Prison Officers: Pension Age

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Morton]

I am going to make some progress. I am really trying to get through these points in the time that I have.

The role of prison officer is a diverse, interesting and critical one, parts of which can be physically demanding. All prison officers who joined the service after April 2001 must pass an annual fitness test in order to remain prison officers. We do not discriminate on the basis of someone’s age; many factors determine a person’s ability to pass a fitness test. Staff who do not meet the annual fitness test standard are provided with advice and support by a fitness assessor on achieving and maintaining the required fitness level.

The Prison Service recruits staff to work up to the normal pension age of 65, and it has employed new prison officers in their 60s who have passed the fitness test and are performing their roles effectively. In addition, many staff who have the right to retire at 60 choose to work beyond their retirement age. It is therefore not true to say that it is inappropriate or unsafe for prison officers to work over a certain age.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey is right when he says that we must recognise the commitment, bravery and hard work of our prison officers.

[Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Wendy Morton]

Let me see if I can make some more progress, and then, if time allows, I will give way.

The Prison Service and Ministry of Justice already recognise and reward excellent staff work through a range of awards and honours, such as the Prison Service long service and good conduct medal, the prison officer of the year award and the Butler Trust awards. We are also proposing to the honours, decorations and medals committee the introduction of a new Queen’s Prison Service medal. The concept of a covenant has been raised, and I assure my hon. Friend that we are already considering whether such a covenant for prison staff would be beneficial.

The Government seek pay recommendations from the independent Prison Service pay review body. We recently accepted in full its recommendations for 2019-20, which resulted in the highest increase for prison staff in more them 10 years, with band 3 prison officers—the largest group of staff—receiving a headline increase of 3%.

On the Isle of Sheppey, recognising the competitive labour market, we implemented a market supplement to support the recruitment and retention of staff. This means that the current starting salary for a prison officer at the Sheppey prisons, as well as a number of other sites in the south-east, is £27,293. After an officer has gained four years’ experience, that salary increases to just shy of £30,000.

HMPPS takes very seriously, as I think we all do, the health and safety of all staff working in prisons, whatever their age. Staff have access to on-site care teams and to an employee assistance programme that includes confidential 24-hour support, 365 days a year. They are covered by a wide range of occupational health services provided by specialist healthcare professionals. HMPPS has invested in nearly 6,000 body-worn video cameras and has started to implement the national roll-out of PAVA, which is a synthetic pepper spray. We are also introducing rigid bar handcuffs for use by prison officers as part of our continuing focus on improving safety and reducing violence.

We take attacks on our prison officers seriously. Under the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018, they are treated equally in law with assaults on the police and other emergency service workers. HMPPS has been working closely with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that they understand the impact of crimes committed in prison. In May, we published the new crime in prison referral agreement between HMPPS, the police and the CPS to provide a more consistent approach to dealing with these matters. In addition, as part of a crackdown on crime behind bars, the Government are investing £100 million through the introduction of airport-style security measures, cutting-edge technology to detect and block mobile phones, and new funding to tackle corruption. Coupled with the 4,700 additional staff recruited since 2016, that investment should have a major impact on crime behind bars.

The Government are investing £2.5 billion in 10,000 new, modern prison places and will also spend an extra £156 million next year on maintaining our existing jails. That will give us space to absorb any rise in prison population created by the increase in police officers on our streets, along with tougher sentencing for the most serious offenders. Our ambition is to create a decent, safe and secure estate that is sustainable into the future.

[Mr Lord]

I welcome much of what the Minister says, but does it not underline the point that if we are to have a police officer covenant, a prison officer covenant would also be a good idea? It would be a way of recognising prison officers and ensuring that we treat them in the right way, both during and after their service.

[Wendy Morton]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I think I have already addressed his point in my speech, but it is clearly a point that he is interested in.

The first new prison will be built on land adjacent to the existing well-performing maximum security prison at Full Sutton. Along with further building works, it will be subject to Government working through the best value-for-money options. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey for suggesting the existing cluster of three prisons on the Isle of Sheppey as a location for a further site. [Interruption.] I believe he is indicating that he would be happy with a fourth, but I am sure that he will understand that decisions on the location of further sites have not yet been made.

