Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Drax and Mike Penning

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

Let me say that I know from experience that some duties can be done once people have passed their phase 1 training. That certainly was done back in my time in 1974 when there was a Labour Government. If we are trying to recruit people, we need money, but Labour wants to cut money, and we need to be part of NATO, but the Labour party leadership wants to take us out of it. That is something that we would never do, but if they want to undermine our armed forces, they should do just that.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend to his place, and I would like to touch on Navy recruitment, if I may. Will he quash these rumours that we will not have enough trained sailors to man both our aircraft carriers when they are launched?

[Mike Penning]

We have not hidden the fact that it is very difficult to make sure that we do everything we possibly can, but we will do that. I was on the Queen Elizabeth only the week before last and I watched our other aircraft carrier being built. When the particular moment comes, we will have the crews and these carriers will be the pride of the Navy.

Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Richard Drax and Mike Penning

Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

This issue has been very close to my heart for some time. For instance, we have a real issue coming down the line with a shortage of heavy goods vehicle drivers, and yet some 40% of the armed forces leave with an HGV licence, as I did.

Many fire services around the country have not been recruiting recently, although I understand that some have started to recruit now, but the police are most certainly recruiting. The Metropolitan police have brought in the right policy of making sure that people serving in the police force in London can represent their community, so they come from the community they live in. When the commissioner first proposed this and said that it was the right thing to do, I said, “Be very careful, because you would have excluded me from joining the Met. Although I grew up in Edmonton, you would have said that I’d been away for five years and so would not be allowed to join the police force.”

The rule has been changed, and, quite rightly, the police force in London will now allow someone to join even if they have been in the armed forces for some time. This is a very important area, especially as the police are now recruiting extensively. Only the other day, I took the passing out parade at Hendon, with over 200 officers. I think that in excess of 2,000 officers are coming through training in London imminently.

Perhaps because of my background in the military and in the fire service, I understand that neither organisation likes change. I listened to the arguments made earlier about why there was opposition to PCCs possibly taking control of the fire service in a managerial way, in the same way as they took over from the police authorities. It is almost an identical argument that says, “What experience do they have? Surely it’s better that we let the councillors who have sat on the committee for 20 years, with all that experience, do it.”

The introduction of PCCs was fundamentally opposed by Her Majesty’s Opposition—I understand why—who had it in their manifesto to abolish them. They did not win the election for many reasons, not least because people such as Vera Baird and Paddy Tipping are excellent PCCs in their parts of the world. Vera Baird has absolutely transformed victim support in her part of the world, as have many others. I know the candidates up there will say, “You shouldn’t name names”, but actually we should give praise where it is due. There have been good independents. I want Conservative PCCs to win in every single seat, but we have to be pragmatic, and if others are elected, then let us make sure that we can work together.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) touched on the concerns about whether PCCs have the necessary experience. Some PCCs do have lots of experience within the police force, but that is not necessarily relevant. When the Prime Minister appointed me as shipping Minister, I said, “You do realise, Prime Minister, that my constituency is the furthest away from the sea in the whole country?” He said, “Yes, but you should question whether the way things have always been done is the right way.”

I use the example of armed guards on ships. When I arrived at the Department for Transport, we were having massive problems with Somali pirates. I simply said, “Why hasn’t the Royal Navy been able to do that job with the Marines—no navy in the whole world is more capable—and so allow people to protect their property?” So we convinced other countries and the International Maritime Organisation that we should allow that. I did not look at that from the perspective of a shipping person; I looked at it as an outside individual who was trying to say, “Let these people have an opportunity to do that.” That idea had been looked at by people who were much more experienced than I was in shipping, and it had been rejected on more than one occasion because it was not possible. I came in from the outside and said that it was possible.

[Richard Drax]

I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way. I think that he misunderstood me: I was not saying that a PCC should or should not be a police officer. Some are, and some are not. I was saying that I had concerns about the powers that they have to appoint and sack police officers, who may have had 25 or 30 years’ experience. I think that that role should be left to the Home Office and the Home Secretary.

[Mike Penning]

I understand where my hon. Friend is coming from. That is a bit of a different issue, and not part of what we are talking about. There is a disciplinary process to go through, which is now, quite rightly, transparent as a result of other measures in the Bill.

