Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

Of course the hon. Gentleman is right: Prime Ministers should take an interest in these matters, and I am sure that the Prime Minister of the time did that while fully respecting the operational independence of the police. The present Prime Minister is an advocate of individually elected police commissioners; in fact, it was in his 2005 manifesto. It is always good for the Home Secretary to support the Prime Minister if she can, but sometimes, as I know, it is important to say no. I am afraid that, on this matter, she has been remiss in her duties. It would have been much better if she had said to the Prime Minister, “I am very sorry, Prime Minister, but a policy that sounded good in opposition is deeply flawed and unimplementable in government.”

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned three organisations that support the proposals for elected police commissioners. I should like to read him a quote from a fourth:

“And with local meetings, new elected police representatives, and online crime mapping, people will have more information and more influence over what their local team is focused on.”

That quote is from the Labour party website, www.labour.org.uk.

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[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

Without the change in the law she would not dare come here.

The Israeli Administration are one of the most discredited regimes in the world, and have persisted in committing war crimes, right through to the lethal attack on the Gaza flotilla on 31 May.

[Robert Halfon]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I shall give way in a moment. Israel breaches international law and the Geneva convention—[Interruption.]

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

The fact is that Israel breaches international law and the Geneva convention every single day. It has just snubbed the President of the United States by refusing to halt the illegal building of settlements—that in itself is a contravention of international law.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I must say that his hatred for Israel knows no bounds. He explains exactly why universal jurisdiction needs to be changed—it is being used as a political football by people such as him who have hidden agendas.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

There would have been no proposal to change the universal jurisdiction law if Tzipi Livni had not been scared away from this country after committing appalling war crimes against the people of Gaza. It is as simple and as plain as that.

As I said, the Israelis have just snubbed the President of the United States by refusing to halt the illegal building of settlements. The Israeli regime uses its powers of arrest without charge arbitrarily. Two Members of the Knesset, including the Deputy Prime Minister, were scared away by the law, but 30 members of the Palestine National Council are currently held by the Israelis without charge. That is not a threat of arrest, but an actual arrest.

Last month, when I was in Jerusalem, I visited three PNC members who are taking refuge from arbitrary arrest by the Israeli police with the international Red Cross. I met and heard the testimony of young Palestinian children who were assaulted by Israeli police—they showed us their scars and bruises—as a result of the arbitrary and illegal way in which the Israeli police treat Palestinians, including Palestinian children. When we met the Foreign Minister of Jordan in Amman, he told us that he had to offer diplomatic shelter to the President of Palestine because when they were driving along one after the other, the President was continually halted at Israeli checkpoints. For all those crimes and many more, the Israelis are answerable to no one. Now, one of the few sanctions on those crimes will be removed. As a result of the Bill, Israeli politicians will be literally allowed to get away with murder.

That comes at a time when the ground is shifting. As I said, the pledge on the measure was made in a full-page advertisement in the Jewish Chronicle in order to get Jewish votes in the recent general election, but there is an upheaval in the Jewish community, as a result of which the across-the-board support for anything an Israeli Government do is no longer available.

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[Neil Carmichael]

That is why I am sympathetic to dealing with the problems in supermarkets. My hon. Friend is right: we do have cheap booze; it is bought in bulk; it is consumed in a bingey way, which does cause huge problems; and we have to address the issue.

We had a debate about pubs last week, but let us repeat the point that we must recognise the pub as a useful, controlled environment in which people can drink.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, but following the previous intervention does he not agree that alcohol sold in supermarkets is often bought by people who cannot otherwise afford it? Surely, the only restrictions should therefore be on so-called alcopops and drinks like that.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank my hon. Friend and appreciate all the interventions—the two of them, at least—that I have had. He makes a good point about alcopops, and we need to think about that, because we can be too draconian, but I shall make three general points about drinks. First, we have to think about binge drinking and its causes; secondly, we need to look at the role of supermarkets in supplying the drink; and, thirdly, we need to bear in mind the strength of the drink.

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[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I welcome the Bill and the debate. I have four substantial points to make: where there is direct democracy and policing elsewhere in the world, it works; we must do more to support special constables; we must tell the truth about crime in our statistics; and universal jurisdiction must be reformed so that the Director of Public Prosecutions has control over issuing warrants.

We have rehearsed the arguments about police commissioners this evening. I am a passionate supporter of the policy because I believe that local people should have some say in the policing they want for their neighbourhood. The public want that—they are unhappy with police authorities. Extremist groups have not taken control of the police in north America, where there has been no great backlash against democracy.