It is again too early to say whether the new prisons will be privately or publicly run, but the Government are committed to maintaining mixed market provision in the custodial sector, with prisons run by both the public and the private sectors. Any decisions on the future management of the new build prisons will be announced in due course.

Leaving the EU: Legal Services

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Djanogly]

Yes, and the hon. Lady is going to hear me explain how the post-Brexit situation that I want to see is as close to that as possible.

[Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on highlighting in this place the importance of the legal services sector to our economy and our justice system. Will he indicate what he believes the direction of travel for the legal services sector is in the proposed deal? We would all be interested in his initial reaction.

[Mr Djanogly]

That is exactly what I shall be doing.

The legal sector has broadly welcomed the Government’s negotiating stance so far. However, concerns remain that withdrawal from the EU and our future relationship will not deliver in a number of key areas for legal services. There are concerns over whether the Government’s current approach will deliver sustainable market access for legal services and flexibility for services. Unlike financial services, there is no in-depth common rulebook or Europe-wide regulator in legal services. Instead, legal services remain regulated autonomously by each EU member state, while functioning on the principle that an EU law firm should be treated as equal to domestic lawyers and firms. There is therefore no great benefit for the legal sector in maintaining regulatory flexibility when pursuing trade agreements with third countries.

I would point out, from my time on the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union, that that is the view of most service industries. They have every intention of following EU rules whether they are mandated to or not, because that is what their business dictates. Certainly, from a legal services perspective, the preservation of the present system should be prioritised, so that lawyers from EU member states, European economic area states and Switzerland can practise freely across the continent.

The APPG inquiry focused on mutual market access and on how legal services will be able to operate following the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. We accepted written evidence and held sessions in Parliament to hear oral evidence from interested parties, including law firms and chambers, individual practitioners and other stakeholders. We sought evidence on the impact of Brexit on legal practices, the workforce, business structures and client bases. We explored how lawyers currently practise across borders, looking at everything from rules on immigration and practice rights to the recognition of professional qualifications, and how that is anticipated to be affected by Brexit. We sought to understand where contingency planning was taking place and what steps firms were already taking to mitigate any effect of Brexit on the sector. We sought to understand the key concerns of the sector about the effect of Brexit, and we published the final report in October—if anyone wants a copy, I have some. It explored the concerns and comments raised in the oral and written evidence.

We made 10 recommendations. First, the Government should ensure that mutual market access is retained, as currently envisaged, in any transitional arrangements. Secondly, we urge the Government to seek to retain mutual market access as far as possible in any future relationship with the European Union. Thirdly, the Government should ensure that UK lawyers are able to continue to serve their clients post-Brexit on what is called a fly-in, fly-out basis. Fourthly, the Government should ensure that any future relationship with the EU includes a mechanism for UK lawyers to practise EU law via the mutual recognition of professional qualifications and law firm structures. Fifthly, the Government should seek to secure the rights of audience in EU courts, such as the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Sixthly, it is vital that, following Brexit, the Government provides for the ability of the legal sector to easily recruit skilled individuals from outside the UK. Seventhly, the Government should ensure that our immigration system does not block lawyers from continuing to provide services in the EU. Eighthly, the Government and the EU should agree on the draft withdrawal agreement as soon as possible to ensure a transition period that provides legal certainty—that one, hopefully, gets a tick. Ninthly, any transitional agreement should replicate the current legal framework as far as possible to ensure legal certainty and prevent businesses and individuals from having to adapt to changes in their rights and obligations twice—once during a transitional phase and once upon implementation of a new UK-EU agreement. Tenthly, a no-deal scenario should be avoided at all costs.

Let me address a few of those points, taking first the ability to practise, mutual recognition of professional qualifications and rights of audience. Of key concern to the legal sector was the ability to practise in Europe. The current framework, which allows for the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, rights of audience and the ability to practise and establish firms in EU member states, has hugely benefited the UK legal services sector, providing a large net contribution to the UK economy, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). As far as possible, mutual market access should be retained.

Solitary Confinement (Children and Young People)

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I will come back to it. It is interesting to note that the use of solitary confinement was banned by former President Barack Obama in 2016. There are some lessons we can learn from what is happening in the USA.

[Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

If a young person is a danger to themselves and others, what remedies, whether elsewhere in the world or in our system, is the hon. Lady recommending? Solitary confinement, as she puts it, is presumably being put in place largely for safety reasons for the young person concerned and those in the same institution as him or her.

