Neighbourhood Policing: West Midlands

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) on securing the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) on taking on the mantle. I also congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) and for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali) on their powerful speeches. Every one of them cares about nothing more than the safety of their constituents, and that is why Labour Members are here en masse. Sadly, there is only one Government Member present—the hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi). I suggest that he talks to more of his constituents about how they experience crime in their constituency and ponders what they have to say.

This is a vital and timely debate. The Government have dropped the ball on crime: serious violence is up, prosecutions are down, and they have no plan to tackle their failures. The west midlands is an excellent part of the country, with brilliant people who have hopes, dreams and aspirations that are being hampered by this Government. In the excellent police and crime commissioner Simon Foster, whom I visited only a few weeks ago, they have a champion with the right priorities, but he is fighting against crime with one hand tied behind his back because of a Government whose complacency has allowed serious violence to thrive and neighbourhood policing to dwindle.

There are four areas where that complacency has driven up violence and other crimes, such as antisocial behaviour. First, of course, is the lack of policing. The 21,000 lost police officers is a well-worn statistic, but less well known are the 50% cuts to police community support officers, the eyes and ears of our community. The Government have dismantled neighbourhood policing since 2010. Do not take my word for it: twice as many people now as in 2010 say that they never see police on the streets.

Secondly, the UK is now Europe’s largest heroin market and a target for international drug-trafficking gangs. That has increased violence on our streets and steered a trend towards youth violence, with increasingly young children carrying knives and drugs. Thirdly, violence against women and girls has reached epidemic levels, as defined by Her Majesty’s inspector of constabulary and fire and rescue, Zoë Billingham, in her damning report earlier this year. Prosecution rates for crimes such as rape and sexual assault are on the floor. Fourthly, all the services that support young people, such as youth work, treatment for drug addiction and support for children with special educational needs, and that more broadly tackle inequality and poverty have been decimated after 11 years of drift.

The west midlands has not been exempt from the impact of those cuts. Despite the excellent work of Simon Foster, who has put rebuilding neighbourhood policing at the heart of his agenda, the force will be 1,000 officers short of where it was in 2010. By anyone’s description, that is a large number of officers for one region. It cannot be right that, even with the so-called uplift to police numbers—as an aside, just 400 of the first tranche of 6,000 national recruits have been placed in frontline roles—the west midlands faces such a large shortfall.

The Government make a fanfare of their fêted levelling-up agenda, but make no mistake: there is no levelling up when it comes to the west midlands constabulary. If this Government do not put in place more funding, West Midlands police will face annual cuts of £60 million to deal with rising costs. The west midlands police and crime commissioner recently made a cross-party call for fair funding for the force that he oversees, and is calling for the Government to plug the black hole and put funding in place for the 1,000 missing officers. I support those calls. Does the Minister?

I recently met Simon Foster and saw for myself the excellent work that he is doing through solid policing, and through innovation via the violence reduction unit. For example, a new scheme places youth workers along routes to schools; they act as trusted adults, pull children away from crime, and de-escalate potential violence. Violence reduction units do good preventive work, but there is no long-term funding model for them, and the Minister knows that. They rely on annual funding. I am especially disappointed that Andy Street seemed unaware of this fact on “Politics Live” last week. He claimed that a long-term funding model had been put in place, and also seemed unaware of his role in tackling violence through his responsibilities for youth unemployment, community cohesion and housing, which all have vital roles to play. Can the Minister confirm whether the VRU in the west midlands will receive a funding settlement of longer than one year?

Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue noted that West Midlands police

“is good at strategic planning, organisational management and providing value for money.”

However, it added that the force cannot

“meet the demand for its services in protecting vulnerable people with the resources it has.”

Ultimately, it is the people of the west midlands who lose out; it is they who bear the brunt of this lack of funding. That cannot be acceptable. If the Government are serious about levelling up, they must start with organisations such as West Midlands police. Can the Minister commit to filling the gaping hole in resources in the west midlands, so that it is not 1,000 officers down on 10 years ago?

Neighbourhood policing in every community will always be Labour’s top priority. Keeping people safe will always be Labour’s top priority. I urge the Government to make it theirs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

I will give way in a moment. Those Members are unwilling to acknowledge the reason, which is that decisions were made by the previous Labour police and crime commissioner that set the west midlands back. They have to take responsibility for those decisions; they cannot, I am afraid, just come to this Chamber and keep saying that everything that goes wrong in the west midlands is the Government’s fault, and that everything that goes right is the Labour party’s achievement. Nobody is buying that in Edgbaston, Selly Oak, or anywhere else in the west midlands. They recognise that difficult decisions had to be made, and I urge the Labour party to acknowledge those difficult decisions.

David Jamieson was not all good, and he was not all bad. He had difficult things to do, and he made a set of choices that produced a particular outcome and a particular baseline in the west midlands. I have no doubt that that was what he said in the elections that he won, and that the people of the west midlands took him at his word and believed him. They have re-elected a Labour police and crime commissioner, so presumably they are happy with that performance, but complaining that everything that goes wrong is down to the Government seems a little naive to me.

[Sarah Jones]

Knife crime has gone up in every single part of England and Wales.

[Kit Malthouse]

That is not true.

[Sarah Jones]

It is true. I can send the Minister the statistics. Crimes have gone up across the country. It is not accurate to blame one area or another for those universal increases and the universal drops in prosecution. Of course, there are good police forces and less good police forces, and everyone tries their best. The point we are trying to make is that we are 1,000 police officers down, which means neighbourhood policing will suffer. On the point made by the hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) about the police station, I should have mentioned that the police and crime commissioner is waiting for the Conservative council to sell them the land to build the police station. Perhaps we could talk about that later.

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but it is unfair and pulling the wool over the eyes of the people of the west midlands not to stand by the fact that a Labour police and crime commissioner—or any other police and crime commissioner elected, presumably —has an impact on the force. The decisions they make must have some implication for the way the force is run and its finances.