Policing (England and Wales)

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the three excellent maiden speeches that have been made today, on the centenary of Nancy Astor’s maiden speech, and to hear such strong new female MPs speaking so powerfully about their constituencies. I concur with what my colleagues have said, particularly about the hon. Members for Newbury (Laura Farris) and for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson)—how proud their parents will have been of them and how touching it was to hear them speak about their parents’ public service.

We have had a series of greatest hits from the Opposition Benches today, including from several of my colleagues who are well known for their contributions to policing debates. I sometimes feel as though I could do their speeches for them, as this is the fourth police grant debate that I have had the privilege of responding to. I am pleased to have had so many excellent speakers on our side contributing so powerfully.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) spoke about the role of police staff and about how disappointing it was not to see any commitment to funding the reversal of the cut in their numbers. He mentioned how they contributed to victim support and how their loss has meant that the police have been forced to switch to a reactive mode of policing over the past 10 years, which has particularly destroyed neighbourhood and community policing. That refrain has been common among the contributions to the debate today, and we have really felt the loss of those people in our communities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) once again made the plea for Cardiff to have capital city status. It is baffling that it does not have it, when London, Edinburgh and Belfast all have that status and receive the funding that is attached to it. I hope the Minister will address that issue in her wind-up remarks. My hon. Friend also mentioned the proscription of two far-right groups that the Government have announced today. That is welcome, but it should be noted that far-right activity and terrorism have already moved on significantly from when those complaints were first made by the police. I concur with my hon. Friend that the Government need to be much swifter in responding to concerns raised about far-right activity.

I know the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) well, having visited it on several occasions to see the impact of the loss of policing and to meet some of his excellent local police officers, as well as former officers who have been forced out by the Government’s changes in the past 10 years. He talked powerfully about the increased demand and the heavy toll that it takes, not just on the police and their ability to respond but on sickness rates and the mental health of the officers involved. He asked, very fairly, what planet the Minister must be on in asking us to be grateful for today’s announcement. This is something that has been raised constantly: the idea that we should be pleased that the Government are rolling back even some of the cuts that have been made over the past 10 years, and the ridiculous claim that this is the largest investment made in a decade.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) paid tribute to the work of the Welsh Labour Government and their investment in PCSOs. She made an important point, which I do not think the Minister has addressed in previous debates, about the lack of clarity on funding for equipment such as cars, body armour and—the Policing Minister will appreciate this—lockers. She said that the settlement was defined by short-termism, and she is absolutely right. Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) spoke about the pressures of complex crime, from missing persons to child sexual exploitation. Like many Members in the debate today, she made the case powerfully for the reform of the funding formula.

I will come back to the funding formula later in my remarks, but it was telling to note the comments of the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), who has repeatedly spoken out on behalf of his Suffolk force and described the unfair consequences of the funding formula. That also applies to Devon and Cornwall, and I have visited the local police force of the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) myself. I have heard about the digital dogs, and when I talk about them to other police forces they are really jealous about the innovation that has been made in Devon and Cornwall. However, it is quite clear that the funding formula needs to recognise the particular pressures of tourism on forces such as Devon and Cornwall, just as it needs to recognise the demand presented by serious organised criminality that is often masked by supposedly sleepy communities in areas such as Suffolk. In short, the funding formula must follow demand and not the complicated, obscure factors that currently play into it. As has already been said, the Opposition welcome the resources that have been announced today. The Minister knows that, although we have our concerns, which I will touch on shortly, will not be opposing today’s police grant proposals.

