Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I am following my hon. Friend’s arguments carefully. The new clause would put a lot of responsibility on HMIC. Does he feel that it has the resources to deal with what he would have it deal with? As we know, it published a report only yesterday on police numbers. Does he not think that if we give it this responsibility, it would need the resources to deal with it?

[Vernon Coaker]

My right hon. Friend, who is Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, makes a reasonable point. Of course, there would be a resources issue for HMIC that the Government would need to consider, but given the importance of the reform that the Government are seeking to introduce, and given that the police themselves say that this would be the biggest change to the policing model in this country for centuries, I suggest to my right hon. Friend that it is incumbent on us to say to HMIC that we will ensure that it has the necessary resources.

The Local Government Association—I do not know whether the Minister has a higher regard for it than for police authorities—is also totally opposed to the reform. It is difficult to find a single council that supports it. Surrey county council sometimes edges towards it, but it is difficult to find many others. I would have thought that if this were a great reform, the police would be coming forward and saying, “This will make a huge difference”, but of course they are not. The challenge, therefore, is to find the demand for the change. Local people are not demanding it, so who actually is? The Minister seems to be driven by a belief that he knows best. He accused others of being elitist, but if everybody is saying that the Government have got it wrong, there might be an element of truth in it.

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[Simon Hart]

I will restrict my comments to the impact of elected commissioners in west Wales, an area that has been referred to already. My comments are driven not by ideology, as some have suggested, but by my practical experience of the area, the reaction of police officers both junior and senior, and, perhaps even more importantly, the reaction of members of the public.

The context to this debate is the ongoing consultation about the future of the coastguard. One might wonder what the connection is, but it is simply that around Milford Haven—the important waterway that divides the constituency of Preseli Pembrokeshire from Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire—there is an enormous local attachment to and affection for that emergency service, which might not immediately appear to be an emergency service. Our community is proud of it, feels that it is part of it, and feels that it owns it. It is part of the fabric and architecture of the community. People in the community know only too well that if they pick up the telephone, they will get a trustworthy and local response to what are often traumatic problems.

The reason why I paint that little contextual picture is that Dyfed Powys police, to whom the shadow Minister referred, cover a vast and diverse area. The Minister is not entirely unfamiliar with the area. The police force is not devoted purely, as some would flippantly suggest, to sheep rustling and stolen quad bikes. One in seven terrorist incidents in the UK have a connection to our constabulary. It has the onerous responsibility of looking after the UK’s most important energy hub in Milford Haven, which has two refineries, two liquefied natural gas terminals, and the biggest gas-fired power station under construction in Europe. It is an important strategic area, which our stretched police force has to look after. That is the reason for the great connection with the local community, which I would argue is not enhanced under the current arrangements, but would be enhanced under the proposed arrangements.

Opposition Members may argue that I am simply trotting out the ideological prose as laid out by my elders and betters, but I consulted just three people in preparing the comments that I am about to make: two police constables currently serving in the Dyfed Powys force, and one rather more senior officer with whom I had a conversation at the weekend. The local police authority has—reasonably, sensibly and in a measured fashion—repeated the concerns that the shadow Minister articulated.

The two police constables, without any provocation, said to me, “At long last we’ll be able to do the job that we originally joined up to do.” I pushed them on this point, and their responses entirely endorse the Government’s proposals. They endorse, welcome and encourage the involvement of the local community. The crime panels, which are not directly related to new clause 4, will provide the accountability that some suggest is missing. The involvement of local authorities and elected individuals who are accountable to their wards and regions is a crucial piece of this jigsaw. As was said by two police constables and a more senior officer, whose rank I cannot reveal lest I give away his identity, that involvement will lead to improved prioritisation, which is in the community’s interests; improved cost effectiveness, which is vital in the Dyfed Powys force; and improved customer satisfaction—a phrase I hesitate to use.

In discussing cost and budget reductions in the coming weeks and months, the senior officer was certain that Dyfed Powys police could maintain a decent police force that would safeguard the interests of the community and businesses. However, he said that it would be different. It will not smell the same, and in many regards there will be an entirely different form of policing from what we have been used to. That does not mean that it will compromise the safety of the community or that crime will rise. Those ideas are being bandied about irresponsibly by mischief makers. The changes do not mean for one minute that people will sleep less safely in their beds; quite the opposite. There is a realistic recognition that things have to change, that they will change and that they will look different, but that those changes will guarantee a reasonable cost-effective police force for our community.

Only this morning in Prime Minister’s questions, as Members will recall, there was a suggestion that the proposals will compromise safety and the interests of the communities and the many businesses that rely on police protection—particularly in Milford Haven. I really would urge caution, because that is not the case. It is irresponsible for Opposition Members to bandwagon, to make political statements and to suggest that the proposals will damage the safety of our communities.

The House need not take this point from a lowly Member who represents a distant part of west Wales that most Members, I regret to say, have probably never heard of. As evidence, I put to the Minister the impassioned pleas of two police constables and a senior officer in one of the forces that will be most affected by the proposals. They say that there is nothing to fear, and that with a reasoned approach and a sensible balanced debate we can produce an outcome that is in the interests not only of the Treasury, which always lurks somewhere in the shadows of these debates, but of our communities, which have such great affection for their police forces, upon which they so permanently and reasonably depend.

[Keith Vaz]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), who rightly put the debate in the context of what is happening locally in his constituency. Every right hon. and hon. Member can talk about the local impact of the changes that the Government are making, but I will concentrate my remarks on new clause 4, and particularly on the desire of Opposition Front Benchers that there should be an impact study of the Government’s proposals before they are put in place.

The Government have embarked on a very ambitious and challenging policing agenda. I have just finished reading the speech that the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice made on Monday, and he used in it the memorable words:

“Reform cannot wait; we do not have the luxury of delay while a committee of wise men”—

slightly politically incorrect—

“deliberate and eventually agree to differ.”

I am not sure whether the Home Secretary would compose a committee of that type, but what the Minister was saying was that the Government want to get on with reform.

Those of us who serve on the Home Affairs Committee have been pretty exhausted by the amount of proposed legislation and the changes that the Government have brought into effect since last May. However, one would expect that from a Government who took office after 13 years in opposition. Of course Ministers, particularly the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, who I know has a passion for the debate on policing, want the Government to get on with what they want to do.

[Michael Ellis]

Was the right hon. Gentleman not also exhausted by the 13 years of the previous Government and their 10 criminal justice Bills and 3,000 new criminal offences?

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[Keith Vaz]

I say to the hon. Gentleman, who has recently joined the Home Affairs Committee, that I was totally exhausted. That was why I hoped we would have a little break when the new Government got into office. Members of the Committee who are in their places today—my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) and the hon. Members for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), and indeed the hon. Gentleman himself when he is freed from the Protection of Freedoms Bill Committee, on which he is currently sitting—know that the change is rapid. I therefore have some sympathy with the Opposition Front Benchers’ proposal that there ought to be an impact study.

However, I am not absolutely convinced that the best organisation to perform the impact study is Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) will convince me of that by the time we get to the Division Lobby. I am not sure where that organisation will fit in the new landscape of policing. If my hon. Friend believes for one moment that a report by HMIC, even though it is under the distinguished leadership of Sir Denis O’Connor, will unite the House or provide the basis for moving forward, he can look at what happened to the report that it published yesterday. Opposition Front Benchers accepted it, but I caught a glimpse of the Minister on the BBC yesterday, and he did not necessarily accept the report. He may or may not have accepted part of it, but as we all know, he certainly did not accept that front-line policing would be affected. It was interesting to hear the Prime Minister’s views on that today.

My plea is that the enormous reform and challenging agenda ought perhaps to pause for a short while, to allow Parliament to consider in even greater detail what the Government are proposing. The Home Affairs Committee has published a report on police commissioners. We did not comment on the idea, because we took it as read that the Government wished to introduce them, depending on the outcome of the Bill, which has yet to be finally voted upon. We examined the implications of what the Government planned to do once the commissioners were in place. I am glad to see that the Government have accepted a number of the points that we made, particularly about clarifying the relationship between the commissioners and the chief constables. We will discuss that in a later debate.

My concern is that we are not stopping and thinking clearly enough, even if we might want to go in the direction that the Government suggest. The Home Affairs Committee examined the need for a study of the proposals, and obviously the most appropriate body to make one would have been the Committee itself. However, we have been rushing to deal with each piece of Government legislation as quickly as we possibly can. I am not sure that HMIC should produce the study, though.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling was one of the best Ministers in the last Government, and when he left the Home Office he had gained a huge reputation for what he had done. He will correct me if I am wrong, but I am not sure that when the previous Government introduced radical changes they asked HMIC for an impact study or paused to allow other bodies to conduct inquiries. I can well remember, as Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, a proposal from the then Home Secretary to replace police committees. Then, all of a sudden, we received a letter saying that the Government had changed their mind, having accepted in full our recommendations on the subject. There is a danger in picking the wrong organisation to undertake the study. The point that I believe my hon. Friend is trying to make in new clause 4, which is the right point to make, is that we should stop and consider the matter, not that we should necessarily delay it.

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[Nick Herbert]

If I may, I will come to that matter when we reach that specific group of amendments, because the Government have tabled amendments to address it. We must find a way to ensure that the Bill is consistent with the wishes of the Welsh Assembly, which it expressed in rejecting the legislative consent motion. I shall address that question at the appropriate time, but I wanted to respond specifically to the right hon. Member for Torfaen.

When moving new clause 4, the hon. Member for Gedling made a number of wider points in which he attempted to open up once again the arguments for and against police and crime commissioners. I shall not dwell on those other than to say that he has expressed support in the past for the concept of a direct component in police authorities, as was ably pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis).

In addition, in Committee, the hon. Member for Gedling moved an amendment for directly elected chairs of police authorities, and the previous Government twice proposed a democratic element. I accept that there is a difference between that Government and this one, but the difference is not that this Government do not believe in democratic reform of police authorities—it appears that all parties do. Rather, the difference is that the previous Government backed down twice, but we have no intention of doing so, because there was a Conservative party manifesto commitment, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) pointed out, because having directly elected police authorities was separately a Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment.

