DNA: Databases

David Ruffley Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Ministerial Corrections

[Mr Ruffley]

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many requests for information held on the National DNA Database were received by her Department from other countries in each of the last five years.

[Official Report, 15 July 2014, Vol. 584, c. 636-37W.]

Letter of correction from Karen Bradley:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley) on 15 July 2014.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Karen Bradley]

The first category relates to searches carried out against the National DNA Database (NDNAD) of DNA profiles from outstanding serious crimes or for the identification of an unknown deceased person believed to be a UK national. The following figures are for requested searches undertaken on the basis of a direct request from the National Crime Agency (NCA) formerly Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), with the report as to the outcome of each profile search being issued directly to the United Kingdom National Central Bureau for Interpol (UK NCB).

Student Visas

David Ruffley Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The latest report from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, published on 10 April, shows a 3% increase in the number of undergraduate entrants between 2012-13 and 2013-14, a 1% increase in postgraduate course entrants and a 5% increase in postgraduate research entrants. We are focusing on ensuring that genuine students are attracted to the UK for study and that we continue to attract the brightest and the best, but it is important also to focus on the substance of what I have said—on ensuring that we are rigorous in our approach to those who seek to exploit our system. I know of the hon. Gentleman’s personal interest in the matter, and I respect his point, but his party appears to want to set an arbitrary growth target, which only risks further abuse.

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

I congratulate the Minister on an excellent and robust statement that will not spoil the export market for higher education but will ensure its integrity. What additional sanctions, other than suspension or revocation of the special sponsor status, can be deployed against the minority of higher education institutions that have behaved wrongfully?

[James Brokenshire]

As I have indicated to the House, we have taken firm and decisive action in relation to a number of the institutions involved. I want to underline the point about responsibility. Many, many universities and academic institutions take their responsibility incredibly seriously. They do the work; they perform the checks, and they keep their records appropriately. The issue is those that do not, and it is right for the Government to take appropriate action in those cases, including referral to regulators, which will also help to ensure that academic standards at those institutions are raised.

Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

David Ruffley Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2013 Westminster Hall

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

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on initiating the debate. I also congratulate my 73 parliamentary colleagues who, like me, signed his amendment to the Immigration Bill, although, regrettably, it will not be considered this side of 1 January 2014. However, it is an important amendment that would extend the transitional controls for an extra five years, and we will debate it next year.

Let us be clear about what the debate is not about: it is not about a zero-immigration policy, and it is not about closing this country’s borders to every other country in the world. It is, however, an expression of concern about the fact that, while my hon. Friend the Minister and his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), have done sterling and impressive work in restricting influxes of unskilled labour from non-EU countries, we have not been able to effect the same restraint in respect of EU countries. That is the heart of the matter.

Just to be crystal clear, I want to put on record my gratitude to our splendid Home Secretary and the two Immigration Ministers we have had in this Parliament, who have moved this country much more towards the Australian model. We now have a rigorous points system for those who wish to come into this country from outside the EU; those people must have skills and something positive to contribute. However, when it comes to the EU, because of its quite pernicious freedom of movement rules, we are having to have this debate.

All of us in the room who speak to our constituents know that this is the No. 1 concern for the public after the economy. Only a few days ago, in a national newspaper, the opinion pollsters Harris found, in a very large poll, that 82% of adults in this country did not want the transitional controls that currently exist for Romania and Bulgaria to be lifted, while 85% thought that migration was putting huge pressure on our schools, hospitals and housing stock.

Although the 74 signatories to the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley are predominantly Conservative Members, this debate is not a purely Conservative party concern. It is a fatal misreading of British public opinion to assume that it is something to do with Conservative Members being worried about the UK Independence party. It is much more important, for reasons I shall develop, but we know one thing about this issue: two rather good Labour former Home Secretaries do not have a problem with the proposal. In recent days, we have heard from the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) on his concerns about what may happen on the streets of Sheffield when transitional controls are lifted; and from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw).

It is worth repeating why the right hon. Member for Blackburn thought the influx from a new EU accession country had deleterious consequences for civil society and the economy. He said, a matter of days ago, about the events of 2004:

“Thorough research by the Home Office suggested that the impact…would in any event be ‘relatively small, at between 5,000 and 13,000 immigrants per year up to 2010.’

