Rape Victims: Disclosure of Evidence

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The requirement on the police in relation to transparency already exists. On the guidance, again, I make it clear to the hon. Gentleman and to the House that the Director of Public Prosecutions’ advice on investigating communications data makes it clear that the examination of complainants’ mobile telephones should not be pursued as a matter of course, and that where it is pursued, the level of extraction should be proportionate. That is the guidance that both the police and the CPS understand, respect, and are implementing.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Change UK)]

Of course there has to be disclosure relevant to the defence—nobody would dispute that—but this is about the question of what is relevant, especially when, as the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) said, an alleged assailant is a complete stranger. The impact of this full disclosure requirement, and the headlines in the newspapers, was truly atrocious. Potential victims of sexual assault or rape will have seen some of those headlines, whether it be “Digital strip-search” or “Hand over your phone now”. This is nothing short of a public relations disaster in our criminal justice system. The Minister really should take up the opportunity to review this document and correct that; otherwise fewer people will come forward and report crimes.

[Mr Hurd]

I certainly do not want that outcome, and neither does anyone else in this House. That would be a retrograde step. My instinct is to check the facts and look at the impact assessment, but if the mood of the House is that this document is not right, then I will certainly take that up with the police and the CPS. The hon. Gentleman knows that what is a reasonable line of inquiry is an investigative matter for the police and the CPS. On the definition of “relevant”, I am not a lawyer—the Chamber is probably bristling with lawyers—but there are many years of case study to help us to understand that point.

Knife Crime

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is supporting our multi-agency approach under the serious violence strategy. He will, I am sure, welcome the fact that part of the troubled families programme, which he knows funds a great number of vital projects across the country to help those who are most deprived, has been apportioned by the Secretary of State specifically to tackle knife crime. It is exactly that sort of approach that will not just commend itself to the House, but have real, real effect on the ground.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Ind)]

The Minister knows that this is not just a London problem. In cities and towns across the country, including in Nottingham, people want practical answers on this, not politicking across the Chamber. Yes, it is about police officer numbers and, of course, a public health approach is necessary, but may I ask her about the availability of knives and how people, young people in particular, are purchasing them, possibly evading age verification by buying online. There was a time when the Government promised action on that. Will she commit to report to the House on how the Government have cracked down on the online purchasing of knives?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, it was a pleasure to open the services of Redthread in Nottingham’s hospital recently. Youth workers are situated in the A&E services so that they can reach out to young people at the teachable moment when they come into A&E with injuries. The Offensive Weapons Bill is in the other place at the moment, and it is through that Bill that we are cracking down on those online retailers who are not conducting proper checks as they should be. It has been the law for 30 years and they should be abiding by that law. It is precisely through that Bill that we are addressing the matter, and I look forward to discussing it with the hon. Gentleman when the Bill comes back.

Knife Crime

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The Mayor of London is an important partner in this, and he is a member of the serious violence taskforce. We do not have 10 years to deal with this, of course not. There are certain things that will take time, but there are also things that could be done that would have a much more immediate impact, such as some of the legal changes that will be brought in by the Offensive Weapons Bill. My right hon. Friend highlights the need to work together in partnership.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Ind)]

The public health and public education approach, together with more police officers, is obviously right, but was not the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner correct this morning when he said that, ultimately, our young people need to know they are better off not being in possession of a knife than having that knife? Therefore, is it not time for us to have clearer mandatory sentencing for those caught in possession of a knife without just cause?

[Sajid Javid]

When the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Hogan-Howe, speaks, it is important that we listen. I have great respect for him and for others who have served in our police. The issue of sentencing is very important—I mentioned earlier that there have been some changes in sentencing—and it is also about making sure that we have the right laws in place, which is why I welcome the support across the House, including I believe from the hon. Gentleman, on the new Offensive Weapons Bill.

Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Bill [Lords]

Chris Leslie Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I totally agree. The hon. Lady will have heard the example I had to listen to. That was a sobering and scary experience. It is an experience that our law enforcement officers hear every single day and it is our duty to find a balance. I wish we had our own Google. I wish that all my constituents’ data were held in the United Kingdom so we would have more control over it. But the fact is we live in the world we do. That is the tragedy and it makes us have to make deals that might not always be, as we would wish, perfect. But in this case, I am concerned, like her, that what must come first is the children’s needs and dealing with terrorists, illicit finance and all the oligarchs we worry about—and Labour Front Benchers also worry about—and how we are going to get them. Until we can crack that data map, this is something that is important.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister is making an important case for the provisions in the Bill, and I agree that we have to have this data sharing. We have to speed this up and get on with it. His new clause 1 looks like a pretty reasonable compromise to provide the necessary reassurances. It looks fairly complete to me, and I can see no reason why the House would not unanimously agree to it.

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman is right. Further amendments that we have tabled provide for concessions to protect journalistic data. I have taken on board these points from Members on both sides of the House. Throughout the Bill, I have met many Opposition colleagues, including my shadow, the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), on numerous occasions, and we have offered concessions that have never been offered before. One of them will put in primary legislation a mandate for the Secretary of State to seek assurances. In my view, we cannot go beyond that and force them to get those assurances, because a responsible Government might not have the upper hand at the time or have the leverage to do that, but the necessity for security is important.

This will be the first time that that has been put in primary legislation. It will put in place a policy that existed in loose form under the last Labour Government, when, in exceptional circumstances, Ministers were allowed not to seek assurances. The overseas security and justice assistance—OSJA—guidance was published in 2010 by the coalition Government, of which I think the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) was a member. That put in writing part 9. There are occasions on which we might be allowed not to seek a death penalty assurance, but I do not want that to become the dominant force. As I have said, we have not found a single example in the past 20 years that produced this challenge or quandary for a Minister. This is simply about comms content data; that is all it is about.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Chris Leslie Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I can only thank my hon. Friend for her helpful intervention. She will have to wait for me to complete my remarks.

Let me quote:

“The new immigration system must command public confidence and support the economy. These proposals would achieve neither. The proposals don’t meet the UK’s needs and would be a sucker punch for many firms right across the country”.

Who said that? It was not a Labour MP but the Confederation of British Industry.

One example of how the Government, far from seeking the best talent, will potentially make it harder for industry and the public sector to recruit the best talent is the suggested salary threshold that the Home Secretary has put out to consultation. He has spoken about

“focussing on high skilled migration not low-skilled migration”.

But he is actually proposing an income-based system. It would allow derivative traders, private equity investors and merchant bankers in, but it would exclude nurses, social care workers, scientific researchers and many more. Salary is not a proxy for the level of skill, and a salary-based immigration system will not work for incentivising high-skilled migration. For example, many science research roles have starting salaries of around £22,000, and the 1% pay cap imposed on the public sector has held down wages in public sector science in particular. A salary threshold is wrong in principle and setting it at £30,000 would have an extremely damaging impact on science and public services.

The Home Secretary has pointed out that a salary threshold currently applies to non-EEA migrants, but we would argue that we should not be levelling down at this stage, but assuring fairness all round.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I read my right hon. Friend’s article in the Morning Star on Saturday, which said that “The…Tory Immigration Bill will deepen the exploitation of workers.” We are not abstaining on the Bill this evening, are we?

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for quoting from my article in the Morning Star. I am not sure if that is the first time he has read that paper, but I will expand further on that issue in my remarks.

I now turn to the very serious issue of the proposal for new 12-month visas. Nowhere is this flouting of the right to family life more blatant than in the case of the proposed new category of temporary workers. They will only be allowed to come here for 12 months at a time, without the right to bring their families, and perhaps then be deported. Do the Government not realise that their 12-month visas will be attractive only to the most desperate workers? It will potentially lead to huge churn in the workforce, and create a category of second-class workers with no rights who are open to unscrupulous exploitation in the growth of the informal economy.

