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5.29 pm
Mr. Mark Oaten (Winchester): I start by thanking the Home Secretary and his shadow for their warm welcome, although I suspect that it will not last for long. I also pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). He had enormous energy and was a great guardian of civil liberties in this place. As chair of the Liberal Democrats parliamentary party for the past two years, I note the point about the length at which he made speeches—I was aware of that myself. I shall try to be brief because I am sure that a much more interesting event is taking place on the Corridor Upstairs—I note that fewer than 25 Conservative Members are in the Chamber.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to talk about the police in my first Home Office speech. There is nothing more important than ensuring that we have a strong police force in this country that can protect and reassure people—it is essential for that to be in place. Despite the differences that have emerged during the debate, it is important for hon. Members in all parts of the House to recognise that this country has an absolutely wonderful police force and that compared with many countries, ours is safe and secure. That is sometimes forgotten when we debate these issues.
It is rightly in the nature of politicians to examine constantly how things can be improved, to react constantly to new problems and to want to endorse and approve new forms of technology so that we may improve the police force. Although I am sometimes critical of the fact that politicians always want change, it is right to try to respond and make improvements. With that in mind, I welcome several of the suggestions and initiatives that have been proposed by the Conservative party this afternoon. We need new thinking on the police and although I disagree with many aspects of the party's document, it brings forward new ideas that are worthy of merit, which I shall talk about later.
A much bigger question is bubbling under the debate with which all three parties are trying to come to terms: what is meant by devolving down, new localism and
central control? That is a real difficulty because politicians of all parties increasingly want to move toward a more local solution but, instinctively, we are nervous of doing that because we like to keep a form of central control given that we make promises at elections and such control is the only way to deliver on them. The hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) hit the nail on the head in his intervention because the real worry about letting go is not knowing what will happen when the system goes wrong or where the blame culture will lead. Devolution underlies the debate and I shall talk about it a little later in my speech.I largely agree with several of the shadow Home Secretary's criticisms of the Government's approach on crime and policing, although I do not have a clue what the reference to brussels sprouts was about. It must be an in-joke between him and the Home Secretary, so perhaps I shall be let in on it when I have been part of the club for a little longer. We have all heard anecdotally from our constituencies about the difficulty that the police have when juggling their real job of catching criminals, reassuring the public and reducing crime, and their burden. The word "burden" is used constantly and although I understand the Home Secretary's sensitivity, I have been in my job for only 48 hours and the word has been used many times by the police. They say that I must address the burden of their work load.
I want to address the critical question of what the police should be doing. What do we mean by neighbourhood policing and what are the priorities? The Home Secretary said this week—and passionately this afternoon—that he is dissatisfied that some of the new police officers, whom I welcome, are not visible enough. It is hardly surprising that they are not visible enough because there is no doubt that they could be described as almost handcuffed to their paperwork and desks. I was troubled to experience that a couple of months ago when I went out on a Friday night in Winchester, which is not one of the most violent places on a Friday night.
I was amazed by the lack of respect toward policemen and the extent of the provocation to which they were subjected. One policeman was spat at—middle-class children under the influence of drink were doing such things. The problem was that there were only six officers out on that Friday night. I was amazed when they were spat at and called rude names, so I asked why they did not do something about it. They said, "Look, we can't do something about it. If we do, we have to go back to headquarters and we will be in there for a couple of hours. Our judgment is that it is better to ignore it and stay out for the rest of the evening in case something worse happens." That cannot be right. Despite the Home Secretary's protests, there is concern about the work load balance. The Home Office report a year or so ago said that 17 per cent. of police time is spent on patrol. That means an awful lot of time is spent doing other things. I acknowledge that a lot of that work is worth while, but much of it is not appropriate police work.
We welcome the establishment of a bureaucracy taskforce, but we also acknowledge that many police authorities think that that will only touch the tip of the iceberg. One message that came through in my discussions with police officers over the past 24 hours is that although the taskforce is welcome and many of the recommendations are good, much of the work revolves
around switching from a paper-based system to an IT-based system. That is costly, complex and needs a great deal of support. Jan Berry, the chairman of the national Police Federation, sums it up well by saying that for far too long officers have been
- "hamstrung by an unwieldy and excessively bureaucratic system."
I welcome the fact that the Home Secretary wants to tackle such issues. Perhaps he could take some of the pressure off chief constables, especially by reconsidering targets on burglary and robbery. I was interested in the evidence given to the Public Administration Committee by the chief constable of Thames Valley. He reported that when he faced what he regarded as unrealistic Home Office targets, his police authority chose to ignore them and to set its own. According to Home Office targets, Thames Valley would have been set a target this year of reducing robbery by 25 per cent. Instead, the local judgment is to reduce it by 10 per cent. Robbery fell by 18 per cent. in the previous year. Having achieved that cut, the police authority thought it unacceptable to move on to a Home Office aspirational target of 25 per cent.
In such circumstances, it has to be right to give chief constables greater freedom to set targets as they think best. Central targets, inspections, audits and ring-fenced money undermine the ability of chief constables and police authorities to act. They are, after all, on the ground. They know the lay of the land, can identify the large problems and should have the freedom to set more targets themselves.
Dr. Palmer: I worked in industry for many years and as a manager I would have liked to set the targets that I was to achieve. Does the hon. Gentleman not fear that chief constables will set targets that they are confident they can achieve so that they give themselves a slightly easier life?
Mr. Oaten: I have yet to meet a chief constable who takes that approach. Most chief constables that I have met are committed to delivering a good and realistic job locally. They are not in the business of raising public expectations on which they cannot deliver, a criticism that we could, perhaps, level at some politicians.
Mr. Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone): The hon. Gentleman says that chief constables will be concerned with the local situation and adjust targets so that they are reasonable in the local context. Will that be based on figures produced by the local crime community safety groups? If so, does he agree that the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, and the organisations that it established, moved the focus on to neighbourhood policing?
Mr. Oaten: I agree that a key tool for chief constables is better and clearer intelligence drawn from data that reflect local experiences. I do not mind whether the data are managed locally or centrally and then used for local decision making. I want chief constables to take decisions based on the best possible forms of data available.
On visibility and the politicians' dilemma of whether we should see more bobbies on the beat, we all know the Audit Commission's argument that a bobby on the beat will walk around an area and stop a crime once every 100 years. At the same time, we all say in our Focus leaflets and statements to the media that there must be more bobbies on the beat. We know instinctively that the public want to hear that, and while we may have our doubts about the effectiveness in terms of actual detection, we are aware that it is a good idea for the purposes of reassurance and some of the latest thoughts on neighbourhood policing.
I welcome the national reassurance project, which steps outside some of the arguments about crime rates and concentrates on people's perceptions of the safety of their communities. We know now that visible policing makes a difference, but I am not sure that we have all the answers to what is the best form of it. I note with interest research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation: it was announced last week that a project near York had shown that an increased number of bobbies on the beat had actually increased the fear of crime. As a layman, I am not convinced that that is possible—it seems plain to me that more police in an area must provide some reassurance—but we should not dismiss it out of hand. It suggests that we need more research so that we can ensure that we are giving the reassurance that we think we are giving.
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