Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Luciana Berger and Yvette Cooper

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Looked at across the board—whether it be what is happening with DNA or CCTV—Government Members are making it harder for the police to do their job.

After the London riots, CCTV helped to secure huge numbers of convictions. We all know from our constituencies of communities and estates that have worked hard to get CCTV and how it has helped to provide security in those areas, cutting down on antisocial behaviour and abuse. Yet the freedom of information requests put in by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) have shown that one in five councils is now cutting CCTV under a Home Secretary who is wrapping CCTV in a whole load of new red tape. There are already safeguards for residents’ privacy, but the Home Secretary wants a whole load of extra checks, rules and administration just to make sure. The impact assessment produced by the Home Office has found that these new regulations will cost the police and councils £14 million to comply with—and it could be as much as £30 million at a time when resources are so stretched. The Home Secretary, who has already wasted £100 million on the November police and crime commissioner elections now wants to waste up to £30 million making it harder, not easier, to get CCTV. The Home Secretary welcomed extra CCTV in her own constituency three years ago; she should stop making it harder for everyone else to get it.

[Luciana Berger]

Does my right hon. Friend share my pride in the fact that City Watch in Liverpool does such a formidable job with its extensive CCTV network, which is visited by people from not only other cities across the UK, but from across Europe because it is so advanced? It has managed to prosecute people successfully for the crimes that they have committed. Would it not be a shame if other cities and places across the UK could not benefit in the same way as the people of Liverpool have, making ours one of the safest cities in the country?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. We have seen the impact in a whole series of areas—as I said, during the London riots, for example. In fact, at the time of the riots, the Prime Minister said of CCTV:

“We are making technology work for us…And as I said yesterday, no phoney human rights concerns about publishing photographs will get in the way of bringing these criminals to justice.”

It would seem, however, that the Home Secretary is tying herself up in exactly those so-called “phoney human rights concerns” that she has pledged to abolish.

This Bill will not make it easier to tackle antisocial behaviour. The Government are indeed making changes to powers: antisocial behaviour injunctions will be replaced with crime prevention injunctions; public space orders will be replaced with public space protection orders; acceptable behaviour agreements will be replaced with acceptable behaviour contracts; premises closure notices will be replaced by closure notices; and noise abatement notices will be replaced by community protection notices. No set of powers will be perfect, and everyone wants to make sure that the system is as swift and easy to use as possible. The trouble is that the Bill will not achieve that. There is a lot of changing of names and a lot of tinkering at the margins. Some changes may help and make it simpler; others may make it harder while agencies work out how the new processes are supposed to work.

Housing associations, for example, have warned that it will take five years to develop the case law for the new powers to work. The Government’s own figures admit that it will require at least 150,000 hours of police training to use these powers, even though many of them are remarkably similar to the old powers they replaced. The fact is that communities, councils, housing associations, the police and the courts need a wide range of tools to deal with very different problems. The risk for the Home Secretary is that, by trying to squeeze a wide range of problems into a narrow number of powers, she may make it harder to achieve that.

On the one hand, many organisations have written to The Times today to say that they fear this will mean too heavy-handed treatment for the lowest level of antisocial behaviour or nuisance, while on the other hand police officers have raised with me their concern that the powers will not be strong enough to deal with the worst problems. The one-size-fits-all approach has risks.

We need early intervention. We do not want to see young people unnecessarily criminalised or dragged through the courts for low-level problems when it can be sorted out on the spot. We do want to know that persistent, aggressive antisocial behaviour that can terrorise neighbours or residents will be dealt with properly, including by criminal sanctions where needed. Yes, we should have community resolutions and remedies for antisocial behaviour, but they must not be abused.

We know that community resolutions are now being used for serious and violent crimes, including for domestic violence. Last year, community resolutions were used for 33,000 serious and violent crimes, including in 2,500 domestic violence cases, where the Association of Chief Police Officers was clear that they should not be used.

Government Reductions in Policing

Debate between Luciana Berger and Yvette Cooper

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend will know that Merseyside police force made the biggest efficiency savings in the country before it received its grant settlement. That means that 800 police officers and 1,200 police support staff will now not be employed, and we are still waiting to find out how many policy community support officers will lose their jobs. Is she as worried as I am that police officers in domestic violence units, undercover police units, child protection units and race hate crime units are no longer to be considered front-line police?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. She will know from her constituency the impact that the cuts are having on communities across Merseyside. While Merseyside has certainly done excellent work in getting as many police on the beat as possible and in ensuring that its officers are as available as possible, as well as making very substantial efficiency savings, it is now being penalised. Its services are being hit, and it is the local communities in Merseyside that are paying the price. The truth is that the Home Secretary is making visibility more difficult to achieve in Merseyside, not easier.

It is the same story in Warwickshire, where the force is having to take police officers off the front line to cover critical support jobs that have gone, and South Yorkshire’s chief constable has said:

“A reduction in back officer support will put an increased burden on operational officers, detracting them from frontline duties.”

HMIC said in July last year that

“a cut beyond 12 per cent would almost certainly reduce police availability”.