Police Federation Reform (Normington Report)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) on an excellent speech. I thank him and the other sponsors of this Backbench Business Committee debate for ensuring that the House can discuss the recommendations of the Normington report at an early stage. This is our first opportunity in many years to have such a discussion, although we often discuss policing issues in the House; we discussed the police grant here only yesterday.

I begin by paying tribute to the hard-working police officers in the police service, including those such as PC Craig Smith. With an off-duty paramedic, David King, he struggled to free the driver of a burning car in Leicestershire and saved the person at risk. He was a runner-up in the police bravery awards, which I, with Ministers and others, attend annually to pay tribute to the marvellous work being done throughout the country by individual police officers.

I have to say that, following a proposal from the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), the Select Committee on Home Affairs has unanimously agreed to hold an inquiry into the Police Federation. The terms of reference will be announced next week, and I hope that they will provide an opportunity for a full-scale inquiry into the matters that have been raised. I shall return to this point at the end of my short speech.

Morale in the police service is at an all-time low, as the Stevens report recognised. Indeed, if Members talk to any police officer stationed here in the Palace of Westminster, they will hear that people are deciding to leave the force because of the current state of affairs in policing. That is regrettable. There is an obligation on all of us to ensure that we have the best police service in the world—which I think it is—and we also need to ensure that the concerns of Police Federation members are met.

I want to mention the case of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). It is not the subject of the debate—we are talking about the Police Federation—but the right hon. Gentleman and his family have gone through a terrible ordeal. I believe that he has now been vindicated, given that 11 of those involved have now become the subject of misconduct hearings and one has gone to prison. The cases of three witnesses who appeared before the Home Affairs Committee are still outstanding and are the subject of an Independent Police Complaints Commission inquiry that has been held in abeyance because of a judicial review application.

Those of us who have been around for a long time have asked ourselves: if this could happen to a serving Cabinet Minister, what hope would there be if it happened to one of our constituents? The right hon. Gentleman has done the House and the public a great service, from his position of power as an elected Member of the House, but his situation is quite different from those of people in Leicester and elsewhere in the country. He has been vindicated, and it is important that a line should now be drawn and that people should move on, for the sake of him and his family, and of the reputation of the police as a whole.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend makes his point very effectively. Does he agree that in cases such as these, continuing litigation could eventually bankrupt someone, and that the organisation is capable of going way too far? What would that mean for our ordinary constituents, who simply would not have the means to defend themselves in similar circumstances?

[Keith Vaz]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I am a little concerned at the number of cases in which someone criticises a serving police officer and ends up being served with a legal notice or threatened with legal proceedings as a result of raising issues of legitimate concern. The Select Committee inquiry will want to look at such cases.

The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield and his family must have been through a terrible ordeal. It is time to draw a line and move on, and to think about how we can reform the structure, now that the personal issues have been resolved and people have gone to jail or faced misconduct hearings.

[Mark Pritchard]

rose—

[Keith Vaz]

I will give way, but this will be the last time, because I am mindful of what Madam Deputy Speaker has said.

[Mark Pritchard]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He mentioned moving on. Does he agree that the fact that carefully placed stories and leaks have found their way into national newspapers ahead of today’s debate does not help to restore public trust in the police service—particularly the Metropolitan police service? It is time to move on, and it is time for the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to get a grip of his officers. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the commissioner ought to have learned from Leveson, and from his previous mistakes in dealing with some parts of the media?

[Keith Vaz]

Of course I deplore leaks, but we have a free press. And of course it is important that everyone should learn the lessons.

Let me turn to the subject of the debate, the reform of the Police Federation. The Normington report is pretty scathing in its criticism of the federation. It says that it should be changed “from top to bottom”, and talks about the present crisis being the result of strategic failures. Sir David Normington also found that 91% of federation members wanted the organisation to change, so this is not a case of Parliament dictating to the federation and telling it what it should do. I am sure we would all want to step away from doing that. The members themselves are saying that they want change.

We need to ensure that the report’s recommendations are implemented by the current leadership of the federation. I pay tribute to Steve Williams, Steve White and Ian Rennie, the chair, vice-chair and general secretary of the organisation. It was Steve Williams who set up the Normington inquiry; we would not have had an inquiry, had the chairman not decided to do that. I also welcome the fact that they told the Select Committee that they intended to implement every one of Sir David’s recommendations. Our inquiry will commence shortly, and I hope that we will be able to look at the length of time it will take to implement them.

I see that another member of the Committee, the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) is in his place. There were two things that caused the Committee some concern. One was the lack of knowledge about the No. 2 accounts that are being held across all the regions, which the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden mentioned. No one knows the figures involved. I would have thought that the chairman of an organisation as important as the Police Federation would know how much money it was holding locally. He told the Committee that he had written to every regional chairperson to ask for that information, and I hope that they will provide it. If the leadership of the federation is to succeed in implementing the Normington report, as we want it to, it must have that information.

The second issue that struck me and other members of the Committee was the fact that even Steve Williams did not know how many members the federation had, because the database was not up to date. That is also a matter of concern. Surely an organisation that speaks on behalf of thousands of police officers ought to have the names, addresses and e-mail addresses of every single member. That information is kept on a regional basis by the regional chairs and committees, but it is not passed on to the national headquarters, even though the national leadership has to speak on behalf of the federation. I hope that those two important issues will be resolved.

The leadership issue is an important one. The hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) mentioned the need for effective leadership earlier. I want to pay tribute to Paul McKeever, who sadly died at the end of last year. He was a splendid leader of the Police Federation. However, we can have the best leaders in the world, but if the structures are not right, we will not be able to implement change. The Normington report is about changing the structure of the federation, and I think we all agree that it has to change. The federation must also be open and transparent—not necessarily to Parliament, although I would love that to happen. It must be open and transparent to its members. In the end, we are all parts of organisations whose leaderships need to respond to the members, but the members also need to respond when leadership is shown.

