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Mr. Bill Wiggin (Leominster) (Con): I sincerely hope that the Secretary of State for Wales is better at his own policies than he is at ours—that rant was extraordinary.
I am glad finally to speak in this debate on Welsh affairs, which is taking place more than a month after St. David's day—it is almost St. George's day, and St. Patrick's day occurred recently. Perhaps the Secretary of State forgot his Welsh role or felt that other matters were more important. I also offer him my commiserations on his still being 12:1 to succeed as leader of the Labour party, but at least Rory Bremner does a fantastic impression of him.
Conservative Members simply want the best for Wales and its people. The people of Wales face unparalleled struggles in their health care system. In any other developed country, it would be considered unacceptable to have one in 10 of the population on a waiting list.Violent crime, gun crime, and drug-related crime are increasing, yet crime detection rates are going down. Council taxes have rocketed and yet levels of affordable housing are forever decreasing.
Mrs. Betty Williams : The hon. Gentleman is misleading the House, because detection rates for North Wales police are top of the league for the whole of England and Wales.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order. Will the hon. Lady withdraw that statement?
Mrs. Williams: I withdraw, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the figures that have recently been published for North Wales police? The western division of North Wales police, which covers part of my constituency, has the top detection rate in the whole of England and Wales, and the central division and the division that covers the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) are among the top 10 divisions in the whole of England and Wales.
Mr. Wiggin: The hon. Lady will find that incidents of drug crime increased from 9,425 in 2001 to 10, 268 in 2003. Those are the latest published figures on drug crime. [Interruption.] If she will bear with me, I shall come to detection rates. Incidents of violent crime increased from 39,274 to 56,561, again between 2001 and 2003. On gun crime, recorded offences increased from 85 in 1997 to 169 in 2004.
While crime has increased, detection rates have gone down. Total crime detection rates in Wales decreased from 41 per cent. in 2001 to 36 per cent. when the latest figures were published in 2003. If the hon. Lady has new figures, that is tremendous, but unfortunately her Government have not yet published them.
Ian Lucas
: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that last week the Association of Chief Police Officers criticised the advertisements on detection rates as misleading. He will also be aware of the view of the chief constable of North Wales that the Conservative party is misleading the public and misrepresenting the crime statistics in
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Wales, which is leading to unnecessary fear among the general population. Will he use this opportunity to withdraw and to apologise to the people of Wales?
Mr. Wiggin: The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that the figures that the Government put out increased the general public's fear, but expects me to apologise for the Government's figures. I think he is quite incorrect.
Mr. Hain: I am not asking the hon. Gentleman to take those figures from Labour Members—although he is having to do so—but to admit that he was wrong. He is repeating wrong statements. The chief constable of North Wales police accused the Conservatives of wrongly exaggerating the threat of crime ahead of an election. I want to quote Richard Brunstrom, the chief constable. He said:
"This misleading advert quite improperly seeks to stir up fear of rising crime when it is well established that crime has been falling for years both locally and nationally . . . I am disappointed in the extreme that it has appeared in the press in a marginal constituency in the run-up to a general election."
The Association of Chief Police Officers said:
It is quite obvious that the hon. Gentleman is indulging in the selective use of statistics, and the chief constable of North Wales has indicted him and criticised him for doing that.
Mr. Wiggin: I have been very indulgent in letting the Secretary of State make such a long speech about his feelings. When does he feel that people should be talking about crime? Surely it must be just before a general election, when voters count. Even more important, his Government are responsible for publishing those figures, and if he does not like what they say he should have spent the past eight years doing more about it.
Paul Flynn : The chief constable explained why the figures showed an apparent rise. It is because the entire basis for the calculations has changed. The chief constables warned us about three years ago that there would be an apparent rise. In fact, we are told by the chief constable of Gwent and many others that the crime rate is the lowest for 20 years.
Chris Bryant : While the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) is answering that question, would he reflect on the fact that many people have drawn attention to the large posters we can see all over Wales that refer to crime? One of them asks, "How would you like it if your daughter was assaulted by somebody out on early release?" Can the hon. Gentleman name a single case in Wales where that has happened? If not, he should take those posters down.
Mr. Wiggin:
That is an absurd suggestion. However, the point made by the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) is relevant in one respect. I understand that some of the statistics are now calculated differently. I can tell the hon. Member for Conwy
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(Mrs. Williams) that I used figures from post-2001, which is after the changes to the way in which the figures were calculated. The figures that I quoted on crime detection are correct. It is possibly misleading if the figures on the posters do not include that addendum, but the question is: have the people of Wales become safer? The sad fact is that they have not. They are not safer and crime is going up, especially violent crime, gun crime and drug-related crime. That is an important point and people who are about to vote at the election have every right to have their fears discussed publicly in places such as this—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) says that fear is being whipped up, but with perhaps only a day to go before the Prime Minister announces the general election I hardly think that "whipped up" is fair.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab): I fully agree that it is right to discuss crime at any time in the electoral cycle, but it is unacceptable for any of us irresponsibly to cause a situation where people in my constituency feel it is unsafe to go outside their homes. Will the hon. Gentleman make clear to me, so that I can report back to my constituents, whether he really feels that in Bridgend and Ogmore it is not safe to walk the streets because of the fear of gun and knife crime and violent crime; or does he actually believe what my chief constable says—that not only have detection rates increased, but crime in my borough is going down year after year?
Mr. Wiggin: Unfortunately, the evidence does not suggest that. In answer to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I quoted the figures earlier: violent crime went up from 39,274 to 56,561 cases between 2001 and 2003. His constituents will have to decide for themselves how safe they feel, but gun crime in Wales has increased from 85 recorded cases in 1997 to 169 in 2004. The system for counting gun crime did not change between 2001 and 2003, nor did the system for counting violent crime, so I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is right. He would be well advised to tell his constituents that they would be considerably safer if there were another 2,199 police officers, which they would get under a Conservative Government.
Donald Anderson (Swansea, East) (Lab): What is clear is that chief constables in Wales have universally criticised that advertisement as misleading. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with them or not? Are they seeking to mislead?
Mr. Wiggin: I do not think that the chief constables are seeking to mislead, and nor is the Conservative party. The Government may have failed to explain why they changed the statistics and whether those statistics are misleading, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests. It was his Government who released the figures.
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