David Wright
Main Page: David Wright (Labour - Telford)Department Debates - View all David Wright's debates with the Home Office
(14 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nick Herbert
We believe that police community support officers do an important job out in communities, and the fact that they do not have the power to arrest prevents them from being abstracted and builds confidence in neighbourhoods. However, we are determined to release police officers from the red tape that can keep them in police stations—for instance, by fully scrapping the stop form and reducing the burden of stop-and-search reporting, which will save 450,000 and 350,000 hours of police time respectively.
David Wright (Telford) (Lab)
West Mercia police authority tells me that it wants to protect record police numbers in Telford, and that one of the ways of reducing the administrative burden is to scrap the crazy, politicised idea of having elected police commissioners. Will the Minister save the money that he is going to spend, even if the budget is ring-fenced, and reallocate it to police forces for front-line policing?
Nick Herbert
May I remind the hon. Gentleman that the policy of increasing the direct accountability of police authorities was proposed twice by the previous Government, who backed down from that proposal in the face of opposition? We are determined to see it through, because we want to exchange bureaucratic accountability for democratic accountability and help to get police officers where they are needed—on the streets.