Policing and Crime Bill (First sitting)

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

This is quite an important issue in the Bill and I want to make sure that anybody who wants to pursue a point, particularly on collaboration, has the opportunity to do so. Will anyone who wants to do that signify now to me?

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

Q On collaboration, the police and the fire service are two distinct services. Although both require a high level of public trust, I suggest that the fire and rescue service is more of a humanitarian service. What are your thoughts on merging those two services? Do you think that would blur the distinction between the two?

Steve White: There has to be a clear distinction, in relation to the professionalism and the role, between the two organisations, if only for the benefit of the public; we need to make sure that they understand what service they can expect from the two services. I think that they do anyway. As for collaboration and making efficiency savings, I used to work in a police station, St George in Bristol, which was an old Victorian building. The front was a police station and the back was the old fire station. To an extent, this is not a new idea; it is what we did years ago. Provided there is that distinction, in terms of the professionalising of both services, of course, we will continue to work closely together; we already do, as I said.

Does it make sense to have one workshop working on fire engines and police cars? Of course it does, because that is clearly something that could be managed. However, do we think it is a good idea to have the fire service knocking on people’s doors and doing welfare checks? It is all very well until you have to do something else where you require a power. Most things in policing are not just straightforward. You cannot just say, “Go and knock on the door and make sure someone is okay,” because the police have had a call about a concern for welfare. When there really is a concern, you need the resources that the police service has to deal with the issue. If someone answers the door and says, “No, I’m fine”, are we going to say, “Can we check your smoke alarms as well, since we’re here?”? I just think it is a dilution of the professionalism of the two services and we need to be careful about that mission creep, accepting that there are areas where we can come back. We have had joint emergency service control rooms in various parts of the country in the past, with varying degrees of success, to be fair.

Of course, when you compare the demand on the fire service with the demand on the police service, it really is significantly different. I think there are opportunities there but there need to be distinct arms of the fire service and the police service.

Ben Priestley: In response to that question, I want to raise a development that has taken place in Durham police, which in a sense contextualises what the Government are aiming to do in the Bill around emergency services collaboration. Durham police now employs—with some local government funding, I think—two or three police community support officers who are also first responders and, by virtue of their job descriptions, retained firefighters. What degree of split those individuals have in respect of those three roles is difficult to determine at this early stage.

However, reading the Bill, I am confused by the provision entitled

“Prohibition on employment of police in fire-fighting”.

I am confused about whether that means that once the Bill is enacted those PCSOs in Durham will have to stop their retained firefighting duties. Because it says very clearly,

“No member of a police force may be employed by a fire and rescue authority or a relevant chief constable for the purpose of—

(a) extinguishing fires”.

I think you can personify the issue with those roles that Durham has invested in—presumably on the basis that it is an innovative, collaborative project—and the provision in the Bill that appears to prevent that, for the good reason that Steve has just pointed out, which is that there needs to be clear demarcation between the roles of firefighters and those working in policing. The Bill seems to present an impediment to that. I pose that as a question that might be explored at Committee stage.

[Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

Q I want to pick up on the point about the distinct roles. Nobody is suggesting that policemen should be fighting fires and firemen should be arresting criminals. I want to focus on the PCC responsibility for fire. Do you not agree that that will address some of the barriers that we have seen in some cases, where there has not been as much collaboration and integration between the two? The Bill still recognises the flexibility for that local case to be made, with different models within that. Finally—this is three questions in one—this also provides some direct accountability to the public from fire authorities to the PCCs.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

The next question may have to be the last for this set of witnesses.

[Gerald Jones]

Q My question is about any concerns that your members and staff may have about the perceived lack of independence from the police. I am assuming there are concerns. If there are, could you highlight the key ones?

Matt Wrack: That view has been expressed very clearly by the union, but it is a very big concern for firefighters at a local level who, every single day, do pioneering work that has been developed probably over the past 15 years, as was touched on earlier. Youth engagement and fire safety inspections are now much wider. There are some fantastic trials, for example in Greater Manchester, where the fire service is working closely with social services and health. That means getting access into people’s homes—I think Steve White from the Police Federation touched on this earlier—and failing to recognise the very distinct roles puts that at risk. The idea that a single employer with a single chief executive does not blur those lines misses some serious points.