I shall end by outlining some of the issues that I hope the Select Committee will look into. These are not agreed terms of reference—those will be agreed at the next meeting—but they are the elements that I think we need to look at. We need to look at the federation’s spending and its use of public money; the contents and usage of the reserves and the federation’s No. 2 accounts; the use of members’ subscriptions by representatives; and the leadership of the federation at national and regional level, including the elections; the current membership and ensuring that the Police Federation’s communications with all members are robust; and ensuring there is co-operation between regional and national boards. We do need to hear from some of the people who work for the federation and have made statements in the public domain—we would like to hear from them at Home Affairs Committee hearings.

Although the Normington report is damning—no organisation would like to read such a report about the way in which it conducts its business—I have confidence that the leadership is going to implement what Normington has said, because it has told the Committee that that is what it wants to do. The role of the Home Affairs Committee is to monitor that and make sure that those good words are translated into good deeds, for the benefit of the federation’s members and the country as a whole.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) and the excellent speeches of hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is clear that something is very wrong in the national Police Federation, and has been for some time. The continual drip-drip effect is reaching its zenith—or, should I say, its nadir—and is causing considerable embarrassment and distress to the rank and file officers of a noble and honourable profession that has brought, and continues to bring, great honour to this country.

Our police service is genuinely the best in the world. It deals with extremely severe threats and incidents. It deals daily with historic episodes and threats to the state and security of this nation, and it does so without being armed and by consent. I am very proud of the profession, and we all can be very proud of it, which is why the Police Federation’s dysfunction is a humiliation to rank and file officers throughout the country. Many officers have told me that if they did not feel that they needed the protection of an organisation such as the federation in case they should get into trouble, they would not choose to be members of it and to pay the exorbitant dues that have caused it to become bloated.

The Police Federation may have started nobly in 1919, but owing to several recent scandals and cover-ups, it has lost that nobility. An opinion poll released only today, which has been the subject of media attention, indicates that a third of people have lost confidence in the police. The lowest level of trust in the police ever now subsists in this country. In large measure, that is due to the disgraceful misconduct of previous leaderships of the federation.

I have had dealings with police officers and my local Northamptonshire federation. They do a good job, but we have to address the egregious examples about which we have heard in the debate before they cause even greater damage to this country and its reputation.

As for the incident at the gates of Downing street, if my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), then a Cabinet Minister, can be traduced in such a way, in such a location and in such circumstances, what hope is there for any of our constituents, without that authority and without the resources to defend themselves?

The review, chaired by Sir David Normington, has done a good job. It was set up to examine signal failures within the federation. Its report, which was delivered a couple of months ago, found fault with almost every aspect of the federation’s operations. I cannot recall a report that was quite so damning. Federation tactics have been a particular source of shame, and I am appalled that, despite the publication of the report in January, they are still going on.

The report states that

“many from outside have criticised its tactics particularly in responding to the Winsor review.”

That was about police pay. The federation

“has too often fallen back on its traditional tendency to attack and try to undermine those who are proposing the changes, rather than take on the issues…This constitutes a strategic failure; the politics of personal attack and shouting has proved to be a wrong-headed response.”

It goes on to say:

“The Federation should be a powerful voice for standards in British policing but at present it is badly placed to be that voice. Throughout our inquiry we have heard allegations that some Federation representatives who have personally targeted successive Home Secretaries, Andrew Mitchell, Tom Winsor and others, bringing the Federation into disrepute and risking the police reputation for impartiality and integrity. We have also been given evidence of bad behaviour within, including poor treatment of staff at HQ and the targeting of representatives in social media, at Conference and elsewhere simply because they hold a different point of view. If the Federation wants to be respected and listened to in the future, this has to stop.”

These are nothing more than bully-boy tactics from those who are in a position to be bullies, and who are hiding behind their position to intimidate others, including democratically elected representatives. It is intolerable that successive Home Secretaries should be subject to this level of personal attack and abuse. The federation is incapable of making the arguments. That is the only explanation for such personal attacks.

I agree with the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield has been entirely vindicated. I was a barrister in criminal practice for more than 15 years, but the police case was so undermined that no case could rest on it. I understand that my right hon. Friend has already received an apology, and rightly so, from several chief constables, and several police officers now face internal misconduct or gross misconduct charges and one has gone to prison. However, I am appalled, as I know the House will be, that the federation is even now funding litigation that seeks to keep this matter alive.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman will remember the evidence given to the Committee by the officers from West Mercia, Warwickshire and West Midlands police, whom he cross-examined extremely effectively. He will recall that they had the opportunity to draw a line. Does he not agree that that could be done, even at this late stage, to bring the whole sorry episode to a conclusion?

[Michael Ellis]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who leads the way in putting Select Committees at the forefront of getting to the issues in this Parliament. An apology is still due, and he is right that those officers’ conduct and appearance before the Committee, on which we both have the honour to sit, was an embarrassment to the Police Federation. I have asked for an inquiry in the Home Affairs Committee, to which the right hon. Gentleman has already alluded, partly because of that, and partly because of the repeated episodes that we still hear and read about in the media. For example, the chairman of the Police Federation told the Committee that he did not know the exact figure, but he agreed with my suggestion that there were tens of millions of pounds in the No. 2 accounts. We do not have the answers. These are enormous sums, some of which have been funded by a huge 20% uplift in constables’ dues to the Police Federation. It is a shocking indictment. Meanwhile, £26 million has been spent on a luxurious headquarters that looks like something out of science fiction. Apparently, senior federation officials travelled to Italy to source the right slate for part of the edifice of that structure. Expense accounts have not been published and salaries are not fully disclosed. According to media reports that appear almost daily, Police Federation officials are misconducting themselves, embarrassing themselves, and behaving extremely improperly in regard to their conduct and expenses.

But it is the bully-boy tactics that most concern me, as they will concern hon. Members on both sides of the House. Ninety-one per cent. of members of the Police Federation—an extremely high figure; it is almost unprecedented in opinion polls to get 91% of people to agree with anything—of tens of thousands who apparently answered the questions, want change in their own federation. This change is not being driven by the House or by one political party; this is a cross-party issue and it is being driven by the members of the Police Federation, who want and need change. I do not think that I have ever agreed with the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) quite as much as I did when he spoke today.

Policing is an honourable and great profession. We owe the police a great deal, and that is why we want to see their leadership within the Police Federation changed, changed soon, and changed for the better.

Police

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

I beg to move,

That the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) for 2014-15 (HC 1043), which was laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.

