Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
RT HON
DAVID BLUNKETT
MP, BEVERLEY HUGHES
MP AND MR
JOHN GIEVE
CB
11 SEPTEMBER 2003
Q20 Chairman: Mr Gieve told us in
July that the Home Office new building would no longer be big
enough to accommodate all the staff. All the staff who were involved
in the original units were going to go there and the numbers have
grown. Can you tell us by how many the number of staff now exceeds
those the building was planned to accommodate?
Mr Blunkett: I am sure John Gieve
will be able to give you a more specific answer. I think the difference
that has occurred is that when the planning process took place
for Marsham Street way back in the 1990s the National Probation
Service was still decentralised. The organisation of prison and
probation into a more coherent working unit had not been envisaged.
Their presence outside the core building, which is what is going
to take place, provides a logic and it provides us with additional
space for those things that we have expanded.
Mr Gieve: We are still some way
from moving into Marsham Street. Our forward projections will
be affected by two reviews that we have going on at present on
how many headquarters staff we should have. I think it is true
that over the last few years we have built up staff at the centre
as we have been taking on new responsibilities for delivery. We
are now looking at whether that has gone too far, whether we need
more regionalisation, and we are engaged with Sir Michael Lyons
on his relocation review so there may be some implications for
that too.
Mr Blunkett: I would be very keen
to get people into the regions. I think it is very important and
the closer people are to the sharp end the better.
Chairman: Perhaps you could provide us
with some figures.[2]
It would be particularly interesting to compare the growth in
the number of policy officials, administrators and so on with
the growth in numbers of front line police officers or other people
doing front line jobs in the service. I do not expect you to have
those figures at your fingertips.
Q21 Bob Russell: I wonder if I could
take you back to some of your earlier answers to the Chairman
dealing with the judiciary and Anti-social Behaviour Orders. Would
you agree with me that no matter how good the legislation, whatever
the intentions are, however hard the police and local authorities
work to get people into court, that counts for nought if the judge
or recorder fails to deliver? What are you doing to ensure that
the judiciary live in the real world?
Mr Blunkett: The Secretary of
State for Constitutional Affairs and I, when he was a minister
in my Department, met with the Judicial Studies Board and talked
through the important programmes for training and in-service work
with all levels. We have had very positive meetings, both nationally
and across the country, with the magistracy. We have also ensured—and
this is why the idea of a community justice centre in each area
is very important—that the most important learning curve
of all is if the prosecutor at local level, the probation service
and the judiciary do meet the community. They go out to the community;
they hold fora with the community; they learn not just what the
community thinks but also inform the community about the general
decisions they take and why. This is a two way process and I hope
that will start to work.
Q22 Bob Russell: Will you give an
assurance that you will redouble the efforts of the Home Office
and yourself to encourage the judiciary to take more note of community
feelings? Would you not accept that when the judiciary fails the
community the community loses faith in the whole democratic process,
law and order and so on? They lose faith that anything is going
to be done when out of touch judges just ignore all the evidence
put before them.
Mr Blunkett: I shall judiciously
avoid your invitation to be pejorative about this. I think developing
a system where victims' statements are presented, where all those
involved in the criminal justice system become closer to the community,
where the voice of the community can be heard, apart from being
rabble rousing, has a very beneficial effect in terms of the judgments
made. It also is beneficial—and all the evidence reinforces
this—in getting the community to understand the difficulties
and to be willing to be part of the process, including reparation
and positive help in terms of avoiding reoffending and integrating
people back into the community.
Q23 Bob Russell: I look forward to
the improvements. The expenditure tables in the departmental report
suggest that the growth of the resource budget will be significantly
slower between 2003 and 2004 to 2005 and 2006 than it was in the
previous three years. Are you confident that your funding will
be adequate, given the budgetary pressures from factors such as
prison overcrowding, counter-terrorism measures and asylum applications?
Mr Blunkett: Of course we have
added in additional resources on counter-terror of £330 million
since the spending review. We have also had additional allocations
in budget settlements for prison and probation and I am very pleased
about that. They have to be added into the equation. I would be
misleading the Committee and myself if I did not say that next
year in particular will be very tight, but tight on the back of
continuing expansion, with an expansion over the last three years
alone in the centrally funded element of the police service of
27%, which is unprecedented. Then, there is investment in the
criminal justice system where we are investing £600 million
plus in the information technology elements of the system and
the enormous increase, by necessity, that we have spent on immigration
nationality, the figures of which are distorted by the way in
which the original settlement was made, on the grounds that it
was not possible for the Treasury and the Home Office at the time
to estimate accurately. Therefore, a base level based on the 2000
settlement was £403 million, when everyone knew that, because
of the numbers coming in at the time, it was going to be at least
double that.