Amendments 3 to 6, tabled by Her Majesty’s Opposition, would decimate the PCCs’ role. I know exactly why the shadow Minister has tabled them, because we had a very similar debate in Committee. The shadow Minister knows full well that I will not accept them, and if she presses them to a Division, we will attempt to vote them down.

In principle, we completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) on amendment 2. We need to do some work around it to ensure that it encapsulates titles other than the PCC, and we can work together on it before the Bill goes to the Lords, where we will introduce a Government amendment that will be very similar to amendment 2 but will be drafted in such a way as to make sure that no consequential issues arise.

Police Funding Formula

Debate between Richard Drax and Mike Penning

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

The National Audit Office suggested that that would be the case, and we have to accept that. That does not mean tomorrow morning, next week or next month when those figures are produced, that suddenly from that night on there is a 5 million or 6 million increase, or whatever the figure is, because it is happening to us all in our constituencies now. The difference is that we are going to publish it—the only way we can do this is to be honest about it and publish it. I do not know why previous Ministers did not publish that information in previous Administrations—believe it or not, I am not allowed to see those figures, because we are not allowed to do due diligence on what went on in previous Governments, and we are not allowed to see that guidance. I think it is because initially this issue was not taken seriously enough, and then people started to realise that it is actually a very difficult figure to pull together.

[Richard Drax]

I know from my constituency that Dorset is working with Devon and Cornwall, and other police forces are looking at how they run their blue- light services, including the ambulance service and fire brigade. Is the Minister saying that only when everyone has had a look at this issue in their various areas and come up with some joint policy that uses our resources and money better will he be able to say, “Okay, now we have various people doing different things. Now I will come up with some funding allocation”?

[Mike Penning]

I hope I did not say that because that is not what I intended to say. I intended to say that forces that have already collaborated should not be worse off by anything that we bring forward. The chiefs are doing their own capability review across policing—the collaboration with other services is a slightly different thing. Once I know where that delivery point will be and, in other words, where they think the services will be—they could be in ROCUs or local collaboration, as in my hon. Friend’s part of the country, or within the NCA, or within a force—we will have a basis for coming forward with a fairer formula.

Police Funding Formula

Debate between Richard Drax and Mike Penning

Monday 9th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Even those of us who have been here quite a long time get things wrong as well.

The first I knew of the letter was Friday.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I, too, commend my right hon. Friend for halting the process. May I also put in this plea for Dorset police, who have been at the lowest end of the funding for many years, that rurality and tourism in particular will be very much in my right hon. Friend’s mind when eventually we do get to sorting out the formula?

[Mike Penning]

One distinct advantage of being here today and making the statement is that we are starting the process again and everybody will, naturally, put the case for their own parts of the world, which my hon. Friend did really well.

Police

Debate between Richard Drax and Mike Penning

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend pre-empts my speech, as I intend to end my remarks on future funding. The Policing Minister and I have spoken about that, as has our PCC—he is on the Minister’s board, which is excellent news.

I seek reassurance from the Minister that year-on-year savings of 6% are not on the cards, for the reasons I have already expressed. As far as the PCC’s office is concerned, such savings would have an effect on community policing, on PCSOs and on the very nature of policing as we know it currently. That would be inevitable because the resources would be fewer and would have to be targeted in a very different way.

Crime is falling, and for that I pay tribute once again to the Government and to our police officers, those brave men and women who are out there doing their best to reduce crime, and obviously succeeding. However, the nature of crime is changing. I have been told that Dorset police are now dealing far more with cybercrime, forced marriage, slavery, domestic abuse and child sexual exploitation—[Interruption.] The Minister jests from a sedentary position that it is all happening in Dorset, but Dorset is not the sleepy backwater that perhaps he thinks it is.

Those sorts of crimes cost 25% more to investigate than old-style crimes. As the Minister has said, the number of burglaries has dropped, but one of my constituents recently lost £93,000 in a telephone scam. Someone pretending to be a policeman got him to move that sum from his bank account to another, and for reasons that I will not go into now he lost the lot. An investigation is now taking place. I imagine that the criminals are thoroughly well organised and probably have their fingers right across the cyber network, so it will take an awful lot of police time and effort to bring them to court. We in this place are making it clear, as of course are the police, that those sorts of crimes must be reported. Following the ghastly revelations in Rotherham and elsewhere, it is clear that it has never been more important for people to come forward and tell the police what is going on.

