Police Stations

Debate between David Simmonds and Theresa Villiers

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers]

The hon. Member makes the important point that much of what we are talking about is the ability of the police to maintain appropriate contacts with members of the public. That distance from members of the public is one of the problems that the Met is grappling with, and I think it is useful to hear his point of view about police stations and police services elsewhere in the country.

During this difficult era for high streets, we should try to enhance the visible presence of public services, not scale it back. That is another good reason to maintain the police station estate, both in Barnet and in other towns and cities. In her report on the Met, Baroness Casey highlighted that station closures are likely to have affected efficiency, with police spending more time travelling, and longer police response times. Recent research by Elisa Facchetti, published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, pointed to a correlation between reduction in police stations and poorer crime clear-up rates. That suggests that the capacity to collect the evidence needed to solve crimes might be impeded by police having to travel increased distances, although I acknowledge that many other variables could be relevant, and it is difficult to establish a clear causative link.

Four important recent developments make this debate very timely, and mean that the Mayor of London should reverse his closure programme. First, the Government have delivered on the Conservative manifesto pledge to recruit 20,000 additional police officers. That means that the Met now has more uniformed officers than at any time in its history—and we need somewhere to put them. That radically changes the situation we faced in 2017, when the Mayor wielded the axe against Barnet police station and others.

Secondly, Baroness Casey’s damning report on the Met cited the closure of 124 police stations as one of the reasons behind what she describes as “eroded frontline policing”. She concluded that the combined impact of various efficiency measures, including police station closures, had led to

“a more dispersed and hands-off training experience for new recruits and existing personnel, which gives them less sense of belonging to the Met…greater distances for Response officers and Neighbourhood Policing teams to travel”,

and

“fewer points of accessible contact for the public”.

At a time when culture and conduct at the Met have come under huge scrutiny, we should not persist in making disposals from the police station estate—disposals that are calculated to make officers less connected to one another, more isolated and more distant from the communities they serve.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a speech that will entirely resonate with my constituents. Does she agree that the Mayor’s U-turn on the closure of the Uxbridge police station, which serves my constituents, as well as those in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, demonstrates that the argument that there was simply no alternative but to press ahead with the closures no longer holds water? Does it give her a stirring of hope and optimism that other police stations, such as that in Northwood, already closed and disposed of by the Mayor, will be replaced with operational police stations, or that other stations closed by the Mayor will be reopened forthwith?

[Theresa Villiers]

I agree entirely. The Mayor’s U-turn on Uxbridge should be a lifeline for police stations across the capital. That is one of the reasons why I am delighted to have the opportunity to make this speech.

I come to the third reason why the Mayor should change his approach. As part of the big changes that he is taking forward, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, has asked his team to carry out a review of the list of police stations earmarked for closure and sell-off. I have made the case strongly for saving Barnet police station in a number of meetings with senior police officers, including Sir Mark. That includes at a meeting in May, at which Sir Mark acknowledged how important it is for the police to be close to the communities they serve. He also accepted that whether physical premises are retained or closed inevitably has an impact on whether officers can genuinely be close to the community.

I understand that that is one of the reasons why the review, expected to report at the end of the summer, was set up. I sincerely hope that it provides a lifeline for Barnet police station and other communities experiencing the same closure threat. That includes Sidcup, Notting Hill and Wimbledon. My hon. Friends the Members for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French), for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) and for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) have all fought hard for their local police station, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds).

Until a few days ago, the places where police stations were in jeopardy and teetering on the brink of sale and redevelopment included Uxbridge. That brings me to my fourth and final point. Uxbridge was on the same closure list as Barnet in 2017. When the Mayor announced its shut-down, Conservative Hillingdon Council offered to buy the site at the market rate, and to provide a £500,000 revenue contribution and a leaseback arrangement, so that the community could keep its police station and the services it provides. At the time, the Mayor rejected this plan out of hand. Undeterred, Hillingdon Conservatives campaigned energetically to save their police station, led by Councillor Steve Tuckwell, the excellent Conservative candidate in the by-election.

For years, those efforts fell on deaf ears at City Hall, and then there seemed to be a Damascene conversion. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Mayor announced that he had

“written to the Met Commissioner saying that the case for now retaining more police station sites across the capital is strong”.

He is yet to specify exactly which police stations may escape the axe he threatened them with six years ago, but this looks suspiciously like a by-election stunt to take credit for a plan to safeguard the police station put together by Hillingdon Council and Steve Tuckwell. It would be massively cynical if the Mayor’s U-turn were confined just to Uxbridge. I therefore take this opportunity once again to call on Mayor Khan to remove the threat to Barnet police station and confirm that its future is secure, along with other stations under threat around the capital.

In conclusion, when the plan to close Barnet police station was first floated in 2013, I fought successfully to stop it. I saved our police station back then, and I am doing all I can to save it again. I have raised this issue in Parliament many times, including twice at Prime Minister’s questions. The online version of the petition for this issue, which I presented to Parliament last year, now has more than 1,600 signatures. I assure the House and my constituents in Chipping Barnet that I will continue to do all I can to resist the Mayor’s threat to our local police station so that my constituents are safer and more secure and can have the visible police presence in their local town centre that they rightly believe is so important.

