Police

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

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

I will endeavour to stay well within your time stricture for this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thought that the debate on police funding had shifted in recent days, and that the Labour party had recognised that it supports many of the measures that the coalition Government are introducing, such as the pay freeze, reforms to police overtime and the 12% savings as recognised in the HMIC report. We have also heard that the Labour party cannot guarantee to restore any of the budget reductions that the coalition Government have had to make.

I thought, therefore, that some solutions would perhaps be deployed today, that there would be some recognition that the measures taken and the budget cuts were necessary, and that the Government and the Opposition would try to find ways of making better use of police resources. Unfortunately, we heard nothing of the sort from the Labour party. It may be that on the Labour Benches there are prospective candidates for elected police and crime commissioners. If they are elected in November, they will be responsible for police strategy and budgets. Perhaps it is down to them to outline how they would make better use of police resources, because I am afraid that the shadow Home Secretary, who has just left her place, did not do that in her opening remarks.

This debate should be about how we can make better use of the resources that there are. I will give a few examples of how that can be achieved. I make no apologies for again mentioning the Safer Sutton partnership. The Minister has been to see how that works for himself. It is a fantastic example of the police working closely with the local authority and pooling resources. A concrete example of that work, which led to a saving and a better service, was when the local authority stopped providing parks police and took on safer neighbourhood teams to work in the parks. The Met was able to police the parks more cheaply than the local authority, and uniformed officers performed the roles. That was welcomed across the board and represented a saving for the local authority.

The Government could improve policing by relying more heavily on the evidence of what actually works. Again, I make no apologies for repeating this point in the Minister’s presence. Generalisations are often made about what leads to improvements in policing and to reductions in crime. I had an interesting e-mail exchange with the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who is not in his place, in which he suggested that the level of crime dropped significantly as a result of a significant increase in incarceration. However, the evidence from the US is that, although it has seen a large increase in prison numbers, only 10% of the reduction in crime can be attributed to that increase. Far too many simplistic conclusions are drawn. We should develop a body of research—this is starting to happen—to look at what is and is not effective. Perhaps we could ensure that it is all held in one place. Chief constables and, when they are elected, police and crime commissioners should have to refer to that evidence to see whether it suggests that their proposals will be effective or less effective than they think.

We should focus on reinforcing policing by consent, which is central to this debate. We can have as many police officers as we want, but if there is general dissatisfaction or a collapse in discipline, as we saw during the riots, it will be difficult for the police to manage it. We need to boost people’s confidence in the police to ensure that we have policing by consent. That is why the Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate, Brian Paddick—who I am sure would not be in favour of a bung to Boris, as the Labour party has put it—has focused heavily on stop and search and its impact, particularly on black and ethnic minority communities. It reduces the willingness for there to be policing by consent in some of those communities.

We need to be able to draw in other resources. There are some good examples of that. In Bonnington square, the local community has got together to self-police an area where there has been a problem with muggings. That model could be extended. It does not draw heavily on police resources, apart from there being a need for the group to have direct contact with the police. If it can be built on existing community groups, rather than requiring groups to be established simply for that purpose, which may run the risk of vigilantism, that would be a sensible model. Again, that is Brian Paddick’s proposal—Paddick’s patrols he calls them. It could help us to do more with less in policing.

We need better use of existing resources, which is what the HMIC report is about. In London, I know that our Liberal Democrat colleagues are pressing very hard to get rid of some of the rather generous police perks for very senior officers, such as chauffeured cars, which would free up some resources to be used more effectively. For instance, such resources could be used to support safer neighbourhood teams and ensure that the number of sergeants in them is maintained.

My final point brings me back to the fact that we should not always assume that a particular policy has a direct impact in another area. The Government’s work on problem families could have a much greater impact on policing issues than any other measure that they could take. A focus on the relatively small number of families who, for whatever reason, require more input than others from various services could have a really beneficial long-term impact on crime levels.

We need to shift this debate from what I now acknowledge was a rather simplistic linear link between police numbers and crime levels, and instead consider what is most effective in preventing and tackling crime.

[Mr Hanson]

I accept what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but may I take him back to the debate that we had before the election, when I stood at the Government Dispatch Box and he sat on the Opposition Benches? He argued that the settlement that I had put forward as Policing Minister was not sufficient, and said that he wanted 3,000 more police. What has changed in the subsequent years that now causes him not to want those police officers?

[Tom Brake]

I have answered exactly the same question from the right hon. Gentleman in other debates recently, and I will give him the same answer as last time. First, the 3,000 police officers were part of a package to be paid for by getting rid of identity cards. Of course, that element has now understandably been subsumed into dealing with the huge deficit that we inherited from his party, which is why we no longer advocate additional police. Secondly, that has rightly put pressure on us to recognise that simple police numbers are not the solution and that it is actually about effective deployment. The coalition Government have recognised that, and the Liberal Democrats are pressing for it. I wonder whether the Labour party might want to follow that approach, too.

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

Of course that will be investigated, as, indeed, is every security breach.

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

Following the tragic deaths of two teenagers at young offenders institutions in the last week, will the Minister examine the role of peer mentoring in helping people to detect those who are at risk of self-harm or suicide?

[Mr Blunt]

Of course our condolences go out to the families in question. However, I understand that this is the first time such a thing has happened on the under-18s estate since 2007, and the fact that there have been two tragic incidents in close succession does not mean that we should not recognise the good record that has been maintained in the intervening years. Every effort will be made to learn all the lessons from what has happened during the four different types of inquiry that will take place into each of the deaths.

Victims and Witnesses Strategy

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I will consider it. Such situations are extremely irritating, and in extreme cases could be contempt of court, but, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, no one has ever found a way to deal with them. There always will be cases when some miscreant leaves court and celebrates too vigorously the fact that he has not lost his liberty or in some other way. If he starts adding insult to the court or his victims, something should be done to find a way of dealing with him under the rules of contempt of court.

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

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the proposals, particularly on requiring offenders to pay more to compensate victims and on providing compensation to UK victims of terrorism abroad. On UK victims of crimes abroad, will the Secretary of State agree to meet a cross-party group of MPs to look at the issue of people who are victims of serious crimes of another nature, such as serious assault?

[Mr Clarke]

It would be very nice to do that, but that is the history of this scheme from the start, which is why the aspirations of Parliament and Government have always run rather ahead of the available funding. I would like to compensate people with broken fingers or sprained ankles, but that would get us into arrears and months and years of delay before anyone could be paid. We have to concentrate on the most serious cases. As far as people abroad are concerned, all kinds of nasty things can happen abroad, although we hope that they usually do not. People can have all sorts of crimes committed against them or catch all sorts of peculiar diseases, but we have to bear in mind that British taxpayers’ obligation to compensate in such cases has to be limited to a certain extent.

