Police

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to those already expressed to the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, on securing this debate, the subject matter of which changed, for reasons unexplained, from the role of the security services and the police in national security to solely the role of the police.

I was fortunate enough recently to be able to take part in the Police Service Parliamentary Scheme. I spent more than 20 days with the Metropolitan Police seeing and learning at first hand what the police in London do and the breadth of responsibilities and activities that the force undertakes. The impressions that I formed are obviously mine and mine alone. I spent a number of shifts with officers in the immediate response cars. It was not as dramatic and action-packed as you see in the numerous carefully packaged television programmes broadcast nowadays of police activity in different towns and cities around the country.

A significant percentage of the emergency calls responded to were more to do with what one might describe as a semi-welfare role: numerous incidents arising from domestic arguments and disputes, elderly people convinced that an intruder was in their home or children allegedly locked out of their homes. However, the officers driving as fast as they safely can to respond to an emergency call do not know exactly who, or what, will confront them when they get to the scene. It could be a domestic argument where the parties have already started to simmer down or where one party has already left the scene. It could be someone with a knife or other weapon that they are prepared to use, or, indeed, it could be more than one person in that category.

I saw a wide variety of incidents, including stop and search, fights in the street, anti-social behaviour, motoring offences, searches of premises for drugs, checks that home curfew orders were being obeyed and street prostitution, as well as the procedures and processes at the police station for dealing with those brought in following arrest. I was struck by the outward calmness of the officers whom I was with—I was with a number of them—and the high and consistent degree of civility that they showed towards those whom they had to talk to, question, challenge or arrest at the scenes of the incidents to which we were called. That civility was, needless to say, not always reciprocated. Police officers do get provoked; they have to deal on many occasions with people whom most of the population would not wish to meet. What is surprising is not the number of incidents where police officers lose their cool, but rather how few such incidents are.

I was struck also by the importance of decision-making by officers when first arriving at the scene of an incident in response to an emergency call. They may be confronted by people who are distressed or aggressive, have had too much to drink, are under the influence of drugs, irrational, highly emotional, prepared to use violence or just plain unco-operative and obstructive. The initial assessment by officers of the position and people with whom they are faced when they arrive at the scene can be crucial in determining whether a potentially explosive situation is calmed down and controlled or whether it simply gets out of hand. The officers have no higher-ranking officer or other manager on hand to whom they can turn for advice. They have to make instant decisions and they have to get them right.

I also had the opportunity to see the full range of responsibilities and activities undertaken by the police—the work done by officers and civilian staff, referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, who are not out on the streets but who play a key role in investigating and solving crime. Those engaged in fraud and IT crime do not tend to be caught by officers patrolling the streets or responding to emergency calls; they are apprehended by those doing painstaking and thorough work pursuing leads, seeking and analysing data, interviewing victims and putting together a case that will stand up in court. The same goes for the work of those who attend the scene of a crime and collect possible evidence, seeing whether there is a similarity with evidence from previous crimes or whether it is evidence that, when checked against records, will help to identify the perpetrator. They are not officers and staff who spend their time out on patrol.

There are also specialist units dealing with child abuse and rape cases. They are staffed by officers who do not spend their time patrolling the streets but who seek to provide support for victims at a time of great distress and trauma and to secure the necessary evidence to bring cases to court. There are officers dealing with the threats of terrorism. Once again, they do not spend their time out on patrol but are engaged in collecting and analysing intelligence, working with other agencies and keeping track of the activities of those about whom they have suspicions, with a view to preventing acts of terrorism and, if appropriate, apprehending those who they have good reason to believe are about to act. Many other activities carried out by the Metropolitan Police and, to a less wide-ranging extent, by other forces are directly related to solving and preventing crime but do not in the normal course of events directly involve officers patrolling the streets or driving in immediate response cars, visible to the public.