We now know that the latest proposal from the hon. Member for Gedling is for directly elected chairs of police authorities. In moving and voting for that amendment, the hon. Gentleman wholly undermined his argument on cost, because implementation of directly elected chairs of police authorities would cost not the same as police and crime commissioners, but more. Therefore, the most expensive proposal for democratic reform of police authorities in the House of Commons is from the Opposition spokesman.

What is wrong with proposed new clause 4—I agree with the right hon. Member for Leicester East on this —is that it would put in the hands of the inspectorate of constabulary the power to hold an inquiry, and thereby to delay implementation of the Bill. Constitutionally, that would be very difficult. It would place the inspectorate in an invidious position. Parliament should decide reforms of this kind, after taking into account the views of both Houses and consulting widely. The idea that we can somehow park these matters into an inquiry by an independent body that is meant to look at the effectiveness and efficiency of policing is wrong. It would be very wrong for that organisation to do that, as it would effectively set up the inspectorate as judge and jury on a decision that Parliament had made. We therefore believe that these measures are the right thing to do, and we intend to proceed with them. Nevertheless, we are listening and will continue to do so.

In conclusion, on new clause 4, I would like to point out that, when the previous Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) was proposing democratic reform of police authorities, he said that those who claimed to have the power, and who wished to hold the power, should therefore be accountable for the power. That is the right principle, and the basis on which we should proceed.

[Keith Vaz]

I do not wish to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman’s peroration, but I want to make a point about the timing of the election. During the course of the inquiry, the Select Committee picked up some concern about the election taking place in May next year, just before the Olympics, when people ought to be concentrating on security measures and related issues. Is the Minister quite satisfied that this is the right timing?

Reforming Civil Justice

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I feel strongly, as does my hon. Friend, that we have an unacceptable compensation culture in this country. Like him, I notice it in my daily life. I think that doctors, teachers, policemen and most professional people are constantly concerned about the possible risk of litigation when they do perfectly ordinary things in the course of their daily lives. I dare say that the kind of submissions coming to Ministers are, in comparison with when I first received them, now so full of concerns about judicial review, the Human Rights Act and other legal constraints on what can be done that we are getting further and further away from common sense whereby people can exercise their judgment and, of course, be accountable to the law when they are at risk of breaking it—but only when they are at risk of breaking sensible law and might face litigation at reasonable cost.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I think that what the Lord Chancellor has said today has cross-party support. May I take him back to his comments about mediation? Is he suggesting that there should be mandatory mediation for very small claims? If he is, we have a problem with the number of qualified mediators. Will he look at this issue because it is all very well referring these cases, but we need the mediators to be able to deal with them?

[Mr Clarke]

We will make mediation an automatic part of the process if the result of the consultation supports such a move. Of course there will be cases that mediation will not resolve, and in those cases people will undoubtedly have the right to go to court. In the small claims courts we are already seeing a rapid extension of very successful mediation, often by means of telephone conference, which is resolving the smaller disputes.

As for the county court, following our extension of its jurisdiction, we will expect people to go along and be introduced to the prospect of mediation. We are consulting on the kind of people who will be required to conduct mediation sensibly, because, as the right hon. Gentleman says, a certain amount of skill and experience will be required for the process to produce the right results.

Police

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I have met my hon. Friend and his local chief constable. He knows that I consider this matter very carefully, and he made his points very well on behalf of his constituents. I will discuss damping in a moment, but my hon. Friend’s comments reflect the fact that there will always be differences of view in this House between Members whose police forces benefit from damping and who therefore do not wish to see any change in its application, and Members whose forces have, effectively, paid out under damping and who desperately wish there to be a change. It is therefore not possible for the Government to satisfy everybody. We have had to take decisions in the round, and in accordance with what we consider to be the best and fairest way to address the totality of policing in this country.

As I have said, I decided to apply damping at the level of the average cut. As a result, each force will face an equal percentage reduction in core Government funding in 2011-12 and 2012-13, thereby ensuring that no one force will face an unacceptably large reduction in its budget. This mirrors the approach we took in the in-year savings following the emergency Budget and, importantly, it is what police forces were expecting and planning upon.

I appreciate that different forces have different views on this decision, as do hon. Members, and I understand why forces such as the West Midlands and Dorset—and, indeed, Northamptonshire—are keen to see damping phased out or removed entirely, while others such as Cumbria and Cheshire welcome its retention. As I have said, in making decisions such as these I must, of course, think about policing as a whole. I also appreciate the wider case against damping, and there is a strong argument for moving at the right time to a full application of the formula, recognising the policing needs of each area, but doing so now would have created real difficulty. I should also point out that the vast majority of funding that forces receive is allocated according to the formula. Therefore, force level allocations will remain as I announced in December.

Historically, there have been a number of ring-fenced grants to police forces. The Government’s general approach has been to remove ring-fencing and to roll funding into the main grant so that forces have greater local flexibility in determining how resources are spent. That has been the case for the rural policing fund. From 2006-07, it had already been amalgamated with four other specific grants to create what is known as rule 2 grant, but we are now rolling that into the police main grant. I want to emphasise, especially to Members representing rural constituencies, that as result of my decision on damping levels the decision on rolling this grant into the main grant means that no force will be worse off.

In some instances, I believe the case for ring-fencing grants remains strong. Outside London, the neighbourhood policing fund will be ring-fenced for the next two years to ensure the continuing funding of police community support officers, who play a valuable role in community policing. When police and crime commissioners are introduced, it will be up to them to make decisions over funding. In London, where the Mayor can already exercise this local determination, the ring fence is being lifted now, but the fund is being maintained at £340 million next year and £338 million the following year. When some Members make their allegations about cuts in front-line policing, they might like to note that that ring-fenced fund has been maintained.

The counter-terrorism specific grant has been relatively protected with a 10% cut in real terms over four years. This is a cut of just 1% in cash terms, and must be seen against a very rapid increase in resource and capital spending—some 49% in the last four years. The Government and the police service are confident that there will be no reduction in police effectiveness in this crucial area, where savings can be made but where well over £500 million will continue to be spent each year.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Minister has rightly put the emphasis on the local areas, because it is their budget in the end. Does he not agree, however, that there is a responsibility on the Home Office to show leadership in respect of local forces? That is especially the case for procurement; the Home Office should encourage local forces to collaborate and pool resources in order to procure.

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree with the right hon. Gentleman, who chairs the Select Committee on Home Affairs, and I will address that issue later, as I intend to set out the savings that I believe can be made. The Home Office has a role to play in driving that, and in asking for the leadership of forces to share services and collaborate so that we can realise the considerable savings that are possible in procurement.

I was talking about funding to ensure national security. Similarly, funding for Olympic security has been prioritised. Up to £600 million will remain available if required for the safety and security programme, as originally pledged, although we expect that that should be delivered for rather less, at £475 million.

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[Nick Herbert]

I always know it is a mistake to take interventions from my hon. Friend, but no doubt it is a mistake I will continue to make. I enjoy his interventions, but I note that, although it seemed to me that Opposition Front-Bench Members were giving lots of nods to what he said, they have still not understood the importance of ensuring a proper balance between security and liberty in this country. In spite of everything the new leader of their party has said, they have still not understood that.

There are also areas beyond the HMIC’s report—this comes directly to the point made by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears)—where savings can be made by forces working together. There are 2,000 different IT systems across the 43 police forces, and some 5,000 staff. We estimate that savings of some £330 million could be found through joint procurement of goods, services and IT. The vast bulk of these savings —around a third of a billion pounds or more—will be additional to the savings identified by HMIC.

The time for just talking about IT convergence, collective procurement, collaboration, sharing and outsourcing services is over. We cannot afford not to do these things, and we cannot afford to delay, so, where necessary, the Government will mandate the changes required. That is why I am about to lay regulations before Parliament to require the police service to buy certain IT vehicles, and so on, through specified national framework arrangements.

[Keith Vaz]

I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time. I welcome very much what he has just said. This issue has been the subject of much discussion in the Home Affairs Committee, driven by its former member, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley). There is a need for central procurement: a list, a book, a catalogue—not quite like Argos, but something that can be used as a template for various police forces to choose from.

[Nick Herbert]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support and I hope this approach will command support across the whole House, because it does make sense for the 43 forces to procure together where that will make savings; and the savings are quite considerable.

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[Yvette Cooper]

The situation in the west midlands is clear. The number of police officers is being cut and that is having an impact on the area.

The latest research on the links between police and crime from Civitas, which the Minister presumably regards as a bastion of left-wing profligacy—he shakes his head to indicate that he disagrees with Civitas—shows that there is a

“strong relationship between the size of police forces and national crime rates”.

That report states:

“A nation with a larger proportion of police officers is somewhat more likely to have a lower crime rate. A nation with fewer police is more likely to have a higher crime rate.”

More importantly, perhaps, those on the Government Benches are ignoring the public. Today’s poll shows that two thirds of people believe that crime will rise as a result of the Home Secretary’s cuts. People do not want the cuts to the police that the Government are introducing.

The Minister often resorts to the claim that it is Labour’s red tape which is responsible for the fact that only 11%—to quote the figure that he uses—of force strength is visible and available. He fails to point out, in a misrepresentation of the HMIC analysis, that that figure for a 24 hours a day, seven days a week service does not take account of the officers on late shift, night shift or rest day, or of the officers working on serious investigations, counter-terrorism, drugs, cyber crime or child protection.

The right hon. Gentleman should consider for a moment what would happen if his own efficiency were measured in the same way. Let us imagine that the test of Ministers’ efficiency was the amount of time in a 24/7 period that they spent speaking in the House of Commons. The amount of time that the Policing Minister spends sleeping, eating and working on knife crime, counter-terrorism or long-term planning would not be counted, as the Government do not count comparable time for the police.

On the basis of the Minister’s week in the Chamber for debate and in the Bill Committee—he has been busy —he gets to an average visibility 24/7 of not 11%, which the police manage, but 3.27%, and that includes the radio time that he was forced to do on Sunday. His visibility is not as good as that of the police, but I am sure he has some efficiency plans to share his red boxes across Departments. His boss, the Home Secretary, is at 0%. Where, by the way, is the Home Secretary?

