Crime and Policing

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes with concern the Government’s failure to prioritise the safety of communities by not protecting central Government funding for the police; notes the conclusion of the Audit Commission and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary that any budget reduction over 12 per cent. will reduce frontline policing; pays tribute to the police and other agencies for achieving a 43 per cent. reduction in crime, including a 42 per cent. cut in violent crime, since 1997, and for maintaining that reduction through last year’s recession; notes that public perception of anti-social behaviour is at its lowest level since it was recorded in the British Crime Survey of 2001-02; further notes that the previous Government set out plans in its Policing White Paper to drive down policing costs whilst maintaining core funding; and condemns the Government’s policy of reducing police numbers, restricting police powers and imposing elected commissioners to replace police authorities, thus condemning the police service to unnecessary, unwelcome and costly re-structuring at a time when their focus should be on maintaining the fall in crime and anti-social behaviour.

The previous Government were the first since the end of world war one to leave office with a lower level of crime and disorder than when they came into power. In a previous debate when I mentioned that fact, the Home Secretary challenged it by rather bizarrely mentioning Michael Howard—now the noble Lord Howard of Lympne—who may have been many things, but was not a Government. Although it is true that the noble Lord Howard—recently much derided by his former colleagues—was the only Conservative Home Secretary in 18 years to preside over any reduction in crime at all, it was a modest reduction, to 4.6 million crimes a year, compared with 2.3 million in 1979, when the Conservatives were elected. In other words, without Lord Howard’s contribution, crime under the Tories would have more than doubled; thanks to him, it merely doubled, with violent crime rising by 168% and robbery by 405%.

The Conservative party that presided over that truly miserable record refuses to acknowledge the tremendous work of the police and other agencies in tackling its legacy. The Conservatives can no longer deny that crime has fallen, including violent crime, so they resort to saying that crime is still too high—and they are right: it is. But when they were in power, the chances of being a victim of crime were 40%; now it is 21.5%, the lowest since records began. The latest statistics, published by the new Government in July and covering 2009-10, confirm the trend. Both recorded and surveyed crime continued to fall, by around 9%, through the deepest global recession in the post-war era, thus effectively destroying the theory of Lord Howard’s fiercest critic, and probably his most feeble predecessor, the current Justice Secretary, that crime fell under Labour only because the economy improved.

The purpose of today’s debate is to set out why that record of success is being jeopardised and to highlight three specific areas: first, the Home Secretary’s failure to stand up to the Treasury and insist that policing and counter-terrorism be prioritised in the comprehensive spending review; secondly, her determination to restrict the ability of the police and other agencies to use DNA, CCTV and, now we discover, antisocial behaviour orders to deter and catch miscreants; and thirdly, the dogmatic pursuit of the abolition of police authorities and their replacement by a single elected commissioner.

In respect of the CSR, we know that some Secretaries of State are arguing vociferously for their Departments, but the one with the best argument is apparently content to take a 25% to 40% cut in her budget. Before Government Members seek to intervene on me with their Chief Whip crib sheets—subtitled “Patrick McLoughlin’s route to a ministerial career”—let me say that if Labour had won the general election, the Home Office budget would have been cut and the police would have had to make savings. That is not a matter for conjecture: £1.3 billion of savings that we would have implemented by 2013 are itemised in last year’s pre-Budget report, the Budget, last November’s policing White Paper and other public documents.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

On that issue, I have read the wording of the motion carefully, in which Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition make the point that it is the Government’s deliberate policy to reduce police numbers, which is not the case. I simply make the point that I made before, in the debate in July, that the shadow Home Secretary specifically said on 20 April that he could not guarantee that there would not be a reduction in police numbers. Does he stand by those comments in the election campaign, and does he not see that even a fair-minded person would think his contribution today just slightly disingenuous?

[Alan Johnson]

I knew that that one would be on the crib sheet. Of course it was right to say honestly to the public that no Home Secretary could guarantee that police numbers would not fall by a single police officer. The number of police and recruitment for the police are matters for chief constables and police authorities. What we guaranteed, as I will explain in a second, was that the central funding that the Home Office provides—which has led to the recruitment of 17,000 more police officers and 16,000 police community support officers—would continue to be provided, index-linked, because we considered crime and policing to be a priority.