That brings me to the impact of the Government’s comprehensive spending review and the associated reductions in expenditure on police forces. Claims have been made, not least by the Government, that reductions in expenditure should not affect the front line of policing, but that raises the question of the definition of “front line”. Does it mean officers out on patrol, on foot or in cars, on the streets, or engaged on other activities, such as yesterday outside Parliament, when they are visible to the public? Alternatively, does it mean any officers or civilian staff whose work and responsibilities are directly related to solving and preventing crime, many of whom, as I saw during my time with the Metropolitan Police, are primarily working inside and are not normally visible to the general public? If the Government claim that reductions in expenditure will not affect front-line police involved in solving and preventing crime, I must ask the Minister to give a clear definition of what the Government regard as front-line policing. The Government may believe that too many civilian staff are employed by the police, but there is no question of a reduction being achieved in this area simply by transferring work undertaken by civilian staff to police officers, as this would mean that police officers had less time available to spend on duties and responsibilities that the public might normally expect them to undertake. One reason for civilian staff in the police force is to help to ensure that police officers are not spending their time undertaking duties that do not need to be dealt with by fully trained officers, so that such officers can spend their working time carrying out the role and responsibilities for which they have been trained.

It was with some interest that one read in the press the recent expression of considered opinion by the Minister with responsibility for police matters, Mr Herbert, that more police does not mean less crime. The parallel argument to that is presumably that the Government do not believe that having fewer police runs the risk of more crime, which is a very convenient U-turn in approach for a Government who are significantly reducing the amount of money available for policing. During the election campaign, Mr Clegg said that he would put 3,000 more officers on the streets, so presumably he does not agree with Mr Herbert, who also referred to a previous increase in the numbers of police officers, only a small proportion of whom, he said, were visible and available to the public at any one time. That comment relates to the point that I made earlier that to be engaged actively in solving and preventing crime does not mean that an officer has to be clearly visible to the public, which seems to be what the Minister thinks. Indeed, the Home Secretary appears to think the same, as a Home Office spokesman commenting on the cuts in expenditure said:

“The Home Secretary has been clear from the beginning that it is possible to maintain the visibility and availability of the police on the streets”.

That carries the obvious implication that police officers and civilian staff engaged in solving and preventing crime who are not on the streets are not making an important and decisive contribution. Hence the importance of the Minister’s response, which I hope will be forthcoming, to my direct question as to the Government's definition of the front line when it comes to police work.

A recent survey has suggested that nearly all police forces in England and Wales have frozen recruitment, which, taking account of the existing turnover rate, would lead to a reduction in officer numbers of some thousands. Greater Manchester Police has announced plans for 3,000 job losses over the spending review period, including some 1,500 police officers. The chief constable said that, while there would be a significant reduction in the size of the middle and back offices, it was clear that,

“over the four year period there will also need to be a reduction in frontline police officer numbers”.

Funding for the West Midlands Police is to be cut by 20 per cent in real terms, as is funding nationally, although for the West Midlands the impact is likely to be greater than elsewhere since that force depends on central government for a higher proportion of its funding than any other constabulary in the country, except, interestingly enough, the City of London’s.

Accountants KPMG have estimated that around 18,000 police officers could be lost nationally by the end of the four-year spending review, while the Police Federation has suggested that around 20,000 officers would be lost. At the same time as the numbers of police officers are to be significantly cut, the Government can apparently still find the resources to throw at establishing elected police commissioners. I sensed a certain lack of enthusiasm for elected police commissioners from the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and rather more than a lack of enthusiasm from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.

I am sure that some savings can be made through greater efficiency and through changing structures, processes and procedures. It would be stretching it a bit to say that police forces, particularly large forces, are already so efficient that they cannot make further savings in this way. Yet to argue, as the Government appear to be doing, that savings of the magnitude announced can be made without any real impact on the quality and effectiveness of solving and preventing a crime is, at best, a breathtaking statement of unsubstantiated hope about a service where such a high percentage of costs are labour costs.

Fewer police are unlikely to improve communications and contact with the public. This Government will be held to account for the outcome of their decisions on police funding, which they appear to be claiming will not affect what they define as front-line policing—and we await the Minister’s definition of that. I listened with real interest to the thought-provoking speech from the noble Lord, Lord Condon, as I am sure the Minister did. Our policy in government was to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of the crime. The measures that we took helped, along with other factors and thanks to the police, to bring down the level of crime. No doubt this Government also want to be tough on crime but, frankly, their approach to police funding so far smacks rather more of being tough on the fighters of crime.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is the first of many debates that we will no doubt be having on the future of policing in this country as the police reform and social responsibility Bill, which we expect to be published shortly, begins to move through both Houses. I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for that very interesting speech on his own involvement and how he has seen the different dimensions of policing. As someone who is new to this dossier, I was reflecting on how much policing has changed since I first had contact with police forces as a junior lecturer in Manchester. I was dealing with the Irish Government and therefore, for the first time, coming to terms with Special Branch, which in those days was concerned with Irish terrorism. Special Branch today has to deal with a far wider range of terrorist threats.

