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Time is short, but let us consider other aspects of Labour policy. Extended licensing hours have been mentioned. They have caused a 22 per cent. increase in
crime between 3 am and 6 am. Our police have to stay on duty for longer hours and do overtime. That costs Dorset constabulary more money, which is why there is pressure to cut the number of posts. We have heard a lot about the statistics, but I would like to see greater clarity instead of the two systems that we have—police reported crime and the British crime survey. Let us agree on one set of statistics, rather than the embarrassing interchange of statistics.
We have heard about the important role of police community support officers. I do not doubt that they play an important role, but in Bournemouth, as in every other part of the country, they go to bed at 10 pm. They go off the streets at just the time that Bournemouth starts to get quite vibrant. When our town centres start to pick up, extra eyes and ears are needed. Police community support officers are fine, but why not encourage more special constables? I was in the Regular Army, and I was delighted to see my companions coming from the Territorial Army to boost us when we required support. Why not emulate what my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth is doing? Constabularies should be allowed to have as many special officers as they like, because on the big nights—Friday, Saturday and football nights—they need extra police officers, and that is when they could use people who serve part time. Such people need to make ends meet and cannot serve on a voluntary basis, as special constables are made to do at present.
I do not have time to speak about the important subject of the terrorist threats that we face, which I do not believe our police are able to contend with because of the deluge of other pressures upon them.
Between 1997 and 2009, the police budget has increased by 40 per cent., yet there has been only an 11 per cent. increase in the number of police on the front line—and the number of those police officers, of course, is now being cut. We have heard that 66 pieces of legislation have been introduced, yet there has been little public confidence in the criminal justice system; there is certainly little faith in our prison rehabilitation system.
The phrase “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” was spoken in a conference speech in 1997. How ironic that, 10 years later, the current Prime Minister said in a conference speech that we should punish crime and prevent it by dealing with the root causes. That is saying exactly the same in different words, and it shows that 10 years later the Government are still saying the same thing. The job has not been done.
The Government are failing, first, to create the appropriate law and, secondly, to fund the police to enforce the law. Is it any wonder that the majority of us do not feel as safe as we would like in our homes and towns? That is not how the majority of us want to live. We need a new approach to law and order. The Government have had their chance; it is now time for a general election and for the electorate to decide.
6.51 pm
Mr. Edward O’Hara (Knowsley, South) (Lab): I welcome this debate because it defines the division between the Government and the Opposition on law and order. I declare an interest: I have two sons and a daughter-in-law who are police officers, so I live with the reality of policing in my day-to-day existence at home.
The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who led for the Opposition, said much to no purpose about the cause—I deliberately use the singular—of crime: the “broken society”. Let us for the sake of argument ignore the fatuity of the slogan “broken society”, which belongs in the same glossary of meaningless political slogans as the “war on terror”. Let us concede that society is broken: who broke it? It was the recently acknowledged heroine of the Leader of the Opposition. When in government, she said that there was no such thing as society and pursued policies based on that premise which had the effect of damaging the lives of the very citizens who make up society. We are still living with the consequences.
The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell was light on the causes of the damage. That was because his party’s policies then—and, as far as one can discern them, they will be its policies should it ever come back into government—prove it guilty as charged. What did the hon. Gentleman offer to tackle the problems? Not a word. What we need is action, and action requires resources. The Conservatives, of course, are committed to cutting resources. The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) offered some interesting solutions, but they require resources. I assume that he will be in dialogue with the shadow Chancellor—perhaps that should be the shadow shadow Chancellor—about his proposals.
By contrast, the Government offer not gimmicks, as was the accusation, but action. On knife crime, they offer education together with enforcement, and it is effective. As was acknowledged by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood), the Government have offered more police. They have offered more police community support officers, antisocial behaviour orders, social exclusion orders, spot fines and curfews. In my area, all those measures are being used to effect.
I referred to Operation Staysafe in my intervention; it would not be possible without police on the streets. I quote Deputy Chief Constable Bernard Lawson of Merseyside:
“Despite the fact that many young people have never offended, youth crime and anti-social behaviour are major sources of public concern to neighbourhoods...Operation Staysafe allows the early intervention by police and support services with young people to prevent those youths becoming involved in criminal activity or becoming victims of crime themselves. It can help to identify reasons for the young person being on the street late at night and intervene where necessary to protect our most vulnerable.”
That is practical action, and it has proved effective in Merseyside this past weekend.
Ms Celia Barlow (Hove) (Lab): Brighton and Hove also took part in Operation Staysafe at the weekend, and it proved effective. Having been out with the Sussex police youth team on Friday evenings, I can say that prevention in respect of kids being on the street can be very effective—for the children themselves, and for the local community.