[Seema Malhotra]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely valid point about the possible reasons for removal from association, in terms of safety for prison officers or the young person. However—I will make this point in my concluding remarks—I think it is incumbent on the Government to look for alternative non-solitary confinement options that can be used in the youth secure estate. Other countries do not have the same kind of youth detention estate as us, yet they still have youth crime that they need to deal with.

There is evidence that the policy of solitary confinement can be counter-productive. Rather than improving behaviour, it can fail to address the underlying causes of some of that disruptive behaviour and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) has said, create additional problems with reintegration.

During the recent roundtable in Parliament, the Howard League highlighted the case of AB, which has been covered extensively in the media. AB was a 15-year-old boy in Feltham young offenders institution in my constituency who called an advice line run by the Howard League. The adviser who answered could tell that he was miserable and fed up. He had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and had been locked, alone, in a cell at Feltham young offenders institution for 23 hours a day, for weeks on end. He was allowed outside only to shower and exercise. Understandably, he wanted to end his solitary confinement and was appealing for help.

Cases are complex, but these are children. The Howard League stated that it

“had no option but to go for judicial review”.

AB’s case was heard last year at the royal courts of justice in London. The court found that his treatment was unlawful. It stopped short of finding it “inhuman or degrading”, but that is also being challenged. I am also very pleased that we have heard this week that the Joint Committee on Human Rights is launching an inquiry on solitary confinement and the restraint of children in the youth justice system. I hope that it will take some of these important issues further.

The Howard League received more than 40 calls last year from or about children in prison who were isolated. For those reasons and others, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) has pointed out, there is a growing international consensus, from groups including the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, and the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, that solitary confinement should never be used on children and young people. As I have said, Barack Obama, when in office, banned the use of solitary confinement for juvenile offenders in the federal prison system. He said:

“It doesn’t make us safer. It’s an affront to our common humanity.”

With Feltham young offenders institution in my constituency, I am greatly concerned that vulnerable children are entering a justice system, elements of which could result in additional long-term harm. Solitary confinement, as defined by international law—however it is referred to and whatever terminology may be used—should be abolished and prohibited. Until it is, the health needs of those subject to it should be met, and there is an essential role for doctors and, indeed, our prison governors in ensuring that that happens.

We should be clear that any mechanism that results in a child or young person being physically or socially isolated for prolonged periods of time should have no place in a humane justice system. I should therefore be grateful if the Minister would address how he defines removal from association; what steps he is taking to get a full and accurate picture of the number of instances of it; what assessment his Department has made of the level of harm caused by it; what steps he is taking to create alternative, non-solitary confinement options in the secure estate for young people, with adequate resources and staff to meet their needs; and how he envisages us moving forward to end this practice in the United Kingdom.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on securing this important debate on a difficult issue that is worthy of further discussion after today. I am grateful for the opportunity to respond.

The number of children entering the youth justice system has continued to decrease in recent years. In 2016-17, juvenile convictions and cautions were down by 83% since 2006-2007, with first-time entries down by 85% in the same period. The number of under-18s in custody also fell by 70% during that time, and in February stood at 870. That represents a success story, and everyone involved in youth justice should be pleased by those figures. However, the decline in overall numbers has resulted in a concentrated cohort of young people in the secure estate, many of whom demonstrate complex and challenging behaviour.

[Mr Lord]

I am pleased about the overall reduction but, as the Minister says, there is now a cohort of perhaps more difficult offenders. I admired the eloquence of the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), but I do not think that she was able to answer my earlier question. If someone in a young offenders institution is a danger to themselves and others, what alternatives are there to removal from association?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lee]

I acknowledge that the youth justice population has an over-representation of the issues that the hon. Lady has just outlined, although the diagnosis of each of those is broad and, in and of itself, not straightforward. I know that the appropriate care is made available to individuals who particularly need psychiatric input. I look at that on a regular basis, and I personally see it as my responsibility to ensure that that is the case. If the hon. Lady would like to write to me with evidence of where that is not the case, I would be more than happy to receive such a letter.

At an absolute minimum, young people in segregation in young offenders institutions will be given time in the open air, outreach education provision, healthcare, physical education and access to legal advice. Individual regime plans are agreed for each young person by a multi-disciplinary team, taking account of all those issues and any other relevant information. They are reviewed frequently on an individual basis—again, in the interest of the young person. All under-18 young offenders institutions have been given additional training on the use of segregation and the rules governing it.

