scared away by the law, but 30 members of the Palestine National Council are currently held by the Israelis without charge. That is not a threat of arrest, but an actual arrest.

Last month, when I was in Jerusalem, I visited three PNC members who are taking refuge from arbitrary arrest by the Israeli police with the international Red Cross. I met and heard the testimony of young Palestinian children who were assaulted by Israeli police—they showed us their scars and bruises—as a result of the arbitrary and illegal way in which the Israeli police treat Palestinians, including Palestinian children. When we met the Foreign Minister of Jordan in Amman, he told us that he had to offer diplomatic shelter to the President of Palestine because when they were driving along one after the other, the President was continually halted at Israeli checkpoints. For all those crimes and many more, the Israelis are answerable to no one. Now, one of the few sanctions on those crimes will be removed. As a result of the Bill, Israeli politicians will be literally allowed to get away with murder.

That comes at a time when the ground is shifting. As I said, the pledge on the measure was made in a full-page advertisement in the Jewish Chronicle in order to get Jewish votes in the recent general election, but there is an upheaval in the Jewish community, as a result of which the across-the-board support for anything an Israeli Government do is no longer available.

[Chris Bryant]

My right hon. Friend referred to what people said during the general election. Does he recall what position every single Liberal Democrat MP took before and during the general election?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I am well aware what they said, because week after week, I sat in the Chamber at business questions, when the current Deputy Leader of the House rose without fail to say how heinous and unacceptable it would be for the Labour Government to change the law on universal jurisdiction, and how the Liberal Democrats would be totally opposed to any such change. We have an obligation to remind the electors of Oldham East and Saddleworth of the broken Liberal Democrat pledge of 3,000 more police on the streets, and of their broken pledge to oppose any change in the law on universal jurisdiction. Those things will not go by unnoticed.

As I said, an upheaval is taking place in the Jewish community. The attitudes of leading Jews who have been vocal champions of Israel are becoming deeply critical of the current Israeli Government. One of the most active and vocal supporters of Israel has accused them of being in the process of turning Israel into an “apartheid state”.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) pointed out, the hypocrisy of the Liberal Democrats on universal jurisdiction is unlimited, as on so many matters. Week after week, their spokesman rose and vehemently opposed a change in the law for which he will vote tonight, just as Liberal Democrats voted last week in blatant breach of their election pledges.

Whatever change in the law the Government introduce for the most craven reasons, Tzipi Livni and her ilk will remain unwelcome in this country. What worries me is that without a valid and operable legal sanction—one currently exists, but the Bill will repeal it—and without the legal deterrent that the Bill removes, disapproval of the presence in this country of Livni, Netanyahu and their cronies will take forms that I and many others deplore.

Identity Documents Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

Let me say to my right hon. Friend, the former Minister for Europe—

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

We have a set of former Ministers for Europe in the Chamber.

Phone Tapping

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has referred to the Select Committee report’s findings on this matter, to which I and others have also referred. As for his initial observations about the reasons behind this issue, I simply say that those who are watching will see the nature of and manner in which some of the points are being raised by Labour Members of Parliament.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The trouble is that the police have not investigated even where there is new information and new evidence. Last summer, I wrote to the Metropolitan police and asked whether, to their knowledge, from the material that they had gained from Mr Mulcaire, I was a person of interest to him. They replied that I was, and they suggested that I ring my mobile company, which then informed me that my phone had indeed been interfered with. I told the police this months ago; they have done absolutely nothing about it.

I say in all seriousness to the Home Secretary that there may well be dozens of right hon. and hon. Members whose phones have been intercepted—several people on the Government Front Bench at the moment, as well as those on the Opposition Benches. Surely the least that she could do is write to the Metropolitan police to ask them to notify every single right hon. and hon. Member who was a subject of that investigation of the fact that they were involved, and then they can choose whether to investigate further.

[Mrs May]

At the time of the investigation, the Metropolitan police made it clear that those people whose phones they believed had been intercepted were contacted by members of the Metropolitan police. The hon. Gentleman has had an exchange with them on this matter. I come back to the point that I made earlier: the police have said on many occasions that if fresh evidence were to come forward they would look at it. It is not for the Government to look at that evidence; it is for the Government to await the outcome of any such investigation should that arise.

