Metropolitan Police Service

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Before I call Mr Gareth Thomas to speak, let me just say that we have a cast of thousands this afternoon for this important debate. So, if I can impose a five-minute voluntary time limit to begin with—not including Mr Thomas, of course—we will see how we get on.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to Mr Speaker for allowing this debate. It is right to begin by saying that we in the House owe a continuing debt of gratitude to the men and women of the Metropolitan police. They are, in general, superb public servants, doing a very difficult and very important job extremely well.

The Met was rightly praised for its work during the Olympics and the diamond jubilee last year, but its less high-profile work—the bread and butter of policing work, through its contribution to keeping our communities safe, pursuing criminals and supporting victims—remains fundamental, and the overwhelming majority of its officers do that with considerable skill and dedication.

Nevertheless, the future of policing in London is under scrutiny, and with good reason. Under the stewardship of the Mayor of London and the Conservative party, the Metropolitan police have already seen a drop of more than 4,000 uniformed police—police constables and police community support officers—on London’s streets since the general election, a period in which all Members will acknowledge that there were major riots and growing concern about gang violence. To take just one borough—my own borough of Harrow—we lost 100 PCs and PCSOs, a cut in front-line uniformed police officers of 19%, which is one of the biggest cuts. A cut of almost 20% in the Government’s grant to the Metropolitan police, which was supported by the Mayor and Conservative Members, is the driving factor behind the cuts to police funding that are now being debated across London.

Using a choice of statistics that the characters in “The Thick of It” would have been proud of, the Mayor’s plan promises more police recruitment. However, the truth is that there will be fewer police officers and fewer PCSOs by 2015, and that police officers are likely to be significantly less experienced than now. That drop in police numbers is noteworthy of itself, but comparing the number and percentage of crimes solved reveals that the Metropolitan police saw in 2011-12 a sharp drop in the number, and crucially in the percentage, of crimes being solved. In 2011-12, 22,600 fewer crimes were solved in London than in 2009-10, and the percentage of crimes solved dropped to 21.6%.

Those figures are perhaps not surprising when cuts to the number of prosecutors available to the Crown Prosecution Service in London are taken into account. It would be interesting to hear the Minister and the Mayor of London explain how they think that the number and percentage of crimes solved are likely to rise with fewer police and even fewer prosecutors.

According to the figures that the Mayor of London has published, two thirds of London boroughs will still have fewer police officers by the end of 2015 than they had at the time of the last general election. Estimates for the number of PCSOs per borough have not been published, but with further substantial cuts to PCSO recruitment—some 1,100 will be cut by 2015-16, according to the Greater London assembly’s police and crime committee—it looks as though every borough will have significantly fewer uniformed police officers in total patrolling their streets by 2015 than they did in 2010.

Some people think that PCSOs are an expensive waste of time. I am not one of them, certainly not after I saw the difference that two PCSOs made to stopping trouble outside the gates of one of my major secondary schools. The head teacher said that he and members of his senior team went from being called out to deal with an incident at school closing time four afternoons out of every five to just twice in three months, after PCSOs were stationed outside those gates for the 30 minutes from the end of lessons. So PCSOs do a vital job, offering a direct reassuring presence to the public, helping to build the confidence that is necessary to gain intelligence, and—crucially—supporting the victims of crime.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I echo what my hon. Friend is saying about PCSOs. In Newham, PCSOs have certainly been valuable when incidents have occurred that could possibly have heightened community tensions, particularly around the time of the riots and shortly afterwards. Being without PCSOs would be a real problem for us.

[Mr Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point based on her own constituency experience. I suspect that, as I do, she feels that the cut in the number of PCSOs is noticed in her borough, as it certainly is in mine, and I suspect that it is also felt more widely across London.

