Police Grant Report

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who in her magnificent speech spoke up for our police service, spoke up for our country, and spoke up for the safety and security of our citizens. She was absolutely right to do that, because the first duty of any Government is the safety and security of their citizens. That was a responsibility we took deadly seriously when we were in government. The development, with the police, of the British model of policing—neighbourhood policing, 17,000 extra police officers and 16,000 police community support officers—saw crime fall by 43%. That progress has now been slammed into reverse, with 21,000 gone nationally and 2,000 in the west midlands. If we look at the most recent statistics in the west midlands, we see that there has been a 14% overall increase in crime, with increases of 15% in gun crime, 17% in knife crime, 31% in serious acquisitive crime and 8% in domestic violence.

What planet do Conservative Members live on? Do they not hear from their communities the concerns that we hear? I remember a packed public meeting I called on 24 November, with our admirable police and crime commissioner David Jamieson, together with the leadership of our police service. There was complete dismay among local people about rising crime. There had been eight serious incidents in a matter of months involving knife crime, gun crime and machetes, and there were concerns that we never see our police any longer. One after the other, people said, “We are frightened,” and older people in particular said, “We are frightened to go out after night falls.”

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I will give my hon. Friend an example. Last week there was a public meeting in the Willenhall area of Coventry, and the police more or less said that there was a shortage of policemen in that area. That is a typical example. The public are seriously concerned about rising crime in that area and other parts of my constituency, and they want something done. They want more policemen and no more alibis from the Government.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend puts it well—more police officers, not more alibis. I will come to that in one moment.

The consequences being felt by the British public are ever more serious. One police officer said to me, “Jack, I hate to say this, but increasingly some criminals feel free rein, because there just aren’t enough of us any longer to keep the community safe.” In terms of response times, domestic violence victims are having to wait from four hours until the following day for the police to turn up, when they are desperate for the safety that the police bring.

The hollowing out of neighbourhood policing—that great British model of policing celebrated worldwide, which Labour built in government—is having increasingly serious consequences. On the one hand, neighbourhood policing is about not just the detection of crime but working with the community to prevent crime in the first place. On the other hand, it is crucial to counter-terrorism, as it is the eyes and ears of the counter-terrorist effort. We face the most serious threat to our country in a generation, from terrorism inspired by ISIS and al-Qaeda and from far-right terrorism, which now accounts for 15% of terrorist threats. Time and again, the heads of counter-terrorism units right across the country say the same thing: neighbourhood policing is vital to keeping the public safe and stopping the terrorist threat.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) was right when he said that such are the demands upon the West Midlands police service, including surge capacity after terrorist attacks, that it had to suspend neighbourhood policing for an entire month. It is little wonder that the people in the communities concerned express utter dismay and ask, “Where are our police officers?”

We heard a series of assertions from Conservative Members. In essence, their mantra is, “We have cut police, but we have cut crime and protected police budgets, and ours has been a fair approach.” The assertion about cutting crime is not true. The stats on recorded crime have been substantially cleaned up, but the Office for National Statistics has intervened to ensure that in future, we also take account of cyber-crime, which was not previously included in the statistics. Incidentally, cyber-crime has a low level of reporting, but if we included the estimates for it, we would see the crime figures go up by in excess of 25%. That is all the more serious now, because a person is more likely to be mugged online than on the street.

The assertion about protecting police budgets is not true. West Midlands police has suffered £140 million of cuts to its budget. It needed £22 million this year just to stand still. Instead, all it has been able to get is the £9.5 million thrown up by the precept. That means a real-terms cut of £12.5 million. It is little wonder that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has estimated that 359 more police officers will go in the west midlands. Our PCC has said that 28 police stations have already closed and more are likely to close.

As for this nonsense about a fair approach, I completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe). In his powerful speech, he argued that if we compare the treatment of the west midlands to that of the leafy shires of Surrey and Hampshire, nothing could be further from the truth than the idea of a fair approach.

Turning to the police service itself, as the thin blue line is stretched ever thinner, our police officers are paying the price. I want to pay tribute to them for the work they do and the heroism of their approach. I remember police officers chasing an armed robber who had hijacked a car and driven off with two young children in the back seat. Putting their lives at risk to keep those kids safe and recover them for their mum and dad, they ran towards danger. That is the nature of their job and the nature of their heroism.

Police officers pay a price in their own physical security—a police officer in Birmingham was stabbed in the neck as he effected an arrest on 12 December—but also in stress, sickness and despair. The statistics on the impact on the police service of their having to do ever more with ever less resource are profoundly depressing.

So many police officers have paid the price with their own jobs. Some of the most heartbreaking occasions I remember were when the West Midlands police had to use regulation A19 to retire police officers aged 51, 52 or 53 who had 30 years of service. Some of the finest police officers one would ever want to meet—they were doing an outstanding job and they loved their job—were forced to retire because of Government cuts. Let us hear no more about “We have cut crime” or “We have protected budgets”, because nothing could be further from the truth.

May I say in conclusion that I listened in disbelief to the cavalier disregard not of the Minister, although I fundamentally disagree with what he has said, but of the Prime Minister earlier? I have to ask: does she not hear the same concerns that we hear? As a senior police officer put it to me, is she deaf to reason? Does she ever meet local people and listen to their concerns? If she did, she would hear about the same experiences that I and everyone else on the Opposition Benches has heard about. I remember a woman who has lived in Perry Common for 44 years saying, “I don’t go out after dark any longer”. Local shopkeepers who have been robbed at knifepoint told me, “People are afraid to come out after dark, and it’s affecting our business”. A woman from the Slade Road area said, “I’ve lived here for 60 years, and I love the area, which I was brought up in, but I no longer feel safe”.

I must say in all frankness that it is simply not good enough to hear Conservative Members praise the police service and then preside over the biggest cuts in policing history. Forgive me if I put this bluntly, but the consequences are that, ultimately, people will die who might otherwise have lived, people will suffer injury who might otherwise have walked in safety and people will have their house burgled who might otherwise have enjoyed security in their home. The consequences could not be more serious. The Government have got it fundamentally wrong, and Opposition Members are absolutely determined to stand up for that first duty—the safety and security of the British people—and stand up for our police service.