Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate
Main Page: Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate
To call attention to policing and crime rates; and to move for papers.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate
My Lords, I am pleased and honoured to introduce this timely and important debate. I was looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, but I have been informed that he has flu and therefore will not be able to attend. I am sure that the House will extend to him our best wishes under the circumstances, and we look forward to his maiden speech on a future occasion.
Crime is an issue that is never far from the news headlines. Policing and crime affect all our lives. Television and films depict criminal enterprises as entertainment—and that is fine; I love a good detective or gangster film myself. It is important, however, that when politicians engage in debate on these vital issues, they do so on the basis of fact and evidence, not pure invention for the purpose of political advantage.
One of the first duties of any state is to safeguard its people from both within and outside its territory. Citizens from inside our borders need to be protected by those seeking wealth, advantage or gratification through the commission of crime against innocent victims.
I intend to touch on three main issues today: to expose the myth asserted recently by the Prime Minister that violent crime rose under the previous Government; to voice the fears of many citizens that serious crime will grow over the coming years because of cuts in front-line policing caused by the slashing of police budgets, the review of security cameras and the reduction in the DNA database; and to express the concern that the coalition Government, against all advice by respected chief officers and others, intend to politicise the police by introducing elected police commissioners, thereby risking for the first time the political independence of a police service that is respected throughout the world.
First of all, on the crime figures, at Prime Minister’s Questions on 7 July in another place, the right honourable David Cameron said:
“The point is that under the last Government violent crime and gun crime went through the roof”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/7/10; col. 364.]
Not true—the latest annual update on national crime statistics for England and Wales, released last week on 15 July, demonstrates that the Government are misleading the public about levels of crime.
Both the British Crime Survey and police recorded crime figures show that overall crime is down on last year by 9 per cent. I will cite the British Crime Survey, which is accepted as the most accurate measure of trends. Vehicle-related crime is down on last year by 17 per cent. Domestic burglary is down on last year by 9 per cent. Violent crime is down on last year by 1 per cent. Police recorded crime shows that firearms offences are down by 22 per cent since 2002-03 and knife crime is down on last year by 7 per cent. Since 1997, when the previous Government took office, the British Crime Survey shows that overall crime is down by 43 per cent; overall crime against the person is down by 41 per cent; overall household crime is down by 44 per cent; burglary is down by 59 per cent; and violent crime is down by 42 per cent. I could go on but by any standard these figures demonstrate how impressively the police and the criminal justice system have tackled crime under the policies of the previous Administration.
The Prime Minister has since been rebuked by the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar, for misusing violent crime figures. He confirms that the authority remains of the view that the British Crime Survey provides the most reliable measure of the trends in violent crime. Any attempt to suggest otherwise by misquoting or disbelieving the British Crime Survey, which is accepted as a gold standard by most British academics and internationally, is beneath contempt. It deserves to be exposed as a scaremongering propaganda effort of which Joseph Goebbels would have been proud. I know that the facts get in the way of a good story but I ask the Minister, in replying, to apologise on behalf of his right honourable friend the Prime Minister for recent utterances on these important matters. It is accepted by most informed commentators that the fear of crime is far worse than the risk of crime. By stoking the fear of crime the coalition Government create unnecessary concerns, particularly among the elderly.
While dealing with Ministers and their statements, I will comment on the Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke. He said last week in his Mansion House speech:
“Crime has fallen in Britain throughout a period of both rising prison populations … and economic growth, with strong employment levels and rising living standards. No one can prove cause and effect. The crime rate fell”.
He went on to claim credit for his improved economic legacy, which by implication he suggested caused the drop in crime. Again, this is a travesty of the truth. Last year’s crime figures which I have just quoted are from a period of recession, which refutes the Justice Secretary’s argument that falls in crime are solely down to greater prosperity. He also omitted to say that when crime was remorselessly rising in the early 1990s, Ken Clarke was the Home Secretary. I know because I was the vice-president of the Police Superintendents’ Association at that time. While Home Secretary, like a bull in china shop, Ken Clarke took on the police service head-on. He had a history of belligerence in dealing with other public services and appointed the chairman of British American Tobacco, Sir Patrick Sheehy, to bring private sector efficiency and values to the police. How about that? It is just what our respected police service wanted: the moral and ethical values of an international tobacco company.
