Police Officer Safety

David T C Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman should check his facts and have a look at what I said earlier. What I said was I do not read The Mirror and I have not read it today. That is not quite what he was saying. He is right, however, that people who commit an offence of any description against an officer should be feeling the full force of the law. That is why I am working with colleagues across other Departments. We have sentencing guidelines, and an offence against a police officer is an aggravating factor. Even with the sentencing of youths, the fact that it is an offence against a police officer is taken into account. The difference in the sentencing systems does not mean that such issues are not taken into account.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that all Members of Parliament who have any concerns about police being attacked have a responsibility not to address organisations that claim that there is a problem with police brutality, as some Members of the Opposition Front Bench have done?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend has front-line experience of what police deal with every day, and I congratulate him and everybody who takes on these roles both in that capacity and any other. That goes to the heart of why the changes I announced earlier today are so important. I told the Police Federation what I would do when I first met it just a few months ago, and I am delighted that we will be able to deliver on that. It will give us the information and the certainty the police need and want.

I have been impressed by the speed at which policing has taken the lead in driving the police transformation fund, which provided £23 million for transformation work in August and £13.8 million in October. It is right that the sector takes ownership of law enforcement transformation, shaping the needs of the future. The fund provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform policing through direct investment into a wide range of projects from body-worn cameras to workforce diversity to increasing digitalisation and technology.

As I have said, the Home Office does not believe it runs policing—nor should it. It is for police and crime commissioners and chief constables, working together in the interests of policing as a whole, to lead and implement the next stage of police reform. The Government will continue to provide support to the police, doing what only we can, such as making the important change I have announced today. We will look to police leaders to play their full part in keeping the police, as well as the public whom we all serve, safe. That is why I ask the House to support the amendment.

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[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is a great honour to follow the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin). I think I speak for the whole House when I say that that was a truly outstanding maiden speech, and done in the best traditions of the House. Thinking back to my maiden speech, I wish could have made it as well and as competently as that.

I also ought to say that the hon. Lady showed a massive amount of dignity in the election campaign she fought—not just in the campaign itself, but particularly at the count, when she faced some deeply unpleasant barracking during her speech, which she should not have had to experience. She should probably get used to that in this place, but she certainly should not have had to put up with it then.

Having listened to the hon. Lady’s speech, it is fair to say that Jo Cox could not have hoped for a better successor, and I am sure the people of Batley and Spen feel that they could not have hoped for a better successor to Jo Cox. She clearly is going to be a rising star on the Labour Benches, and somebody the Conservative party will have to watch out for in years to come. I commend her on an excellent first speech.

This is a very important subject for me. I asked for a debate on assaults on police officers in business questions a few months ago, and on the back of that I wrote an article on the issue for the Yorkshire Post. Therefore, I am delighted that the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who has done a fantastic amount of work on the issue—I commend her wholeheartedly—has persuaded her party to have a debate on it, and I commend the Labour party for that.

I have to say right from the outset that I am rather sad that the Government have tabled an amendment to the Labour party motion; it seems to be rather splitting hairs, if I may say so. This was an opportunity for the House to speak as one on police assaults. I welcome the fact that the Government have committed not to cut police funding any further, but I do not really see why they could not have supported the motion. Therefore, if we do divide on this issue, I will happily vote for the Labour party motion, because I cannot see anything in it with which I disagree.

I should also say at the start that I actually voted against any cuts to the police budget every year when cuts were proposed, because I believe that the first duty of the Government is to protect the public, and the police budget was not the budget the Government should have been cutting. I therefore endorse everything that the Labour party has said on this issue.

Like the hon. Member for Halifax, I have spent an awful lot of days going out with West Yorkshire police—about 60 or 70 since I first got elected. I have the greatest respect for the officers and the sacrifices they make on a daily basis keeping us safe. One of the most serious consequences of being a police officer is the threat of personal injury, or actual injury, and occasionally worse, in the line of duty.

