Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Green Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

5. What recent assessment she has made of policing levels in the east midlands; and if she will make a statement.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

I congratulate the chief constables and police officers of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire on rising to the challenge of cutting crime with reduced budgets. The latest recorded crime statistics show a 15% reduction in recorded crime in the east midlands in the two years to June 2012, with officer numbers down 6% in the past year.

[Mr Leigh]

Clearly the new police and crime commissioner will have a very challenging role in the current environment. Should not we as a Government show a degree of humility in admitting that very serious errors were made in the way in which we publicised last week’s elections, show determination to make the system work, and explain to people that replacing anaemic police authorities with a single identifiable head is the right way forward?

[Damian Green]

I agree very much with my hon. Friend’s second point, but less with the first. The police and crime commissioners, including the very good commissioner who has just been elected in his own county—[Hon. Members: “The Tory candidate lost.”] Unlike the Opposition, I am being non-partisan about this.

The new commissioner can build on work that is already under way. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has found that forces expect the proportion of officers working in front-line roles to increase from 83% in March 2010 to 89% in March 2015. That 15% fall in crime in the east midlands is the biggest percentage decrease in all the regions of England and Wales, which demonstrates that the effectiveness of a police force depends not on overall numbers but on how well it deploys its resources.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

My constituents are puzzled by the fact that the Government’s priority was to spend £100 million on an election that was unwanted rather than spending that money on 3,000 more police officers. What explanation can the Minister give my puzzled constituents?

[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman is merely repeating the question asked by his right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary. Let me point out to him that—as was pointed out to his right hon. Friend on television yesterday—the figure that Labour Members keep producing would involve employing 3,000 police officers for one year and then sacking them all. I think his constituents would be pretty puzzled by that.

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

6. What assessment she has made of the morale of staff in the UK Border Force.

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[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

8. What steps she is taking to reduce bureaucracy in policing.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

We have swept away central targets, removed red tape, and extended police powers to prosecute. These measures will cut inefficiency, save time and taxpayers’ money and bring swifter justice, freeing up more than 4.5 million police hours—the equivalent of putting over 2,100 officers back on the beat.

[Mr Ruffley]

I thank the Minister for that reply, and may I congratulate the Home Secretary on setting out a very robust plan for putting more officers back on the beat by reducing bureaucracy? Does the Minister agree that part of the responsibility for cutting red tape lies with chief constables, and some of them are not doing enough to reduce unnecessary form-filling in their forces? Will he also set out what he sees as the newly elected police and crime commissioners’ responsibilities in respect of reducing unnecessary form-filling?

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend has been a member of the Treasury Committee for many years, and he is keen on cutting public spending where it is wasteful. He is right that police and crime commissioners will play a key role in encouraging chief constables who need to do better on this to do so. Indeed, the PCC in his county of Suffolk made practical commitments on reducing bureaucracy, including the idea that the time spent supervising criminals or offenders in detention centres, hospitals and behind desks could be carried out by other staff, not by trained police officers. It is that kind of practical approach that will cut bureaucracy and release police officers to serve on the front line, where we want them.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

As a member of the Select Committee on Justice, I recall that some years ago, Jan Berry, the ex-chair of the Police Federation, was appointed to conduct a review of police bureaucracy and identify how it could be cut. She well understood the need for a balance between keeping the spirit of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and doing away with needless paperwork. How many of her recommendations have, in fact, been adopted by the Government? If the Minister cannot answer today, will he send me a note—[Interruption.] I do not mean to be offensive, but perhaps he can write and tell me?

[Damian Green]

I cannot off the top of my head give the right hon. Gentleman the number, but I am pleased to assure him that I have worked closely with Jan Berry, who comes from Kent and still lives there, and has continued to take an interest in police affairs after standing down from the Police Federation. The right hon. Gentleman is right that many of her ideas are extremely good, and I shall write to him with the details.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that the Home Office is not best placed to lecture on bureaucracy, given that it presided over a shambles of an election that cost an extra £25 million just because it took place in November? Will he remind the House of the basis on which November was chosen for the election date?

[Damian Green]

The election date was chosen by Parliament. There have been many elections in November. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman may have noticed that the American public went to vote earlier this month—they do not seem to object to a November election. He would do well to take the advice of the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, who said on Friday after the elections were over:

“We shouldn’t carp, we should now move on and we should accept the elections of the new commissioners as they come through and…make sure that it works because they are there, they’re in place, the public have spoken”.