I note with interest the recent inspection report from the independent monitoring board for Feltham YOI, which is of course located in the constituency of the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston. The report noted that significant improvements have been made in addressing violence and praised the dedication and commitment of staff within the establishment. I take this opportunity to reiterate my thanks to staff at Feltham and across the youth secure estate for their continued hard work in looking after the young people in their care.

The report also noted, however, that too frequently staffing levels within the establishment affected the daily regime and the ability to provide sufficient purposeful activity and time out of room. I share those concerns and am encouraged that, across both sites at Feltham, recruitment is swiftly improving. As of the end of March, there were 105 prison officers booked on to entry-level training. I believe that every child and young person should have access to and be engaged in meaningful activities, including education and physical activities. The regime should be purposeful, meet the needs of the cohort, keep young people occupied and active all day and deliver the highest quality education. That needs to sit alongside effective behaviour management, so that young people can be out of their rooms and able to participate safely in the regimes and activities provided.

That is why we have developed a new approach to behaviour management, which includes the roll-out of the custody support plan, to provide each young person with a personalised officer to work with on a weekly basis in order to build trust and consistency. We are also implementing a conflict resolution strategy, applying restorative justice principles to help resolve conflict. However, while acknowledging the work that is continuing to be progressed to address safety in youth custody, as demonstrated in the latest inspection reports from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons for Werrington and Parc young offenders institutions, I am clear that levels of violence within the youth estate are too great, which is why we are reforming youth custody to reduce violence and improve outcomes for young people.

Investing in our workforce is a cornerstone of those reforms. We continue to be impressed by the dedication and pride that our staff show in their work with young people, as evidenced by the fact that more than 200 frontline staff have voluntarily enrolled on a youth justice foundation degree funded by the Ministry of Justice. We want to build on that success and ensure that working in youth justice continues to be seen as the respected and rewarding profession that it is.

We know that many establishments have struggled with staffing, especially in the south-east, which is why we are increasing frontline capacity in public sector young offenders institutions by bringing in more than 100 new recruits and introducing a new youth justice specialist role. We have started recruitment for those additional frontline posts in order to relieve the immediate operational pressures, alongside additional psychology roles in the YOIs. In addition, we are developing a bespoke recruitment campaign and process for the youth custody service, to target those with a passion to work with young people. The first phase of this—a new website and targeted marketing material—was launched last week.

We will develop strong leaders, building the workforce required to create a therapeutic and aspirational culture in our establishments. Our reforms will empower the leaders, giving them the freedom to deliver the right suite of services to meet the needs of the young people in their care. We are working closely with NHS England to implement Secure STAIRS, a framework for integrated care in the youth secure estate, which aims to co-ordinate the services of health and non-health providers into a coherent package, supporting trauma-informed care and a whole-system approach.

I am a strong believer in the benefit that sport and physical activity can provide to children in custody. As well as the obvious health benefits, it can provide young people with a sense of achievement, enhancing self-esteem and transforming lives. For those reasons, I commissioned Professor Rosie Meek of Royal Holloway, University of London to conduct an independent review into the role of sport in the justice system, to identify best practice and make recommendations for improvement. Professor Meek’s report will be published shortly and I await its findings with interest.

We are also looking to support organisations that want to work with young people in the youth justice system and seek opportunities to build on existing collaborations between establishments, sports clubs and providers. For example, Saracens rugby club’s Get Onside programme, which runs at Feltham for young adults, is a shining example of how sport can engage young people. The young adults who have been through this 10-week programme, which uses the ethos of rugby to teach skills such as leadership and teamwork, have shown notably lower rates of reoffending than their peers. That is just one example of how sport can help young people lead a better, more productive life, away from crime.

Finally, we continue to work on our proposal to develop secure schools. Our model will be informed by best practice from outstanding alternative provision schools, and secure schools will be set up, run and managed in a similar way to free schools.

[Mr Lord]

I am encouraged by a lot of what the Minister has said and I urge him to keep up the good work in his Department and with these institutions. Does he agree that, given that solitary confinement has a clear definition in this space, and no young people are subject to solitary confinement in the UK, that pejorative phrase should not be used in such debates? Where removal from association is used as a last resort, we obviously urge that those young people benefit in the future from the sort of regime that the Minister is outlining.