In addition to seeking approval of the police grant report, I also intend to outline the ways in which we are reforming policing. We are fundamentally rethinking how policing is configured so that it is efficient and effective for years to come. This settlement reflects the need for responsibility in public spending, but it is part of a successful reform programme that is making our streets safer and our policing more modern.

On 18 December, I laid before the House the provisional police grant report for 2014-15, along with a written ministerial statement that set out the Government’s proposed allocations to local policing bodies in England and Wales. After careful consideration of the consultation responses, we have decided that force level allocations will remain as announced in December.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way so early on in his speech. He said that the grant has to be seen in the context of the new landscape of policing. Is he telling the House that that landscape is now settled—for example, that all the functions of the National Policing Improvement Agency have been transferred to other bodies such as the College of Policing or the National Crime Agency—and that that is the end of the matter and we can now move on to the next stage?

[Damian Green]

I can certainly tell the right hon. Gentleman that this is not the end of police reform. I will set out the reasons for and some of the effects of the reforms that we have made so far. It is a very radical programme of reform and there is more to do.

Before I go further in, I hope, enlightening the House about that wider point, it is important to recognise the achievements of our police officers. The unacceptable actions of a very small minority of officers have recently challenged the reputation of the police, but I hope the House will agree that this is not representative of the outstanding day-to-day work that the vast majority of our officers carry out in fighting crime and protecting the public. Indeed, we need look no further than the incredible job that police officers and other emergency responders are currently undertaking to support the families and businesses that have been so badly affected by the flooding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend, as ever, puts his finger on the right point. The shadow Chancellor is saying that an incoming Labour Government would cut departmental spending, but all the mood music from those on the Opposition Front Bench is that they would increase public spending. That is a central incoherence at the heart of Labour policy. I hope that in his response, the shadow policing Minister will clear that up and answer my hon. Friend’s very good question.

Despite having been in post for just over a year, police and crime commissioners have contributed to the transformation of policing. The recent National Audit Office report confirmed that PCCs are driving improvements and value for money in a way that unelected police authorities could not. Their engagement with the public is much greater than that of the old police authorities. For example, one PCC has seen an 800% increase in the volume of correspondence compared with what the police authority received. PCCs have also been at the heart of reform and have embraced new technology. For example, my local force in Kent is using predictive policing, which combines historical data with predictive algorithms to identify the areas that are most likely to be affected by crime, thereby helping it better to allocate resources and target the deployment of officers.

As the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee pointed out, we have set up the College of Policing to increase the professionalism of the police. I am grateful for the support of the Home Affairs Committee for the College of Policing. I want policing to be regarded as one of the great professions, alongside the law and medicine. The college will produce an evidence base on what works and lead a transformation in how police officers and staff do their jobs. The college will soon publish the first ever code of ethics in the history of British policing. Given that we have just been discussing the ongoing Hillsborough process, I am sure that the House will recognise the importance of that code of ethics. It will be a clear declaration of the principles and values that are expected of all police officers. It will ensure that officers act with high ethical standards in all their conduct.

[Keith Vaz]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time, and I fully endorse the vision he has set out. I am a little concerned, however, about an issue that has been raised by a number of Members across the House, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), which is that the cost of the certificate of policing is put at £1,000. Does the Minister have any information that will help reassure those new recruits that either the Government are prepared to consider reducing the cost, or that it is money well spent for their future?

[Damian Green]

I am sure that it is money well spent because getting the best people into the police for the future is one of the principal points of our reforms. As I said, I hope that policing will become one of the great professions that people look to, and that therefore—even more importantly—it will provide a better service to the public. I know that the Metropolitan police commissioner is looking at providing soft loans or some other form of bursary, and it is for individual forces to decide whether or not to ask for the certificate and how best to attract people. I know that at the moment the Metropolitan police is looking at that.

Apart from the College of Policing, we are also expanding the Independent Police Complaints Commission to ensure that a greater number of cases involving the police will be considered independently. Given the current atmosphere surrounding various complaints about the police, I am sure that will be welcomed by the whole House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley), who is very knowledgeable about these matters. When he was shadow policing Minister—I remember him speaking from the Dispatch Box—he was one of those who always welcomed any increase in the police grant, recognising the huge importance of the police service to our country.

The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) keeps referring to “his” county of Leicestershire—a bit greedily, I think. I am going to borrow a bit of it, because I represent a tiny proportion, compared with the large chunk that he represents. We are very proud of our police service in our county of Leicestershire. I want to give the House an example of why we are so proud of the people in our police service. Recently, PC Martin Bentley won a bravery award, for which he was nominated by the Leicestershire Police Federation. He was stabbed and slashed several times and needed 16 stitches and skin grafts, but he still went on to make the arrest.

The policing Minister was present with me and others, including the Home Secretary and the shadow policing Minister, at the bravery awards, where we recognised the huge contribution that members of the police service make—individual men and women, who every day of their lives put their lives on the line for us all. We have talked a lot in this debate about statistics, and the millions and billions of pounds being spent on the police service, but it is those individuals who go the extra mile and protect the public.

It is also right to recognise the contribution made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who is probably the mother of neighbourhood policing. I am not clear whether the father was Tony Blair or Jacqui Smith—I do not want to go down that line—[Interruption.] I will take your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my right hon. Friend’s time as policing Minister, she established an important principle which is with us today. No matter what we talk about in the Westminster village—whether it is about these great changes that are being made or anything else—it is what happens in the neighbourhoods, on the streets and in the villages, towns and cities of our country that matters the most; and I am afraid that this is where we have a problem with the police grant.

I am worried that the sum of money now available to the police service up and down the country is giving us a great deal of concern. I am also worried that morale in the police service is regarded as at its lowest in its history. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) would want to highlight the work of the Stevens inquiry. I accept that Government Members do not regard it as an independent commission or an all-singing, all-dancing royal commission—even though it is headed by someone as distinguished as Lord Stevens—but one of the facts that came out of the Stevens report was the low morale.

