Migration Statistics

Debate between Mark Reckless and Keith Vaz

Thursday 26th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz]

Absolutely. I agree with the hon. Gentleman: of course it can be done. It is an easy win for this Minister, who is a hard-working Minister—I think he has now been in the House three times this week and there is another Adjournment debate before six o’clock; I do not know whether he knew that. It is an easy win for him to announce this change. It needs the co-operation of security staff at Heathrow airport, of course, as well as that of BAA and others, including the airlines, but it can be done.

When I went on my last visit abroad and I gave my details to the people from the Office for National Statistics—they wanted to know my details; I do not know whether the Minister had sent someone to the airport to check whether I was coming back or not—I referred to this report by the Public Administration Committee. They were extremely grateful. They knew about it and they said, “When you go back, please remind everybody that we would like to do this survey for everybody, but we’re not given the resources to be able to do that.” I then asked whether it was the quick survey or the long survey and they said, “We’re happy to do the quick survey, but we would like to do everyone rather than the limited number that we do,” so there is a willingness. People want to be helpful. It is not a case of civil servants and other officials wanting to thwart the will of Parliament and the will of the British people; they want to help. Given that and given the arrangements that are made at airports, why on earth can we not bring this change into effect before 7 May 2015?

[Mark Reckless]

Can I clarify what is being suggested here? I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) was talking about quadrupling the size of the international passenger survey. Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that, instead of quadrupling the survey, it should be made universal? If so, would we then not be talking about the count, and would there not be a better way of doing that than having a separate person with a clipboard asking questions?

[Keith Vaz]

I say to the hon. Gentleman, who is an assiduous member of the Home Affairs Committee, that we should be open to offers. Let us look and see what is available and what is the best way to do things. That approach may not be the best way to do things—I like what the Public Administration Committee has recommended—but it would certainly be an improvement on the existing situation.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman intervened, because he and I went on new year’s day to check how many Romanians were arriving at Luton airport. That was because we did not trust the ONS or the media hype, so we went to see for ourselves what was going on. Unfortunately, we cannot do that when every single plane or coach arrives in the UK—because if we did, he would never see Mrs Reckless and I would never see my wife. The key thing is that there should be a practical way of getting over the problem. It is not rocket science.

Let us consider the options that are available, some of which have been described very eloquently, not only in the speech by the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee but in the Committee’s report. Let me say this about e-Borders. Whenever an immigration Minister has appeared before our Committee—certainly in the seven years since I have been Chairman—we have always asked him about e-Borders. I give the current Minister a free pass: he will be asked about it when he appears before us on 22 July, or possibly before, if the passport crisis is not sorted out very quickly.

Let me outline the issue. Of course the last Government were wrong to have entered into an agreement with a private company just because that company was able to provide such services in other parts of the world. I believe it was a huge mistake, and it would be good to look back and see who was responsible for it. I was a Minister in the last Government, although not the Minister who took the decision to enter into this agreement. However, it is important to look at the process. When the last Government signed the agreement with Raytheon, they did not put benchmarks in that agreement. As a result, Raytheon was able to turn round and say, “Well, we were not told what to do.” That is the subject of an arbitration that has been going on for, I think, four years. It could well be the longest arbitration in history, and every time our Committee asks for information, nobody wants to tell us anything about what is going on.

It is important to learn, although not so that we can blame Ministers in the last Government—as I say, two of them are in the Chamber today: my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) and me. Rather, it is important to learn so that, when we procure services in future and civil servants and Ministers sign off deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds, the Government are clear about what they want and when they want it done, clear that it is being properly monitored, clear that there are penalties if what they want is not being done and clear that the company is clear as well. We are talking about £750 million. This is not chickenfeed. We need to treat taxpayers’ money carefully.

[Mark Reckless]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the reasons why many parties to contracts provide for arbitration rather than litigation in the event of a dispute is that arbitration takes place in private, so people do not hear the detail about the case? Is that appropriate in any public contract, let alone one worth £750 million?

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. This is about the public knowing—it is public money that has gone into this—and we need to know precisely what was going on. We also need to know why it has taken four years. The right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) was right to cancel the contract when he did, otherwise it would have drifted on, year after year. At the end of the day, however, we need to know what went wrong so that we do not do it again. For all we know, if we do not know what went wrong, this problem could happen again and again. It is vital that we get to the bottom of the problem of e-Borders.