On terrorism, the case has always been that it cannot be insured against, and that is why everybody has agreed that the taxpayer should compensate in such cases. I would be reluctant to accede more readily to going further and adding yet more people whom the British taxpayer has to compensate for unfortunate experiences in Africa.

Detainee Inquiry

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

The agencies are reviewing their accessing of the necessary records, because these Libyan allegations emerged as a surprise. We are making sure, as far as one can, that this matter is reviewed and that we access such records as are available.

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

We must get to the bottom of the allegations of mistreatment as soon as possible. The credibility of the intelligence services depends on it. To that end, how soon after police investigations are concluded does the Secretary of State expect a successor detainee inquiry to be established? In the interim, is there an enhanced role for the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation that might require him to have a salary and an office outside the Home Office to review these matters independently and effectively?

[Mr Clarke]

We have not taken any decisions yet about the exact point at which we will start constituting a new judge-led inquiry or approaching a judge and people who might wish to serve on the inquiry. What we did this time was to set up the Gibson inquiry in the belief that we were about to start imminently—going into the full formal stage after a few months of preparation. Presumably, we will try to repeat that, but at this stage it is impossible to know when we will be in a position to do that. At the moment, we want to review the facts of these cases so I do not feel the need to create a new appointment to review the legislation in this area; indeed, I would argue, subject to what emerges, that the law in this area is reasonably clear. It is the facts that we hope to investigate, and then the application of the law to those facts.

Policing

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Brady. I welcome the opportunity to debate the “New Landscape of Policing” report produced by the Home Affairs Committee and the Government’s response to it. I welcome, too, the fact that many of the Committee’s members are here today.

I begin by saying, very much in the way that the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), started his contribution, that there is a very busy picture when it comes to policing matters. As he stated, the NPIA will wind down by the end of this year, and SOCA will take on some of its responsibilities before being wound down. We expect the National Crime Agency to be fully functional by the end of next year. The elected police and crime commissioners should be in post by November, and the police authorities are being wound down at the same time. The protocol has recently been published. There is a shadow strategic policing requirement and an organised crime co-ordination centre.

They are just some of the things that have been established or are in the process of being wound down. At the same time, it is clear that the UK remains under threat, as it has been for many years. We have had other threats or incidents—the riots in August have been mentioned—and the diamond jubilee and the Olympics are upcoming. The changes present a complex picture of what the policing landscape will look like in a couple of years’ time, against a backdrop of a high level of threat to the UK.

The Home Affairs Committee has an important responsibility to scrutinise all those activities, and it has shown itself perfectly capable of doing so. The Minister with responsibility for policing will no doubt be personally responsible if any of those bodies fail to act in the way that they should, but it is clearly not possible for him to have a day-to-day handle on the progress that is being made across all those different areas of policing activity. Who, therefore, is actually responsible for having oversight on a day-to-day basis of all those different activities to ensure that one is not having a knock-on effect, or an unintended consequence, somewhere else?

As the Home Affairs Committee report highlights—this is reported in the Government’s response—those changes, even when complete, will not be set in stone. For instance, the point about the protocol in paragraph 38 in the Government’s response, Command Paper 8223, is likely to change once the police and crime commissioners are in post, because they may seek to make sensible changes. There is also the issue of what will happen to counter-terrorism. I certainly support what the Committee has said: it would be wrong to make changes to where counter-terrorism sits at present, but, post-Olympics, there is a strong case for including it in the National Crime Agency, given that it affects all parts of the United Kingdom. It is, therefore, a moving picture in more respects than one. I am sure that the Minister will want to continue to ensure that these matters are reported to Parliament on a regular basis so that, almost month-by-month, we can see the progress that is being made on all these different restructuring activities.

I raised the issue of the scrutiny of police and crime commissioners by the police and crime panels and the Government at Home Office questions on 12 December. I wanted reassurance that the budgets for the police and crime panels would be sufficient to allow them to scrutinise the police and crime commissioners in the way that was intended. The Government have said that £40,000 is set aside for that. In his response, the Minister may be able to set out how that figure was derived. On the face of it, £40,000 for a panel to scrutinise the activities of the police and crime commissioner does not sound like a lot of money, certainly not in comparison with the budgets of the police authorities, although they have other responsibilities that the police and crime commissioner will take on.

[Mark Reckless]

With the exception of two individuals, the police and crime panels will assist elected councillors who already receive allowances and may lean on other support from their constituent councils. Surely, at least part of the process must be to provide funds to allow appropriate scrutiny, rather than putting in great dollops of additional money.

[Tom Brake]

Councils may make a contribution in that respect, but at some point a police and crime panel might need to call on expertise that is not available in local authorities. If people are trying to access such expertise, which may be required for the panel effectively to undertake its scrutiny role, it does not take too long for a substantial bill to build up. I hope that the Minister will set out precisely how it will work and will reassure hon. Members that resources will be sufficient for the important task that the panels will undertake.

I hope that the Government will quickly review their role in scrutinising the police and crime commissioners, or at least the way in which they have been implemented. Given that activity is already starting in relation to London, it is not unreasonable to hope that by sometime in 2014, say, when the police and crime commissioners have been active for a couple of years, the Government may want to consider whether those bodies are delivering the sorts of things that we expect them to, in terms of increased accountability, greater involvement of the public and ensuring that the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable are engaging effectively with the people who are, at the moment, excluded from that consultation and engagement process.

I am sure that many hon. Members—possibly all hon. Members here—will at some point have attended the ward panel in one of the wards in their constituencies. I have done so occasionally in Wallington, South. It is clear that those panels receive useful input from key individuals in the community. It is true to say that young people are rarely present on those panels, and I suspect that those on lower incomes are underrepresented. The Government will want to consider whether police and crime commissioners and chief constables are beginning to engage more effectively with such groups to see whether their views, concerns and priorities, from a policing perspective, are properly taken on board.

The Home Affairs Committee report and the Government response contain a large body of information about the professional body. I support that and want it rolled out quickly and, as the Committee has suggested, in an all-encompassing way that is not exclusive in terms of its membership. That body should be doing some things at an early stage, including considering national minimum recruitment standards for the police force, considering whether there is scope for learning from the Teach First scheme, to see whether there are ways to get a different group of young, qualified people into the police force, and looking at whether there is any prospect of using some of the expertise that has been built up in respect of teaching schools to see whether there is any role for some of our larger police stations in that respect.

[Keith Vaz]

I was remiss in not recognising that the right hon. Gentleman appeared as a witness in the Committee during its inquiries.

The Government’s proposal to completely and radically reform the way that police officers are trained and to look at standards is exciting. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the Committee that it is important to bring the profession with us when having a discussion of this kind and to have the widest possible consultation, so that we have something that will last beyond this Government—the worst possible thing would be to have too much party politics in this—and that we should be getting people on board and united behind a new method of education and professionalism?