In the summer of 1993, a mass rally of 20,000 police officers gathered in Wembley Arena to protest about the Sheehy proposals, such as performance-related pay—presumably based on the number of arrests made by each officer. It was a truly historic occasion. I remember the star political speaker against Sheehy being the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, who I see in his seat today as part of the Government on the coalition Benches. The point is that Kenneth Clarke totally demoralised the police service; under his stewardship crime really did go through the roof.
Fortunately for the police, the economic crisis at that time, when Britain crashed out of the ERM, led to the resignation in 1992 of the then Chancellor, the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. He was succeeded by Kenneth Clarke—you’ve guessed it—whose legacy left the police service in total disarray. The new Home Secretary at that time, Michael Howard, is well known to your Lordships and has just been introduced into this House. He immediately scrapped the controversial Sheehy reforms and declared famously that “prison works”. I spoke yesterday with the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, who cannot be here because he is in France. He said to me, in terms, “Michael Howard, put it right”. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, demonstrated that prison works because crime fell dramatically under his stewardship as prison numbers rose. Ken Clarke now talks of bringing the same private sector values and profiteering to community service in place of short prison sentences. He says that he will empty prisons to save money, thereby putting decent people at risk of becoming victims of crime. Does the Minister agree with the Justice Secretary, Mr Ken Clarke, or with his noble friend Lord Howard, the previous Tory leader, who said yesterday that Ken Clarke is totally “misguided” on this?
There are also rumours in the press that the Sheehy report is being dusted down and revisited. Will the Minister give us an assurance today that this report, with its private sector values, is dead and buried, because the police service is very concerned that it is being revisited? The police are a public service, not a private company. The last thing that is required, on top of all the planned cuts and upheaval on the scale of what appears to be being planned for the National Health Service, is a similar operation for the police. Is this really what Liberal Democrat voters expected when they placed their cross on the ballet paper? It certainly was not in the manifesto.
What has brought crime down over the past decade has been record numbers of police and uniformed support officers on the streets, and the willingness to use prison as a deterrent against people who simply refuse to comply with the courts. The police service increased by 16,000 to 143,000 officers under the previous Administration—record numbers—plus 16,000 uniformed police community support officers. This is what the public want. Only this week, Sir Denis O’Connor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said that only 10 per cent of police officers were available at any one time on the front line to help the public and respond to calls. This is because of specialist posts, shift rotas, leave and the like. Is it not time for a royal commission to examine the police to see how they should be organised? It is estimated by the House of Commons Library that the £125 million of cuts proposed by the coalition would result in a reduction of some 4,100 police officers. This is on top of the 25 per cent reduction in the Home Office budget.
Another bright idea of the Tory wing of the coalition is the election of so-called police commissioners. It is said to make the police more accountable. Whatever else is wrong with the police, it is not a lack of accountability. They are accountable to the Home Secretary and to police authorities, which have elected members among their number. They are accountable locally to district and parish councils, which have regular meetings with local officers. Most importantly, of course, they are accountable to the law in the courts. I spent some time with the FBI in the United States and saw at first hand how the police were dragged into the political arena through the election of sheriffs. Judges and district attorneys are also elected in some areas.
The system we have has stood the test of time. Police are accountable and the last thing we want is a commissioner standing on a party ticket or on a single issue. I remember talking to a deputy sheriff in America who was a crony of the sheriff, of course, because he appoints them. He was canvassing on behalf of his boss, as his job depended on it. Is this really what we want in this country? The criminal justice system should be above party politics and independent of political pressure. Can you imagine a British National Party member standing on a tough law-and-order and anti-immigration ticket being elected a commissioner of police? Once we allow this poisonous genie out of the bottle, it will be very difficult to put it back in.
Parliament must scrutinise all this very carefully and any planned legislation to take our cherished police service kicking and screaming down this road should be rejected. The police service is totally against such changes and Sir Hugh Orde, the respected president of ACPO, has said that there could be senior resignations if such a policy were to be implemented. Similar caution has been expressed by Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, when he stated that regional and national gangs would be allowed to flourish because of a lack of national co-ordination, as local commissioners would stand, quite understandably, on local issues, and we do not have a federal system of law enforcement, as in the United States.