My worry is that if we embark on any further reductions in funding, it will affect the morale of the police force. I will come to the changes in the policing landscape—the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds was absolutely right about the revolution in policing and police management that we have seen under this Home Secretary—but no matter what we say about that, I do not feel that ordinary bobbies on the beat feel that they have been consulted enough about the massive changes that have occurred. Alongside that is the reduction in their pay and pensions. Hon. Members only have to walk around the Westminster estate and talk to any police officer about how they feel about the present state of the police service and most of them will say, sadly, that they cannot wait to be out of the service because it has changed so much. We as politicians need to recognise that the people who count—the people who deliver, in our neighbourhoods and our towns and cities—feel that they have not been consulted.

[Mr Ruffley]

If morale and the terms and conditions are as bad as the right hon. Gentleman seems to be saying, is that at all reflected in the numbers of young men and women seeking to join the police service? How is recruitment going?

[Keith Vaz]

That is a very interesting point. I do not know, but I understand that recruitment is not going terrifically well in certain areas of the country, although it is in some. That is why I am concerned about the £1,000 that people have to pay for the certificate in policing. I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about recruitment when he sums up. Of course, rather than young people joining the service, I am talking about very experienced people who want to get out. We need to take that into consideration.

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

I am sure that my right hon. Friend and our Front-Bench spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), would agree that when we meet the police in the west midlands—and we have done so regularly over the years—we have seen that there is a morale problem. The police seem to be used as a political football these days and although we might well quote statistics and figures about how much is being spent on them, at the end of the day when somebody’s pensions, wages and conditions are attacked that is asking for a problem. There is no doubt that there is a major morale problem in the West Midlands police. The other problem is that a city such as Coventry will have a senior police officer for three or four years and just as the public get to know who they are they go off to another post. That cannot be right either.

[Keith Vaz]

I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. That is an issue we must deal with and Ministers must engage with the police service much more than they have done.

I agree 100% with the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds about the revolution in policing. I am not sure that I can get away with being quite as nice to the Home Secretary as the hon. Gentleman was, given that I am an Opposition Member of Parliament. I cannot show favouritism because the Home Secretary appears before our Committee—that of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and myself—on a number of occasions and I must be independent. I agree that there has been a revolution in policing and I am on the record as supporting what the Government have done.

If there was a fault of the previous Government, who presided over a golden age in policing in the amount of money given, it was that no questions were asked and no reforms were required. There was a very large cheque—of course, the shadow Minister was not a Member then—

[Mr Ruffley]

It was not his fault.

[Keith Vaz]

It was not. A very large cheque was given but nothing was received in return by way of reform.

The creation of the NCA and the College of Policing and the abolition of the National Policing Improvement Agency, which I do not think functioned particularly well, and of the Serious Organised Crime Agency are examples of where the Government have got it absolutely right. We have a new landscape of policing, but I wonder whether this is the time to go ahead with such widespread cuts while knowing that to get the new structure up and running successfully it must be well resourced. The worst possible thing is to have new structures without providing the money that is necessary for them to do their job. I hope that if those organisations require additional resources they will be given them.

I bumped into Keith Bristow recently as he was coming out of the Home Secretary’s office and I reminded him that he had not appeared before the Committee for a while. He told me of all the NCA’s successes. He is very much a hands-on person and will go on operations, and he invited the Select Committee to join him on an NCA operation. The problem with SOCA was that we never knew what it was doing as well as we know what Keith Bristow and the NCA are doing. Why? Members of the NCA tell the press that they are going to raid someone and everyone turns up and we all know the good work that the agency is doing.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way on the critical subject of the NCA, and I welcome the information it provides. In Northern Ireland, we are significantly handicapped by the fact that the necessary measures have not been implemented to allow the agency to operate in Northern Ireland. The border stops at Stranraer and Liverpool for us because the Northern Ireland Assembly has failed to agree a way forward for the agency’s operation. Does he agree that this House must get to grips with that and protect all its citizens all the time?

[Keith Vaz]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I went to Belfast on his invitation, where I met Matt Baggott, to whom I pay tribute as I understand that he has just announced that he will leave the police after many years of service. It is right that the NCA should cover the whole of the United Kingdom and we should not have a situation in which a separate deal must be made with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and the Chairman of the Committee for Justice in his Assembly will persist in their efforts to ensure that the NCA covers the whole of Northern Ireland.

I say to the Minister—I know that he is deep in conversation with the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose)—

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (John Penrose)]

We are listening.

[Keith Vaz]

It is not possible to listen and talk at the same time, distinguished though the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare is. Perhaps they are talking about his promotion, and I congratulate him on his re-promotion to the Front Bench. We will miss him on the Administration Committee and in all the important work we have to do there.

Let me give a couple of quotes. Tony Lloyd, a police and crime commissioner, has said that the police are

“on the edge of a cliff”

after £100 million of cuts. Sir Peter Fahy, a distinguished chief constable, who is not elected, has said that 700 police posts will go, reducing his force to 6,400 officers. I have a rather remarkable quote from the chief constable of South Yorkshire, David Crompton, who said:

“Contrary to popular opinion the force doesn’t deal with crime for the majority of time—less than a quarter of what we deal with is crime…while we are spending time on these things we can’t spend as much time as we might want to on crime.”

What do the officers of South Yorkshire spend 75% of their time on? We need to know that. Chief constables are concerned about these reductions and we need to listen to what they say.

The Minister and the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds referred to the reduction in crime, which I welcome. It is a good thing when crime goes down, but I am worried about what has been unearthed by the Public Administration Committee, which is the concern expressed by a number of its witnesses that crime statistics are not as accurate as they should be. That is something that Ministers should look at.

[Richard Drax]

I welcome the fact that crime is falling statistically, but I hear—certainly in my constituency—that many people are not reporting it, in many cases not because the police do not do a good job but because those who have experienced crime feel that action will not be taken.

[Keith Vaz]

That is a serious issue. People may feel that they cannot access police officers in the way they have done, so they do not report crime. We need to consider this issue when we look at the crime reduction figures. We should be encouraging our constituents to report those crimes, enabling the police to log them and explain what happens to them.