I welcome this excellent report, which says some valuable things. The Home Affairs Committee continues, of course, to look at immigration and migration issues. As I said at the beginning of my speech, the best way to deal with the issue of migration and immigration is to have accurate statistics that everybody can sign up to. At the moment, we are conducting a debate without knowing the full facts.

2014 JHA Opt-out Decision

Debate between Mark Reckless and Keith Vaz

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) on a subject about which he knows so much and speaks with such passion.

My primary interest in contributing to this debate is to talk about the process that has been adopted and speak in support of the amendment tabled in the name of the Chairs of the Liaison Committee, the European Scrutiny Committee, the Backbench Business Committee, myself and others. However, I should also say that it is pretty rare—I am trying to think of a single other such occasion—for many of the Chairs of the Select Committees to come together in this way to amend a Government motion.

Our amendment has had to change over the past 48 hours or so because the Government’s motion changed. I should thank the Home Secretary for engaging with the Select Committee Chairs following her statement to the House on Tuesday. The Government’s original motion did not allow for any scrutiny by Select Committees before a vote of the House. The new motion, which the right hon. Lady tabled on Friday, allows for scrutiny and permits the Select Committees to scrutinise the Government’s proposals so that the House can vote on the matter at the end of October.

I say “permits the Select Committees”, but throughout the process the Government have always said that scrutiny by the Select Committees was of paramount importance in dealing with this issue. In fact, in a letter to the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee on 15 October 2012, Lord Boswell said:

“This Government has done its utmost to ensure that Parliament has the time properly to scrutinise our decisions relating to the European Union and that its views are taken into account.”

On 20 January last year, the Minister for Europe said this in a written statement: “I hope that today I have conveyed to the House not only the Government’s full commitment to holding a vote on the 2014 decision in this House and the other place, but the importance that we will accord to Parliament in the process leading up to that vote.” I was therefore very surprised, when I heard the Home Secretary’s statement on Tuesday, to find that the Select Committees had, in a sense, been shunted to one side and not been given the opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s decision.

I accept that this is a long and difficult process. Anyone who has served as Minister for Europe—I see quite a few former Ministers for Europe dotted around the Chamber—will know that dealing with the European Union is not a piece of cake. It takes a huge amount of time and effort to get one’s negotiating stance together, especially when one is putting forward a view that will not be accepted by our European colleagues. However, if the Government have had a long discussion about these matters, the Home Secretary can expect the Select Committees to want to scrutinise them. The Justice, Home Affairs and European Scrutiny Committees all have right hon. and hon. Members—I see here the hon. Members for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe)—who are seeking to ensure that their views are put forward.

As a result of the Government’s decision last Tuesday, of which we had absolutely no notice, we have had to change the business that the Committee had agreed in order to pursue this when we come back in September. There will be only two sitting weeks in September to scrutinise every one of these proposals. Then there is the natural break for the party conferences, and the House will also come back for two weeks in October. By and large, Select Committees, sit once a week. Their members are very reluctant to sit more than once a week because they are all assiduous Members of this House who have other things to do, usually serving on other Committees. That means that if we devote all our time to this cause, we will have just four sittings in which we can scrutinise the proposals.

As the Home Secretary knows, a lot of business is going on in the Home Office. I do not have to tell her that, because she is one of the most active Home Secretaries making structural changes to how policing, immigration and counter-terrorism are dealt with. She has set the Select Committee on Home Affairs a huge amount of work over the past three years. We will have to put that to one side in order to spend our time scrutinising these proposals. I am sure that that will also apply to members of the other Committees.

Today’s motion still does not give us enough time. There is not enough time before 31 October to be able to do justice to the kinds of things that the right hon. Member for Wokingham talked about—not just individual matters but fundamental issues of principle. However, we will do our best. As I promised the Home Secretary last week when I met her, the Home Affairs Committee, subject of course to the views of its members, will have a report for her by the end of October, but to do so by then will be extremely tough.

My question to the Home Secretary is this: why should we have a vote tonight, given that we got these proposals only on Tuesday last week? What is the point of asking the House to deliberate on these matters before the Committees have had the opportunity to discuss and to scrutinise them? She says that she needs a mandate in order to be able to show the Commission that the House is prepared to opt out.

[Mark Reckless]

Is not the motion somewhat confused between two distinct issues: first, whether we should exercise the block opt-out; and secondly, what we may or may not then want to opt back into? Would not the right thing to do tonight be just to vote on the block opt-out, as per the amendment that I believe the right hon. Gentleman has tabled with the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith)?

[Keith Vaz]

The best course of action would have been to take note of what the Government have done without making a decision as that would have given the whole House an opportunity to come to a view that these matters need to be scrutinised.

