Crime and Antisocial Behaviour: Slade Road, Birmingham

Debate between Jack Dromey and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

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

Built in Victorian times, the Frances Road, Mere Road, Kings Road and Victoria Road areas of Stockland Green are over 100 years old. Historically, they were a haven of peace and tranquillity and a strong community—no longer. Twelve months ago, seven residents asked me to meet them in Frances Road. I arrived and 70 were there, and it all poured out. A woman said, “Our great-great-great-grandparents bought the house, and successive generations have lived in it ever since. Now we fear to walk the streets.” There was a daughter and her mum, and the daughter said, “If ever I want to go down to Slade Road to get a bus, I ask my mum to come with me. I am afraid.” One man who had lived there for 32 years said that gangs, as he called them, who were drugged and drunk had tried to break into his house at 3 o’clock in the morning only the previous week.

The area is still a great community, but it is wracked with crime. The increase is not exclusively due to the rise in the private rented sector, but at the heart of it is a rise to 53% of local homes now being in the private rented sector and rapid growth in the numbers of houses in multiple occupancy and unscrupulous landlords. Registered social landlords are importing vulnerable people into Stockland Green from all over the country, offering supported housing but without the necessary support.

Senior police officers put it well in a recent discussion, saying that they had seen a disproportionate number of vulnerable people and ex-offenders imported into the Slade Road community from all over the country. They also said that rogue landlords often offer a room for £80 and make a lot of money—if they were providing the necessary support, it would cost three times that, but public agencies want to go for the cheapest possible outcome. They said that there are rogues in what sometimes seems like an unregulated marketplace, and that it is harder to get a decent student HMO than to prevent victims of domestic violence from ending up alongside ex-offenders. I do not want to send the wrong message—of course it is right that we accommodate the vulnerable and those on probation having come out of prison, but there has been a disproportionate dumping in Stockland Green without the necessary support to help either group rebuild their lives.

The statistics for rising crime in Stockland Green are stark. Between May 2018 and April 2019, there were 1,179 violent and sexual offences, 480 examples of antisocial behaviour, 380 burglaries, 326 cases of criminal damage and arson, and 277 vehicle crimes, including cars being set on fire. Not all of Stockland Green can be painted with the same brush, but there are hotspots, particularly the Frances Road, Mere Road, Kings Road and Victoria Road areas and the shops further down the hill at the bottom end of the Slade Road.

We now see open drug dealing in the area, and the vulnerable are fearful of walking the streets. I spoke to local residents only last Friday, and Michael said, “My two daughters used to love going to Brookvale Park. We no longer let them out because they just do not feel safe.” His neighbour opposite said, “I have lived here for 29 years. Every morning I come out and see open drug dealing in the street.” I have seen with my own eyes both those who are peddling drugs and clearly mentally ill people on the streets without supervision. I discovered one particular case of an individual who should never have been out other than under supervision, but nevertheless they were free to walk around.

I also see powerful testimony in my own casework. Every week we get an approach from the Slade Road area. For example, a resident on Frances Road wrote to me to say that they have had to put their property on sale because of drugs, people banging on doors at midnight, and the fact that her children do not feel safe to go out of the house. She said, “This started in June 2016, when houses in multiple occupancy sprung up on the street. A lady climbed out of a window and was knocking on the front door at 3 o’clock on the morning. I reported the incident, but the police said they cannot do anything. They sent a PCSO to deal with the issue. Nothing was resolved.” She now cannot even sell the property, because at viewing times next-door residents are smoking drugs at the front door and the smell comes straight into her house.

A second constituent wrote, “There are now many halfway houses on my road. We are really concerned about the drug deals that go on in at least three of the houses. They happen in broad daylight, and we see a lot of drug users coming into the street to buy from drug barons actually living in the street.” She said that residents are intimidated by some of them, and “I have been sitting in my car and watching deals take place as staff are leaving at the same time. They did not bat an eyelid. Most of the old neighbours want to move out now. Another neighbour and I cleaned piles of rubbish from our street recently, as most residents pay no attention if it is spilling into the street, particularly from the HMOs and the rapid growth in the private rented sector. Mice are common in our house now.”

