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9.15 pm
Lady Olga Maitland (Sutton and Cheam): A serious and thoughtful debate has been somewhat marred by the unrealistic claims of Labour Members that the Government are somehow responsible for rocketing crime. I note that Labour has produced a briefing note for its Members which runs to only one and a half pages. The briefing shows the paucity of Labour's arguments, and demonstrates how it is clutching and clawing at the air as it tries to produce figures to substantiate its point of view.
The truth is that Labour is full of hot air, signifying nothing. Interestingly, the briefing contains not a single mention of Labour's failure to support Government legislation to take tough action on crime and on thugs. The Government have a positive record of tackling crime, and we know that we have the public's confidence to carry on in that regard. No one can blame the Government, however, for the criminal actions of some people, and society must look to its conscience on that matter.
I am concerned about juvenile crime, and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner's report is disturbing. Twenty-eight per cent. of all notifiable crime is carried out by 14 to 20-year-olds, while 53 per cent. of those arrested for robbery and 50 per cent. of those arrested for car crime are from the same age group. I feel that parents and schools have a key role in setting standards and insisting on law-abiding behaviour.
Mr. Soley:
While I agree about the need to a set a good example, does the hon. Lady agree that that would be easier if we did not have a Home Secretary who was
Lady Olga Maitland:
The most important thing is that we have a Home Secretary who is totally dedicated to tackling crime. My right hon. and learned Friend has introduced legislation to deter crime and to deal with bullies who try to flout the law.
Young people and young criminals should be taught not just the three Rs in school, but the difference between right and wrong. School bullies should not be tolerated; school authorities have turned a blind eye to their activities for far too long. There are no excuses for committing crimes--we cannot blame socio-economic factors. The vast majority of poor people in this country would regard such a view as frankly insulting.
We cannot blame the police for amoral attitudes in society. Their duty is to protect the public, and our duty is to give them all the support and back-up that they need. That is why the Metropolitan police can spend£228 per head tackling crime, which is a generous figure compared with just under £100 per head in the regions.
Spending has increased by 87 per cent., even allowing for inflation, since 1979, which means that more officers are available for operational duty--contrary to the remarks of the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge).A further 5,000 police officers are due to come on stream over the next five years, following my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's announcement at our last party conference. The job of the police is to deter crime and to make sure that it does not pay; our job is to give the judiciary the necessary framework to impose heavy penalties. Above all, we must put the victims first. The Government have done all that.
I especially endorse the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) about the hard work of the police in the borough of Sutton, where I am proud to be Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam. I endorse my hon. Friend's tribute to Chief Superintendent Duncan Kroll and I pay tribute to Chief Inspector Broadhurst, the senior officer at Sutton police station. They have a proud record. Reported crime has fallen significantly for the second year running: reported burglary is down 13 per cent. on the1994 figures, reported vehicle crime is down 6 per cent. and clear-up rates remain above the Metropolitan police average, which is 30 per cent. both for total offences and for burglary.
I am glad to report that the Sutton burglary posse is now on the run. Those persistent juvenile offenders--young thugs aged 12 to 14 who build up hero worship among their peer group for burglary, taking and driving cars and plain stealing--are on the wane. That is largely due to improved policing and tougher sentencing, with more offenders being sent to secure units. They have now left town. That is the direct result of Sutton's policing policy of targeting known offenders. Their families, friends and movements were known to the police who, using good intelligence, decided to focus on the relatively small number of individuals who committed a disproportionate number of criminal offences.
Such tasking has had a considerable effect, because the police were able to build up a complete picture of young offenders--their life style, friends and movements--and
put them under sufficient surveillance to be able to catch them red-handed. They have also been tackling car crime. Tasking is being focused in a similar way to make sure that young people do not take and drive away cars in the great numbers that they used to.
I am concerned about the large number of 19 to 21-year-olds who are vulnerable to the temptation of taking high-performance cars--whether stolen or belonging to their families--careering down motorways and causing the most terrible accidents. Car manufacturers should look to their consciences. Do they really need to sell cars capable of speeds of up to 180 mph when the motorway speed limit is 70 mph?
By the same token, it is important that we should focus on drug dealers, suppliers and the locations where drugs are known to be supplied. That has to be backed up by more health and education, which has been shown to be a better way of getting the message home than the law and order route alone.
I applaud the Sutton initiative on closed circuit television. That is undoubtedly the result of the input from the Government, who have made an overall investment of £15 million. It has changed the face of Sutton's town centre. Crime is down by 15 per cent. and the confidence of local shopkeepers is up. CCTV is an important innovation which has been introduced to car parks and, one hopes, will be extended to other high streets in the area.