Of course, we need to opt out of some of the measures, for the reasons given by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), the shadow Home Secretary my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and others. Some of the measures are obsolete and, to be frank, I did not know that until I heard about it today. I have not had the chance to look through the measures and I am not sure that every other Member has, either.

I would have preferred a take-note motion and not a Division over something that I think the House as a whole supports: the need for us to look again at European legislation and to decide very carefully whether or not we want to opt into some of the measures again. The Home Secretary has missed that opportunity so, sadly, we will divide, which I think will send mixed messages to the European Union about what this House really intends.

I have a point of substance about the European arrest warrant. I have heard what my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has said, but I am concerned about the way in which the warrant operates. I am particularly concerned about those cases mentioned by right hon. and hon. Members that highlight the disproportionate way in which other countries deal with it compared with what we do. We have more surrenders than arrests and it is better for our European partners than it is for us, according to Home Office statistics.

I accept all the cases that have been mentioned by my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary and the Home Secretary; I think the Front Benchers agree on them. On the very serious cases, we need co-operation with our European partners. It would not be practicable to negotiate with each one.

The problem, however, rests with the judiciary in some of these countries, including Poland. So many of the cases in this country relate to Poland and are very minor. I read of someone who had the European arrest warrant issued against him because he had stolen a wheelbarrow. Another person who gave false information when obtaining a loan of only £200 from a Polish bank has also been subject to the European arrest warrant. Our courts are being clogged up because of judicial decisions. I had hoped that our Committee could have gone to Poland to meet its chief justice to try to understand exactly why this is happening, but we will not have the time to do that now, because this House goes into recess in four days’ time and we will not be back until September.

Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mark Reckless and Keith Vaz

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

I agree, and my biggest regret from when I was the Minister responsible for entry clearance 10 years ago is that I did not introduce that approach. I left it to the system, and I was wrong to do so. If we had a system that allowed new information to be accepted, we would be able to save the taxpayer a huge amount of money and save those who are seeking to bring people into this country a lot of anguish.

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

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if the motivation for the change is financial, another option may be to increase the fee payable for appeals? I understand that would put some people off and might significantly reduce the number of appeals, but the possibility of entry clearance officers’ decisions being reviewed by a judge might help to ensure that decisions are made better than if the right of appeal is removed.

[Keith Vaz]

That is an option. I would not be enthusiastic about putting up fees, but people do not mind paying fees if they get results and cases are dealt with quickly. If that can be guaranteed, it is certainly an option. The hon. Gentleman’s intervention and that of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) have shown us that it is quite possible to put forward alternative measures to abolishing the right of appeal. I hope that the Government will consider them.

I wish to say a couple of things about the parts of the Bill that I welcome. One is the establishment of the forum bar, which the Home Affairs Committee recommended when we examined extradition. Following the whole Gary McKinnon saga and the marvellous work of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), who campaigned so passionately for his constituent, we put forward the idea of the forum bar, and now it will legislated for. We are delighted about that.

I am less delighted by the Home Secretary’s wish to give all the rest of her extradition powers to High Court judges. If we have Ministers, we should allow them to make decisions. I am not sure why people wait so long for ministerial office, then get there and want to hand all their powers over to judges. I actually think it is a good idea that Members of Parliament and others should be able to make representations to Ministers if there are exceptional cases. That will not be the norm—Gary McKinnon and Richard O’Dwyer’s cases were not the norm. They were exceptional cases that got to the Home Secretary’s attention only because of the work of people such as Janis Sharp, Gary McKinnon’s mother; the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate; and Richard O’Dwyer and his mother Julia. They were able to bring those cases to Parliament’s attention, and we should ensure that Ministers keep those powers rather than give them away.

I have been watching how the hon. Member for Croydon Central has pursued the campaign concerning drug offences when people are driving. Given the circumstances of his constituent, it must be a great relief to him and his faith in parliamentary democracy that a case he has raised so frequently in meetings with Ministers over the past year or so has ended in the fruition of a clause in a Bill that will change the law. What satisfaction it must give him as a constituency MP to know that he, along with other Members, has been a part of changing the law. I welcome what the Government are doing, and they are quite right to ensure that that change takes place.