Chief Fire Officer Loach: There is an operational uncertainty in terms of neutrality and impartiality. We deal with vulnerable people and we need to make sure that that remains unfettered. From a governance or strategic management perception, we need to understand and be assured that budgets would remain separate and that the fire service would be funded according to its integrated risk management plan, not necessarily on the grounds of affordability against policing.

Councillor Hanratty: This is about the trust for individuals who are going into a person’s home. Last year, the fire service nationally carried out around 670,000 home fire safety checks. In Merseyside, it carried out about 50,000. If there is any suggestion that we are reliant on the police, we may not get through those thresholds. We know that the risk elements for people are changing. They are living longer, there is more independent living and there are more mental health issues. If we do not get across those thresholds, those people will be more vulnerable and will become a higher risk, and they will be more prone to be caught up in a fire and a fire death. We need to prevent that as best we can.

[The Chair]

I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted to the Committee to ask questions. I thank the witnesses for their forbearance, the wisdom they have imparted to us and their evidence.

Police Funding Formula

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to speak today. I did not speak in the recent debate on police funding, but many concerns were expressed by Labour Members then, and those concerns remain. There is much uncertainty and worry in police forces across the country about current and future funding.

It was just a few months ago, in November, that Members were in the Chamber making a case for policing to be protected from the ravages of Tory cuts. Labour Members joined others, and people throughout the country, in raising concerns about policing cuts generally. The Government had originally planned to cut police budgets by more than 20%, but at the last moment the Chancellor announced, in his spending review statement to the House, that there would be no cuts, adding that there would be real-terms protection for police funding. However, it seems that the Tories are still intent on cutting police funding. Today we are discussing reform of the police funding formula. The Government may have tried to deflect attention from what they are doing by saying that there will be no cuts, but the fact remains that the level of police funding to which the Government are committed for the next few years will go down.

We know that the Tories had to cancel the last review of the police funding formula last autumn because they had miscalculated, using the wrong figures. Last week, Labour pleaded with the Government to think again before imposing further cuts and forcing local people to pay more to make up for them, because they are expecting police forces to raise extra money in local taxes to compensate for those Tory cuts. No matter how the Government try to dress things up, a cut is a cut. What we need is a fair funding formula—a formula that is fair to the less affluent, high-need, high-crime areas—but we are not being given that now.

I speak as someone who grew up with a huge amount of respect for the police, and for the job that they do. I worked closely with neighbourhood policing teams for many years in my previous role as a county councillor, and I have always appreciated the professionalism of police officers who put their lives on the line every day. Unfortunately, under this Government we have seen the break-up of the neighbourhood policing model that was the last Labour Government’s achievement. Neighbourhood policing brought police officers out of their stations and into communities, building up trust and bringing down crime, but the positive steps that were taken under Labour are being reversed.

If the Government proceed with their cuts, and unless a proper funding formula is developed, matters will become worse. In the last six months alone, a further 1,300 police officers have been lost; that is the equivalent of a whole force in some areas. The Tories had already cut police funding by 25% during the last Parliament, and the most recent losses bring the total reduction in the number of police officers to a staggering 18,000 since 2010. Officers are already paying the price for the Government’s actions. The reduction in their numbers has put greater pressure on those who remain, who have found their workloads soaring and workplace pressures intensifying. For instance, 27% are working more than 49 hours a week, which is over the legal limit.

Crime might have fallen in some areas, and the police are trying to reduce crime, but policing is about much more than whether crime is falling. It is about visible policing and providing reassurance to the residents of our communities. We also know that crime is changing, rather than simply falling. When the 6 million cybercrimes and online crimes are included in the official crime statistics, crime levels nearly double.

With the most serious and violent crimes on the rise again, this is the worst possible time to cut police funding, but that is what this Chancellor is doing. He said he would protect police budgets, but we are facing more years of cuts. Make no mistake, the police service is under pressure and the morale of police officers is at a very low ebb. Police officers I have spoken to feel that the Government do not understand or appreciate the passion and commitment that they have for the job they do. We should be focusing on cutting crime, not on cutting the police.