European Investigation Order

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I think that my hon. Friend refers to the issue of dual criminality between member states, which is already provided for in relation to certain measures in the directive, especially coercive measures that might be taken as a result of the European investigation order. I can assure him that the issue of dual criminality is very much on our minds.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

May I warmly thank the Home Secretary for adopting this sensible, pragmatic and pro-European policy? I look forward to sending her a membership form for the European Movement. One of the problems that many UK police forces have had is tracking down child pornography and paedophile rings across Europe. Can she confirm that these proposals will go some way to helping police forces track down those people?

[Mrs May]

Now I am really worried!

Detection of various crimes, and the tracking down of the perpetrators, relies on cross-border co-operation. The point of the EIO is that it will assist such co-operation and, crucially, it will enable evidence to be gathered in a timely fashion. We already have examples— not in the sort of cases to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but in drug trafficking—in which the evidence has arrived only after the end of the trial.

Policing in the 21st Century

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We did, of course, look at the arrangements in Northern Ireland, but what we propose to introduce in England and Wales will include a directly elected commissioner and a police and crime panel, which will be drawn from local authority representatives and independent people who will be able to ask the commissioner of police to appear before them and explain what has been happening in their area.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The inevitable logic of what the Home Secretary has said this afternoon is that we should be electing not only police commissioners but the local chief prosecuting officer. Indeed, it seemed from what she was saying earlier that she was moving in that direction. Surely the last thing people want in any of our constituencies is more party political interference in the policing of this country.

[Mrs May]

We are not talking about party political interference in policing. The picture the hon. Gentleman has painted does not accurately portray what I was saying earlier about directly elected commissioners. The directly elected commissioners will be called police and crime commissioners and they will have a wider role than simply looking at what is happening in relation to their police force; they will be looking at crime more generally and working with community safety partners. We are, however, absolutely clear that the operational independence of the police will remain.

Speaker’s Statement

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

My response to the hon. Lady’s point of order—I respect her for raising it—is that, as the Speaker, I am keen on accuracy, but it is not my responsibility, from the Chair, to enforce it. However, she has registered her views—which, I sense, was an important part of her purpose.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Honestly, this is not about the previous matter, although it is slightly allied. I am glad that you are being short with Ministers these days—and there have been other instances, I am afraid, in which Ministers have continued to brief the papers very substantially. I think that we heard another example of it from the Prime Minister today. He referred to plans for Royal Mail that have not been explained to the House, but which have been substantially trailed around the newspapers. Will you investigate that issue as well?

Limits on Non-EU Economic Migration

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

In the morning you do!

[Mrs May]

Yes, perhaps when the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) has just got up. He suggests that what we are doing is a natural progression from the direction of his Front-Bench colleagues, but they were not proposing to have an annual limit. In fact, they have consistently derided the concept of an annual limit. It is this coalition Government who are taking the steps necessary.

Points of Order

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In almost all circumstances it is in order to apologise, but if that is the hon. Gentleman’s idea of an apology, I am not sure that I ever want one from him.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You said last week, and five weeks ago, that you wholly deprecated the practice of Ministers announcing things to the press before they had announced them to the House. You will know that many hon. Members on both sides of the House complained about this when Labour was in government. We tried to ensure that it did not happen and, in many cases, succeeded—[Interruption.] I would say to those on the Government Benches that there is no point in sneering about this. The truth is that there is no point in fighting to get elected to this House if we might as well stay at home and listen to the announcements on the television or the radio, or read them in the newspapers.

Mr Speaker, can you confirm that we had a statement this afternoon from the Home Secretary only because an urgent question had been tabled? Can you also confirm that that happened after a written ministerial statement on the subject had been laid, and that that happened a long time after the Home Secretary had given a press conference today? We now have a Government who are systematically leaking matters to the press before they are announced in the House. That should not have happened in the past, and it should not happen in the future. Only if the House takes responsibility and takes action will we be able to stop this. Otherwise, Ministers will just laugh at the House. Will you, sir, refer this matter to the Committee on Standards and Privileges? It would be good if that Committee had already been set up, of course, but the Government have not yet done that. Will you refer the matter to that Committee, so that the House can take action?

[Mr Speaker]

The first point that I would make to the hon. Gentleman is an important one about which we need to be clear. A reference to the Standards and Privileges Committee cannot be made on the basis of a point of order raised on the Floor of the House. A written request must be made to me, explaining the rationale for the request, and a decision on that will then be reached. That is a procedural point. Secondly, I reiterate in the strongest possible terms that I utterly deprecate the practice of releasing to the media the content of ministerial statements before those statements have been made to the House. I deprecated it in the past, both from this Chair and as a Back-Bench Member, and I continue to do so. The question of whether this has taken place on a similar, greater or lesser scale in the past is neither here nor there, because two wrongs do not make a right.