As has been mentioned, the recording of assaults is not necessarily uniform, and is clearly a bit haphazard. The charging procedure also makes it difficult to follow through on the number of assaults that there actually are. An assault on a police officer will be charged as an assault on a police officer only if it meets certain criteria; otherwise, it could be charged as another violence against the person offence, even though the facts show that the victim was a police officer.

I put in a freedom of information request about two months ago to the Metropolitan police, which showed that there have been broadly 2,000 assaults on police officers in the Metropolitan police area every year for the last three years. When we take those in which injury occurred, there seems to have been an increase from 536 in 2013 to a worrying 869 in 2015, and that is just in London. The figures also show that the most serious incidents—wounding or grievous bodily harm—have increased from 81 in 2013 to 211 in 2015. I have been trying to establish the relevant number in West Yorkshire but have not had as much joy. I have also been wondering whether there should be a specific offence of assaulting a police officer that would cover all assaults and not just some. The name of the offence could encapsulate all offences against police officers. This would certainly make identifying the numbers involved easier, so at least we would know the true picture.

Crucial in this is sentencing. My biggest concern is that while we want to get the numbers right, it is also very important to make sure that the sentencing of such offenders matches the seriousness of the offence. I called for a debate on this not long ago. Again, having one offence could help, but whatever happens, we need tougher sentences. The sentencing guidelines relating to assaulting a police officer were amended a few years ago. We should all be concerned about those guidelines. At the time, I was told that someone who committed an assault on a police officer that involved a punch to the stomach that winded the officer, where there was an attempt to evade arrest, and where the individual had previous convictions, could in theory be punished only with a fine. I was concerned about that then and I am concerned about it now.

[David T. C. Davies]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Philip Davies]

Yes, briefly.

[David T. C. Davies]

My hon. Friend and I have spent probably 10 years calling for tougher sentences and often being rubbished and criticised by Members in various parts of this House. Is he surprised that so many people are now calling for tougher sentences and saying that prison works and offers a deterrent?

[Philip Davies]

I am delighted that people are calling for more people to be sent to prison. I have been arguing that case for an awfully long time, and I am delighted that I seem to be getting some traction on it.

The problem with the sentencing guidelines is just the tip of the iceberg. I have asked parliamentary questions about this for a while, and have been shocked to find out that only one in seven criminals convicted of an assault on a police constable in the execution of their duty received a prison sentence at all. In the latest year shown in the figures, 7,829 assaults on police officers were recorded as being dealt with in our courts where the offender pleaded guilty or was found guilty, and yet only 1,002 of the offenders were actually sent to prison. That is completely and utterly unacceptable.

Other parliamentary questions I have asked revealed that someone with an astonishing 36 previous convictions for assaulting a police officer managed to avoid being sent to prison for a further assault on a police officer.

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[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to speak in this important debate, and I am glad that the Opposition have secured it. I spent nine years as a special constable, during which time I was assaulted—once in a police station, of all places, although not by another police officer. I echo many of the comments that have been made by Members from all parts of the House.

I am particularly keen on sentencing. It is fantastic that Members from all parts of the House are saying firmly that they want stronger sentences for people who commit assaults on police officers. I have stood here many times over a decade or more, as a Government Member and an Opposition Member, and argued that prison works, prison is effective, prison keeps people safe and prison acts as a deterrent. Many times, I have been intervened on by Opposition Members—and, sometimes, by Government Members—who have told me otherwise. There seems to be a strong consensus here, however, and I thoroughly support that.

I thoroughly support the use of Tasers. At the moment, all police officers are equipped with pepper spray or CS gas, as was the case when I started, and a long, retractable stick of metal called an ASP, which is basically a long baton. The problem is that the baton has to be used quite close up, and there is a risk of causing a severe injury by striking somebody in any way with a baton. Police officers are trained to use a baton against the legs and arms, but that is difficult to do in the sorts of situations where those batons are pulled out. The advantage of Tasers is that people can stand 10 or 15 feet away and point it. The vast majority of times when a Taser is used, all the police officer has to do is to draw it and draw to the potential offender’s notice the fact that there is a red dot on their chest. The potential offender will very often desist from whatever they are doing and comply with the instructions they are given, without receiving any injury at all.