I pay particular tribute to the 3,000 Metropolitan police officers who have been grievously attacked by criminals. It is essential that the police receive proper assistance to protect themselves as they go about their duties. Thugs take advantage of the fact that police officers are unarmed.
Stabbings constitute the majority of injuries to police. At Kilburn police station, I watched a training video about how police should deal with a knife attack. It was based on real-life experiences, with first-hand accounts from victims--both men and women--which are humbling to us all and should be compulsory viewing on television. If that video were shown on television, people would have a better understanding of the high risks that police officers run on their behalf. Those accounts emphasise how important it is that my private Member's Bill, the Offensive Weapons Bill, passes through Parliament, as it will play a key part in eliminating the knife culture.
Mrs. Bridget Prentice (Lewisham, East):
This has been a good debate, in which London Members of Parliament have shown a passion for and commitment to safety in our capital city. It is a pity that the Home Secretary has taken so long to come to the House and be accountable to hon. Members for the policing of London. In some 40 months, this is only the third time that London Members of Parliament have had the opportunity to test
We have come to expect Ministers to say one thing and do another. With regard to an accountable police force for London, with the Government it is a matter of one Home Secretary saying one thing and the next Home Secretary doing another. Perhaps the Minister of State will tell us whether we can have fixed dates for debating policing in London.
It is astonishing that the Home Secretary is against proper accountability of the police service in London when senior police officers favour it--as indeed do the majority of people in London. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) said, why does London have to be different from the rest of the country? In a witty and devastating attack on the Metropolitan police advisory committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) explained exactly why we need proper accountability.
Throughout the debate, it has been quite clear that all hon. Members have the greatest respect for the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and his staff and for the way in which they have approached the serious problems in our capital city. I remind the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) that there are female as well as male police officers. My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) made a very telling point when he talked about the effect that the changes to criminal injuries compensation will have on police officers.
London suffers because some believe that its streets are paved with gold and that opportunity and wealth hang from every tree. However, London's scale and size is matched only by the scale and size of its problems. With 9.5 per cent. of the population out of work, unemployment is a bigger problem in London than in many other parts of the country. The Government's increasing practice of providing care in the community has hit London hardest and placed many at risk from serious crime. London and Londoners are confronted with a higher proportion of serious crimes--murder, rape, armed robbery, fraud and drug-related offences--than elsewhere in the country. Londoners do not need that. Officers of the Met have worked closely with councillors and community groups--the people of London--to try to combat those horrendous offences.
There have been notable successes. Before discussing some of the other issues that are of great concern to the people and the police of London, I pay tribute to the police in achieving results against considerable odds. Operation Bumblebee and Operation Eagle Eye have achieved and are achieving considerable success. I pay special tribute to Chief Superintendents Ken Chapman and Jane Stitchbury and their officers in the Lewisham and Catford divisions. Members of Parliament representing Lewisham work in close partnership with them and could not do our work so well without them.
In Catford division there has been a considerable increase in the clear-up rate due to the introduction of dedicated proactive teams. Nevertheless, the police believe that they are under-resourced and could do more if they were fairly treated by the Government. Unlike other police authorities, the Met will not receive part of
the special grant that will guarantee at least a 3 per cent. increase in funding. They have been specifically excluded. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking, in a robust speech which obviously rattled the Home Secretary, made that argument extremely well--indeed, she rattled him so much that he had to leave the Chamber.
If, in response, the Minister says that the police will be able for the first time to carry over reserves, I say that, although that is true, it does not properly reflect the costs of providing a police service in London. The "crime management" formula assumes that similar crimes in different areas take the same amount of resources to solve. No allowance is made for variations in the time it takes to solve crimes and, in a densely populated city such as London with, among other things, a transient population, it is more likely to take more time to resolve problems.
We are equally worried about the "community relations" part of the formula, which is distributed purely on the basis of resident population. The consultants, Price Waterhouse, suggested that factors such as council estates, ethnic origins and levels of crime should be taken into account.
Much of the work that the police do is not reflected in the performance indicators. The chief superintendent in the Lewisham division said that a disabled woman's daughter has to call the police out at 3 am to help her put her mother back into bed. Because of the severity of that woman's disability, it takes five officers to help the daughter do that and preserve that woman's dignity. That is not reflected in the performance indicators, but who else is there for that family to turn to?
What about the case of Officer John Dine in Deptford, who has built up such a trust in his community that people whose first language is not English ask him to fill in their forms for them? That is not recognised in performance indicators, yet that is part of the police service.
Why has the Home Secretary rejected his consultants' advice on that issue? Why should the Met be prevented from qualifying for the specific grant because it has a rate refund this year, when other authorities are perfectly at liberty to carry forward reserves?