[Dr Lee]

Yes, it is always important to use language appropriately. As I tried to point out at the start, use of the term is difficult when internationally no clear definition is agreed upon. The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston can be assured that I look at this issue all the time. I cannot talk about individual cases, because one is still running with the courts, but we consider the issue all the time. There have been other cases where difficult decisions have to be made. I am assured that at all times we are thinking about the child at the centre of the case, and the children being held with the child who is showing such troubling behaviour.

Secure schools will be operated on a not-for-profit basis by child-focused providers with strong leaders who will have the freedom to provide integrated services based on individual need, with education and healthcare and, if I get my way, sport at its heart.

I am under no illusions about the challenge we face. We are talking about some of the most challenging, often damaged young people in the country. However, our reforms will support establishments to provide better levels of care and enable more young people to engage in purposeful activities, outside their rooms, and work towards a brighter future.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston on her speech, and thank my hon. Friends the Members for Henley (John Howell) and for Woking (Mr Lord) and the hon. Members for Slough (Mr Dhesi) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) for their contributions. I will take away the points about the collection of data and the numbers of children who could be affected in this way, and I will be happy to receive any correspondence on the issue from any parliamentary colleague.

Question put and agreed to.

Police (Surrey)

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. Before the debate had even started, I had already benefited from your advice and wisdom. Thank you. I am also grateful for the opportunity to address the Minister and to discuss police funding in Surrey.

Few issues are of greater importance to people throughout the country than ensuring that their local police force has the resources that it needs. The residents of Esher and Walton, and indeed of the county of Surrey, are no exception. Surrey’s front-line police officers do a first-rate job. I commend the dedication and commitment that they bring to keeping our communities safe. We are also blessed with a top-notch chief constable.

I want to say at the outset that I support the Government’s drive to promote efficiency and reform in the police service, which is in the interests of both law enforcement and the taxpayer. I commend the Minister for his pioneering efforts in that regard. In the current financial climate, all parts of the public sector must do their bit to deliver maximum value for money, and the police cannot be immune.

However, I have concerns about the current consultation on changing or removing the damping mechanism for police funding. The damping mechanism is a critical safeguard for forces such as Surrey, which lose out disproportionately under the central funding formula. In particular, the mitigation provided by the damping mechanism ensures that Surrey police enjoy the same level of increase or decrease in funding as other forces.

Neither Surrey police, Surrey police authority nor I object in principle to a review of the damping mechanism, but logically and fairly, it ought to be part of the wider review of police funding that the Government have pledged to carry out before the next comprehensive spending review. If the anomalies in the current funding formula could be ironed out to create a truly needs-based, fair system, damping could be phased out, but the current consultation, which focuses on the future of the damping mechanism from 2013-14 onwards, risks leaving Surrey financially high and dry through no fault of its own. That cannot be right.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

Is it not the case that Surrey taxpayers pay some of the highest taxes into our national Exchequer, yet we also end up paying some of the highest precepts? It is not because Surrey police are not efficient; they are. Surely that cannot be fair.

[Mr Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right. As someone who worked in local government before becoming an MP, he knows the details far better than me. That basic logic and flow cannot be right. It cannot be right that we keep paying more and more and get less and less back. It is unsustainable.

That message was borne out in no small part by a 2009 review conducted by Oxford Economics of local application of the central funding formula. Surrey loses out under that formula for various compound reasons. For example, the funding formula takes into account daytime net flows of traffic, but not total traffic or total accidents, which are disproportionately high in Surrey compared with the other indices. It takes into account average deprivation, which is relatively low in Surrey, but ignores our proximity to areas of high deprivation, taking little account of cross-border criminals who may target the county. My borough, which is in the north-east, has a lot of that kind of crime. Nor does it take into account the impact of our proximity to Heathrow and Gatwick, which is also linked to crime levels.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The key issue is sustainability. It cannot be right that those who perform best in terms of delivering cost efficiencies while adding further front-line officers should be penalised and find themselves victims of their own success.

Surrey has achieved those net satisfaction ratings despite having faced challenging conditions for a number of years. It is important to put the issue in context; it is not all about austerity under the coalition. Surrey did not share in Labour’s “land of milk and honey” spending spree. While real-terms spending on the police increased nationally by 19% between 1997 and 2010, funding for Surrey police was cut by 39% in real terms. Measured by central funding per person, Surrey got the worst deal of all 43 police forces in England and Wales.