Q24 Bob Russell: If the budget is
tight, would you anticipate having to go to the Treasury to ask
for more?
Mr Blunkett: I have never hesitated
to go to the Treasury when I thought there was a justifiable case.
We would need to do so with the evidence, with the certainty of
being able to deliver effectively and with the proof of the resource
being applied, leading to a substantial improvement. I have to
do that for the next spending review which will take place next
year.
Q25 Bob Russell: The other side of
the coin is if the drop in asylum applications continues will
the savings made on the asylum budget be available to other areas
of Home Office activity or will the Treasury want it back?
Mr Blunkett: One of the benefits
of three year spending reviews and the dialogue you have just
described is that the Treasury, quite rightly from their point
of view, are very quick to build in anticipated improvements,
and therefore savings, in the resource available to you. I would
love to be able to simply say, "Give us a budget and if we
can save on it I will switch it into another area." That
would suit me down to the ground, but that is not the way that
government works.
Q26 Bob Russell: You have not yet
reached agreement with the Treasury on the future size of the
immigration and asylum budget?
Mr Blunkett: We have an indicative
budget which we are working to.
Q27 Bob Russell: Are you looking
for surplus or deficit on that?
Mr Blunkett: I am looking for
savings in every single area that I can apply more effectively
in better processing, in improved integration and in greater security,
because this is an ongoing programme. I do not think there is
a minister that does not believe that we are only at the beginning
of a process here.
Q28 Chairman: If you were to continue
to be successful in reducing the number of asylum seekers and
to save money on the indicative budget, you are not assuming at
the moment that, for example, that money will become available
to invest in additional prison places or to take the pressure
off overcrowding?
Mr Blunkett: No, I am not.
Q29 Janet Anderson: A series of reports
on community cohesion were published in the wake of the serious
disturbances in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham in 2001. As a Member
of Parliament for the constituency next door to Burnley, this
is something that I do take an interest in. The Cantle Report
made 67 recommendations to improve community cohesion, covering
a range of issues. What progress has been made in implementing
those recommendations and how is this being monitored?
Mr Blunkett: On a national level,
those things which were to apply to prevention have been substantially
put in place. Hence the considerable improvement over the last
two summers in particular in terms of the investment in diversionary
activities, in engaging the local authorities and the community
in looking at their own area and being part of the solution. It
has varied enormously in terms of the three areas that were mainly
affected at the time of the disturbances in June/July 2001. Bradford
has made substantial progress in terms of the development of the
action plan. Oldham has made some limited progress. Despite the
resources that we have centrally put in—I think just over
300,000 this year—to Burnley for the work in creating an
infrastructure for them, we are still concerned that there is
very much more to be done. Of course, for metropolitan areas,
they have a larger budget and a bigger staff and it is easier
for them to do than it is for a district council in a county area.
I think we should bear that in mind. However, I do think that
much more progress needs to be made. We made it clear at the time
that we could provide the national framework. We could provide
advice and support. We could provide the resource. We could reach
across government to ensure that this is not an issue for the
Home Office but for the whole government locally and centrally.
We cannot allow issues at local level to simply be dealt with
by national government. As ever, we would be accused of taking
over centralisation, and rightly so, because it would lead to
a kind of nannying which allowed people to believe that they did
not have to change at local level; they did not have to get a
grip on the problems facing them. They could rely on us doing
it for them. I still think that we have some progress to make
in making sure that that view is understood.
Q30 Janet Anderson: Are you saying
that, despite the Government putting in fairly substantial resources
into local authorities—I think you said 300,000 into Burnley—you
are concerned about a lack of progress in Burnley?
Mr Blunkett: I am concerned that
we are still some way off a situation that we would all be comfortable
with in terms of the kind of leadership and change at local level
that will make a difference in changing the culture, the views
of local people and in particular, which was an issue that was
raised by Cantle and a parallel report that the Chairman of this
Committee produced, the issue of parallel lives, of communities
that lived alongside each other rather than with each other, that
went to school separately, were housed separately and felt they
were separate. I think integration with diversity demands that
we are able to tackle those problems. All of this needs to be
seen on the back of other, massive resources going in on regeneration
and the like. Those need to be used to change the central core
of what is taking place, rather than believing that it is the
peripheral issues of holding public meetings and the like that
will change people's view of the world.
Q31 Janet Anderson: I thoroughly
agree with that. In East Lancashire, we are benefiting hugely
from being a pathfinder authority for housing renewal. The Government
is putting millions of pounds into that and we are very grateful.