I will end my remarks by talking about the funding formula. I have lobbied the Policing Minister hard on that on many occasions, and I know that he has listened to Martyn Underhill, our PCC. I am most grateful that Mr Underhill will be sitting on the Minister’s board when the funding formula is reviewed in the summer. I note that tourism, which of course affects Dorset and many other beautiful counties, including Cornwall, is not taken into account. I know that the Minister knows that, but with budgets tightening and savings having to be made, those sorts of considerations must be taken into account so that Dorset police and other forces in rural areas that attract vast numbers of visitors can continue to police their counties.

Finally, the Minister and others talk about innovation. I have seen huge innovation in Dorset, not least the increased co-operation with other forces in the south-west. However, I suggest that rather than allowing police forces to go off on their own to try to find the best way forward, a more cohesive approach—

[Mike Penning]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. They are not going off on their own. The Home Office testing laboratories, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Ministry of Justice, which I have the honour of working in, are working together on type approvals. We pilot them in certain areas so that we can then roll out best practice in other parts of the country. That is the best way to get the biggest bang for our buck, and I will make sure that we get it right. That is exactly what my hon. Friend is asking for.

[Richard Drax]

I am most grateful to the Minister, but perhaps I was talking about co-operation on a bigger scale. For example, Dorset police are now co-operating with Devon and Cornwall police, and there is also an area collaboration. Perhaps leadership is the wrong word to use. We need a more cohesive and co-ordinated approach between the Government and the police—if we are to go on facing these savings, and I quite understand why we will—rather than allowing individual county police forces to go off and experiment. We need a bigger debate on how to provide policing in this country so that we all move forward together in the most cost-effective way and, as the Minister said, get the best value for money.

I will end my remarks by once again paying tribute to the brave men and women on our streets in Dorset. We are all totally indebted to those brave men and women who soldier on. I hope that in future we can take the politics—the bitterness and envy—out of debates on policing. Let us deal with the facts and then try to produce a police force in this country that does the job within the stretched resources that sadly we now face.

Coastguard Modernisation

Debate between Richard Drax and Mike Penning

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

As I said in my statement, there is almost no difference in the cost savings—the cost is in staff. May I say to the hon. Lady that under the proposals that I inherited only one out of the three centres in Wales would have stayed open and there would have been 10 staff in Wales, whereas there are 46 with my announcement today?

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I know that the Minister will appreciate, because we have sent many submissions to him that Portland coastguard should remain open, how devastated my constituents are that this decision has been made. Will he reassure me and my constituents that if the trial at Fareham does not meet expectations, reopening the Portland centre will be at the top of the agenda?

[Mike Penning]

I thank my hon. Friend for reiterating the importance to his constituents of Portland. However, I am sure that he would join me in saying that the front-line emergency personnel—the volunteers—are the most important people here and their resilience and ability to do their job is the most important thing. We will be able to enhance their training and enhance the pay in our coastguard co-ordination centres. Not in a million years could I have been able to afford to build the facility in Fareham. It was folly of the previous Government to do so and I will utilise that building to its best abilities.

Marine Operations (Weymouth)

Debate between Richard Drax and Mike Penning

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Richard Drax]

Bearing in mind that we have only 10 minutes left, we all understand where we are in the history. The issue now is whether the Minister can offer any light on whether he will move the new MOC from the favoured location in Solent to us. Our place has the history and environment to support such a centre. We also have buildings ready to go, which will save much money. That is what my constituents are looking for guidance on.

[Mike Penning]

I apologise, but I was answering the questions that my hon. Friend raised about local knowledge, resilience and so on. I have 10 minutes, and I assure him that I can answer his question.

We decided that we would change to a pairing system in which one of the pairs would be dropped, the two extremities—the Western Isles and Shetland, which were never paired before—would stay in 24-hour operation and we would drop one of the MOC national headquarters, because in the end, I could not condone how much two would have cost. We went to a second consultation on four specific points: whether Swansea or Milford Haven would close, whether Liverpool or Holyhead would close, whether the Western Isles and Shetland should run 24 hours and whether there should be one or two MOCs. That consultation has just finished.

