Geraint Davies
Main Page: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)Department Debates - View all Geraint Davies's debates with the Home Office
(13 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs May
There are a number of roles in policing, and we have been absolutely clear about that, but we are absolutely clear also that some of those people working in police force back offices have to spend significant amounts of time filling in paperwork—imposed by the previous Labour Government—which is taking up valuable time and effort. I shall deal with that issue further in a few minutes.
In London, alongside the new recruitment of police officers in the Metropolitan police area, the Met is also getting more officers to patrol alone, rather than in pairs, and better matching resources to demand, thereby increasing officer availability to the public by 25%.
Given that the Opposition are getting their facts wrong, let us look at the real facts.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the right hon. Lady agree that, on reflection, increasing the cuts from Labour’s proposed 12% to 20% is a false economy? It will critically impact on the number of front-line officers, and the cost of increased crime will be much greater than the savings to police forces, so should not she go back to the drawing board?
Mrs May
No. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument at all, and in a few minutes I will address exactly that point about funding.
Let us look at the facts. Our police forces understood perfectly well that they would have had to make reductions in staff numbers no matter which party was in power. The Home Affairs Committee, chaired by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), found that almost all police forces were predicting future staff losses by January 2010—months before the election. In fact, 21 police forces—almost half of all police forces—saw falling officer numbers in the five years up to March 2010, when we had a Labour Government.
Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) said, when Labour’s last Home Secretary was asked during the election campaign whether he could guarantee that police numbers would not fall under Labour, he answered no. The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) understood that he could not guarantee police numbers, so why is the right hon. Lady not so straight with the public?
Mrs May
I suggest that, instead of trying to look across to Government Members, the hon. Gentleman asks his Front Benchers why they got this country into such a financial mess that we have had to be elected as a coalition Government to clear it up: two parties, working together to clear up the mess left by one.
The Opposition’s mistake on the first point in their motion is linked to their mistake on the second point. They are simply wrong to suggest that the cuts that the Government are having to make that go further—cuts, let me remind them again, as I just have, that we are having to make because of the disastrous economic position that they left us in—
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The thin blue line on the Government Benches is pretty thin for fairly obvious reasons: they do not have a decent alibi for making these savage and unnecessary cuts. The alibi that the Home Secretary feebly provides is that it is all the deficit and all Labour’s fault, but we all know that at least two thirds of that deficit was created by the bankers.
The British taxpayer has been robbed by the bankers, and in reality the deficit was the price paid to avoid a depression. If the Labour party and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) had not intervened, we would have been on our knees, and that investment in the banks will be paid back many times over, because the share prices will go up. Admittedly, one third of the deficit was excess investment over income to grow our economy, but there are no apologies for that.
Given that there is a deficit that the international financial community created, what should be done about it? Should we go down the Home Secretary’s path and clear the deficit in just four years, or whether we should halve it in four years? The other question is, whether we should get rid of the deficit in four years just through cuts to public services and benefits, or use three mechanisms: first, economic growth, such as notably the Germans and the Americans are using; secondly, make the bankers pay their fair share; and thirdly, yes, make manageable savings over time.
In the case under discussion, that would mean 12% cuts instead of 20%, the difference between front-line cuts and no front-line cuts. As I said in an intervention, the Government’s policy is a false economy, because the extra 8 percentage points, which will go purely on man and womanpower, will increase crime and the public will bear the cost in property or in damage to people. There is a clear choice, and the Government’s policy is the wrong choice.
We have seen it all before. Under the Tories last time, crime doubled; under Labour, crime went down 40%. Not only are we seeing the means of tackling crime reduced by cuts in police, DNA services, CCTV and ASBOs, by making sentences easier and by giving the wrong signals to rapists; we are increasing demand by cutting education, cutting jobs and increasing drug-taking essentially—[Interruption.] The Home Secretary seems bemused, but in reality if there is less education and fewer police, more children will go on to take drugs. That is certainly the testimony that I have heard from the police. The basic economics of the situation are completely absurd.
On top of that, we have this structural change costing £200 million—the introduction of elected commissioners, whose incentive will be to go for votes in middle-class, low-crime, high-voting areas. They will go along and say, “Yes, we’ll have some more community policing down here in this middle-class area”, but they will not do that where there are no votes and higher crime. There will therefore be a direct contradiction between the motivation of the elected commissioner and the operational chief constable who is supposed to be independent. The whole thing is absolutely farcical. What we need, clearly, is a pause. We have seen a number of pauses from this Government, including on the NHS and the woodland fiasco, and it is time to push the pause button again and do a complete reversal. In a nutshell, these changes are unnecessary, unfair and counter-productive.
Finally, I want to put in a good word for the Swansea police, particularly Chief Superintendent Mark Mathias. They are doing an absolutely fantastic job. For example, they are meeting up with retail traders to talk about the relationship between antisocial behaviour and economic growth and linking up with communities. However, they are not helped by the fact that one hand is being tied behind their backs and they are not given the support that they require.
The view of the police, which is reflected among the public, was shown by the complete silence that met the Home Secretary when she spoke to them. If she does not have the confidence of the police, how can she hope to succeed? These polices do not make sense economically, socially or in terms of crime, and I urge her to think again.