Policing (North Wales)

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I congratulate the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) on securing the debate.

I am still hoping that the debate will be an opportunity not for a display of new Labour, but for a display of new realism. Perhaps the hon. Lady might like to explain why the Welsh Assembly has cut police funding. I understand that the Labour party supports the budget reductions because its economic credibility depends on it and it cannot guarantee to reverse any of the funding cuts that the Government are going to make. Yet, at the same time, Labour opposes every step that the coalition Government take.

In fact, we have heard in the debate today that one of the cuts Labour Members think they can support is a 12% reduction in the police budget. If that is the case, perhaps the hon. Lady or the official spokesman for the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) when he responds, would like to tell hon. Members exactly how many officers that will equate to, because the hon. Lady is in cloud cuckoo land if she thinks that a 12% cut does not relate to a reduction in staffing numbers.

[Ian Lucas]

Just to clarify the position for the right hon. Gentleman, the budget for the Welsh Assembly is provided by the UK Government, who cut the budget. The Welsh Assembly has less money because the UK Government cut the funding. That is why there are cuts taking place in the Welsh Assembly.

[Tom Brake]

I understand the very simple economics to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, but, of course, the Welsh Assembly has the ability to take decisions and make its own priorities. Clearly, it has chosen not to make policing a priority.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is rather better versed in matters in Carshalton than he is in those in Wales. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) has made clear, the reason for that situation is a reduction in funding from Westminster. I also made it clear that, partly to mitigate what has happened, the Welsh Assembly Government have increased the number of PCSOs by 500. The right hon. Gentleman speaks of wishing for a new realism and a lack of partisanship but, quite honestly, I find his comments totally partisan, totally unhelpful and showing a total lack of knowledge of the people of north Wales.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I think she will have to accept that, in fact, this will be a rather partisan debate. When she opened the debate, she set the tone.

[Chris Ruane]

On that partisan point, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what happened to the 3,000 extra police officers that his party promised before the last election during the middle of the economic crisis?

[Tom Brake]

I am very happy to respond to that; indeed, I have responded to similar points in a number of debates since the new Government were elected. The financial circumstances do not allow such pledges to be funded. It is as simple as that. What this discussion has revealed is that we need to have an important debate—perhaps if we set aside partisanship, we could have that debate—about using police officers effectively. For example, if we recruit more police officers and put them in a call centre, it might add to police officer numbers, but it does not necessarily equate to a more effective police force.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tom Brake]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I need to make a little progress, having taken four or five interventions already.

I hope that this morning’s debate will not be totally partisan. Clearly, there are some very challenging circumstances for the police in north Wales. I understand that, prior to the election, they had lost 85 officers and that, under the previous Government, there were some issues that needed to be addressed. There has since been a further reduction in officer numbers. As the hon. Lady said, I acknowledge that, for rural forces, there are clearly bigger challenges than for forces in urban areas, where, for instance, it is easier to call on support from neighbouring forces because the distances are smaller. I acknowledge those points.

In those circumstances, it was right that the chief constable, Mark Polin, undertook the reorganisation proposals that he has instigated in terms of setting up the hubs, reducing senior management numbers and merging three divisions into one. It is perfectly appropriate that, having undertaken that reorganisation, the matter should be looked at again to see what the impact has been. We need to consider whether such an approach has been effective and whether it has perhaps had unintended consequences that the chief constable may be able to address.

In the past, the chief constable has criticised partnerships, so I hope that he will not go down the line of saying that partnerships get in the way of the police working effectively. Certainly, my experience is that partnerships—particularly those with the local authority, the voluntary sector and other partners—are an effective way of reducing crime in an area, not a hindrance. I do not consider officers who are allocated to a partnership role as being officers who are badly allocated in that respect.

Another point that the chief constable’s review may touch on is the issue of overtime payments because, clearly, there has been an increase in north Wales. I accept that there will be circumstances in which overtime payments allow officers to be specially tasked for a particular initiative. However, at the same time, there needs to be a balance between an acceptable reliance on overtime and police officer numbers.