[Keith Vaz]

I commend my right hon. Friend for her great interest in what the Minister has been doing. It is a fascinating study. I know that she is making a powerful point, but perhaps she could be a little charitable to the Minister. It may be that the Home Office did not envisage the kind of cuts that she has been talking about. Does she agree that Ministers should go back to the Treasury to explain that the effects of the cuts are very severe indeed, and that an additional special grant ought to be given to the Home Office to deal with that?

[Yvette Cooper]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. It may well be that Ministers believed the figures they were given by the Treasury and believed that front-line services would not be hit. However, the pace and the scale of the cuts are indeed hitting front-line services. They are having an impact on police forces across the country. Ministers ought to go back to the Treasury to discuss that again.

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[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley), and given the risk of having the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) make throat-cutting signs at me, as well, I will try to be as brief as possible; we started off talking about police cuts, but I think we will soon have cuts to this debate. We have heard excellent speeches and I am sure that the House, eager to get on to the next business, will not want me to detain it for too long on this subject.

This is a very important subject, however, and I want to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds, who made a thoughtful and eloquent speech. It was right for him to praise the work of the previous Government, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), and the fact that there was such investment in the police service. He was right to praise them for the amount of money they spent, which has resulted, of course, as he then told us, in the economic problem that is affecting the country, and the need, in this Government’s view, to try to cut that expenditure.

What was important about the speech of the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds is that he concentrated on the bread-and-butter issues that sometimes elude us when we discuss these matters in the House. Front-Benchers are rightly concerned about numbers; indeed, the police grant debate is getting very much like a debate on immigration, in which Front-Benchers rightly concentrate on numbers. However, to the public, the real issue is, how does this affect them in their constituencies? How does it affect the local police force? Are they going to get less of a service than they had before the suggested changes?

The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley), whom we in the Home Affairs Committee greatly miss, has his own version of dealing with these cuts. He has set up a help zone, so if anyone needs a policeman, they do not necessarily have to go to the local police station; they can visit the hon. Gentleman’s staff. I am glad he paid tribute to his staff, because the number of calls they get will probably increase as a result of his contribution today.

Chief constables have rightly taken up the challenge set by this Government, and their tone has changed enormously since the proposals were announced. Certainly, the tone of the chief constable of Manchester, in his latest press release of 9 February, is quite different from the one he adopted before, when he lamented the number of police officers who would be taken off his payroll. Now he is saying that he welcomes the need for collaboration; indeed, I think he said in the final sentence of his press release that he was “upbeat” about the cuts. Of course, that contrasts with what he has said before, and certainly contrasts with the quotes given to this House by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who has quoted other chief constables who are very concerned. I am not sure whether it is because one chief constable is starting off their career and another is ending theirs; but the fact is that they are in a very difficult position.

The Minister is going to have to accept that, during his term as Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice—the Select Committee has always found him extremely helpful and courteous in providing us with information—there are going to be fewer police officers. It is difficult for him to say that, and certainly difficult for someone like me, who, in debates such as this in 23 years in this House, has always expected Conservative Ministers and shadow Ministers—and, indeed, Liberal Democrats—to ask for more police officers, rather than fewer. However, fewer officers is the inevitable consequence, and whether the figure is the 10,000 talked about by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the smaller figure mentioned by the Government—we do not have a precise figure from them—or the 20,000 referred to by the Police Federation, the fact is there will be fewer police officers.

This is, therefore, a big challenge, which is why I welcome what the Minister said about procurement.

[Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Keith Vaz]

Of course. Unless it is to tell me that I have to stop, I will certainly give way to my hon. Friend.

[Mr Campbell]

As if I would. My right hon. Friend talks about the work of his Committee. The Minister said that although the damping mechanism was applied this time, it may not be in the future, at a cost of a further £30 million of cuts to Northumbria police. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to seek to work very closely with the Government should those changes to that formula and mechanism ever come to fruition?

[Keith Vaz]

The Select Committee is always keen to work with the Government. I do not wish to prejudge the report on police finances that we will be publishing in a fortnight’s time. The Minister gave good evidence to the Committee, providing some interesting figures, and the House will have to wait for that report to see what members of the Committee have had to say.

The Minister is right to focus on procurement. He is also right to say that 80% of the budget relates to staffing, but that does not mean that we should not examine the issue of procurement. The hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who is not in his place, talked about this issue, and Essex and Kent police, along with other police authorities, are working together. One of the real questions for the previous Government is why we had 13 years of record expenditure but perhaps not the challenges that ought to have been made by Ministers about how the money was spent—that is not a criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling. I am not saying that the money was misspent, but it is important to examine what happened to that expenditure.

The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds discussed bureaucracy. I think that he will find agreement on that issue across the whole House but, as he said, we tend to talk about these things but what really matters is implementation. That brings me to my third and penultimate point, which relates to the new landscape of policing. I say to the Minister that we do not yet have a narrative on crime and crime reduction from this Government. We have had some ambitious plans. The Select Committee has never worked so hard to keep up with the number of changes that the Government are envisaging, first with the police and crime commissioners, then with changes on police financing and then on the new landscape of policing. However, we needed to have some kind of a template before we embarked on those major changes.

We know that the Government want to abolish the Serious Organised Crime Agency and that the National Policing Improvement Agency is going to go, but it should have been up to the NPIA to give leadership to local police forces on procurement. What is going to happen now? It seems that individual forces will be charged for access to the databases of the new national crime agency. What worries me about the budget is that that has not been factored in. It is vital that we know what extra charges will fall on local police forces as a result of the creation of the national crime agency.

My final point is that whatever budgets a local police authority puts in place, a police and crime commissioner will be elected. As the House knows, the previous Government changed their position on the election of members of police authorities. Now that the Government have decided that this is what they want to do, people should allow police and crime commissioners the opportunity to manage the local police force. However, they will be inheriting a budget that has been set by a previous police authority, and the demands from the newly elected police and crime commissioners for more police officers will be much more important to the Government than even the demands from Labour Members.

So there is still much work to be done on the landscape of policing and I do not think we can accept the current situation as being the end. Many right hon. and hon. Members, including some from Liverpool and Staffordshire, and the hon. Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and for Bury St Edmunds, have pointed out that there will be fewer officers, and that does mean a reduction in service. How local police forces deal with that depends on the leadership of Ministers, which I hope will be forthcoming.

Legal Aid Reform

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the reform of legal aid.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing that this important topic be debated prior to the closure of the consultation on proposals for the reform of legal aid in England and Wales. The consultation paper proposes to cut an estimated £350 million from the civil legal aid budget. Roughly two thirds of those cuts are directed at people who are currently legally aid-able, and one third will come from remuneration cuts to providers, who are expected to do the same work but for less money.

Some £279 million will be cut from civil legal aid, and about half a million people will lose their entitlement to legal aid. The majority of them come from low- income households, and the Ministry of Justice’s own equality impact assessment acknowledges that they will be predominantly women, black and minority ethnic people and ill and disabled people. However, while the consultation acknowledges this, it also says that it is not just about cost but that it is the “right thing to do”. I believe that I can demonstrate that both the cost argument and the statement that it is the “right thing to do” are incorrect, and that the implementation of these proposals to reduce civil legal aid will hit the poorest hardest, increase the cost to other public bodies, and have a potentially catastrophic effect on not-for-profit advice agencies, including citizens advice bureaux and law centres.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does she agree that one of the issues that should be addressed is poor decision making by public authorities, particularly in immigration, where the UK Border Agency fails to make good decisions based on good evidence? That is why people have to go to the tribunal, and that is why they need legal aid.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that comment. I will come to that later when I suggest some ways of saving money in the system.

Whole swathes of advice areas are removed from the scope of legal aid, particularly the social welfare law category. Welfare benefit is removed completely from legal aid. According to the Ministry of Justice’s own equality impact assessment, 63% of clients who received legal aid in this category had a disability, 54% were female and 27% were from a black and minority ethnic background. However, this is justified by stating that the

“accessible, inquisitorial and user friendly nature of the tribunal means appellants can generally present their case without any assistance”.

It also states:

“Advice and help are available from a number of sources including Job Centre Plus and the Benefits Enquiry Line”.

So people who have had their claim refused by Jobcentre Plus or the Benefits Agency are to go to them for support in challenging the decision and they will help them. I have to say that that is not the experience I had when I worked for an advice agency.

Firearms Control

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend has illustrated the importance of striking the right balance. We all understand why the action was taken in response to the dreadful Dunblane incident in 1997. However, the issue of competitive shooting at the Olympics has been raised with the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, who I am sure would be happy to discuss it with my hon. Friend.

The Government welcome the timely report on firearms control that was published today by the Home Affairs Committee. I thank the Committee, under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), for its work on the issue. As I have said, we will consider its recommendations carefully, not least in the light of today’s debate. The House will understand that it would not be right for me to respond in detail today, but I want to deal with three key points.

First, the Committee recommended that the Government should codify and simplify the laws relating to firearm ownership. As I made clear when I mentioned the history of firearms legislation, those laws are widely dispersed across different Acts of Parliament. Furthermore, they are very complex. I believe that the issue would benefit from further attention, and we will therefore consider that recommendation carefully.

Secondly, the Committee recommended tighter restrictions on the granting of firearms licences to individuals who have engaged in criminal activity. That concern clearly arose from the shootings in Cumbria, and I raised it with the chief constable myself when I visited the area in August. There may be an opportunity for careful adjustment, but that will depend on the nature of the offence. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), will listen carefully to what is said in the debate and will use it to inform any future decisions. However, we welcome the Committee’s recommendation.

Thirdly, the Committee raised the issue of the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot. I understand why that issue has been raised, but I think it important to appreciate that many young people enjoy shooting in a safe and responsible manner. Assistant Chief Constable Adrian Whiting told the Committee:

“The evidence in relation to young people shooting does not give any cause for concern”.

We will of course consider the Committee’s response in full, but it is important for legislative changes to be proportionate.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Herbert]

Of course I give way to the Chairman of the Select Committee.

[Keith Vaz]

We published our report only 18 hours ago, so I do not expect the Minister to respond to each and every one of its 22 recommendations, but the fact that he has picked up those three points makes it clear that the Government understand the nature of the inquiry and the need for further consideration of the recommendations. Can he give me an idea—without necessarily specifying a month—of the approximate time within which the Government will respond to the report?

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary tells me that he is going to say “two months” in his winding-up speech. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman considers that a suitable period within which to respond to such a sensitive issue.