A third resident said, “In my street, and in the street opposite, we had two cars in a matter of weeks set on fire.”

If we go down the hill to the shops in Slade Road, which is the heartland of the Kashmiri community in Stockland Green, we see a similar pattern of open drug dealing and various offences. For instance, one mentally ill man, released without supervision into a second-class HMO in the Slade Road area, came down the hill and assaulted five people, including a grandfather who was seriously hurt, until the police arrived—actually, one of the police officers was assaulted, too.

I pay tribute to our local councillors, particularly Josh Jones and Penny Holbrook, for the work they have done. I also pay tribute to our local police officers Sergeant Jim Reid, Helena and Wayne for the work they do. But as the thin blue line is drawn ever thinner with the loss of 2,100 police officers in the west midlands, their problem in dealing with rapidly rising crime and antisocial behaviour becomes ever more acute. Last week, one resident showed me statistics from the neighbourhood watch arrangements we have now set up, and 83% of crimes recorded in the Slade Road and Stockland Green area do not lead to a conviction or resolution.

I also pay tribute to those in the local authority: Matt Smith, who works on enforcement in the private rented sector; Rob James, the housing director; and Sharon Thompson, the cabinet member. They have taken welcome action, including a series of prosecutions in recent months at 170 South Road, 118 South Road, 11 The Drive, 472 Slade Road and 30 Hunton Road, with more to follow.

Just as the police have suffered the biggest cuts to any police service in the whole of Europe, which is having an impact on our community, the local authority is reeling from the biggest cuts in local government history of £690 million. Those responsible for tackling these problems are doing their very best—I stress that once again—but their numbers have been cut by three quarters.

Both the police and the council can and should do more. Indeed, I want to see the local authority move down the path of selective licensing schemes to tackle the undoubted problems in the Slade Road area, and in other areas of Birmingham. When I worked with the then mayor of Newham, I remember seeing at first hand the borough’s imaginative work on a selective licensing scheme and the enormous progress that was made as a consequence in tackling bad landlords. So the police and the council can do more, but the Government must accept that they cannot work miracles. If there is a hopelessly overstretched police service and a badly under-resourced local authority, of course it impacts on their ability to do their job.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. We have raised with the Government on a number of occasions the issue of police numbers and resources. The Government think it is a big deal that they have said, “We will put just under £1 billion into the police service.” At the end of the day, that is not sufficient, because when we look at the police numbers, we see that things have actually got worse. We have three areas of Coventry—parts of Tile Hill, parts of Willenhall and parts of Hillfields—where, although the police do their best, they are under-resourced and we experience some of the problems that my hon. Friend has experienced in relation to bad landlords. They are in the voluntary sector as well, with organisations such as Orbit not carrying out repairs in those areas. That creates a situation that affects people’s health. So I totally support my hon. Friend, because in Coventry, where we have experienced the same thing, the police are doing their best but they are basically firefighting in a difficult situation.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The irony is that, in the heat of a Conservative party leadership election, suddenly commitments are being made to reverse police cuts, including on the part of the current Home Secretary, who has presided over those cuts. The simple reality is that 21,000 posts have gone nationally and 2,100 in the West Midlands. The police are doing their very best; they do not always get it right, but they cannot work miracles with the badly depleted resources that have affected our police service.

Police Grant Report

Debate between Jack Dromey and Jim Cunningham

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.

Public Sector Pay

Debate between Jack Dromey and Jim Cunningham

Monday 4th December 2017 Westminster Hall

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

Workers have suffered the longest stagnation of wages since a royal prince was about to get married—Prince George, the son of Queen Victoria—when Disraeli and Gladstone were in No. 10 Downing Street and trade unions were illegal, 150 years ago. The hardest hit have been public servants, with a 4.4% increase since 2010 against a background of a 22% cost-of-living increase.

