Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Jake Berry and Jack Dromey

Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry]

On the politicisation of the police force, that may have been driven by low turn out. Even though the Labour party opposed the office of police and crime commissioner in its last manifesto, I note that it is standing a candidate in every division. At the last election there were many independent candidates standing as police and crime commissioners. At the evidence session of the Bill, we had the independent police and crime commissioner for north Wales, Mr Roddick, come to give evidence. He was excellent. If I lived in North Wales, I would probably vote for such an excellent individual with a fantastic vision for policing. If he were a Conservative, I would definitely vote for him. Many independents have been successful.

[Jack Dromey]

(Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman says that we need the highest possible turnout. Of course, historically turnout at police and crime commissioner elections has been low. Does he therefore share our surprise that the Home Office has committed to spend the grand total of £2,700 on advertising for this year’s PCC elections?

[Jake Berry]

I have a lot of respect for the shadow Minister, but I think it is slightly disingenuous to say that the turnout was low, because it was the first ever such election, it was held in November and it was not coterminous with other elections. Given the interest in the local elections in all our constituencies, I think that the turnout will be slightly higher. With regard to the £2,700, I am surprised that the Home Office has spent so much. I do not think there should be any state funding for political parties or elections, so he will not find me lobbying the Home Office to spend more.

Let me return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) about politicisation of the police. Support for our police and crime commissioners has grown, including for excellent independent police and crime commissioners. In Lancashire we have a police and crime commissioner who I think is very much at the beck and call of the chief constable. Although there needs to be a close working relationship between the two, I think that the police and crime commissioner often needs to be a critical friend, because he is not there to fight only for the interests of the police and police officers, as important as that is; he should be there to fight for, and put forward the voices of, people across Lancashire who want an improved policing service.

As I said in an intervention, one of the things I would like our police and crime commissioner to prioritise after the May elections, whoever he may be and whichever political party he may be from, is rural crime. That is driven not by Preston, Blackburn or Blackpool, the major conurbations in the county, but by villages such as Tockholes, Hoddlesden, Weir, Cowpe and Waterfoot in my constituency, where rural crime has a major impact on people’s lives. I hope that whoever wins the election is listening to this debate and will prioritise that. I think that can be the role of a police and crime commissioner: not to push the police’s agenda, but to push the people’s agenda in the area they represent.

Policing and Crime Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Jake Berry and Jack Dromey

Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th April 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Jack Dromey]

I have looked at what the Minister said in our earlier discussions, in particular in relation to the Terrorism Act 2000. There is no provision for bail, before or after charge, under the Terrorism Act. Under the Act it boils down to either charging or releasing a suspect; the initial detention limit is 48 hours, which is extendable, and there is no existing terrorist legislation, therefore, that provides for the police to seize a passport from a terrorist suspect or relates to the enforcement of pre-charge bail conditions.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

An interesting point in the case of terrorism is that many—not all—people accused of terrorism offences will have dual nationality and more than one passport. Has there been any thought as to how that would be discovered by the police, if the information was not volunteered, and what provisions may be required to get someone to surrender passports of another country as well as their British passport?

[Jack Dromey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. That is precisely why I referred earlier to “passports”. There have been a number of cases of people having dual nationality in the way the hon. Gentleman has suggested. Fundamentally, this is about making sure that we do not have somebody like Dhar who walks out of the police station, says, “Yeah, okay, I will surrender my passports, I will be back tomorrow” and is then on the first plane to get out of the country. It is about certainty beyond any doubt that that simply cannot happen in future. Relatedly, have the Government looked at the issue of the ability of agencies to communicate immediately when passports are to be surrendered—for example, crucially, the Border Force? We look forward to clarification on these crucial points.

On another issue, the Government proposal applies only to terrorist suspects and not to those suspected of serious crimes. There is no question but that there is something uniquely awful about the terrorist threat to our country but, having said that, our new clause includes serious crime offences to be specified by the Secretary of State in regulation and so would address cases where, for example, suspects have fled the country before standing trial over rape allegations. The Minister has very helpfully said that he will keep this matter under review. We hope, however, that the Government will now give the Home Secretary that power; of course, it is for the Home Secretary to determine, in consultation, how that power is exercised thereafter.

The Minister was right when he said that the National Police Chiefs Council highlighted that it would like this power not to be confined to counter-terrorism. We urge the Government to include suspects of other offences in their proposals. As such, in circumstances where the Government are taking action, we will not press our new clause to a vote today. We seek assurances from the Government on the points I have raised as soon as possible, however, and we stand ready for further dialogue before Report. I very much hope that we can go to Report with a common position. In that dialogue, we will seek a strengthened clause and we will work with the Government to make sure that the pre-charge bail regime truly has teeth. We will return to this on Report; for now, on this crucial issue, we urge the Government to reflect and I stress, once again, that we very much hope that we are able to make common progress by the time of Report. The way we vote on Report will depend on whether we can put our hand on our hearts and say that never again will there be a case like that of Dhar.

Policing and Crime Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Jake Berry and Jack Dromey

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Jack Dromey]

Q The local case is made by the PCC to the Home Secretary. That does not mean that the views of locally elected representatives responsible for the fire service can be taken into account. That cannot be right, can it?

Sara Thornton: I think if the Home Secretary were to consider such an application, she would want to know what the views of the local fire authority were and I am sure that she would take those into account. It might be that you want to put in some qualification that, as part of that case, views need to be sought and to be part of the argument.

[Jake Berry]

Q I have one final point. Recent police research revealed that the PCC governance of police forces, as opposed to the old police panel governance, has saved the taxpayer around £2 million every year. If there were similar savings to be made by the extension of PCC governance to the fire service, do you think that both the fire service and the police service could usefully use those savings to prioritise front-line services?

Police Grant Report (England and Wales)

Debate between Jake Berry and Jack Dromey

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Commons Chamber

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

I bow to no one in my admiration for our police service. Robert Peel uttered these immortal words:

“The police are the people and the people are the police.”

There has been a constant in our country for two centuries: the British model of policing by consent, which we built on when we were in government. When Labour left office, there were record numbers of police on the streets—16,500 more than in 1997 and, in addition, nearly 17,000 police community support officers. Neighbourhood policing, which we built, was popular with the public. It worked, and we saw a generation of progress on crime. We had local policing, local roots, local say and local partnership working. We built up neighbourhood policing and the public valued it. It was one of Labour’s greatest achievements.

[Jake Berry]

On the issue of bowing to no one, will the hon. Gentleman support this settlement today, or will he bow to the shadow Home Secretary’s suggestion of a 10% cut?

[Jack Dromey]

We will oppose this settlement today. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice said from the Dispatch Box that police funding is being protected. That is simply not true, and I will lay out my case in due course.

We are still learning some painful lessons from the past. There are still wrongs to be righted; the police are not perfect. We need to raise standards, and we should always hold the police to the highest standards in the public interest. The first thing I wish to say to the Policing Minister and the Home Secretary is that the British model of neighbourhood policing is celebrated across the world. The model was responsible for a generation of progress on crime, but the Home Secretary’s remorselessly negative tone about the police, taken with ever fewer police officers doing ever more work, has demoralised the service, and we are now seeing soaring levels of sickness and stress.