The savings that we set out included £70 million in reduced police overtime, £75 million from business support and back-office functions, £400 million from procurement and IT, and £500 million from process improvement. My deal with the previous Chancellor—the one who did produce progressive Budgets—was to prioritise the police and security services by maintaining the 2010 level of central funding necessary for the continued employment of record police numbers, thus reducing the Home Office budget by around 12%, or £1.3 billion,without hitting front-line policing.

We have had a report from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and the Audit Commission endorsing that approach. The report, “Policing in an age of austerity”, concluded that

“cost cutting and improvements in productivity could, if relentlessly pursued, generate a saving of 12% in central government funding …while maintaining police availability.”

This is therefore not an argument about whether there need to be cuts to the police budget over the next four years; it is an argument about a cut of 12% or, as the Chancellor announced on 22 June, a cut of 25% for the Home Office, which he describes as an unprotected Department.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhain McDonagh]

The shadow Home Secretary has already identified this afternoon where the cuts would be made in the Home Office budget, and we believe that safer neighbourhood teams should be our priority, because our tax-paying constituents want to see that and believe in that. They want to see their police out there on the beat, to know their names and to know their police community support officers.

In 2011, we will see the end of the Mayor of London’s financial commitment to PCSOs. What will that mean at that time? The PCSOs were much derided by Conservative MPs and by the press when they were introduced, but they have been a tremendous addition to traditional policing, because, on intelligence gathering, PCSOs have the confidence of local residents and are able to discuss concerns with them. I appreciate the point that the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) made about the mistakes that are occasionally made, but when one brings in any new service or public administration, our urgency and desire to introduce them sometimes outstrips our ability to consider all the options and eventualities. Yes, in the early days of PCSOs, mistakes were made in service provision, but they have been amended and PCSOs are well embedded in our areas.

PCSOs are perhaps most effective in those areas where people are less inclined to speak to the police, and among the groups and communities that are most alienated from the police and from all sorts of Government bodies. That is because PCSOs are more likely to be from an ethnic minority, older and different from traditional police officers. Many people in my community, particularly in Pollards Hill, feel closer to their PCSOs and find it easier to discuss matters with them.

I also say to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase that policing is about not just tackling crime, but community confidence, people’s ability to speak to their police officers and a feeling of safety. That involves communication and the police’s ability to communicate. The police do not necessarily have those skills, because they go into the job to tackle crime; we—the political we—have to provide them with those skills and with the ability to communicate what they do. However effective the police become at tackling crime, the ability of the media and all sorts of people to decry what the police do can be so effective as to make people unaware of their achievements. They have not only to tackle crime, but to be seen to tackle crime, and that is why communication and communication skills are so important.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

In that typical way of new Labour in government, however, did not safer neighbourhood policing panels become very process-focused organisations? The aim of communicating with local people was a laudable one, and we could afford to do so in good times, but it was also a displacement activity, because one only had to talk to most basic command unit commanders to find out that the number of prolific and persistent offenders remained high. Those people were on a carousel in the criminal justice system, and safer neighbourhood teams did nothing about that problem, and nothing, in particular, about antisocial behaviour.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Can I absolutely oppose what the hon. Gentleman says, accept that safer neighbourhood teams were perfect and argue that their shift patterns were always correct? No, of course I cannot. I fought against the balance of shift patterns in my constituency. Are there problems with the fact that shift patterns have to be printed 18 months in advance, and with requests for uniformity among the teams? Yes. But my police teams in each ward in my constituency know exactly who their prolific offenders are, where they are and what they are doing, and their intelligence assists the other, reactive police teams in the division.

The amount of intelligence on, and knowledge of, communities is so much more significant now. That becomes really important in an area such as mine in south London, where population turnover is so huge and quick, and where from all over the world groups of people with different practices and ideas come to live, often becoming the foremost victims of violent crime.

The antisocial behaviour order has not been 100% successful, because no measure is 100% successful, but, on the idea that they should be scrapped because they are breached 50% of the time, I must ask, do we scrap laws on burglary, fraud or anything that we like because there is a recidivism rate? No, we do not. We have to try to find out why people continue to commit antisocial behaviour and deal with them. We are on a journey, and the police are entering an area that used to be occupied by different forces of control, whether they were the extended family, the stronger community or church and religion. Our communities are very different, and the idea that people are going to go out and tackle antisocial behaviour, confront people whom they do not know and put themselves in a vulnerable or frightening position is unrealistic.

