Neighbourhood Policing: West Midlands

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered funding for neighbourhood policing in the West Midlands.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I am delighted to have the opportunity to lead today’s debate. I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) for securing this debate, and for allowing me to open in his stead. I congratulate him on his appointment to the shadow Home Office team; I know he will be a great champion for the safety and security of our communities in that brief. He has been doing an outstanding job in raising the issue of the lack of policing in the west midlands. I also thank colleagues who have joined us this afternoon to discuss this timely and important topic. We are holding this debate to discuss police funding for the west midlands and to argue for our region to get the fair funding that it needs and deserves.

The west midlands has the fourth highest rate of crime in the country. This Government have been in power for a long time—11 years, to be exact. When they were re-elected in 2019, it was on a promise to level up every region in the United Kingdom. Nowhere needs that more than the west midlands, which has lost out terribly from policing cuts over the past decade, and where many of our communities have been blighted by crime.

We all know the Government’s record here, particularly on the delivery of justice for victims; we have plummeted to record lows in the last decade. Between 2010, when the last Labour Administration were in government, and 2020, the percentage of crimes that ended in a charge or court summons was halved. The delivery of justice for victims of violent offences is even worse. Someone who has been robbed is half as likely to see the culprits charged or taken to court—down from 19% to 8.2%. For violence against the person, charge rates are four times lower than they were a decade ago. Some 98% of reported rape cases do not result in a charge. What does that say to women?

That is where we are after a decade in which the Conservatives have cut 20,000 police officers from our forces. We have seen central Government grants to the police fall by 30% in real terms, and forces are increasingly relying on income raised through council tax, known as the police precept. Police have also been forced to make more use of reserve funding—money set aside for unforeseen spending—and have had to sell off capital assets, including police stations, to help to raise funds. Between 400 and 600 police stations were closed between 2010 and 2018 by the Conservatives, in addition to the loss of 20,000 officers.

We on this side of the House know that cuts have consequences. That kind of capacity, experience and expertise cannot be replaced overnight. The Prime Minister pledged to recruit an extra 20,000 officers by 2022 and, since then, only 11,000 extra officers have been recruited. Truly, only the Tories could cut 20,000 police officers, watch crime rates soar, recruit 11,000 officers, pat themselves on the back and say, “Job well done.”

In the west midlands, we have had 2,221 officers cut and £175 million slashed from our budgets since 2010. At the same time, there have been huge cuts to the services that are vital to preventing crime in the first place, such as youth clubs, mental health services, local council funding and probation services. The police are also having to respond to complex and serious crimes, ranging from human trafficking to sexual crimes against children, which are becoming increasingly common. Despite that, the Government’s much-trumpeted uplift programme promises to restore only 1,200 officers to our region, leaving us 1,000 short of where we were. Is that levelling up? No, it is not—the people of the west midlands would say so too.

The situation has been absolutely frightening for some of our constituents. In one case that I had recently, two masked men broke into the home of an elderly lady in my area and tried to rob her. A neighbour’s light came on, they were disturbed, and they ran off, but I cannot imagine just how petrified she was. The police officer who responded did his absolute best; he gave her advice on changing her locks, and so on, but when asked how she could possibly feel safe and secure—how she could be sure that they would not come back—he could only say to her that she could move in with her relatives. That is deeply unacceptable.

I remember working on the case of another lady who was pulling into her driveway when a man ran over and stole her bag out of her passenger seat. She called the police and gave them a description of the man and his getaway car, but without CCTV, they said there was not much more that they could do. They did not have the resources to prioritise it and the case was NFA’d—no further action was taken. We hear this all the time.

I cited some of the most appalling national statistics on charge rates earlier. Is it not incredible that in the UK, the CCTV capital of Europe, our charge rates are so appallingly low? Many of our constituents see the rise in violent crime in their areas, and they are scared. Violent crime is rising, with conviction rates at record lows. Gangs with machetes on the streets are not uncommon, as is knife crime. Is this the new norm? The Conservatives have become the party of crime and disorder. To keep our communities safe and restore confidence, we need to bring back neighbourhood policing. Constituents say to me all the time that they barely see officers on their streets and that they do not know their officers’ names. They do not know whom to call and are instead directed to online reporting.