I was never a great fan of the Judicial Appointments Commission introduced by the previous Government. Perhaps because both Lord Chancellors under whom I served—the noble Lord Irvine and the noble Lord Falconer—were, in my view, exceptional people, I thought that they could make better decisions about the diversity of the judiciary than a quango. I was right: they would have made better decisions and the judiciary would today have been quite different. I welcome what the Government are doing; it is a message to those who make such decisions that the judiciary needs to look not as Parliament did when I was first elected but as how it is today—Parliament looks like the country and so must the judiciary. Obviously, people must pass the merit test. Nobody wants jobs given away because someone happens to like the person sitting in front of them, or because they are a particular gender or race. Jobs are given to people who are qualified and able to do them effectively.

I will end with a comment made earlier today by Lord Wasserman, the Government adviser on some of the policing reforms. As the House knows, the Home Affairs Committee has been trying to get Lord Wasserman to appear before it, and he came before the Committee today as part of our international conference. He spoke most eloquently and I was quite taken by his comments. He suggested that the Government look at how police and crime commissioners have operated, and that the Committee hold an inquiry into that at the end of the year—obviously, the Committee will decide whether it wants to do that. The Minister has escaped; he has got political asylum from immigration and gone to policing. He survived the little problem of a few years ago, when I understand from The Sunday Times he ended up in the Cherwell. I did not see the Attorney-General in the Chamber making up with him; he was here earlier, but he is not present at the moment.

The Minister has one of the most exciting jobs in government: the chance to finish off the new landscape of policing. I know my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) enjoyed being policing Minister, but the way to really enjoy the job is to ensure the jigsaw is completed and that we get a police service that fits the structure. We have the best police service in the world. Let us ensure that the organisations that are there to serve it really work.

Draft European Union Budget

Debate between Mark Reckless and Keith Vaz

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I want to start with a small Euro whinge about the time available to discuss these important matters. When we discuss European affairs, it is important that we have more than one and a half hours. I have great respect for the Front-Bench spokesmen, but they took more than 45 minutes to put their cases, leaving very little time for those knowledgeable Back Benchers—I do not include myself; I would never want to praise myself—who want to make a contribution on these important matters.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who is obviously extremely knowledgeable about these issues, having sat on the budget committee of the European Parliament for many years before claiming asylum here in Westminster. I am sure that we should listen carefully to what he says about how the process operates. I would also be keen to see a copy of the DVD showing what goes on inside the EU that my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) offered to Members. I have not received a copy—perhaps the UK Independence party MEP decided to send it only to some Members.

I want to say three quick things, because I know that other Members want to contribute. The first, concerning migration issues, is directly relevant to the EU home affairs agenda. I would like to know from the Minister, if not today then certainly in writing, what part of the budget will be ring-fenced to help countries such as Greece to deal with the serious migration problems at their borders. I see that the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) is here. The Home Affairs Committee visited Fylakio, on the border of Greece and Turkey, where we saw the detention centres in which many of these refugees and asylum seekers live. The conditions were appalling, and we were told that more than 100,000 people crossed the border between Greece and Turkey every year.

Obviously we would like an improvement in the living conditions of those who arrive in Greece, but more than that we would like to prevent these illegal migrants from coming into Greece in the first place. As Members will know, the destination of choice for those 100,000 people who cross the border into the EU is not Greece. They are only kept in detention for six months, and they then travel to Athens and end up in northern and western Europe, particularly the United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries.

We know that Greece is having huge problems, but I would like an assurance that some of the money in the budget will be ring-fenced for issues of concern to this country. If we are to deal with illegal migration, it is much better to do so at the far borders of the EU, rather than allowing it to be a problem for us here, with all the issues and political controversies that it raises when we debate it. Is any of that budget to be ring-fenced?

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

I wonder whether the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs recalls that when we went to Greece we came across a young lady from Latin America who had almost accidentally got caught up in the Greek illegal immigration system. She was desperate to go back, but the EU funds could not be used for that purpose, however much we made the case to the European Commission representative there. In the end, we had to get assistance from the Norwegian Government, whose funds did not require domestic Greek matching funds. Should we therefore not also deal with that issue?

[Keith Vaz]

That is absolutely right. I do remember that young lady. She made a beeline for the hon. Gentleman—he was single at the time, I think, and—

[Mark Reckless]

I must clarify the position: I believe it was my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) for whom she made a beeline.

[Keith Vaz]

We did not give notice of that allegation, so we had better not pursue it. However, the hon. Gentleman is right: the issue he raises is another area that can be looked at as a possible means of dealing with this important subject.

