Policing and Crime

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I have been a Member of the House since 1997, and I still naively expect this Chamber to be a place of rational debate. However, there has certainly been no evidence of that from the Labour Front-Bench contributions today, either during the previous debate on sentencing or during this one on policing. There is no recognition of their share of the responsibility for the significant cuts that the coalition is having to make. They are tougher than we had expected because the finances we inherited were deteriorating faster and the international climate was tougher for countries that were not tackling their deficits.

There is no willingness from Labour to demonstrate how the £7 of savings it was going to make, as opposed to the £8 that the coalition is having to make, would safeguard police numbers. Indeed, Labour Members are not even listening to their own party leader, who said in his speech to the Progress conference on 21 May:

“There will be those who say it is enough for Labour to hunker down… I hear it quite a lot: let’s be a louder… Opposition”,

but he then went on to say:

“But to think that it is enough is to fail to understand the depth of the loss of trust in us and the scale of change required to win it back. We must recognise where we didn’t get things right”.

Their leader is asking Labour Members to adopt a more honest and considered approach, but they do not listen to their leader, as we found out during the AV campaign when he said, “I’m right behind it” and half of them walked off in the opposite direction.

It was the Opposition’s choice not to have a debate about what is achievable from an efficiency savings point of view and what is achievable in police numbers. We heard in an intervention that police numbers in Staffordshire had been maintained.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I met the chief constable of Cambridgeshire constabulary this morning and he told me that the budget can be managed so that there will be no reduction in police constables at all, and perhaps even a small increase. It is being done by greater efficiency and by greater collaboration with other forces. Will my hon. Friend suggest that other police authorities follow that excellent lead?

[Tom Brake]

Indeed, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Clearly, a number of forces around the country are adopting approaches or policies to ensure that police numbers are maintained. Another good example is Cleveland, where by working with Steria the force has been successful in achieving savings of £50 million over a 10-year period; it has been able to achieve 20% reductions in the areas on which they are working by focusing on cutting bureaucracy, increasing mobile access to make the police more effective when they are out in the field, and improving case file preparation, which no doubt leads to more successful prosecutions. When the will is there, much is achievable in making greater efficiency savings and focusing on police numbers. The Government are right to tackle the issue of police terms and conditions. It has been on the agenda for many years, but has never been tackled. It was time for the Government to grasp that particular nettle and progress is now being made.

It was also the Opposition’s choice not to debate one of the most effective ways of tackling crime, which is by cutting reoffending. Community sentences were mentioned in the earlier debate. With community sentences, 51% of people reoffend as opposed to the 59% who reoffend after being given a prison sentence. These are comparable groups of offenders: in one case, with a community sentence properly enforced, there is only a 51% reoffending rate; when a similar group of prisoners are sent to prison for one year or less, 59% reoffend.

[David T. C. Davies]

Is the hon. Member aware that that report also showed that anyone sentenced to more than 12 months in prison had the lowest reoffending rate of all? Is not the lesson we should draw that long prison sentences are more effective than anything else?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am drawing on one part of the report; he is drawing on another. It is very clear that community sentences, for people who would otherwise have been given a short prison sentence, actually reduce reoffending. That means fewer victims. Surely, if we are having a rational debate, that must be a matter of interest to all Members.

For community sentences to be effective, I underline the importance, as stressed to me by User Voice, of ensuring that rehabilitation is retained within the community sentence scheme. In its view, those sentences are more effective than prison sentences because the rehabilitation component is there. I hope that that will remain part of the community sentences that are going to be issued.

Work in prison is also important. It is effective in tackling reoffending because it gives prisoners skills that they can use, as well as providing—according to the Howard League, which published a report today—something like £17 million that can go into the victims fund. I am sure that everyone would welcome that as well.

Volunteering in prison is potentially just as effective in reducing reoffending as work in prison. Last week the Prison Reform Trust launched a very successful scheme at High Down prison drawing on the skills of listeners, and I am certain that the reoffending rate among former prisoners who have participated in it will be less than that among those who have not.

The Opposition did not, of course, choose to call a debate about the most cost-effective ways of solving crimes. Today I was fortunate enough to visit Crimestoppers, which happens to be based in my constituency. What it is achieving at a cost of £4.5 million has been valued at £120 million. Last year it helped to solve 50 murders. It favours payment by results, because it believes that it has a very successful model. By using the public as a resource, it is able to bring cases to court much more quickly than it could have done had it followed the normal court and police processes.