Some 20 years ago, I was at Chatham House and was asked to chair a seminar of senior policemen about the international dimension of domestic policing. This was early 1989 and it was fascinating to have a number of policemen who thought that this was a small and specialised dimension of what they had to do, although I recall a policeman from north Wales saying that he really needed to train some of his policemen in Dutch because so many Dutch holidaymakers crashed their cars in north Wales every summer.

When, some years ago, I was the chair of EU Sub-Committee F, I was astonished to discover that there were by then police liaison officers in UK embassies throughout the European Union and beyond, that SOCA had been created to deal with the international dimension of British policing and that, according to the national intelligence model, we now have three levels of policing: level 1, the area that the public care most about and are most conscious of, which is local policing; level 2, which is the national policing of cross-border crime by different cross-border police forces; and the increasingly important level 3, which is transnational crime.

The increasing sophistication of crime is something with which we are now all familiar. Organised crime has ceased to be predominantly domestic; it is increasingly cross-border. Forms of international crime include drug-smuggling, international financial fraud, human trafficking—we had an interesting debate on that the other week—and now also cybercrime, on which I was given my first briefing the other day. We are in another world and the pace of change is increasing. I was struck when I read an HMIC report from July this year that said that there is no time for a royal commission, and that the police leadership needs to rise to the challenges of a cessation of the rapid increase in funding that has come in the past few years and the changing tasks that are required of it. The pace of change requires us to respond.

Many people here have talked about the changes in democratic accountability which the Government are proposing. We will have plenty of time when the Bill is presented to discuss in more detail the role of police and crime commissioners and their relationships with chief constables and with the police and crime panels that will, in turn, hold them to account.

I assure the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that the intention is that police and crime panels will consist predominantly of representatives of local authorities. There is, as he rightly points out, a large question about what we mean by “local”. The current structures of police forces and that of local authorities, as we well know, do not fit. That is part of the problem, and part of the reason why the Government are proposing police and crime commissioners to fit these separate entities that are now our largely regional police forces.

My noble friend Lord Bradshaw asked a number of questions about who will stand, who will vote and what they will all campaign on. American experience, which has been prayed in aid in this House as a horror story, has actually led to some rather good police commissioners and indeed elected mayors arriving. We must not necessarily assume that democracy is a dangerous thing that might lead to disaster.

The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, asked about the future role of ACPO. It will continue to play an important role in providing professional leadership to the police service but, again, discussions are under way about the way in which this association of chief constables will continue to drive value for money and improve the quality of co-operation among different police forces. Noble Lords will be familiar with the discussion over the past few years about whether another round of police mergers was necessary. The decision has been taken that the structural solution of further mergers itself carries costs, and that we wish to promote as far as possible—the previous Government believed this, as well as the new Government—closer co-operation among different police forces. A range of areas, from sharing police helicopters to co-operation across many other areas, can be improved.

The move from SOCA to the national crime agency is also intended to pull further together the different abilities of different police forces and the specialised tasks that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has been talking about, while trying as far as possible to maintain the historic principle of local responsibility for local civilian police forces.

We are concerned about value-for-money savings. Police budgets have increased rapidly over the past five years, and we recognise that they will cease to do so over the next four to five years. Government core funding of the policing will reduce by 20 per cent in real terms over the next four years. Taking into account our precept for local budgets, that amounts to an average—I stress, an average—for police forces of 14 per cent in real terms. In December, we will set out to Parliament exactly what this settlement will mean for each police force. However, I stress that real costs have been imposed on police forces by the previous Government through the central targets and the very detailed guidance. As the HMIC report states:

“In 2009 alone 2,600 pages of guidance were issued to officers setting out how their work should be done; and there are now 100 processes in the criminal justice system, requiring 40 interventions by police officers, staff and specialists. The cost to policing is estimated at £2.2 billion per year”.

Significant savings can be reached through reducing this sort of central top-down bureaucracy. On average, only 11 per cent of total police strength is visible and available to the general public at any time. We are confident that reducing some of these reporting and bureaucratic elements will enable us to maintain the police front line while reducing costs.

