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Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Con): I represent a beautiful part of the country, set on the Thames, populated by good and self-reliant people who are proud to be British and who cherish our wonderful heritage. Hadleigh, for instance, has an historic castle and the ancient St. James's church, but it needs to regain its village atmosphere. Thundersley, Benfleet and Canvey Island are delightful communities. More than anything, Castle Point needs to conserve and improve its environment and amenities, which means stopping the overdevelopment.
A year ago, Conservatives took control of Castle Point borough council from Labour. The results are starting to shine through. An Audit Commission report was produced after just eight months of Conservative administration. Of course, things do not change immediately or without a lot of effort. In fact, the Prime Minister still blames the old Conservative Government for his failure to deliver on public services, congestion and antisocial behaviour—I could go on—after eight years in power.
The Audit Commission's report sets out an optimistic picture of
"the beginning of the journey".
"Political leadership within the Council was previously weak."
That was the old Labour leadership. It continues:
"The current leader"—
"demonstrates a determination to provide clear political direction."
The Audit Commission is right to highlight the problems that still need to be resolved. It is also right to point to the positive early action taken by councillors. For instance, it states that the new Conservative council has
"agreed a balanced budget . . . directed additional resources to priority areas . . . recognised the need for alternative forms of service provision",
"Partners are positive about working with the Council".
In addition, the council has closed loss-making facilities, outsourced services and is still in the process of radical change to drive up the standard of services for the public and the value of the money that it gives to the public. I warmly congratulate the councillors on their efforts.
We must be patient, however. Rome was not built in a day, but the seeds of success are coming through. They were sown by the council's leader, Pam Challis, and her excellent team of councillors. In particular, I thank Jeffrey Stanley, who guided the team financially. He delivered the balanced budget and kept the council tax rise in Castle Point this year to below 3 per cent., a remarkable achievement. He held firm on spending throughout the council's departments to force the necessary reforms and give value for money. Jeff Stanley did a great service to the people of Castle Point.
I must also mention the chief executive, Barry Rollinson, and his team of officers and staff, who are professional, dedicated and hard-working. They deserve the community's thanks and congratulations and its encouragement to continue down the right road of reform so that we bring back pride in Castle Point.
One major local problem is that of disabled facilities grants to enable disabled people to live in decent circumstances in their homes. Castle Point has estimated that this year it needs £600,000 to cover the demand for those grants, and that does not include any new services likely to be recommended by occupational therapists. The Government made only £90,000 available to the council, which has topped up the figure to £150,000, but that is still only a quarter of what is needed—it will probably turn out to be even less than that as the new demand becomes known. That is tragic for disabled people unable to get the simple aids and adaptations that they so desperately need.
This is not a political matter; I seek to score no political points. I do not criticise the county council, the Government or indeed the borough council. I simply and sincerely ask the Minister to look at the case of Castle Point and to write to me or meet me so that we can start to find a solution to the problem. In all decency we must do that for the vulnerable people whom we represent and who depend on us. I thank the borough council's director of health and housing, Alan Longford, and County Councillor Bill Dick, who are working hard to resolve the problem for the community.
Still on local issues, I put on record yet again the need to find a way to give Canvey Island its third access road, which must be from Northwick road. Just a few days ago, Canvey Island was completely blocked off again because of a tragic accident. It came to a standstill, and so did much of the mainland. The environmental damage caused by congestion every day is incalculable. I congratulate the local newspapers, the Yellow Advertiser and the Evening Echo, on their campaign to try to improve matters. As I hold up a copy of the latter, hon. Members can see that it calls our traffic problems "chaos". I know that County Councillor Ray Howard has fought for years to improve matters locally, and I am happy to join him and his team in that fight.
Of course, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's policy to increase the house-building target in Castle Point from 2,400 to 4,000 without giving any infrastructure help whatever will simply exacerbate the problem. It is complete nonsense, and we must fight
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every single inappropriate building application because more building without the infrastructure simply adds to our problems.
I want to raise a couple of police issues. I congratulate the divisional commander, John Mauger, his officers and staff on their efforts over the last year. They have had a tough time, but they are now getting on top of local antisocial behaviour, street crime and youth nuisance. They have improved those matters. There is still a lot to be done, of course, but things are moving in the right direction, and that is because of a sound strategy, good management of that strategy and excellent officers on the ground implementing it.
Nationally, the police need help. They are bogged down with bureaucracy. It takes three and a half hours to arrest someone, which stops the police responding quickly, investigating earlier crimes and walking the streets to deter further crimes. One solution must be improved IT. We need minimum, not maximum, administrative input from the police. Names, addresses and dates of birth must be entered once into a palm-top at the scene or in the police car, not many times on several forms back at the station. The police must co-operate with the Crown Prosecution Service to find ways of becoming more effective. We need mobile data units in police cars, so that officers can be linked to each electronically and can communicate with each other, speeding up their processing of crime and keeping them on the streets.