Could I take you on to the question of citizenship and some of
the recommendations that were made in the Cantle Report? Do you
think we are any closer to understanding what it means to be a
British citizen?
Mr Blunkett: I think Professor
Sir Bernard Crick's report has assisted us in knowing what we
have to do to encourage people who are prepared to take on citizenship
to fully understand the rights, duties and obligations that go
with it and to be able to equip themselves better to take that
on. I am going to ask Bev Hughes to comment as well because she
has been working with me both on the social cohesion and citizenship
side. My view is that the very diversity that we have in our country
is a strength and therefore, contributed to that diversity, adds
to what is known as and becomes a British citizen and will therefore
change over time. That is why understanding our laws, our democratic
processes, what it is to be a good neighbour and have respect
for others, which are all in the report, is something that I sought
to put in place when I was the Education Secretary for the development
of citizenship and democracy in schools. I would hope that we
would be able to expand through adult learning and adult education
into the population as a whole, not just those who are taking
on citizenship willingly.
Beverley Hughes: I know you have
a particular interest in Burnley. As well as being a housing market
renewal pathfinder, they are now part of the east Lancs community
cohesion pathfinder programmes which very much arise from the
Cantle Report. I think that will give Burnley a great deal of
support and assistance, working with other East Lancashire authorities,
to take forward their community cohesion plan. There have been
various ideas put forward as to whether we should have a national
debate about what it means to be British. How do we start to encourage
people to think about how we on the one hand value diversity but,
at the same time, come to some consensus around the common values
and principles about living in this country that we all share.
I feel that much more important than a nationally led debate is
the work that is going on at local level in many of these authorities.
It is through the practical implications of both the Denham Report
and work that Cantle and the panels of experts are doing that
there is really innovative work going on now in many of these
local authorities. For example, linking schools together. The
students in respective schools have hitherto had very little contact,
so bringing young people of different communities into really
close contact with the police for discussions, finding ways of
mediating through the community support teams that we are funding;
issues of difference and potential conflict between people in
different communities. Some of those mediation schemes are really
important vehicles for people starting to discuss at very local
level. What are the things that are different about us—because
we have different cultural backgrounds? What are the things that
unite us—because we are all Bradfordians or we all come
from Oldham? It is around that kind of question at local level
that I think some of the best work is really being done here.
Q32 Janet Anderson: Can I finally
ask about the language tests that are being proposed? I understand
there is a proposal that people will be tested on the basis of
individual progress rather than achieving a common standard. Is
there likely to be a minimum standard?
Mr Blunkett: Yes, there is. We
expect people who have not reached level one on the ESAW to do
so. We wanted to encourage people who were at that and who could
progress to take up that opportunity. Obviously people who have
reached level three and above would not be expected to improve
on previous best, although all of us strive on occasions to do
so.
Q33 Mr Clappison: Can I turn to crime,
please? The latest crime statistics show a welcome reduction in
offences of robbery and one or two other categories of crime as
well. They also show an increase in violent crime, a significant
increase particularly in the number of rape offences and drug
offences. That increase in violent and sexual crime is worrying,
is it not?
Mr Blunkett: I think any statistics
that indicate a rise are very worrying. I would like to take the
two sets of statistics alongside each other. The British Crime
Survey does not indicate a rise in violent crime but the National
Crime Recording Standards do. The reason for that is because the
Association of Chief Police Officers, in conjunction with Her
Majesty's Inspectorate, changed, quite rightly in my view, the
transparency of the collection of statistics so that previously
undocumented occurrences are now having to be registered and therefore
are counted in the statistical database. This does not account
for all the changes but it does account for why some very low
level activity on Friday and Saturday nights is now being recorded.
I want it to be recorded because I want to see what we are going
to do about it. If people are being intimidated, if yobbish behaviour
on the back of binge drinking is to be tackled, we need to know
what the scale of the problem is and we need to be able to make
a judgment as to whether we are getting somewhere. It is different
in terms of rape. When I made the statement on domestic violence,
I drew the point out that there has been a change in the way that
the services, including the police, deal with those reporting
rape. Therefore, the incidence of reporting has increased. People
have increased confidence in doing so. I would be deeply disturbed
if I believed that the statistics indicated that rape is on the
increase, as opposed to confidence about doing something about
it.
Q34 Mr Clappison: In the interests
of transparency, can I take the first of those and try to make
it as transparent as possible? What you are saying therefore about
violent crime is that yobbish behaviour is being reported as violent
crime and that is driving statistics up?
Mr Blunkett: I am saying that,
yes.