[Tom Brake]

I welcome this proposal and agree that the profession must be brought along and that that requires consultation and engagement, although, of course, it may be difficult to get a single view of the profession from all levels of police officers about what that professional body will look like. However, it is clearly essential to engage with all of them, whether chief constables, superintendents, police constables—the whole range—or staff.

I hope that the professional body will look more carefully at black and minority ethnic recruitment into the police force and how BME officers do or do not make progress within the ranks. It should take that task on at an early stage.

As an aside, the professional body should, rightly, concentrate on training. What training will be available for both police and crime commissioners and police and crime panels? In relation to the former, what training might be available to candidates who are going to be, or want to be, police and crime commissioners? Such training could be beneficial. I am concerned that some candidates for those posts may not have the experience, knowledge or expertise that is required. Although coming to the job with a fresh approach may be welcome, understanding the environment in which people are going to work will also be beneficial.

I shall mention efficiency, touch on one major omission from the new landscape and then conclude. On efficiency, the report clearly and rightly highlights the importance of getting more out of the procurement process and out of IT. However, it is short on detail about ensuring that the police are taking the most effective approach to tackling types of crime.

I want to see more in terms of drawing into the centre the evidence base for what is effective from a policing perspective, so that we can make that information available widely to all the police and crime commissioners and chief constables and can be certain that, when they launch an initiative—whether tackling antisocial behaviour or organised crime, at NCA level—they are using a policy or approach that evidence suggests will be the most effective possible. Doing that may require universities and others to be more heavily involved in the research than may currently be the case.

The Home Affairs Committee did not focus enough, to my liking, on the linkages that should exist between police and local authorities. The Chair of the Committee has visited Sutton, as has the Minister with responsibility for the police, to look at the partnership between the local authority and the police, which has drawn together under one person police and local authority resources to tackle antisocial behaviour and so on. I would like to have seen that agenda pushed more, because there is no doubt that it has been effective in Sutton not only from a policing perspective, but in ensuring that the police, the local authority, the fire service and the voluntary sector work together effectively. I would like it to have been more prominent in the Committee report and in the new landscape of policing more generally. From a policing perspective, these are exciting and challenging times, and there are lots of opportunities, which is why we need to keep the situation under constant review. I hope that the Minister will reassure us there will be an ongoing and heavily engaging process for all Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Thank you for calling me in the debate, Mr Brady, even if only to prove that one does not have to be a member of the Privy Council to be allowed to speak. It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael)—perhaps one should expect a Welshman to look for the dragons in the landscape. I do not intend to describe every single aspect of that landscape, which has already been done well by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who went through a number of aspects of the report as well as some of the comments and suggestions that we, as a political party, had to make. Instead, I will pick out a valley here or a hill there, say a little more about those and perhaps suggest a few routes to take through the landscape.

The Government seek to undertake the most radical change to policing in 50 years, and there will be significant changes by the end of this Parliament. We will see dramatic structural changes, which will have a significant impact on the ground. What the public will care about is what will directly affect them. We should accept that the merger, abolition and creation of all sorts of agencies that members of the public have generally never heard about will not be what they care about, and that is not what the most interesting headlines will be about. The reforms, however, underpin delivery, so we have to get them right.

One of the key issues is the relationship between the democratic right of citizens to decide policies and how policing should happen—those policies might be developed in this place and by the Government—and the right of the police to use their expertise and knowledge to determine operational matters. Those two rights are distinct, and we need to ensure that we understand the difference between them. The police obviously need to be policed, but if our control over what they do is too strong and our grip is too tight, then they will lose that freedom of movement and expertise, their purpose will be undermined and policing in this country will simply dissolve.

I am concerned about how the system will operate. Currently, operational matters are dealt with by chief constables, but a huge amount is driven centrally by the Association of Chief Police Officers, which issues directives. A former Cambridgeshire chief constable has said, “I have an ACPO directive to do the following”. That may not be how the system should work in theory, but, as has been said, in theory, theory and practice are the same thing, but in practice they are not.

ACPO has a role in co-ordinating strategic responses and policing strategies, and it advises the Government on important operational matters. It uses that expertise, under the direction of Sir Hugh Orde, to direct police forces throughout the country and to provide policy advice. Generally, it does that well, but it has been in existence since 1948 and, like any Government-backed organisation with significant independence and vital responsibilities, it is liable to mission creep.

In 1997, ACPO became a private company limited by guarantee, so the body that sets the direction for policing in this country is a private company. There were technical reasons for that, but the message that it sends is worrying. Similarly, ACPO was not subject to freedom of information, although that has now been updated. It received increased responsibilities, such as control over the world’s largest per capita DNA database, which I am pleased is changing, control of undercover policing and control of the policing of political groups in the UK in addition to a growing number of income-generating activities, which stretch the definition of what one might call occupational guidance to breaking point.

There are a number of examples of how occupational guidance can be stretched. I have the great privilege of leading for the Liberal Democrats on transport policy, and when the Secretary of State for Transport announced a review of whether motorway speed limits should be raised from 70 mph to 80 mph, a key question for me was to work out the Government’s policy on how speed limits should be enforced. The current 70 mph speed limit is realistically enforced not at 70 mph but at 80 mph. The speed limit depends on enforcement, and 80 mph meaning 80 mph is a different policy from 80 mph meaning 100 mph. Those are two different policies, but who decides which is implemented? How would the Secretary of State decide? I have been told that the decision on what that policy means—the effective speed limit in this country—was taken not by the House or the Secretary of State for Transport, but by the ACPO lead officer in the area. That is not a case of ACPO deciding what equipment should be used, what the practicalities are or where police officers should be sent. A whole range of matters is for ACPO, and I would not expect the Department for Transport to decide them, but the effective speed limit applying on our motorways should be controlled democratically. Similarly, I found that ACPO guidance advises police forces not to enforce 20 mph speed limits in cities. ACPO should not determine that when the Government have made it clear that they support more 20 mph speed limits in appropriate areas.

Under the Labour Government, ACPO—a largely unaccountable body—was given responsibility for safeguarding some of our basic human freedoms. A private company had the role of deciding how tasers should be used when such weapons, if misused, can be deadly. It had similar control over DNA. ACPO sent me an astonishing letter when questions were being asked about how people could have DNA data deleted from the police national computer. I will happily provide a full copy of the letter to anyone who wants to read it. It is dated 2006, and it advised that the following procedures should be adopted:

“Upon receipt of a request for deletion of a PNC data entry the force”

should check that it can correctly identify the subject. That is absolutely fine. The letter goes on to say that

“an applicant may request the deletion of”

their

“record/DNA sample and profile/fingerprints”

and so forth when there are special circumstances. When that request is made, a check should be made on whether the data entry is correct. So far so good. It continues:

“In the first instance applicants should be sent a letter informing them that the samples and associated PNC record are lawfully held and their request for deletion/destruction is refused”.