Events proved these forecasts worthless.”

There is, then, some cross-party agreement on the potential influx of Romanians and Bulgarians from 1 January. We are talking about an indeterminate number. I shall disagree in only one respect with my hon. Friends the Members for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone): I understand why Home Office Ministers will not enter the territory of forecasting numbers; they would almost certainly be proved wrong.

Let us explore how many Bulgarians and Romanians might be attracted to living, settling and working in our country. It is estimated that 23,000 workers from Romania and Bulgaria have come to this country in the past 12 months, under the existing rules; they have been able to come if they are self-employed or work in agriculture, or, equally, if they can get a work permit to do a job that the UK Border Agency thinks cannot otherwise be done by an indigenous British worker. They certainly like coming to Britain; 23,000 did in the last 12 months.

We also know from the statistics that there are now 135,000 Romanians and Bulgarians working in the UK, which compares with a 1997 figure of 2,000. A leap from 2,000 in 1997 to 135,000 this year is pretty persuasive evidence that people in that part of south-east Europe rather like what is on offer in the United Kingdom. Also, in the past 12 months, one in six applications for vocational courses in British colleges was made by people from Romania or Bulgaria.

As we have already heard, Migration Watch UK estimates that the number of Romanians and Bulgarians coming here to work or seek work could be anything over 50,000 a year for five years. I do not know whether that is correct, but we can certainly expect a considerable number over and above the number of Poles who came between 2004 and 2010, as the right hon. Member for Blackburn so powerfully reminded us. Ministers generally have my respect, but it is not good enough to say, on the basis of virtually no evidence, “Well, Romanians and Bulgarians will probably prefer Germany as a destination.” I have seen no evidence for that, but hope I have cited evidence that there are many reasons to suspect that they will want to come to the United Kingdom.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am enjoying my hon. Friend’s impressive speech. Is not London one of the big United Kingdom pull factors? It is the biggest city in Europe apart from Moscow, and the most cosmopolitan city in the world where everyone speaks or learns English. It is a city such as no other country in Europe has.

[Mr Ruffley]

Indeed. I am reminded of Cecil Rhodes’s comment that to be born a free-born Englishman was to have won first prize in the lottery of life. English as the world language is obviously the reason why so many migrants want to come from within and outside the EU, and attend language schools in this country. My hon. Friend is correct in suspecting that London will be a huge magnet for Romanians and Bulgarians. There are perfectly understandable reasons for them to want to come to this country, and many will no doubt want to work hard. Perhaps some will take jobs illegally under the minimum wage level of £6 an hour. We do not criticise those individuals who want a better life; we merely suggest that what I have outlined is a luxury that the country cannot afford, now or in the future.

[Mr Harper]

On the argument about where people might go, my hon. Friend considered the facts regarding the number of Romanians and Bulgarians who are already here, but let us look at the other countries mentioned. Italy did not have transitional controls, and there are 1 million Romanians and Bulgarians there. Spain and Germany did, and 500,000 Romanians and Bulgarians went to Germany and 1 million to Spain. I do not say that that is conclusive, but it may be one aspect of what was meant when it was suggested that there is a range of options for Romanians and Bulgarians besides coming to the United Kingdom.

[Mr Ruffley]

One could argue that in Germany and the other countries my hon. Friend mentioned, job vacancies for Romanians and Bulgarians are perhaps pretty much full up now, and they may want to try their luck in the United Kingdom, where, if they do their research, they will understand there are many job vacancies that remain unfilled, despite the economic recovery, and that there could be rich job pickings. However, I do not think that the argument can be made conclusively either way.

I am getting rather tired with the argument that all immigration to this country is by definition good, in economic terms. First, I pray in aid a 2008 report of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, which made the point that total output can be driven up by increasing the number of people in the country. The greater the population, the greater the economic growth. That is an economic truism that no one disputes. However, the Committee also said that that was beside the point. What matters is not GDP, but GDP per capita. A much larger population, generating a higher total output, means there is a bigger cake; but there are also more people who want a slice of it.

The key point, which the Home Secretary and her Ministers have identified, is that this is not just about getting bodies into the country to generate more economic growth; it is about getting the right people in, with the skills and specialisms that we need. That, almost by definition, means small numbers of immigrants, who will meet a high-skill, high-value-added specification—not tens or even hundreds of thousands, as there were in the case of Poland and other accession countries in 2004. I fear that what happened then will also happen with Romania and Bulgaria.