I hope that there is enough in the budget for new technology. I know that this is a feature of what the Minister is hoping to do: better collaboration, making sure that there are economies of scale. When the Select Committee considered procurement two years ago, it felt that the Home Office should produce a catalogue of best deals for local police forces. We named it after the previous permanent secretary and called it the Ghosh list, but she left shortly after, so we decided to name it the Sedwill list, after the current permanent secretary. There are no plans for him to leave. It is important that the Home Office looks at procurement issues. Only this week, the Select Committee visited the Metropolitan police firearms unit. We were all encouraged to take up firearms and shoot at targets to see how difficult it was for officers. I am afraid that it was more Austin Powers than James Bond for the Committee, but it gave us a flavour of what officers have to go through. One point made by the assistant commissioner, Mark Rowley, was his desire and that of the commissioner to have police officers wear cameras.

[Damian Green]

indicated assent.

[Keith Vaz]

The Minister nods in agreement. That is a good idea, but that will cost more money, and I am not sure that the grant will cover the ambitions that the Minister and we all have to ensure that our police service is properly equipped.

The new landscape is welcome. The cuts have probably gone as far as they should have done. I want to see better engagement with the police service. We have a debate tomorrow on the Police Federation, but that is a separate issue. At the end of the day, policing is about what happens locally, and if local people and local police feel that they are not being well served, that is a problem for all of us.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I now have to announce the result of the deferred Division on the motion relating to the draft Public Bodies Order. The Ayes were 289 and the Noes were 203, so the Question was agreed to.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

Deaths in Custody (Legal Aid)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) for her intervention.

In the months that followed the death of my constituent’s son, the family and I sought, together with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, to ensure that the police officers involved were judged. I am sorry to say that they were judged to have been so negligent, and to have fallen so far short of their sworn duty, that they were found guilty of gross misconduct.

Now, the family are approaching the last trial of their strength: the inquest. It will be their final opportunity to find the truth of why and how their son died. Yes, it might bring grief, but I hope that it will also bring closure. The inquest is also important for our community, because it could provide critical insights that would help us to ensure that others need never suffer the same fate.

Despite my representations and the arguments that we have put forward, the family have been told that they must pay to have questions put on their behalf during the proceedings. Like me, they are outraged. The original bill was going to be nearly £7,500. It is true that their costs have now been reduced, but our system has become perverse. The fact that the family are having to provide a smaller cut of their savings cannot be judged a great success.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I thought that my right hon. Friend would like to know that the Home Affairs Select Committee will be opening an inquiry into the issues of deaths in police custody, and policing and mental health, later this year. It will also look into legal aid provision for the families involved.

[Mr Byrne]

That is very welcome, and I hope that my right hon. Friend and his Committee will be able to draw the right conclusions and, perhaps, use some of the evidence from the case that I am raising here tonight.

My point is very simple: when a family have lost their son while he was in the custody of the state, and when servants of the Crown have been judged guilty of gross misconduct, it is a gross injustice to tell that family that they must now help to pay their costs at the inquest into how their son lost his life.

I know the objections to my arguments. There are few in the House who know the pressures on the legal aid budget as well as I do. As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I too had to negotiate reductions to that fund. However, if we cannot fund an inquest into a death of which the state appears to be culpable, we have got it wrong. Our article 2 obligations demand a thorough investigation of state action and culpability in cases such as these. Like me, the Minister knows that, following the case of Main in 2007, a wider public interest test must be satisfied if legal aid is to be awarded. A death in state custody, especially when Crown servants have been found negligent, must surely satisfy that test. We in this House agreed to that principle when we passed the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Section 51 of that Act extended the principle of public funding for advocacy at inquests such as these.

As a parliamentarian, I want to know what happened on that night. That is the wider public interest test that is being satisfied here. I want to know whether we need changes to the law, or to the organisation of the police service. I want to know that, so that I can help to bring those changes forward. I do not want this House, this Government, or this Minister to be kept in the dark. I do not want the comfort of ignorance. I want to know why my constituent’s son died, and I want to know what we must do together in this House to ensure that none of our constituents ever has to face the same fate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

It is certainly important that the environment of a young offenders institution does not encourage those in it to think it is comfortable and to want to go back. For that reason, my hon. Friend will be encouraged to hear that we are looking at changes to the incentives and earned privileges scheme in young offenders institutions, in the same way as we have considered changes in the adult estate. We want to ensure that where young people have access to privileges, they get them only when they have earned them.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

A report published by the chief inspector of prisons on 17 December last year suggested that it was easier for inmates to get drugs than clean underwear in prison, and a number of young offenders acquire a drugs habit in prison. How can we break the cycle when they leave?

[Jeremy Wright]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that drugs in prison—whether adult prisons or young offender institutions—are a continuing problem, but as he and I have discussed, that problem is changing. Increasingly we see good reductions in mandatory drug testing rates for adult institutions—down from some 25% positive results to nearer 7%—but an increase in problems with drugs that are not in and of themselves illegal, but which should not be misused in prisons. For that reason we need to change the testing regime and give ourselves more tools to address the problem, which is what we seek to do.

Dangerous Driving

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Mulholland]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. He is quite right. He has exposed to the House yet another area where the law simply does not make sense—it is not common sense.

I have also had to deal with the awful deaths of David and Dorothy Metcalf, who were killed a year after Jamie Still, on new year’s day 2012, on the Stanningley bypass in Leeds. They were an honest, hard-working couple, who had just begun to enjoy retirement. They were hit by a driver—rear-ended—who was speeding at 100 mph. The impact of the crash caused the Metcalfs’ car to be thrown 10 feet in the air before it flipped over. Mr Metcalf died instantly, and Mrs Metcalf some time later in hospital. The driver, Mr Eduard Mereohra, was a Moldovan national in the UK illegally. He had been drinking all night at a party, and even the next morning he had twice the permitted level of alcohol in his system. He had previously been deported for entering the UK illegally, but somehow he had entered the country illegally for a second time. He fled the scene, only to be caught by a heroic bystander, guided by another heroic individual who told the police where the man was fleeing, having witnessed the incident from their house.

When he was caught, Mr Mereohra first tried to deny being the driver. Later he tried to blame David Metcalf for the accident. As if that was not bad enough, to make it even more galling, he had been caught speeding a few weeks beforehand, yet nothing had been flagged up to say that he was here illegally. There was no evidence at all to suggest that he had a valid driving licence, and it could not even be established that he had a national insurance number. I still have not received an answer to that question.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The whole House will be shocked by the two cases that the hon. Gentleman has brought to our attention. In respect of the second case concerning a foreign national who has committed a crime in our country, were his convictions in Moldova, or wherever he resided, brought to the attention of the court before his sentence, or was there a problem obtaining that information?

