Reopening Local Police Stations

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) on securing this important debate. His speech was incredibly insightful, because we could all relate to it, and I will pick up on some of his points as I make progress.

The safety of local people is perhaps the greatest priority for any Government of any party. We now have devolution in West Yorkshire: in Keighley, which I represent, our new West Yorkshire Mayor now has the powers to form a police and crime plan and strategy, and has the remit of looking at that plan and working out where new police stations should be or where closures should not happen.

Of course it is right that people have confidence in their own security, whether they are at home or walking down their local high street or through their community. I believe that local police stations with a noticeable police presence play a key role in achieving that. My constituency has sadly experienced its own problems with police station closures in the two principal towns. In Keighley, the police station was relocated from the centre of town to the periphery, much to the dissatisfaction of local residents. In Ilkley we still have a police station, but it is unmanned.

I understand that police stations close for a range of reasons. An increase in online crime reporting and a general incorporation of digital technologies in the police force have meant that very few people use public desks at police stations. Instead, a majority of people contact the police by phone, at local meetings, online and through social media. Like those in many other professions, police officers have also been able to work flexibly and perform their duties without having to be present physically at a police station. But my inbox is full of messages from residents wanting to see police officers in a local police station going about their business on the beat, reassuring residents that they are being looked after. I truly believe that crime and antisocial behaviour, which are sadly all too big a problem in my constituency, are linked to local police stations not being manned and police stations moving out of the centre of town.

We have an excellent police station in Ilkley, which I went round not too long ago, but it is unmanned. It has just been done up and improved so that police officers can be there physically, but there are no physical police desks where a member of the public can go in and speak to their local police officer. That was a strategy adopted by our previous police and crime commissioner, Mark Burns-Williamson. In Keighley, the local police station—which was previously located right in the heart of town—was moved out of the town centre by Mark Burns-Williamson, then chair of the West Yorkshire police authority, to the dismay of many Keighley residents. The move came at a great cost to local taxpayers and stripped the police station out of the heart of our community.

I have said many times in the House that when crimes happen under everyone’s nose—including a huge drug dealing problem that we have—residents want to be able to go to their local police station. I held a surgery in Long Lee, one of the outlying settlements of Keighley. An elderly resident told me that she had contacted our local 101 service to report that she had witnessed a drug drop by a local taxi firm and that she had video footage for someone to come and collect. West Yorkshire police responded with, “Don’t worry, that happens all the time.” She then came to me with the footage, which I submitted to West Yorkshire police. She said that, although she had wanted to go to her local police station, she had not been able to do so because the station had been relocated from the town centre to the outskirts of town and she could not use the bus network to get there. That illustrates that moving our police station out of the centre of Keighley was a bad decision by the former police and crime commissioner.

We have a new West Yorkshire Mayor who is in charge of forming the police and crime strategy and is responsible for local policing in Keighley and Ilkley. I therefore call on her to deliver police stations in my constituency that are open and can be used by the public. Indeed, in Keighley, we have been promised a new police station back in the centre of town, despite it moving out 10 or so years ago. The big announcement was made, ironically, by our former police and crime commissioner just in advance of the general election in 2019 but, since then, nothing has happened.

This Conservative Government have already delivered 495 extra new police officers in West Yorkshire. We must ensure that those officers are on the beat in Keighley doing their job and that the public have a police station in the centre of town, as was promised by our previous police and crime commissioner. I want to ensure that my residents and my community feel reassured that having a police station in the centre of town means that crime will reduce. A stronger police presence means safer streets and much safer communities for us all to enjoy.

In a survey that was conducted earlier this year in my constituency, 68% of people felt that antisocial behaviour had increased as a result of not having a physical police station in the centre of town that they can go to and have connectivity with. If there are police stations in our town centres, people feel better about where they live. In turn, that will boost local businesses and communities, and it will improve aspiration.

Reopening town centre police stations is vital in my constituency. They offer not only a deterrent but reassurance to my constituents. The knock-on effect will be incredible. I urge our new West Yorkshire Mayor, who is in charge of our police, to listen to us in Keighley, to deliver a new police station in the centre of town, and to get our police station in Ilkley open for the public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I completely agree with the points that he makes; I was just contemplating the changing nature of crime, and the crime that we see, and what we do about it, which I think is a good shift. His fundamental point is about having police in our communities where we can see them and where they can see crime. We talked about the Peel principles—that the police are there to prevent crime, not just to tackle it once it happens. That is the starting point of our police service, and they cannot prevent crime unless they are there in our communities, understanding our neighbours.

I have reflected a lot since the death of David Amess about my own office space, and how it is one of the few places in our community where people can come and get access to an office, and the doors are open. The closure of a lot of our police stations reflects the closure of some of our other services. A lot of council services are now online. There are not many places where people can physically go and talk about their issues. Police stations are part of that picture.

As the shadow Minister of State for Police and the Fire Service, I spend all my time talking to the police, and talking about the impact of the cuts over the past 11 years. Since 2010, funding has been cut by £1.6 billion, and thousands of police have been taken off our streets. There are thousands fewer police officers now than there were in 2010; almost 8,000 fewer PCSOs; 7,500 fewer police staff; and 6,300 fewer special constables. The number of people who say that they never see police on the streets has doubled in that time.

As policing has suffered those cuts, the nature of crime is changing. We have high levels of violent crime, a high proportion of online crime—especially fraud, which is going through the roof—and the changing nature of terrorism, with the challenges that brings. The impact of cuts across other services, such as mental health services, youth work and the NHS, means that police are dealing with the fallout of a small state picking up the pieces when there is no one else left.