If anyone is thinking of references for the debate, many arguments have recently been made about work by University college London that argues that immigrants contribute more in tax than they ever take in benefit. I do not have time to say why that work is grossly inadequate. Another grossly inadequate body, in my view, is the Office for Budget Responsibility, which in the past six months has blithely said that, unless this country has 7 million more immigrants between now and 2050, we will not cut our deficit and our national debt. Those figures are “Through the Looking Glass” stuff. I repeat again that the current Home Office Ministers understand that truth, but they are not able to say that they have made it tougher for EU migrants to come here, as they have with non-EU migrants. As a result of the EU treaties, Ministers have not been able to impose such welcome discipline on the number of EU migrants coming into this country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) talked about the polarity—which he helped to set up, if he will allow me to say so—between little Englanders and free traders. I like to think that I am a free trader, and I want to run the Prime Minister’s global race, as I am sure we all do. I can hardly wait to run that race. As a free-market, right-of-centre—nay, right-wing—Conservative, I believe in free trade and Britain facing outwards to the world, but we should still understand that the best way to earn our way in the world is not to open our doors willy-nilly to an undifferentiated mass of workers from other countries, when we have no way of sifting to see what skills they have and how highly specialised those skills are. We can do that for workers from the rest of the world, but we cannot do it for workers from the EU.

Over the past year, as we all know, the British economy has begun to recover, thanks to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his tenacity in sticking to his economic project. Private sector employment is now at an all-time high. In the past, as the number of job vacancies increased, the response from employers in this country would have been to increase wages to attract the best workers. When the economy grew, wages grew. That is a fairly uncontroversial proposition, but that link seems to have been broken in the current recovery. The number of people in employment has increased, but real wage growth has been flat.

With gross migration to this country running at some 500,000 a year, and with many of those migrants coming from low-income countries, there is not much incentive for employers to increase wages. In 2004, when the Labour Government lifted the restriction on Polish and other eastern European workers coming into this country, the average wage in Poland was just 42% of the average wage in the UK. If a Polish plumber could more than double his salary by coming over to fit bathrooms in Wellingborough rather than Warsaw, who could blame him for jumping on the next easyJet flight? Good luck to him.

Although some think that lifting restrictions on Bulgarians and Romanians will somehow produce a different outcome, we should bear in mind the following facts, which have been alluded to in earlier contributions. Average wages in Bulgaria and Romania are currently 31% and 34% of average wages in the UK respectively. That is even lower, relative to the UK, than Polish wages were in 2004.

Wage levels in the UK have been fairly flat recently, but since 2004, wages paid to workers in so-called elementary occupations, such as manual labourers and cleaners, have declined by 8%. Wages have not been flat. At the very lowest end, we have seen a very large fall in wages. Cleaning jobs and labouring jobs are hard, difficult and often monotonous work, but they are the sorts of jobs that many immigrants drift towards, at least when they first arrive in a country and need a job fast. Many immigrants have a strong work ethic. It is not surprising that several academic studies in many countries have found a close link, over time, between the scale of migration to a developed country such as ours and the wages of less-skilled workers. Those wages go down or stay flat.

If the restrictions are lifted—and it looks as if they will be—and there is an influx into this country of an indeterminate number of Bulgarians and Romanians, jobs in the elementary occupations might be paid at below the legal minimum wage. Why might that be? Paying below the minimum wage is, of course, illegal, but it is certainly anecdotally true that many immigrants do not have a tendency to inform the authorities that they are receiving £3 or £4 an hour, rather than the £6-plus that is the legal minimum in this country.

The problem of British workers being undercut by EU workers—in this case Bulgarians and Romanians—who are willing to accept extremely low wages, sometimes perhaps illegally low wages, may get worse in the coming year. This statistic has been mentioned before, but it bears repeating: the legal minimum wage in both Romania and Bulgaria is under 80p an hour; in the UK it is well over £6 an hour, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough recited. One factor that we all know, and which has also been referred to, is that British workers do not want low-paid jobs. We hear all the time that young people do not want to take jobs in domiciliary care, nursing homes and so on. Suffice it to say that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is doing excellent work in reforming the benefit system, but there is more to do.