Who are the public servants we are talking about? The Unison home help I met last year who was buying Easter eggs—“Is the council paying for them?” I asked, to be answered, “No, I am buying them myself and taking them around to all the people I care for, because some of them never see anyone else from one month to the next.” Tracey the neonatal intensive care nurse who nursed little Liam, who died seven times, back to life. The headteacher, teaching assistant and teacher in Kingstanding who were rescuing children from desperate poverty by turning around their prospects. They took one particular young boy from the bottom of the class to the top, despite the fact that he came from a household with no carpets, no curtains and no cupboards, with clothes stored in bin bags—acute poverty, but the school turned his life around. The police officers who chased the armed bank robber and recovered for Lucy her children, who had been hijacked by him as he sped away from the police. None so noble as those who care, none so noble as those who save lives and nurse the sick back to health, none so noble as those who provide ladders of opportunity, particularly for the poorest in our society, and none so noble as those who put their life at risk to help save the lives of others.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jack Dromey]

Because of the pressure of time, I will not, so that more people can speak.

The reward of those public servants is rising demand, rising workload and falling living standards. That is the impact of not only pay restraint but major cuts to, for example, local government budgets, leading in turn to problems with increments, shift changes and fewer people being employed, so those left having to do more. In our constituencies we can all see the impact on them and their families, as they have to turn to debt advice, pawning household goods, taking out payday loans and food banks, such as the home carer I met in a food bank in my constituency—a proud woman with two kids who loved her job but could not make ends meet without going to the food bank.

If public servants are suffering, so too are public services, through the turnover of labour and the stress on staff—very often, staff complements are stretched to the maximum and those who work in public services are demoralised. There is an impact on local economies, because if public servants get a pay rise, they do not salt away their money into Cayman Islands bank accounts; they spend it in the local economy, creating wealth and jobs. There is a grotesque contrast between the way that public servants are treated and what has been revealed in the paradise papers. This is a Britain where we have a Conservative Government that stand back and allow tax dodgers to get away with it, and then the Prime Minister says during the general election campaign to a nurse that there is no such thing as a magic money tree. Yes, there is, and they grow on the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Jersey, helping the wealthy to avoid their responsibility to society.

I am grieved because I am from a family of public servants: when my dad came off the roads he was a train driver on the London underground; my mum was a nurse; my Uncle Mick, who lived with us, was a street cleaner. They believed in public services, as the country believes now in public services and public servants, but public servants have been let down by a failing, uncaring Government. It is interesting that a monastic vow of silence has been taken by those opposite, who have been reluctant to get up and defend what their Government are doing. The unmistakable message from this debate is that they may stay quiet but we will not. Labour is on the side of public servants.

Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Debate between Jack Dromey and Jim Cunningham

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

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

Unlike some of the fantasists and ideologues on the Government Benches who believe that Brexit is somehow a pain-free process, I live in the real world. We do not deny that the British people have voted to leave the European Union, but Labour Members are determined to achieve a Brexit for working people—not a hard Brexit or a Brexit at breakneck speed, but a Brexit that does not damage Britain’s national interests, the interests of our economy and the interests of our workers.

We are also determined—I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) for her outstanding speech—to ensure that Parliament has the opportunity to call the Government to account during the next stages. I particularly pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who is an outstanding lawyer. Quite rightly, he has led on the argument that this House should call the Government to account.

I want to make three points. First, on Jaguar Land Rover, may I tell a story? About three months ago, I was getting out of my car in Edwards Road, and I heard a voice call, “Jack”. It was Warren, a big bear of a man with a beard. I first met him at a jobs fair we organised four years ago, and he got an apprenticeship at Jaguar Land Rover. He said, “Come with me. I want you to meet my partner and her mum and dad.” He showed me a little Edwardian house. He said, “Jack, I can’t believe it. We are moving into the house of my dreams, I am with the woman of my dreams, and it is all because I’ve got a good and secure job in the Jaguar plant.” Forgive me for saying it, but this is what drives me on. As I said earlier, in an area which is rich in talent but one of the poorest in the country, I do not want to see the Warrens of this world let down during the next stages.