The hon. Member for South Dorset said that the police are not social workers. He is right; they are not. However, when I go out with police, they often provide that function because they are picking up people with mental health problems or substance misuse and spending hours taking them to A&E, going through the motions with them and making sure that they are okay, when actually we want the police on our streets preventing crime.

We have not just lost police officers. With all the cuts to police staff, we have lost the whole apparatus behind those who actively help to prevent and solve crime. As a response to and result of that, criminals are getting away with it; pathways to crime are open; and our children are being exploited by criminal thugs and groomed into violence. Our justice system is not making the right response and, at a national level, the problem is not taken seriously enough.

We talked about knife crime, which reached its highest levels on record in 2019-20 at more than 50,000 offences in a year. That is an extraordinary number, which has doubled since 2013-14. Between 2010 and 2019-20, knife crime rose in every single police force area in the country. Fraud and online crime has rocketed to such levels that most crimes are not even investigated. Outcomes for rape, which we have talked about over recent months, are at record low levels, at only 1.6%. Fewer than seven in every 100 violent crimes end up with a charge—an extraordinary figure.

Unlike this Government, Labour’s record in government shows that we can be trusted on policing and crime. By the time we left government, there had been 6 million fewer crimes than in 1997. The risk of being a victim of crime was at its lowest since the Crime Survey began in 1981, and police officers reached record numbers, up by almost 1,700 since 1997, alongside more than 16,000 PCSOs.

The figures on police station closures make grim reading. In 2018, The Times estimated that about 600 police stations had closed since 2010; the Daily Mail reported that it was 667. The closure of police stations forms a common thread across the length and breadth of the country. Regardless of whether the closures have happened under Conservative or Labour PCCs or Mayors, they are done because chief constables and PCCs can only play the hand they have been dealt by the Government here at Westminster.

A report from the Public Accounts Committee in 2018 claimed that closures were due to cuts in police funding, that funding cuts had led to forces selling off more of their assets to try to raise funds for capital investment and increasingly drawing on their reserves. We know that in South Yorkshire, 24 police stations have shut their doors.

[Robbie Moore]

I want to make a very quick point. When I was referring to my constituency, where we saw Keighley police station moved out of the centre of town and relocated, with a new police station built on the outskirts of town, it was all undertaken by a Labour police and crime commissioner. The same Labour police and crime commissioner that was—we now have a Labour West Yorkshire Mayor—is having discussions about moving the police station back into the centre of town. Does that not show a lack of strategy rather than it simply being related to funding models that have been dripped down from the national level?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but I disagree. If we look at the pattern of police station closures across the country, it has not just occurred in Keighley; it is everywhere. I was with the new West Yorkshire Mayor, Tracy Brabin, in her offices a couple of weeks ago talking about her approach to tackling crime, particularly, in that conversation, violence against women and girls. I am sure she will do the right thing. As has been mentioned, if 20,000 police officers are cut out of the system and then some are put back, there needs to be a physical place for people to go. The situation is that we closed everything down and are now having to look at whether we open things up again.

A lot has been said about the changing nature of how people want to report crime, and the opportunities available to report online. The hon. Member for South Dorset is right that there is a role for online reporting, and we need to look at how that works. In 2016, 8% of crimes were reported at police front counters—down from 22% in 2006. The Government’s so-called “Beating crime plan” includes proposals for every single person living in England and Wales to have digital access to police through a national online platform.

I suggest that that plan is not working. There is too much confusion about how and where to report crime, and the lack of action when people do. An extraordinary number of online fraud cases are not investigated at all. People report incidents online and wait a long time for a response. There are real pressures on the 101 service across the country, and victims of crime are increasingly calling 999 because they cannot get through on 101. The Cheshire police and crime commissioner said recently that 101 is “not fit for purpose”. Similar problems have been reported across the country.

Modern policing and the changing nature of crime mean that online reporting has an important role to play, but the value of face-to-face interaction with local police cannot be overstated. We need local neighbourhood policing in real life, not just online, and the Labour party is pushing for that. Neighbourhood policing and the role of PCSOs have never been more important. Police and place are intrinsically linked. When Labour was last in government, our policing reforms re-rooted British policing. We brought in neighbourhood policing teams all over England and Wales. We introduced the brilliant PCSOs, who are the eyes and ears of their communities. They provide vital intelligence and do a huge amount of preventive work. This Government have no plans to put more PCSOs back into communities.

A recent Police Foundation report found that, despite the Minister for Crime and Policing’s announcement on taking office that an extra 20,000 police officers would be recruited because people want to see more officers in their neighbourhoods, only 400 of the first tranche of 6,000 new recruits were deployed into neighbourhood roles—that is exactly the same number cut from the national PCSO cohort over the same period.

We want to ensure that in every neighbourhood, where people are frightened and afraid, there will a new police hub and neighbourhood prevention teams, bringing together police, community support officers, youth workers and local authority staff to tackle antisocial behaviour, as well as the perceived more serious crime that we have talked about. Where the graffiti starts, crime leads. That has to be tackled as a priority, as well as more serious crime.

Closures of police stations are sadly just one aspect of the attack on policing by Conservative Governments, which has culminated in a Britain characterised by increasing serious violence, antisocial behaviour at record levels tarnishing our streets, rape convictions at a record low, and violent crimes routinely going unresolved. Does the Minister agree with our overall argument that we need more police stations? What plans does he have to put them in place? Will he confirm whether the Budget contained any plans to increase the number of police stations? Does he agree with the public, who say that having a police station in their area makes them safer and prevents crime?