Caution is the watchword. Let us not destroy the good simply for the sake of change. I leave the Minister with the following questions to answer. I hope that he answers, because there is a tendency in this House for Ministers not to answer the questions that they are asked in debates. Does he accept that it is not true that violent crime increased under the previous Administration? Can he assure the House that front-line policing will not be reduced by the proposed cuts in policing budgets? Is he prepared to accept the risk of rising crime and more crime victims by preventing the courts from using prison as a final deterrent and introducing community sentences for profit in their place? Can he reassure the police that the discredited Sheehy report will not be revisited? Finally, does he accept the very real dangers of the politicisation of the police by the introduction of elected commissioners?
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, for giving us an opportunity to discuss policing. I am sorry not to be able to follow the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wills. I was going to ask him whether he had left any notes for my noble friend Lord McNally, who succeeded him in his post at the Ministry of Justice, because my noble friend has not found them yet.
The expectations of the police among the public are very high. For one thing, the public expect to see a lot of them and to see almost instant results and success. In this television age we have become accustomed to seeing cases solved within an hour, minus seven minutes for commercials, and often using cutting-edge forensic techniques—would that life were quite so simple. Whenever I have raised this issue directly with senior officers, they have been keen to acknowledge the public’s wish for highly visible police on the streets and have played down the problems of competing calls on the funds of expensive forensics, but I cannot help thinking—the noble Lord, Lord Birt, touched on this—that there is a major tension here of which we will see more in the next few months.
Public trust and confidence are among the building blocks of successful policing. Without them it must be difficult to achieve policing by consensus. I am afraid that it is inevitable that statistics will be bandied about regarding police numbers, crime rates, detection rates and so on. I was interested to see in the report published a few days ago from the Audit Commission and HMIC, to which several noble Lords have referred, that the forces that achieved the highest cashable efficiencies do not have lower levels of public confidence, which may be something to take on board.
The British Crime Survey tells us that there is a disparity between perceptions about crime rates nationally, which are thought to be constantly on the rise, and people’s perceptions in local areas, which are closer to reality. The issue of public trust in crime statistics behoves us all to use them responsibly. If the figures are to give a realistic picture, it is important to understand that in the case of some crimes an apparent increase in the rate may be a sign of success because the victim has been able to report the crime.
I had expected the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, to talk about prevention—he is nodding and I think that he has anticipated what I am going to say—which is an important role of the police.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate
I thought that I touched on it when I talked about the numbers of police officers on the streets increasing by some 16,000. That in itself is a preventive measure.
Baroness Hamwee
Indeed. The rollout of Safer Neighbourhoods teams has been welcome in that connection, as well as in others, which is why local authorities have invested heavily in them. It will not be easy for local authorities buying that service or for the police to weigh up the competing calls on money. Policing is a particularly people-heavy activity. I understand that it accounts for about 80 per cent of the budget. There are not the same powers to make employees redundant as in other areas of employment. I am not trying to encourage noble Lords to leap up and say that we are predicting massive redundancies. I am pointing out that there is an issue.
A number of ways of working are perhaps a bit out of date, to which the noble Lord, Lord Birt, referred. There will be outcomes from cutting down on recruitment, and not just in the numbers. It is still a struggle to get our police forces to look like the public they serve. Recruiting from BME communities and promoting those officers to higher ranks has long been an issue and has an impact on the trust of the different communities.
The numbers game has meant that, over a long period, there has been something of a misrepresentation about the numbers in operational roles, at any rate as I have seen them. It does not seem necessarily to be better to have a warranted officer dealing with, for instance, human resources problems. I suspect that this is likely to become more of an issue because of the matters to which I have referred. Police officers cost considerably more on average than police staff members. I understand that not only have the headline figures for spending on the police increased, but within those, overtime payments have increased by over 90 per cent. It has long seemed to me that overtime needs to be addressed. Furthermore, officer numbers have increased over the past 10 years by 12 per cent while civilian staff numbers have risen by 46 per cent. That in itself has been a move in the right direction and I hope it does not row back.
