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1.20 pm
Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton): May I put on record my thanks to, and admiration for, the Metropolitan police in general and, in particular, every single police officer working in Kingston division? They
are ably led by Chief Superintendent Alan Given, Chief Inspectors Keith Free, Paul Dowell and Nick Jupp, and DCI Kevin Hurley. Many PCs, such as Robert Newman, are embracing some of the new ideas and opportunities provided in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. They are doing a very good job and are committed to policing the streets of Kingston.However, all the innovation in the world cannot make up for the lack of numbers, which is a serious problem in Kingston division. It suffered cuts in the run-up to the last election and has suffered cuts since, and now finds that it cannot even recruit to the establishment numbers that the Commissioner has allowed.
Recruitment has been the theme of this debate, but it is in real crisis. The Home Secretary made a welcome announcement at the beginning of the debate, but the question for the House and for the Government is whether the measure goes far enough to meet the extent of the recruitment crisis facing the Metropolitan police. I do not think it does.
The number of recruits going to the training colleges is down. The number coming from the training colleges to Kingston division has been down this year--the division has not had a new recruit for the past three months and is not expecting one until August because of the reduced number going through the training colleges. The increased salary allowance will be helpful, as it will presumably attract new recruits. The question is, is it large enough? Before the police arbitration board reached its conclusions earlier this week, the figures that were being discussed were significantly higher--we were looking at 5,000 and 6,000.
Another question is whether the pay award is wide enough. It is being made only to post-Sheehy police officers. As the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) said, the morale of pre-Sheehy senior police officers may be damaged by the fact that they are not covered by the award. Let us remember that they have withstood a lot of pressure over the past few years as numbers have dropped because of the Sheehy reforms. It is they who have stood by and taken on the extra work load. They have borne the brunt of the pressures, but their loyalty and commitment are not being rewarded. The Government must look after the pre-Sheehy Metropolitan police officers as well.
An awful lot of recovery is needed from the damage perpetrated by the Tories with the Sheehy reforms. That damage is severe, so it will take a good many measures from the Government to heal it. It will not be healed simply by a housing allowance or the future provision of houses; any measures must be wider than that to ensure that a career as a Metropolitan police officer is attractive and regarded as worthy and respectable. I cannot emphasise that point enough.
May I exemplify how the shortage of police officers has affected conditions in Kingston? Morale has fallen because of various changes that have been forced on the divisional commander as a result of the lack of police officers. For example, the division has had to move from a shift of five to a shift of four, which has meant that officers who are already under pressure now have more night duties and fewer weekends off. That has an effect. Unless more officers are recruited, morale cannot be raised and we cannot get out of the vicious circle and into a virtuous one.
All that must be viewed in the context of a group of officers in Kingston who are trying to do everything that the Government have allowed them to do. They have entered partnerships with businesses. New business watch schemes have been set up in Kingston, New Malden, Surbiton and Chessington. There is a pub watch and an industrial estates watch in Chessington. The police have joined the safer stations initiative, which I set up. They are responding to ideas that I proposed, such as a school safety net, borrowing an initiative that was used in Hillingdon division. The police communicate with the schools in the borough, using e-mail as a rapid messaging system to ensure that if there are problems--for example, with potential sexual offenders, child molesters or drugs--messages can be communicated to schools so that they are aware of those problems and are linked to the police.
Such initiatives are very effective in tackling crime, and they are being embraced. Officers in Kingston are being more productive--to use an economics term--in tackling crime, but the problem is that there are just too few of them. It takes the police longer to respond to 999 calls for help made from the perimeters of Kingston division.
Low-level crime has increased significantly in the past two years, primarily because of the cuts. Graffiti, which hon. Members have mentioned, are rife in Kingston. The police are taking an anti-graffiti initiative and working with the local authorities and the probation service. The youth offending teams are tackling graffiti, but this is a real problem and the reduction in police numbers that has taken place over the past five years is one of the major contributory factors to its being so severe.
I make no apology for pressing the case for having more officers in the Metropolitan police overall and in Kingston yet again in this annual debate. The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) was right to argue that the Chancellor needs to make that a priority in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review. The Metropolitan police service has suffered significantly in the past 10 or 15 years. Its share of the national police budget cake has declined, and it is time that decline was reversed significantly.
I have some good news for the House from my patch in Kingston. Because of the campaign that my colleagues and I have waged and because of the excellent leadership of Chief Superintendent Alan Given, the police station in New Malden, which has been closed for some time, will now be the home of the dog-handling section for south London. I welcome that important development, which will guarantee that station's future. It will not be sold off in the Metropolitan police force's efficiency programmes. Moreover, it means that many marked police vans will move in and out of the station and that those police officers will be able to respond to emergency incidents in the Kingston division.
Kingston division has implemented the diversity strategy. We want the divisional commanders to respond to the Macpherson report, and that has been done remarkably well in Kingston, where a comprehensive strategy has been set out. Officers have been designated to deal with certain race and hate crimes and the police are liaising with the local authority to enhance emergency rehousing for victims of race-hate crimes. There is a
determined recruitment drive, with a long list of activities by Kingston college, Kingston university and so on to try to recruit members of the ethnic minorities to the local police force.The strategy includes providing religious support for Muslim prisoners and victims of crime at Kingston station. The Korean business community watch has been developed, which is a welcome initiative. All that has happened under the scope of the diversity strategy for Kingston. Some of the best practice in the Metropolitan police service is being developed in Kingston, and I recommend it to Ministers in the Home Office and the Commissioner.
We have had to form a community team in Kingston because of the lack of resources and the need to respond to all those challenges. It pools the nine or 10 beat officers who remain in Kingston--five years ago there were about 30--to try to ensure that they focus on particular crime hot spots. The arrangement has worked very well in the case of the truancy patrols that were mentioned earlier and in the attempt to focus on groups of youths who have caused problems in certain communities such as the Sunray estate in Tolworth, the Verma Drive estate in Surbiton and the Chessington Hall estate in Chessington. It has been effective in tackling the surge in youth crime in my area.
The problem is that there are still too few police. Chessington, which has a population of more than 10,000, has half a beat officer.
Mr. Davey: I mean half the officer's time. For the other half of her time, the lady officer concerned has to join the community and become involved in various programmes and initiatives elsewhere in the borough.
Chessington therefore does not have the beat officer cover that it needs. We have the smallest possible number of officers, and we need far more. Not only do we need to engage properly in the fight against crime in order to reduce the number of offences--incidentally, the number increased by 11 per cent. last year in the Kingston division--but we need to respond to the public's desire to see beat officers on the streets, and that will be possible only if the Government provide resources to give communities such as mine the support that they need.
I would have liked to make many more points on behalf of local residents and Kingston police, but I am conscious of the time. Let me ask the Minister a final question. During a recent debate on graffiti, he referred me--and other hon. Members--to, I think, section 12 of the London Local Authorities Act 1995, saying that it gave local authorities power to try to clean up graffiti. My local authority, with which I have discussed the issue, tells me that although the power is welcome, it takes a long time to use it, and that the costs involved make it prohibitive for a cash-strapped authority. I do not expect the Minister to reply today, but perhaps he will consider whether that welcome power could be altered to make it more effective and more easy to use.
I end by praising the officers of the Kingston division.
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