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3.40 pm
Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale): It is disappointing that some colleagues were unable to speak in this debate, but doubtless they will find other ways of voicing their concerns about the state of the police service in their constituencies.
The Home Secretary failed to deal with the central point in the Opposition motion that police numbers are falling as a direct consequence of the policies of the Government. When he was not making personal attacks on my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), he seemed to be saying that the budget that the Government have allocated to the police is challenging but adequate. The Opposition say that the police funding settlement under Labour for the next three years is insufficient to maintain an effective police service. The direct consequence will be fewer
police officers--not hundreds fewer, but potentially thousands fewer--which will undermine the fight against crime and the Government's law and order strategy.
Angela Smith:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Greenway:
No, I shall not give way.
From Essex to Cumbria, Bedfordshire to Gloucestershire and Lincolnshire to North Yorkshire, police numbers are going down, and we have heard much about that this afternoon. We believe that there is room for improvements in efficiency, but the Government insist on a 2 per cent. across the board efficiency gain in each of the next three years, and the effect of that will be inconsistent across the country. It penalises the very forces--many of them are the smaller, rural forces--that have already taken action to improve efficiency within their force. There was no better example of that than the one given by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) about Gloucestershire.
Sensible changes in the police estate will take years--not months--to implement. I refer particularly to yesterday's welcome report from the Audit Commission, "Action Stations". I am quite frankly astonished that the Home Secretary did not find time to refer to it in his 40-minute tirade.
Ministers have still not said how the 2 per cent. annual efficiency savings will be judged, but their impact cannot be in question: there will be fewer officers and a reduced service to the public just at a time--and this is central to our motion--when it is most essential to build the best possible relations between the police and the public.
The Home Secretary criticised the record of the previous Conservative Government. I shall briefly highlight four points. First, crime rates fell by 15 per cent. between 1994-95 and 1997-98: the source of the figures is the Audit Commission's 1997-98 report. Secondly, the number of constables increased in England and Wales by 2,322 between April 1992 and March 1997. The source for that is a written answer by the Secretary of State for Wales when he was a Minister in the Home Office. The average time that police constables spent in public increased by 4 per cent. between 1994-95 and 1996-97: again the source is the Audit Commission in its 1996-97 report. That report also stated:
Mr. Collins:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Greenway:
If my hon. Friend will allow me, I shall not give way.
The Home Secretary clearly thought that such increases were a good thing. What has now persuaded him to change his mind, or did he not fight hard enough inthe comprehensive spending review? Concerns about
resources in the first Labour police settlement were brushed aside with the excuse that all the Government were doing was sticking to Tory spending plans. We heard the same point made again today, and we heard it on Tuesday when the Home Secretary had the audacity to use that as an excuse not to find money for closed circuit television cameras.
What do we find when the Government escape the shackles of budget constraints set by the mean old Tories and new Labour is free to do its own thing and put its money where its mouth is? The public and the nation should know what "tough on crime" really means under new Labour. What we got was a 1 per cent. cut in last year's settlement. We have got what the Police Superintendents Association has described as the worst spending round in a generation. The tragedy is that there are two more years of the same still to come. What a complete lack of political commitment to the police from a Government who seem intent on running down the police service! That lack of commitment risks a demoralised police force, from which the only gainers are the criminals. The losers will be our constituents: the general public.
The debate has shown that the demands we make on the police are greater than ever before. The police service throughout the country is overstretched. More and more police officers suffer from stress-related illnesses and violence through assaults. Our constituents want more visible policing. Much is made of zero tolerance--the in phrase is hotspot policing. Whatever name we choose, for the policy to be successful, it must be manpower intensive.
We need more officers, not fewer. They will have to implement the provisions of the new Crime and Disorder Act 1998, establish community partnerships, be responsible for policing millennium events, tackle vehicle crime, make our city centres safe late at night, build on the success of Operation Bumblebee to reduce burglary and Operation Eagle Eye to reduce street robberies, and respond every hour of every day to major road traffic accidents.
Those intractable problems cannot be solved by soundbites, by local authority or private patrols, or by a sudden conversion to CCTV cameras as a cheap way out--as we heard on Tuesday. Those initiatives should support the police, not be seen as a substitute for the police. Anyone who talks to police officers regularly will know that the police service wants to do an even better job and make our communities safer. Increasingly, the police feel betrayed by a lack of support from the Government.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield drew attention to what the Police Federation rightly said--that Treasury officials had swung the axe on police budgets. Like the Police Federation, several hon. Members have predicted fewer police officers, the closure of local stations and a reduction in front-line services in their areas, and those predictions are now coming true. That is not what the people of this country voted for in May 1997, and it will weigh heavily against new Labour when it chooses to face the country in two or three years' time.
What we heard from the Home Secretary was the same old display of complacency and commitment bordering on contempt. We ask no more than that the Government should match the Conservative commitment towards the police. They should match the pledge made by the Leader of the Opposition in Reading at the weekend to halt this decline in police numbers.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng):
This morning, I went straight from the BBC studios--where I engaged in a debate with the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler)--to the streets of Peckham, where I joined two dedicated serving police officers on their patrol of a local estate. That was a necessary and salutary corrective, following my experience of debating the issue with the right hon. Gentleman. His rantings and ravings on police numbers--[Interruption.] Yes, that is what they are. The right hon. Gentleman's rantings and ravings bear no relation to what is actually happening.
While the right hon. Gentleman goes on and on about police numbers, police officers working on the ground with the public are responding to the challenge that they have been set by a Government who are determined to bring about the partnership between police and public that is the real answer to the problem of reducing and preventing crime. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 creates the necessary context--a context within which we are devoting new resources to tackling the challenges of policing as we move into the next millennium. To pretend otherwise is to live in a fantasy land--the sort of fantasy land in which the right hon. Gentleman dwells all too often for the purpose of making political points about police numbers, and which the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) sought to perpetuate.
Ms Candy Atherton (Falmouth and Camborne):
As my hon. Friend will know, we in Cornwall will have a particular policing problem in August, when there will be a total eclipse of the sun. Can he or our right hon. Friend the Home Secretary help in any way?
"Most forces had increases in their funding in real terms between 1993/94 and 1996/97."
The Home Secretary seemed to forget what he said in his press statement a year ago announcing Labour's first police grant report settlement for 1998-99. He said:
"The police are the only local authority service to have had an increase greater than inflation in each of the last four years."
That is, four years in which the budgets were set by a Conservative Government. He has the audacity to come here today with a weak defence against the motion and to criticise that record.
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