The issue of the mental health of applicants for firearm and shotgun certificates has also been raised. As the Committee has noted, it has now been agreed between the British Medical Association and the Association of Chief Police Officers that the police will notify a GP of the grant and renewal of a firearm and/or shotgun certificate. The implementation of that arrangement is being sought within the next six months. In essence, the process will involve a system of notification by way of a standard letter, which means that GPs will be in a position to alert the police if they have any concerns. The police will then be able to request a medical report under the procedures mentioned at the start of the debate. I believe that that is a welcome move. There will be further discussions in due course about the possibility of placing a marker on computerised medical records to create a more enduring record of which patients own a firearm.

I believe that that development indicates that the authorities have been able to take sensible steps to improve the operation of firearms laws in the light of public concern. However, I agree with the Select Committee’s suggestion that requiring firearms applicants to undergo a compulsory medical check would be costly and would be regarded as disproportionate.

Overall, the Committee’s contribution to an ongoing subject of consideration is very useful, and we will consider it fully before deciding on our final course of action. As we consider our response, it will be important to provide an opportunity for wider engagement with the issues, and we will announce shortly how we will ensure that it is provided.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). I am afraid that I do not have her command of Latin or popular music, but I listened with great interest to what she said. Judging by the number of Members present, I am sure that others will make an equally important contribution to this very important debate.

It is not often that on the very same day that Parliament produces a report the Government hold a debate on the same subject. I have not experienced this kind of choreography before, but I am delighted that they have chosen to have this debate so soon after the Select Committee on Home Affairs published its report. I confess that when the Committee heard about the debate being held on 20 December, we worked very hard to make sure that our report was ready for the House to consider, because it would have been rather odd to have published it after the debate. I know that some who represent constituencies in the relevant area have had concerns about the timing of the debate, but the Government pledged to hold it by a certain time and they have kept their promise—obviously, they could not hold it tomorrow because of the winter Adjournment debate.

The debate gives us an opportunity to consider what has happened in this tragic year in which so many communities were touched by the violence of Raoul Moat and Derrick Bird. It is right that the Minister began and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), completed the sequence of paying tribute to all those who have been involved in this matter, including the emergency services and the relatives who gave evidence to our Committee in such a passionate and eloquent way.

This is a debate that we would rather not have, as we would rather consider these matters when there had not been a tragedy of this kind. However, the Committee’s report was not—I hate to use this word and everyone says that we should not use it—a knee-jerk reaction. We were keen not to react in that way and we wanted to review the previous Select Committee report on this subject, which was 10 years ago. It was appropriate to reconsider the issue and to draw on the terrible experiences of Cumbria and Northumbria.

[Tony Cunningham]

I should like to pay tribute to all the emergency services, but specifically to the health workers who suffered as a result of the shootings in west Cumbria. Perhaps hon. Members can imagine dealing with the consequences of shotgun wounds and bullet wounds: it must have been absolutely horrific, traumatic and terribly difficult for the doctors and nurses to deal with. I wanted to put on the record my tribute to their work.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to do so. In an emergency of this kind, many people are involved in alleviating the pain and distress of members of the local community—the list is endless. I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham), to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed), who wanted to stay for the entire debate but had a long-standing commitment that he could not break. The debate was scheduled after that commitment was made. We all remember the way in which my hon. Friends the Members for Copeland and for Workington and others represented the views of their constituents day after day on a 24-hour basis, and we all hope that we will never be in that situation in our own constituencies.

This is, in a sense, a House of Commons day. There was not a single area of disagreement between the two Front-Bench teams. There are points that Members in all parts of the House will want to emphasise, but there is agreement that we should look carefully at the reports that have been produced. I pay tribute to members of the Select Committee. Again, I apologise on their behalf. Most of them very much wanted to be present for the debate today but the severe weather and constituency commitments have prevented them from attending. They worked hard to make this a unanimous report where consensus was the order of the day. The report is not intended to have a go at any group in society.

I knew very little about firearms when I began the inquiry. That is why I was delighted to be involved in it—not delighted for the reasons that I mentioned, but pleased to gain some expertise in an area that I know nothing about. As Members of Parliament, we are supposed to be experts on everything, and it is not often that we say we know nothing about a subject. However, I knew nothing about firearms. The nearest I had got to a firearm was a water pistol when I was much younger.

I thank the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) who was extremely helpful to the Committee in a number of ways and to me personally. We asked that firearms be brought into the Committee so that we could look at the various types. Sometimes it is difficult for lay members—I am a lay member—to understand the difference between a section 1 firearm, a shotgun, a pistol and an air weapon. The hon. Gentleman arranged for that to happen. I thank the Serjeant at Arms and the Deputy Serjeant at Arms for allowing us to bring the weapons into the Committee. I think we gave them a bit of a fright when the firearms came in, but it was important for us to look at them.

I valued immensely my visit to Bisley, where I met so many talented individuals who had represented our country in shooting at the highest level and had won gold medals at the recent Commonwealth games. They were not bulky men with big muscles, though there were some of those about—not members of the Committee. Some were women, who had shot so successfully. One of them hung all four of her gold medals around her neck. I no longer need to be convinced of the importance of the sport. When we look at the figures, showing the hundreds of thousands who apply for a licence in good faith, with excellent characters, and get their licences, we know that we must be careful if we try to change the law.

That is not what the Committee suggested to any great extent. Like the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal, we suggested measures that we think can improve the situation. Hindsight is a wonderful gift and none of us possesses it. We do not know what is going to happen in the future. It is terribly difficult for the Government of the day, having had so many difficulties to deal with in the events that took place in Cumbria and Northumberland, to call it right. If anything happens in the future, and the odds are that it will—the evidence before us suggested that it will happen at some stage—we do not want people to be blamed for having failed to take action.

Some of our proposals are direct recommendations: we made 22 recommendations. Some are an invitation to the Government to consult further—for example, on the age at which children may apply for a licence. I was confused about that, as were the Clerks and members of the Committee. Therefore, for the convenience of the House, we set out the current law in a table that appears on page 42 of the report.

As the table shows, it is possible to apply for a licence for a shotgun at any age, but for a section 1 firearm, one can apply only from the age of 14. One may use a shotgun under supervision at any age, but, for a section 1 firearm, in certain circumstances, it is from the age of 14 with a certificate. To be in possession of a firearm unsupervised, the minimum age is 15 for a shotgun and 14 for a section 1 firearm. To purchase or hire a firearm and/or ammunition, the age is the same—18.

We did not suggest an age to the Government. We recommended that the Government look at the various ages. They may decide that there is no empirical evidence that a change is needed. However, we suggested a number of areas for consideration: the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot under supervision in the controlled environment of a shooting range, the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot under supervision outside such a controlled environment, and the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot unsupervised.

No age is specified in the report, although Mr Whiting said when I pressed him that he thought it should be 10. That was under pressure from the Chairman seeking to get him to alight on a particular figure. I was very surprised that there were 26 children aged 10 who had shotguns, even though I have a 15-year-old son who is in the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme. When he heard that I would be speaking about the subject, he said, “You’re not going to ban us from doing this, are you?” I said, “I’m not going to ban you from doing anything, apart from being on the computer for too long.”

We have asked the Government to consider the question of age. The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal need not fear. We are not coming to a conclusion; we are just saying that the matter requires further thought.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I heard the right hon. Gentleman this morning on Radio 4 on this subject. It was not clear from his response why he felt the need for a review. He did not seem to be suggesting that there was any particular problem in respect of the age at which children could hold a licence or could shoot.

[Keith Vaz]

I was trying to hedge a little because we have our personal views based on our interest in the subject, but the Committee as a whole took no view. I think it was right not to take a view because we had not taken a huge amount of evidence on the age limits. We therefore did not want to interfere with the current arrangements. We thought further examination was merited. As I said at the beginning of my speech, I am not an expert on these matters so it came as a surprise to me that children as young as 10 were able to shoot. It had to be explained to me at Bisley what they were all up to and that they were doing it for a purpose. I understood much better when I had heard that.

[Mr Ellwood]

The right hon. Gentleman’s report raises a number of issues, and this one is worth looking into in more detail. More information is required if we are to dabble with the numbers. It is clear that people cannot own ammunition until they are a lot older. It is clear that they cannot even use a weapon unless they are supervised or of a certain age. By discussing the ages, we are getting into semantics and away from questions about when the gun will be used and in what context. We are talking about the age of 10, when children cannot even buy ammunition or use it unless they are supervised.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is right. That is why we batted the issue over to the Government for them to look at. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) is the parent of two very young children, because they are regulars at the Westminster kids club party. Any parent would be concerned if they were not in the know about what is going on. We are not saying, “Let’s make it 10.” Let us consider the issues and let the Government perhaps come back with a view in the two-month timetable that they have given themselves.

My second point is about the 34 pieces of legislation covering this area of policy. It is a no-brainer that we need to consolidate. We need to make sure that the police and those responsible for holding such firearms know the law, which needs to be clear, so that nobody is under any misapprehension. That is why clarity of law and consistency are extremely important, and that is an easy one for the Government, as the Minister hinted in his very careful speech from the Dispatch Box.

There was a debate in the Committee about the role of GPs, but we concluded that we can live with the reasonable deal struck between the British Medical Association and the Association of Chief Police Officers—and therefore the Home Office. We should not try to interfere in the judgment of a general practitioner. Let the general practitioner alert the authorities if he or she feels that it has to be done. GPs will be very careful when they write their references or provide any information to those making such decisions, because they will not want to make mistakes. They also have a duty of confidentiality, however. The Committee was reluctant to intervene on that duty, but we felt it necessary to bring it to the attention of GPs themselves, if they needed reminding, because they have a crucial role in ensuring that proper consideration is given when licences are granted.

[Tony Cunningham]

Before my right hon. Friend concludes, will he comment on the Committee’s report concerning the media? My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) was extremely disturbed by the way in which the media covered the terrible shootings in west Cumbria.

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, we considered that issue in the inquiry, and it is in the report, although I cannot remember the exact paragraph. With such tragic events, the media tend to go to the scene, and there is 24-hour coverage, which understandably upsets local residents. One witness, it might have been Professor Shepherd or the witness from the health authority—

[Tony Cunningham]

Professor Ashton

[Keith Vaz]

Professor Ashton, I thank my hon. Friend. Professor Ashton said that the constant media coverage might encourage others to do the same, so one has to be very careful not to glamorise what happens.