Others have raised questions about political leadership.

[Lord Rosser]

The Minister has referred to the police front line. Will he define what the Government mean by the front line as far as policing is concerned?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The police front line is increasingly sophisticated because, as I was saying earlier, if we look at what we want the police to do, the police front line is not just what is visible on the street. It is the policeman dealing with domestic violence in a sexual assault referral centre; it is the policeman dealing with financial fraud in the City of London Police which, as the noble Lord knows, is a specialist force for international financial fraud. The front line has become rather more sophisticated in that area, as crime itself has become more sophisticated. The public think of the front line as the police they see on the street. Very often, the public see the front line in police community support officers, who command a great deal of confidence because they are visible. The public see special constables as part of the front line. We pay tribute to our predecessors in government in that the number of special constables has increased from 11,000 to 15,000 over the past four or five years, and we would like to see it increase further. We all recognise that the front line has to include these more specialised and sophisticated areas as well.

[Lord Rosser]

Can I be clear: is the Minister saying that the reductions in policing expenditure will not affect the quality and effectiveness of the front line of policing as he has just described it?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is our aim and intention. We are looking at how far we can reduce costs by reducing reporting requirements, the time spent in the station, and so on. It will be tough, but we will do what we can. That means slashing the bureaucracy that gets in officers’ way. There are a number of reports from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary; I am sure that noble Lords have seen the two reports on policing in an age of austerity and valuing the police. They show us the direction in which to go. I think the first was commissioned by the previous Government, so I am not being entirely partisan in this respect.

The noble Lord, Lord Condon, introduced me to a phrase with which I was not familiar before—the policing covenant. I am much more familiar with the military covenant. The idea of the policing covenant is very interesting, and I look forward to debating it further. We want a police force that has the confidence of the public and is highly professional but which feels itself to have, in the broadest sense, public confidence. The management of the demonstration yesterday was a good illustration; we all recognise how difficult it is to maintain this balance. I look forward to hearing whatever the noble Lord would like to feed to me on what he has on that very interesting concept.

The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, talked about recruitment and accelerated promotion. Recruitment to the police has been affected by the rising proportion of young people going to university. Many of my children’s friends have gone to university with the intention of joining the police and have then done so as graduates. That is part of the way in which the police themselves are changing.

The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, and the noble Lord, Lord Condon, raised the question of police pay and the report of the Winsor review. This is not an easy issue. The Government are committed to maintaining the current settlement until its completion. After 2011, however, the Government intend that pay across the public sector for civilians should be frozen for two years after the end of the current agreement.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, asked about ethnic representation. I am happy to say that there has been, under the previous Government, a gradual increase at all ranks in the number of ethnic minority police. It is now approaching 5 per cent among the professional and warranted officers. Among special constables, who are volunteers, it is now approaching 10 per cent. Similarly, 25 per cent of full-time police are now female, as are a third of specials.

The noble Lord, Lord Condon, raised the concept of a network of policing. I have already said that we see ourselves resisting further police mergers but encouraging closer co-operation in specialised units and the sharing of facilities wherever possible. The Home Office business plan sets out that, with a national crime agency, police forces will be encouraged to network as closely as possible. Collaboration is the way forward.

We all recognise the vital importance of this topic. Domestic order is the basis for a stable democratic society. Public confidence in how the police maintain that public order is vital, and civic engagement with the police is the basis for a stable society. I look forward to many future debates on the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, and on many other aspects of policing. We face a range of future challenges to the maintenance of our borders. I have not mentioned the establishment of a UK police border command, which we will, perhaps, turn to another day. There is the developing use of the internet, with cyberfraud and other matters. There are links to many other themes, such as active citizenship and the greater engagement of the public in taking control of order and anti-social behaviour in their own communities.

We welcome the increase in the number of volunteers from within local communities in recent years. Alongside this, we value enormously the role that professional and highly trained police provide, often in specialised groups, linking across different forces, working through SOCA now and the national crime agency in the future, and working internationally with forces in other states through Europol and Interpol. How best to balance all these competing demands and tasks within a civilian police force is a constant concern to us all. We all appreciate how well our police attempt to do that. We all also understand how difficult a balance it is to strike.