Police and Crime Commissioners and ACPO

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I will be brief, as the Minister has to speak, and I know that other colleagues also want to contribute. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, and to congratulate the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) on initiating the debate. He is a true original thinker on the Select Committee on Home Affairs as far as policing is concerned. Throughout the incredible change that has been organised by the Government and the new landscape of policing, he has pushed the Select Committee in the right direction when we have probed the changes. I am happy to remind the House that the Select Committee is investigating how police and crime commissioners and chief constables work together. As part of that, we will have our say on what is left of ACPO in the new landscape.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that chief constables have a different role from the one that has developed over the past few years. They are not supposed to be involved in making policy, although the Home Affairs Committee has on many occasions called on ACPO to give us views on policy. That changes in this new landscape, which I am on the record as saying I am excited about, but it has not yet settled. The hon. Gentleman is saying that when it has settled, chief constables will have a role to play, but it will not be the traditional role that developed under ACPO. It should be a new role. I am sure that the Select Committee will consider those points when we come to make recommendations.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. It was also a particular pleasure to hear some thoughtful and trenchant views in the course of this short debate. Those who spoke, most of whom are members of the Home Affairs Committee, have thought about the subject deeply and long. Furthermore, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee, said that a report is gestating; as ever, we look forward to its birth. I was especially grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for saying that he was “excited” about the new policing landscape. There were many reasons why we conducted such a widespread and radical reform of the police. It was extremely necessary to improve policing in this country. It is an uncovenanted and added bonus that it excites the Chair of the Select Committee.

The time is right, amid all this change, to look again at the role of ACPO to ensure that it has adapted to the massive change and reform programme introduced by the Government, because the whole of the policing landscape has been reformed. As was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who introduced the debate so thoughtfully, police and crime commissioners have given communities a greater say in policing and introduced new lines of accountability for chief constables. Also, the Independent Police Complaints Commission has been strengthened to ensure the highest standards of police integrity, which is clearly an ever more important reform; the National Crime Agency has been created to lead the fight against serious and organised crime; the inspectorate of constabulary has been made more independent; and the College of Policing has been established to provide professional standards for policing. It is therefore essential that ACPO’s functions are now delivered within the ethos of the new policing landscape.

In the short time—a little more than a year—that PCCs have been in office, they have innovated by developing strategies to tackle drug and alcohol misuse and the problem of people with mental health problems being held in custody cells; they have worked with young people to improve engagement; and they have driven innovation in technology to improve policing. They have done all that while holding their forces to account and scrutinising police performance. Many PCCs have wasted no time in introducing new processes to hold chief constables to account for the delivery of the PCC-prepared police and crime plans and in driving value for money. All that has fundamentally changed the accountability process in and governance of policing for the better. I am grateful for the endorsement of that change in the tone of the debate so far.

PCCs have reviewed the role and remit of ACPO within that new context—this is essential, and I very much welcome it. Various hon. Members have talked about the Parker review, which demonstrates that PCCs are providing an impetus to reform at the national as well as the local level. They are of course innovating and delivering policing more efficiently in each of their individual areas, and not only have they brought real local accountability to how chief constables and their forces perform, but they are working hard to ensure that their local communities have a stronger voice in policing.

Everything is happening against the economic and fiscal background with which we are familiar. In the current climate, it is essential to drive innovation and transformation that deliver value for money, so that savings can be made and priority given to front-line policing. PCCs are doing this at the same time as they are delivering against their national responsibilities, which I hope is putting an end to the view of some people that that is a weakness of PCCs. I think that it is a strength.

I now turn in some detail to the Parker review. As Sir Nick Parker said in a review undertaken on behalf of PCCs, not of the Home Office, there are frustrations with the lack of transparency in ACPO funding and with the inadequacy of audit and performance monitoring. Sir Nick said that

“these arise out of ACPO’s undoubtedly complex and unorthodox structure.”

There is a variety of governance mechanisms across the full range of ACPO’s functions, and its status is unusual, in that it is a company limited by guarantee rather than a public body. We have heard some of those frustrations aired in the Chamber today.

[Keith Vaz]

To be fair to the president of ACPO, Sir Hugh Orde—I am a great fan of his and the way in which he conducts his policing—he said that he was very uncomfortable with being in a company limited by guarantee. He had torn what little hair he had left off his head in order to find alternatives.

[Damian Green]

Absolutely. The right hon. Gentleman is entirely right to make that point. I am conscious that Sir Hugh Orde has thought as much about these matters as anyone else and has, as one would expect, come to thoughtful conclusions.

I support the broad direction of travel of the Parker review, and I was pleased that PCCs had taken collective action to review the role and functions of ACPO. I was also pleased the review recognised the need for efficiencies and for deriving maximum value for money from services that are currently provided under ACPO.

The PCCs have a vital role in ensuring that there is a national forum in which chief constables may come together to co-ordinate what they see as their needs at the national level. We all agree that that is an essential function. As the review recognises, crucially, the majority of ACPO functions have now transferred to the College of Policing. We are using the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill to give the college the power to set standards. It will be for the college to provide leadership for the whole of policing in future.

Mental Health (Police Procedures)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I look forward to this debate under your excellent chairmanship, Mr Brady. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding the time for this debate on a most important subject and I am pleased to see the interest, that the turnout here today shows.

The poor quality of life and of the services available to people struggling to live with mental ill health has been the subject of previous debates in the House. This debate relates to police involvement with people with mental ill health, particularly during times of mental health crisis. Mental health crisis, as defined by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, is

“when the mind is at melting point”.

It may involve an immediate risk of self-harm or suicide, extreme anxiety, panic attacks or a psychotic episode. How we treat the most vulnerable in society lies at the heart of our values. We made a decision not to hide away the sick and disabled, as we had hidden them away in the past in asylums and institutions, but we still have a long way to go in granting them equal status in society and equal access to justice.