We oppose the creation of a two-tier workforce. That would have the effect, which some incorrectly claim freedom of movement does, of lowering wages and rights for all. Workers should have rights as workers and not be prey to some of the most unscrupulous employers. There is a genuine need for temporary workers in a certain number of sectors, such as agriculture and some aspects of the hospitality industry. We appreciate that the Government are piloting a new seasonal agricultural workers scheme, but there is no requirement for this type of insecure temporary work to become the norm across the economy. It should not become enshrined in a widely cast law.

Let me turn now to the flimsy nature of this proposed legislation. This may be one of the flimsiest pieces of proposed legislation on a major issue that I, and many others, have ever seen. Worse than that, it is supplemented by a whole slew of Henry VIII powers that the Government and the Secretary of State intend to grant to themselves. It is easy to demonstrate just how undemocratic those powers are. The Government claim they are a tidying up exercise and no new powers will be granted or exercised. However, our current immigration system is so untidy that it has the capacity to ruin lives—indeed, it frequently does ruin lives. If this were a Labour Government attempting to grant themselves these powers, we would be denounced for making a constitutional power grab and mounting a coup, to coin a phrase. We will be opposing the assumption of these sweeping powers without tying them to specific policies. We will not be offering a blank cheque, which the Government can redeem at any time they are in trouble and are tempted to whip up anti-migrant sentiment as a distraction. We on the Labour Benches also say that the Government need to accept the recommendations of the Law Commission. We need to simply and clarify our existing immigration system first before changing anything in relation to EU citizens here.

Moving on to the question of freedom of movement, the Labour party is clear that when Britain leaves the single market, freedom of movement ends. We set that out in our 2017 manifesto. I am a slavish devotee of that magnificent document, so on that basis the Front Bench of the Labour party will not be opposing the Bill this evening.

Knife Crime

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered tackling knife crime.

It is always a pleasure to serve when you are in the Chair, Ms Buck. First of all, I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing a debate about this hugely important issue. In particular, I thank its Chair—my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns)—as well as the other members of the Committee and its Clerk, Sarah Hartwell-Naguib, who has been extremely helpful in assisting me to put together this debate.

The main spring for the debate was, very sadly, the murder of 14-year-old Jaden Moodie just over two weeks ago. The attack took place in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), albeit right on its boundary with my constituency of Leyton and Wanstead. The family live in Walthamstow. Both of my Waltham Forest neighbours—my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith)—will speak later in the debate.

To many people, that appalling incident in Leyton two weeks ago was a new low in a wave of violent crime that has been sweeping across and beyond London, because we are dealing with county lines and all sorts of other related issues. That wave of violent crime seemed to start some months ago and it has not abated; there is no sign that this knife and gun crime is going to disappear, and we have become quite used to it.

Before I continue, I would like apologise on behalf of two hon. Members who supported my application for this debate, but who unfortunately cannot be here today. Over the past few months, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) has, week in, week out, during business questions and Home Office questions, raised concerns about problems in his constituency. I also apologise on behalf of the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who chairs the Select Committee on Science and Technology, which recently completed a report on adverse childhood experiences. It covered trauma, abuse, neglect and so on, and found a clear correlation between those experiences, school exclusion and mental health problems. It also found that early intervention—on which the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green has done a great deal of work—is vital, and many other reports have come to the same conclusion.

To some extent, we have become inured to the violence on our streets. It is certainly happening across east London, but it is also happening elsewhere in the country. Every week there seem to be more news stories about stabbings, gun crime and related activities. However, what happened a couple of weeks ago seems to an awful lot of people to be a new low. To some extent—I am not talking about specific cases, but speaking in generalities—there have been profound shifts in society and profound changes in the way in which society is structured and how people live. A lot of those profound changes underlie what we have seen over the past few months or the past year. Structures that used to provide security and safety, particularly for children, have been undermined and in some cases have completely disappeared.

I have met and dealt with many youngsters who come from profoundly chaotic backgrounds and have become involved in gangs, partly because doing so provides them with some sort of security. To give a couple of examples—I cannot give too many, because I am talking about people in my constituency and they might be identified—a few months ago I remember meeting a 14-year-old whose father was in prison and whose mother had just disappeared. He was living by himself in a council flat and having to look after himself at the age of 14. A person does not stand much of a chance in those circumstances. I can remember another, slightly older but not much older, who was living in a bail hostel 20 miles from Waltham Forest and whose exclusion order meant that he could not go to Waltham Forest. I am not commenting on the rights and wrongs of what he had done—which I am familiar with but do not want to talk about—but those two cases give a sense of the gravity of the situation and the shifts we are dealing with.

