Business of the House

Debate between David Heath and Gloria De Piero

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I think I am right in saying that the Deputy Prime Minister intends to make a statement on that subject in the very near future, so my hon. Friend will have to be patient for a little longer—[Interruption.] It will, of course, be made in Parliament, which is the right place for such statements.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

A debate on police productivity would allow me to question Ministers on how much time police officers spend on the beat. Now that the policing pledge has been scrapped, how are we to guarantee that the police will spend 80 % of their time on the streets?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Lady will know that this has been a recurrent theme over many years, since long before she was in the House. Members on both sides have been concerned about the most effective way of deploying police officers and reducing the bureaucracy that often prevents them from doing the job that we want them to do—namely, being out on the streets catching criminals instead of sitting in a back room in a police station filling in forms. I hope that we shall be able to make rapid progress on these issues. As a former chairman of a police authority, I know that this has been a problem for a very long time. The hon. Lady is right to bring the subject up, and it is equally right that we should find time to debate it at some stage.