There is nothing before that in the letter requiring anyone to find out whether the information is lawfully held, and to work out whether to refuse it. That is a glaring omission. The letter then says that the applicant may write back explaining why the data should be deleted, after which the chief constable should look at the matter and decide whether there is a case to answer.

That is not what we should expect, and I hope that it is not what ACPO intended, but the letter certainly went to several police authorities, including mine, as guidance on the rules. The guidance was that applications should be rejected, and if that was questioned, the police should find out whether the data were correctly held. That should be reformed.

To be fair, ACPO is in a difficult position, and I think that Sir Hugh Orde has accepted the need to change how it operates. It has a grip on national policing but, as Sir Hugh has said,

“it is not through any choice; it is because someone has to do it.”

It is partly the Government’s responsibility to ensure that the right people are fulfilling the right tasks, and that we do not say, “These are tasks that the Government will not do,” and force them on ACPO by accident. It is clear that we need to fix ACPO, and that the Government should have that role. I totally endorse the Government’s decision to create a new professional body to provide leadership and to develop the police as a profession. That is an extremely positive step, and I am delighted that the Government are taking it.

I also support the idea of a body where chief constables can meet to discuss important policing matters, to deal with operational issues and to advise the Government with their expertise. That is right and proper. Chief constables should have that role, and I support its facilitation. We can keep the best bits of ACPO, and get rid of the other bits. We must ensure that those organisations, whether councils or bodies, are accountable and transparent. Will the Minister comment on whether they will be private companies and whether they will be subject to freedom of information? They must not decide the law of the land, so how will the Government decide what is an operational matter, and how will the powers be outlined?

There is more we can do. During the Committee’s investigation, it became clear to me that we still do not have a good handle on evidence. This country has a long tradition of not using evidence-based policy, which applies to policing. It would be helpful to have an organisation that could provide reliable, independent and world-leading advice on policing. We need evidence-based policing, as well as more general evidence-based policy. I welcome the recent establishment of the British Society of Evidence Based Policing, and I hope that the Minister has had an opportunity to speak to it, and to hear what it has to say. One could come up with a number of interesting conclusions about policing styles and techniques that are driven by evidence. Britain leads the world. We train police officers in many parts of the country on executive leadership programmes, and the Minister, with the Chair of the Select Committee, kindly spoke at one of those events just before Christmas.

Much of that has been driven by an academic who is now based in Cambridge. Professor Larry Sherman is professor of criminology at that university, and he has a lot to say on this matter—I hope that the Government regularly listen to him. He recently gave the 2011 Benjamin Franklin medal lecture at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. He said many interesting things, and I commend his speech to anyone who might be interested. He argued for the creation of a British academy of policing, which would be

“a civil society organisation uniting police associations with university faculties of policing in a self-governing professional body”,

and could

“extend the global influence of British policing”,

and provide politicians attempting to navigate a new policing structure with rigorous academic material. I endorse that, because it would be excellent to have the academic knowledge from our universities linked up with policing.

We have one of the best policing traditions in the world, but we must be able to reform it and we must be able to proceed on cogent evidence. There is always inertia with such a force, and some of it is necessary, but it should be changed from an evidence-based position. We need that rigorous change, and I hope that the Government will continue to head down that route.

I want to discuss some other issues. We have discussed the police IT company and organisational matters. I would like the police to deal with that better and to become more innovative by using small-scale ideas. I shall give two examples, using companies that are, not coincidentally of course, in my constituency. I have mentioned them briefly in the House.

Sepura makes radio handsets that are used by the police and other emergency services. It is doing some excellent work with West Midlands police in using those radios to record information about stop and search—I will not discuss the wider aspects of stop and search—and to log the location, time and other details of an incident that has just happened. I understand that that is extremely successful, because it saves time for police officers and provides more accurate and more accessible results. I am sure that the Minister remembers writing a letter to Sepura congratulating it on that work. I hope that we will see it rolled out in other areas, and that there will be other innovations.

Real VNC does similar work, but sadly only with the police in the United States, where there are similar systems. Hand-held devices can be used to access the main police computer in a secure and controlled way, so that the police can be more active, and can record directly at the scene instead of having to wait. It goes without saying that all existing IT systems need to be made to work. My experience with Cambridgeshire constabulary, from an evening that I spent with the police, was that it took about an hour and a half to download a video from a head-mounted camera. We need to fix such problems as well as be more innovative.

My final plea is that we should not focus too much on organisations. What matters in policing concerns what happens on the ground and with individuals, and the ward of East Chesterton in Cambridge, which I used to represent as a county councillor, contained excellent examples of that—I apologise to hon. Members who have heard me make that point previously. I would love to claim credit for all the brilliant innovations in that ward, but they were not mine and were largely driven by PC Nick Percival—I still think of him as that, although he has now been promoted. He came along as our community beat manager and carried out a whole range of measures that made a difference in that relatively deprived part of Cambridge.

In his first year on the beat, Nick Percival managed to halve the amount of antisocial behaviour and crime that was reported, which was a huge achievement. If all our officers could manage such things—I realise that it is not that simple—this country would be a different place. He also managed to arrest fewer people than was usual for that area. Some saw that as a cause for criticism, but I saw it as a great triumph. Successful policing involves reducing the level of crime, and a greater number of arrests is not the aim.

I would like to highlight two things done by PC Nick Percival. First, he created a link with young people. That is important, especially when looking at the factors that led indirectly to the riots. We used to have a problem, particularly during school holidays, of young people getting bored, hanging around, causing trouble and smashing up bus shelters or engaging in other forms of small-scale antisocial behaviour. Nick Percival came up with the idea of a voucher scheme. Any young person in the ward who was seen playing well during the holidays by a police officer or a PCSO—we have had a great team of PCSOs over the years—was given a signed voucher by that officer. At the end of the holiday, everybody in the class at school that had the most vouchers received a £15 voucher for the local shopping centre. That was a cheap measure, and it transformed the area. Rather than having groups wandering around feeling bored, people would play and hope that a police officer would walk by. They desperately hoped that the cop would come over and find them, and they would say, “Hi PC Nick, good to see you.” It would be fantastic to see that sort of relationship in more areas.

[Tom Brake]

My hon. Friend provides me with the opportunity to flag up an exciting proposal that has been put to me by an organisation called Cricket for Change. It is keen to work with those responsible for the training of PCSOs, and embed within that training a unit aimed at providing PCSOs with the skills that they need to engage young people in sport through games such as street cricket and tag rugby.