Faced with that legacy, Surrey police responded positively. In July 2010, the Audit Commission and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary praised Surrey police for their efficiency in work force deployment, the way they centralised cross-cutting functions such as human resources and their rigorous and robust approach to achieving cost savings.

Surrey police followed that up with their policing plan for 2011-14, which rationalised the police estate. That, of course, involved a difficult set of decisions that had to be conveyed, sold and communicated locally. It is a very tangible thing to replace police stations or sell off old estate to make way for new hubs. That was difficult. Surrey police also reformed their procurement practices; it is widely accepted that they were in the vanguard in doing so. They cut middle management, which is also difficult, as it creates morale issues in a force. It was not an easy decision, but they took it. Through the net savings, they focused on putting officers into the areas of greatest need, including neighbourhood policing and serious crime investigations, precisely the areas that the public, and I as their MP, want to be priorities for investment.

Over and above all those savings, Surrey police’s rigorous approach and financial discipline allowed the force to reinvest in an extra 200 police constables. That would be extraordinary given the financial straits everyone is in, but it is particularly so for Surrey, given the legacy that it inherited.

Despite the dire financial legacy left by the last Government, Surrey was the only force in England and Wales able to increase officer numbers between September 2010 and September 2011. As the Audit Commission, HMIC and the Home Office have commented, Surrey police are a model of how to get a financial house in order. They did so proactively, before the financial crisis compelled the wider belt-tightening now under way. They did not wait for the waves to hit; they were on the front foot. Like other forces, they are now halfway through a 20% real-terms cut in central Government funding. Surrey police have dealt with all those challenges while improving their record against several key indicators of performance, such as serious crime detection.

However, Surrey has reached its limits. If the damping mechanism is removed, the force stands to lose, in total—there are two components—£4 million in funding, the equivalent of losing 83 police constables. That would be a serious blow to the force and a kick in the teeth, not only to the force, which has taken such steps to be a model of cost-efficiency, but to the people of Surrey, who pay such high levels of tax, too little of which returns as investment in local public services.

Our police need to be properly funded to deal with the wide range of challenges that they face daily. There is a perception of Surrey as a leafy backwater with no crime, challenges or deprivation, whose sleepy towns and villages are the last place where crime or antisocial behaviour is a real issue; but as my colleagues who have spoken, and others, know, that is a myth. The reality is, as has been said time and again, that Surrey is a county force grappling with metropolitan issues.

[Jonathan Lord]

My wonderful ward of Maybury and Sheerwater is deprived by national standards and has a diverse ethnic mix. Does my hon. Friend agree that we can ill afford to lose 80-odd police constables in Surrey?

[Mr Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and I agree with him. One of the problems with the myth about Surrey—it is as true of his constituency as it is of mine—is that average levels of affluence hide pockets of deprivation and real social challenges, which play out in terms of law enforcement, policing, crime and antisocial behaviour. Having made difficult financial sacrifices and tightened their purse strings, communities want to be able to keep the savings for front-line policing. The key issue in my hon. Friend’s and my constituencies, and in those of my hon. Friends the Members for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) and for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), is visible and responsive policing. We are seeking to make sure that that is safeguarded, and the damping mechanism is critical.

It is precisely because, overall and on average, Surrey is an affluent area that it has become something of a target for professional criminals from other areas. During my time as an MP, I have seen professionals targeting shops and businesses in Cobham, Thames Ditton and other areas, which also suffer from antisocial behaviour, robbery and other crimes. Overall, almost 50% of crime in the county is committed by non-Surrey residents, while in 2008, 59% of the organised crime gangs affecting Surrey operated from London. That cross-border crime is a serious concern.

Equally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley mentioned, Surrey roads require constant policing. The county is in the top 6% of local areas for volume of traffic per resident, and in the top 15% for accidents per resident. None of that is accurately reflected in the funding formula. Unsurprisingly, despite all Surrey police’s good work, those factors, which are not picked up by the funding formula, have affected law enforcement capability, which is being measured against finite and shrinking resources.