By comparison with 2010, when Members last faced the people to ask for their support, there will be considerably fewer sergeants in London by 2015. Some estimates suggest that 1,300 sergeants will be axed. Inspectors and chief inspectors are also going, and superintendents’ numbers are likewise being cut. In short, the positions occupied by experienced police officers are being axed. The Mayor’s plan describes those positions as “supervisory grades”. In truth, those roles, and crucially the experience and skill mix of the senior staff occupying them, are fundamental to the effective pursuit of the criminal, the passage of the accused through the legal process and the sensitive support of the victim.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the experience of those officers who have had many years in the police is vital for the coaching and support of officers who are new to the service? I have noticed in my own constituency the difference that that coaching and support has made, particularly in areas of Feltham and Heston that suffered a large number of burglaries before Christmas. The advice that those more experienced officers were able to give to PCSOs who were on the front line was vital.

[Mr Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point about the value that experienced police officers bring to the coaching of new recruits. It is worth noting in passing that the Mayor’s plan envisages specialist crime squads at borough level—such as local burglary, town centre or robbery squads—essentially being raided for staff, who will then be redeployed. So we sense that, as my hon. Friend suggests, a huge amount of vital experience is set to be lost to the Met when it is still needed.

It would be good to hear from the Minister what discussions he has had with the Mayor and the Association of Chief Police Officers staff in the Metropolitan police about how the cuts that I have described will also impact on national efforts to confront organised crime, or how cuts in the positions occupied by experienced police officers and the movement of staff from specialist units will impact, for example, on the work of Operation Trident. It certainly prompts the question how cuts in the Met will impact on its ability to support the UK Border Agency in its efforts to track down, arrest and deport illegal immigrants.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Like me, he represents an outer London borough. He has not said anything about the changes in the draft crime and policing plan to the resource allocation formula that was put in place by the previous Mayor. By 2015, my own borough will gain 117 officers compared with the number in 2011. Does he agree that changing the formula in that way is a welcome development for outer London?

[Mr Thomas]

It is good to have the hon. Gentleman here. However, looking at the figures between March 2010 and April 2012, I see that Croydon lost 175 PCSOs and police officers, and it experienced the same percentage cut in police numbers—a cut of 19%—as Harrow did. Moreover, the figures for 2010—just in terms of police officers for Croydon—compared with the figures for 2015 suggest that there will be a net increase of just one police officer in Croydon. Add in the likelihood of further significant cuts to the number of PCSOs, in the way that I have described, and I suspect that the reality of police numbers in Croydon will be a significant fall.

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

I just want to point out that it depends on what people’s starting point is in 2011 as to whether we end up with more or fewer police officers in Croydon. If we take as our starting point the month immediately after the riots that deeply traumatised people in the borough, we end up with fewer police officers than at that time, and the public generally view the number that we had immediately after the riots as wholly inadequate—

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions should be brief.

[Mr Thomas]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing some particularly “Croydon colour” to the point about the number of PCs and PCSOs—a number that we will see falling in Croydon.

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Gentleman is not necessarily comparing like with like. He is comparing the number of officers that were working in Croydon in 2011, which is the basic borough command unit strength plus additional officers who were temporarily allocated, with what the Mayor is saying the fundamental borough command unit strength will be in 2015. If he makes a like-for-like comparison, he will find a significant improvement for many outer London boroughs. Does he welcome that improvement?

[Mr Thomas]

I welcome any increase in police numbers, given the significant cuts that have been made and, in truth, will continue to be made up to 2015. The figures that I cited are from a freedom of information request about the cuts between March 2010 and April 2012, and the hon. Gentleman has said nothing about whether he supports the Mayor’s decision to axe 175 posts in Croydon during that period. The figures that I gave for the numbers of police officers in 2015 and in 2010 are from evidence given to the London assembly’s police and crime committee.

As I have said, the Mayor and his staff deliberately chose 2011, because it was the lowest point for police recruitment, with a freeze on recruitment that no one was told about. With respect, the hon. Gentleman will be judged by his constituents on what has happened since March 2010, when the general election campaign started, and what the position will be by 2015, and I am afraid that they will see a reduction in the number of police officers and PCSOs in Croydon, unless there is a dramatic change before then.