Last time we debated this subject, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) predicted that there would be a reduction in the number of police officers. Sadly, her prediction has proved all too true. The original budget for 1996-97 provided for 27,808 officers. The latest figures provide for 27,674--134 fewer officers. The Commissioner will try to deal with that at inspector and sergeant level to protect the number of bobbies on the beat. He has said, however:
I recently requested figures for street patrols. They show that, in 1995, the percentage of time spent on street duties was 35 per cent. Given that only one third of police time is spent on the street, it is little wonder that the Commissioner--with, I am sure, the support of the majority of Londoners--is doing everything that he can to protect that part of the service. Perhaps the Minister can say what initiatives the Home Secretary is taking to help the police spend less time on administration and more time on the street, catching criminals.
Another success in crime prevention has been closed circuit television. My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Miss Hoey), in an excellent speech, described
the use of the safer cities initiative in her constituency. Many police officers remain concerned about which areas in London will be covered--as are the small businesses that would benefit most. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Sir M. Shersby) also raised that point.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green said, the guidelines have been biased against London, giving priority to smaller centres of population. Can the Minister reassure Londoners that he will take their fears seriously and play fair with London in distributing funds for CCTV, so that the capital gets its fair share? Crime in London has too high a cost for the Government to duck their responsibilities. Crime against business is a problem not only for individual business men and women but for their employees, the economy and the country.
The Forum of Private Business survey showed that more than 40 per cent. of businesses throughout the country were burgled last year, yet the figure for London was an astounding 61 per cent. Businesses are increasingly having to incorporate the cost of crime in their budgeting, with £525.6 million spent on crime prevention in 1994-95. London businesses are increasingly refused insurance cover, or are hit with exorbitant premiums. At the same time, shutters and closed shops encourage vandalism, graffiti and fear. It is estimated that crime costs businesses more than half a billion pounds every year, and that only two thirds of that sum is recovered. The message is clear: under the Tories, it is not the criminals who pay for their victims, as the crime tax hits the capital's economic and employment prospects.
It is clear that Londoners, in common with people throughout the country, have a considerable fear of crime. My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall made a thoughtful speech on that issue and she was absolutely right. A Metropolitan police survey showed that half the respondents felt threatened by crime in their areas. Asked whether they felt safe walking home after dark, the number who felt very safe fell from a previously poor23 per cent. to a staggeringly low 16 per cent. Thirty-seven per cent. of Londoners were "quite concerned" about crime, and 55 per cent. were "very concerned". Two out of three Londoners believe that crime in the capital will worsen. That is an appalling indictment of Government policies. We know also that 49 per cent. of women are afraid to walk down their own streets at night.
It is time to give our streets and public places back to our law-abiding citizens. That can be done. A number of hon. Members mentioned partnerships between police and local authorities. It is a pity that the hon. Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon) did not feel able to congratulate his Labour council on its excellent work in that regard.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South(Mr. Boateng) spoke eloquently of the need for partnership to develop further. If I may give a plug for my own authority, there have been a large number of successful partnership schemes between the council, police and local community--so much so that good liaison and response has become part of the fabric of policing in Lewisham. The police in Lewisham--as elsewhere in London, I imagine--believe that it is vital to increase public confidence in the police. As Superintendent Ken Chapman said,
Confidence may be falling because the service remains under-resourced while its domain is extended. The police and the public want more bobbies to be putting in more hours on the beat, but that is difficult because of the increase in paperwork and the developing administrative role that the police are taking on, in addition to the increasing pressure on the police as other groups and support networks are eroded.
Many police officers feel increasingly frustrated by the amount of paperwork that they have to do, which is often thrown back in their faces when the Crown Prosecution Service decides not to proceed with a case. The police officer is then expected to go back to the victim and explain why a vandal, thief, mugger or worse is to get away with it. When will the Government review the way in which the Crown Prosecution Service works so that it enhances and supports the work done by the police, rather than causing deep distress and growing cynicism among the police and the public, and particularly among victims?
There have been a number of tragic examples of people being returned to the local community from care in hospitals when clearly they are not able to cope. Those people regularly end up on the streets. I do not wish to go into the details of individual cases, but due to cuts in council and other services the police inevitably end up picking up the pieces. The reduced network of other support agencies means that the police, instead of being a service of last resort, have become the only resort. Cuts in local government funding have meant that community organisations such as youth groups have to be closed or scaled down. Valuable preventive safeguards are therefore lost. The Government have done and are doing nothing to tackle that problem.
"the impact on divisional policing will be significant and will undermine the ability to maintain proactive initiatives to meet local priorities."
"that boils down to increasing police visibility."
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