Policing and Crime Bill
Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Baroness May of Maidenhead(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Mrs May
The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise that issue. It is a matter that I have discussed with the College of Policing in the context of its leadership work and with Sara Thornton of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. It is not new to have a small number of people applying for chief constable posts. That is one of the things that happens in policing; people tend to work out who they think will get a job and often do not apply if they think that somebody else will almost certainly get it. That has been the practice over the years, but we have seen a number of cases in which there have been single applicants, which is a cause for concern. That is why I have been discussing the matter with bodies responsible for considering leadership in policing to see whether steps can be taken to change that.
Ian Austin
We in the West Midlands are delighted with the appointment of our new chief constable, Dave Thompson, who we think will do a remarkable job, but can the Home Secretary explain to me why he and his colleagues have had to deal with that police force losing 25% of its budget, compared to Surrey, which has lost just 10% or 12%?
Mrs May
May I, too, commend Chief Constable Dave Thompson in the West Midlands? I and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), were aware of the work that he did in relation to gangs, which he was doing with the Home Office for a number of years. Once again, the Labour party seems incapable of recognising the settlement that has been given for policing over the next four years, and the fact that we have given that stability to police financing over the next few years.
I return to the topic of collaboration between the emergency services. Where a local case is made, the Bill will enable a PCC to take this one step further by integrating the senior management teams of the police force and the fire and rescue service under a single chief officer. This single employer model will allow the rapid consolidation of back-office functions without the complexities of negotiating collaboration agreements between the PCC, the chief constable and one or more fire and rescue authorities. I should stress that under these reforms police officers and firefighters will remain distinct and separate, as set out in law, albeit supported by increasingly integrated HR, ICT, finance, procurement, fleet management and other support services.
In London, we intend to strengthen democratic accountability by abolishing the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and bringing the London fire brigade, managed by the London fire commissioner, under the direct responsibility of the Mayor.
Mrs May
My hon. Friend raises a case that, as I know from our discussions and correspondence, he has taken very seriously and acted on for some time now. I recognise the issue that he has raised. There are questions around this case that relate not just to the IPCC and the police but to the Crown Prosecution Service, and I know that he has taken those up. I will reflect on the point that he made.
In part 3, for the first time, we will create a list of core police powers that may be exercised only by warranted officers, such as powers of arrest and stop and search. Police powers that do not form part of this reserved list can be conferred by a chief officer on a member of police staff or a volunteer, provided that they are suitable and capable of carrying out the relevant role and have received the appropriate training. This will ensure that chief officers have the flexibility and freedoms to make best use of the skills, experience and training of their workforce, whether they are warranted officers, police staff or volunteers.
As Members of this House are aware, volunteers have much to offer policing. Over 16,000 special constables regularly give up their time to help keep our communities safe. However, forces are missing out on opportunities to use those with specialist skills, for example in IT or forensic accountancy, who would be prepared to volunteer their time but do not want to become a special constable. It makes no sense that a chief officer can vest all the powers of a constable in a volunteer, but lacks the ability to confer on a volunteer a narrower set of powers relevant to a particular role. The existing law also puts unnecessary constraints on a chief officer who wishes to maximise the operational effectiveness of police staff. The Bill removes these barriers while strengthening the role of warranted officers. It confers on chief officers the ability to designate police staff and volunteers with those policing powers appropriate to their role.
I am committed to ensuring that the police have the powers they need to protect the public and to prevent, detect and investigate criminal offences, but we should continue to keep the coercive powers of the state under regular review to ensure that the rights of the individual are properly balanced against the need to keep our communities safe.
Mrs May
If I may, I will make a little more progress on this issue. In two instances—pre-charge bail and detention under the Mental Health Act 1983—we need to take action to ensure we get the balance right. Part 4 therefore contains a number of important reforms to police powers. In the case of pre-charge bail, it is apparent that a significant number of individuals have spent an inordinate amount of time on bail only to end up not being charged or, if charged, found not guilty. Of course, the police and prosecution need time to assemble and test the evidence, particularly in complex cases, before coming to a charging decision, but we need to recognise the stress caused when people are under investigation for prolonged periods, and the disruption to their lives where they are subject to onerous bail conditions.
Litvinenko Inquiry
Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Baroness May of Maidenhead(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Mrs May
Successive Governments, including this one, have wanted to try to get to the truth behind this issue, but it was not until 2011 that the coroner decided that the trial was unlikely to take place, so that an inquest could go ahead. That inquest was started, and at the time we felt that the most appropriate form in which these matters should be assessed was through that inquest. It then became clear through a decision of the divisional court that certain evidence was necessary and not available to the inquest. At that stage, in order to ensure that all evidence was available and that all matters could be considered, I decided to turn the inquest into a statutory inquiry.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
Well, they’ll be quaking in their boots in the Kremlin today, won’t they? Putin is an unreconstructed KGB thug and gangster who murders his opponents in Russia and, as we know, on the streets of London, and nothing announced today will make the blindest bit of difference—nothing at all. We need much tougher measures to target Putin and the people around him, and those calling for a US-style Magnitsky Act are completely right. We need to target the crooks and murderers who have been involved in murders and corruption, and prevent them from coming to the UK, from keeping their money in British banks, and from buying property here in London.
Mrs May
I say once again to those who think that the creation of a Magnitsky Act and a list of people who are excluded will, in some sense, add to the strength of measures that we already have that it is already possible for us to exclude people from the United Kingdom. I repeat: we want those individuals who came to London and committed this act on its streets to be brought to the UK to face trial, so that justice can be done.
Immigration Bill
Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Baroness May of Maidenhead(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mrs May
Nice try, but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman should read the speech I gave last week, as he would see that I am saying exactly what I said then. In that speech, I also quoted the many reports, from the OECD and others such as the Migration Advisory Committee, that have made that judgment in relation to the economic benefit of migration.
The Immigration Act 2014 put the law firmly on the side of those who respect it, not of those who break it. We made it easier and faster to remove those with no right to be here, streamlined the appeals process in order to curb abuse, and restricted access to bank accounts and rental properties for people here illegally. Thanks to our reforms, more than 11,000 people who were in the UK illegally have now had their UK driving licence revoked.
New powers have already enabled us to deport more than 1,000 foreign criminals, requiring them to make any appeal from outside the UK after they have left. More than 8,000 proposed marriages have been referred to the Home Office, with 120 of them being identified as shams. More than £100 million has been injected into the national health service as a result of the new immigration health surcharge. Those achievements are helping us to build an immigration system that is fairer, stronger and more effective.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
How can the Home Secretary describe those things as achievements when she has so lamentably failed to keep the promise that she made at the election before last, which was to reduce net immigration to the tens of thousands? The figure has in fact gone up to more than 330,000.
Mrs May
I can easily describe those things as achievements. They are achievements that the Labour Government, which ended in 2010, signally failed to secure. That Government did nothing, for example, about people coming to use the health service and then failing to contribute to it. We have changed the rules and more than £100 million has been injected into the national health service.