Crime and Policing
Debate between Steve McCabe and Gordon Birtwistle(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I am in favour of volunteers, but not as a substitute for the real thing—that is the danger of the position taken by the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). One of the lessons that Labour learned from the Conservatives in the 1980s and early 1990s was the importance of the law and order agenda. That had a profound impact on the Labour party, and the tragedy is that the coalition has forgotten that lesson. This Administration seem to have the wrong priorities.
I would have liked to have been party to the coalition talks and to have discovered how no priority was given to basic safety and security when they sat down to plan this great document. How did the Administration arrive at the conclusion, based on all their experience of their manifestos and the election outcome, that the electorate wanted to prioritise spending on international development and health above all else? I would like to see that put to a referendum or discussed in one of the Deputy Prime Minister’s question and answer sessions around the country. When I talk to voters, they tell me that the Administration have got that wrong.
Gordon Birtwistle
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he would cut the spending on health and international development and save money in other areas? He has not declared that before.
Steve McCabe
I am saying exactly that. I would not prioritise those two things above basic safety and security.
I was about to say that we have already seen a cut in this year’s core funding for the police. Most chief constables and police authorities anticipated that and they have taken some steps to prepare for it. That is what Programme Paragon in the west midlands is partly about; it is a reorganisation of the police to get better efficiency and use of personnel. Now we are faced with even more severe cuts on top—cuts to magistrates courts, to police, to probation, to prisons and to the entire criminal justice system. There is no area where the axe will not fall. It is inevitable that that scale of cuts will lead to a rise in crime and public alarm. That is a given.
One of the areas where this Administration are falling down and could learn lessons is that Labour listened to professionals and to the public about their concerns on crime. That is why crime was down when we left office—we listened and we took on board the concerns. The danger here is that the Administration are not listening and that we will all pay the price further down the line.
I want to make it clear that I accept the argument for cuts. I do not happen to revel in them—unlike some of the people on the Government Benches—but I accept the argument. There should be savings and cuts—I have no problem with that. I think it was the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) who said that he wanted to see some savings in standardising equipment purchase and in national procurement. So do I, and that is why they were in the White Paper that Labour produced. If I remember correctly, that White Paper also contained our pretty ambitious plan to cut police overtime, something that the coalition has taken on board.
I have no problem with trying to make such savings and I think, frankly, it is utterly dishonest of the people opposite to pretend that we are saying anything else. We can argue about the scale of cuts and about the impact on the economy, but to stand there and try to pretend that we are not saying that is downright dishonest.
As I said, there is nothing wrong with a Government seeking greater efficiency, but it is a question of numbers and scale. I happen to agree with Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and the Audit Commission that cuts in excess of 12% will affect the capacity to police our streets. It is as simple as that. Sir Paul Stephenson has made it clear that the scale of cuts being planned will mean a much smaller force in London as we prepare to police the Olympics. I am not sure that anyone has given sufficient consideration to what that might mean.
I personally think that we will see two effects from the Government’s actions. First, we will see a freeze on recruitment—that is already happening in the west midlands—and a freeze in promotion. Ultimately, that will drain morale and lead to a stunted, unbalanced and defensive police organisation. We will also see the reverse of civilianisation—the very opposite of what the Home Secretary claims that she wants.
Civilians, who are obviously easier to sack than police officers, are going to be forced out, and police officers will then have to be redeployed to take on some of those civilian tasks. Rather than seeing crime fighters, we are going to see trained police officers back on front desks acting as receptionists. They will be answering phone calls about minor matters and carrying out back-office admin tasks. They will not be out on the streets but be back in the offices reverting to doing simple typing tasks. Reverse civilianisation will be the effect of sacking civilians because they are easier to dispose of, and their work will still have to be done by police officers. That will be the consequence.