The report has a section on key facts, and I shall read just a couple. The most recent figures show that there are 138,728 firearm certificates, covering 435,000 firearms, and 574,946 shotgun certificates, covering 1.366 million shotguns. That is a huge number, but the number of cases, tragic though they are, in which legally held firearms have resulted in homicide, deaths or injuries, is very small indeed. That is not to excuse the number or to say it is not important, but it needs to be seen in proportion to the number of guns that are about.

So the Committee has not sought to condemn or criticise; all it has sought to do unanimously is to make suggestions, so that, by closing the loopholes and ironing out the creases, our already tough law becomes not necessarily tougher, but slightly better. It is up to the Government to adopt the measures that we suggest. They have given themselves a two-month timetable, for which I am most grateful, and we look forward to re-examining the issue.

We have decided to publish our recommendations in a grid on our website—we decided to do that after the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) left the Committee—and, as soon as the Government meet those recommendations, we give them a tick. So far, in our three reports, we have totalled about 60 recommendations, and there are 22 in the report before us. We look forward to ticking as many as possible. If we cannot tick them, and if the Government have a better measure to put in place, we will give them the credit they deserve. The Minister and the Government have handled the matter sensitively and carefully and the Opposition Front Benchers have dealt with it in an equally proper way. This is the House at its best, and I hope that the debate continues along those lines.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Every year, deaths from gunshot wounds are an all-too-common occurrence in our country, as a result of homicide and suicide. Before this debate, I read a report prepared by the Gun Control Network, which monitors the firearms incidents that take place in our country. That report makes for shocking reading.

In one month alone—November—the Gun Control Network has highlighted huge numbers of firearms incidents. They include seven fatal shootings, five of which were apparent homicides—three in north London and two in the west midlands. In London, two men died after a double shooting in Islington and another victim died when he was shot in a car in Finchley. In the west midlands, a man was shot dead in a house in Bilston and a man whose body was found in Smethwick had died from a gunshot wound to the head.

Two apparent suicides were also reported for that month. A man is thought to have taken his own life after he was seen in a street in Ashington, Northumberland with a gun, and a man was found dead at his stables near Rosewell, Midlothian in a suspected shotgun suicide. Thirteen other victims were shot—five with airguns and imitation weapons. A teenager was shot in Croydon and two men suffered leg injuries when they were shot in Clapham. In Merseyside, a man was shot in the legs in a street in Huyton. A victim was shot in the stomach with a shotgun in Croxteth and a man was shot in the leg in Stockbridge village. In south Yorkshire, a man sustained a minor injury when a shotgun was fired through the window of a house in Totley, Sheffield.

Five other people were hit by pellets from ball-bearing guns or air guns. In Shropshire, a boy was struck by a pellet from a ball-bearing gun in Oswestry and a cyclist was shot in the head with an airgun in Arleston. In south Yorkshire, a jeweller in Rotherham was shot in the face by an armed robber with a ball-bearing gun, and in Suffolk a woman and a teenager were struck in the head by airgun pellets on the same street but in separate attacks in Lowestoft. A man was shot in the hand by police in Copthorne, West Sussex. He was later charged with possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.

I make this point because the pro-gun lobby likes to imply that people who take part in so-called legitimate shooting activities are extremely responsible. We have heard a lot of talk about knee-jerk reactions, but whenever there is an appalling incident such as the one in Cumbria, there is always a knee-jerk reaction from the pro-gun lobby. The House should consider the sobering thought that back in 1987, when Michael Ryan was indulging in a massacre in Hungerford, killing 17 people and injuring 15 others, Thomas Hamilton was seen to be a fit and proper person to hold a firearms certificate. Yet we know the tragic consequences in 1996 in Dunblane, where Thomas Hamilton killed 18 people and injured 15 others. When Thomas Hamilton was indulging in that killing spree, Derrick Bird in Cumbria was deemed a fit and proper person to hold a firearms certificate, and we know what happened earlier this year when 12 people were killed and 11 were seriously injured.

In my view, the country would be a far better place if guns were completely banned and nobody was allowed to own them. I recognise that that might be a step too far at this stage, but it is essential that this Parliament takes action to address the gun culture in our country. It is a frightening statistic that almost 5,000 young people—5,000 children—hold a firearms certificate. What kind of message is that sending out to the country at large? I am a councillor in Derby as well as a Member of Parliament. In a park in Normanton in Derby, there was a tragic and fatal incident in which a young man of 15 years of age was shot dead with a gun. I accept that that gun was obtained illegally. However, when the law of the land allows 5,000 children legitimately to hold a firearms certificate, it sends a very bad signal.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) has pointed out, there are 34 separate pieces of firearms legislation. The time is long overdue for a new, simpler, unified piece of legislation covering the ownership of firearms. As I have said, I would like to see a complete ban on guns, although I accept that that will not happen in the foreseeable future. However, it is appropriate to ban the private storage of firearms in people’s own homes. I cannot see how anybody in this House can legitimately argue that somebody should be able to store firearms in their own home. Why is that necessary? There is no foolproof method of dealing with this other than a complete ban on firearms, but taking them out of people’s homes would be a huge step in the right direction towards preventing the sorts of appalling massacres that we have seen in Hungerford, Dunblane and Cumbria.

That is one of the measures that I would like to see, but we could go further. The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) has referred to the notion that a person who has a firearms certificate might be deterred from seeing their GP, if they felt that that GP could report them to the police as not being a fit and proper person to continue to hold a firearms certificate. However, there is a way round that: a mandatory, annual medical test to check on individuals who hold firearms certificates would ensure that they are mentally capable and fit and proper people to continue to do so. That measure would get over the problem that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned.

Other hon. Members have referred to the Prime Minister’s comments in the wake of the Cumbrian shooting, when he said that nobody can

“stop a switch flicking in someone’s head”.

Adopting the approach that I am suggesting would not be foolproof but it would be a considerable step forward in preventing the sorts of terrible incidents that we have seen. I urge the Minister to take it on board and respond to it appropriately.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has considered this issue and has made a number of recommendations, including the involvement of the medical profession through allowing police to see the medical details of applicants and permitting a formal approach to applicants’ families to ensure that they are happy for their family member to obtain a firearms certificate. That would be a huge step forward. We need, as a Parliament, to take appropriate steps. In the past, we have taken measures that clearly have not gone far enough, and we need to go considerably further. I accept that these measures need to be proportionate, but how do we judge what is proportionate when we see the number of innocent lives that have been lost as a result of people who have held firearms legitimately and then, through the inadequacy of our legislation, been able to go on a killing spree? I hope that the Minister will deal with those points.

We need to take more robust measures in relation to the illegal ownership of firearms. I would not allow children to have firearms certificates at all, but addressing the age at which young people are able to do so would be a good step in the right direction in terms of the signal it sends. We also need to look at other measures that we can take by working with young people and supporting youth organisations, which do some excellent work in bringing home to young people the consequences of gun crime. That would prevent more tragic incidents such as the one that occurred in the ward that I represent in Derby, where Kadeem Blackwood, a young man of 15 years of age, had his life tragically cut short. We have to empower youth organisations to enable the sort of educative work that would help to turn young people away from firearms.

[Keith Vaz]

I, too, was concerned about this when I began the inquiry. My hon. Friend has spoken very passionately about these matters. Does he not accept, however, that it would be very odd if we did not allow people the chance to enjoy their sport in a shooting range, in properly controlled circumstances with a proper licence?

[Chris Williamson]

My own view is that I would ban guns, and there would not be shooting ranges because people would not have guns. However, at the end of the day, politics is the art of the possible. If we could have the properly controlled circumstances that my right hon. Friend has mentioned but, within that context, prevent people from having private storage of firearms in their own homes, that would deal with his point and also prevent the potential for the sorts of terrible massacres we have seen in some parts of the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Like everyone who has taken part in the debate, I want to express my sympathies for those who were involved in the incidents in Cumbria and Northumberland, particularly David Rathband, the police officer who was blinded by Raoul Moat. I join others in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed), the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham). In making their interventions, they showed how these events have affected their constituents and made a significant contribution to the debate.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee, told us that the Committee had made every effort to publish the report in time for today’s debate, so we are extremely grateful for the hard work that members of the Committee have done on behalf of the House in order to inform the debate. It is a shame that it is taking place on a day when there is a one-line Whip and the weather is so inclement that undoubtedly some Members who would have wanted to be present cannot be here. My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland was unavoidably taken away. I know he was extremely disappointed not to be able to participate in the debate.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East emphasised the need to avoid regulation that would put our sports people who take part in firearms events at a disadvantage. He highlighted the issues surrounding the various age limits relating to guns. In order to save time, I shall not read them out from the table on page 42, as he did. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, these have been batted over to the Government to consider and we look forward to their response to the anomalies identified by the Select Committee.

We look forward, too, to the codification of the 34 pieces of legislation that have been introduced over the past century to regulate guns in the UK. My right hon. Friend referred to the need for GPs to recognise their crucial role in alerting police to the potential dangers posed by some of their patients who have gun licences.

The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) compared the attitudes of people in the USA with those of people in the UK, highlighting the fact that there was little appetite among people in the UK for owning guns. They do not have the same attitude as people in the USA to the right to own a gun. She said that changes to gun control would not have stopped the incidents in Cumbria or Northumberland, and questioned the need to regulate further, but she called for action on criminal behaviour, an issue highlighted in the Select Committee report.

The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) called for an evidence-based approach to making changes and stressed the need for any changes to be proportionate. He wanted the issue of imports to be addressed and spoke of the potential role of elected police commissioners in future in tackling gun crime. He, too, cautioned against regulating in a way that would impact on sport, which was a regular feature of the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) was a major dissenting voice in the debate. He gave figures for November which showed a large number of incidents involving firearms to support his case for stricter regulation. His preference was for a complete ban on gun ownership, but he recognised that that view might not command a majority in the House. He urged the Government to look at the recommendations of the Select Committee and to regulate more stringently in future. He also called for a mandatory annual medical test and a complete ban on guns being stored in homes.

The hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) reminded us that gun crime takes place all too frequently in our society and that our job as legislators is to protect the public. He called for more data to be collected by the police on whether guns used in crimes were legal or illegal. Again, that is an issue referred to in the Select Committee report. He mentioned the important role of sports people in wildlife conservation, a theme picked up by the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), who referred to the vital role and the money invested by people involved in gun sports in wildlife conservation and husbandry. He also expressed concerns for the future of firearms sport, as did many hon. Members, and he was concerned to ensure that GPs do not become agents of the state who are required to breach patient confidentiality in passing information to the police.

The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) paid tribute to the Swadlincote gun club and cited the importance of shoots to her local economy. I have never held a gun, let alone fired one, apart from an air rifle that somebody else owned when I was young, but I had a friend who managed a shoot, and we had interesting conversations about the investment and contribution that shoots make to local economies, so I have nothing but respect for people in that industry. The hon. Lady opposed the recommendation of a single licence, but she commended Derbyshire police on their handling of the licensing process.

The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) laid claim to the lowest rate of gun crime in the country and questioned whether evidence showed that changes to gun regulations would make a difference. He, too, said that we need to focus on and target illegal gun crime, and he referred, from his professional experience, to the danger of stigmatising people with mental health conditions and breaching patient confidentiality.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who opened the debate for the Opposition, made a number of points. She mentioned the considerable possible savings from staggering the renewal of existing licences and dealing with the bulge in renewals that the introduction of previous legislation caused. We will be interested to see the Government’s response to that. She also wanted the Government to respond to the Committee’s 22 recommendations, and they say that they will do so within two months. Given the importance of the issue, we would also like confirmation that they will do so on the Floor of the House in the form of an oral statement.

[Keith Vaz]

First, may I congratulate my hon. Friend on his long-overdue elevation to the Front Bench?

Some of us have already received e-mails following the publication of various reports, and this is a debate that should include the public. We as parliamentarians need to have the final say, but it would be worthy of us to allow a more general debate on some of the issues.

[Clive Efford]

I could not agree more. The wider public—in particular, those communities directly affected by such incidents—will want to respond to the recommendations of my right hon. Friend’s Committee, and to have some input into the Government’s response.

Police Funding

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for allowing us the opportunity to discuss this very important issue. As I did not have the chance to say this yesterday, I hope you had a very happy wedding anniversary.

On 20 October, the Chancellor announced the outcome of the 2010 spending review. The budget of the Home Office will fall by 25% in real terms from 2010-11, and within that the resource budget will fall by 23%, or £2.2 billion. Administration costs are due to fall by 33% and the capital budget by 49%. Taken as a whole, the Home Office has received a settlement with cuts more than twice the average of all Departments, which is 11%. Even ignoring the protected Departments of International Development and Health, the average cut for all other Departments is 17%, or 5% a year.

The comprehensive spending review document states that the Home Office settlement includes support for major policing reforms; a reduction in police resource funding by 14% in real terms by 2014-15; £1.8 billion of capital investment over the spending review period; spending for the delivery of a new national crime agency; and overall resource savings of about 23%. In real terms, central Government funding for the police is due to fall by 20% by 2014-15. As the House will know, part of the police’s funding comes from the police precept, and if the police authorities decide to increase the precept at the rate forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the overall level of police funding will decline by 14% by 2014-15. There is therefore widespread concern about the level of funding for the police and the Home Office over the next five years, and about the way in which it will be achieved.

What has been described as front-loading—the cuts happening in the first few years—has already caused concern. I understand that the Association of Police Authorities recently wrote to the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, whom I see on the Government Front Bench, to express that concern. It stated that

“a sensible, realistic approach is necessary to realise the savings objectives and avoid long-term damage to policing capability”

and that its members were

“deeply concerned that front-loading cuts will strip out the required financial flexibility police forces need to transform their working practices in order to make savings.”

The CSR document, about which I am sure we will hear more from the Minister, expresses the hope that the savings will be achieved through reducing bureaucracy, modernising pay and conditions for staff, introducing directly elected police and crime commissioners, abolishing the National Policing Improvement Agency and cutting counter-terrorism by about 10% in real terms. After the CSR was published, KPMG was reported as estimating that 18,000 police officers could be lost over a four-year period. The Police Federation was reported as estimating that the number would be 20,000. At Home Office questions on Monday, the Minister said:

“By cutting costs and scrapping bureaucracy, we will save both money and man hours, so I am confident that the spending review should not lead to any reduction in police officers visible and available on the streets.”—[Official Report, 6 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 14.]

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend might like to know that this morning a number of my hon. Friends and I met the Minister to discuss the impact of the cuts on the West Midlands police force, which is 80% dependent on central Government funding. My right hon. Friend talks about the impact of the cuts on police numbers, but where police authorities are wholly or mainly dependent on central Government funding rather than the precept, the impact on local communities and police visibility will be that much worse.

[Keith Vaz]

The Home Affairs Committee has already heard from Chief Constable Sims of West Midlands police. It organised a seminar in Cannock Chase, which is not a million miles from my hon. Friend’s constituency, where those concerns were raised. The problem is that individual police forces are currently unable to tell us precisely what effect the cuts will have locally. We will have to wait for the publication of the settlement, which we anticipate in early December. When the Minister speaks, I am sure he will tell us precisely when the provisional police settlements will be announced and placed before the House. He is smiling, so perhaps he will announce the figures today and we can question him on them. I am sure that we will hear soon. Until we do, we will not know precisely what is happening.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Apart from the cuts, which will reduce the overall number of police, I understand that the CSR will mean a freeze on recruitment, the likely application of regulation A19, which will get rid of the more experienced officers, and a freeze on pay. Do they sound like the conditions for a highly motivated, well performing police force?

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend asks almost a rhetorical question to which the answer must be, “No—people will not be motivated if those cuts take place,” but he is right to raise those concerns. That is why this debate is important. The Home Affairs Committee is of course aware of the deep concern in the west midlands, which is demonstrated by the number of west midlands MPs in the Chamber this afternoon.

A number of police forces have already issued statements on how the CSR will affect them. In a statement on 22 November, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police and the treasurer of the Greater Manchester Police Authority said:

“Final spending details are not expected until the end of November or early December but if the headline reductions in spending totals for the Police Service are ultimately reflected in GMP’s Formula Grant and Specific Grants, the Force and Police Authority will need to find savings of £134m over the four year period…Savings of £52m will need to be found in 2011/12.”

They estimate in their report that GMP will lose approximately 2,950 posts from a total of 12,000 over the four-year period, and BBC News has reported that 1,387 officers and 1,557 civilian posts could go in Greater Manchester.

Northumbria police also issued a statement, saying that the likely impact of the cuts would be the loss of 450 members of the civilian staff out of a total of 2,500. As my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) said, it looks as though 2,000 jobs will be lost in the West Midlands police force, including 1,050 police officers over the four-year period.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I should declare an interest, because my son is the chief executive of a police authority. Will my right hon. Friend reflect on the large numbers of police officers that will be lost? The Government imply that the loss of police officers will not be seen on the streets because people can somehow be pulled out of back offices, but many officers who are not on the streets investigate internet-related crime and child abuse, and undertake intelligence and scientific activities to prevent crime. They investigate a range of crime, the evidence for which is not to be found on the streets of our towns and cities.

[Keith Vaz]

My right hon. Friend is extremely knowledgeable, as a former Police Minister. He will know that, depending on the police authority or station, 85 different functions could be performed every day in a police station by people from IT experts to those on the switchboard and reception. Of course, the temptation is to remove the back office, but if we do so, those in the front office—the visible police officers—will have to go there, because there will be nobody else to do that work. My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the problems caused by the suggested front-loaded reductions.

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

Is my right hon. Friend aware that West Midlands police assume in their planning that they will be unable to cope with cuts on the scale being forced on them by the Government without compulsorily retiring up to 400 of the longest-serving police officers under A19, and without a significant reduction in visible policing on the streets—fewer bobbies on the beat—in the west midlands generally and Birmingham in particular?

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is rightly concerned about that. I will be going to Birmingham in a week’s time at the invitation of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak to see how the CSR will affect visible policing.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

In response to an earlier question about the functions of police officers, it has to be said that many were affected by the previous Government’s ill thought out, badly drafted legislation. For example, the short-term, knee-jerk reaction dispersal orders simply moved one problem to a different street in the same area, which I often saw as a cabinet member for safety in Medway. Of course we must consider the various functions of police officers, but in the past 10 years the police have been tied up with functions they should never have been dealing with.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. One thing I hope we can avoid at all costs is the kind of knee-jerk reaction that he mentioned. I would hate the police service to be subject to the same kind of reorganisation that we have had in the NHS in the past 20 years under the previous Government and the one before that.

I do not intend to go on for long, because many right hon. and hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate. The Home Affairs Committee hopes to assist the Government in this difficult process—we want to approach the proposals in a comradely and constructive way. I am glad to see so many members of the Committee in the Chamber. Our longest-serving and most distinguished member, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) is here, as are my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak. The hon. Members for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) are members of the Committee, and sitting behind them on the Government Benches is a non-member, the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti). The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) is also in the Chamber. She was a member of the Committee but was poached within weeks of her appointment by the Minister to become his Parliamentary Private Secretary. I am sure she is doing a great job.

The Committee has decided to undertake a trilogy of reports on three different aspects of the proposals to assist the Government. It is rather like “The Lord of the Rings”. We have just published our report on police and crime commissioners. As the Minister knows, members of the Committee have different views on the desirability of police and crime commissioners, but I hope he found our report helpful. It outlined a number of issues that we feel could be of value to the country.

We were very concerned that the figures for the cost of police and crime commissioners came out only after we had published our report. Indeed, the proposals came out on the very day that we published our report. Perhaps we can improve our co-ordination. I am not saying that we should be like “Strictly Come Dancing”, but if the Government and the Committee communicated a little bit better, we might be able to see the proposals before we commence our reports, which would make what we say more valuable.