Local police teams are essentially being squashed under the Mayor’s plan. Instead of each community in Harrow having at least a sergeant, three police constables and three PCSOs, there will be only one PC and one PCSO dedicated to policing each community. In my constituency, the areas of west Harrow, Rayners Lane and north Harrow, which cover four wards, will go from having 28 uniformed police officers dedicated to those communities to just eight. Perhaps we should not be surprised. After all, in July last year, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, commenting on the Metropolitan police, noted the plans to cut police officers and PCSOs, as well as police staff, by 2015.

The inspectorate’s survey of whether police officers were available when they were most likely to be needed showed a decrease in the proportion of police officers and PCSOs in visible roles at key times. In an FOI request, I asked for the proportion of safer neighbourhood team staff on duty at 9 pm on a Friday at the end of November, and the answer was just 20%. Response teams were, of course, available, but I was surprised by how low the figure was. We need to be cautious with such figures because they offer a one-off snapshot, but that underlines the concern that many constituents and many Members of Parliament have about whether enough police are now available on our streets at key times.

Although the Mayor’s plans are at pains to appear committed to safer neighbourhood policing—they retain that language—in practice, it is clear that that model of policing is as good as over. There is talk in Boris’s plans of one borough-wide safer neighbourhood panel, but local ward-based panels, which enable local people to develop a relationship with the local police teams and talk through the challenges faced in their communities, are not mentioned at all. Will the Minister explain whether such forums are to be abolished?

Victim satisfaction rates in London are poor, compared to those in the rest of the country. The ambition to lift the rates is laudable, but having fewer senior and experienced police officers and lots of new inexperienced ones, along with less of a visible deterrent in the form of vital reassurance policing hardly suggests that a convincing plan to increase victim satisfaction is at the heart of the Mayor’s thinking on the future of the Met. The plan that is being touted around London boroughs is being aired for just one hour, and the Mayor of London himself cannot even be bothered to go and hear ordinary Londoners’ concerns around the capital. The Metropolitan police service is one of our city’s greatest assets and deserves inspired political leadership, but instead it is being asset-stripped, and our constituents will lose out.

No debate about the future of the Metropolitan police can take place without a reflection on the story of Stephen Lawrence’s murder and the failure of the investigation, because it still resonates all these years later, in part because of the continuing failure to ensure that the senior ranks of London’s police reflect the communities they aspire to serve. If recent media reports are to be believed, there is not one black or ethnic minority participant on the strategic command course, which is

“the conveyor belt for middle-ranking officers being groomed for senior-officer rank.”

I find it difficult to believe that, in the 21st century, there is not one ethnic minority candidate with the talent to be groomed for a senior command position in the Metropolitan police—not one.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Will he join me in commending the local commander in Harrow, Borough Commander Dal Babu, on all his work, and does he share my concern about the commander being one of the people not chosen to go on the strategic command course? He would have been admirably suited for the course.

[Mr Thomas]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, and I will come on to that point in a second.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has pledged to act on the issue. That pledge is extremely welcome, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister that he is encouraging the commissioner to be ambitious in his thinking.

My right hon. Friend just mentioned my own excellent borough commander. He was one of the Met’s few senior Muslim officers before he retired this week. Chief Superintendent Dal Babu’s story reminds the House of the ongoing need for, in his words, “radical measures” to boost ethnic minority recruitment into the Met, into its specialist units—for example, firearms and the criminal investigation department—and, crucially, into its senior ranks. During his time in the Metropolitan police, Dal Babu helped repeatedly to challenge discrimination and bias. Just one example of his work is a pilot mentoring scheme for talented senior officers. Surprisingly, however, ACPO rejected the idea of rolling the programme out more widely, to encourage more black and ethnic minority officers in middle and senior-ranking posts to be ready for higher commands. As Chief Superintendent Babu points out, there is a significant gap between our collective ambitions for a representative police force in our city and the reality. It would be useful to hear the Minister underline publicly what I believe is a cross-party view, that the senior ranks of the Met need to be much more representative of the communities of London.