So stretched have services been that the police are constantly reacting, making trade-offs on what to prioritise, and doing less and less proactive work. They are not able to build relationships or undertake vital preventive work and early interventions with young people, which we know are so effective. Neighbourhood policing is what many police officers proudly tell me they want to be doing more of—being a trusted presence within the community, working closely with people and using a range of problem-solving skills to address community issues, which we know have worked in the last decades. It is about providing a visible deterrent to people who think they can commit crime and get away with it.

Under the Conservatives, criminals have never had it so good, which is why I back the plan for the new West Midlands police and crime commissioner, Simon Foster, to put boots back on the ground with 450 extra neighbourhood police officers, guaranteeing that officers are based in all our local areas and ensuring that victims of crime are always a top priority and can access timely advice, care and support. Clearly, the funding situation is not easy for West Midlands police, but it is right to direct investment into more officers on the ground, rather than maintaining empty stations. Bricks and mortar, without people, do not stop crimes, but this is a situation of the Government’s own making.

Let us be clear that officers are much needed. There are rising levels of theft and robbery, and devastating cuts to preventive and mental health services have left the police to pick up more and more of the pieces, with less time to spend fighting crime. The College of Policing estimates that 2% to 20% of incidents reported to the police are linked to mental health issues. Under this Government, neighbourhood policing numbers in our region have been decimated, dropping from 1,821 to 760 between 2010 and 2018. Police community support officer numbers also fell, from 811 in 2010 to 464 in 2021.

Given the expectation that a new policing funding settlement will come out on Thursday, we have called today’s debate to make a last-ditch plea to Ministers to give our region the funding it needs. I work closely with my local police and have nothing but admiration for their selfless service, bravery and professionalism, but they are being let down. The west midlands is not getting a fair share. It is patently unfair that forces with lower crime rates, such as nearby Warwickshire, have increased their police numbers over the past decade, whereas our region could still be left 1,000 officers short under the Government’s uplift plans. With the new funding settlement on Thursday, my question to the Minister is very simple: will he give West Midlands police the fair funding that they need? Will he hear the pleas of our constituents who feel let down by the Government and give our forces a fighting chance?

--- Later in debate ---

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I am sorry that the Minister decided to go off track in his response. In any event, I am grateful to him. I thank all the hon. Members who took part in the debate, which made it clear that at the centre of the issue are families and others across the west midlands who have felt left behind, and who deserve a fair police funding settlement. I hope the funding settlement will reflect that.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood]

The Minister did not clarify the point about the management of West Midlands police. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services said:

“The force is good at strategic planning, organisational management and providing value for money.”

That includes the input of both the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable in the west midlands. I will not see West Midlands police run down in that manner.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered funding for neighbourhood policing in the West Midlands.

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend has raised this issue on many previous occasions, and he knows that I have engaged very closely on it. Now that we have the time and space with regard to the further development of policy, I want to work with him and, indeed, other parts of government to develop these proposals. There is still more work to be done. We have two failing-to-prevent offences in the realms of tax evasion and bribery. We need to understand the learning from those in order to apply those principles to any future further economic crime offence.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Women are more likely to be imprisoned for non-violent offences and to receive ineffective short sentences of six months or less, and children whose mothers are sent to prison are more likely than their peers to have future problems. With 17,000 children separated from their mothers each year in England and Wales, what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the safeguarding and welfare of children is prioritised in criminal courts?

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Lady makes a really important point about dependants and the effect of a custodial sentence on the mother of those children. That is why we are ensuring that in pre-sentence reports a checklist is filled out to ensure that the appropriate things are taken into account when a woman is sentenced, one of which will be the effect on her dependants.

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. I think she would agree that it is difficult to extrapolate trends from an individual case, however concerning and deeply distressing that case was. I think the lesson is that knife crime respects and knows no class or race boundaries. We should not stigmatise this, particularly outside London, as a crime that is exclusively based upon any racial profile—that is wrong. However, I take the point that she makes and clearly we need to look carefully across the piece as to whether we are sometimes being a bit shy—institutionally shy—about addressing knife crime in some of the less typical places.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

3. For what reasons the proportion of rape cases that result in conviction has declined since 2010.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Philp)]

The latest CPS figures from the “Violence Against Women and Girls Report 2018-19” show that the conviction rate for those cases taken to court has increased from 58% in the previous year to 63% in the year ending March 2019. However, the number of cases reaching court, which peaked in 2015, has declined significantly, which is a substantial cause for concern. A number of steps are being taken to address that, including recruiting 20,000 extra police officers and giving the CPS £85 million a year in additional funding.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Many women, including many survivors of rape and sexual violence, have lost confidence in our justice system, due partly to the appallingly low rate of prosecution for rape. Women’s organisations are calling on the Government to launch a fully independent review of how the justice system handles rape cases. Will the Minister take this opportunity to join Labour in committing to deliver on that?