There is no magic wand for youngsters in that position; there is no magic bullet that will sort it all out and make their lives so much more secure, happier and safer. However, we cannot just throw up our hands and say, “It is all far too complicated. It is all far too profound and difficult, and there is nothing we can do about it.” To even start to tackle these issues, we need to start to talk about resources, because at the moment they are simply not there to cope with the consequences—I am talking to an extent about consequences, rather than the root cause.

I will come on to the root cause in a little while, but we certainly need early intervention. We need the resources to tackle both the causes and the consequences, and the stark reality is that the resources are not there. Both Waltham Forest and Redbridge—I cover six wards in Waltham Forest and two and one third in Redbridge—have faced huge cuts in the numbers of police officers. The exact numbers are not clear, but there have certainly been profound and extensive cuts in the numbers of officers.

Police stations have also been closed. When I was elected MP for Leyton and Wanstead nearly nine years ago, there were three police stations in my constituency. Now, there are none. Every single one has closed. Wanstead police station was one of the oldest in London, and while this is slightly beside the point of the debate, its closure seems to have led to a very sharp rise in burglaries in my constituency, particularly aggravated burglaries. It seems like common sense that if a police unit has to come from Ilford—which is quite a long way away—rather than Wanstead itself, burglars are going to work out that that is the case. We have therefore seen a rise in aggravated burglary rates in Romford, with associated violence in many cases.

Waltham Forest has one of the highest rates of serious youth violence in London. To give one example, in 2017-18 the rate for serious youth violence leading to injury was 9.9 per thousand of the population. That is 18% above the London average, and with a clear upward trend over not just the past year or two, but year after year.

As an aside, it is a historical quirk that Waltham Forest has been categorised as an outer London borough. The reality is that we are dealing with virtually all of the serious problems experienced by inner London boroughs, but because of the strange decision made in 1964—the year I was born, so it is going back a while; well, not that far, but Members know what I mean—we are regarded as an outer London borough. I have always thought that the judgment made all those years ago was perverse. If Waltham Forest were categorised as an inner London borough, there would at least be some further resources available for police and other agencies.

In the 12 months to July 2018, Waltham Forest experienced the sixth highest volume of knife crime resulting in injuries—not knife crime per se, but knife crime leading to serious injury—to young people in London. At the same time, there seems to have been a rise in the number of schoolchildren, including those as young as year 6, getting involved in gang activity. Again, those are all upward trends; it is not that there has been a levelling off or that the numbers have been going up over just the past year or two. Year after year, there has been an upward trend in involvement in gang activity and in knife crime and related activities.

For some time, Waltham Forest Council has run a widely praised anti-gang strategy and a violence reduction unit, but that council has lost well over £100 million in central Government funding over the past few years. Redbridge has lost a similar sum, so across both boroughs, perhaps £250 million in central Government funding has been lost. The local police and council, among other agencies, are working together, as we are regularly and rightly told to do by Ministers. I am keen to praise those police officers, social workers, volunteers and many others who work long and hard to prevent violent crime and to tackle its consequences.

To address those fundamental issues against a background of a huge loss of resources places those agencies, volunteers, officers and social workers in an impossible position. Sometimes it is an actively dangerous position. That is why it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit social workers, particularly for youth services. The physical danger is obvious. They have had a pay freeze and they have not got the support, so it is no wonder that they are not joining the service. Between 2011 and 2017, Waltham Forest’s youth service budget suffered cuts amounting to 67%. We have reached a stage where we have hardly any youth social workers left in Waltham Forest, which is one of the biggest boroughs in London in terms of square footage or acreage. We have a youth service today that has been decimated by the cuts.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, who is making a powerful speech. In Nottingham, we face a similar situation to the one he faces in London. He mentioned my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). Resources for youth services are crucial for diversionary activities for, let us face it, young boys in particular, so that they can go into positive, productive activities—music, sport and so forth—that absorb their energies and take their attention away from perhaps less productive activities. He is absolutely making the right point. I hope he will extract some change in policy from the Minister.