One of the few areas to have seen an increase in the policing family is the police and community support officers in Wales. Since 2010, South Wales police has increased the number of PCSOs by 77 and Gwent has seen an increase of 35. This is due to funding support from the Welsh Labour Government, who have supported a total of 500 PCSOs across Wales despite significant cuts to their own budget by the Tory Government. My constituency of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney is covered by two forces: South Wales on the Merthyr side and Gwent on the Rhymney side. In the next financial year, South Wales police will see a real-terms cut of £3 million and Gwent a cut of £1.5 million. The need for support from the police service is significant in many of the communities that I represent, but with this level of cuts, that support is under threat.

As I have said, this is not the time to be making cuts to services such as policing. The safety of our communities is too important to put at risk. The people who live in our communities need adequate protection from the police service, but the lack of a fair funding formula will put that at risk as it will not provide the police with the resources that they need to do the job.

[James Berry]

Will the hon. Gentleman dissociate himself from the shadow Home Secretary’s comment, made on the Floor of the House, that the police could take a funding cut of 10%?

[Gerald Jones]

That was not the situation that the shadow Home Secretary described, and I think the hon. Gentleman knows that. He is trying to misrepresent what was said. The Conservatives were talking about cuts of 20%-plus at that point, so let us get this into perspective.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Non-ring-fenced Departments were asked by the Chancellor to find cuts of up to 40%. If such cuts had gone through in the Home Office, policing budgets would certainly have been cut by more than 10%.

[Gerald Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I think we are seeing a lot of smoke and mirrors from the Conservative party. In closing, I urge the Government to address the concerns that I have outlined, and to provide the fair funding formula that the police need to do the job that we ask them to do.

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on leading today’s debate. We are here to consider the petition organised by the WASPI campaign. I was going to say that it has been supported by 139,059 people, but I checked before the debate and the figure is now over 140,000 with some 1,200 people signing the petition today. The number of Members here and the number of people who have signed the petition highlight how important it is that we address the issue.

For me and many others, today’s debate is about fairness. The transition to equality is an accepted principle; what is not acceptable is the lack of information and the lack of notice and time to prepare and plan for the transition. I have received many emails and letters from my constituents and those are the overriding concerns. The other common factor in the cases that I have read about is that many of the women affected by the changes have had low, and in some cases unequal, pay. Some have had periods of time outside of work due to bringing up children and have therefore been unable to contribute to national insurance and work pension schemes. Against that background, the changes to pension arrangements mean that what they had planned on getting is now hugely different from what they will receive, which is damaging to their financial security and their retirement plans.

Many women born in the 1950s will have started their employment when the gender pay gap was significant. The number of women across our country affected by the changes is also significant, with 3,180 in my constituency and many hundreds of thousands across the country. Most will not have company pensions, having been excluded from schemes for a variety of reasons. All Members will have heard cases similar to that of my constituent who at 58 is no longer able to retire at 60. She does a physically tough job and will now have to work until she is 66. She has had a relatively low income throughout her working life and now has to continue doing her tough job, totally unplanned, for a further six years. That just is not fair.

The WASPI campaign’s argument is powerful and its members should be congratulated on their passion and perseverance. The women at the centre of the campaign have been treated unfairly. It is surely time for the Government to propose measures to remedy that unfairness. The issue will not be resolved until the Government put it right by introducing a fair transition period to allow people to plan. I hope that the Minister will go some way towards that today by acknowledging the unfairness and by agreeing to discuss what options the Government will consider to bring about a fair transition.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

It has been said several times that perhaps this Bill should have been introduced a lot earlier—many years ago. One reason why it was not is that it was so difficult to do. I say to my Liberal Democrat friend, the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), that when Lynne Featherstone was in my job she was 100% in support of this Bill. I know it has been a difficult time for the Liberal Democrats, but perhaps she was right in many of the things she said and which we brought forward. I am not going to comment any further on that, because the right hon. Gentleman and I disagree profoundly. We will, of course, oppose his amendments; he is not going to be surprised by that.

