Race Disparity Audit

Debate between Rehman Chishti and Damian Green

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

As the hon. Lady will know from her time in government—it was a pleasure to serve with her—we are unlikely at this stage to leap to such long-term commitments on the basis of information that we have only just gathered. However, she makes a fair point. The underlying point is that this is an issue not only for central Government, but for the private sector. I know that many private sector organisations, some of which were represented at the roundtable event held at Downing Street this morning, are anxious to follow up a lot of the work on trying to reduce the gender pay gap and to address pay gaps among people from different ethnic backgrounds as well.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I applaud the Government’s efforts, because this is the first such audit to be carried out. As chair of the all-party parliamentary groups on Pakistan and on communities engagement, I have consistently raised with the previous and current Prime Ministers the matter of the British Pakistani community falling behind on educational attainment, employment and wages. What will the Government’s strategy be to address that? Will there be effective community engagement so that the answers come from the bottom up?

[Damian Green]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend has a long and honourable record of campaigning in this area. The employment response from the Department for Work and Pensions will be targeted at specific areas, and 20 hotspots where the most difference can be made will be identified. I obviously cannot commit today to saying what those 20 will be, but I would be surprised if the impact was not deliberately designed to help the areas in which those communities tend to live, where the unemployment rate is not as good as it is on average.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rehman Chishti and Damian Green

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The Government have taken a significant number of actions. The hon. Gentleman asked about domestic violence. The Home Secretary has commissioned Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to conduct a comprehensive review, and as result of that review, she has written to every police force to seek their support for the Home Office’s strategy to address HMIC’s findings. He talks about rape victims, and he will know that the 2014 to 2016 rape support fund has provided funding to 80 rape support centres across England and Wales, and that this year the Ministry of Justice is providing funding for two extra rape support centres on top of the 13 set up since 2010.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

In relation to supporting victims of crime and their families, I am delighted that the Secretary of State has now increased the sentence for those who cause death on the road while disqualified from two years to 10 years, which formed part of my Driving Whilst Disqualified (Repeat Offenders) Bill. Linked to that, the Secretary of State said that he would review sentencing for other road traffic matters. When is that likely to start, when will it be complete and will victims be able to have a say?

[Damian Green]

I am grateful for the support of my hon. Friend, who has campaigned long and effectively on this matter. The actions he wishes to see are in the process of being taken now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rehman Chishti and Damian Green

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

8. What progress he has made on the digitisation and modernisation of the criminal justice system.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

The criminal justice system strategy and action plan that I launched in June sets out a clear path for the modernisation and digitisation of the criminal justice system. To drive this work forward, we have secured investment of £160 million, which supports three tranches of transformation: the second phase of the CJS efficiency programme, which will deliver the “digital courtroom”, a new CJS common platform programme and a programme to digitise policing.

[Rehman Chishti]

I thank the Minister for that answer, but will he clarify what key improvements can be expected for victims and witnesses from this modernisation?

[Damian Green]

There are a number of individual actions within the programme that guarantee that. My hon. Friend is right to identify these groups as key people who need to see improvements. I shall pick three examples. First, it will be easier for witnesses to give evidence by video link, which is particularly important for vulnerable witnesses. Secondly, we will extend the successful TrackMyCrime system, which has been developed in Avon and Somerset to give victims the opportunity to follow the progress of their case online. Thirdly, we will pilot section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, which provides for pre-recorded cross-examination for vulnerable witnesses—again, particularly welcome in child sexual exploitation cases.

Police Community Support Officers

Debate between Rehman Chishti and Damian Green

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Damian Green]

I welcome that for two reasons. First, I am committed to trying to improve the diversity, not just of warranted police officers but of PCSOs. I think it was the new president of the Police Superintendents Association who made that point; the police have not moved as far as some other institutions in developing diversity and they need to do better. I am extremely supportive of practical steps to make that happen.

Secondly, the kind of local initiative that the hon. Lady describes is precisely what I want to see. I do not want to sit here—nor have any other policing Minister—dictating to different forces around the country what their priorities must be. Initiatives that come from the bottom up through the forces themselves at the behest of the PCCs will be the best way to ensure that each force is responsive to the local needs of its community. I am happy to welcome that initiative of the Gwent police. I had a good visit there a few months ago, seeing what they were doing to engage with the community in Newport. It is clearly an innovative force.

Providing visibility on the streets is also a key strength of the role of PCSOs. According to the results of the recent crime survey for England and Wales, over half of all adults say that they see the police or PCSOs on foot patrol in their local area at least every month. There are some very inspiring stories of what individual PCSOs are doing to engage with and respond to the individual needs of their communities.

