Policing and Crime

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary was good enough to meet six police officers from the west midlands—six outstanding officers whom I know well. They included Tim Kennedy, described by one of his colleagues as one of the most brilliant forensic detectives anywhere in Britain, with an outstanding track record of detection; Sergeant Dave Hewitt, an outstanding community police sergeant, with a team of police officers with a first-class track record of keeping their community safe; and Detective Constable Tony Fisher, a man who specialises in the detection of serious crime, ranging from detecting the individual who was robbing pensioners at knifepoint at cash points and putting him away for 13 years, to the action that he took to track down somebody who was responsible for leading a gang carrying out robberies with a machete, putting him away for 17 years.

There was also Martin Heard, a police constable and an outstanding community police officer in Wolverhampton. As his community said on ITV only last week, “He was always there for us when we needed him. Now there’s no one there in his place.” He was forced out as one of the A19 officers. To add insult to injury, he then received a letter asking, “Do you want to come back as an unpaid special constable?”

Even in some of the most sensitive areas of policing, we are seeing cuts. In the west midlands 16 counter-terrorism officers are being forced out under regulation A19—nine constables, three sergeants, two inspectors and a superintendent. This is madness. It is the abrogation by Government of their first duty, which is to ensure the safety and security of our communities, and it is utterly indefensible, yet the Government seek to mount two defences.

The first defence is the “Not me, guv” defence that blames the police. The Home Secretary cuts the police, then blames the police for the cuts, in circumstances where, by the scale and speed of the cuts that she has offered up to the Chancellor, she leaves chief constables in an impossible position. The second defence is the assertion that there are only 11% of police on the front line at any one time. That simplistic nonsense fails to understand the nature of modern policing.

Inspector Mark Stokes, one of the police officers whom the Home Secretary met, is an expert in designing out crime. At the 4 Towers estate, crime fell by 98% as a consequence of his work on the front line, but also in the middle office. Typically, the great bulk of the work to detect individuals guilty of domestic violence is done by way of a multi-agency approach, the multi-agency risk assessment conference, not on the front line, and it is devastatingly effective in protecting women against assault.

Offender managers work through the multi-agency public protection arrangements, managing offenders on the basis of risk—sex offenders, for example, such as the case in the west midlands of an individual who had served 28 months in prison because he had assaulted young children. He came out, applied to become a referee, became a referee, and was detected as a consequence not of detailed work on the front line, but of intelligence work that discovered what was happening, moved against him and raised the matter with the Football Association, leading to a sex offender order and that individual no longer having any access to young children. I could go on. So much of the work of intelligence and surveillance officers, for example, is not done on the front line, but it is absolutely key to successful policing.

What we are seeing is a devastating reversal of the progress made over the past 13 years. What we saw over those years was on the one hand our police learning the painful lessons from the mistakes of history, and on the other hand massive investment by a Labour Government, leading to 17,000 more police officers, 16,000 police community support officers, a 43% fall in crime and a model of community policing that is held in high regard worldwide and valued by our communities. Now in the west midlands we are seeing crime rising: 2,200 more vehicle crimes, 2,500 more burglaries and robbery up by 25%.

In conclusion, the Home Secretary spoke earlier about policing by consent, and I agree with her, but there is no consent in my constituency for what she is doing. There is dismay because no politician now on the Government Benches went to the people last May and said, “Vote for me and I will cut the police.” There is dismay because 2,400 will go from the West Midlands police service, and because those brave men and women with 30 years’ service, some of them 48 or 49 years old, are being forced out just when the community needs them most. The Home Secretary must realise that the Government have got it wrong and that they have to think again.