Police: Cuts

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I watched that same interview and listened to it very carefully. It seemed to me that Sara Thornton was saying that the nature of policing is changing and that perhaps patrols in low-crime areas can no longer be guaranteed at the same level as in the past. There is a big philosophical question facing policing and I do not dodge it. It is a question of whether in low-crime areas you want the comfort of seeing a police officer walking down the street or to see crime levels falling—as they are, by 8% year on year. Crime is down by 30% to its lowest level since 1981. We believe that the target in policing is to cut crime and that is what the police are doing.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I just want to correct the Minister. I hope I am right, but I read last week that crime is not falling. Crime has, in fact, increased in the last statistics by around 70% because, for the first time, we have included cybercrime. Why on earth this has not been included for years, I do not know. However, I return to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Blair. We all want the Home Office to be, in every aspect, fit for purpose. But when he was asked what the strategy for policing is, the Minister told us that there was a review of one aspect of it, a policing college and that best practice was going to be shared. With the greatest respect to the Minister, none of those, either individually or in aggregate, constitutes a strategy. Will he have a go again at telling us what the strategy is? If it is classified, he can talk to me on a Privy Council basis.

[Lord Bates]

The national strategy is to cut crime. That is what we are about. The strategy is twofold. We want to cut crime, and crime is falling. According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, crime is down 8% year on year. The big point is that we want to work nationally on tackling cybercrime and big organised crime; that is the reason for the National Crime Agency, the counterterrorism units and the College of Policing. But also, we believe that the answer lies in local people making local decisions. That is why we support police and crime commissioners working with their chief constables to allocate resources where they are best needed to tackle crime in that area. I am delighted to see that the Opposition now support that.