I was deeply involved in the drive to secure the future of Jaguar Land Rover back in 2010. It has gone from strength to strength ever since. For example, the new engine plant in Wolverhampton employs 42,000 people. I want to pay tribute to the workforce, but also to one of the most outstanding, if not the most outstanding, chief executive with whom I have ever worked, Ralf Speth. It is a world-class company, and when it expresses concerns about the consequences for it of hard Brexit—not being able to sell without tariffs into the European Union—its voice must be listened to.

The second point is about workers’ rights. The Secretary of State said, “Don’t worry. All will be okay.” I do not believe that. I was a Brexiteer back in the 1970s. What changed my mind was social Europe in the 1980s. I remember taking the case of the Eastbourne dustmen to the European Court of Justice, because the then Conservative Government had refused to extend TUPE to cover 6 million public servants, with the terrible consequences that tens of thousands of jobs were privatised without protection, pay was cut in half and the workforce was sometimes cut by a third.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

A good clue to what might happen to trade union rights or industrial rights after Brexit can be seen—it is dead simple—by looking at the last trade union legislation.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

Now, as in the 1980s, some of the leading Brexiteers are the ones who talk forever about red tape. I call that workers’ rights. When they say, “Trust us”, I reply, “What? Trust the same people who ran a disreputable campaign?” They promised £350 million a week for the national health service, when they knew damn well that there was no possibility of delivering it.

My third and final point is on the very difficult debate about immigration. I must say that the way that some in the Brexit camp played the race and immigration card in the referendum campaign was nothing short of shameful with, on the one hand, that infamous poster with Nigel Farage, and—dare I say it?—on the other hand, the current Foreign Secretary talking about the tens of millions of Turks who might come to our country. The consequences have been very serious. There has been a rise in hate crime in my constituency. Poles in Erdington High Street have been told, “Go back home.” An Afro-Caribbean man who has been here for 40 years was told, “Go back home.” So was a Kashmiri taxi driver who has been here for 35 years. An Asian train guard was threatened by a large aggressive white man. The guard was shutting the doors when the man told him to hang on because his mates were five minutes away. The guard said that the train had to go. The white man pointed his finger an inch from the guard’s nose and said, “Oh no you don’t. We make the rules now.”

I thought that that kind of brutish behaviour was something of the past. Forgive me for raising this. My dad came from County Cork to dig roads, and my mother came from Tipperary to train as a nurse. I was 13 years old when my dad told me for the first time—and I could not believe this, because I adored him, but he could not look me in the eyes, and was looking down at the floor—about what it was like, when he arrived, looking for lodging houses in Kilburn and Cricklewood and seeing those infamous signs: “No dogs. No Irish.” I thought that we had fundamentally changed as a country, but this country has been scarred by the way the referendum campaign was conducted.

I recognise that during the next stages there will be a difficult debate. On the one hand we have the needs of the economy and the national health service, but on the other we have to listen to the voice of the millions who, from discontent, voted Brexit. We have to ensure that no one in our country is left behind. Getting that balance right will be immensely difficult. I hope all parties—certainly this is what we in the Labour party will do—will make sure that we do not have a repeat of the shameful, divisive rhetoric. The consequences of that rhetoric for the people we represent are very serious indeed. When I go into a local secondary school to meet a diverse group of 16 and 17-year-old pupils and am told that on the day after the referendum they were asking whether they would be sent back home, and that the following week some of them were racially abused in the street, it is clear to me that we have to stand together and say that while we must absolutely have a debate about the future, it must never again be a debate scarred by racism.

Police

Debate between Jack Dromey and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey]

The hon. Gentleman is right to be concerned, because his police service has lost 604 members of staff since 2010. It is certainly true that policing is complex and requires investigatory teams, not all of which will be on the front line. None the less, front-line policing is essential. We created neighbourhood policing, and it worked; we saw substantial falls in traditional forms of crime and it was popular with the public. It is about not just detecting crime, but working with communities to prevent crime and to divert people from crime. Lord Stevens rightly said that neighbourhood policing is the bedrock of policing, but under this Government it is now being hollowed out. Many forces all over the country are taking officers off the neighbourhood beat, putting them back into cars and forcing them to deal with only emergency response. They are now off the front line and into response, when they should be building community partnerships and intelligence and preventing crime.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Given the rise in the number of racial and anti-Semitic attacks, is not community policing important because it brings people closer to understanding different communities?