Thirdly, I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that I cannot confirm what he has just asked—namely, that an oral statement followed the submission of an urgent question. I am in no position to confirm that. I listened to the Home Secretary’s explanation of the reason for changing from a written statement to an oral statement. I can confirm, however, that I am willing to look further into the particular details of this case, and to decide what, if any, action needs to be taken. We need to establish a new pattern in this Parliament, whereby this sort of thing does not happen and, if it does, action is taken. I shall look into this as a matter of urgency and revert to the hon. Gentleman and to the House. I hope that that is clear; I get the impression that it is.

Identity Documents Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

For the record, the right hon. Gentleman nodded at that point.

The post of Identity Commissioner will be abolished. The public panels and experts groups that were established by the Identity and Passport Service have already been disbanded, and 60 temporary staff in Durham have already been released early.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

I am going to make a little progress if the hon. Gentleman will wait.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

If I can just correct a slight inaccuracy of terminology in the way in which the hon. Lady referred to the job losses in Durham, the people concerned were temporary staff on short-term contracts and they have been released early from those contracts. There are implications to abolishing the previous Labour Government’s scheme but, as the hon. Lady may know, we as a Government have considerable proposals for helping people who are unemployed to get into work. Our single work programme, which will replace the previous Government’s proposals for helping people into work, will give people much more focused individual help on getting them into the workplace and ensuring that they are retrained and given the skills that they need.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

No, I am going to make some progress.

The Bill also places a duty on me to destroy all information recorded in the national identity register within two months of Royal Assent. Photographs and fingerprint biometrics will be securely destroyed. This will not be a literal bonfire of the last Government's vanities, but it will none the less be deeply satisfying. The national identity register will then cease to exist entirely.

The Government will always defend the security and integrity of the British passport, in order to safeguard the free movement of its citizens abroad and protect our borders from illegal immigration.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

If the hon. Gentleman has a little more patience, I will make more progress.

[Chris Bryant]

How much patience?

[Mrs May]

That will be for me to judge in due course.

We will continue to work to ensure the free movement of citizens abroad. We are halting work on fingerprint passports—the so-called second generation biometric passports—because we believe, in common with the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, that we can maintain the integrity of our passports by other security measures. Already a combination of physical and electronic security features makes the British passport very hard to counterfeit and forge. A new design with improved physical security features will be issued from 5 October, and we are considering ways to strengthen further the electronic security features.

In November 2008 the previous Administration began issuing to non-EEA nationals the biometric residency permits mentioned in an intervention. I want to reiterate the point that I made in response to that intervention. For purely political reasons those permits were referred to by the previous Government as identity cards for foreign nationals. Let no one in the House be in any doubt. They are not ID cards, and they will continue.

We anticipate that the net cost of the Bill will amount to about £5 million this year, which includes termination of contracts, writing off equipment, contacting cardholders and others to inform them that the project is over, exit costs for staff who cannot be redeployed elsewhere, and payments to contractors for secure destruction of identity information. I regret that another unavoidable cost is maintaining the ability to issue new cards before our statutory obligation to do so is removed. This is yet another example of why we want to act as quickly as possible.

The good news, however, is that the taxpayer, as I said in answer to a previous intervention, will be saved some £86 million over the next four years. Moreover, the public will not be hit with the roughly £800 million of ongoing costs over the next 10 years. To put that in perspective, that is a millennium dome’s worth of savings. At any time it is utterly wrong for Government to waste taxpayers’ money on a folly. In the current climate, it is obscene.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Mrs May]

I have relented and I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), she said that the staff were on short-term contracts. I should remind her that she, too, is on a short-term contract, as are all of us. How does she intend to use the provisions of the Bill in relation to the Consular Fees Act 1980?

[Mrs May]

I shall disappoint the hon. Gentleman by saying that I will not give him a precise answer in response to that point. We are ensuring that we still have those abilities in the Act to allow discounts on applications for passports under the consular fees permission in the Bill. The Bill enables us to retain the ability to do that, should we at some stage choose to do so, but I shall not give the hon. Gentleman a more detailed answer at present. I am sure he can make his points known during the debate if he chooses to catch the Speaker’s eye.