Although I hate the term, I was interested to see that a new key performance indicator has been introduced in London regarding the front line: to maximise the use of warranted officers deployed into operational policing in order to produce an annual 2 per cent improvement. This is not wholly new. Something similar has been used in the Met for eight or nine years, with an operational policing measure to accurately reflect the number of police officers and police staff who provide a visible uniform presence, but it has become a performance indicator.
If I may say so, the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, did not serve his cause well by rejecting wholesale, as I heard it, the lessons that might be learnt from the private sector. I do not support transferring every private sector approach into the public sector, but some can work well. Indeed, the private sector can also sometimes learn from the public sector. One of the findings of Sir Ronnie Flanagan’s review of policing was the negative impact of risk aversion on decision-making, something which the private sector is better at tackling. I was interested to read Jan Berry’s comments, in her recent report, that:
“Over-reliance on compliance with set rules and targets has reduced the ability of many officers to use their professional judgement”.
She said also that there are,
“strong links between a predisposition to avoid taking risks and levels of professional knowledge, skills and experience in the use of discretion”.
Those are important points.
Just before the election, the CBI published a paper on what in its view the private sector has to offer the police by way of smarter working and different working in order to increase productivity and reduce costs. It talks about the need for,
“the right people with the right skills doing the right things at the right times—the fundamentals of a modern workplace. But too often the debate about crime at a national and local level has tended to focus on overall officer numbers and has avoided questions about how these officers are deployed and their overall effectiveness”.
It also makes the point that:
“Success has frequently been measured by inputs—the overall number of officers—rather than outcomes—reducing crime and dealing with the consequences of crime”.
I share the focus on practical measures contained in the report, and while I do not support everything it says, there is a lot that is sensible. There is also a focus on practical measures, which characterises much of the coalition’s programme for government on crime and policing. They range from the use of technology to make policing more effective at lower cost and with fewer time-consuming activities that give bureaucracy a bad name—bureaucracy does have a place—to requiring hospitals to share non-confidential information so that the police can target work on gun and knife crime hot spots.
In the short time that we have today, and without the consultation paper, one can only scratch the surface of what is to be said about crime and policing. There will be plenty of opportunity to extend our discussions to the issues of structure and accountability later in the Session and I, for one, am sure that I will find myself expressing quite firm views about accountability and how to achieve it.
Lord De Mauley
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brett, for his intervention. He is very lucky to live in a small village. I am assured that the case that he has portrayed is not the same everywhere.
We need to replace bureaucracy with democratic accountability, which is why we proposed introducing directly elected individuals, elected by and accountable to the public. They will ensure that the police are held to account by the public that they serve, rather than bureaucrats based in Whitehall who cannot fully appreciate local concerns. As my noble friend Lord Bridgeman said, later this month the Home Office will publish a consultation document, with the final policy to be announced in the autumn. We are very keen to hear the views of the public and policing professionals on how this model should work. As the Home Secretary announced at the APA/ACPO conference earlier in the summer, we will soon be bringing forward detailed proposals and introducing the necessary legislation to be implemented in this Session of Parliament.
On the subject of ACPO, the noble Lord, Lord Birt, asked about its role. The Government’s position is that ACPO has an important part to play in the effective delivery of policy. We are working with it to focus its role as the organisation responsible for the professional leadership of the police service and we will do so by ensuring that it is properly accountable and transparent in fulfilling that function and spending public money. We also want to see a return to common-sense policing. We must trust the police service and treat the police as professionals, with the discretion to make key decisions. That is why we will be taking action to return more charging decisions to officers for minor offences.
We believe that the police are only part of the solution. Lasting success in tackling crime and anti-social behaviour will lie in the response of local services and communities to the problems they face, and the Government are committed to empowering that response. That is why we will make sure that crime data are published at a level that allows the public to see what is happening on their streets.
We will also support the police to be available and accessible to their communities through regular police beat meetings, giving residents the opportunity to put forward their concerns and hold the police to account for how they are dealing with problems in their area. We would like to see all adults being part of an active neighbourhood group and playing a role in tackling crime in their communities. We want the voluntary and community sector to play an enhanced role, contributing its expertise and innovation.
