Draft West Midlands Combined Authority (Transfer of Police and Crime Commissioner Functions) Order 2024

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 General Committees

[Chris Philp]

I have already answered the right hon. Lady’s first question: the Government are very clear that there is a lawful basis on which to bring forward this order in statute. We will also robustly—and, I trust, successfully—defend the judicial review relating to the consultation, which is a separate question. On the outcome of the consultation, about 7,000 replies were received, which is of course a tiny fraction of the population of the west midlands. The responses were fairly evenly split: I think it was 50% against, 46% in favour and 4% undecided, so it was pretty even. However, as the right hon. Lady will know from her long experience in the House, the Government will take the consultation responses into account when they make their decisions. This is not a vote or a referendum, and it is not that the largest number of responses wins; the quality of the responses and the arguments advanced in them will be carefully considered before the Government—in this case, the Home Secretary—take their carefully considered decision.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

On the quality of the responses, the Minister will know, as I do as a west midlands MP, that one quite concerning thing was the number of copy-and-paste responses that seem to have come out of the consultation—as if someone was trying to tee it one way. Will my right hon. Friend reiterate the point he made about the quality of the responses to the consultation and ensuring that they are dealt with in an accurate way?

[Chris Philp]

Yes, absolutely. We take into account the quality and weight of the arguments, rather than just the number. A number of copy-and-paste responses appear to have been organised, and that is something we were aware of in considering the responses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shaun Bailey]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I start by commending some of the comments and the tone of the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton. He took a measured approach to this issue. I appreciate that we are not discussing his geographic area, but he can see how this merger can work. Greater Manchester has gone on a journey, and we have seen consistency there. I appreciate the fact that Greater Manchester has had its issues—we know that and it has been excepted—but I think the hon. Gentleman would agree that, as he touched on to a degree, if we are to see the real genesis of some of these areas, devolution requires more responsibility to come down. We can go back and forth over what that looks like, but granting powers such as those in the legislation before us is a really important part of that.

I must say that the opposition to this change from colleagues in the west midlands just sounds like people trying to save a comrade. That is the brutal part of it. I ask colleagues from the west midlands whether they voted for Comrade Foster in the mayoral candidacy selection last year—the contest in which he came third. That in itself is an indictment of where we are. I have seen exactly what the opposition to the change comes down to: it feels to me, and to many of us across the west midlands, that it is to try and save a mate, and nothing more.

We talk about consistency and the evolution of our areas. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills and my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield touched on, the west midlands is a region of 3 million people. It is the second largest urban conurbation in England and Wales—probably in the United Kingdom—and rightfully wants to evolve to the next level of what devolution looks like, so the opposition seems completely out of sorts. The contrast is also quite stark because, as I say, the shadow Minister gave a perfectly reasonable speech and made some really salient points. From his experience in local government, he knows the importance of managing these processes. Some of the opposition I have seen locally just seems like trying to keep the establishment going.

To touch on the points my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills made, I too have been a victim of this police station closure programme. We stopped one closure—we prevented Tipton police station from closing—but had this structure been in place, with a high-profile Mayor who was actually able to have the community cut-through my right hon. Friend the Minister alluded to, we could perhaps have sorted this situation out sooner. However, what I would say, particularly to Labour politicians locally in Sandwell, is this: shame on you for trying to take any sort of credit for saving that police station. It was not politicians who saved that; it was the community campaign that saved that. Shame on you, because you were not there when your comrade in the PCC’s office was absolutely adamant that that station had to go.

This is what we are on about: lining up responsibilities to enable us to have a more streamlined approach, to stop ridiculous situations such as the one I described and to take a more circumspect view, taking into account not just operational policing matters, which are of course important, but the broader community links that matter within our region. I think that that is what this comes down to.

I and, I think, many in the west midlands want to see our region move on. In the past 10 years, we have seen the way in which our region has evolved and developed, and it continues to do so. Why should we miss out, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield said, on the opportunities that London and Greater Manchester have had? Do not get me wrong; with Greater Manchester as an example, it is not this land of milk and honey, and things do not always go right along the way. But having that accountability—the ability to hold that person to account—but in a broader, community, contextualised way, is absolutely the key pillar behind this change.

We can go back and forth on the responses around this measure; my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield made a valuable point about the engagement on this. The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton also touched on that when he said that this is not what people talk about over their cornflakes in the morning. However, on the democratic engagement point, I think it is incumbent on all of us in this room to ensure that there is democratic engagement on these issues.

To close, I might put one challenge to the Minister. We know that funds are stretched at the moment, and I will not go too much into the judicial review, but I would be keen to understand what advice he has taken about recovering the costs personally from the PCC. The PCC has used public money for this judicial review, when it could have been given to police officers on the beat or used to keep police stations such as that in Wednesbury in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills open. I would be very grateful for that information. I appreciate that some of the advice may be privileged but, from within the realms of what the Minister can share, what advice has he taken on recovering some of those costs? It is an outrage to my constituents that they have had to foot the bill for, as far as I am concerned, saving a mate.

I welcome this measure, as I am sure Members on both sides of the House do. It has opened a broad debate, and I am particularly interested in what the shadow Minister said, because I think this opens up a lot of rabbit holes that we could go down today, although we are not going to. Ultimately, I support this measure. It is the right move for the west midlands—a west midlands that is moving forward in the right direction—and it is putting us on a par with everyone else.

[The Chair]

Before I call the Minister, I would just say that it is always my intention to allow a reasonably wide-ranging debate, with points made in illustration of arguments as long as that is done briefly. However, I would advise the Minister to perhaps respond to the final point about the cost of the judicial review on another occasion, rather than this afternoon.