The second issue—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) keeps reminding me that I said I would speak for three minutes, and my time is now almost up. Let me therefore ask the Minister to look at the cost of enlargement. I am a great supporter of enlargement. When I was Minister for Europe, my job was to go to the European Union, as Tony Blair told me to, and ensure that we became best friends with all the countries in eastern Europe that sought to come into the European Union, and that is what I sought to do. I am therefore very much in favour of enlargement, but I am a bit worried by some of the figures for the cost of it. Croatia has been promised €150 million, while Turkey, which is not even a member, has been given €3 billion. We all support Turkish membership, but I am worried about all the money that is going to candidate countries and the possibility that we do not know precisely what is happening to it.

Proceeds of Crime

Debate between Mark Reckless and Keith Vaz

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

I am sure that the Government are most grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s thanks.

Last night I was present at the launch of a document produced by the hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) about the operation of the European arrest warrant and what it has delivered over the last few years. I know that the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) is a frequent commentator on its justice and home affairs implications for our country.

I think that we should be cautious in dealing with these matters. The EU document needs to be considered with great care. I am not one of those who believe that we need a directive in order to secure co-operation between EU partners, but I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) deserves the explanation that he seeks. I think that he deserves to be told why the Minister in the other place was so enthusiastic about the directive, and why the Government have apparently changed their mind. Of course, if there is a valid explanation, and if the various agencies—the Serious Organised Crime Agency being one of them—make representations to the Government pointing out that this is going to create problems for our legislation, it is important that that advice is shared not only with the Minister, but with the House.

The hon. Member for South Ribble (Lorraine Fullbrook) and I recently returned from an official visit to Colombia as part of a Home Affairs Committee delegation, where we were looking at the drugs trade. We noted a very important fact: only 2.6% of the profits from the trade in cocaine remain in Colombia. Some 97% of cocaine profits are administered and laundered within the European Union—in our country and other countries of the EU. That means that our existing structures are not used appropriately enough to catch the people who are responsible for drugs having become the biggest illicit activity in the world.

Even though a directive would help, it will not provide the answer. The Government are right not to opt in unless and until there are further negotiations, therefore. We need to make sure that the structures that are in place in the various countries of the EU can work together to catch those responsible for laundering the profits from drugs. I hope that the Government will use the time that will be available to them as a result of their decision not to opt in constructively and productively, and that they look at the institutions and organisations and make sure that that co-operation is improved. There are, of course, organisations—such as Europol and Interpol—which can be used effectively. I do not think Europol is used enough. We have a very good British director of Europol, Rob Wainwright, who was trained at SOCA. We must co-operate much more closely, without legislation from Brussels being needed.

Drugs is one example. The other is human trafficking, which is the third biggest illicit activity in the world, with profits of £32 billion a year. Through our co-operation with the Romanian authorities in Operation Golf, we showed that it is possible to have mutual co-operation with other EU countries without having a further directive, if there is willingness on the part of our European partners to work with us to deal with illegal activity.

[Mark Reckless]

The right hon. Gentleman mentions Europol and the issue of trafficking. Does he recall that when the Home Affairs Committee visited the Greek-Turkish border, one of the issues we found was that the structures of Europol were not well designed to secure co-operation with Turkey? Very often, the European basis of Europol and the insistence on doing everything through that framework was getting in the way of practical co-operation.

[Keith Vaz]

I am happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman, who is also a fellow member of the Home Affairs Committee; he is absolutely right. The EU looks at these issues only within the confines of the EU. Because Turkey is not a member, it is not included in any aspects of co-operation. An example of that is the way the RABITs were deployed in Greece to deal with illegal immigration. Because the UK was not part of Schengen, we were not allowed to be a formal part of the activity of the RABITs. As a result, we were left marginalised.

Mr Speaker, I can see that you are about to tell me that I am out of order. [Interruption.] Oh, you are not. You were frowning, Mr Speaker, and I have known you long enough to know that a frown may have indicated that you were about to stop my flow. Let me go back to the original reason behind this debate. I was tempted along the other path by the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless).

Policing

Debate between Mark Reckless and Keith Vaz

Thursday 12th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz]

There is still a debate; it is still happening, but it will be in Committee. I am most grateful.

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

Before the Chair of the Select Committee moves on from the protocol, I would like to put on the record my thanks to the Government and the Treasury; I apologise, but I do not know the constituency of whoever makes these decisions. The protocol is an excellent document that will be very powerful, and it is important that there be an opportunity for Members of Parliament, as well as members of the Association of Chief Police Officers and representatives of police authorities, to have their say. I very much look forward to that debate and would like to put on the record my thanks for it happening.

