Police Grant Report
Paul Kohler Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
When it comes to the police, politicians are all too eager to demand more and more while giving less and less. Years of failure and ineffective resourcing from the previous Conservative Government have left police forces across the country overstretched, understaffed and unable to focus on the crimes that impact our communities the most. While the shadow Police Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers), spoke about the 20,000 officers his Government finally restored, he did not mention the fact that they were funded by getting rid of 30,000 backroom staff, with officers required to do their jobs. It was no more than a disingenuous conjuring trick in search of headlines.
This funding settlement represents a welcome increase, but it is ultimately a missed opportunity. The National Police Chiefs’ Council estimates that the settlement still leaves a £1.3 billion funding gap over the next two years, so rather than improving police provision, it will in fact do no such thing. The situation facing the Met, which serves my Wimbledon constituency, is stark. I met the commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, recently. He told me that he still faces a £130 million shortfall, and is determined to take a strategic approach to the inevitable cuts, rather than salami-slicing the entire service. What impact this will have on particular areas is currently unclear, but in Wimbledon we fear that our police station is again under threat. When I was attacked in my home, my life was saved by two brave officers from that station who arrived within eight minutes of my eldest daughter dialling 999. If Wimbledon police station had not been there, I would not be here. That is why, when the Mayor of London sought to close it in 2017, I took him to court and won.
Despite Baroness Casey’s review noting that the closure of 126 police stations had contributed to the reduction of frontline policing, the current basic command unit commander for south-west London, at a recent Merton council scrutiny session, was equivocal about whether Wimbledon police station’s long-term future could be guaranteed. I consequently raised its future with Sir Mark when we met, and while he recognised its importance, he was unable to offer any guarantees. It is clear, however, that if we are serious about community policing in my constituency, Wimbledon police station must be retained.
The settlement also fails to address a critical systemic issue. The police funding mechanism is not fit for purpose, as the Home Office acknowledged a decade ago when the previous Government announced plans to reform it but then—surprise, surprise—did nothing. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has described the current model as “outdated”, as it leads to large regional disparities in how particular police forces are funded, as we have heard. The Home Secretary should have seized this moment to reform how the mechanism works. Sadly, she looked the other way, just as her predecessors have done for the last 10 years.
Yesterday, when he appeared before the Home Affairs Committee, I asked the Home Office’s permanent secretary, Sir Matthew Rycroft, whether he had had any discussions with the Home Secretary about reforming the police funding mechanism. “Yes,” he said, but he then talked about picking the right moment, as there is clearly a lot of politics involved, before finally admitting that he is not sure when it will happen. Perhaps the Minister can tell us today.
To be clear, I welcome the settlement but remain concerned that the Home Secretary is not using the opportunity to address systemic issues, while continuing to fund follies such as the expensive and ineffective police and crime commissioner model. Politics is all about making hard choices, and I acknowledge that the Home Secretary has more than her fair share to make, but I remain unconvinced that she has made all the right choices on this occasion.
United Front Work Department
Paul Kohler Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Dan Jarvis
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and speaks with great authority on this matter. He will know that we have just appointed Baroness Hodge as the Government’s new anti-corruption champion. She will support the work that we do, looking very carefully at the impact of dirty money on politics. He is right that the Government will want to assure ourselves that the electoral laws that govern the conduct of elections are robust, and ensure that there are no opportunities for people from overseas to intervene in our political processes. That advice should be taken very seriously by all parties across the House.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
In my constituency there are many Hongkongers deeply concerned about surveillance from Chinese agents in this country. Can the Minister give my constituents any assurance that their legitimate fears are being addressed by the Government?
Dan Jarvis
I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising the plight of his constituents. Yes, I can give him those assurances. The Government take very seriously the kinds of interventions he refers to. Through the defending democracy taskforce, we are looking carefully at the issue of transnational repression, and we will have more to say about it in due course.
Respect Orders and Antisocial Behaviour
Paul Kohler Excerpts(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
I thank the Minister for her statement and warmly welcome it. She is right to mention neighbourhood policing. Does she agree with the Met commissioner, Mark Rowley, that local police stations are critical to neighbourhood policing, and whether she will pledge to stop the closure of local police stations that occurred under the Conservatives and under previous Labour Administrations? That includes Wimbledon police station, which remains under threat six years after I won my judicial review, stopping its closure.
Immigration and Home Affairs
Paul Kohler Excerpts(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech—although I must admit to a degree of trepidation following the excellent maiden speech of the hon. Member for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker). It was a compelling, poignant and witty speech, as were so many of those that went before.
