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Mr. Wilshire: My hon. Friend said that he spent time going out with Surrey police. I wonder whether he had the experience that I had not long ago going out in Staines, where just after 5 o'clock the officer I was with took someone to the station who was suspected of shoplifting in Sainsbury's. Three and a bit hours later, we finally got back on the street. That is the extent of the paperwork that the Government have imposed on Surrey police—for one officer, three hours for a small case of shoplifting.
Chris Grayling: I entirely endorse what my hon. Friend has said.
I looked at the national policing plan and I was shocked by what the Government seem to expect police forces on the ground to do in terms of preparation of materials and information for the centre. Let me quote the policing plan:
- "Local three-year strategy plans and annual policing plans must, while contributing to the delivery of national priorities, reflect local circumstances and be responsive to local needs. It is vitally important that police authorities . . . engage with and consult their local communities to identify how far national and local priorities should be reflected in forces' plans and what the appropriate targets should be.
The Government and the public need to be able to judge whether forces are delivering the quality of service that everyone expects. This requires a robust and transparent performance management system for assessing the effectiveness of forces and individual Basic Command Units (BCUs) in tackling crime and the fear of crime. The planning framework at the end of this document sets out how local plans will be measured in terms of raising police performance",
Interestingly, I talked to one officer last week who said not only that the police are being asked to meet targets but that often the targets are contradictory. The Government have imposed new objectives this year. They want more criminals caught and put in front of the courts and more crimes investigated properly, but some of the performance targets require police simply to get to a certain stage with an investigation and to fill out a certain number of forms. If a crime happens and there is very little likelihood of being able to apprehend the person, they are none the less being asked to go through certain bureaucratic processes in order to go up a notch on the ladder towards achieving their target. They say that, if they could spend their time in the way they prefer, they would focus on the crimes that they can solve and on the criminals who are having the most impact on society, and they would be able to have much more impact on crime trends and on reducing levels of offences.
That is the feedback from the front line. It is not from me as a politician but from police officers to whom I talk. The danger is—we see it across all the public services—that politically imposed targets driven from
Whitehall, setting out requirements as they are seen by Ministers and by civil servants, deliver to the front line something that in practical terms does not work.My fear is that what is happening in my county, which is represented by all those of my hon. Friends who are present tonight, is that our police force is being asked to do more and more to meet the requirements, targets and bureaucracy of the Home Office. Central Government have set two or three objectives in the national policing plan this year. At the same time, our police force is being asked to do that for less and less money. Year by year, the budget increases have not reflected the increased pension costs and the increase in national insurance—additional costs imposed by central Government. The consequence is that, ultimately, local police forces such as Surrey police are being asked to do much more for less money, to a point where the only way they can square the circle is by turning to local taxpayers, who are already being asked to do far more than their counterparts in other areas of the country.
Mr. Ian Taylor (Esher and Walton): All hon. Members who represent Surrey share the problem. The Surrey police force is one of the most efficient in the country, and it is led by an excellent chief constable. It has already passed some fairly draconian plans to concentrate resources on the front line. The difficulty is that, with the projected decline in resources relative to other counties, it will have to undertake further cuts, which can only take place at the front line. That is precisely the message that I was hearing even today in Elmbridge from the chief constable and other policemen who were there.
Chris Grayling: I absolutely endorse what my hon. Friend says. That is the practical consequence of what is happening, but let me tell the Minister about an even more practical consequence—a true story from a few weeks ago. One of my constituents was assaulted on a recreation ground in the village where I live. He was very badly hurt. He was kicked in the head—kicked unconscious—and teeth were kicked out of his mouth. The nearest police car was half an hour away. It took half an hour to arrive at the scene of what was undoubtedly the most serious offence committed in my constituency for the past 12 months.
Such delays should not happen. Someone who is the victim of a serious crime should not wait half an hour for a police car to arrive. Yet if we look across the force on Friday or Saturday nights, there is a very thin blue line of officers protecting people from unruly behaviour, robbery and violent crime. All too often, the police simply do not have the number of officers to respond to lesser misdemeanours—things that may appear to those in call centres to be not as serious as others, but they may have a great effect on people. They often involve pensioners whose garden fences have been kicked down or who have been terrified by gangs of youths throwing stones at their windows. That is why we need more police on the streets, rather than fewer.
The Government keep telling us that more police officers than ever are out on the streets protecting us, yet the number of police cars out and about on patrol on Saturday nights in my constituency has fallen from five
to two, in a good week, during the past three or four years. That is the reality. Where are the rest of the police officers? Well, they are meeting targets, complying with bureaucracy, dealing with initiatives and working in special units. We have not got enough people in the front line.The final reason why this is important—I say this genuinely to the Minister—is that it is very easy to look at the areas outside London and say that they are lower-crime areas than the great metropolis. The situation in north Peckham cannot be compared with that in Epsom, Leatherhead or Reigate—I have no doubt at all about that—but, none the less, such forces cannot be bled dry to pay for policing elsewhere. Not only do they deal with the day-to-day concerns of individual residents, antisocial behaviour, robbery and violence, but they are being asked to deal with terrorism and other major incidents, as my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) said a moment ago. Ours is a police force that must provide support to Heathrow and Gatwick airports and which must provide policing in an area of the country that is full of potential terrorist targets and of individuals who could be the subject of major criminal activity. It is not the case that many of the security problems that we face in this country will be confined to London. If the forces immediately outside London are bled dry as a result of an attempt to switch finance from one part of the country to another, ultimately, the risks will be enormous.
Mr. Wilshire: My hon. Friend refers to forces such as Surrey's being bled dry. Does he agree that one of the ways in which Surrey's force is undermined is that once young police officers are recruited and trained, particularly if they are based in Staines in my constituency, they need only change jobs and go about two miles down the road, and they will get £6,000 more for working in the Metropolitan police? Alternatively, they can get much the same pay by going to Cornwall, where the cost of living is lower. Is that not bleeding dry forces such as Surrey, which pay the training costs and then see their officers being poached?
Chris Grayling: I absolutely endorse my hon. Friend's point. He, I and many other Conservative Members had meetings with the Minister's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), who listened carefully to the arguments that we put forward. Although the steps that he took were small, and most of the initiatives that have been taken were at county level, he demonstrated an understanding of the problem that I hope that the current Minister will reflect. The purpose of tonight's debate is to appeal to her intelligent view of the challenges that forces such as Surrey face.
In a few weeks, the Minister will preside over funding announcements that could make a radical difference to the ability of individual forces to deliver a good or bad service. There are undoubtedly pressures on the Home Office in many parts of the country, but the hon. Lady must not be tempted to look at certain areas as low-crime areas and lesser priorities and therefore not resource them properly. A county such as Surrey has antisocial behaviour problems, adverse crime trends in robbery and violence, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) says, it has been and continues to be bled dry by other forces that have
the ability to pay more money. Ultimately, the Minister, as much as any of us, needs Surrey police to be able to deliver a quality service. If they cannot do so, everyone will suffer—not just the county but the Government, because their reputation will be affected.Our message to the Minister is: please do not allow this funding review to lead to a stripping down still further of Surrey police's budget. Please do not force on the taxpayers of Surrey, many of whom are pensioners on fixed incomes, yet another major ratcheting-up of the tax that they pay. Please make sure that Surrey, as a force on the fringe of London, which will have an important role to play not just in local but in national policing issues, receives an equitable settlement. Do not let this force down because it is politically convenient to do so. The Minister and her colleagues have a duty to protect policing in all parts of the country. I know that she is a lady of integrity and diligence in her role. I look to her to ensure that the area that I represent does not suffer adversely in the review over which she is about to preside.
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