The second report was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak and my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, and we will look at the CSR in the light of the decisions that the Minister will make imminently about how much police forces will have as part of that second report on a reduction in police bureaucracy. There is common ground on both sides of the House about the need to reduce police bureaucracy. When my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) was the Minister with responsibility for the police, he also said that he wanted to cut red tape. In the 23 years I have been a Member of Parliament, Ministers have always said that they want to cut red tape, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we need to ensure that it actually is reduced. That is why I hope that Jan Berry will have her term as the police bureaucracy tsar renewed, so that rather than just writing a one-off report she can continue to monitor the situation.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that savings would have to be made whichever party was in government? Will he give us a preliminary figure that he—personally or as the Chair of the Committee—would accept for the reduction in police budgets and numbers?

[Keith Vaz]

I am afraid that I cannot give him a personal figure. The Committee has not met and has not discussed this matter, nor have we conducted our report. Members of the Committee would be most concerned if I started speaking on behalf of the Committee on a matter that we had not considered. I know that the hon. Gentleman has a great interest in policing matters, and we will look at this very carefully. We will of course take evidence from the police and from others.

The final report that we intend to produce is on the new landscape of policing. The Government have not finally decided precisely where every bit of the old landscape will fit in the new landscape and we hope to help by setting out a landscape that will be accepted by the Government and the Opposition, so that whatever happens on 5 May 2015—or whenever the fixed-term election will be held—and if the Labour party is returned to power, we will not have another reorganisation, as we have had in the health service. Let us reach a consensus about how to proceed.

To that end, I was very pleased that the Minister was able to come to the summit meeting that was organised in the constituency of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase a few weeks ago. I hope the Minister took away the message that there are stakeholders in the policing process who want to be engaged in what the Government are doing. We heard an excellent speech from my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary, and other Members of Parliament attended. We now have, in people such as Hugh Orde, Denis O’Connor, Paul Stephenson, Paul McKeever and others, some truly outstanding leaders in the profession, but we—Parliament and the Government—need to work together to ensure that we have a permanent landscape and to deal with the reductions in a particular way.

I am very concerned that there will be a reduction not only in the number of police officers but in the number of police community support officers. I was deeply concerned by the press statement issued by the chief constable of Lancashire police—which covers the area of Chorley, if my geography is correct, Mr Deputy Speaker—to the effect that every PCSO has been put on notice that they may lose their posts. They have been a terrific addition to policing.

I recently went to a residents meeting in London—I normally speak at residents meetings rather than attend them, but I was attending as a constituent of the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord). The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) was also there. We heard an excellent presentation from a local PCSO about the work that he does, which includes reducing the work load of police officers, enabling them to do their jobs effectively.

[Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that of the 427 PCSOs who received the at-risk notice from Lancashire constabulary, only 149 are completely funded by that constabulary?

[Keith Vaz]

I did not know that and I am most grateful to the hon. Lady, who is another member of the Committee. However, that still does not address the reductions. If we are to proceed with a view to reaching a consensus—people have strongly held views—we must agree that there is of course a need for an overall reduction in the police budget. However, that hurts us as local MPs when it affects our local areas.

The public want to be able to pick up a phone to report a crime to a police officer and to ensure that that crime is dealt with as quickly as possible. If that is the bottom line, I hope that this debate can be conducted in a way that achieves that purpose. Let us put our party political differences to one side and concentrate on the fact that if a reduction in resources means fewer police officers—as I think it will—the Government will need to think again, and possibly ask the Treasury for additional resources so that we match the spending on the national health service and education. Law and order—the prevention and detection of crime—is a key issue for our constituents and we need to do everything that we can to ensure that it remains at the forefront of people’s concerns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe]

I can show the hon. Gentleman where in the statement the Secretary of State gave the estimate for what he expected the reduction in the number of people going to prison to be. He stood at that Dispatch Box and said it, and everyone who was in the Chamber heard it—unless they have selective hearing.

I shall now return to what I was saying. There is a difficult balance. Perhaps the cuts are just too much, and the Home Office has got a particularly poor deal. I was surprised to discover, from the evidence that the permanent secretary to the Home Office gave to the Home Affairs Committee, that the Department has not carried out any research into the impact of the cuts on crime. That came from the very same permanent secretary who three years ago ordered a report on the potential impact of a recession on crime. It seems slightly strange that the man who feared then that a recession could lead to a rise in crime, and who said that we should investigate the potential outcomes, does not seem remotely troubled that a background of massive cuts and far too rapid reorganisation could have a similar effect. Perhaps it is just as well that he is planning to retire.

[Keith Vaz]

The point to emphasise is that the outcome of the research commissioned by the permanent secretary for Jacqui Smith when she was Home Secretary was that crime would rise during a recession, and that was assuming a level playing field for the number of police officers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

It gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), because it gives me an opportunity to express some concern about the fact that I listen to the same statements and participate in the same debates as him, yet I hear different things being said. If he looks carefully at what the Secretary of State for Justice said yesterday about prison sentences, he will see that he was clear that prison is entirely the right place for criminals to be. However, there are a limited number of cases, involving non-violent prisoners who have been given very short prison sentences, in which if it can be proved that a community sentence would more effectively address their reoffending behaviour, that is the appropriate course of action. That, the hon. Gentleman will find, is what the Secretary of State said yesterday, and there is broad agreement in all parts of the House that it is a sensible thing for him to have said.

I am pleased that we have the opportunity to hold this estimates day debate today. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) referred to “Strictly Come Dancing”, and said that he was a little worried that the timing of Government announcements was not in keeping with the publication of his Committee’s reports. One could perhaps make the same comment about the timing of this debate in relation to the police settlement. Clearly, Ann Widdecombe and Anton du Beke have had some involvement in the timing of this particular choreography, and I suspect that we will have to have a further debate once the police settlement has been announced.

[Keith Vaz]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. Unfortunately, this was not in the hands of the Select Committee, although we did ask for the debate. May I also take this opportunity to acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s presence at the seminar in Cannock Chase, and the contribution that he made to those deliberations, for which we were very grateful?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I commend him and his Committee for their excellent work, and for the advice, recommendations and guidance that they provide for the Government.

The recent report produced by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, the Audit Commission and the Wales Audit Office on police spending, and the ways in which efficiencies can be achieved, is pertinent to the debate. It shows that police spending has grown significantly—by nearly half—since 1997-98. During that same period, the council tax contribution towards police expenditure has gone up by nearly 150%, so the increases have clearly had a big impact on council bills. It is also worth pointing out that only half of the efficiency savings achieved by the police in 2008-09 were used to reduce budget pressures. There is clearly a potential for more efficiency savings to be achieved, and for those savings to be put back into dealing with budget pressures.

All this has to take place while maintaining public confidence in the police. The report is helpful in pointing out that the forces that have achieved the highest cashable efficiencies do not have lower levels of public confidence. One would therefore hope to be able to square that circle, and the report supports that proposition. A priority for police forces must be to ensure that their threat, harm and risk assessments are finely tuned to value for money considerations and to the savings that they need to achieve, so that there is a clear linkage between them.

For me, the strongest point in the HMIC report was that forces are going to need strong leadership to achieve those transformational changes. If they are going to get beyond the typical 3% annual efficiency savings that have been made in recent years, that will require transformational change and significant leadership. The report goes on to state that this is perhaps not always recognised by chief constables. It states that less than a third of chief constables identify leadership skills as important in securing better value for money. I hope that the Association of Chief Police Officers will look into that, because transformational change will clearly need to involve collaboration with other organisations, other forces locally and other partners, and that is not easy to achieve. It will require significant leadership behind it. The report also flags up the fact that more than half of chief constables said that local police unit commanders lacked the financial skills to deliver the savings. Again, that illustrates the need for additional support to ensure that the necessary training is given, so that the significant savings that some forces have already achieved can be achieved by all of them.

Another important barrier highlighted by the report relates to the need to reassure the public that what matters is not the number of police officers, but what the police do. I have to confess that I am a recent convert in that regard. I am sure that there are Members here who received campaign literature from the Liberal Democrats that talked about additional police numbers. That is something that I cannot disguise, and I will not attempt to do so. However, recent reports have made it clear that we need to improve on the figure of only one in 10 officers being visibly available at any one time, and it is surely not impossible for forces to look into that in greater detail. The public are worried about the perception of police numbers and the availability of police on the streets, but that concern can be addressed if we can achieve a better turnout of officers, even if there is a requirement to reduce force numbers.

Others have talked about police overtime. I do not want to overemphasise what can be achieved by reducing overtime, because there are clearly occasions when police forces do not have control over that factor. Tuition fees demonstrations spring to mind. By allowing overtime to be used, local police forces are often in a position to provide additional tasking to hit a particular problem at a particular time. Having said that, it is clear that some forces are achieving significant savings by reorganising the way in which their overtime works, and one would expect other forces to be doing the same thing.

Members on both sides of the House will support the need for more sensitive and more effective procurement. The fact that 14 forces will have managed collectively to save £18 million by 2012-13 through the national forensics consortium leads me to hope that the other 29 forces that are not part of the consortium will actively consider participating in it, because of the potential collective saving of up to £40 million if they were to join it.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman was part of the Select Committee when we published the report “Policing in the 21st century”, in which we mentioned procurement. This is a no-brainer, is it not? Why do all those police forces still buy on their own, even if it is in collaboration with 14 others? Surely there should be more effective leadership, whether from the National Policing Improvement Agency or from the Home Office, to ensure that they buy in bulk.

[Tom Brake]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. That is indeed a no-brainer, whether it involves vehicles or IT systems. We need to be careful, however, particularly when the “no-brainer” centralised procurement involves taking existing IT systems and moving them on to a common platform, as that can be quite a complex undertaking. Certainly, projects of that nature in the NHS have proved technically challenging, and such projects need to be dealt with very carefully.

The report identifies up to £1 billion of savings that could be derived without hitting the front line. I take the point made earlier, that it is wrong simply to say, “Front line, good; back office, bad,” particularly if the work going on in the back office involves officers engaged in detection and investigation. It is not possible to achieve a simple transfer. However, Members who have seen the HMIC report will know that there are currently 200 officers working in human resources departments. That might be a police role in some shape or form, but I find it difficult to imagine that all 200 of those officers working in HR are working on tasks that require a trained police officer. There is therefore scope for savings in those areas, and in others.

I have mentioned the fact that between the point at which a crime is reported and the final appearance in court, about 100 different processes take place. Some of those involve the police, and it is clearly a labour-intensive process. Anything that can be done to simplify it, while keeping all the usual safeguards in place, will, I am sure, help to improve efficiencies for the police, for the court system and beyond.