[Dr Huppert]

The idea outlined by my right hon. Friend sounds excellent, and I hope that it does well. There is much we need to do to engage with young people because of the risk that some see themselves as somehow detached from existing organisations. When the Committee took part in visits after the riots, people described how distrust of the police already existed and said that from an early stage they and their families had grown up distrusting the police. We have to break that down, and any initiative that leads to normal friendly relationships between the police and the general public must be a good thing.

The other initiative was a system called e-cops that originally started in East Chesterton but is now used across Cambridgeshire. It is a regular newsletter sent by the police to anybody in that area and includes information such as which roads PCs have been walking down. It was transformational in East Chesterton because instead of people saying, “Why do I never see a police officer on my street?”—frankly I would be worried if I always saw a police officer on my street—there was a hugely increased level of satisfaction in what the police were doing at minimal extra cost. One of the great things about e-cops was that it was set up in an informal, chatty style; it was clearly written by a PC or PCSO writing as themselves. The initiative was successful and spread across Cambridgeshire. It is now used more as a communications device, and I think that the formality has weakened some of its effect. The idea, however, was for people to know their local police as people, not only as a force to complain or argue about.

Policing is ultimately for and about people, not just national organisations. I hope that if we implement a number of the necessary reforms, albeit with many of the caveats described by the Committee and colleagues who have spoken in the debate, we will remember to think about people and look at what we can do to make things better for them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. That is a deal. I would be delighted to come up to the town of my birth and discuss these issues with Professor Sherman, because they are important. The absence of greater academic co-ordination and interest in the evidence for good policing practice is something that we should collectively seek to try and redress.

[Tom Brake]

Has the Minister gone further than interest on this matter? In the new landscape, where does he think that body of evidence will be held?

[Nick Herbert]

That is a very good question to which I do not have an immediate or off-the-cuff answer. I am loth to suggest the creation of some kind of Government-sponsored body for obvious reasons—we are seeking to reduce the number of quangos and declutter the policing landscape—but that is not to say that there is not a value in looking at who might be responsible for, or encouraging in academia, this kind of work. I am not necessarily endorsing Professor Sherman’s call for some kind of British institute as an additional policing body, but it is worth having the discussion about where this kind of evidence-led approach could be developed. It could be that there are aspects that can be led by the professional body. Professor Sherman thought otherwise—he thought that it would be for others—but these two things might not be mutually exclusive.

May I turn—briefly, because I am aware of the time moving on and I apologise for that—to some of the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Delyn? I have sought to deal with some of them in relation to what I consider to be the coherence of the Government’s policing reforms and the issue of the morale of police officers. I cannot leave unremarked his point about police numbers and the cuts in policing. Of course, the kinds of reduction in police funding that the previous Government have admitted that they were considering —cuts of £1 billion a year in police funding—would inevitably have resulted in fewer people working in policing. It is impossible to see how they could have made savings year-on-year without a smaller work force. Therefore, it is important that those in policing should understand that reductions in manpower were going to happen under any Government. Of course, the issue is the extent to which that has to happen, but I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary’s report on what has happened so far in those reductions in funding shows just a 2% reduction in officers on the front line.

We know that in the back and middle offices of policing, using the definition supplied to us by the inspectorate of constabulary, there are approximately 25,000 police officers. It is therefore simply wrong to suggest that a reduction in manpower necessarily means that the front line will be affected or damaged. The right debate is about how policing should be transformed, restructured and made more efficient so that resource continues to get to the front line. Police forces up and down the country are showing that that is possible, and that the kind of characterisation of the debate we have seen from the Opposition is wrong and will be shown, in the end, to be wrong. I believe that police forces are rising to the challenge of reorganising, driving out cost and ensuring that they can continue to deliver a service to the public.

The right hon. Gentleman raised the issue of who would be responsible for ensuring that police and crime commissioners would deliver value for money. Of course, there is the ongoing responsibility of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary in that regard, but ultimately police and crime commissioners will answer to the public—that is the force of this reform. We are not appointing police and crime commissioners, because the public are electing them. The commissioners will be strongly incentivised to deliver value for money for the British public. The right hon. Gentleman asked whether we are going to set further targets. No, we are not going to set targets for police and crime commissioners. We have abolished policing targets, because we seek a different approach that gives greater freedom.

That concludes the remarks that I want to make in the debate. I apologise for speaking at some length, but I wished seriously to engage with the points made by hon. Members. I welcome the Home Affairs Committee’s interest in these matters. I note that its report is not critical of the changes in the policing landscape, although it has things to say about the pace of change and so on. The Government have taken those comments seriously and have responded. Some of the reforms relating to the establishment of police and crime commissioners have been controversial, despite the cross-party buy-in to the new office. However, other aspects of the reforms command the support of the whole House, such as the creation of the police professional body, the better way of dealing with policing IT, the de-bureaucratisation of policing and the creation of the National Crime Agency. Far from being matters of party division or contention, we can have a good debate about how to make the reforms work while recognising that those are the right changes to ensure that policing can rise to the challenges of the 21st century and continue to ensure that crime is fought effectively and that the public are kept safe.

Common European Sales Law

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I rise briefly to highlight some concerns with the proposals. The perspective of Which? and Consumer Focus is that the different contract laws do not stop consumers or businesses from cross-border trading to any significant degree. It is not clear that the proposal would lead to an expansion of such trade, and it could lead to greater complexity and therefore increase business transaction costs.

There is no legal certainty that the measure would be applied uniformly across the EU. It therefore has the potential to create legal uncertainty and confusion for customers, and it would not provide them with choice, because they would continue to be limited to accepting the contract offered to them by the supplier.

There are grave reservations in relation to the potential for the measure to lead to back-door harmonisation of contract law. I am sure that if my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) had been in a position to stay for the whole debate, he too would have made those points.

I understand the Government’s perspective of subsidiarity, but the measure is an optional change, not an imposed one. Can subsidiarity in all cases overrule something that is optional and not mandated? The Minister rightly said that the regulation would not be simple to use and that complexity is involved, but have the Government assessed whether the proposal is more complex than the current legislation? Do they recognise that the Federation of Small Businesses says that small businesses need to be able to afford to compete in different markets in the EU?

The proposal raises many more questions than it resolves, and therefore a detailed and extensive consultation is required.

[Mr Cash]

I rise simply to say that the City of London corporation has also provided a method of objection and to add it to the other representative organisations I mentioned.

Sport and Youth Crime

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

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

Thank you, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this debate. I hope that hon. Members will not feel too much of a sense of déjà vu after I have finished, because I will make many of the points that he has already made, although I will use examples that are local to me in order to illustrate them.

