Courts Service

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I do not intend to take too long today, because I introduced a debate last week on the proposed closure of Goole and other courts, but there are one or two issues that I was not able to bring out in that debate that I would like to cover now.

I agree with the point repeated by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) and originally made by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). The legal community is often set up around the courts. The situation is exactly the same in Goole, where solicitors firms and the police station are attached to the court, to the point that there is a connecting tunnel and the services available in the police station are also available to the magistrates court. We have a legal quarter in Goole that is obviously threatened by the proposals.

Like some hon. Members who have spoken, I represent a largely rural constituency. The East Riding of Yorkshire council is the largest unitary authority in England, covering 1,000 square miles. The point I made last week was that we went through a reorganisation 10 years ago in the East Riding, which left us with four courts, including the one in the city of Hull: two in the centre of the East Riding and two at either extreme of the area, one in Goole and one in Bridlington. We are now in the strange situation that the court furthest away, in Goole, is the one under threat.

There has been an attempt to achieve efficiencies because the back-office functions are already centralised with Beverley. The biggest concern for me is that a large proportion of defendants who are dealt with in Goole are from the local area. We now have the strange situation—I repeat this point because it is important—in which defendants from the Goole area will have to travel to Beverley to access justice.

Research shows that it will take most people who want to travel by bus up to two hours to get to Beverley, involving a change of bus in Hull. Depending on the route that people follow, the least time that they can take is one hour and 25 minutes, but the more likely time, given how the timetables work, is one hour and 56 minutes to travel by public transport from Goole to Beverley. It is important to point out that there is no direct bus service. Services from other parts of the East Riding are unaffected by the proposals, but people in Goole who want to get to Beverley will have to travel via Hull, where there is already a magistrates court. I referred to that last week. We will have the strange situation of people who want to take the bus to Beverley magistrates court sitting on the bus, travelling past another magistrates court, in Hull, getting off the bus, waiting for a connection and then getting on a bus to Beverley. They will have to travel some 39 miles to access local justice.

That is a huge concern for the magistrates and for people in the Goole area. The risk, of course, is that people simply will not turn up. I would like to see some assessment from my hon. Friend the Minister and from the Ministry of Justice of how many cases or how many defendants or witnesses they expect to be affected by this move. In particular, how many are likely to choose not to attend?

I touched on the issue of the utilisation rate in my debate, but was not able to go into great detail. I followed it up with a written question to the Minister, which on the face of it may not have been particularly useful to my argument. That is perhaps a lesson learned for the future. I went back to the magistrates and asked for more clarification of the issue. There is quite a low utilisation rate for the courts in Goole, but that is because we have two courts—court 1 and court 2, which are taken together. Actually, the utilisation rate for court 1 is exceptionally high. The magistrates inform me that it is upwards of 70%—probably nearer 80%. We have a low utilisation rate for court 2 because not taken into account in that figure is the fact that the room is used for other meetings. It is a resource that supports the work in court 1. However, that does not come across in the utilisation rate. In the past, court 2 has been used by the commissioner for taxes, the Department for Transport and others.

I did not go into politics just to be against things; I also want to suggest possible solutions. One solution that I would like considered is bringing other services to Goole, possibly tribunals, so that we can make the system sustainable as we move forward.

I mentioned briefly last week the matter of deprivation. On some measures Goole is among the 10% most deprived areas of the country. We have the strange situation of people in the most deprived parts of the East Riding, which includes Goole, facing the longest trek to access justice and the most expense.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that two courts in my constituency will be closed? The one in Rhyll covers the first, fourth and fifth most deprived wards of the 1,900 wards in Wales. Does that make sense?

[Andrew Percy]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point; that is where the biggest impact would be felt. I am sure he will make that clear during the consultation process, because it is a huge concern that the most deprived should feel the greatest impact.

I was about to say that despite the best efforts of the dynamic Conservative-run East Riding of Yorkshire council, Beverley still has some of the highest parking charges in the region. Even if people are fortunate enough to be able to get there by their own means, they will be faced with the prospect of having to pay significant parking charges.

I did not get the chance last week to talk about the county court that operates outside Goole. That, too, is proposed for closure, and its services are to be transferred to Doncaster. Yes, we have reasonable transport links with Doncaster, with direct bus or train services. However, no figures are given in the document on how much will be saved by closing Goole court. Although it operates as a courthouse for only one day a month, it provides a vital service. Once we lose it, people will be forced to travel to Doncaster. We will have people heading to Doncaster in south Yorkshire, and others having to travel 40 miles by public transport to Beverley.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) on securing this important debate. It is pleasing to see so many Members here, and many of them—I think six—are from Wales.