[Keith Vaz]

The debate is taking place in no small measure because of all the work that the hon. Gentleman has done.

I turn to the issue of police morale, which was raised in an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick). For police officers up and down the country, the role and future of the police service have been at the forefront of the national agenda since July 2010. The service will suffer more than 16,000 job losses before the next election, and uncertainty remains over how pay and conditions will be affected by the Winsor review and the ruling this week by the Police Arbitration Tribunal. In addition, there is the two-year public sector pay freeze and the capped 1% increase beyond those two years. We have heard from the Police Federation that the proposals for changes to police pay and conditions will have a detrimental effect on the morale of the police service.

In a Police Federation survey of 43,000 police officers last year, 98% said that they were demoralised by how these matters were progressing. When the issue of police pay has been settled, and when that is coupled with all the other challenges that they face, there could be a fundamental shift in the standards and motivation of police officers all over the country. We would be grateful to hear from the Minister about the progress on that subject, and about any other discussions that he has had with the Police Federation.

I have to say to the Minister—again, this is uncharacteristic of him—that I was very disappointed with the reply that he gave to my parliamentary question when I asked how many times he had met the Police Federation. He gave me no reply. He said that he could not tell me how many times because that is what the previous Government did. That is very odd. I thought that this Government were committed to transparency. When the Chairman of a Select Committee tables a parliamentary question to the Minister of Policing asking when he met officially—not socially or informally—the chairman of the Police Federation, he deserves a reply. I shall take that up with Mr Speaker.

Police Funding

Debate between Mark Reckless and Keith Vaz

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless]

Having a national champion on bureaucracy in the way that it has been organised by the Association of Chief Police Officers, which is an organisation that does not entirely respond to this House and has little if any statutory basis, is not the way to tackle bureaucracy. We have had far more success in finding savings in Kent by having a majority of elected members who sit down with the officers who spend the money.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman rightly says that the work is best done locally, and he showed me the good work being done in Kent when I went to visit his constituency, but there is a need to share good practice. What I saw in Rochester and Strood ought to be rolled out in other parts of the country. So even though the savings are made locally, there needs to a mechanism—it could be the Home Office or this could be done through Jan Berry—that will make sure that other police authorities can follow what Kent is doing.

[Mark Reckless]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, the Chair of our Home Affairs Committee, for his comments. He has kindly arranged to use our website to promote some of that good practice, such as the safe exit scheme and our offender management unit, in which we are working closely with probation and other agencies. There is enormous scope for savings through such collaboration.

I do not understand why most forces in the country are not making significant savings through collaboration. I know that Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire have quite a strong programme, but I have not seen any other forces that have anything like the level of collaboration or are making the savings that have been delivered in Kent and Essex. That might be because the forces and counties of Kent and Essex are of a similar size and there might not be the sensitivities about one force being perceived to be taking the lead. It might also be because the personalities and individuals involved are particularly committed to the process. We now have, however, one single directorate to deal with all organised, serious and major crime. A substantial number of police officers have been transferred from each force into a joint directorate that reports to a single assistant chief constable. We have a single director of IT and we procure all our services through a joint procurement centre, and I do not understand why other forces have not taken the opportunity to find savings so that they can reinvest them in the front line. It is happening to an extent, but collaboration elsewhere has been very disappointing.

I am speaking about collaboration not just between forces but between different agencies, such as working with councils—a point we heard about from my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti). In Medway we have a basic command unit that is coterminous with the unitary council. That might have assisted us, but it is by working as a team and focusing the resources on the areas where the public want to see them used that we have managed to find savings, to cut crime and to improve confidence at the same time.

Although the process is different in policing from elsewhere in the public sector, there will be the introduction of directly elected police commissioners alongside the front-loading of the reductions, the potential pay freezes for two years and the review of terms of conditions—and I greatly welcome the work that Tom Winsor is doing. I made the point in my ten-minute rule Bill about the importance of police forces’ being able to make a rational decision about how many officers, PCSOs and other civilians they need—that issue has also been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak—and it is essential that forces should have the freedom to make that decision. I am delighted that Tom Winsor is working so hard on that and we look forward to his interim report in February. We must knit together the democratic control and the greater efficiency through collaboration, as well have as a sensible review of terms and conditions while recognising how much the police do and what they do to serve this country and our communities. These estimates and the proposals for directly elected police commissioners are the way forward. They will lead to a revolution in policing in our country that will put the public in charge. It is possible for that to happen even in the tightened financial environment in which we find ourselves.