We must see the police out there, taking action. They have to be there for people, when they need them and in the way that they need them, but I am absolutely convinced that huge, swift cuts in the police service will reduce the number of police whom we see on the street. A reduction in police on the street means that our most vulnerable constituents will have less confidence in the police, and that fewer crimes will be tackled, and in the end that cannot be what we want.

Our discussions in the House are so different from those that I have with my constituents. I have never met a constituent who has told me that the police have reduced our civil rights; my constituents want to see more effective ways of dealing with antisocial behaviour. I have never met a constituent who wanted to get rid of CCTV; all my constituents want more, because it makes them feel safe and confident. I just do not understand how some MPs can make the speeches that they do. I am absolutely confident that they would not go back to their constituents and make such speeches, because they are so out on a limb when compared with how people feel.

A reduction in the number of police officers is against all our interests, and against the interests of our constituents. I ask Government Members seriously to consider that when the matter comes up on 20 October.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) who spoke with his customary expertise and erudition.

This afternoon I feel as if I have stumbled upon the Alan Johnson shadow Cabinet hustings speech. It is a shame that the shadow Home Secretary is no longer in his place, but he was performing for a very small audience—the parliamentary Labour party—which will vote in the forthcoming shadow Cabinet elections. As the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) said, the right hon. Gentleman demonstrated a degree of selective amnesia. On this side of the House, we will continue to make the point that the reason we have to make any fiscal reductions is the calamitous fiscal situation bequeathed to us by the Labour Government—£157,000 million of public sector debt.

What marks out the contributions from Opposition Members is an opportunistic and, frankly, intellectually dishonest approach. I specifically challenged the right hon. Gentleman about his comments on 20 April, during the election, when—as Home Secretary—he committed to a 20% reduction in the policing budget and refused to specifically rule out reductions in front-line police numbers. It ill behoves him to attack the Home Secretary for having to do what he himself would already have done.

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jackson]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, not Birmingham, Hall Green.

[Steve McCabe]

The hon. Gentleman is very kind about my constituency. It is true that Labour set out cuts, but since then the coalition has decided to make a further £30 billion of cuts. Those cuts are not economically necessary, but ideologically driven. That is why we have a problem today.

[Mr Jackson]

The key point that the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have great respect, must concede is this: if we are to de facto ring-fence the police budget, it is incumbent on the Labour party to say where the cuts would occur in other areas of Government activity. Would it be social services, transport, health, education or defence? We are not receiving those answers from Her Majesty’s Opposition.

The Opposition’s collective amnesia, articulated by the shadow Home Secretary, is interesting. He had a bit of a mea culpa moment over the Licensing Act 2003, of which I shall say more later, and which was also a catastrophe. It has created a calamitous situation, and now huge amounts of public resources have to be spent on the consequences of an ill-thought-out piece of legislation that demonstrably increased antisocial behaviour and impacted across public services, as the shadow Home Secretary would concede.

We heard nothing about the botched mergers forced on police authorities in 2006, which led indirectly to the demise of Charles Clarke, the former right hon. Member for Norwich South. We heard no apology for that policy, which took up a lot of time and destabilised local police authorities and forces without any—let us remember this—proper, meaningful consultation with local people, elected councillors or others. So the shadow Home Secretary is gilding the lily by attacking the Government for having the temerity to put forward proposals, with checks and balances, for directly elected officials, who will be responsible for policing and crime in their local areas.

There is also selective amnesia in quoting the Audit Commission. Its most recent publication, “Sustaining Value for Money in the Police Service”, stated that

“the scrutiny and challenge of spending has so far been poor. Public debate and political interest has focused more on increasing police officer numbers, with a simple equation that more is better”.

On that subject, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) on his wise words on the balance between inputs and outputs in policing and crime reduction. The Audit Commission also made a damning indictment of the previous Government’s paradigm of always spending more of taxpayers’ money without looking at the results:

“there is no evidence that high spending is delivering improved productivity”.

