Solihull Police Station: Proposed Closure

Debate between Mike Wood and Julian Knight

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Julian Knight]

I concur with my right hon. Friend. The royal town of Sutton Coldfield has been in the trenches with me over the last few years following this disgraceful attack on our constituents, which is completely unnecessary for the reasons I will now outline.

I accept it is easy to speak against a police station closure, so I hope Members will allow me to outline what I believe to be the legitimate reasons why Solihull police station must remain open. First, it primarily serves the south of Solihull borough, which includes my constituency and some of the villages in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden, including Dickens Heath, Dorridge, Knowle and Hampton in Arden. We are talking about a population of around 127,000 residents. The fact that an area with such a dense population is going to lose its only operational police base is nothing less than a scandal and a travesty.

It is also important to remember that in 2015 the previous Labour police and crime commissioner closed Shirley police station. My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb) and I were told that, magically, there would be a police presence, and what has happened? Absolutely zilch.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has alluded to the previous police and crime commissioner closing various police stations in Dudley borough, including Stourbridge, Kingswinford and Netherton among others. When he announced that Brierley Hill police station would be closing in the next two or three years to open a new police station in Dudley town centre, moving our only remaining police station from the centre of the borough to the far corner of the borough, he promised that a meaningful police presence would remain in Brierley Hill town centre. Does my hon. Friend agree that it needs to be a proper police station with officers operating out of it, not just a locker and an office?

[Julian Knight]

I completely concur with my hon. Friend, and we are in a similar situation. Frankly, cars will have to come from Tally Ho and Coventry, which is far too long a response time for my constituents.

In response to my constituents’ rightful frustrations, the police and crime commissioner stated in his estate review that

“locations for public contact offices in Solihull and Sutton will continue to be explored”.

That is very big of him. There is absolutely no commitment to give Solihull a public contact office. A number of questions have been raised as to what a public contact office really means. Reference has been made to it merely being a desk in a library with someone wearing a bit of hi-vis. For 127,000 people a desk in a library, 9 to 3, hi-vis—that is it, done. It is absolutely ridiculous, a travesty and a disgrace.

How can I honestly encourage my constituents to report crime, particularly crime of a personal and sensitive nature, to a police desk in the middle of a public space that is open only at certain hours and where they do not know precisely to whom they are speaking? What if one of my constituents suffering from physical and emotional abuse does not, for whatever reason, have access to a telephone and wants to seek refuge in a secure policing environment? That will now not be available anywhere in my large town.

As my constituent Mr Thompson of Compton Close—not the other Mr Thompson—put it brilliantly:

“We have already suffered the closure of the Shirley police station. It’s clear this next step is unacceptable to all Silhillians. Solihull residents deserve more than the muted ‘desk’ to take concerns. We deserve and should expect a local Police station with officers to respond directly to our needs.”

The police and crime commissioner tries to defend this cruel decision to close Solihull police station by using the usual line from the Opposition Benches, which are empty tonight, that West Midlands police has suffered from cuts and austerity. In a press release, he stated that once again—

“a decade of reckless Government cuts.”

Home Office data on direct money shows that from 2018-19 to 2021-22 it has gone up from £442 million to £694 million—an uplift of £250 million in four years. So, in light of the substantial increase in direct subsidies from the Home Office, straight into the PCC’s office, we have to ask ourselves why on earth he has decided to put forward plans to permanently close our police stations, when funding is proportionally higher than it was many years ago.

I would also draw the House’s attention to the fact that, as a result of more Government funding to the Labour police and crime commissioner, West Midlands police has managed to recruit hundreds of new police officers. Indeed, it admits in a statement that since the general election, this Conservative Government have managed to recruit 867 police officers across the west midlands. With the hundreds of additional police officers on the beat across the west midlands, particularly in Solihull, the PCC clearly forgets that we need adequate space to house those new officers. By closing Solihull police stations and those of my hon. Friends, and other stations across the west midlands, the PCC is drastically reducing the size of the constabulary’s estate just as the police force is growing, which means fewer desks, less officers and a reduction in the number of cells.

I am sure hon. Members know just how often we are contacted by our constituents about the levels of crime in our areas. I am contacted daily by constituents about the concern that exists about the substantial rise in crime across Solihull, which has been going on for many years. In particular the fear of violent crime, knife crime and burglary is a real concern to my residents. In December 2019 we had the murder of 21-year-old Jack Donoghue outside Popworld; he was simply enjoying a night out.

