Government Reductions in Policing

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

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

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

No. I shall make some more progress.

I have made the point about the bureaucracy, but what we have done is just the start. Working with the police, we are looking at sweeping away a wide range of the red tape, bureaucracy and paperwork that get in the way of officers doing what they want to do—getting out on the streets and keeping us safe.

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[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend also makes an important and valid point. I will come on to such issues in a few minutes.

[Jack Dromey]

rose—

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[Mrs May]

I will make some progress before I give way to any other interventions.

Our reforms are also based on the premise that the police must be accountable not to civil servants in Whitehall, but to the communities that they serve. Last Thursday, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill completed its passage through the House. It is our hope that it will complete its passage through the Lords and receive Royal Assent in time for elections for police and crime commissioners to take place next year.

During the Committee stage of the Bill, the Opposition helpfully conceded the principle that we need democratic reform in policing, but their idea is just to add elections on top of the existing ineffective structures by having elected police authority chairs, which would add to the costs without bringing any of the benefits. Under our proposals, police and crime commissioners will have the power to set the police budget, determine local policing priorities and hold their chief constables to account. If they do not cut crime and help keep their communities safe, they will face the ultimate sanction of rejection at the ballot box.

However, slashing Labour’s bureaucracy and increasing accountability is not enough. The police will have to take their fair share of the cuts across Government to clear up Labour’s financial mess, so direct savings and efficiencies are also needed.

[Jack Dromey]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary. Last week five west midlands police officers with a total service of 163 years spoke out about the harm that will be done to the front line on which they have served all their life. If the Home Secretary wants to hear the voice of front-line police officers, will she agree to meet those five police officers?

[Mrs May]

I am very happy to visit police forces, as I do, to talk to police officers across the board, and to hear directly what they are saying. When I next make a trip to the West Midlands force, I am very happy for the hon. Gentleman to arrange for me to meet those five officers. I am sure I will be meeting other officers as well.

It is important that we ensure that we make changes within our police force so that we have the police force that we need to face the 21st century, but it is also important that we make sure that taxpayers’ money is spent effectively. Our starting point for savings is the report by HMIC, “Valuing the Police” which estimated that £1.15 billion per year could be saved if only the least efficient forces brought themselves up to the average level of efficiency.

However, the fiscal deficit left by Labour is so dire that bringing all forces up to the average level is no longer enough—forces must go further. We must raise the performance of all our police forces up to the level not of the average, but of the most efficient forces. If forces improve productivity and adjust to the level of spend typical in the most efficient forces, we could add another £350 million to the £1.15 billion of savings that HMIC calculated.

This sort of thing is already happening. In Suffolk and Norfolk the police forces are creating a shared service platform for their back-office support functions, saving around £10 million per year. In Kent, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) who serves on the Kent police authority made clear, the police are streamlining and rationalising support services, enabling them to put more into the front line. The Kent force is also collaborating with Essex police to make savings and allow more resources to be devoted to the front line.

In London the Metropolitan police are getting more officers to patrol alone, rather than in pairs, and are better matching resources to demand in neighbourhood policing, increasing officer availability to the public by 25%. In Gloucestershire the police are putting 15% more sergeants and constables into visible policing roles and increasing the numbers of officers on the beat, at the same time as they are making savings. These examples show that it can be done and it must be done.

There were other aspects that were outside the remit of the HMIC report. I know that members of the Opposition Front-Bench team have not read everything that was in that report, so let me spell it out to them. HMIC did not look at the savings that could be made by joining up police procurement and IT, for example. Currently, the police have 2,000 different IT systems across the 43 forces, employing 5,000 staff. As my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) said, the police currently procure items from uniforms to helicopters in 43 different ways. That makes no sense.

Working with the police, we have already secured their agreement that the right way forward is a national, joined-up approach, with better contracts, more joint purchasing, a smaller number of different IT systems and greater private sector involvement. With these changes we can save a further £350 million. Again, that is over and above the savings that HMIC identified.

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

I pay tribute to our police service. It is quite remarkable how it has evolved over the years, learning sometimes difficult lessons of history from Scarman to Macpherson. Our Labour Government backed the police service and invested massively, with 17,000 more police officers and 16,000 police community support officers. An admirable model of community policing has led to a record fall in crime, and nowhere can that be seen better than in West Midlands police authority, under the leadership of Chief Constable Chris Sims.

I have seen at first hand just how effective our police service is. In Castle Vale, the neighbourhood tasking group deals with problems of antisocial behaviour and there is excellent dialogue between the police and the local community, so that the young kids now go and play in a park and the older residents, who were complaining, enjoy their environment. When there was an outbreak of robberies in shops in Stockland Green, the police mounted an excellent operation and effective intelligence led to the arrests of those responsible. When there were two terrible knife murders in my constituency, including that of one young man who died on his doorstep in the arms of his mother, a huge police operation, with support from the community, led to arrests.

The community values its community policing and there is complete dismay about the impact of the Government’s cuts on our police service, not least because the first duty of any Government is to ensure the safety and security of our communities. It is therefore simply wrong for the Government to impose massive front-loaded cuts on the West Midlands police service that will lead to 2,400 people going, including 300 police officers who are going right now under regulation A19. It is absolutely wrong that the high-need, high-unemployment west midlands is being hit more than twice as hard as the leafy glades of Surrey and that Ministers pretend that there is no impact on front-line policing. Policing is about much more than just those who are out on the front line: the police team working together is key. Some of the earlier references to areas such as child protection, domestic violence and counter-terrorism involve a great deal of inter-agency collaboration and intelligence gathering.

Having said that, we need to move beyond the numbers —not just how many are going, but who they are and why they matter. Sergeant Dave Hewitt, 32 years a police officer, being forced out at the age of 48, is a neighbourhood sergeant with an excellent team of neighbourhood police officers making their local community a safer place to live. Is he or is he not a front-line officer? Police Constable Ian Rees, 34 years a police officer, being forced out at the age of 55, is a motorway specialist making our motorways in the midlands a safer place to drive. Is he or is he not a front-line police officer?

Detective Constable Tony Fisher, 33 years a police officer, being forced out at the age of 50, is a specialist in dealing with serious robbery. Only in the past couple of years, he mounted an exercise to track down the individual who was robbing pensioners at cash points and put that man away, and rightly so, for 13 years. He also tracked down the gang that used machetes to rob shops, with the leader of that gang going away for 17 years, and rightly so. The community is a safer place, thanks to him. Is he or is he not a front-line police officer?

Detective Constable Tim Kennedy, 31 years a police officer, is a specialist in serious acquisitive crime—burglaries and cars—with one of the best detection records anywhere in the midlands. Is he or is he not a front-line police officer? Inspector Mark Stokes, 33 years a police officer, is a specialist in designing out crime, with an outstanding track record. On the Four Towers estate in Birmingham, for example, there has been a 98% fall in what was a serious level of crime, thanks to the work that he has done. Is he or is he not vital to the front line?

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for agreeing earlier that she will meet these A19 officers. She will find that they are the best in Birmingham and Britain. They will be sadly missed by the communities that they have served so well over many years. It is wrong—plain wrong—for the Government to say to the men and women being forced out under A19, “Thanks for your past loyalty. Thanks for your outstanding service. Here is your notice.” The Government have got to think again.