The Mind report “At risk, yet dismissed” shows that those who suffer from mental ill health are three times more likely to be victims of crime. Shockingly, 50% of people with some form of mental ill health have experienced a crime in the past year, and severely ill women with mental ill health are 10 times more likely to have been assaulted. Crimes are less likely to be reported and prosecuted, because people with mental ill health fear being dismissed or disbelieved. Sadly, the evidence shows that more often than not they are. How does the Minister plan to improve police understanding of mental ill health and ensure more accurate recording of such crimes, and will he give a commitment to greater investigation and prosecution for such offences?

Another reason for not reporting is fear of police powers in relation to mental ill health. Too often, between 5 pm and 9 am during the week, at weekends and on bank holidays, police officers are the only first responders available in a mental health crisis, despite the fact that they lack the medical knowledge, skills and training to resolve and manage the crisis. They respond not because there is a real and immediate threat to members of the public, but because mental health services are understaffed, under-resourced and overstretched, and lack facilities.

For example, Miss P, who is 23 and a size 8, is a sweet, loving young girl who has suffered mental ill health for most of her life. She finds it difficult to build relationships and she is lousy at keeping appointments. She does not drink alcohol, except when she is in mental health crisis, and when she does, she turns into a violent and abusive person. Local mental health services concede that she needs a specialist placement, but they cannot find one. In the past five years, police have been called to 130 incidents and attended court to give evidence for 81 offences, resulting in 18 terms of imprisonment. The gaps between her prison sentences are becoming briefer—days, not weeks—and her self-harming and suicide attempts are escalating. The cost to that young girl, her family, the police, the courts, the probation service and the Prison Service is huge. I am told that it approaches £1 million, all for one young girl.

When the Minister sums up, I hope he will address this critical question: how much longer will we expect our police services to process vulnerable people through the criminal justice system due to mental health, underfunding and failures?

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) and the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) on securing this debate. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that, as a result of the work done by her and others, the Select Committee on Home Affairs will be looking into this issue, with a possible report next summer.

Will my hon. Friend comment on the study by Nottingham university, published in May this year, which shows that 56% of custody officers suffer from depression and anxiety? It is not just the victims of crime, but the officers themselves. Is it not right that the new College of Policing should carefully consider the issue of training?

[Mrs Moon]

As always, my right hon. Friend makes excellent information available to the House. I am delighted to hear of the study to be made next year by his Committee, which is highly regarded across the House. He is right to focus on mental ill health among police. It is little surprise, given the amount and range of incidents with which we require them to deal. That is why we must ensure that the police are called to attend only incidents that they can deal with and that they have the skills and capability to manage, so they do not go home at the end of their shift feeling guilty and bereft about an incident that they may perceive they dealt with badly. My right hon. Friend made a most helpful intervention, and I thank him.

The Centre for Mental Health states that police are the first point of contact for a person in mental health crisis and that up to 15% of police incidents have a mental health dimension. Other people have told me that mental health interventions occupy up to 30% of police time. The Royal College of Psychiatrists recognises that in some areas police cells are the routine place of safety, under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, when a mental health crisis requires urgent assessment and management. Many of those detained come from socially deprived backgrounds, and some black and minority ethnic groups are over-represented.

The Royal College reports considerable geographic variation in the use of police cells. During 2012-13, five police areas recorded more than 500 uses of police-based section 136 places of safety, while four areas recorded 10 or fewer uses, and one had zero. The difference was that the latter areas had better health-based services and facilities. Will the Minister undertake to talk with the Department of Health about the urgent need for commissioning boards to provide an adequate number of staffed health-based places of safety in every part of the country? At present, 36% of all places of safety under section 136 are thought to involve police custody. In 2011-12, an estimated 8,000 to 11,000 orders were made, with 347 involving under-18s. Will the Minister ensure that accurate figures on how often and in what circumstances police officers are called to deal with mental health crises are available, so that we can get a clear picture of the problem?

People held by police under section 136 are, as I have said, the most acutely vulnerable. One study found that in 81% of cases involving police-based places of safety, the person was self-harming or suicidal. The Independent Police Complaints Commission found that 35% of deaths in police custody involve people with mental ill health. Alarming reports from Inquest show that a number of those deaths are linked to police restraint techniques, and that 65 people took their lives within two days of leaving a police place of safety. Between 20% and 30% of people held on section 136 detentions in police cells were subsequently sectioned.

The impact on time and costs associated with police engagement in mental ill health has never been calculated accurately, but it is clear that, in a variety of ways, health service costs are being passed to the police services. It is common for police officers taking people in mental health crisis to accident and emergency or medical-based places of safety for an assessment to be told, “There’s no bed available”, “The person is too drunk”, “They are under the influence of drugs”, “They are aggressive”, “They are a child”, or, “They have a learning disability”, all of which condemn that person in crisis to a night in police custody. How much longer can we allow these informal exclusion criteria around drugs, alcohol, aggression, children and learning disabilities to continue?

EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am absolutely not suggesting that we do nothing, and that is why we need to get this point clarified in law at the earliest opportunity. The recent Supreme Court case on prisoner voting has reassured me on this issue, but I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) that I have every intention of testing this in law quickly. If we find that the legal position is not what we believe it to be, we will have to take further steps.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is right to say that I was the Minister for Europe who negotiated the charter of fundamental rights. I am very clear that, as the former Foreign Secretary has said, this is not enforceable in UK domestic law and the protocol is absolutely clear, in article 1. I know why the Secretary of State is reacting as he is today, but I can say to him that if he needs to clarify the matter in the courts, I have no objection, and the House should have no objection, to that. I also have no objection to the legal advice that was given to me and the previous Government being released to this House—I think that would be a very good idea.

[Chris Grayling]

The truth is that we were reassured again and again by the previous Government that this document had no legal force at all. Of course it now does have legal force in European law. The issue is about whether that legal force extends to UK law. We regard that matter as being exceptionally important. If there were any question of that linkage being made, we would have to take steps on it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. On his first point, he will recognise that one of the emerging challenges is the misuse of drugs that are not in and of themselves illegal. In that regard, I commend to him the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), which I think answers that problem very effectively and I hope the House will pass it.