We cannot say yet that the welfare reforms have been a success. As Andrew Green, the chairman of Migration Watch UK, reminds us, it is inexcusable for British employers not to give British workers a level playing field on recruitment. The key point is that, with 1 million young people not in employment or training, it is imperative that they are given a chance to get on the work ladder. The route to proper employment has to start somewhere, and 1 million young people in our country are not doing anything at all. It is fairly inevitable that the influx of Bulgarians and Romanians will crowd out the opportunities for young people to move off benefits and into productive work.

I will close my remarks by saying that we may have lost the argument on lifting the controls, but I hope that this debate, and the further debates that I trust we will have in 2014, will move on to new territory. That territory must include the views attributed to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who I understand has floated a cap on EU migrants to this country of 75,000. EU migrants to this country should be blocked from claiming benefits not just for three months, but for three years or more. Finally, freedom of movement from poorer countries should be restricted, and we should insist that such movement may happen only when the GDP of those countries has reached 75% of the UK’s GDP. I hope that those of us here today, and those who support my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley, will press the Prime Minister to put such radical reform of freedom of movement at the very top of his list of renegotiation items when he comes to renegotiate this country’s future as it relates to the European Union.

Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed

David Ruffley Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

No.

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

My right hon. Friend has protected surveillance budgets since she came into office and was the first Home Secretary to deport Abu Qatada. In short, she is a commendably tough Home Secretary. Will she allow me to say that as a result of those things, Government Members can trust her to find out what went on in this case and that we have 100% confidence in how she is running the show?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. As I indicated earlier, there will be a review of the operation of this case, as there was in relation to Ibrahim Magag, and any lessons that need to be learned will be.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

No, I do not accept the premise on which the hon. Lady’s question is based. We are looking very seriously at the question of child abuse. That is why my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims was involved in setting up a group across Departments on the question of child abuse and child sexual exploitation to ensure we can deal as effectively as possible with that most horrific crime.

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

Crime will fall even further if we can make bigger reductions in police bureaucracy. Front-line officers using body-worn cameras have the potential to reduce the amount of paperwork they have to do back at the station. Will my right hon. Friend indicate how many police hours she believes could be saved by that new technology, which has been endorsed recently by the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims?

Immigration Bill

David Ruffley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Unfortunately, the previous Labour Government were interested in immigration in the wrong way. One of the things this Government have had to do, for example, is root out abuse of student visa applications, which started under the previous Government’s points-based system. I will take no lectures about the previous Labour Government’s interest in immigration.

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

In June 2003 the then Immigration Minister, Beverly Hughes, said that the impact on migration into Britain of 10 accession countries joining the European Union would be “minimal”, with 13,000 migrants expected a year. That was laughably inaccurate. Can the Home Secretary assure us that the Bill will ensure that there is no repeat of that shocking open-door immigration policy?

[Mrs May]

I can be absolutely clear with my hon. Friend that, as far as this Government are concerned, full transitional controls should be put on any country joining the European Union. We are also looking at a number of proposals to deal with what we have described on various occasions as the potential pull factors for individuals coming here. The Bill will deal with some of the issues that require a legislative response. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is also looking at concerns about access to benefits and, I am pleased to say, is working well with other EU member states that have similar concerns about the way some of these systems currently operate.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Extreme brevity will allow us to accommodate two more questions.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Home Secretary is listening to those of us who are worried that some British citizens are being extradited under the European arrest warrant on flimsy grounds. Will she indicate when she will bring forward amendments to the Extradition Act 2003 to deliver greater protections for British citizens?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are introducing those amendments to the Extradition Act and others through the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, and I understand from the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), that they will be considered in Committee tomorrow. It is important to ensure that we can add extra safeguards for British citizens who are being extradited under the European arrest warrant.

Police

David Ruffley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

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

May I begin by associating myself with the remarks of the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) about Paul McKeever? I had the pleasure—and it was a pleasure—of working with him when I was the shadow policing Minister, and he was a very effective representative of the federated ranks, and one of nature’s gentlemen. He represented many brave police officers—men and women—and we should never forget that in the context of funding settlements and reforms to pay and conditions. We honour and respect what police officers do each day on our behalf.

