Police Funding

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. One thing I hope we can avoid at all costs is the kind of knee-jerk reaction that he mentioned. I would hate the police service to be subject to the same kind of reorganisation that we have had in the NHS in the past 20 years under the previous Government and the one before that.

I do not intend to go on for long, because many right hon. and hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate. The Home Affairs Committee hopes to assist the Government in this difficult process—we want to approach the proposals in a comradely and constructive way. I am glad to see so many members of the Committee in the Chamber. Our longest-serving and most distinguished member, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) is here, as are my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak. The hon. Members for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) are members of the Committee, and sitting behind them on the Government Benches is a non-member, the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti). The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) is also in the Chamber. She was a member of the Committee but was poached within weeks of her appointment by the Minister to become his Parliamentary Private Secretary. I am sure she is doing a great job.

The Committee has decided to undertake a trilogy of reports on three different aspects of the proposals to assist the Government. It is rather like “The Lord of the Rings”. We have just published our report on police and crime commissioners. As the Minister knows, members of the Committee have different views on the desirability of police and crime commissioners, but I hope he found our report helpful. It outlined a number of issues that we feel could be of value to the country.

We were very concerned that the figures for the cost of police and crime commissioners came out only after we had published our report. Indeed, the proposals came out on the very day that we published our report. Perhaps we can improve our co-ordination. I am not saying that we should be like “Strictly Come Dancing”, but if the Government and the Committee communicated a little bit better, we might be able to see the proposals before we commence our reports, which would make what we say more valuable.

The second report was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak and my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, and we will look at the CSR in the light of the decisions that the Minister will make imminently about how much police forces will have as part of that second report on a reduction in police bureaucracy. There is common ground on both sides of the House about the need to reduce police bureaucracy. When my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) was the Minister with responsibility for the police, he also said that he wanted to cut red tape. In the 23 years I have been a Member of Parliament, Ministers have always said that they want to cut red tape, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we need to ensure that it actually is reduced. That is why I hope that Jan Berry will have her term as the police bureaucracy tsar renewed, so that rather than just writing a one-off report she can continue to monitor the situation.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that savings would have to be made whichever party was in government? Will he give us a preliminary figure that he—personally or as the Chair of the Committee—would accept for the reduction in police budgets and numbers?

[Keith Vaz]

I am afraid that I cannot give him a personal figure. The Committee has not met and has not discussed this matter, nor have we conducted our report. Members of the Committee would be most concerned if I started speaking on behalf of the Committee on a matter that we had not considered. I know that the hon. Gentleman has a great interest in policing matters, and we will look at this very carefully. We will of course take evidence from the police and from others.

The final report that we intend to produce is on the new landscape of policing. The Government have not finally decided precisely where every bit of the old landscape will fit in the new landscape and we hope to help by setting out a landscape that will be accepted by the Government and the Opposition, so that whatever happens on 5 May 2015—or whenever the fixed-term election will be held—and if the Labour party is returned to power, we will not have another reorganisation, as we have had in the health service. Let us reach a consensus about how to proceed.

To that end, I was very pleased that the Minister was able to come to the summit meeting that was organised in the constituency of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase a few weeks ago. I hope the Minister took away the message that there are stakeholders in the policing process who want to be engaged in what the Government are doing. We heard an excellent speech from my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary, and other Members of Parliament attended. We now have, in people such as Hugh Orde, Denis O’Connor, Paul Stephenson, Paul McKeever and others, some truly outstanding leaders in the profession, but we—Parliament and the Government—need to work together to ensure that we have a permanent landscape and to deal with the reductions in a particular way.

I am very concerned that there will be a reduction not only in the number of police officers but in the number of police community support officers. I was deeply concerned by the press statement issued by the chief constable of Lancashire police—which covers the area of Chorley, if my geography is correct, Mr Deputy Speaker—to the effect that every PCSO has been put on notice that they may lose their posts. They have been a terrific addition to policing.

I recently went to a residents meeting in London—I normally speak at residents meetings rather than attend them, but I was attending as a constituent of the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord). The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) was also there. We heard an excellent presentation from a local PCSO about the work that he does, which includes reducing the work load of police officers, enabling them to do their jobs effectively.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that point. He is absolutely right.

I have one last point to make. As I said at the outset, I am in favour of the Minister’s plans to try to modernise the police force and get greater efficiency. I genuinely wish him well, and I think that some of the things that he talks about are things that we should try to do. I also think that they need a longer lead-in time. Time will tell who is right about that. However, there is one priority that I would not adopt at the moment, especially against the background of the cuts and the reorganisation and efficiency changes that we are about to experience. I would not totally change the management and accountability structure of the police at the same time. It seems ludicrous that we should be subjected to the idea of elected police and crime commissioners now. It might be a good idea—although I think that the Minister is wrong about that as well—but what on earth is the pressing need for something that will have a further destabilising effect on the police, at the very time when they have all those other issues to contend with? If the proposal is a good idea, surely there is plenty of time to discuss it, and to pilot it and see what the consequences—the benefits and downsides—are.

[Guy Opperman]

In 2008, when the previous Government made the proposal and were considering it in their draft legislative programme, was my hon. Friend in favour of it or against it?

[Steve McCabe]

I am glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman is now my hon. Friend. I do not know whether that means that he shares some of my concerns about policing, or whether I have at least one ally on the Government Benches who will talk to the Minister about such issues. Actually, it was never the Labour Government’s proposal to have directly elected police commissioners, so no, I was never in favour of that.