When I was a special, there was at one point a debate about the possibility of police officers being armed. I felt that I would never be able to do the job if I was armed with a firearm. I simply could not do that. I have the utmost respect for the highly trained officers who do, but the decision to use it is not something that I would ever want on my conscience. Using a Taser is something else. It is a far less offensive weapon than the retractable iron bar with which all police officers are equipped.

[Andy Burnham]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but he will be aware of a case earlier this year in Telford where the footballer Dalian Atkinson was killed in an incident. We do not know all the circumstances, and generally I support the use of Tasers, but does the hon. Gentleman not think that that case should give us pause for thought before we go for a major roll-out?

[David T. C. Davies]

It should. We could go into the details of why people sometimes die as a result of Taser use, and it is very rare for that to happen, but that should certainly give us pause for thought. If the alternative is a police officer waving around an iron bar, which could easily strike somebody on the head and similarly injure them very badly or kill them, we have to look at what is the lesser of two evils. For me, the use of Tasers is the lesser of two evils.

I want to go quickly through a couple of other points. I, too, support the use of body cameras. They will enable people to see the problems that police officers face and help to bring more people to justice. I worry, however, that some people may see them as another way of being able to criticise the police. It is very important that people understand two things. First, police officers are under stress when they are threatened by a large group telling them, “We’re going to kill you. We’re going to attack you now.” That has happened to me and, frankly, it creates a certain amount of fear. I could not have admitted that at the time, but it does. Police officers cannot get away from the threat in front of them, and one of the ways they deal with it is to become quite aggressive in their language, and certainly in their gestures and sometimes in their behaviour. People must understand that when they look at camera footage. Secondly, it is a fact that when police officers have finished dealing with such a situation, they sometimes go back into the station and make comments or use language that some people, taking that out of context, may feel is inappropriate. We will have to be grown up and understand that when we look at camera footage.

I worry that the use of cameras by protesters at demonstrations is quite often a means to criticise the police very unfairly. For example, I have seen pictures in national newspapers of police officers looking very fierce and holding up an ASP as though ready to strike somebody. They are doing that because that is what they are trained to do. By the time a police officer has to draw a retractable baton, they are expected to behave in an aggressive fashion. There is no point waving it gently around saying, “Excuse me, sir, would you mind going home now?” By the time that thing is out, people must realise that the police officer means business, and they very often do so. I am worried about the way in which such cameras are used.

I will not be able to sum it up in one minute and 20 seconds, but there is a wider issue, which is the need to consider the whole way in which the police force is structured. It seems to me that we take everyone and train them to be out on the streets, but we can give them only two days training a year in how to use handcuffs, restraints, batons and all the rest of it, which is not enough for those who are going to end up in conflict situations.

I can absolutely say from bitter and true experience—most officers would reflect this—that all the stuff taught during those two days in the gym soon goes out of the window. It all looks very good in training, but once it happens for real, there is just a mass of arms and legs and batons and heavens knows what flying around all over the place, and it does not look good. Yet many police officers frankly do not need to be put in such situations. Those who deal with cybercrime need to be IT experts; they do not need to be able to run after people and catch them. Those who deal with financial crimes need to be accountants. Even those dealing with and investigating serious crimes need to have a lawyer’s mind, rather than be able to run 100 metres in 10 seconds. I sometimes think that we could look at the different jobs being done in the police force and consider whether we need police officers to have all the skills that we currently require them to have. I will not have enough time to go into further details, but I want to say one more thing. It behoves us all as Members of Parliament to support the police, not to pander to groups or organisations that are there to criticise them.