The Government have set out in a concrete and substantive way what we believe will be effective in tackling crime and what we believe is necessary to deal with inefficiencies in, for example, the back office. I feel that it was incumbent on the Labour Members who tabled a debate on this subject to set out what their alternative would have been, but I am afraid that that has been totally lacking this evening.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

The debate is on policing, but I shall touch on the economics of the situation, which are raised so often by Government Members. The Opposition are not in denial about the deficit, but we do not accept that we caused it—[Interruption.] Members on the Government Benches can snigger and laugh, but they could say that we caused the deficit only if no other country with a similar economy had had the same problems. All those countries had the same problem with their economic and banking systems because of the recklessness of the bankers, the sub-prime mortgages and the fact that some banks had balances that were bigger than the GDPs of many countries. They were reckless. We saved our system and as a result we managed to save half a million people becoming unemployed.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I will give away on another point, not on this one.

We recognise that there are financial difficulties, but we must ask what we will achieve when we save money. We must ask whether if we save £10 in one area, we will end up paying £20. That will happen with the police cuts and the changes to the police more than with the changes to any other service. Staff numbers might be cut in the Department for Work and Pensions without repercussions elsewhere, but when front-line police officer numbers are cut that is a false economy.

There has been discussion in the House about imprisonment and long-term sentences and, in some cases, long sentences deter people from committing offences. What really stops people committing offences, however, is the fear of being caught, being prosecuted, being convicted, going to prison and having their liberties taken away. When somebody sees a police officer on the street, they will not commit a crime. When they know that there are a number of police officers in a particular area, they will not commit a crime. We will save the money that is spent when someone is arrested on prosecuting them, on lawyers’ fees, on our prison services, on prison officers, on probation officers and on all the different agencies that work in the criminal justice system. Of course, let us not forget the poor victim who suffers as a result of the criminal offence. If we put together the cost of all that, we must ask whether it is worth making that £10 saving when we will end up spending £30 to deal with the problem that the saving causes.

I urge the Government seriously to consider how cuts should be made in a Department such as the Home Office, given that we will have more problems in the long term. I know that the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) said that we must not blind the House with statistics, but everybody always bandies statistics about and it is right to emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) said about the fact that crime, including violent crime and crimes against properties, fell considerably during the 13 years of Labour government. That did not happen miraculously—the Labour Government invested in the police, spent money on community support officers and gave more money for fingerprint analysis, DNA evidence and technical support. The combination of those things caused the crime rate to fall. Government Members can tell us not to quote statistics, but that is the truth: crime fell under Labour and it fell for the reasons I have given.

It is not just me who says that crime will rise. The chief constables of South Yorkshire and Lancashire have said that that will happen if the numbers of front-line police officers are cut. It is inevitable—it is common sense—that more crimes will occur if police numbers are cut, so I urge the Government to reconsider this false economic measure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker]

Before the hon. Gentleman gets on his high horse, I should say that I have not heard of the new rule that one has to let an MP know every time one visits friends. I went to see friends of mine in Cambridgeshire who happen to be police officers, and they told me what the impact on front-line officers will be. If I had to choose between the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and front-line police officers in Cambridgeshire to tell me about the impact on the front line, I know who I would trust.

The hon. Member for Shipley spoke about the impact of DNA and CCTV. People and communities up and down this country are not saying to me as shadow Policing Minister, to my hon. Friends or to Government Members, “We’ve got far too many CCTV cameras in our area.” I do not have people queuing up in my constituency to tell me that. They are not saying, “Actually, our civil liberties are being undermined tremendously”. They say that they want more CCTV, because they understand that it supports the police and helps them fight crime. It reassures people and enables crime to be tackled effectively.

[Tom Brake]

rose—

[Vernon Coaker]

I will not give way, because I have only a couple of minutes. I normally would, as the hon. Gentleman knows.

A point that has not yet hit home is that supported housing, domestic and sexual violence services and youth services—the community services that people depend upon—are all being cut. When specialist housing support, sexual violence officers and the specialist domestic violence services provided by local authorities or voluntary organisations are no longer in place, people will instead dial 999 and ask for a police officer, who by their nature will try to attend. That will be a real problem for the police, because demands on them will go up as there is contraction in other services.

The Home Secretary spoke in absolute terms about what police and crime commissioners would do, but said not a word about the defeat in the House of Lords. She spoke as though the vote there had never taken place. There was no reference to it at all, no slight heed paid to the fact that the Government’s plans might need to change.