[Chris Philp]

A review by a sub-committee of the Criminal Justice Board is already under way and is due to report in spring next year—in just a few months’ time. That will be accompanied by an action plan, which is clearly needed, as the hon. Lady’s question pointed out. Just a few weeks ago, the Government announced additional funding for the victims of sexual violence; that extra £5 million a year is a 50% increase, bringing annual spending to £13 million a year to support victims of these crimes in exactly the way that the hon. Lady rightly describes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

I was very pleased to speak to my hon. Friend about this matter. As he knows, I have offered to meet him and others, and I will be very pleased to do that.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

T6. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that ordinary people are not priced out of accessing proper legal advice and representation by the civil legal aid means test?

[Wendy Morton]

Access to legal aid is an important part of our justice system. In the past year, £1.6 billion was paid in legal advice. The Government remain committed to giving people access to legal aid when they need it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

A few weeks ago I visited my local law centre in Blackpool, the Fylde Coast Advice and Legal Centre, and saw the excellent work that it does. The centre that the hon. Lady mentioned is on my “to visit” list, so staff there will be seeing me imminently. She makes the important point that we need to bring early legal advice as close as possible to the individual’s front door, and not wait for matters to reach the court door. We are committed in our legal support action plan to looking into how law centres can best be utilised to deliver on that agenda, so I am keen to hear what staff have to say to me when I get to meet them.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

14. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the service provided by family courts to survivors of rape and domestic abuse and their children.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Paul Maynard)]

We are determined to improve the family justice response to vulnerable parents and children, including victims of rape and domestic abuse. An expert panel has been established to help us better to understand victims’ experiences in the family courts, and we will hold a public call for evidence to build a more detailed picture of any harm caused during or following proceedings.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

One of the most senior family court judges has described it as “shaming” to preside over so many cases where individuals are being forced to represent themselves because of the impact of legal aid cuts, especially as we should be minimising harm to children of victims of domestic violence. This really should be a central concern of our justice system. Is the Minister shamed by the effects of his Government’s policy?

[Paul Maynard]

What we are seeking to do with the panel that we have set up is make sure that we reappraise the incremental changes that have occurred over time and understand how that has impacted on practice in the courts. I am very keen to see what the panel has to say. It is independent, and I am not trying to pre-judge its outcomes at all, but I hope that it comes up with a series of short-term changes that we can make immediately. Areas of further work may be required.

Road Safety and the Legal Framework

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. Let me take the opportunity to contextualise the debate by showing the real impact of unsafe road behaviour when appropriate action is not taken. We should all aim for zero deaths and injuries on our roads and pavements, and the only way to achieve that is by supporting road safety with practical investment and appropriate legislation.

On Saturday, I attended a beautiful service at St Martin’s church at Birmingham’s first World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. I was extremely honoured to have been invited to the event by RoadPeace. It was touching to remember all those who have lost their lives. Since the day was first commemorated 25 years ago, more than 30 million people have died on the world’s roads, including in the horrific scenes in my constituency last year in which six people were killed.

To bring focus to the issue and to the need for strong and fair judicial structures around road safety, I would like to read an extract from the poem that I read this weekend alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey):

“This is not the way things were supposed to be

To stare at a plaque with the words ‘Remember me’

And be filled with thoughts of you.

It had seemed that time was limitless, and there was still so much to say;

It had never occurred that one so full of life could be confined to yesterday.

Back then, road deaths were just stories to us,

small segments on the news,

And we never quite understood all the fuss;

Until we became the next family to walk in those shoes.”

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

In one terrible 24-hour period, three young people and four others were seriously injured on Greater Manchester roads. Our road traffic laws are failing to deliver justice or promote road safety. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must review road safety in its entirety and ensure that we have measures to protect vulnerable road users such as those who have been killed in Greater Manchester?