[John Cryer]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are talking about prevention rather than cure, and it is always better to engage in a policy of prevention. I will say one thing that slightly contradicts what he said, which is that, increasingly, girls are getting involved in gang activity. At one time it was very much male-dominated. To some extent that is still the case, but there are increasing numbers of female gang members getting involved in related criminal activity. We are certainly seeing that across east London, at least.

As well as youth services being cut to the bone in Waltham Forest, mental health services are also being cut. Many Ministers have said over the years that mental health services have been seen as a poor relation in the national health service, and that has to change. There is little sign of that changing when mental health facilities are closing on a regular basis, including in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, when budgets are being squeezed and when posts are being left open. We are talking about prevention, rather than cure, and mental health services are doing that right on the frontline. It is better to start there, rather than tackling the consequences when things have gone completely wrong.

It is worth mentioning some of the Mayor’s initiatives, including the London-wide violent crime taskforce, the Young Londoners fund and increased investment in the London gang exit service. The Young Londoners fund is £45 million, which sounds like a large amount of money—actually, it is—but that is spread across one of the biggest cities on the planet. It does not go very far per borough, despite the best efforts of the Assembly and the Mayor. City Hall has a London-wide programme to provide knife wands to every school, but, again, that deals only with the consequences. When we get to a stage where we are using knife wands in schools, including primary schools, we are in a pretty desperate area. We have to deal with the causes, not use knife wands, which are hardly a magic bullet in anyone’s analysis.

We desperately need joined-up policy approaches and joined-up working between the various agencies. Ministers regularly and rightly talk about that, but we also need a properly resourced range of agencies. It is not just about the police; there are the local authorities and the voluntary services, many of whose budgets are being cut or have even disappeared. People are working increasingly long and hard to prevent the sort of problems under discussion. I will mention for a second time the efforts of social workers, police officers and others who put in a tremendous effort to try to make our society better, but it is an uphill battle because they do not have the resources any more, given the profound cuts.

We are getting to the stage where there needs to be an inquiry into youth crime and related activities. Perhaps that should be a Select Committee inquiry, but we have had those in the past. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) is leading a violent crime inquiry, but I wonder whether we could have an inquiry under the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1992. Such an inquiry could subpoena people and force them to appear as witnesses, which Select Committee and other bodies are unable to do. A public inquiry could also listen to young people on the receiving end of criminal activity, the attentions of gangs and all the other related issues. In Select Committees, it is more difficult to hear the reality of what is going on out there. A public inquiry could listen to the voices of young people, as we heard to some extent on last night’s BBC programme, but we need a proper inquiry that will come to conclusions and be conducted by someone who understands the causes and consequences of what we are dealing with—that wave of crime sweeping across London.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) said, the wave is also sweeping across other parts of the country. The midlands, the north, the south-east, Essex and Kent are all affected by the issue. County lines are reaching out further and further, and they are causing mayhem, often in areas that do not have a history of that kind of criminal activity. I would like a public inquiry, and I am interested to hear the Minister’s response.

Windrush

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think that I must add to the many other qualities of which the right hon. Gentleman can boast—although he rarely does so—the quality of being psychic, because he correctly anticipated what would be my likely advice to him, which, in its purest and most succinct form, consists of one word: persist, persist, persist. If the matter continues to be raised by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, the Government will be left in no doubt of the appetite of the House for the said report to be published. It is very difficult to come to a view of the merits of the recommendations in a report if one has not been allowed to see it. I note what the right hon. Gentleman has said, and I urge him not to lack self-confidence, but to go forth with vigour and robustness.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

And persistence.

[Mr Speaker]

And persistence.