It is worth saying something about the headline figures for the police settlement that we are considering today. The Home Affairs Committee calculated that there was a real-terms increase of 20% in police funding in the decade up to 2008. That was something that the Conservative Opposition supported and voted for, and it had the result of making the British police force one of the best resourced in the western world. So when we look at reductions in spending—which we are doing in this settlement, as no one doubts—we have to see it in that context. It is coming off a very high base.

The figures for 2013-14 represent, in total central Government funding—that is specific Home Office grants, the police core settlement grant, the Department for Communities and Local Government revenue support grant and other bits of money—£7.8 billion, which is only a 1.9% reduction. These are not staggering figures, and I repeat that the reduction is against a backdrop of very high increases, which we supported, in the decade to 2008.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I pay tribute to Dorset police in my constituency for the wonderful work that they do. My hon. Friend was talking about the relatively small reduction, but Dorset is at the bottom of the heap and that small reduction over many years will actually be a massive reduction. If we had even the national police funding average per capita in Dorset, we would have an extra £16 million, which would mean an extra 50 officers on the beat. For us, even a small reduction has an enormous effect.

[Mr Ruffley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. My local constabulary area of Suffolk is not dissimilar to Dorset. People who were on the police authority and senior serving officers have made exactly the point that he has just made, which is why I am delighted to draw attention to the fact that the Home Secretary has announced a clear intention to review the formula that churns out the grants for each authority. However, she wants to do that once police and crime commissioners are bedded in, so that they can be consulted on how the formula can be tweaked. I would certainly hope—like my hon. Friend—that rural forces such as Dorset and Suffolk will get a better deal and a greater acknowledgement of the particular challenges of a police service that covers very strung out areas. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) is in her place, and I know that she endorses that point too.

[Mr Ainsworth]

Should I presume from what the hon. Gentleman is saying that he has an expectation that the review to be undertaken by the Home Secretary will lead to a further shift in resources from high-crime areas, which have already been hit the hardest, to low-crime areas? I am a great fan of Dorset, which is a wonderful part of the world, but it is not exactly the crime capital of England, is it?

[Mr Ruffley]

I am not suggesting that we do anything quite as crude as that: I am suggesting that those of us who represent rural seats think that sparsity factors are not being taken into account sufficiently. Clearly, the process must not direct resources willy-nilly. The needs of high-crime areas must be reflected in the formula, but the formula does need to be looked at, as the right hon. Gentleman will know as a senior Minister in the last Government. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Delyn will also know how incredibly difficult it is to strike the balance. Damping was a very controversial policy, but it was the best that one could do in the circumstances. We can have a serious debate about a review of the formula, but I—and other rural Members—will put our case for better and more equitable shares for rural areas.

We also need to thank the Home Secretary—at least those of us on the Government Benches who take an interest in law and order—for the doughty way in which she has fought the police service’s corner. She has been able—in a committed and forceful way—to ensure that the further 1% of departmental reductions that the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in his December autumn statement do not apply to the police budget for 2013-14. She has also commuted the reductions that would have flowed from the Chancellor’s statement in November 2011 on public sector pay restraint, and she has protected the police budget from those strictures.

We are not saying that this settlement is the one that we would have liked: of course we would all like more money for the services that serve our constituents. But we cannot let this debate pass without saying once again that there is a national economic crisis—I shall not be party political about how it arose—and whoever was in government now, Labour, Conservative or any possible combination of parties in coalition, would have to make reductions. It is undeniable that in the modern age Governments need to do more with less. They need to get better results with constraints on public service budgets. That means not just worrying primarily or solely about the amount of money put into a service, but about how that service is organised. That is why the Home Secretary should be thanked, again, for the shot of adrenaline she has given to radical police reform—getting more for less.

My right hon. Friend is in the fortunate position of being able to do this at a time of falls in crime—it was declining under Labour and continues to decline under us, notwithstanding the tight budget settlements to which the police have been subject.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

In Hull, we will lose 220 police officers off the beat. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that that will mean criminality on the street? Is not this debate about priorities?

[Mr Ruffley]

I do not accept that simple, direct correlation, as I shall explain.