[Jack Dromey]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I will come to that in just a moment. Neighbourhood policing, which took a generation to build, is now being systematically undermined, and the consequences of that are increasingly serious. Let me give two examples. My first relates to terrorism. It was said by a former Member of this House that neighbourhood policing was the “fluffy end” of policing. That could not be further from the truth, especially when we consider how we now have to rise to the challenge of terrorism. Two weeks ago, Peter Clark, a former head of counter terrorism, said:

“In the past decade the UK has built a counterterrorist structure that is in many ways the envy of the world. The almost seamless link between local, national and international units is remarkable. Instead of a London-centric force descending on communities, there are regional hubs where community police and counterterrorist officers work together. They understand their local communities, pick up vital intelligence and reassure the public.”

He went on to say:

“Neighbourhood police hold one end of the thread that can take us from Britain’s streets to wherever in the world terrorists are trained, equipped and radicalised. The chief constable of Merseyside has warned that if police numbers continue to fall, ‘neighbourhood policing as people understand it will not be possible’. Chief constables and police and crime commissioners have tough choices ahead in deciding what to cut. Cutting the counterterrorist policing thread could be fraught with danger.”

I know that that is an uncomfortable message for Government Members, but let me give them an example from the west midlands. Some 40 people have been brought before the courts for serious terrorist crimes in the past five years, and there have been 31 convictions. Overwhelmingly, those individuals were identified as a consequence of good neighbourhood policing and the patient building of good community relationships. The community co-operated to identify the wrongdoers, so neighbourhood policing is key to combating the mounting threat of terrorism.

What the Home Secretary now wants is a similar scale of cuts all over again, with the Association of Chief Police Officers warning that at least 16,000 more officers will go. Next year, police forces are expecting to cut more than 1,000 officers, and that is what today’s vote is all about. Labour would take an alternative approach. Yes, budgets will be tight, and we have already said that the 2015-16 budget the Government have set will have to be our starting point, because the Chancellor’s failure to secure strong growth in this Parliament means that more still needs to be done to get the deficit down. His long-term economic plan has certainly boosted borrowing. We have had to borrow £200 billion more than he planned back in 2010, putting additional pressures on budgets, including that of the Home Office. But there are alternative ways to make savings—[Interruption.]

Local Government Budgets

Debate between Jack Dromey and Jim Cunningham

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) on securing this important debate on the impact of what the Government are doing to local government in the west midlands.

I start with an overview. The Government have made choices about the speed, extent and distribution of the cuts, but the cuts are too fast and too deep, and are targeted at deprived communities and vulnerable people. There is a consensus across the House on the need to reduce the deficit, but there are alternatives to these unfair and unreasonable cuts.

The coalition Government have made their choice. They have chosen to hit local government with bigger cuts than Government Departments, and they have chosen to front-load them so that the heaviest cuts fall in the first year rather than being spread more evenly over the next four years. They have also chosen to impose the cuts on the most deprived areas and on lower and middle-income communities, rather than distributing them more fairly. My right hon. and hon. Friends were therefore right to highlight the impact that the cuts will have on the great cities of Coventry and Birmingham.

Before proceeding to examine the impact of the cuts on local government in the west midlands, it is important to tackle the economic mythology that lies behind what is proposed. It is vital that that economic mythology, which has been propagated in defence of what the Government propose, is understood for what it is—mythology. We have heard, and will doubtless hear once again, that the cuts are unavoidable. We have heard, and will doubtless hear once again, that these deeply damaging cuts to local government are all Labour’s fault. However, that is part of the Tory-led coalition Government’s approach of rewriting history in order to justify their ideological vision.

Let us be clear: it was irresponsible bankers that caused the credit crunch and the deficits across the world that followed. We have seen recession on all continents and in all countries. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South was right to say that it was decisive action taken by the Labour Government that saw growth return and borrowing fall, and that saw jobs being protected. However, that action was opposed at every stage by the Conservative party.