The debate’s title could have been recast and centred on the effect of sports leaders on youth crime, because I think that sports leaders are what really do it in terms of reducing crime. Clearly, the sport itself plays a part, but I think it is the sports leaders who have the impact, and that is because of the discipline that they can instil, their important mentoring role, and the values that they demonstrate in leading young people, whatever their sporting activity. The Government have to get on top of the mentoring role. I believe that there is an issue about which Government Department should take responsibility for mentors. There is a clear need for them in, I would suggest, large numbers, but there seem to be difficulties in securing them, so that is an area for the Government to focus on.

Sport is also central to reducing youth crime and engaging young people in positive diversionary activities. Sport is all about team play—working together with others—which might be something that they have not experienced before. Moreover, exercise undoubtedly helps address the anger management issues that some young people may have—it is a lot harder to be angry after three hours of intense sporting activity. Sport is also about sportsmanship and being able to demonstrate to other young people the value of fair play. Wrapped up in all that is the issue of diet. Addressing dietary failures is necessary not only to succeed at sport at almost any level, but particularly if alcohol is an issue.

There are many examples of very successful sports schemes—or schemes that use sport, which are slightly different—that are used to tackle criminal behaviour or reduce the risk of offending. The hon. Gentleman has referred to Kickz, which is a very good project, and I will refer to a couple of statistics that highlight its success. There has been a 60% reduction in antisocial behaviour in areas in which Kickz is active, and up to a 20% reduction in the crimes that are most often associated with young people. Clearly, the project has the metrics to demonstrate that it is successful, but, like the hon. Gentleman, I think there is an issue about being able to demonstrate what types of projects are in fact successful. Anecdotal evidence is, of course, very good, but if the Government, the voluntary sector and charities, or social entrepreneurs want to invest in something, we need more than anecdotal evidence to support what is and what is not successful.

I am fortunate to have Cricket for Change based in my constituency. It does a lot of work on street cricket and engaging young people, both boys and girls, in it. Such is the success of its programmes that it has exported them to other countries around the world, such as Jamaica, Sri Lanka and South Africa, so it has taken the idea to challenging deprived areas and has bound people together. It has just finished a three-year programme targeting the 10 communities in London with the highest levels of youth crime. I want to see what that project’s metrics say about the outcomes, because it may have been very successful.

Another local project is Community Inspirations, the importance of which is that it can provide wraparound for some young people who have fallen out of education. They may, for instance, be training locally at the Skills and Integrated Learning Centre—SILC—in plastering, tiling and other skills. There is often an issue about what they do during the school holidays. The typical activities of organisations such as Community Inspirations centre on sport. It often takes a group of young people who may never have stepped outside their postcode to another part of the country to meet other young people and play in competitions. It is having an important impact.

I had a chance meeting last night on my way to the Akash Tandoori, an establishment that I would recommend to anyone who finds themselves in Wallington. It is run by Yawar Khan, who is the president of the Federation of Bangladeshi Caterers and with whom I do a lot of work. Incidentally, I think that the Government and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government could perhaps give him credit for the idea of setting up a curry college in the UK, because he and his federation have been pushing for it for a number of years. He certainly sees the value in training young people here, as opposed to bringing them over from abroad. I will not pursue that line of inquiry, because its link with sport is tenuous.

Mr Khan was hosting a fundraiser for the Royal Marsden at which I happened to meet Mike Fleet, who runs Croydon Harriers. It takes its role in education very seriously, to the extent that when it takes young people on a coach to an athletics meet, the team managers go around and ask the young people, “Where’s your homework? Are you doing it? Do you need some help with your Spanish?” It is, therefore, very hands-on in its support for those young people, as well as in coaching them in their sporting activities and techniques.

I asked Mike why he thought sport was successful and whether it was because the young people win and it gives them a sense of worth. He replied that that was not necessarily the reason, because, of course, they do not all win. He said that it is actually about things such as feeling that they are part of a family. They see a group of young people and adults on a regular basis who can provide them with support. Croydon Harriers work with a range of young people, from perhaps some of the most challenging in Croydon to pupils from Whitgift—whose behaviour I do not think is particularly challenging—and provide them with support and a family environment. In fact, they will often bring in a young person’s actual family and provide an environment in which they can work together, with sport as the coalescing factor. Young people can also see their own progress—they start out achieving a certain distance or time and can then monitor their progress and realise that they are taking positive steps.

Members may not have expected this, but the final project that I would like to mention is the work of the Angling Trust on urban fishing and getting young people from areas that we would least expect involved in fishing. However, a blogger responded to my suggestion that this was a good thing by saying that they did not want oiks to ruin their fishing, so there may be some issues about ensuring that regular fishermen and women do not feel threatened, but the project has an important part to play.

I have given examples of some very good schemes. Finally, I would like to go over the same ground as the hon. Gentleman. There are statistics and hard facts about what is successful, and a lot of anecdotal evidence, but we need to channel that into a strong body of evidence on which the Government and other groups can base decisions about what types of sports schemes they should support. That is true for the whole area of criminal justice, for crime prevention and detection, and for sport. I understand that a sports think-tank has just been set up. Andy Reed, who used to be the Member of Parliament for Loughborough, Lord Addington and a Conservative peer whose name, unfortunately, I cannot remember are on that think-tank. That organisation may want to consider the matter in terms of pulling together the evidence. We need some joined-up government.

This is my last point. We know that the cost of sending people to prison is £40,000, and up to—who knows?—£200,000 for a very secure establishment. We want to see some hard facts about the success of these projects in diverting young people away from crime, so that we can offset the expenditure on those projects against the savings that will be derived by having fewer young people in our prisons. If the Government can achieve that, there will be a substantial improvement in our understanding of how we can tackle these problems.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this debate and on speaking with great expertise and clear conviction about the importance not just of sport, which is something that we can all agree on, but specifically the role that sport can play in reducing youth crime. It is a profitable subject to debate and some positive contributions have been made. I noted with a certain amount of concern his suggestion that there needs to be a lead Minister to co-ordinate across government. He plainly put in a credible bid for his own potential role in that respect, so some of us will have to watch ourselves very carefully.

We should acknowledge that most young people are not involved in crime. Often in our debates—for example, in yesterday’s debate about the causes of the riots—we ignore the fact that the vast majority of young people do not engage in crime. Sport has a value to them, which is separate to our discussion this morning. It is also important to state that, apart from recognising the value that sport may have for reducing crime, we are committed, as I am sure the previous Government were, to reducing youth crime. That will continue to be important for the communities affected by crime. We must prevent young people getting drawn into a life of crime and into a cycle of criminality from which it can be difficult to escape. Providing routes out and choices, which are so important at an early age, is what this debate has been about. Indeed, there was a lot of discussion about that in the context of the riots. What positive or alternative options can be given to young people who may otherwise be drawn into criminality? What alternative structures, as it were, can be offered?