I want to start by talking about two opportunities that this announcement presents. The recruitment drive is a generational opportunity to change the make-up and composition of policing. We meet on the 21st anniversary of the publication of the Macpherson report, which was a searing account of how institutions had become divorced from the communities they served. Its publication served as a watershed moment in British policing. The report set targets for the police to reach 7% of the workforce being from the BME community within a decade, but 11 years on from that timeline, we still have not reached that target. Today the BME population in this country is almost 15% and the so-called race gap is now more pronounced than it was when Macpherson was first published. There is not a single chief constable in the country from a BME community, and at this rate of change it will take the Met 100 years to become truly representative. During the last major recruitment drive under the Labour Government, diversity increased, but not fast enough, and the fear is that that will happen again. We cannot wait a century for our police to reflect our society, so I urge the Home Office to use this opportunity of police recruitment to ensure that we see the necessary dramatic change within the next three years. That will happen only if the law is changed and targets are set.

As I have said, this is the fourth police grant debate that I have responded to, and over the past decade too much needless damage has been done. Political choices have led to police-recorded violent crime more than doubling in recent years, and to the loss of 21,000 police officers—far more than under any other Government since the war. Those choices have also led to the loss of 16,000 police staff—the people who keep the police service functioning, who go to the scene to help with investigations and who help to put evidence into a fit state for trial—and of nearly 7,000 PCSOs. The PCSOs are the eyes and ears of community policing, and they are integral to the voluntary intelligence at the core of UK policing. Economic crime is allowed to flourish unchecked.

The recent conversion of the Government to the recruitment of officers has come far too late, and it is pathetic to talk about this being the largest increase in 10 years. The needless damage simply cannot be reversed, and the experience of lost officers is gone for good. Analysis carried out by Labour shows that even if all 20,000 officers announced as part of this settlement were allocated, more than half of police forces—22 out of the 43 police forces in England and Wales—would still have a net loss of officers compared with 2010. In the far more likely scenario that around 13,000 officers will be allocated to the frontline, 60% of our forces would still be down on 2010, with large urban forces such as Manchester, Merseyside and the West Midlands losing out substantially.

That will be exacerbated by the funding formula used to allocate that funding. Everyone knows that the formula is unfair, including the Minister, who set that out again today. It will create the perverse outcome that the forces struggling with the most serious violent crime will see the least recruitment. Greater Manchester is down 1,000 since 2010, Hampshire is down 700, Merseyside 600, Staffordshire 400, and the West Midlands 1,100. Surrey, by contrast, will see an increase of more than 240 on 2010 levels. That cannot be right. Again, today’s announcement should have presented an opportunity for the Home Office to revise the funding formula to ensure that it led to an equitable settlement.

What is more, Ministers have decided to stump up just £153 million of the £360 million police pension costs for 2020-21. This black hole is the equivalent of more than 3,000 officers, and if action is not taken, it is almost certain that police recruitment plans will suffer or that cutbacks will have to be made elsewhere, to police staff and capital. Will the Minister provide certainty to forces today, address the pensions black hole and ensure that the costs are not imposed on police forces?

The change in the Government’s approach today is undoubtedly welcome. Although they are not prepared to accept responsibility for the damage they have done, perhaps they can help address some of the consequences for police officers. Over the past 10 years, and in some of the most unimaginably difficult circumstances, our officers have fought hard to keep our communities safe, but it has taken its toll. In 2019, 2,175 officers voluntarily resigned from the police—the highest number since comparable records began in 1998—hampering police efforts to strengthen forces after nine years of austerity.

Last year, the police cancelled over a quarter of a million rest days, fuelling concerns of a mental health crisis in the police. The Police Federation’s most recent survey found that almost 80% of officers have experienced stress in the past 12 months, with almost half viewing their job as extremely stressful. A recent study found that one in five officers suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder—equivalent to 24,000 officers in England and Wales. For many, policing is coming at the expense of their mental wellbeing, safety and quality of life, and that cannot be right. I ask the Minister to commit to using the forthcoming police powers and protections Bill to tackle the mental health and wellbeing crisis in our police.

This has been among the most difficult decades for policing since the modern police force was founded. We can assure the Government that in the coming years we will be mindful of the promises they have made and determined to see that they are held to them.