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7.17 pm
Mr. Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow): I begin by returning to a point that was raised a number of times during the debate: why we are debating the policing of London in this manner. I shall not dwell upon that issue, but it is important to stress that the Home Secretary is the police authority for London.
Mr. Gerrard: Exactly. The debate is taking place and the police authority is not in the Chamber. We have debated the subject three times since the general election of April 1992--that has been the sum total of the direct input of elected representatives from London on the subject of policing in London.
The previous Home Secretary accepted that London needed a police authority, but a few weeks after his predecessor left that office, the present Home Secretary established the current quango, which does not meet in public, does not report to anyone and operates completely in secret--in fact, it operates virtually as a creature of the Secretary of State: it is not accountable to anyone else.
We have heard how the Metropolitan police have special national functions that are distinct from their local policing role. Although we all acknowledge that fact,I believe that it is often exaggerated. I have noticed little evidence of the activities of the diplomatic service in my constituency, and I suspect that the story is similar in many constituencies throughout London. The problems are exaggerated.
I am convinced that, before the previous Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), decided that he was willing to go down the road of a police authority for London, he well knew that the Metropolitan police would be prepared to accept one and had considered what might be done to their structures and functions to cope with the separation of national functions, if necessary.
In the past three weeks, Sir Paul Condon, giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, said that that remained his opinion. He said:
Sir Paul Condon made an interesting comment about his reasons for wanting to develop closer accountability and closer links with the community:
need to
When the Minister replies to the debate, it is incumbent on him to answer again the question, "Why does London have to be different?"
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey(Mr. Hughes) said that he believed that in recent years the people of London's opinion of the Metropolitan police had improved. There is some truth in that. A few years ago, there was an extremely worrying distrust of the police in many communities in London. There has been a shift since then; we should acknowledge that fact and give credit where it is due--to the police and to people in local communities who have worked with them.
In London, people's beliefs about crime trends make them afraid. A recent survey showed the extent of that fear. The crime figures for 1994-95 show a drop compared with the preceding year, but I suspect that many people in London pay more attention to the longer-term picture, which is far from comforting. There were 852,700 offences in 1990-91 and 837,000 in 1994-95--a small drop in four years.
We all welcome what has been done in Operation Bumblebee and the like. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) earlier, I was grateful not to have entered a secondhand shop that I was nearly tempted into in Hoe street, Walthamstow, which turned out later to have been run by the police for the purpose of attracting people in to sell goods to the police. I have no wish to appear on their video, even if I was going in innocently to make an inquiry about something in the window.
The small decrease in figures for the past year or two conceals worrying trends, especially the increase in crimes of violence, which are up from 36,000 in 1990-91 to more than 43,000 in 1994-95, the increase in robbery from 18,000 to 26,000 in that period, the increase in sexual offences and the increase in crimes against the person, which worry and frighten many people. As hon. Members have said, the use of firearms has increased, as has drug-related crime. It emerged that many of the burglaries that the police solved in Operation Bumblebee
were carried out to fund the purchase of drugs. There is a close relationship between drugs and the commission of crime.
The recently published youth crime report, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), contained evidence that there were not the disparities between black and white youth in the commission of crime that are often the subject of popular myth, but it also showed that a generation of young men were not growing out of crime by their late teens, as their predecessors had done. There has been, and continues to be, a high rate of offending among 14 to 17-year-olds, but previously people tended to drop out of crime as they entered employment and formed stable relationships. Worryingly, more than 30 per cent. of young men aged 25 are now involved in some type of crime.
The report comments that, as the number of young people in employment declines, the capacity for the world of work to provide a rite of passage for young males diminishes. If the report is accurate in saying that people are not only becoming involved in crime when they are 14 to 17 but continuing into their 20s and 30s and turning into career criminals, the trend is extremely worrying.
There are worrying trends in racial attacks and racial harassment. Last year, 5,500 such incidents were reported--8 per cent. more than in the previous year. Given some Government policies, I fear that there will be a further increase next year. I wonder what the effect will be on some of the thugs in east London of seeing asylum seekers begging in the streets. That is Government policy, which will come into force next week, and I suspect that it will be used by racists and people who are responsible for racial harassment and racial attacks as an excuse to step up their activities.
I compliment my local police force in Chingford--the police division with which I communicate most often--on what it has done in the past year or two, especially to tackle racial violence. There has been an enormous improvement in the way in which the division tackles racist crimes compared with 10 years ago. It has also tremendously improved the way in which it deals with several sensitive matters such as domestic violence and mental health disorder.
In common with everyone who is connected with the problem, I am convinced that racist crime and racial attacks are significantly under-reported and that 5,500 incidents is far from the true scale of the problem. People are not yet entirely confident of what the police response will be. That leads to under-reporting.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn mentioned recruitment, and especially retention, of ethnic minority officers. The fact that, in the last year for which figures are available, more ethnic minority officers left the force than were recruited to the Metropolitan police shows that we are running to stand still. I am also worried about the increasing number of black police officers who, before industrial tribunals, allege racial discrimination against them within the police. I have been involved in a complicated case of that type. There is a problem.
I have no doubts or worries about attitudes at the top of the Metropolitan police. There has been continuous significant improvement for some years. When I talk to senior officers, I detect a sea change in attitudes to ethnic minorities compared with 10 years ago. The problem is ensuring that change is reflected on the ground. The
experiences of some black police officers to whom I have spoken is that it is not--that they are subjected to insults and harassment from their colleagues. There is no room for complacency. Senior ranks need to keep up the pressure, to make sure that black recruits in the average police station do not suffer the harassment that some of them still have to tolerate.
As to public confidence in the police complaints procedure, I have no doubt that, in the long term, an independent complaints procedure is needed so that the police are not left to investigate the police. Many people in London question why the Metropolitan police fight complaints and take cases to court. In 1994, according to press reports, the Metropolitan police paid out£1.4 million in damages and costs. Recently, £90,000 was awarded in a case of assault, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. Out of 304 civil actions, the Metropolitan police won just 24. There must be a question mark over the reasons for fighting some of actions in the first place. Damages and costs of £1.4 million is a lot to pay out of the Metropolitan police budget in one year.
"I remain on record and have been for a number of years saying that I believe that the Metropolitan Police Service and the arrangements for accountability should replicate as closely as possible the accountability processes outside of London".
"if we are to improve confidence in the police service, if we are going to deal with a significant emerging group of alienated young people in London and the communities they are drawn from . . . we"
"move towards . . . different and tighter links into the democratic process in London."
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