I am concerned that eventually chief constables will be driven, probably in despair, to use what is known as regulation A19 to sack officers who have completed 30 years of service. Perversely, that makes sense at force level because those people draw some of the highest salaries; it has an immediate impact on the budget because salaries are the largest part of the budget. However, the consequence is getting rid of some of our most experienced police officers. That means getting rid of the people who contribute most to the job while the public still have to pick up the tab for their pensions and any pay-off arrangements that were made in persuading them to go. That approach makes no sense in the long run and is a classic short-term economy with long-term ramifications. I understand that the West Midlands police force, which is admittedly the second-largest force in the country, is looking at losing about 2,000 police jobs as a result of what is planned. To give an idea of scale, about 14,000 people are employed by the force.
It is easy to trade statistics in debates such as this, and we have heard one or two already, but I want to draw attention to one that has caught my eye. Cardiff university recently demonstrated that there were 64,000 fewer violence-related attendances at accident and emergency departments in 2010 compared with 2001, which represents a fall of 15%. We should pay attention to that independent research, because it tells a story about violent crime and it rather contradicts some of the myths that we have heard recently. I commend it to the Government and I hope that they will be willing to follow it up. There is also the British crime survey, which is not so popular with the Government, certainly not since they were rebuked by Sir Michael Scholar for misusing statistics. I often wonder how long it will be before we hear a statement that the UK Statistics Authority is to be abolished in the interests of Government efficiency.
As I have said, one reason for Labour’s successes in law and order was that we paid attention to the concerns voiced to us by the public and professionals. That is the real story behind why we introduced antisocial behaviour orders. We recognised the need for a measure that would address the types of antisocial behaviour that the police and the public were telling us they were powerless to deal with. ASBOs are not perfect, but they are better than nothing. What we need is a measure that allows people who are constantly on the receiving end of antisocial behaviour and are not being helped by their police or local authorities to go directly to court and ask for something to be done. That would be much more effective.
The bureaucracy that the Home Secretary worries about is not inherent in ASBOs. The problem is the bureaucracy and dilatory behaviour of councils such as the Lib Dem-Tory coalition authority in Birmingham. That is why it takes so long to deal with antisocial behaviour. It would be much better if the Government put some energy into tackling that bottleneck, rather than taking away one of the tools that people generally feel is making a difference. Deciding to abolish ASBOs without a sensible alternative is like turning one’s back when people are suffering the worst kind of torment. It suggests that the coalition is already out of touch. I am sure that if Ministers had spoken to people about this, they would not be setting out such a proposal.
It is good that we use technology to tackle miscarriages of justice and to catch people who thought that they had got away with it. I worry that the Government’s position on DNA is pseudo civil liberties posturing and doubt that it is reasonable or rational. I am not against a review of CCTV, and given some of the points made about Project Champion in Birmingham, there might be a good argument for a review. However, if the Government seriously think that ANPR and CCTV are not needed in the fight against crime, they are totally and utterly wrong. On CCTV, we should, if anything, be worrying about how we will find the resources for the next generation of cameras. Addressing that point in conjunction with regulation would be much more useful than simply going along with the wheeze that we can get by without them.
The Government talk a great deal about freedom, but I detect a certain degree of intolerance and authoritarianism behind the mask. The Audit Commission might cause a problem—abolish it; the Association of Chief Police Officers might be awkward—emasculate it; police authorities might not play ball—scrap them. The Government talk about localism and the big society but move in the opposite direction. They are destroying the links between ordinary people and the criminal justice system, and their obsession with cuts that go beyond economic sense will destroy neighbourhood policing.
I spoke at a charity event in Worcester the other week along with the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin). I invite hon. Members to ask her privately—not in the Chamber—what a largely Tory audience thought about elected police commissioners. I will tell hon. Members why we will have such a short consultation on that: because the Government know that the proposal does not make sense. It is a fix, just like the Deputy Prime Minister’s boundary review, that will not work.
The Government have a lot to learn about what people really want from policing. Unfortunately, they plan to learn on the job using the British public as their laboratory.