Engaging other local services and building a culture of local co-operation is vital. These partnerships need to drive joint action, not further bureaucracy, and be more accountable to communities. As we reduce the ring-fences on central programmes, streamline funding and allow autonomy for local agencies to set priorities, we will want them to answer for outcomes, not inputs or processes.
I turn to funding. I have heard the concerns expressed today by noble Lords about this issue. We have made it clear that value for money must be a key driver of everything we do as a Government. The Government’s priority is to cut the budget deficit and get the economy moving in the right direction.
The Budget on 22 June set out our plans to reduce the deficit, including £32 billion per year in spending reductions by 2014-15. The police, along with everyone else, will have to bear a share of that burden. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Birt, for his helpful recommendations, which we will consider carefully.
There has been some speculation—the noble Lords, Lord Mackenzie and Lord Brett, asked about this—that this could lead to a reduction in the number of police officers. All government departments are subject to the comprehensive spending review, which is due to be completed in October. Before then, it would be misleading and unhelpful to speculate about the outcome.
In any case, policing is not a numbers game. The test of an effective police force is not how much it costs or the number of officers it employs but how it protects the public it serves. Our challenge is to use our resources most effectively by freeing up officer time to deal with crime. My noble friend Lady Hamwee made some useful suggestions about certain back-office functions.
I turn to some specific questions. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, raised a point about co-ordination of effort across the piece, from crime to arrest to documentation and through the criminal justice system. That is why the Minister of State for Policing and Criminal Justice, Nick Herbert, has a combined role to enable him to bring together the reform of policy within the wider reform of the criminal justice system. This includes making sure that processes elsewhere in the criminal justice system do not generate excessive bureaucracy for the police.
My noble friends Lord Bridgeman and Lady Harris asked about our approach to serious organised crime. We agree that we need to ensure that the police and agencies have the capacity and structures to fight serious organised crime. Our proposals will enhance the local accountability of police and create stronger arrangements to tackle crimes that cross force borders, including serious organised crime. For example, we are looking at steps that can be taken to strengthen and further develop collaboration between forces. We are committed to ensuring that SOCA makes an effective contribution to the overall law enforcement approach to tackling serious organised crime.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee asked about risk aversion. We agree with her and with Jan Berry that police officers need to be less risk-averse. That is why the Government’s approach to reducing bureaucracy has at its centre the need to return discretion to police officers. Examples of this, as I mentioned earlier, are returning charging decisions to the police for more minor offences and taking action to amend some of the health and safety practices that get in the way of common-sense policy.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, and my noble friend Lady Harris asked about our attitude to the Sheehy review. We have announced a review of remuneration and conditions of service for police officers and staff. The terms of the review will be announced shortly.
The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, asked about rehabilitation, a subject that we consider very important. We are conducting a full assessment of sentencing and rehabilitation policy to ensure that it is effective in deterring crime, protecting the public, punishing offenders and cutting reoffending, something that she specifically referred to. We will take time to get this right, and we will consult widely before bringing forward coherent plans for reform. We intend to publish proposals for reform in the autumn that will then be subject to public consultation.
If I have not answered every question that has been raised today, I will write to noble Lords. The changes to policing that I have outlined today will play an important part in giving the public the police service that they deserve—one that is democratically accountable, effective and free to tackle local priorities.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate
My Lords, before the Minister sits down, in the light of the crime figures published last week showing dramatic reductions in crime, does he believe that the Prime Minister’s statement to the House of Commons at Prime Minister’s Questions, when he said that crime had gone through the roof under the previous Administration, was grossly misleading the public?
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, in this debate we have discussed at some length the fact that the British Crime Survey figures do not include a number of important types of crime. The key fact is that violent crime remains unacceptably high. Furthermore, internationally, we are still a country with a high relative rate of crime.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate
My Lords, this has been an interesting and informed debate, including the contribution of my noble friend Lady Warwick, who was far too modest about her contribution. I am sure that we will be revisiting these issues in the months after the Recess. All that is required now is for me to beg leave to withdraw the Motion.