I, too, want to get on to the second group, so it is important that we make some progress. Many important speeches have been made this afternoon, in completely the right tone and adopting completely the right attitude towards what we are trying to do, which is protect people. Throughout the Committee stage, I was trying to ensure that we kept why we are trying to do this at the forefront of things. We may disagree about specific parts, as we have heard in the Chamber today, and we may slightly disagree on the methodology on certain parts, but I have a responsibility as the Minister, standing at this Dispatch Box with my colleagues from other Departments. They have worked closely with me, and I want some of them to work even more closely with me as we go forward with the Bill and with the review which we have committed to all the way through.

With that in mind, I will try to deal with new clause 1, then take up some of the issues raised in connection with other amendments and then deal with amendment 5, which relates to poppers. That has taken up most of our time in the Chamber today and, as was alluded to by the Chairman of the Select Committee, it is probably one of the areas where we slightly disagree—and then it is only on how we do it, rather than what we are going to do.

As I said early on, this Bill is not a golden bullet; it is not the be-all and end-all. It is about providing a blanket ban; it is a brand new type of legislation. We have not seen it before in this House, and it needs to be worked through with two or three other Departments. Obviously, the Ministry of Justice must be involved because we are creating a criminal offence—fortunately, I also sit in that Department, which is quite helpful. The Department for Health is also important. During the course of the debate, I was very conscious of the implications for public health. I am also talking about the prevention of diseases, but I will come back to that later. Lastly, as new clause 1 indicates, the involvement of the Department for Education is also important.

I met Ministers, scientists and police in the Republic of Ireland to find out how their Bill, which is close but not identical to ours, worked. One of the biggest things they said was that we need to get the message out there. We should target young people, but not exclusively young people, as we discovered today; I mean no disrespect to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) when I say that. The matter runs across the age profile. I do apologise if I refer to young people too often.

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mike Penning]

I will give way, but I will not do it too much, because we want to get on to the next group of amendments.

[Gerald Jones]

What lessons does the Minister think we can learn from the Welsh schools liaison programme, which sees drug education awareness being delivered in 97% of primary and secondary schools in Wales?

[Mike Penning]

With devolution, different Governments in different parts of this great nation are delivering programmes. I fully respect that it is very early days. Part of the review that I committed to early on is that we will look very carefully at how we and other parts of the country have done things. Interestingly, we will have better evidence from the Republic of Ireland as well.

When we discussed this matter in Committee, I was aware that the shadow Minister was at times on a very steep learning curve, as indeed was I with regard to part of the Bill. I do think that we can resolve some issues without the statutory requirement in the legislation. The shadow Minister referred to the cost of interventions and education. The latest figure that we have on tackling drug misuse is £341 million, which was, believe it or not, in 2011-12.

Right at the start, I accepted that FRANK is not perfect and that it needs to be improved, but I do not want scrap it and bring in something else with a different name. The scheme very much needs to work with the Angelus Foundation and others, because the third sector—the voluntary sector—often knows much better than the Government, which is why the previous Administration and this Administration have used it extensively.

Transforming Rehabilitation Programme

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) on securing this important debate. According to the Ministry of Justice, the aim of the reforms was to ensure that offenders were not only punished, but better rehabilitated by offering them greater support in the rehabilitation process, reducing reoffending rates while continuing to ensure public safety.

Is it not the case that the reforms were untried, untested and rushed through at breakneck speed? The former chief inspector published his first inspection of the transforming rehabilitation reforms in 2014, which was critical and found that splitting the probation service caused significant issues with process, communication and information sharing. The major problems were rushed timing, the fact that the model was untested and, as we have heard, fragmentation.

The speed of the reforms caused real concern and their implementation caused operational problems that could have been avoided or mitigated. Most worrying is the fragmentation, which means that offenders are juggled between multiple members of staff before they finally meet their personal probation officer. Many of the new processes also take longer and are more complex than the previous arrangements. Surely changes are meant to bring more efficiency, not less.

Significantly, in the most recent report from May 2015, the chief inspector of probation said that the picture was “mixed” and that inspectors found that many of the challenges identified in the earlier report remained. The IT systems remain a barrier and a number of tasks at the pre-allocation stage are “time consuming” and “not streamlined”. Those wide-ranging concerns remain unresolved. The Government must take action, and I urge the Minister to address those concerns today.