More recently, the Mayor of London announced plans to close some 65 police stations and sell them off. In my borough, Pinner police station and the front counter at the civic centre are set for closure, although I understand that there is now a question whether Pinner will be closed after all. Given that the civic centre front counter has long been manned by volunteers, I would be surprised if much in the way of revenue savings would be generated. What is striking, though, is the scale of the cuts to police stations in some parts of London. Croydon will lose five of its six stations. Barking and Dagenham will lose three of its four. Havering will lose four of its five, and Waltham Forest is set to lose four of its five. I understand that the police station in Tottenham—a visible signal of reassurance to a community devastated by the riots—is set for closure, too. What is far from clear are the rationale and criteria for each closure, particularly when the deputy Mayor has promised that, where a face-to-face service closes, it will be replaced with another such service. I ask gently, as the Minister can perhaps throw some light on this: how much money will be saved by that scale of closure, given that promise of replacement face-to-face services?

The Mayor’s plans create uncertainty about not just police stations; there has been a sharp reduction in the number of police cars available to the Metropolitan police. The car is a fairly fundamental bit of equipment for police work. According to information obtained through freedom of information requests, almost 200 police response vehicles were axed across London in the first two years of this Government—a 16% drop. I am not sure why the Mayor thought that it would be a good idea to cut by almost a third the number of unmarked and marked police cars in Haringey, which was a flashpoint of the 2011 riots.

Gang crime remains one of the most modern challenges that the Metropolitan police face. It is a huge issue in much of inner London, but it is becoming a problem in the suburbs as well. In a debate in this Chamber on 4 December, a series of Members—in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), but also my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field)—pressed the Minister on the future funding of the anti-gang initiatives that are in place. My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North noted that funding had been cut already and was likely to face further significant reductions.

The police and crime committee of the Greater London assembly has noted that community safety funding often pays for independent domestic violence advisers, who are crucial in supporting domestic violence victims to come forward. Such funding also pays for restorative justice projects, substance and alcohol misuse programmes and, crucially, programmes to divert young people from gang and youth violence. Concern about whether such funding will continue threatens to destabilise projects that have made a difference in addressing gang crime, supporting the victims of domestic violence and preventing antisocial behaviour.

I ask the Minister, as my hon. Friends did in the debate on 4 December, to clarify whether Home Office grants to London for community safety, youth crime and substance misuse will again be substantially cut back next year. Does the Home Office still plan to end funding to London through its ending gang and youth violence funding pot in March?

Championing the safety of constituents is surely a Member of Parliament’s most significant responsibility. The cuts in police funding, coupled with the Mayor’s half-baked crime and policing plan and further cuts to programmes that address some of the causes of crime, leave my constituents and Londoners in general less safe and more vulnerable. I urge the Government to think again.

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

The wind-ups will begin at 3.40 pm. Eleven colleagues have caught my eye. We now move on to our voluntary four-and-a-half minute time limit for speeches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Field]

This is an important debate, and rest assured that Conservative MPs have had various meetings on these matters with Stephen Greenhalgh, deputy Mayor of London, and with the Mayor himself.

The new local policing model reflects the financial constraints that any Mayor, of whatever colour, would have experienced. Part of it involves making police more accountable to local people. One reason for closing down our local police stations is that we are trying to put more money into bobbies on the beat rather than necessarily into bricks-and-mortar institutions. There will be an extra 2,600 officers in the safer neighbourhoods scheme as the role of safer neighbourhoods teams changes to cover reassurance and enforcement. Neighbourhood officers will be available for far longer hours, and neighbourhood inspectors will be a key point of accountability. That is good news, and I hope that the Met starts connecting with local people so that communities can work together to protect our youngsters.

[Mr Thomas]

I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that the figures from the police and crime committee of the Greater London Assembly show that by 2015, there will be 202 fewer police constables patrolling the streets of Westminster than there were in 2010, and that does not take into account how many police community support officers will go as well. Even according to the Mayor’s figures, there will be significantly fewer police officers in the hon. Gentleman’s borough.

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman answers, I would be grateful if he could draw his remarks to a conclusion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) who has done a service to his constituents and to the people of London in bringing this important issue to this Chamber.