In the Isles of Scilly, PCSO Bev Faull has been awarded a citation for her work with migrant workers. For the past three years, she has focused on helping the county’s eastern European migrants, effectively planning and running multi-agency operations to tackle exploitation of workers in west Cornwall.

In Shinfield, near Reading in Berkshire, Suzie Carr was awarded Thames Valley’s PCSO of the year, in recognition of the excellent community relationships she built while launching her “Wrong place, wrong time” youth project. It is interesting to note that the award scheme is by public vote, so she was praised by the local residents of the community in which she patrols for the positive impact of her work.

I have one final example from Solihull. Riccardo Gambino was named the region’s PCSO of the year for setting up 13 neighbourhood watch schemes during 2012. What is interesting about Mr Gambino is that he was a police officer for 11 years but gave up his warrant to become a PCSO because he thought that he could better serve his community as a PCSO, specifically because what was most important to him was the emphasis on engagement.

Those are three very good examples of the work undertaken by PCSOs. As of September 2012, there were nearly 14,500 PCSOs, and I am confident that each of them is taking positive steps to engage with their community, having an impact on people’s lives. It is a back-to-roots role, unique within the police service for its emphasis on accessibility and engagement, acting as a complement to, not a replacement for, the enforcement role of sworn warranted officers. That gets to the heart of the hon. Gentleman’s point, because we are determined to maintain the difference of the role.

Of course, there might well be changes and there have been changes in the past. We believe strongly in delegating local funding decisions, for example, to PCCs, which is why the neighbourhood policing fund, which historically funded such officers, is subsumed into the police main grant from next month. It will then be for police and crime commissioners, in consultation with individual chief constables, to take decisions on resourcing and deployment of PCSOs based on local assessments of need and risk. That is right, and I anticipate that this will make forces even more responsive to local concerns and priorities.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

The Minister says that it will be up to police and crime commissioners to make decisions about the needs of their communities. Will he pay tribute to the Kent police and crime commissioner, Ann Barnes, who is increasing PCSOs by 60 as well as having an extra 20 police constables on the streets of Kent?

[Damian Green]

As a fellow Kent MP, I am delighted that we will have more PCSOs and police officers on the streets of Kent in the coming years. I am happy to join my hon. Friend in his remarks.

I will now move on to the powers available to PCSOs, which are, as the hon. Member for Wrexham said, set out in the Police Reform Act 2002. All PCSOs are issued with 20 standard powers that enable them to deal with antisocial and nuisance behaviour in neighbourhoods. In addition, there is a list of discretionary powers that can be designated to PCSOs by chief constables in response to local requirements. The discretionary nature of the additional powers is important and goes to the heart of the notion of neighbourhood policing, which, at its core, is to ensure that policing responds to the needs of local communities. Discretionary powers ensure that PCSOs are flexible, as they bestow on chief constables the authority to take the necessary steps to ensure that their PCSOs are suitably empowered to deal with the issues that are of most concern to local residents. The Government believe that these limited and flexible powers are one of the key strengths of PCSOs, providing them with the time and space necessary to get to know their local area and actively to engage and build relationships with communities.

I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that the powers available to PCSOs remain under constant review, and we are always willing to look at ideas, but we need to ensure we strike the right balance and do not overburden them. The Government welcome consideration of revisions to the powers where it is clear that they will enhance, rather than undermine, this important role. The draft Anti-Social Behaviour Bill, for example, proposes the introduction of a new dispersal power for PCSOs. That will replace two existing powers and will allow uniformed police officers and PCSOs to direct a person who has committed, or is likely to commit, antisocial behaviour to leave a specified area and not return for a specified period of up to 48 hours.

We must be cautious not to overburden PCSOs with powers that could introduce bureaucracy to the role, taking them away from providing the visible presence on the streets that we want. Extending the scope of existing PCSO powers could introduce to the role an unwelcome element of confrontation that is associated with the power of arrest and is outside the PCSO’s unique role. Many, in fact, see the power of arrest as a last—not a first—resort, preferring instead to focus on being proactive and preventive. Therefore, we need to ensure that we give full consideration to the issues around extending PCSO powers.

That lies at the heart of what might fall between the hon. Member for Wrexham and me. He quoted selectively from part of the letter that I wrote to him last November, so it falls to me to read the rest of it. He is right that I said that

“the principal role for PCSOs is as part of neighbourhood policing teams, connecting and engaging with their local community, as opposed to managing parking restrictions which is a matter for the Local Authority.”

He generously acknowledged that that is indeed the role of the local authority. I continued by saying that extending PCSO powers risks undermining that central role. From the letter he wrote on its behalf, I appreciate that Offa community council would want that power, but I said in my letter that that

“may not be true for all communities and legislating for such a change at a national level would not necessarily be uncontroversial.”