In the 12 months to September 2012—the latest period for which crime survey figures are reported—we have seen an 8% decrease in overall crime against adults in England and Wales. We also have figures in that survey that show that since 1981 the lowest chance of being a victim of crime was in the 12 months up to that date. It should be a truth universally acknowledged that the effectiveness of a police force does not directly depend on the number of staff, but rather the way in which they are deployed.

We have already heard that the Home Secretary has scrapped central targets and energised the drive by chief constables to reduce unnecessary process—not just fewer forms, but a change in the way officers do things. There have been some encouraging examples of what the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz)— I see him in his place—and I looked at: the so-called four-force pilot of a much quicker and sharper incident reporting regime by officers on the beat. We have seen a rolling back of statutory charging in respect of more triable either-way offences, giving more discretion to the charging sergeant in the station so that he or she does not have to hang around on the telephone or wait for a Crown Prosecution Service solicitor to fetch up to give the charging authorisation. There are other examples, but we know that as a result of this crackdown on bureaucracy, memorably reported on by Sir Ronnie Flanagan in the second half of the last Parliament, progress is being made. The results are already there for us to see.

The number of police officers in front-line roles is projected to increase by 2% between March 2012 and March 2013. The proportion of officers in front-line roles is expected to increase from the 83% we inherited in 2010 to 89% in 2015. I found another statistic through research. According to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary—fairly objective data there, I feel—in March 2010, 17% of officers were in non-front-line roles, while the Government are forecasting that their announced policy measures could bring this down to 10% by March 2015.

[Richard Drax]

From my experience in the armed services, I know that the so-called backroom boys and girls who were members of the armed services in my day were very useful to call upon in times of trouble. While I quite accept that backroom boys and girls should be reduced to a certain degree, getting rid of all serving officers in those roles would mean that there is no reserve when, dare I say it, the proverbial hits the fan.

[Mr Ruffley]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, but we should resist the temptation to believe that a Home Secretary or a policing Minister in Whitehall can make decisions about the mix between uniformed back staff, who would be able to perform at short notice the kind of reserve and back-up on the front line that my hon. Friend describes, and pure civilians. This has been a long-running debate in the world of police reform, but we know that it is for the chief constable to decide and to make dispositions accordingly. Whether or not my hon. Friend accepts that, any Government would have to have in mind reducing the number of the uniformed work force in non-front-line activity.

Let me repeat the statistic. According to HMIC, in March 2010 17% of uniformed officers were in non-front-line roles. It is our intention that measures put in place to reduce that will mean that only one in 10 of uniformed officers are in non-front-line roles. I would have thought that the Opposition spokesman, the right hon. Member for Delyn, who I thought was a worthy and dedicated policing Minister in the last Parliament, acknowledged that that should be a policy objective of Governments, chief constables and police commissioners.

I want to talk not just about reducing bureaucracy as part of police reform, but about getting more bang for our buck by doing more with less. That relates to what are undoubtedly difficult and controversial reforms to pay and conditions—the Winsor reforms. I remind the House that when we talk about funding settlements for the whole of the police service, a massive 80% of expenditure for most police forces in England and Wales goes on pay. Yes, we can mandate collaboration, which this Government are in the process of doing to make efficiencies in procurement, information technology, uniform, traffic and so on. But those and other heads of spending amount only to 20% of what a police force spends; 80% is spent on people. It therefore seems to me that it is incumbent on any Home Secretary, whether Labour or Conservative, to look afresh at how we can get a modernised pay system, crucially linking pay progression—the former Government indicated that they supported this concept—with higher levels of skills and with those who have undertaken higher professional training. This is not performance by results, but linking pay to the skills that officers have, paying less attention to progress up the pay ladder simply as a result of age.

The Winsor proposals are, of course, more complicated than that. Chief constables will have flexibility—and it is they, not Ministers in Whitehall, who will make these managerial decisions—and this will be done in conjunction with the locally elected police and crime commissioners. It will be for them to ensure they have the proper mix of ability within the uniformed ranks and they will also have to make decisions about civilianisation in regard to the allocations laid before the House today for each police force area, and make that money go further.

I close by saying something about accountability. This money will be voted for by Government Members, and I think the right hon. Member for Delyn suggested that the Opposition will vote against it. We must get away from the idea that Ministers will be held personally accountable. We vote for the money, and I want the message to go out that police and crime commissioners will have the prime job of driving through change to get more value for that money.