[Tom Brake]

On the subject of routes out, does the Minister have the capacity to look at what sporting and diversionary activities the authorities in areas where the riots took place are planning? In Croydon, 500 people were arrested and 400 charged. I suspect that 200 or 300 will have gone to prison. They will be coming back to Croydon, because 80% of them were from Croydon. It is important that the Government monitor what will be in place to take those people on board when they return.

[Nick Herbert]

We will come to a discussion about who is responsible for providing such activity. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) described somebody who had gone into what he felt was a cul-de-sac as a result of gang activity, but boxing had been the avenue out. Routes out are important. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) spoke about the route that he found out of what might have been an alternative career option such as his friends pursued, which was time spent detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. He has found a different course, although many would suggest that there is not much difference between that role and that of his friends.

Nevertheless, there has been general agreement in the debate. There has been no dispute about the value of sport in having a positive impact on behaviour. It teaches control, self-discipline and the importance of teamwork. It unites people and provides opportunities for people, wherever they come from. Sporting activity is of huge value in preventing offending. Where offending has taken place, sport can play an enormous part as an intervention to break the cycle that I described. We must be careful to ensure that it is not the only intervention. There may be other causes of offending behaviour that need to be addressed in parallel. Whether there are learning difficulties or various addictions, sport can be one of the means to help an offender, but other interventions may be equally important.

There was also agreement about the importance of role models, particularly the powerful role models provided in sport. Such role models can of course provide a catalyst for change. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) talked about the particular value of sports leaders, but I am sure he did not mean to imply that those were simply national sports leaders. Of course, national figures in sport, as mentioned by other Members, have a significant impact on young people. The mentors described by my right hon. Friend work at local level and come from all sorts of places. They can show a leadership role, and assist and encourage young people to engage in sporting activity. That is equally important.

I spoke recently to a police community support officer who, in addition to his community work, devotes much of his private time to working with young people and providing coaching in local sporting activities. He felt that it was important to assist those young people to take part in a constructive activity that would prevent them from getting into trouble. Such volunteers and local heroes matter just as much as national role models; I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) when she said that it was important to fly the flag for volunteers, and to celebrate them and recognise what they do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I entirely agree with that. It is a point on which we are putting very heavy emphasis in all our policies on crime, punishment and rehabilitation.

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

Does the Secretary of State agree that restorative justice can be key in helping victims, both in their hearing an apology from the offender, and in some cases hearing an explanation as to why the crime was committed?

[Mr Clarke]

Again, I agree entirely. We find that of the victims who agree to take part—they must agree to take part—about 85% express satisfaction with the process. It gives victims some feeling that someone has apologised and that they are getting some redress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but the issue of corruption in sport is primarily the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. I know that he is working with his European Union opposite numbers on specific measures to tackle it, and I am following his progress very closely. The recent convictions show that there are problems that need to be tackled in the interests of everyone who believes in the value of sport—but honest sport—to a community.

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

The Government are committed to ensuring that women are not sent to prison in disproportionately high numbers. May we have an update on the Corston report?

[Mr Blunt]

The Government support the objectives of the Corston report, as did our predecessor, and as we did in opposition. There are only one or two elements of it that we are unable to deliver, such as the recommendation for more smaller custodial units. As was made clear in the exchanges that followed the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), one of our main priorities is to make progress on the Corston agenda and to learn some of its lessons in how to deal with not just women prisoners, but all prisoners.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

The new clause would at least mitigate the untenable situation of agencies being funded to deal with only one issue when they know that the root cause of the problem still remains, and it would put them back, in some small way, to being able to deal with the individual as an individual with a group of issues and problems, thus preventing the inevitable recurrence. I urge hon. Members to support the new clause.

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

I rise to speak principally about new clause 17, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue).

Before I do so, I should like to comment on amendment 116. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) made a cogent case for deleting clause 12. The Minister rightly said in Committee that

“the practicalities are the greatest stumbling block, and the costs could be significant.”––[Official Report, Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Public Bill Committee, 8 September 2011; c. 437.]

My hon. Friend underlined that that had been the experience in Scotland. It is therefore clear what the Government’s response should be. For the sake of clarity and succinctness, the Bill could appropriately lose clause 12.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I think I am right in saying that the right hon. Gentleman is speaking to an amendment that would effectively get rid of the idea of means-testing in police stations. I agree that this is an issue of great concern to Members in all parts of the House. I am surprised, however, that when he sat on the Bill Committee he did absolutely nothing about it when he could have supported my amendment or that of the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd).

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am not sure whether he is saying that I should not be raising the point now, but that is what I am doing.

[Karl Turner]

rose—

[Tom Brake]

I am not going to give way. The point has been raised, it is on the record. I am sure that the Minister will have heard it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) will speak about this in relation to amendment 148, and I am sure that he will echo the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Makerfield about the telephone gateway.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that the Law Society, the Bar Council, the Family Law Bar Association and the Lord Chief Justice have all indicated that the changes made by the Government in this Bill will curtail access to the legal system but that the projected savings will not be obtained. Given that the right hon. Gentleman sat on the Bill Committee, perhaps he can tell me why all those organisations are wrong but the Government and the Bill he supports are correct.

[Tom Brake]

In a situation where funding is going to be withdrawn from organisations, it is not surprising that their response is that they do not favour it. The Government need to monitor very carefully some of the concerns that have been raised about the impact of withdrawing legal aid, and we have already had assurances that that will be the case.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Tom Brake]

I will give way one last time and then move on to new clause 17.

[Elizabeth Truss]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that some of those organisations have an interest in pushing up the legal aid bill because they are its main recipients?

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Lady makes a point that is worth considering. Clearly, certain organisations are financial beneficiaries of some of the funding, but I do not want to throw out all the concerns that have been raised because, equally, there are legitimate concerns that the Government need to monitor very carefully.

I turn to new clause 17. I had hoped that during the debate on Monday we would reach the group of amendments on social welfare in which my amendment 149 on complex welfare benefits was listed. Also in the group was amendment 131, which sought to ensure that advice on housing repossessions was available sooner. I regret that we did not reach that group, as, I am sure, does my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), who is chairman of the all-party group on Citizens Advice. However, new clause 17 touches on many aspects of what was included in amendment 149. I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Makerfield has put the matter up for debate today because it provides an opportunity to discuss some of the points that would have been raised on amendment 149. Her definition in trying to ensure that legal aid is extended to complex cases is

“that the individual has complex, interconnected needs”

and that

“not all of those…legal services would otherwise be available to the individual”.

It is reasonable to speculate that many, or most, individuals with complex and interconnected needs will also have welfare benefit issues that will often also be complex. Under the Government’s proposals, welfare benefit cases, complex or otherwise, are excluded from the scope of legal aid.