[Susan Elan Jones]

rose—

[Tom Brake]

I see that the hon. Lady is on the edge of her chair. Perhaps she wants to intervene on me at this point.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us his experience of living in north Wales?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I have no experience of living in north Wales. I am not purporting to have the very local knowledge that she and other Welsh Members here have. Clearly, that is not the case. If she takes part in a debate about London policing matters in the future, I may throw that comment back at her to see what her experience has been and whether she has lived in London, as I have for the past 30 years. She may be able to comment in some detail on that matter.

I want to move on to what might in the longer term present a solution to these problems. I—and I think many hon. Members present—would like the Welsh Assembly to take on greater responsibility for policing and justice issues. I see that some Members are not in agreement with me, but others may well be. In the longer term, if Wales wants to have total control of its policing and therefore have responsibility for deciding what the appropriate level of policing is and what percentage of its budget should be allocated to policing issues, that is an ambition I support.

Clearly, I accept that there would be enormous challenges to achieving that and that we would have to try to unpick the funding arrangements that apply to policing. I, and many hon. Members here, know that that is extremely controversial. Depending on which part of the country someone comes from, the funding arrangements either work for or against them. Clearly, that issue would require long and detailed negotiations. However, in the longer term, I cannot see any other solution to providing the policing that Wales feels is acceptable for Wales. As long as the UK Government—in whatever shape or form—continue to provide funding for policing, we will always have rather sterile debates about central Government not allocating enough money, and the Welsh Assembly not being able to deploy the resources that it would like to deploy.

On that final point, which I hope will provide a longer term solution to these funding issues, I conclude my remarks. As I said, I hope that this debate will not be entirely partisan. I had 13 years’ experience in opposition and I always felt that it was clearly my role to attack the previous Government, which I did, hopefully with some vigour. At the same time, I always felt that as an Opposition Member it was incumbent on me to reflect the reality of the circumstances, and deploy some solutions for the Government to consider.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) on securing this important debate on an issue that is dear to our hearts as elected politicians and to our constituents. I will not be police-bashing. The police in north Wales have done an excellent job over the years, including the former chief constable, Richard Brunstrom. Despite all the shenanigans and publicity-seeking, he put the extra funding that we provided into front-line services. Mark Polin, the new chief constable who replaced him, is also doing an excellent job.

However, things are not right in north Wales. The latest statistics show that there was a 1% drop in crime, but if one drills down and looks at the areas of crime, there has been a 12% increase in household burglaries, a 30% increase in fraud, a 10% increase in theft, and a 60% increase in robbery. Those increases are directly attributable to the cuts in the number of police officers and back-office staff. North Wales used to be the safest place to live in the United Kingdom, and if we are too complacent and do not stand up and be counted, and if we do not challenge the coalition Government, we will not be doing our job as Opposition MPs. The Opposition have been told not to be party political about the matter, but it was a political party that made the cuts. That political party stood on a manifesto of putting 3,000 extra police officers on the beat, but it cut the number by 16,000. Those political decisions were made by political parties, and Labour MPs in opposition will hold the Government to account.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Ruane]

I will not give way yet. I have a few more messages for the right hon. Gentleman. He stood up and said that he was party political for 13 years, and that he hoped he had done a good job in holding the then Government to account. We are going to be party political, and we will hold the right hon. Gentleman and his party and the other coalition party to account.

[Tom Brake]

I have no problem whatever with the hon. Gentleman providing scrutiny. That is the Opposition’s role, but they must also provide solutions.

[Chris Ruane]

I will provide solutions. I will come to them. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), the shadow Minister, announced an inquiry into the future of policing, the Minister said that that was political abdication. Now is the time to have an inquiry, as we are going into a double-dip recession with massive cuts. Now is the time to analyse the issues facing a modern police force in the 21st century, but the Minister called that political abdication.

Another issue is the decline in the number of criminals caught and prosecuted. In north Wales, there was a drop of 11.5% between April and November last year. I do not believe that that is the fault of the police. North Wales is a big geographical area. It requires a lot of policing and resources, and a lot of funding.

I have given the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), a bit of a roasting, and the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) deserves the same. He did not stand up for his constituency when his party pulled out of holding its spring conference at Llandudno, and he has not stood up for policing in north Wales. The cuts are dangerous, and are having a dangerous impact in our communities. All he can say is to ask what the Labour party did. He and his Government are in power now, and they are implementing cuts too far and too fast.