I know it is early days, but my experience so far of the elected commissioner in Suffolk, Councillor Tim Passmore, has been positive. He has put together a draft set of priorities; he has gone to the trouble of speaking to and meeting all the Suffolk MPs; and he has taken amendments to his first draft. My own view—I think most police and crime commissioners should look at this—is that a target should be set for the percentage of time that officers are visible to the Suffolk public. I think, too, that an objective should be set to move towards the 10% of uniformed officers—and it is only 10%—who should be on non-front-line activities, which as I outlined is the national objective, by March 2015. These commissioners should hold themselves to account by explaining—in my case, to the taxpayers of Suffolk, but to others in police force areas up and down the country—what they are doing to reduce bureaucracy, to get a higher percentage of officers on the front line and to ensure not only that there are more of them on the front line, but that during their shifts they spend a higher proportion of their time visibly out and about so that the public can see them.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend and Suffolk neighbour for allowing me to intervene. I, too, pay tribute to Tim Passmore. Not only is he already sticking to his mandate of no rise in the precept, but he is applying a different perspective by opening cupboards and managing to understand where the money is going. I note his praise for operational police officers, but I also note his recognition that some external professional discipline can produce more for less—especially from the huge property estate, which he is working closely with the county council to try to rationalise.

[Mr Ruffley]

I think my hon. Friend’s point applies to every one of us whose area has a police and crime commissioner. The essence of localism, which I think, in its broadest sense, is supported by both major political parties and by the Liberal Democrats, is that we cannot for ever say that it is the Minister’s fault. We cannot keep on saying that the man or woman in Whitehall knows best. Those on the ground, the elected police and crime commissioners, must explain what they are doing in their forces, with their chief constables, to bring about greater visibility of policing—with manifestly constrained resources—and, if they are not able to hit their objectives, they must explain why.

Some people may think that we are doing ourselves out of a job—that we are just voting for the money and telling people to get on with it. That would be a crude gloss on what I am saying, but I think that the thrust of it is absolutely correct. We need local people, whether in Humberside, Suffolk, Dorset or the west midlands, to stand up and be counted. We need people to know how many hours have been saved in cutting red tape, because more red tape can certainly be cut: it can be rooted out. Assets are underemployed—estates are badly managed, for instance—and we need to get more value from those assets.

We face reductions throughout the comprehensive spending review period during the current Parliament, but I repeat that we started from a high base—a 20% real-terms increase over the 10 years of the Labour Government up to 2008—and the cuts should be seen against that backdrop. We do not support the cuts because we want to be beastly to public services, or because we think that the police should become more efficient and should therefore be paid less. We should all like to be in a position to look again at what we spend on the police once the economy starts growing again at trend or above, but in the meantime we must press on with reform.

We have had more resources over the past 20 years, but we have not had the reform that should have gone hand in hand with those increased resources. Under the current Home Secretary, that area of policy will not be neglected, because she knows that it is not just more money but the way in which we use our police that will enable us to reduce crime levels and keep our constituents safe.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am not quite sure what landlords have to do with the national minimum wage, but I think I answered the other part of the hon. Gentleman’s question in responding to one of his colleagues. The hon. Gentleman needs to explain why all those problems were singularly not dealt with when Labour was in power. Labour made mistakes on immigration and failed to apologise. Until it does, no one will take it seriously.

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

23. Are the Government considering taking new powers to curb benefit tourism undertaken by Romanians and Bulgarians—welfare tourism that can only add to British public spending, not reduce it?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The committee that I am chairing will indeed consider how our benefit rules work. We want to ensure that we offer what we need to under the treaties, but no more. If we think that there is abuse of free movement rights, we will continue, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already started to do, to work with our European partners to drive out that abuse, which is what the people of this country want.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Gentleman—who, of course, chairs the Home Affairs Committee—will know that we inherited 500,000 cases on asylum alone from the previous Government, and we have been diligently working through them. He will also know that that will be the focus of a report in due course. Some of the cases will be closed because we see no evidence that the person concerned is in the country, but others will have to be worked through. I will make sure that there is a clear timetable to work through all of them, to ensure that all the people concerned are given a clear decision and matters are concluded on a timely basis so we can finally clear up the situation we inherited from the previous Government.

[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.