The report makes a number of recommendations; I shall highlight a couple of them before finishing. It underlines the need for police authorities to set savings targets for their forces that are more ambitious than those of previous years. I know that that will be a tough call for police authorities at the moment, and it is fair to say that they are not unanimously behind the coalition Government’s proposals for elected police and crime commissioners. I know that the police are all professional in their approach, however, and a number of them want to put their names forward for election as police and crime commissioners, so I am sure that they will want to demonstrate their commitment to achieving significant efficiency savings.

I have underlined the importance for the police of making sure that the threat, harm and risk assessment is closely linked with any financial or business planning, and I have also underlined the need, if these transformational changes are to be made, for some clear leadership from senior officers. The changes are not going to happen by themselves; they will need someone to drive them. The Government’s role should be to ensure flexibility to allow partnerships between forces and other partners to develop so that substantial savings can be achieved. If a carrot were provided by introducing a linkage between future grant allocations and the efficiency savings that forces achieve, I believe that that would help.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Reckless]

Having a national champion on bureaucracy in the way that it has been organised by the Association of Chief Police Officers, which is an organisation that does not entirely respond to this House and has little if any statutory basis, is not the way to tackle bureaucracy. We have had far more success in finding savings in Kent by having a majority of elected members who sit down with the officers who spend the money.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman rightly says that the work is best done locally, and he showed me the good work being done in Kent when I went to visit his constituency, but there is a need to share good practice. What I saw in Rochester and Strood ought to be rolled out in other parts of the country. So even though the savings are made locally, there needs to a mechanism—it could be the Home Office or this could be done through Jan Berry—that will make sure that other police authorities can follow what Kent is doing.

[Mark Reckless]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, the Chair of our Home Affairs Committee, for his comments. He has kindly arranged to use our website to promote some of that good practice, such as the safe exit scheme and our offender management unit, in which we are working closely with probation and other agencies. There is enormous scope for savings through such collaboration.

I do not understand why most forces in the country are not making significant savings through collaboration. I know that Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire have quite a strong programme, but I have not seen any other forces that have anything like the level of collaboration or are making the savings that have been delivered in Kent and Essex. That might be because the forces and counties of Kent and Essex are of a similar size and there might not be the sensitivities about one force being perceived to be taking the lead. It might also be because the personalities and individuals involved are particularly committed to the process. We now have, however, one single directorate to deal with all organised, serious and major crime. A substantial number of police officers have been transferred from each force into a joint directorate that reports to a single assistant chief constable. We have a single director of IT and we procure all our services through a joint procurement centre, and I do not understand why other forces have not taken the opportunity to find savings so that they can reinvest them in the front line. It is happening to an extent, but collaboration elsewhere has been very disappointing.

I am speaking about collaboration not just between forces but between different agencies, such as working with councils—a point we heard about from my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti). In Medway we have a basic command unit that is coterminous with the unitary council. That might have assisted us, but it is by working as a team and focusing the resources on the areas where the public want to see them used that we have managed to find savings, to cut crime and to improve confidence at the same time.

Although the process is different in policing from elsewhere in the public sector, there will be the introduction of directly elected police commissioners alongside the front-loading of the reductions, the potential pay freezes for two years and the review of terms of conditions—and I greatly welcome the work that Tom Winsor is doing. I made the point in my ten-minute rule Bill about the importance of police forces’ being able to make a rational decision about how many officers, PCSOs and other civilians they need—that issue has also been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak—and it is essential that forces should have the freedom to make that decision. I am delighted that Tom Winsor is working so hard on that and we look forward to his interim report in February. We must knit together the democratic control and the greater efficiency through collaboration, as well have as a sensible review of terms and conditions while recognising how much the police do and what they do to serve this country and our communities. These estimates and the proposals for directly elected police commissioners are the way forward. They will lead to a revolution in policing in our country that will put the public in charge. It is possible for that to happen even in the tightened financial environment in which we find ourselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

With the leave of the House, I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for letting me speak at this point in the debate. I shall explain why I am doing so. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley), who is the youngest member of the Home Affairs Committee. That is my cue to say that the second Wednesday in December is the date of the annual Westminster children’s party for the children of MPs and staff. I am the host, as I have been for the past 14 years; my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), the shadow Home Secretary, is Santa Claus, so please do not detain him for too long. Unfortunately, I am therefore unable to be present for the end of the debate, although I wish I could be. I will certainly read with great care the report of the speeches made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), the shadow Minister, and by the Minister.

The debate has been outstanding, with some excellent speeches, and I commend the hon. Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), for Hexham (Guy Opperman) and for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and the hon. Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). I also commend the four members of the Home Affairs Committee—my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), and the hon. Members for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) and for Cannock Chase—for their contributions.

This debate gives us the perfect setting for hearing what Front Benchers have to say about these issues. I can pledge to Parliament—we have been elected by the whole of Parliament, with members of the Committee elected by their party groups—that we will look at the policing issue very carefully indeed. We will produce thoughtful reports. Sometimes, obviously, we will have to be critical of the Government. When they are doing the right thing we will praise them. I can promise the Minister that we will ensure that the reports are thorough, and that they help him and the rest of Parliament to deliberate on these very important issues. I shall now hand over to those on the Front Benches.

Rehabilitation and Sentencing

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I will not go into another precise estimate, but we need to reduce the number of women in prison. The previous Government worked on that. It is important to realise that women who go to prison—many fewer do so than men—tend to have a particular combination of problems. Compared with men, a much higher proportion of women in prison have a history of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and a disordered life, in all kinds of ways. Focusing on that is likely to reduce the women prison population, and we will do that. Of course, as with men, there is a hard core of women who are hardened criminals or antisocial people, and they must be incarcerated for long sentences when they do something that deserves it.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I have no quarrel with the vision set out by the Secretary of State for Justice. It is in keeping with many recommendations made by the Home Affairs Committee over many years. I do have a quarrel with the detail, however. Last year, there were 4,600 hospital admissions as a result of knife crime. Will he confirm that it is still the policy of the Government that those who are caught carrying knives will be sent to jail?

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman does not differ in principle. I do not think that Opposition Front Benchers do either; they certainly do not have an alternative to put forward. Knife crime is a very serious matter. We are clear that the use of a knife in crime is serious. Anybody who stabs somebody else will go to prison—they usually do and they always should. Anybody who uses a knife in a threatening way in the course of a crime should go to prison. Anybody who carries a knife in circumstances in which its imminent use is likely should go to prison.

However, we have to avoid absolute tariffs that set in statute what the punishment should be for every particular offence. That was a mistake made by the previous Government. To fill up more than 20 criminal justice Acts, they produced ever more complicated and prescriptive rules, which judges sometimes find incomprehensible and which sometimes are in danger of flying in the face of the obvious justice of an individual case or the long-term interests of society.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

Yes, I can confirm to my hon. Friend that we are consulting on removing all immigration matters from the scope of legal aid, other than for those in immigration detention. That means removing matters such as varying leave to remain—for example, if a foreign student wants to change their visa to get permission to work instead, or, indeed, to stay here for longer. Such cases will no longer be at the taxpayer’s expense.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

One of the ways in which we can cut down on waste in the legal aid budget is to address no-shows by Home Office officials at immigration hearings. Can the Minister tell me the number of cases in which Home Office representatives do not turn up to these hearings and the cost of that to the legal aid bill, or will he write to me with that information?

[Mr Djanogly]

I will write to the right hon. Gentleman with that information, but I can tell him that it is an issue. Defendants’ representatives not turning up for hearings is also an issue.

Guantanamo Civil Litigation Settlement

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I know of my hon. Friend’s continuing interest in this subject. As part of our policy considerations in the light of the public spending review, we are having to examine the criminal injuries compensation system and the proposed terrorist injury compensation system. We are having to decide how we should judge the Government’s responsibilities for compensating those who have been injured by crime, either at home—we have always compensated those people—or abroad: I know that my hon. Friend has been campaigning for that.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

A year ago, I wrote on behalf of the Home Affairs Committee to the previous Attorney-General, asking about the police inquiries, and I see that the Secretary of State is surrounded by Law Officers today. While not seeking to influence or instruct the police, which would be totally improper, surely it is in everyone’s interests that we know if there is a timetable. What is holding up this inquiry, which has gone on for several years?

[Mr Clarke]

If the police follow these exchanges, I am sure they will note the right hon. Gentleman’s impatience that we move on and get some resolution to inquiries, which I think have been going on for about 15 to 18 months. He knows, because he is as good a lawyer as anybody else involved in these discussions, that it would be quite improper for anyone to approach the police and put pressure on them to put in place a timetable or to press them one way or the other.

Legal Aid and Civil Cost Reform

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

At present, about half the total number of clinical negligence cases are brought on a no win, no fee basis, and about half are brought on legal aid. No doubt some are privately financed. No win, no fee is a perfectly suitable way of proceeding in clinical negligence cases. We have decided that that—as amended by Sir Rupert Jackson—is likely to be the way in which people will proceed in future. What we have done completes a process of steadily taking legal aid out of criminal injury claims, which has been going on for some years, and I commend it as a logical next step.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The last Government, of course, also cut legal aid. The issue is quality, and how we focus that legal aid.

This morning, by chance, I visited our old college, where I saw the portraits of former Lord Chancellors who had attended it. When the college puts up a portrait of the current Lord Chancellor—or he may even be entitled to a mini-statue in the grounds—how would he like the epitaph to read, in relation to legal aid?

[Mr Clarke]

The last Government made many changes to legal aid, which stopped the increase in spending throughout most of the past decade. I have tried to return to basic first principles, and to ask “What is legal aid for?” Let us now put in place a logical structure that is defensible and may last.

I have not the first idea what kind of statue or picture that the college that I share with the right hon. Gentleman might ever erect to me. I do not think that a mini-statue would do justice to my full stature, but I should be very flattered if anything at all were put up. However, I trust that the college will acknowledge that we have tried to create a logical and defensible system which can be afforded by a civilised democracy that needs a legal aid system.

I should probably experience more difficulty in persuading my legal friends and the legal institutions to which I belong of the wisdom of all this than in persuading my old college.