Hate Crime

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

First, we of course want victims to report their experience to the police. The police are sadly aware of these events. I hope the police are trusted by the groups of people concerned, who will receive a concerned and sensitive welcome from the police when reporting these crimes. As I have said already, there is much that we are doing in the hate crime action plan, and in trying to tackle the root of radicalisation so that these awful sentiments are not expressed in the first place.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

With the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes and anti-Semitic hate crimes rising at such a shocking rate, these anonymous letters can really strike fear into whole communities. Is it not also the case, however, that anonymous social media is a similar problem on a daily basis? Do we not now have to confront the question of anonymity in spreading such bile? Will the Minister at least address this?

[Victoria Atkins]

I have very much heard what the House has said. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the internet safety strategy was published last year. I will ensure that the sentiments of the House on anonymity are very much heard by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The use of data is critical in our fight against cross-border crime and terrorism, and will always remain a priority for us. We value the co-operation that we have at present through the European Criminal Records Information System and the Schengen Information System. We want our future relationship with the EU to include practical arrangements so that we can engage with it on that basis, and I can reassure my hon. Friend that that is also what our EU partners want.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Home Secretary’s predecessor, now the Prime Minister, said that ditching the European arrest warrant would make Britain

“a honeypot for all of Europe’s criminals on the run from justice”.

Can the Home Secretary guarantee that we will continue to participate in European arrest warrant co-operation?

[Amber Rudd]

I certainly agree with the principle that the European arrest warrant is an effective tool that is essential to the delivery of effective judgment on the murderers, rapists and paedophiles on whom we have managed to seek judgment. It is a priority for us to ensure that we remain part of the arrangement, and I can reassure Members in all parts of the House that our European partners want to achieve that as well.

Police

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

I beg to move,

That the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) for 2013-14 (HC 876), which was laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.

I am very grateful to those hon. Members who have joined me in the Chamber to take part in this debate on the 2013-14 police funding settlement. In addition to seeking their approval of the police grant report (England and Wales) 2013-14, I also want to focus on how we are reforming the police to make them more effective, more efficient and more responsive to local needs.

On 19 December, the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice laid before the House a written ministerial statement and a provisional police grant report that set out the Government’s proposed allocations to police and crime commissioners in England and Wales. We have decided that force level allocations will remain as announced on 19 December.

Before I go into the details of that announcement, it is important to set this debate in context. When our coalition Government came to office in May 2010, Britain had the largest peacetime deficit in our history. For every £3 the Labour Government raised in tax, they spent £4. The gap was being plugged by the Treasury borrowing almost £500 million every single day. It was the economics of the madhouse. Labour has had two periods in office during my lifetime, and on both occasions it presided over a budgetary catastrophe.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have in my hand a copy of the Liberal Democrat 2010 manifesto published in, I think, April 2010. I presume the hon. Gentleman knew what his party was saying at the time. The manifesto says that the Liberal Democrats would pay

“for 3,000 more police on the beat, affordable because we are cutting other spending”.

What happened in those few weeks before the hon. Gentleman became a Minister?

[Mr Browne]

I would be the first to acknowledge that we should have said in our manifesto, “Vote Liberal Democrat and crime will be at the lowest level in recorded history”, but we were insufficiently bold. We were too modest, actually, about the contribution that we would make to the well-being of our country.

The only two conclusions that can reasonably be drawn from Labour’s two catastrophic periods in office in the past 40 years are that we here in Britain have been particularly unlucky to have had especially inept Labour politicians, in which case it seems strange indeed to be enlisting the most culpable Cabinet Ministers from the previous regime to run the show for Labour today, or, more fundamentally, that socialism is completely incompatible with competent economic management. Either way, when we came into office in 2010 there was, in the immortal and shameless words of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), “no money left.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Browne]

I want to make a bit of progress and will give way later. I have given way several times to Labour MPs, who all seem to want to make the same point, which is that they are upset that crime is falling in their—[Interruption.] If any Labour MP wants to intervene because crime has risen in their area since the general election, they can get up. Anyone? Go on.

[Chris Leslie]

rose—

[Mr Browne]

No, crime has not risen in the hon. Gentleman’s area. It is down.