This is not the time for that experiment. The Minister has enough on his plate. He needs to get on and get the best deal and the best arrangements that he can from his Treasury colleagues, in order to prevent some of our worst fears from being realised. He would be better off concentrating his energy on that. We can deal with the question of police commissioners another time. What is proposed sounds like a Government in too much of a hurry, with too few resources and too few of the right priorities. If the Minister gets this wrong, not only will he suffer personally in a ministerial capacity, but our constituents throughout the country will suffer as a consequence of reckless behaviour that damages the police.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I have a background in criminal law, and have spent a large part of my time down the years prosecuting and defending people in various trials, including murder trials.

I have been out on the beat with members of the Hexham constabulary, who do an amazing job in supporting the police and the community. They undoubtedly need our support, and we should provide that support unequivocally—for the police force and for the operational command—if at all possible; but if we are to do that, we must change the position that we acquired on 7 May. There is currently a significant financial deficit, and that means that we must make choices. Whether we like it or not, we have had to make cuts. That gives no one any pleasure, but we have been forced to do it by our present position.

We are adopting a good procedure in attempting to do a series of things at the same time. There will be a settlement. My local chief constable, who has done an amazing job, wrote to me outlining the cuts that she might have to make, which are undeniably significant. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and others have pointed out that the cuts are a problem that we must address, but choices need to be made, and the chief constable is dealing with them very well. There will be a reduction of 450 officers or civilian staff. In this context, I should remind the House that she was the chief constable who looked after Raoul Moat and all the difficulties and problems that followed on from the events in the summer. She has done a sterling job in trying to hold everything together, but when I asked the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs what he would cut and what his approach would be, he initially said, “I can’t really answer that question,” but at the very end of his speech he said, “This will require the Home Secretary to go back to the Chancellor and ask for more money.”

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Like the other Departments.

[Guy Opperman]

That is an interesting observation, but when the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) was Home Secretary he famously said there would not be enough money to pay for various things, and the home affairs budget would clearly have gone down. It is not in dispute that that will present the Department with a significant problem. Efforts are being made, but a choice had to be made, and I applaud the Government on the choice they made and for going ahead with it.

I asked the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) whether he supported the police and crime commissioner changes. We find from talking to our constituents that the centralisation of control under Labour over the past 13 years is a significant problem. The legislation that the Labour Government brought in put ever more work under Whitehall control. The Home Secretary was given ever stronger powers to intervene and to direct police authorities. Labour’s approach failed to recognise the fundamental problem of policing, which is that those who should be in the driving seat, and those who suffer when things do not work, are the public, not the Government.

In the last year prior to the change in Government there were 52 documents of central policy guidance, and a further 60 on planning. The average length of the manuals was just under 100 pages, and they included 4,000 new promises. The principle is very simple: the police are there to serve the local community, not Whitehall, but for too long they have been serving Whitehall.

[Jack Dromey]

The hon. Gentleman’s esoteric dissertation on central Government diktats is all very interesting, but does he not accept this simple reality: as a consequence of what Whitehall is now doing in front-loading major cuts to the police service—7% and 6% in the first two years—local police services generally are faced with a nigh-on impossible problem and the West Midlands police service in particular will lose 400 police officers by 1 April next year?

[Guy Opperman]

I make this simple point: what would Labour have cut? All parties would now be facing this difficulty and, frankly, it is fanciful to argue there would not have been any cuts whatever to, say, the Birmingham or Northumberland police forces.

I want to turn now to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill. When under the leadership of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), Labour planned for elected representatives. In the 2008 draft legislative programme it announced that its Policing and Crime Bill would include proposals to provide

“a clear and powerful public voice in decision making through directly elected representatives”.

To my untutored mind, having done nearly 20 years at the Bar, that sounds remarkably similar to what we are introducing now. Labour referred to elected representatives in a policing Green Paper published in July 2008. I accept that I was in another place.

[Chris Ruane]

The House of Lords?

[Guy Opperman]

No, you are wrong. The promotion is delightful, but it is premature. Mention has been made of “Strictly Come Dancing” and other things, but I was not in the House of Lords then. Instead, I was probably somewhere near the Old Bailey. My point is that even Ed Balls has conceded that there is more to do on accountability.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. When Members are mentioned they must, of course, be referred to by their constituency not their name, and there must also be no references to “you” or to “me”—after all, I have made no decisions in this area.

[Guy Opperman]

The shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), has said that there is more to do in respect of accountability, and there is more we can do to deepen local and force-based accountability in policing.

[Mr Winnick]

If I understand correctly, the hon. Gentleman was criticising the previous Government for having proposed elected police commissioners and for then abandoning the idea. That is what happened, but that is part of the democratic process. The Home Affairs Committee—which by no means has the final say in such matters—heard representations from the police authorities and senior police officers. We discussed the matter and we came to the conclusion that the Government should not go ahead with the idea. That was not decisive in influencing the Government, but there is nothing wrong with a Government listening, and in my view they made the right decision.

[Guy Opperman]

There were two efforts in respect of this particular proposal, and it is right that certain people have had reservations as time has passed, but let me give one particular example. Sir Hugh Orde was previously a very vocal critic, even predicting that some officers would resign, but following the Queen’s Speech he has changed his position. He now welcomes a commitment to local accountability and says he would work with the Government to protect operational independence. As he put it:

“Policing has always been about serving and answering to local communities. Those are the origins of policing in this country and chief officers”—

and I stress this point—

“welcome the commitment towards local accountability.”

I should also make the point that this proposal has not come from out of the blue. It has been proposed in the past, and it has also been tried in different contexts in America. If we can harness this new proposal and reform the justice system in the way that, without a shadow of a doubt, it requires, we can make a genuine effort to engage in a three-pronged attack to take this matter forward.