On the through-the-gate reforms, again my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) is right that it is important that we undertake to all those providing drug treatment in prisons that what they begin will be properly completed; otherwise, they will not begin what may be long-term drug treatment programmes. That is why through-the-gate matters, and why our rehabilitation reforms will support people not only in custody but in their transition into the community and for some considerable time thereafter.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I commend to the Minister as his recess reading an excellent book, “Doing Time: Prisons in the 21st Century”, by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman)? In chapter 2 he talks about 50% of those in prisons having a drug problem. As the Minister knows, the Home Affairs Committee has recommended mandatory testing on arrival and exit. Are we any nearer to that?

[Jeremy Wright]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I do not agree with him that the right way to deal with drug testing is to have a mandatory point at entry and exit. He also knows that the main reason I disagree with him is that everyone knows where the points are and can see them coming. What I think is much more effective is mandatory random testing, which is what we do now, but, as I explained in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), we must all recognise that the problem that is emerging is less about illegal drugs, dangerous though they are, and more about legal drugs that are being misused in our prisons. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will support the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

Used properly, these orders will protect victims, they will disrupt grooming, and they will prevent sex tourism. These reforms are the right thing to do, and for these reasons I will not press my amendment to a Division, but instead I ask all Members who think the police should be able to step in to protect girls like Alice to support the Government amendments to protect people from child sexual exploitation.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I begin by apologising to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) for not being present for the start of her speech?

I want to contribute briefly to the debate in order to congratulate the hon. Lady on the incredibly effective work she has done on the issue of grooming. She has a constituency interest, of course, as Operation Bullfinch was going on in Oxford and she has been monitoring what has been happening to the victims, but she was also instrumental in beginning the important Childhood Lost campaign, and I was present at its launch with the Minister, who gave a very effective speech. She has decided not to press her amendment to a Division, but instead has urged the House to support what the Government are doing. I am glad that the Government are following the recommendations of the Select Committee. I think all in the House who are concerned about the grooming of children and the crimes being committed against young people and children will want to see effective action being taken. What we have seen in some of the criminal cases is just the tip of the iceberg, and the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who has now been promoted to Minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, gave very passionate and effective evidence to the Select Committee.

I support what the hon. Lady has said, I commend her on her marvellous efforts in this area, and I certainly hope the Government will continue to take forward the recommendations of the Select Committee—I see that the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who serve on the Committee, are present. We will revisit our recommendations six months after publication of the report, which will be at about Christmas time, when we will see what progress has been made, but I know that in the Minister we have someone who is determined to do something very serious and radical about stopping those who seek to exploit children, and I fully support what the hon. Lady has said.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

I echo those congratulations. One thing I have discovered in this House is that it is possible for Back Benchers with a really good cause to push it and persuade a Government—whatever Government. The other thing to be said about this evening’s debate, at least until 7 o’clock, is that there is cross-House agreement —and, I hasten to add to the Opposition Front Bench, even the Liberal party is on board—and that has been the case on this area for some considerable time.

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is the legislation being changed tonight. Although the Act came in under a Labour Government, I am sure the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), who was a Minister at about that time, would agree that there was huge cross-party support and thinking behind the scenes. Indeed, I was on the Home Office taskforce that did a lot of the work leading up to the child protection part of that Act.

Tonight, however, I want to focus on my new clause 7, which would amend section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, entitled “Possession of prohibited images of children”. Those prohibited images are pornographic images, and they may take various forms, including photographs, pseudo-photographs, cartoons and computer-generated images. They may be moving or still, too. The link between the possession and the viewing and actual action against children is generally accepted, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) said from the Opposition Front Bench.

The ludicrous situation is that an individual will be liable for prosecution for possession of photographs, pseudo-photographs, computer-generated images and so on, but not for the written word describing child sex abuse in pornographic, and often lurid, detail. All, including the written word in this form, are designed by the individuals concerned for sexual stimulation over the sexual abuse of children. If an individual wrote from his or her imagination a graphic description of child sexual abuse—which could, and often is, more emotive and more graphic than any picture of any form—even if he or she described one of those pictures or cartoons, that individual could not be prosecuted for the possession of this graphic material, even though for many of these individuals the written word is more powerful.

Let me give a simple example that I gave in speaking to my ten-minute rule Bill last Wednesday. CEOP provided me with the details of a man from Kent who wrote describing his wish to kidnap an early-teenage girl, strip her, sexually abuse her in an exceptionally unpleasant way and then, in an even more unpleasant way which I will not detail, slowly kill this girl. It is horrific, especially as his writings then inspired this individual to actually carry it out. He is in prison, hopefully for a very long time if not for ever, but the teenager is gone. One would have thought that the early discovery of the writings could have helped, but if the police had found them they would have had no power to act. This new clause has developed out of discussions with members past and present of the Metropolitan police paedophile unit and with the team leading CEOP in this area, and is supported by it, including Peter Davies.

CEOP last year published a research document on paedophile cases. It is mentioned in the report, almost as a sideline, that some offenders possess graphic notes or writings of child abuse. The Home Secretary has written to me on this matter stating she is asking for a report from CEOP on the need for this change. As the Minister will recall, some months ago both CEOP and the head of the Metropolitan police paedophile unit joined me in making a presentation to him. They brought some of the literature; I did not. The officers supported the need for this change. They explained that they had seen volumes of material in their search for illegal child abuse photographs. As the possession of such written material is not illegal, they obviously disregarded it, seeking only, at high speed and using computer technology, child abuse images.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend was one of the most vocal in the criticisms of the way in which Rochdale council operated. Is he satisfied that the council understands the seriousness of the situation and that, under its new chief executive, it is putting in place the proper processes to make sure that the situation is monitored? It cannot stop it happening again, but is my hon. Friend satisfied that things have changed for the better?

[Simon Danczuk]

I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s intervention. I am more satisfied than ever that Rochdale council is playing its part in tackling on-street grooming.

It is important to note that we still await the serious case review on Rochdale. I would think that it is imminent, so it should be available in the next month or two. I think it will raise questions—not much light has been cast on this—about the performance of Greater Manchester police and whether it acted effectively enough in terms of intervening. I suspect that the serious case review will show some failings in that regard. That relates to the proposals under discussion because, had they been in place at the time, not only would the tools have been available to the police, but an emphasis would have been placed on their need to use them.