Borrowing has risen in the UK and throughout the world as we tackle the global financial crisis. It must be brought down with a clear deficit reduction plan that has growth at its heart. It is a deceit for the Conservatives to claim that irresponsible spending is the reason why borrowing is high. Before the global financial crisis, Labour had paid down some of the debt. In 2007-08, as the crisis hit, the UK had the second lowest debt of the G7 countries at 36.5% of GDP. It was low because we had chosen to pay off the debt, reducing it from the 42.5% that we inherited from the previous Conservative Government. Borrowing rose because of the global financial crisis, and the deficit was unavoidable—but the Tory-led coalition’s austerity programme is not.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

It is worth pointing out that when we were in government and dealing with the crisis, we had a triple A credit rating. We had 14 years to pay off any borrowing. I note that the Government have totally ignored that. I also note that although George W. Bush refused to bail out Lehman Brothers, in the last month of his presidency he allocated billions of dollars to help the banking system in America. The Tories conveniently forget about that; they are on planet Cameron.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is right. The leadership given by the Labour Government was followed worldwide. Had it not been for that leadership, we would have seen not recession but a prolonged slump over a decade and more.

No major economy is cutting its deficit at the reckless pace being followed by the UK. The Tory-led coalition’s plans to tackle the deficit, which go too far and too fast, are not only avoidable; they are downright dangerous. However, nowhere are they going as far and as fast as in local government. We should consider the depth and speed of the cuts, and the fact that the Government are in denial about the impact of their choices.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government was so keen to curry favour with the Prime Minister and to become a member of the Chancellor’s star chamber that he signed up to huge front-loaded cuts for local councils without putting up a proper fight. As a result, town halls throughout the country will lose an average of 27% of funding over the next four years, compared with an average of 11% for Whitehall. The Government have also chosen to front-load the cuts, so that the heaviest reductions will fall in the coming financial year. Councils have only until April to decide where to reduce spending. Coventry and many west midlands authorities face cuts to their formula grants of above 10%. With the added pressure of the loss of specific grants and the removal of ring-fencing, those councils must find spending reductions of more than £200 million in 2011-12.

It is a problem not only in the west midlands. The Association of North East Councils, a cross-party group, has said that the Government’s proposed local government cuts are “undeliverable” for some councils; and the president of the Society of District Council Treasurers has called the front-loading “disastrous”. The Secretary of State has not been willing to admit that the cuts are front-loaded; nevertheless, it is clearly another choice that was made by the Government.

Many authorities will be forced into taking damaging crisis measures. The hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) is absolutely wrong: it is not true to say that local government was expecting the scale and speed of the cuts now being imposed upon it. Local government faces much deeper and faster cuts than expected, and they will come about in a few months’ time. Indeed, the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association said precisely that. That gives councils no time for innovation or to think of efficient solutions. Instead, there will be huge job losses and cuts to front-line services; and voluntary organisations funded by councils in the midlands will also face cuts.

Why is local government taking a 27% front-loaded cut, when Whitehall faces an average cut of 11%? Did the Government consult local authorities on the front-loading and other aspects of those cuts, and what steps did the Government take to satisfy themselves that the proposals were reasonable and workable? I suggest that the Government are in denial on all fronts.

The impact of the cuts is clear. The Local Government Association has calculated that 140,000 jobs will be lost in 2011-12. The Government deny that—or do they think that, as in the 1980s, unemployment is a price worth paying? The LGA said that councils will need about £2 billion for redundancy. The Government deny that, and have set aside £200 million to meet the cost of those job cuts. The Government have no idea of the cost of the redundancies, nor of the human cost of rising unemployment. The private sector, too, will be hit hard. For every job lost in local government in the west midlands, one job will go in the private sector.

The Government say that front-line services in the midlands can be protected. Before the general election, the Prime Minister said:

“But what I can tell you is any cabinet minister if I win the election, if we win the election, who comes to me and says, ‘Here are my plans’ and they involve frontline reductions, they’ll be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again.”