Lockdown has created difficulties in assessing crime statistics. However, despite our not having the full crime statistics for 2020-21, I can confirm to the House that of those that are already reported, 666 individual cases of violent crime have been reported in Solihull in the last year alone. That is already a massive increase on the data for 2020, when we had 574 such incidents. Undoubtedly, West Midlands police has a reputation—a very unwelcome reputation—for suffering large-scale knife crimes. What is the answer, I ask? Well, the answer of this police and crime commissioner is first to stop stop and search; that is a great way to stop knife crime. And the other one is to close our police stations, despite the huge uplift in moneys that come, not only from the precept, but from central Government.

My constituents deserve better. They deserve permanent policing. Theirs is a large town, a vibrant town, a town with many older residents who need the safety and protection that is the very basic that we all ask for ourselves and our society.

It is no secret that I have always been sceptical about the role of police and crime commissioner. In the financial year 2019-20—and who can blame him, frankly—the West Midlands PCC’s office spent £437,000 on salaries for the PCC, his deputies and the senior statutory officers alone, money that I believe should instead be spent on frontline national policing.

To conclude, if we are not going to get rid of the role of police and crime commissioner—and I would be absolutely delighted if we did—we have to fold it into the role of the Mayor of the West Midlands, someone who actually knows what he is doing and is not an ideologue, and does not think that the cure for knife crime is less stop and search.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Wood and Julian Knight

Thursday 6th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

1. What steps he is taking to ensure that public broadcasters reflect and provide for the whole of the UK.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to ensure that public broadcasters reflect and provide for the whole of the UK.

Riot Compensation Bill

Debate between Mike Wood and Julian Knight

Friday 4th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood]

A key purpose of the Bill is indeed to have a more effective, streamlined and clear mechanism or procedure to enable those businesses and individuals to get the compensation they need within the timeframe necessary to make a difference in getting their lives and businesses back on track.

In 2011, the coalition Government responded to the riots by agreeing to cover the costs incurred by the police in compensating homeowners and businesses under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886. That was one part of the package that the then Government announced in response to the scale of the destruction suffered in some of our major cities. I am sure that Members on both sides of the Chamber recognise the importance of the creation of a high street recovery fund immediately after those riots, which helped local communities to decide for themselves on measures, specific and relevant to their area, that would get their high streets back on their feet. However, we cannot necessarily rely on future Governments choosing to underwrite police force liabilities or investing additional moneys in rebuilding areas hit by riots.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

This issue is not just about the riots of 2011; many other localised riots have led to very extensive and expensive bills for local police forces. For instance, the total bill for the rioting in Bradford in 2001 amounted to £450 million, even though it was a localised riot.

[Mike Wood]

I fully agree. In the region we both know best, the west midlands, there were the Handsworth riots in 1985, which I have already mentioned, and of course the riots in the same part of Birmingham in 1981 and 1991. Such localised riots have a huge impact on the local community, and cause huge cost to businesses and individuals directly affected.

We need to act now to build a new compensation system that works. As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) said, that system needs to be fair to the people and businesses affected by riots and fair to the taxpayers who, ultimately, will always foot the bill.

In the wake of the 2011 riots, work was conducted by the independent Riots Communities and Victims Panel, which looked at both the root causes of the disturbances and the prevention of future riots. Other studies were conducted specifically to examine the response of the police. Although the Government have done a lot of valuable work on the causes and the immediate responses to the riots, now that we have had time to reflect on and learn from those terrible events, it is right and necessary to ensure that the current legislation is updated to make it fit for the 21st century and to enable the victims of riots to be adequately compensated.

Recognising criticisms of the limitations of the 1886 Act, the Home Office undertook an internal review, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary then commissioned a full, independent review of the legislation. The reviewer, Neil Kinghan, spent months collecting evidence from riot victims, the police, insurers, loss adjusters and many others before publishing his conclusions. He made recommendations concerning a number of areas of the existing framework. Many of those recommendations are brought forward in the Bill.

Neil Kinghan accepted that there remains a need for legislation that provides for riot compensation to victims, but that the existing legislation is simply not good enough. Fiddling around the edges of the legislation would not be enough to make it work for the 21st century. We need to repeal the 1886 Act and replace it with new legislation that reflects the world as it is now, rather than the world as it was in the 1880s. The Bill seeks to make that change by updating the legislation and modernising the compensation system, making it fit for purpose in today’s world.