It would be unkind and churlish to say that everything that the previous Labour Government did was wrong. There was consensus on many areas—my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary touched on that. Of course, we support the proposal enunciated in the December 2009 White Paper, “Protecting the Public: Supporting the Police to Succeed”, on minimum service standards, gang injunctions, protecting witnesses and communities from intimidation and focusing much more on the victims of antisocial behaviour. Who could disagree with that? But that was after 13 years of judicial activism, legislative activism, more quangos, more reports and a failure to free up police so that they can deliver what they need to deliver.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

Would the hon. Gentleman kindly accept that between 1997 and 2010, crime fell by 43%? The coalition Government’s measures put that at risk and buck that trend. The chief constable in my area is concerned about the measures about to be taken by this coalition Government—is the hon. Gentleman?

[Mr Jackson]

There is not a scrap of empirical or academic evidence to support the hon. Gentleman’s views at the moment, although there might be in 18 months. If one asks chief constables, “Are you desperate to spend less money in your police force?”, surprise, surprise, they will probably say no. It is a matter of regret that some chief constables are engaging in a political debate, when they should be thinking in more innovative ways about delivering more for the people whom they serve and not debating issues and speculating about hypotheses that are unproven.

If Labour Members were as fair-minded as I have been today—I see the wry smile on the face of the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson); we seem to cross swords in police debates fairly regularly—they would admit that they had supported many aspects in our radical reform of policing. There will probably be mergers of small police forces based on local agreement, which the Labour party has supported, although it went about it the wrong way. However, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said earlier, we cannot continue with a situation where it takes 11 and a half hours to process an arrest, and where 11 to 14% of the police are on the beat, as compared with the 22% who are processing paperwork in the police station. We have to think about the overhaul of health and safety and its impact on the working conditions and operations of police forces, and about the terms and conditions of police officer enforcement. We have to be more transparent in the way that we involve people.

I pay tribute to the sincerity of the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), who is obviously greatly involved in her local community. However, closing the circle or completing the equation, as it were, will also mean having transparency and openness in crime data, and particularly crime figures in local areas, because whether we like it or not, people often do not believe Government crime figures. In answer to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), the British crime survey can be criticised. It is not perfect and, in particular, it overlooks the impact of crime on young people.

We will make a commitment with our directly elected police commissioners, and there will be checks and balances in place, which is important—these are not going to “Rambo” figures. Incidentally, as the right hon. Member for Delyn knows, in my maiden speech, on 6 June 2005—he can read it in Hansard if he wishes and if he has nothing better to do—I called for an elected police commissioner in Peterborough and for commissioners throughout the country. I have always consistently believed in having them, not because I want “Rambo” or “RoboCop” figures, but because policing is such an important area of our national life that we must involve people. People from abroad look at us and think, “Why are they not doing it in the UK?”—direct democracy, because it matters to local people.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary touched on the impact of the Licensing Act 2003—1 million alcohol-related crimes in 2009-10; 47% of all violent crimes fuelled by alcohol; 6.6 million alcohol-related attendances at hospital accident and emergency; 1.2 million ambulance call-outs as a direct result of alcohol, costing £372 million; and an entire indicative cost of £8 billion to £30 billion. We all see the problem every day in our constituencies. Just this week, a senior judge in Peterborough referred to the carnage in Peterborough city centre caused by alcohol-related violence as the reason why decent, law-abiding people and families did not want to come into the city centre. The problem is not wholly the fault of the previous Government, but they did not tackle the issue as effectively and robustly as they could have done.

Let me finish by supporting the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase and others on resources. We can deliver a better service by sharing resources, leasing premises, and using specialist support services such as management, payroll and human resources services. There is consensus on that. We also have to tackle overtime, but not with the platitudinous undertakings that the previous Government gave. As in so many other areas, we need to take tough decisions as a result of the previous Government’s legacy.

Unless the Labour party moves on from the paradigm in which more tax, more spending, more quangos and fleecing the taxpayer can provide a better service, it will not deserve to be re-elected to government or to serve the people of this country. We have a responsibility now, and it falls to the coalition Government to tackle the endemic issues in the police service, so that our constituents can be protected at a cost that they can afford.