Two of the 156 courts to be closed are in my constituency—a county court in Rhyll and a magistrates court in Denby. I have been to a briefing with the Public and Commercial Services Union, which has given me an excellent note. I want to tease out some of the points it mentions as they relate to my constituency, and I have some specific questions for the Minister. However, my questions about the courts in my constituency apply to all the courts under threat of closure.

I said in an intervention that the court in Rhyll is located in the heart of the poorest ward of the 1,900 wards in Wales. Two other wards there are fourth and fifth in the league table of deprivation in Wales. The pre-consultation and consultation period for the closures is not sufficient; it finishes in September and most of it will take place over the holiday period. Will the Minister extend it so that full consultation can take place in those communities? I hope he will write to me, giving answers to my specific questions. I intend putting that information out in the community, giving people a reasonable time to give me feedback and for me to pass it on to the Minister. Will he review the time scale?

I have other specific questions. How many cases have been moved from the Rhyll and Denby courts to other courts over the past two or three years, and to which courts were they moved? The equality impact assessment in the public consultation document provides no assessment of the potential impact on users broken down by disability, gender, ethnicity, impact on families and—dare I say it?—social class. Who will be affected, and who will be adversely affected?

Will the Minister provide me with the number of cases heard annually in the last three financial years and how it compares to the national average? Will he provide me with the projections made by Her Majesty’s Courts Service for the future caseload of those courts, and the utilisation figures for each court affected and each of the courtrooms in them? How many courtrooms are there in each of those courts, and how many courtrooms are currently in use?

Will the Minister tell me the number of cases disposed of in chambers over the last three years, and the breakdown of the number of staff in each of the courts affected by grade, by full and part-time working, and by disability, gender and race? Is it possible to have the court user surveys for the two courts affected in my constituency?

Has the maintenance backlog been included in the savings? If so, has finance been set aside, or is it merely sleight of hand? What were the maintenance costs for the buildings in Rhyll and Denby over the last three years, and has there been any refurbishment in the past 15 years? If work is to be transferred, what are the estimated refurbishment costs at the receiving courts? Which will be the receiving courts in my constituency? If the reason for closure is the state of the accommodation, has alternative accommodation been sought in Rhyll or Denby? If not, why not?

Those are the questions that I would like the Minister to answer, and I would appreciate him doing so as soon as possible. I can then pass the answers on to my constituents so that we can have full, proper and meaningful consultation about the proposed closures.

Community Policing

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lucas]

I do beg his pardon—the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs. In that case, I will congratulate him even more. He has always been civil in his dealings with me. I am sure that we will cross swords, if not today then in the future, but I welcome him and congratulate him on his elevated status.

I try to keep it quiet in this place that many years ago I was a solicitor in private practice. It is often not a good idea to advertise the fact that one is a lawyer. I worked as a solicitor in criminal law in north Wales in the late 1980s and the 1990s and, as policing is one public service that has improved beyond all recognition in the past ten to 15 years, I regret that in those days I considered that it was not of the standard that it should have been.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he agree with me that North Wales police is one of the most successful police forces in the country, and has the lowest crime rate?

[Ian Lucas]

My hon. Friend is already stealing some of my speech. He is well aware of the vast progress that has been made in north Wales, through an effective, successful and engaged police force. When I was first elected to this House in 2001, it was not unusual for councillors to have very little contact with their local police service. There were certainly no structures in place to enable local communities, through councils, to work effectively with the police service. I am pleased to say that the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 put in place the building blocks for that to change, and local authorities and police services now work together to combat crime. It is extraordinary that before that date there was so little engagement between those two large public sector organisations, at a time when criminal behaviour issues were one of the most common reasons for constituents visiting my office.

The establishment of community safety partnerships—as we call them in Wales—created a forum within which the general public, councillors, police officers and others involved in the criminal justice system could work together, identifying problems of concern to the local community and devising actions to address those problems. One major step was the establishment of a system of community beat managers. I seem to recall that north Wales was ahead of the game on that, establishing community beat managers responsible for council wards. The managers were identified police officers, who, it was hoped, would stay in place for about three years and get to know the area they were policing very well. When I was first elected, if a crime-related issue was raised in my surgery I often had difficulty finding a point of contact in the local police. That all changed with the establishment of the community beat manager system, and I now have a list of community beat managers for particular wards on my wall and know who to contact directly when an issue arises.