One specific issue that I have raised with Surrey police authority and the chief constable is Surrey’s sanctioned detection rate, which is the percentage of crimes for which someone is charged, summonsed or cautioned. Surrey’s rate has been either the lowest or second lowest in England and Wales for each of the past three years. In 2010-11, it was 8% below the national average. That is a visible, tangible symptom of the difficult challenges with which the force is grappling with regard to finances and law enforcement capability. Although the figure is improving, the one thing that Surrey police cannot afford is to lose scores of officers, which is the risk we face as a result of the review of the damping mechanism.

The people of Surrey should not be short-changed when it comes to the police. Let us bear in mind that in 2010 Surrey contributed £5.5 billion to the Treasury, but we got back just one third of the national average level of funding for local public services. The residents of Surrey—the taxpayers of Surrey—understand that they need to do their bit. They also understand the need for Britain to cut her coat according to her financial cloth. They have been some of the most proactive participants in that regard, given all that has been said about the discipline that Surrey police have shown in the past few years. However, those residents and my constituents will neither understand nor support changes that result in Surrey police losing millions of pounds every year if their protection from a skewed funding formula is stripped away.

The future of police funding is an important and contentious issue. I know why Ministers are nervous about tinkering with the police funding formula, and a full discussion on how to reform it is beyond the scope of today’s debate. However, that wider debate needs to take place before changes to the damping mechanism can reasonably be pushed through. I urge the Minister to give an assurance that the damping mechanism will only be altered, phased out or reduced as part of a coherent package of reforms, and not in isolation.

Neither Surrey police nor the people of Surrey are asking for special treatment. This is not about a subsidy; it is about mitigation of the knock-on effect of a funding formula that does not accurately reflect local needs in Surrey, and the same is true for other forces. We are not asking for special treatment; we are asking for a fair deal. The damping mechanism gives Surrey some mitigation from the flaws of the funding formula, and until that formula is properly reviewed and reformed, that protection should remain intact.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

I hear what my hon. Friend says, but I disagree that the formula is not fit for purpose. It allocates funding according to need. The Government’s position is that we wish to move towards a full application of the formula. The question is not whether we do that, but at what rate and how. It would have been a great deal easier for the previous Government to move to full application of the formula and away from the distorting effects of damping when there were increases in funding for all forces. It is a great deal harder to do that when funding for forces is declining. Had we done so, some forces that benefit from damping, including Surrey—to the extent of an additional £3.2 million in the current financial year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton pointed out—would have seen a greater reduction in central Government funding.

For the reasons that I have set out, we felt that the equitable approach was not to move away from damping towards full application of the formula in the first two years of the spending review. However, we reserved our position in relation to years three and four. I have just consulted police authorities about what we should do regarding damping in those years. That consultation has just closed, and we will analyse the responses carefully. I will not prejudge our decision, but the points expressed by my hon. Friends the Members for Esher and Walton and for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) are well made.

[Jonathan Lord]

If the current funding formula truly reflects need, why do Surrey taxpayers, in addition to all the taxes that they pay nationally, have to pay the highest precept in the country? The Minister has already accepted that we have an excellent and efficient force.

[Nick Herbert]

The formula takes into account the need in an area. Taking a step back, if we look at the other end of the spectrum, towards a force in an urban area, where there is particular social deprivation, much higher levels of crime and all the complexities that arise because of that, it is obvious that the need is higher, and the formula reflects that. I accept that there has been a greater call on local taxpayers as a result of the amount provided to Surrey by central Government, but my point is that our decisions on spending reductions for all forces in years one and two, far from disadvantaging Surrey, treated all forces evenly, because those that raise much less from their council tax would have seen a much greater reduction in funding.

I should point out that Surrey has increased its precept in the current financial year. It has chosen not to freeze the precept, despite the Government’s offer. That increases the funding for the force. If Surrey were to increase its precept again in the last two years of the spending review, assuming the increases suggested by the Office for Budget Responsibility and no change in the current damping arrangements, the real terms reduction in funding over the whole spending review period would be just over 10%, which does not approach the 20% suggested for other forces. That is a 1.4% reduction in cash terms. Surrey is therefore in a relatively advantageous position, enabling it, for instance, to increase its officer numbers. Even if Surrey does not increase the precept in the last two years, the real-terms reduction in overall funding will be about 13%, or less than 5% in cash terms.