I would like to know the precise nature of discussions between the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Prime Minister. However, it is clear from what is happening in the west midlands that front-line services will be hit—and hit hard.

Birmingham city council, which is run by Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, has already announced measures to restrict social care funding to those assessed as “critical”, the highest level at which eligibility is set. Those people with substantial or moderate needs will instead be signposted to private and voluntary sector providers.

In Birmingham, children’s social care services are likely to see cuts of £10 million in 2011-12 and £16 million in 2014-15. Youth services will be slashed to save £3 million in the next financial year, and up to £4 million in the following year. Those cuts are just part of the £170 million that will be taken out of Birmingham city council’s budget. Much-needed services to the people of Birmingham will be lost.

The leader of Coventry city council has described the cuts as hideous, saying that the people of Coventry are paying the price for the bankers’ follies. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) was right to say that the cuts are not just restricted to local government. He pointed to the impact they will have on the west midlands police service. Up to 2,400 jobs are set to go, with more than 1,000 officers going over the next 12 months.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) rightly said, the proposals are grotesquely unfair. There are many criticisms one can make of them, but the strongest must be that they have a disproportionate impact on deprived areas and on vulnerable people. In his statement to the House, the Secretary of State said that he sought to achieve

“a fair and sustainable settlement for local government…that is fair between different parts of the country.”—[Official Report, 13 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 679.]

Yet data from the Department for Communities and Local Government demonstrate exactly the reverse. Even on the Government’s own measure of revenue spending power, the west midlands is being hit disproportionately hard compared with the leafy shires of Surrey and the Bracknells and Wokinghams of this world. Data from the House of Commons Library make that absolutely clear. They show that the most deprived authorities in shire districts will receive an 8.5% cut to their revenue spending power, while the least deprived face only a 4.9% cut. Wokingham borough council, the least deprived unitary authority in England, will have a cut to its revenue spending power of just 0.6%. The Government have chosen to hit hardest the regions that are already hard hit, and that includes the midlands.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) was right to say that the city of Birmingham, which is the 10th most deprived authority in Britain, faces cuts on a huge scale—£170 million next year. Yet, Solihull, right next door and ranked 199th in the deprivation index, will see a cut of less than half that, at 3.5%.

We all agree on the need to cut the deficit—of that there is no doubt—but there is an alternative to the speed, extent and distribution of these cuts to local government budgets over the next four years. The cuts are too deep and too quick. They will have a devastating impact on communities all around the country, with the most dramatic impact being felt in the west midlands. The Government have failed to listen to the concerns expressed by the communities and local authorities of the west midlands. The Opposition are determined to speak up for the communities and councils of the west midlands, and we call on the Government to rethink these cuts before lasting damage is done to the very fabric of our society and the most vulnerable within our communities.

Policing (West Midlands)

Debate between Jack Dromey and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey]

With the greatest of respect, the hon. Gentleman may once have been a police officer, but he is clearly not in contact with the modern police service. Locally, the police told me that they had the time and resources, including front-line officers backed by support and intelligence, to tackle quickly and effectively a problem that was giving rise to serious concern in the Stockland Green area. Precisely because the community welcomed such an initiative by the police, real anger is now being expressed about what is happening.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

On the point raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart), I do not think we are being patronising; we are passing on experience. More importantly, the hon. Gentleman may have been a serving police officer, but he was not the chief constable. The chief constable has the total overview and knows the picture. It is easy for someone lower down the ranks to have a perception about something.

[Jack Dromey]

I am guided by what serving police officers tell me about their concerns, including what they predict will happen over the next stages. I will come to that in a moment.

There is real anger because of a 20% cut to the police service and the consequences of that cut. Is it true that 2,500 jobs will go in the West Midlands police service over the next four years? Is it true that 1,200 police officers will go? Is it true that there will be 40 fewer police officers in each of the 10 constituencies in Birmingham? Are numbers of police community support officers already being cut back? An excellent PCSO came up to me on Saturday in Erdington high street and said, “Jack, there used to be six of us. Are they now going to cut it down to three?” Will the Minister confirm those facts? They are undeniable truths.