History Curriculum: Black History

Debate between David Simmonds and Theresa Villiers

Tuesday 8th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers]

I do agree with that, and of course, coming as the hon. Gentleman does from Northern Ireland, he understands the emotional resonance that the history of controversial events in our past still has. I know that he and colleagues in the Northern Ireland devolved institutions have worked hard to try to ensure that this decade of very sensitive and politically charged centenaries has passed off peacefully. I very much hope that that continues as we move towards the centenary of partition and the creation of Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State. It is a reminder of how history is so relevant to our outlook on so many issues today, whether that is the subject of this evening’s debate or those centenaries in Northern Ireland.

We also need to understand that the racism and injustice that black and other ethnic minorities were subjected to in this country’s history was pervasive; it was often violent; it lasted for centuries; and its legacy continues to have an impact today. Even a cursory understanding of black history provides a reminder that the values that we are rightly proud to espouse in this country—that everyone should be entitled to equal concern and respect, whatever their ethnicity and from wherever their ancestors might have come—were the result of very long, and sometimes very bitter, struggles, and that many steps forward were strongly opposed at the time, including in Parliament.

The time available for this debate does not enable us to do any kind of justice to the richness of the story of the lives of black British people over so many hundreds of years.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend welcome the fact, as I do, that when we look at the guidance that was published by the Department for Education on the inclusion of black history within the wider context of the curriculum, we see that it sets out an expectation for schools that the complexity and richness and the dark side of these different campaigns that have been run, which my right hon. Friend has highlighted in her speech, are explored, and that that is done in a way that reflects the local context of the school, the children who are hearing about it and the heritage from which they come, and also the knowledge and expertise of teachers as to how that can be set in the wider context both of the community and of events of today?

--- Later in debate ---

[Theresa Villiers]

I think the hon. Lady is right. It is so important that we celebrate the phenomenally positive contribution of black British people over the centuries. Highlighting that in the classroom in the curriculum is incredibly important. That is why I am honoured to have been able to secure a debate on this really important subject today. I welcome the fact that suddenly the interest in black history has grown considerably. Who would have thought a few years ago that we would see people protesting on the streets and campaigning via those demonstrations for a better understanding of black history in the classroom? This is an opportunity for the Government to seize.

[David Simmonds]

On that point, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is particularly important that, when that history is being explored, especially with young people, we are able to do it fully in context? I represent a London constituency with more than 100 first languages and an incredible diversity of backgrounds among all my constituents, and it is important to recognise that black history is part of that wider and complex history of the United Kingdom. The local context, and ensuring that everybody appreciates the context of their background within that wider community, is important. Schools, councils and other community organisations need the flexibility to respond in a way that reflects local diversity.

[Theresa Villiers]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is really important to have the flexibility for schools to reflect local circumstances. I am sure that is something that the Minister will agree on as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Theresa Villiers]

The Minister’s diary is of course a matter for him, but I very much agree that I would like to see every child in school in this country learning black history. It is an important opportunity to try to take that agenda forward, and I will certainly make that appeal to the Minister. I think that is important because I love history, and I believe that black history is a fascinating subject to study, but I also believe that every child should learn black history in the classroom so that every child growing up in this country knows that the presence of black people here is not some 20th century novelty.

Most important of all, I want more black history to be taught in the classroom because I want children from BAME communities to understand that people of colour have been a crucial part of our island story for very nearly 2,000 years. I want them to know that it was not just William Wilberforce who campaigned to abolish the slave trade, but such people as Olaudah Equiano, who had themselves been enslaved but who achieved freedom, fame and success against incredible odds and adversity. I want them to know about Ignatius Sancho, who in 1782 was the first black writer in prose to be published in this country. I want them to know about Tom Molineaux, the boxer and former slave who should have been the England heavyweight champion in 1810, if he had not been unfairly robbed of the title by an underhand trick. I want them to know about John Kent, who became the first black police officer as far back as 1837. I want them to know about thousands of soldiers from Africa, the Caribbean and India who fought and died for this country in two world wars.

Taking the Indian subcontinent as just one example, 1.27 million men served in the British Army in the first world war, including in the blood-soaked killing fields of the western front and Gallipoli. More than 2.5 million men from the area now covered by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh volunteered for service in world war two, producing the largest volunteer army in history.

[David Simmonds]

I am very proud of the fact that in the predecessor constituency to the one I have the privilege of representing, William Wilberforce had his London home. He lived there when he was campaigning in this House for the abolition of slavery, although he was a Member of Parliament from Hull. He was a resident of a house called the Chestnuts. That is very much celebrated locally, but will my right hon. Friend expand on the remarks she has made about the complexity of this representation in our curriculum? The guidance covers everything from slavery as something where, in the country that is now the United Kingdom, we saw empires taking people, through to the role of Britain in the abolition of that trade. It also talks about the incredible positive contribution that so many black Britons have made throughout our history and identifies the complexity of those relationships in the context of empire; again that is strongly reflected in the guidance to schools. Does she also agree that in an incredibly diverse city like the one where we are both privileged to be Members of Parliament, the ability for teachers to take that guidance and translate it back so that those children get their education very much in context is a vital part of how our society responds to this debate today?