I acknowledge that the scope of the hon. Lady’s new clause is slightly different from what was proposed in amendment 149. However, if it had been restricted to individuals with complex and interconnected needs who require legal help with complex welfare benefit issues, I suspect that we would have been discussing exactly the same area of legal aid, because virtually every individual who has a benefit advice problem involving issues of legal complexity, significant evidential hurdles or daunting adjudication processes will have complex and interconnected needs. According to Citizens Advice, that more targeted approach would help to achieve a compromise position whereby more complex cases can be covered by the legal help system. When we asked Citizens Advice what it would identify as a single priority as regards what the Government should change, that is what it proposed.

Citizens Advice has calculated the cost impact of its proposal. It says that the current welfare benefits advice spend is £25 million on just under 140,000 cases, and that restricting it to complex welfare benefit cases covering only reviews and appeals, which applies to two thirds of the current welfare benefit cases, would cost £16.5 million and help around 100,000 people. The cost could fall further if, as the Government and all hon. Members intend in practice, decision making first time round is improved and becomes much more effective. The CAB calculation is that if we were to improve first-time decision making by 30%, the costs of that provision could fall to £12 million.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Is it not absurd that the Government should be scrabbling around for money to meet the costs of bad decision making and bad communication between Departments and those who are affected by their decisions? Ought not the Government’s priority be to ensure that those Departments change those processes, which they are more likely to do if they have an incentive, which is provided by the fact that their budget will meet some of the costs if they do not do so?

[Tom Brake]

There has not been much consensus in the Chamber, but I suspect that there is broad agreement on that point.

[Mr Slaughter]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The Liberty briefing paper states that the

“Community Links advice service records that…73% of the benefits related cases handled by their staff arose as a result of errors on the part of the Department of Work and Pensions.”

The Opposition agree with him, but we are where we are, and particularly at this time of change, we need certainty that those people will be properly represented. I think he said that he would not support new clause 17, but will he support amendment 116 and, later, the new clause in his name or the new clause relating to the Dowlers, which is in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)? He has given assurances outside the House and said that he supports those positions, but he now seems to be resiling from them. Will he and his hon. Friends support those measures? Will he answer that question now?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which is in the tradition of his speeches—lengthy. He should perhaps have waited until I had finished my comments before jumping to any conclusions.

[Karl Turner]

Will you be supporting it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

We have rightly highlighted issues such as criminal negligence in earlier debates, and this afternoon we will focus on libel and slander cases that affect a relatively small number of people.

[Karl Turner]

Give us a clue Tom!

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order.

[Tom Brake]

As I stated earlier, the simple change in new clause 12 affects a very large number of people—up to 100,000. As I mentioned in the debate yesterday, it is incumbent on Members who propose alternatives that mean the Government will spend more when they are trying to address a very large deficit to identify where funding for such proposals would come from. I hope we have an opportunity to debate amendment 144 this afternoon, because that would more than adequately cover the expenditure that the amendments would necessitate.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the need for Government Departments to look at how they interconnect. From my constituency case load experience, a significant number of those 100,000 people are likely to develop mental health problems as a result of the predicament in which they find themselves. Surely money invested in provision for them would save the Department of Health quite considerable moneys. Is he confident that coalition Front Benchers have been talking to each other to do that sort of cost-benefit analysis?

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Lady’s intervention is a fair one. I have raised the knock-on impact on other Departments directly with the Minister. I have received assurances that, for instance, the Department of Health has analysed the impact and does not see significant knock-on costs. That is the assurance that I have been given.

I conclude by urging the Minister to make a clear statement that the Government believe that the issue of complex welfare benefits is still up for negotiation, and that they will make progress on it in the Lords. If he cannot give such an assurance, and if the hon. Member for Makerfield presses new clause 17 to a Division, it is with regret that I would feel obliged to support it. I await the Minister’s response with interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hughes]

None of us can stand up and say that there do not have to be reductions, but of course it is not just the lawyers, the citizens advice bureaux or the other advice bureaux we should be concerned about; it is advice workers and qualified advice workers too.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who has just left the Chamber, tried to wind us up earlier. I have one objective in these considerations: if I do not think that a Bill was in the right place when it began, I want to ensure that it ends up in the right place by the time it becomes law, As we know, the reality is that sometimes we can make and win an argument in Committee, but it is very rare for a Government to be defeated in Committee. Sometimes the argument can be won on Report. Arguments are normally won when the Government have been persuaded not only in the Chamber, but outside it. I have had meetings with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and other colleagues, as have many other Members. The press reports that my colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches want to make further progress and changes, and we will continue in that.

We have heard that the Minister was very good and said in response to my amendment 145 which we debated on Monday that he would look specifically at the issue of family reunion, and I take him at his word. I think that that is a case where we need change, and I have no reason to think that, if he is helpful today, we cannot make significant progress. Of course, it would be lovely if all the amendments were made today, but we are not necessarily at that stage.

[Tom Brake]

My right hon. Friend has been a Member for many years. Can he recall on how many occasions when the Labour party was in power and we as an Opposition party put forward amendments in Committee that we received its support?

[Simon Hughes]

I cannot, either because there were none or they were very rare. To be serious, however, I have been a Member not quite for ever but for a long time under both Labour and Tory Governments, and I do not want to get distracted by that, because in reality we on the Liberal Democrat Benches all seek to work with the Government to get the right outcome, and we will do so constructively. We shall do that not by megaphone diplomacy but in a way that I hope is persuasive in argument and wins the day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

One of the most important things that the House can ever afford to the citizens of this country is equal and fair access to justice. Notwithstanding the remarks of the Lord Chancellor, I believe that the Bill will make it more difficult for my constituents to have access to justice.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will not, if the right hon. Gentleman does not mind.

I shall not go into the issue of legal aid, but I want to speak briefly about conditional fee agreements. The Lord Chancellor was absolutely right to say that it was a Conservative Government who introduced them, and they were right to do so. In privacy and defamation cases, the awards are for the most part very small. In privacy cases, they are universally small. No privacy case has ever involved an award of more than £60,000, yet such cases cost many hundreds of thousands of pounds to take to court. Similarly, the vast majority of awards in defamation cases come in at less than £50,000. A few get up to £100,000, and of course prominence is given in the press to the much bigger ones.

I am sure that it is not the Lord Chancellor’s intention, but the danger in the Government’s proposals is that lawyers will simply not be able to take on such cases. Yes, they might take on cases such as the Dowlers or Christopher Jefferies, because they are open and shut cases, but in the vast majority of the cases relating to phone hacking, people are already terrified of taking an action because they do not want to have to go through the whole business of having their privacy re-explored by the national newspapers and in court. Those people will have no opportunity in the future. I should tell the House that I myself have used a conditional fee agreement, and that if it were not for lawyers being prepared to act on that basis, there is no way that the whole phone hacking scandal would have been exposed.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Third time.