Community beat managers do not, of course, operate on their own. The Police Reform Act 2002 introduced police community support officers, who have also been extremely effective in helping to improve policing on the ground. I think that that Act is inspired legislation because I see exceptional police community support officers operating in Wrexham, individuals whose commitment goes way beyond that which is set out in their contracts. They are now an essential component of a successful criminal justice system. They function as an early warning system and as a community service, working as a team to safeguard the communities within which they operate.

In Wrexham, we go even beyond the people who get paid to police. We have an unusual, albeit developing, group of people, who work hard to assist the criminal justice system. We have special constables, as do many other places, but we also have a group called street pastors. I am not sure if the Minister is aware of these individuals. In Wrexham, they are a group that is linked to local Churches and which has functioned for about three years. They work particularly at weekends, when the town centre gets a little livelier than even the Strangers Bar does on occasions. There must be about 30 street pastors operating with the police in Wrexham, and their calming influence is effective in taking the heat out of incidents that could lead to the commission of crime.

As I was preparing for this debate, I looked at the national Street Pastors website and saw an example of exactly the type of thing that happens. Someone posted a thank you on the website, and happened to refer to Wrexham. Sometimes these things are meant:

“My 20-year-old daughter is in her 3rd year at Chester Uni, training to be a Children's Nurse. Last night she went out into Wrexham with 3 of her friends to celebrate passing all her exams and assignments and to look forward to her last and final year of training. On leaving the nightclub in the ‘early hours’, the 4 girls were all ‘shoe-less’ from dancing and celebrating all night, and all a little ‘worse for wear’! This morning she presented me with a pair of purple flip flops. She told me that when the girls left the club they were greeted by some Christians, who gave them the flip flops to walk to the taxi rank, fastened their shoes around their necks and were ‘very kind’. I am writing to say THANK YOU SO MUCH. Your Street Pastor Scheme is fantastic.”

The street pastors in Wrexham are all volunteers, and they work very closely with the police and the community support officers to make the streets of Wrexham even safer.

Much of the credit for the success of community policing in Wrexham should go to a recently retired inspector whom I would like to mention by name: Inspector Chris Beasley. He worked extremely hard in Wrexham and was always very open to new ideas, such as flip-flops and street pastors. He was receptive and imaginative in his policing, and as a result established a tremendous reputation in the town. We are very proud of the police service that we have built up over many years in Wrexham, and also more broadly in north Wales.

[Chris Ruane]

My hon. Friend rightly sings the praises of his constituency and his county. Is he aware that Denbighshire, where my constituency is located, is the third best of the 376 crime and disorder reduction partnerships in England and Wales? That is partly down to the legislation that our Labour Government introduced, partly down to the funding, and partly down to the excellent co-operative working that we have in Denbighshire.

[Ian Lucas]

If I was not aware of that before, I certainly am now. My hon. Friend is always full of imaginative ways of intervening and promoting his constituency, as he has just done.

I have set out the excellent work that has been done, but my concern is about the future. The extension of community policing has taken place against a backcloth of increased investment in our police service, including an increase in the number of police officers, the introduction of community support officers, and Home Office support for the street pastors scheme. Unfortunately, under the Tory-Lib Dem Government, that support has already been reduced.

Today the newspapers in north Wales carry details of an interview with the local chief constable, who talked of the £1.4 million reduction in this year’s budget, which has already happened for north Wales. He says that

“the suggestion from David Cameron is that this could be increased to 40 per cent over the next four years. This would mean cuts of £30 million coming out of our budget.”

He goes on:

“Eighty-two per cent of our money is spent on staff so even if we stopped using computers and walked everywhere we would have to cut staff numbers.”

Those staff are the community beat managers and community support officers that I mentioned. Those individuals have achieved the progress in policing and in making safe the communities that I represent over the past decade. I am, therefore, extremely concerned to hear my chief constable saying that he cannot deal with the proposed reductions in expenditure without getting rid of some of that staffing.

That is a major concern, but not just from me—I am already receiving representations from councillors in my constituency. My good colleague Councillor Michael Williams of Gwersyllt has told me that good work in combating antisocial behaviour in his ward is under threat. He tells me that already community beat managers are not being replaced. He represents a community of up to 10,500 people who now have only one community beat manager, whereas previously they had two.