This is not the first time that changes to the Riot (Damages) Act have been considered. Under the last Labour Government, there was a public consultation on full repeal of the Act, but in the end, no changes were made. I do not believe that simply repealing the 1886 Act is the answer. While there is a superficial attraction in removing the strict liability that police forces have for damage to property suffered during a riot, there is general acceptance that there are principled and practical reasons for its retention.

Neil Kinghan’s review agreed that the first duty of the police is to maintain law and order. When that law and order breaks down, resulting in a riot, it is right for the police to be held to account and to pay appropriate compensation. On a practical level, strict liability provides simplicity for the victims of riots and a clear framework for the police. Requiring victims to demonstrate negligence or other direct fault would not be equitable in the circumstances. It would require evidence that is often extremely difficult to collect in the immediate aftermath of a riot and would inevitably lead to increased conflict between local police forces and the communities that are hit by rioting.

The 2011 riots underlined the importance of maintaining this historic protection for the public, as it provided a number of people with a vital means of support when they needed it most. It is right that people are provided with the financial means to repair, renew and recover so that they have the confidence to return to their roles at the heart of our communities.

The independent review found near consensus in favour of retaining the police’s strict liability—a finding backed by the report of the London Assembly’s budget and performance committee on the aftermath of the riots. It is right that we protect communities from such shattering losses by doing what we can to help them back on their feet. However, what cannot be right are the lengthy bureaucratic delays suffered by those who need our help, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate referred, and the idea that the country has a bottomless purse to draw from to pay for damage caused by criminals.

The Bill makes much-needed changes to address those concerns, while still supporting households and businesses affected by rioting. Although, as I have said, I accept the arguments for retaining the principle of police liability for riot damages, I do not accept that we can continue with limitless liability. Whether through police budgets or central Government, the public purse cannot be expected to pick up costs that are the reasonable responsibility of private insurance.

The Bill proposes to end the unlimited compensation afforded through the 1886 Act. Instead, it will set a cash cap, set at the appropriate level of £1 million, on each individual claim. The Government determined in their early review that if such a cap were in place in 2011, 99% of the claims made after the riots would have been compensated in full, but the limit would have saved the public purse tens of millions of pounds in compensation for the very largest claims.

As prudent homeowners, most people hold some form of insurance for their property. The same is true of most business owners. In the most recent cases, more than 80% of the compensation has been paid as reimbursement to insurance companies. Despite that, measures to cap compensation have been supported in principle by their largest representative body, the Association of British Insurers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Wood]

Many insurance policies already have business disruption cover, and focusing on direct losses, with a fair cap of £1 million, will allow businesses or individuals to reclaim quickly the significant sums that they need to get back on track.

[Julian Knight]

rose—

[Mike Wood]

I give way to my hon. Friend, who knows a lot more about this.

[Julian Knight]

Does my hon. Friend hope, as I do, that if the Bill moves forward today it will encourage the industry and the Association of British Insurers to engage further with business owners and make them aware of such things as business disruption cover? In addition, they could make them aware of the Bill’s provisions.

[Mike Wood]

That is precisely what I have been calling on the ABI and other insurance bodies to do leading up to today’s debate.

I turn to the Bill’s provisions on a riot claims bureau. It sets out that the Secretary of State may assume responsibility for managing riot compensation claims. That is appropriate if rioting spreads across more than one police force area, as it did in 2011. It may also be appropriate at the request of a local policing body, particularly in one of the smaller police force areas, should the volume of compensation claims prove challenging to manage and be beyond its capacity. It is not about taking away local policing bodies’ financial autonomy. It is merely about providing capacity, consistency and additional oversight where necessary.

West Midlands Police (Funding)

Debate between Mike Wood and Julian Knight

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Julian Knight]

My hon. Friend is making some important points. He is spotting many of the inefficiencies that already exist, including in relation to the office of the police and crime commissioner. Will he comment on the fact that the commissioner has reserves of up to £100 million and that £30 million has been spent on Lloyd house?

[Mike Wood]

My constituents have certainly come to me with concerns about how West Midlands police is using, or intends to use, those reserves to make sure that the best possible service is provided. Yes, people were surprised—