Crime and Policing

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I declare an interest in that I spent this morning, as a member of the Kent police authority, working with the chief constable on getting cracking on finding these savings. He has bravely set out his plans to find a 20% reduction, which is his assumption, and he is working towards that target. There is one element of the motion that I welcome, and that is the recognition from Labour Members that it may be possible to reduce spending on the police by up to 12% without affecting the front line. However, that raises the question why they did not do that.

In Kent, we have been working to do that, and have the second-lowest precept in the country. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). We are collaborating with Essex: we have a single command for all serious and organised crime, and we have a single IT system and single purchasing. Unlike a lot of areas of the country and the regional talking shops introduced by the last Government, we work to find those savings. There are a lot more savings to be found in bureaucracy as well, for example, through not always having to go to the Crown Prosecution Service to charge, and working with the CPS, the probation service and prisons, and perhaps trying to make them more responsive locally and get people working most efficiently.

The best thing we can do to help with the savings is introduce directly elected police commissioners, who could deliver efficiency and give the public the necessary savings. Every year, the police authority in my area receives perhaps 5,000 to 10,000 pages. The formality of that process should be replaced with a single individual working with the police efficiently to deliver what the public want. That is how to deliver better policing and to find these savings. Opposition Members failed to do that, and did not deliver in government. This Government will deliver.