The fact that 15 of my right hon. and hon. Friends have attended this debate, plus the hon. Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) and for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), shows that they share an interest in the importance of policing in this great city. I have not yet noticed a Liberal Democrat attending this debate. Perhaps they are too embarrassed about their general election pledge for 3,000 extra police officers to turn up in person. We will put that to one side for the moment.

In this debate about the future of the Metropolitan Police, my hon. and right hon. Friends have spoken with passion about their concerns for their constituencies. London is a complex city to police and faces many challenges. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) mentioned that the Olympics was an important event. Such international events in this great city are commonplace, week in, week out.

We have heard about the importance of recognising the potential for London’s being a focus for terrorist activity and about the prevention of terrorism. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) mentioned the river boat scheme. We heard of appalling acts of murder in this city from the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster. We heard about gangs and guns, and of the importance of neighbourhood policing, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) talked. We have heard about the historical hangover of the riots in Croydon from my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed). During his election campaign, I was pleased to go to Croydon police station to see its importance to the community. Historical inquiries were mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee, who is also present, showing the importance of the debate.

Those are big issues, and policing London is a complex matter. The community reassurance that neighbourhood policing brings to London, which has been mentioned by all my right hon. and hon. Friends, and the cohesion not only to fight crime but to be a presence on the streets of London, to communicate with its citizens, have been important. Many of those matters are rightly devolved to the Mayor, but the central contention of my right hon. and hon. Friends today has been—I put this strongly to the Minister—that the choices made by the Mayor in London are wrong and that the choices made by the Minister on budget and organisation since 2010 have compounded those wrongs and made policing in London much more difficult.

As the Minister knows, we have an honest disagreement about funding. When I was the Police Minister, in the last year of the Labour Government, we planned to make some savings on policing—some 12%—but the Minister’s proposals have meant a 20% cut, which is effectively £540 million lost to the Met budget by 2015, or 4,200 police officers. That is a real challenge. From May 2010 to date, the Metropolitan police has lost 2,285 police officers and, importantly, 1,900 police community support officers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) mentioned the importance of those numbers, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden.

Police station closures are pivotal. We need to make savings in the policing budget in London, no doubt, but 65 police stations are proposed for closure. Today, my hon. Friends the Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), for Westminster North (Ms Buck) and for Croydon North have mentioned the importance of those stations to their constituencies, showing that somewhere someone is getting this wrong. The reassurance demanded by the constituents of my right hon. and hon. Friends on such issues is simply not being given. No doubt the Minister will say that crime is down. I welcome the fact that crime in certain areas is falling, but it would be in certain areas, because, after all, Labour put 15 years of investment in as Mayor and as Government. As pointed out today, however, the rate of crimes solved has also fallen; and the level of recorded crime has fallen, but the level of reporting to police is falling.

The issues are serious, and in drawing attention to them I make no criticism of Bernard Hogan-Howe or the Metropolitan police. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West mentioned their service day in, day out, putting their lives at risk. Indeed, on Saturday, I will go to Southwark cathedral to pay tribute to Paul McKeever, the former chair of the Police Federation, who was a Metropolitan police officer. He knew and had pride in the service that the Metropolitan police provide to this great city. The challenges of the budget cut and of the decisions on how that cut is made have been reflected strongly in what my right hon. and hon. Friends have said today.

[Mr Thomas]

Will my right hon. Friend do two things? Will he join me in congratulating Joanne McCartney, a Labour member of the Greater London assembly, who has led the effort to explore the consequences of the Mayor’s budget cuts? Will he also ask the Minister for particular clarity on the Home Office fund for ending gang and youth violence and on whether it will cease in March 2013, as many of us fear, or whether there has been a rethink?

[Mr Hanson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, because we are not concerned only with the direct police budget. Resources also come through the community safety fund, which was mentioned by right hon. and hon. Members. In the last year that I set it, it was £13.2 million for London. This year, it is £5.3 million, and next year it is disappearing altogether. That is £13.2 million in the last year of a Labour Government but that is now no more, in the third year of a Conservative and Liberal Administration.