I am just stating the factual position that, as local taxpayers have been forced to contribute more, which I accept, Surrey has been relatively protected from central Government funding reductions over the past two years. The consequence is that it has not had the reductions in police officer numbers that other forces have had to make. Nevertheless, my hon. Friends have made strong points about the application of damping, and I will take those into careful consideration when I decide what to do in years three and four of the spending review. Their points about damping and the application of the formula were well made, and I assure them that they will be noted.

Alan Turing

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on securing this important debate, which provides us with a forum in which to consider the past, draw lessons for the future, and, most importantly, pay tribute to one of the world’s finest minds.

For eight years, I served as a councillor for the ward of Little Venice in the city of Westminster. In that capacity, albeit in a small way, I was first able to pay tribute to the remarkable work and life of Alan Turing. On 23 June 1998, I was involved in the unveiling ceremony of a blue plaque on the Colonnade hotel in London, just off Warwick avenue, which denotes the house where Turing was born.

That day, appropriately, marked the 50th anniversary of the world’s first working computer, which ran in Manchester on 21 June 1948. Having undertaken a reasonable amount of research, I was stunned to learn that at the tender age of 22, while at King’s college Cambridge, Turing had developed a hypothetical mathematical device, which is commonly referred to as the Turing machine. His calculations, in turn, provided the foundation for modern computer science. His genius is unquestionable, and one can only speculate about what more, in the absence of bigotry and prejudice, that great man might have gone on to achieve.

On the day after the ceremony, 22 June 1998, the House of Commons voted to equalise the age of consent at 16. The modest ceremony at a central London hotel to mark Turing’s life and scientific prowess occurred virtually in tandem with cross-party efforts to ensure equality before the law, and equality of esteem. I hope that those two events will serve as a reminder that, whatever our political differences, we can and should agree that councils, Parliaments and Governments must seek to liberate talents and never oppress them.

In his maiden speech in June 2010, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) rightly paid tribute to the extraordinary work of Turing and the teams of code breakers at Bletchley Park, in his constituency. He did so again today, with great eloquence. It is not an overstatement to assert that the efforts and expertise engaged in cracking the German Enigma code fundamentally changed the duration, and possibly even the outcome, of the second world war.

My hon. Friend also welcomed the national apology from the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), which sought to

“right the wrong against the brilliant code breaker and mathematician”. —[Official Report, 17 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 1082.]

In 1952, as we all know, Turing was convicted of gross indecency. The courts presented him with a terrible choice: imprisonment or probation with awful conditions attached. The conviction was also to bring about a lifetime restriction on Turing. Post-war, he had an extremely high level of security clearance, as he continued to work for the Government and their agencies. The conviction was to prohibit him from working for the Government—effectively, for our country—ever again.

To avoid prison, and no doubt with the desire to continue some of his work, Turing chose probation. The probation was, however, conditional on his subjection to a course of hormonal treatments that were designed to reduce libido. He underwent a chemical castration via oestrogen hormone injections, and within two years he was dead. On 12 June 1954, he was cremated at Woking crematorium in my constituency. What a terrible waste. What a ghastly last two years, in the life of a man who had given so much to this country.

We have had a fitting debate to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, godfather of computer science and pioneer of artificial intelligence, whose wartime efforts at Bletchley Park were responsible for saving countless lives. He is a national hero. He deserves to be in the pantheon of national heroes. I regard it a great honour to add my voice, again, to the tributes that we have all paid him.

Courts Service Estate

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

As I have said to other hon. Members, the consultation period has now finished, but I must point out that my hon. Friend’s local court was used for only 29% of the available time. I am sorry to hear that he had not received notice, and I will look into why that was the case.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

The Minister will appreciate that I am extremely disappointed by the decision to close Woking magistrates court. As he saw in my submission and that of the bench, it has very high utilisation rates, a purpose-built court, fantastic disabled access and excellent youth witness provision. How does this decision fit with the criteria for the consultation, because many outside independent people, including judges, looked at it and did not think that Woking fitted those criteria?

[Mr Djanogly]

My hon. Friend made a very cogent case for the retention of his court, and put the local case very strongly. I have to say that the judgment was finely balanced, but ultimately this decision was taken because the utilisation rate in the Surrey courts has been below 80%, and transferring work to Staines and Guildford magistrates courts will result in the rate increasing to 89%.