I want mainly to speak about special constables. I have long believed that we must do more to support them and make them into a reserve force, like the Territorial Army or reserve firemen. Since 1997, the number of specials has fallen dramatically from 20,000 to fewer than 14,000. I have tabled three early-day motions on the issue—1160, 598 and 520. I also raised it at business questions last Thursday, and welcomed the Leader of the House’s response.

I am grateful to the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, who previously agreed with me in the House that there is huge untapped potential for recruiting more specials, who are in many ways like neighbourhood watch: a genuinely local force and a vital source of community intelligence.

One suggestion is to allow councils to discount council tax for those who become specials. That would act as an incentive and fit in with the Government’s big society proposals. The Association of Chief Police Officers supports the idea and Southampton city council has already trialled a scheme, which offered special constables a rebate rather than an up-front discount on their council tax. However, because of the legal uncertainties, the process took months and was only a one-off. At the end of the debate, I intend to table an amendment to clause 10(3) to make such action much easier for our colleagues in local government.

Under the new duty to co-operate, I would like the Bill to clarify that local authorities are free to co-operate with police forces, if they choose, by exempting special constables from council tax, or, at the very least, offering them a substantial discount. That does not have to be expensive. Essex is lucky to have nearly 700 specials. If each was offered £100 off their council tax bill, it would cost the grand sum of £70,000. Given that the public sector spent £10 billion in Essex last year, £70,000 is not an astronomical sum. I hope that the Minister and colleagues will be able to consider my amendment.

We must tell the truth about crime in our statistics. There is huge bureaucratic and political pressure to say that crime is decreasing. Everyone wants to believe that things are getting better. However, the tragedy is that that translates into immense personal pressure on individual police officers not to record crime because if they go out on the streets and find criminals their statistics look worse and worse. I recently met the Home Secretary and the chief constable of Essex to discuss crime in Harlow, and the chief constable made that point powerfully. One solution is to record two sorts of statistic. An innovative proposal is to use the Australian system and distinguish between crimes that the public have reported and those that the police have discovered.

Imagine if instead of one single box for recording crime, where everything gets jumbled and mixed together, we had two boxes. In the first box we could measure crime reported by the public, police officers and PCSOs, and in the second we would measure crime proactively discovered by the police. If the number of the latter crimes increased, we would not worry unduly, because it would mean that the police were doing their job, patrolling the streets and uncovering the hidden criminals who are disrupting our neighbourhoods.

I sincerely hope that when we consider that reform, we consider how to free our police officers from the immense political pressure to say that crime numbers are coming down. I welcome the reforms to public information, such as crime maps, which the Government are pushing for, and measures such as clause 89, “Crime and disorder strategies”, and clause 34, which contains the duty to liaise with local people. However, I hope that the Minister considers the Australian system of recording crime.

Finally, I believe that universal jurisdiction must be reformed so that the Director of Public Prosecutions has control over issuing warrants. Currently, the process for private prosecutions is being abused—it is used as a political tool for campaigning and point scoring—but the purpose of our justice system must be justice, not media campaigns. Therefore, I welcome clause 151, which will ensure that universal jurisdiction cases proceed only on the basis of solid evidence.

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that there is evidence that the current process was abused in the past, and that it got in the way of peaceful discussions and an understanding of different points of view?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The problem is that the current arrangements have been used as a political tool. A disproportionate number of arrest warrants sought for war crimes are directed at Israeli officials and politicians. It is worth remembering that Israel is a democratic country with the rule of law, and that it has a thriving judiciary and a Supreme Court that often rules against the state in cases with sound legal bases. If we want to promote peace in the middle east, Israel’s leaders must be able to come to Britain for talks with the British Government. The current misuse of universal jurisdiction actually hinders reconciliation efforts. That applies not just to Israel—for example, I understand that an arrest warrant was issued against Henry Kissinger.

In conclusion, I am hugely supportive of the Bill. The more democracy, the better. I hope that the Minister and colleagues will consider my amendment on special constables and reforming the flaws in our crime statistics, but I welcome the Government’s reforms, especially on universal jurisdiction and elected police commissioners. The Bill is in the same vein as all the Government’s policies and can be summed up in four words: power to the people.

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[Vernon Coaker]

I cannot give way as I have to finish in four or five minutes. Those Members wishing to intervene can argue this point in more detail in Committee, as they do not have to be Committee members to do so.

The Bill makes a number of proposals on issues such as drugs, alcohol and protests around Parliament, but at its core is police reform and the proposal for elected police commissioners and police and crime panels. At the same time as we have massive cuts to policing that will mean thousands fewer police in every single area of the country, the Government are subjecting police to an unwanted organisational upheaval. Of course, not only are police officers under threat but police staff in the back office and police community support officers will go.

[Robert Halfon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?