It is a huge and humbling honour to be elected to represent and serve the people of Wimbledon, a name that is synonymous with strawberries and cream, grass courts and tennis, but a constituency that includes so much more, extending from Morden underground station in the south—where you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have your constituency office—to Old Malden in the west, where the Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece “Ophelia” was painted by Sir John Everett Millais on, or more accurately in, the Hogsmill river.
Wimbledon is a suburb of London, but has two farms, a village, a wonderful common, the occasional Womble, three professional and many amateur theatres, two cinemas, the Wimbledon College of Arts—part of the University of the Arts London—and vibrant small businesses, many of them in the arts and hospitality. It has a park designed by Capability Brown, although that is currently under threat from the All England Club—Members should see my early-day motion for further details—and the beautiful River Wandle, when it is not blighted by that running motif in so many Liberal Democrat speeches, sewage. Its housing stock ranges from grand mansions to crumbling social housing. It has one of the most affluent and well-educated electorates in the country, but also a 38% deprivation rate, despite the best efforts of excellent local charities including Dons Local Action Group, Wimbledon Guild and Faith in Action. It is also a diverse and harmonious constituency, boasting one of the largest mosques in Europe, a beautiful Buddhist temple, a Reform synagogue, Europe’s first fully consecrated Hindu temple, the Papal Nuncio, and Christian churches and places of worship of almost every denomination.
As well as hosting the world’s premier tennis tournament, we are home to England’s most progressive football club, AFC Wimbledon—a club which knows that fans, not the money men, are the beating heart of any team, and a club which embodies the values at the heart of the Government’s eagerly awaited and much anticipated football governance Bill. That is unlike, it pains me to say, my own team, Crystal Palace, which has previously argued against the reforms heralded in the Bill, much to my shame. That is not to mention the shame of my constituents, who have just learned that their MP is a Crystal Palace fan.
I am playing a dangerous game here, because, as our defeated opponents now know and we will no doubt know some day, constituents are not slow to show their displeasure. A few weeks ago, I knocked on one door and asked the gentleman who answered if he had decided for whom he was going to vote. “I like her,” he said. “Her—the Conservative?” I replied. “No, her,” he responded. “What, the Labour candidate?” “Yeah, I like her. I don’t like him much.” “Who?” “Him. I don’t like him.” “What, the Lib Dem?” “Yeah, I don’t like him.” “You mean me?” “I don’t like him.” “That’s me.” “I really don’t like him.” “That’s me!” “What, you?” “Yes.” “Oh. Nothing personal, mate.”
But politics is personal, of course. Not infrequently, it is much too personal, although my Conservative predecessor, Stephen Hammond, and I stayed the right side of the line most of the time. We saw each other as opponents, rather than enemies. At this point, I must pay tribute to Stephen, who was a hard-working and committed constituency MP—due in no small part to the prodigious efforts of his office manager, his wife Sally, who ran a tight ship and a very efficient operation. Quite bizarrely, while Stephen and Sally are now tasked with letting staff go and dismantling that very office, I am kept busy trying to replicate their exact set-up. How is that sensible, efficient or cost effective? Surely it would make more sense for every constituency to have a permanent MP’s office that is staffed by caseworkers who, as in a department of state, move seamlessly, along with the ongoing casework, from the outgoing MP to the incoming MP. But it is what it is.
As liberal Wimbledon’s first ever Liberal MP, I will, despite the distractions, work tirelessly to represent my constituents and their values. As an academic lawyer, I will do all I can to defend the rule of law, which is under threat from our badly neglected and crumbling civil and criminal justice system. In particular, our prisons and probation service are in crisis. May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Prime Minister on the inspired appointment of James Timpson as Prisons Minister? There can be no one better than the chair of the Prison Reform Trust, who has walked the talk throughout his professional life, to lead a national debate on the role of prisons and imprisonment. We need to explore more effective alternatives to prison, including house arrests and curfews, while putting the victim at the heart of the criminal justice system by fully embracing restorative justice—something that I know from personal experience can have a transformative effect on victims, as it did on my family, with the added bonus of dramatically curtailing rates of recidivism.
There is much more I would like to say—for example, about the need to restore neighbourhood policing, which, as the Home Secretary said earlier, was decimated under the previous Government. Somewhat more parochially, there is an urgent need to guarantee the long-term future of Wimbledon police station, which, six years after my judicial review quashed the Mayor of London’s decision to close it, remains under threat, despite the Casey report making it clear that local police stations are critical to the success of neighbourhood policing. But those discussions will have to wait for another day.
To conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I just say that I look forward to working constructively with Members on all sides of the House on these and the many other pressing issues that face us, both now and in the years to come?