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I absolutely agree.

The poem that I have just read was written by Lucy Harrison, the sister of my constituent. She lost her brother when a car going at 93 mph hit him as he crossed the road. Having had him taken from them, his family had to go through a trial and the Court of Appeal before the driver who caused the crash, and who had failed to stop, was given a sentence of four and a half years. The driver is now due to be released after serving just two years.

One point that Lucy has raised is that people talk about the incident as an accident. These crashes are not accidents. Road safety legislation is in place to make sure that people feel safe on and around our roads. If someone breaks the law and commits a crime on the road, we must call it what it is. She is therefore calling for tougher sentencing and a change in society’s perception of death by dangerous driving.

Any road policy designed to keep all road and pavement users safe, regardless of their mode of transport, requires an effective road justice system. A year on from the announcement of tougher sentences for drivers who kill, the Government have failed to introduce legislation. Families of road crash victims across the UK are still waiting for justice. As Lucy says, people need to see that her brother

“was a human with a family, not just a statistic, because it can just be like another road death where he became a statistic or a story.”

On behalf of Lucy, Tony Worth and the many other families of victims, I urge the Government to deliver justice for road crash victims and keep the dangerous drivers off the road.

Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

Tackling drugs in prisons involves dealing with how the drugs get into the prison—either over the wall or on a person—the demand in the prison and the way that we search people within the walls. All these things need to be done simultaneously—supply, demand and searching—and the key to this is training, training, training.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

T7. Following the question from the hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy), campaigners supporting missing people and their families are concerned, despite assurances that a timetable for implementation of the Guardianship (Missing Persons) Act 2017 would be set out before the summer. Will the Minister give the families the assurance of a specific timetable for the implementation of this vital Act and clarify when the rules of court will be published?

[Edward Argar]

I entirely understand the concern of the hon. Lady, many hon. Members and many members of the public about this issue and their determination to see this delivered. I share that determination, but it is important that, while we work at pace, we ensure that the rules of court are correct. I am determined to make sure that we do everything we can to speed it up.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

There is, and that is why it is all the more important—perhaps unusually so—for Government to talk quietly with the judiciary to find out what they are saying. They cannot compromise their independence, but those of us who are in touch with them want to make sure that the Government understand the root of their concerns. I am sure that there is a constructive way forward on that.

I know that the Solicitor General will be aware of the problem, because it was referred to in the Justice Committee’s report in the last Parliament. I also draw his attention to the concerns raised by Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the recently retired Lord Chief Justice, in the evidence that he gave only a couple of days before he retired from that post. He gave a pretty clear steer on the sort of thing that could be helpful and posited various types of language. I hope that the Solicitor General accepts that we need to look further at the matter, and I hope that we can do that constructively as we take the Bill forward.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many of my constituents and the businesses in my constituency have raised the importance of a transitional period. The UK transition will inevitably bring with it changes to the way in which goods and services are traded between the UK and the EU, and, although businesses on both sides are beginning to anticipate and plan for change, the scope and nature of the changes are as yet unclear. The consequences could range from moderate to significant disruption to current rights and freedoms. The issue goes far beyond banking and impacts on any business that sells goods or services between the UK and the EU.

The negotiation of a new future relationship is a process separate from the article 50 negotiations, and at present there is no indication that a new long-term agreement on trade and services will be in place at the point of exit. Businesses in the UK and the EU face three unknowns: what the future will look like, when the arrangement will be in place and what will happen in the period between the end of the current EU framework and the start of the future framework. That is why transitional arrangements are essential to avoid a damaging cliff-edge effect at the point of exit.

Businesses, customers and regulators will need time to adapt and settle into a new framework. A transition period would reduce the risk of businesses making potentially premature decisions about the structure of their operations. This is why negotiating and embedding transitional arrangements in a withdrawal agreement between the UK and the EU would give both sides a greater degree of visibility and certainty in planning for the future. Clause 6 of the Bill makes it clear that the UK courts will not need to keep even half an eye on the case law of the ECJ. In legislative terms, this is as clear a statement as we can get that the UK courts will not have to follow ECJ decisions, directly or indirectly, post-Brexit.