I have listened carefully to the points that my hon. Friend has made—in his position as a Back Bencher, I would do exactly the same—but if I stood here today and said that I was willing to reconsider, I would have to reopen the whole consultation process, because this topic was not part of the consultation. To make that decision, I would have to consider several things. We said in the original consultation that we would like the MOC to be in the Portsmouth-Southampton area, for logical reasons. The MCA has a large footprint in that part of the country, particularly in Gosport at Daedalus and at its own headquarters. From a cost perspective, there was an obvious logic to building a new MOC headquarters on existing Department for Transport facilities, which is why we chose that model.

It would be difficult for me to change my mind in light of what I received from the people of Weymouth and my hon. Friend during the second consultation. I would have to change my decisions after not only the first but the second consultation and then reopen the consultation process on the MOC. I could not do that. It would not be cost-effective given the efficiencies that we need, particularly as we already have a large estate footprint available.

I am happy to be here to represent the Government and say where we are. I hope that I have answered most of my hon. Friend’s questions. Although I understand that he is, rightly, representing his constituents—I am also pleased to see the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) here; as another Minister, he will understand—I cannot give that light at the end of the rainbow and open up the whole process all over again for a further consultation. The reasons why we came to our previous conclusions still exist. All the premises in the Weymouth area to which my hon. Friend refers are premises that we do not own. Other Departments might, but we do not, and we would have to do an analysis.

MCA headquarters are in the area where we propose to build. We might put the MOC within that building so as not to expand our empire, which I am trying desperately to avoid. We may be able to facilitate that. The Daedalus site in Gosport is huge, and the Department for Transport uses little of it; it already operates on a helicopter basis, and we own it.

I know this is difficult. I am the bearer of bad news. As a Minister, I always try to be as positive and helpful as I can with colleagues across the House, but I do not want to give my hon. Friend and his constituents the feeling that it is possible that we might change our minds and reopen the consultation on where the MOC will go, mostly because that was not part of the second consultation in the first place. The decision where to put the MOC was based on the first consultation; the only relevant decision in the second was whether to have one MOC or two.

I know that that will disappoint my hon. Friend and his constituents, but I reiterate that the issue of local knowledge in people who rescue was addressed many years ago in adaptations to the pairing system. Some stations have been down for months while work was being done on them, and the other stations have coped. However, what they could never do, to go back to an earlier point, was be controlled centrally by division or brigade headquarters—or even regimental; the numbers are not huge—and provide the sort of pay, training and promotion prospects that we would all like for anybody working within our constituencies.

Part of this is about money—there is no argument about that; I have had to make considerable savings in the Department—but actually, it is about resilience. The ex-Second Sea Lord is the chief executive. He has served his country all his life. The chief coastguard has been in the coastguard for most of his working life. They would not be sitting with me discussing the plan if we thought that there was a danger. There is a danger in leaving things as they are. We will phase in the changes. We are not going to wake up one morning to find it has all been switched off and closed. We will ensure that the IT and the communications systems in particular work before we phase out.

Understandably, staff members are leaving the MCA at the moment, particularly at the stations earmarked for closure. I cannot blame them. They are quality people; other jobs are becoming available, and they are taking them. However, I cannot recruit new people to those coastguard stations knowing full well that I am going to close them. We will look carefully at manning levels, but some stations might close slightly earlier than predicted, simply because we cannot man them.

[Richard Drax]

I hear the Minister’s argument. Clearly, my constituents and I do not agree, but we are listening to him. It is his decision, and he is saying that there is absolutely no chance. If that is the case in black and white—“Forget it”—it would be useful to hear that. Also, can he give any reassurance that our rescue helicopter on Portland will be there for the foreseeable future and is not under threat?

[Mike Penning]

I cannot say anything about the helicopters because, as I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, a criminal investigation of the procurement process is ongoing. At the moment, we do not know where our helicopters are likely to be. The Ministry of Defence has decided to withdraw, so it will be a civilian matter run through the Department for Transport and the MCA.

I did not want to be this brutal and straightforward, but I must. Where to put the MCA in the south was not part of the second consultation. That decision has been made. It will be in the Solent area. Although I respect enormously the work done by the community for the second consultation, I am afraid that that matter was not part of the second consultation, and sadly, I am not willing to reopen the consultation.