I think that the Chair of the Select Committee is wiser than the shadow Minister.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that participation in future PCC elections will improve, as excellent candidates such as Sir Clive Loader in Leicestershire will be able to point to a record of achievement? Does he agree, too, that one method of increasing voter participation that should not be encouraged, and should be resisted at all costs, is giving prisoners the vote in these or any other elections?

[Mr Speaker]

I remind the Minister that we are discussing reducing bureaucracy in policing.

[Damian Green]

I will happily obey you in this instance, Mr Speaker, as I always do.

Sir Clive Loader will make an excellent PCC, and he will be keen to reduce bureaucracy. It is precisely on their record of releasing the energies of the police to do what we want them to do and serve on the front line that PCCs will be judged when the elections come round again. I am sure that that will engage the public more.

[Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)]

9. How many student visas she expects to be issued in 2013.

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[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

11. What assessment she has made of the potential for achieving savings through economies of scale in police procurement.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

The Government estimate that savings of £200 million per year, including from economies of scale, can be made through joining up police procurement by the end of March 2015.

[David Mowat]

One area with potential benefits is IT spend, which should not continue to be replicated 42 times. Will the Minister give us an update on the progress of the Police ICT Company, announced in July, and confirm that the police and crime commissioners, including the excellent John Dwyer in Cheshire, will be expected to use it?

[Damian Green]

I echo my hon. Friend’s praise for the new PCC in Cheshire. We hope that the PCCs will eventually own, take over and run the Police ICT Company because its purpose is to ensure that the PCCs have the opportunity to secure critical services and help to make savings. The company will offer services that help individual forces achieve efficiencies through the procurement, re-use and management of their ICT, and I very much hope that a large number of commissioners will take up this offer.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

In Kent the new PCC was the outgoing chair of the police authority. When she was elected, she made it clear that she would have no truck with privatisation. It should be said that she resoundingly beat the Tory candidate by nearly 2:1. Is that not an indictment of the Government’s policy on PCCs, and is it not an example showing that the existing chair was much preferred—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman’s question is rather long and it is only tangentially related to the matter on the Order Paper. I have indulged—[Interruption.] Order. I have indulged him adequately.

[Damian Green]

I am not entirely sure that the hon. Gentleman had got to a point yet. It will clearly be in PCCs’ own interest to look at the best way of spending most efficiently the money that they control so that police are visible on the front line and are able to cut crime. In the end PCCs have been elected, they are responsible for their own actions and what they say, and the electorate will judge them after a few years. I urge all PCCs to take a sensible and pragmatic view about the Police ICT Company and collaboration.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

12. What progress her Department has made in reducing levels of alcohol-related antisocial behaviour.

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[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

T5. At 32 square miles, Scarisbrick in my constituency is the largest parish in Lancashire. The village now shares its one police constable and two police community support officers with neighbouring Burscough, following the £42 million-worth of cuts to Lancashire’s police budget. At night, three police officers cover 50 square miles from Ormskirk to Skelmersdale, which are vast areas for the police to cover. How can the Home Secretary justify to my constituents that the £100 million spent on the police and crime commissioner elections, with a turnout of just 15% in Lancashire, is an effective use of scarce resources when we are losing front-line officers?

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

Obviously, it is not for me to comment on the individual operational judgments of the chief constable of Lancashire, but I am happy to be able to tell the hon. Lady and the House that, despite the constraints that she has mentioned, recorded crime in Lancashire between June 2011 and June 2012 went down by 2%. I hope that not just her constituents, but others in Lancashire are reassured that the police there are doing an extremely good job of cutting crime and keeping the streets safer.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

T4. Metal theft has been a huge problem for some community groups and churches in the Pudsey constituency. It costs a great deal of money and is a problem throughout the country. Does my hon. Friend the Minister welcome the passage through the House of the Scrap Metal Dealers Bill and share my belief that we must reform the industry in order to support legitimate dealers and make it much harder for those who provide a market for stolen metal?

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[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is no good Ministers lecturing police and crime commissioners on the merits of forces sharing costs in procurement when they could have saved the public purse £25 million by combining the PCC elections with other local elections. Why did Ministers ignore the calls from Opposition Members to combine the elections with next year’s county council elections?

[Damian Green]

Opposition Members must get their story straight. Half of them say that we should not have spent as much money on these elections as we did; the other half say that we should have spent more money. If they come up with a coherent argument, we will give an answer.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

T9. Mindful of the Home Secretary’s well known views on the Human Rights Act 1998, but also of the difficulties of coalition government, will she persuade the Leader of the House to make time available for my forthcoming ten-minute rule Bill, which would repeal that Act?