Q35 Mr Clappison: That does not really
cast a very good reflection, does it, on the Government's anti-social
behaviour policies since it came into office and all the legislation
which has been passed which we have heard about, the Anti-social
Behaviour Bill which was passed in 1998 and all the rest of it?
There is a lot more to be done.
Mr Blunkett: It would cast a bad
reflection if we were comparing like with like. That is why I
said, "Let's draw a line on the way in which we adjust statistics"
so that from April of this year we can make a judgment as to whether,
year on year, those changes are up or down. In the end, what you
have to have is a statistically trusted method. You have that
with the British Crime Survey. Whether people like the British
Crime Survey or not, whether it includes all crime—and it
does not—it does reflect more accurately, because the sample
is now greater than it was—it is the biggest of any sample
survey in the world—whether there has been a change up or
down. You can argue about 1% here or there, but it does reflect
that. Crime recording does not and did not. Not only that, but
the more confident people are, the more police we have on our
streets. I think all three political parties are totally committed
to this. There is not a party political issue here. The more we
have on the streets, the more visible and accessible they are,
the more likely it is that people will report. We have to try
and have a sensible debate about how we square the circle on this
so that if government's policies are not working government can
be held to account. If police practice is not working, we can
change the practice at local level by using comparative data and
persuading them to change their practice. If the statistics have
changed, we take account of that. It is just an honest debate
about it that I seek so that we get a drubbing and we are in the
dock for doing something badly, but we do not when the statistical
database has changed.
Q36 Mr Clappison: Do you accept the
perception which is widely held, certainly amongst my constituents,
that anti-social behaviour is getting worse and that there should
not be an increase in it; there needs to be a reduction in the
present high, unacceptable level of anti-social behaviour?
Mr Blunkett: Yes, I share that
view entirely, which is why we have set up the Anti-social Behaviour
Unit and why we have chosen to bring forward the anti-social behaviour
legislation and strengthen the powers of the police, environmental
health and housing officers. It is why we have indicated that
we think that other measures at local level in terms of substantial
investment in reducing truancy and absence from school, because
this all adds to the picture of people disengaging from the community;
and why getting a grip on both drugs and alcohol is very important.
Shortly we will need to bring forward a programme for alcohol
abuse because that is a direct driver of the kind of behaviour
you and I were just talking about a moment ago.
Q37 Mr Clappison: Turning to drugs,
the statistics for drugs are up significantly as well, up 16%
on the national crime recording standard. Do you accept that statistic
or do you want to qualify that as well?
Mr Blunkett: I think that the
police intervening—and I hope the new powers in terms of
crack houses help with this—means they are doing a better
job. The research in terms of what happened in Brixton a year
ago demonstrated that when the police prioritise and concentrate
on picking up class A pushers and the organised criminals behind
them they can have a very dramatic improvement in the number of
criminals picked up in that area. We have had this drive for arrest
referral for the individuals who are picked up to be referred
into treatment. I would praise the police for what they have done
in enhancing that. The statistics we are looking at in terms of
the usage of drugs in different age groups show that there is
a stabilisation. I hope that, when the statistics have been refined,
we may even find that there has been a reduction in class A drug
usage.
Q38 Mr Clappison: Certainly there
is a perception that there is far too much drug abuse in society.
Mr Blunkett: We can agree on that
as well.
Q39 Mr Clappison: Can I put another
perception to you as well from members of the public, which I
think is borne out by your own officials? They feel that far too
few of both drug pushers and other types of criminal are brought
to justice. The Permanent Secretary acknowledged to us in his
evidence last July that the figure was low and that even if the
target of 1.2 million crimes for which an offender is brought
to justice is achieved by 2005-06 this would still only amount
to 10% of crimes as recorded by the National Crime Survey. That
is not very good, is it?
Mr Blunkett: I have made it clear
publicly that I think detection, the work that is done on ensuring
that the evidence is properly presented, the whole nature of the
criminal justice system, should be aimed at getting at the truth
and ensuring that those who are perpetrating crime are convicted
and those who are innocent should go unblemished. I think that
the Criminal Justice and Sentencing Bill will help with this.
Otherwise we would not be passing it. I believe that better practice
at each stage of the criminal justice system is required, a reduction
in failed trials, late guilty pleas that ensure that witnesses
are no longer prepared to turn up for the umpteenth time, the
way in which witnesses are treated—all these things help
to ensure a conviction. I also want the statistics to reflect—I
saw this when I was in New York—the outcome and not just
the conviction so that we can register where we have stopped someone
reoffending and being reconvicted, not just that we have a notch
on the totem pole. That is why arrest referral and the treatment
of drug users is so important because we want them to stop using
drugs, not simply punish them for having used them.
2 See Ev 20-21. Back
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