We need common sense, and we need to roll out IT solutions, hardware and system simplifications. That could save up to 25 per cent. of police time, which would mean 25 per cent. more police officers on the street. That is what the public want; indeed, it is what they deserve. By the way, it is also what the police themselves deserve because they are very hard-pressed, dedicated and professional, and I congratulate them again on their work locally.
I have spoken consistently on the European Union over the years. Briefly, I believe that we have to get out of the common fisheries policy, as I have said many times. We must now get out of the common agricultural policy, which ceased to be useful years ago. It is expensive, and it delivers problems, not solutions, to our farmers and consumers. It is increasingly inappropriate in an expanded Europe, and it damages the developing world, much to the shame of the whole of Europe. We also need to bring international development finance back under our own control. Bilateral project-based aid is much more effective and delivers better and more sustainable solutions than multilateral aid channelled through Europe.
I congratulate UK Independence party MEPs on using their position to inform the British public about the waste, excesses, corruption and stupidity of European institutions. The more the British people know about the EU, the less they like it. The EU is being driven hard towards a single federal state; our destiny is not to be consumed by that state. We must retain our sovereignty, retain the pound, stay out of the EU constitution, get out of the CFP and the CAP, bring back our international development funding to this country, and return to the simple trading relationship
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and to rational co-operation with Europe where that is in Britain's interests. That is what the people of this country voted for and to give them less is to betray them.
4.55 pm
Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East) (Lab): This afternoon, I shall make a serious contribution on the subject of prostitution. Last Friday, the Government published an important consultation document, "Paying the Price", which I welcome strongly. Existing laws on prostitution date back more than 50 years and have, in my opinion, long been in need of reform. In one small part of my constituency we have had a serious problem with prostitution. I do not in any way condone prostitution, but as a Member of Parliament I have had to think seriously about it.
The traditional red-light district of Bolton is a small light industrial estate covering far less than a square mile, which is connected to the road network, surrounded by car parks and close to the town centre night life. As heavy engineering industry moved out, light industry moved in and the business men began to complain about the prostitutes, who were operating from 3 o'clock in the afternoon rather than from the early evening onward, which led to women walking through the area and business men visiting it to be harassed.
Because of the number of complaints, the police had to do something. They conducted a great deal of activity in the area, but the result was to decant the problem across the main Bury-Bolton road and into a pleasant residential area, where the problems escalated. Prostitution is connected with drugs—we have had yardies in the area—but the reason that I have had to take a keen interest in the situation is that in 18 months there have been 14 suspicious deaths in that small area. Two prostitutes, Carly Bateman and Danielle Moorcroft, aged 17 and 21 respectively, were recently murdered there; Danielle was five months pregnant at the time of her death. There have also been vicious attacks and drug overdoses. The area is surrounded by Bolton community college and the halls of residence for Bolton institute of higher education—now a university—and students are badly harassed. There were real problems, so the police started to be active in the residential area, as a result of which the prostitutes are now spread over a much wider area.
However, there is good news: we in Bolton now have a prostitution forum, which was established under the chairmanship of Councillor Frank White. It offers a strategic approach to managing prostitution back into the traditional area—the light industrial estate. No one lives there, so apart from business men in the day time, no one has a serious problem with prostitutes operating in the area. Of course Bolton council, the police and the health authority are taking an holistic approach: they are trying to get all the prostitutes off the game, off drugs and into jobs, and to look after their health. I congratulate the Bolton prostitution forum on its mature approach to a difficult problem.
The police have offered a curfew time that is now well known in Bolton: prostitutes can operate in the area from 7 o'clock in the evening until 6 o'clock in the morning, and if they operate outside the area police will harass them. There are closed circuit television cameras
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in the area to keep the women safe, and during the curfew period the police keep an eye on what is going on. If the prostitutes do not conform to the curfew or if they operate outside the area, antisocial behaviour orders will be used. I am pleased to say that ASBOs have already been issued against two prostitutes, who are now banned from operating in Bolton. Just this evening, in the Bolton Evening News, the headline is, "Man banned from the red light zone". An ASBO has been applied to a man who is considered to be an extreme danger to prostitutes. He has become the first Bolton man to be banned, using an ASBO, from the red light area.
In addition to the consultation document that was offered last Friday, I hope that we may have a debate on the Floor of the House so that we can make far more serious contributions to this important subject than I can make this afternoon.
5 pm
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