Policing (England and Wales)

Debate between Tom Hunt and Richard Drax

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax]

Ah, there is another Dorset MP in his place. The Dorset police do a fantastic job, as I am sure my hon. Friend would agree.

The aim of the police, in my view, is to prevent crime and to catch criminals—that is it. I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to his place. He is doing a wonderful job, as he always has, and will be an extremely able Minister. I am sure he would agree that the police have more and more pressures piled on them, from looking after people with mental health issues to picking up wandering dogs. That is not their job. Their job is to catch criminals and to prevent crime. A lot of their time is taken up with doing other tasks. I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for this increase in our funding, but I must remind him, as I have done in the past, that Dorset is near the bottom of the pile. We welcome the levelling up, but more levelling up is needed, and the funding formula, which Opposition Members have mentioned, definitely needs to be looked at.

Before I get on to the three points that the police and crime commissioner has asked me to raise, I would like to touch on minor crime. I will not speak for very long. We hear time and again about the effects of minor crime. As a journalist for 17 years, I covered those sorts of things, and I saw the damage that they did. One old lady, for example, lost all her belongings when a burglar stole her husband’s war medals. She died a year later from a broken heart. That is not a minor crime. It is burglary, which is very serious, and the effects of it are devastating. That is why we need more police officers on the beat. I understand that the nature of crime has changed and that more officers are now behind the scenes dealing with online crime and all those things. I get that, but that does not negate the need for men and women in uniform—not in yellow jackets. Can we get them back in their blue uniforms with the proper hats, please, so that we know what a policeman looks like? They stand for law and order. They are not a whole bunch of children on a sort of trail with yellow jackets all over the place. We need more officers on the beat, so that people can actually see them and the criminals who are about to commit a crime can see them. That means foot patrols in our cities, our towns and our villages. There is nothing that beats a foot patrol. I know that because I am an ex-soldier who served in Northern Ireland. That was our job—to deter the terrorist and, in the event, to catch them in the act.

[Tom Hunt]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in tackling crime, the police should spend far less time hounding members of the public for what they may or may not think on societal issues, such as in the case of Harry Miller and Humberside police, and far more time taking the side of the law-abiding majority and cracking down on the activities of Extinction Rebellion activists that we saw in Cambridge last week?

[Richard Drax]

I absolutely concur with my hon. Friend. As my colleagues know, I am very forthright in my views. Why did those police stand there while those activists dug up the lawn? If I did that, I would lose my job, my reputation—everything. They did not. Why not? That cannot be right. This is why we need more officers, to catch these people who are committing minor crimes. Minor crime undermines morale in our rural environment, in our towns and in our cities. Antisocial behaviour is another classic case in point. We need the police officers to jump on it, and jump on it fast.

Let me turn to the three points that I quickly want to make. We have a huge influx of tourists, and the funding formula does not cater for that. I would welcome some clarity on that when one of the Ministers sums up.

As part of the uplift programme, we have 50 new officers, whom we welcome. This is very good news. This uplift will take place over three years, and we expect another 120—I hope they come—but the police budgets are confirmed only one year at a time. A multi-year settlement would greatly help forces to plan for the future. Perhaps the Minister can expand on that when he sums up.

My final point relates to cases of fraud against the older population, which is becoming far too frequent. Sadly, many elderly people—many of my constituents—have been done on the telephone by these awful people who go to great lengths to sound like a bank or whatever it may be. The PCC said that he is mindful of the current review of serious and organised crime and aware of the negative publicity surrounding the national agency, Action Fraud. Does the Government have plans to deal with fraud in a different and more effective way in the future?

May I conclude in the same way that I started, by praising Dorset police and all the brave men and women who keep us safe both in the day and at night?