Policing in the 21st Century

Robert Flello Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the issue of special constables. I thank him for what he did as a special constable and place on record the thanks of the whole House for the work that all special constables do in helping the fight against crime. They play an important role, and we intend to encourage more people to take it on.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Many of the improvements that the Home Secretary has talked about are already happening on the ground in Stoke-on-Trent, thanks to people such as Inspector Sharrard-Williams. Recently, however, the House might have seen a man who runs the British National party claiming that he has 1 million followers—that is, 1 million people voting BNP—in the UK. What happens when the BNP stands for one of these commissioner posts, as will happen, and gets it?

[Mrs May]

This is something that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have raised on a number of occasions, and I will give him two answers. If he looks at the voting record so far, he will see that the British National party has never managed to get more than 15% of the vote in an election. But let us set that to one side; I actually believe in trusting the people of this country.