Mr. O'Hara: That is a corroboration of my experience of the effectiveness of Operation Staysafe on Merseyside.
Things can be done only if police are on the beat. As I said, I have two sons who are regularly on the beat and they do not spend time indoors warming their toes. Indeed, I went inside the Arctic circle last weekend and
I borrowed a pair of long johns from one of my sons. He needs them on long winter nights as he polices the streets of Liverpool.
The Opposition offer only cuts. I know what my community wants—not the Opposition’s peculiar mixture of soft nostrums, toothless rhetoric and the hopelessness of slogans such as “broken society”, which disguise their bankruptcy with regard to making society safe for our citizens. My community wants a Government who will work with and for our fellow citizens in tackling the antisocial behaviour that affects the quality of life that my fellow citizens deserve.
6.56 pm
Anne Main (St. Albans) (Con): In the few short minutes that I have, I should like to draw the Government’s attention to Flycapture, a well-thought-out initiative that has unfortunately not been well executed. The Minister is frowning—perhaps for the same reason why many in my community have been frowning. Flycapture involves the central recording of fly-tipping in various constituencies. Fly-tipping blights many rural constituencies. With National Farmers Union representatives, I went to my local police county headquarters and attended a summit on this very matter. I find it disturbing that the county council, the police, the district council, the Gypsy and Traveller liaison officer and others involved in dealing with various aspects of fly-tipping clearance were unaware of the Flycapture system and unaware that there was central recording. Will the Government look into the system, roll out it out further and agree that local authorities need to come to a co-ordinated approach, so that we can crack down on rural crime and fly-tipping?
Many people in prisons have mental health issues—something that has not been particularly touched on in this debate. I am concerned that many in prison should have had much more care in the community and help with their mental health problems before they ended up there. When such people leave prison, they are often in a worse state than when they entered it. The Government should address that problem and ensure that resources go into communities to make sure that, as far as possible—as far as it can be controlled—it does not happen in future.
I should like to pay tribute to the Muslim community, particularly in St. Albans. It is looking at various issues, including minimising extremism, terrorism and the radicalisation of Muslim youths. I met Muslim leaders in my community on Friday. They are setting up Ummah UK, a community group to pull together Muslim groups, teach them about terrorism and extremism and how to resist it, and encourage them to resist the increasing use of drugs and alcohol that, unfortunately, dogs some ethnic minority communities. The group aims to work with the community to give a positive role model and promote positive activities. I congratulate the Muslim community in my area on looking to help policing in my community and on keeping its young people actively engaged with others there and with keeping their lives on track.
I, too, am concerned about the policing numbers reported in The Times today. I completely concur with those who have said that we need to have confidence that the figures are completely accurate.
6.59 pm
Mr. Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con): When the Home Secretary replied to my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), she remarked on the consistency of his remarks with a speech that he gave yesterday to the Local Government Association. Well, she is going to hear a consistent message from him. She began the substance of her remarks with a reply to a charge about gimmicks, which my hon. Friend had not made; some sensitivity there, I think. With a history of eye-catching initiatives, tsars of one sort or another and policing by press release substituting for a coherent approach, her sensitivity is hardly surprising. However, I enjoyed her quote from Sir John Major at the party conference in 1993, when he said that we should
“condemn a little more and understand a little less”.
She is right to note that there has been a change of tone associated with the arrival of my hon. Friend as shadow Home Secretary.
The Liberal party spokesman helpfully made the case for early intervention, as in the proposal on grounding that my hon. Friend is developing. He and I, as new members of the shadow home affairs team, were flattered by the charge of being Napoleonic and Caesarist. I will allow him to choose which role model he would like to follow, and I will be happy to take the other.
The Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee was correct about the importance of this debate, and correct to be sceptical about the effectiveness of apparent police numbers. I noted that he agrees with us about the removal of targets from policing, for which we have been asking for a very long time.
It is always instructive to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins), who presented extremely powerful and stark examples and statistics to the House. The failure to address educational opportunities in young offender institutions is a disaster in terms of value for money and opportunities missed for the people concerned. I commend to the House the exciting proposals to incentivise prison governors to make them accountable for reoffending rates. Our shadow justice team have some extremely interesting things to say about that, and the sooner they cease to be the shadow team and are able to put those things in place, the better.
My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) delivered his usual robust message about boundaries and authority, with the benefit of his experience as a special constable and on the Home Affairs Committee. However, the Government do not need to take that message from him alone. He has strong support from the chief constable of South Wales, who said, in a conference that was supposed to be closed but from which her remarks ended up being reported:
“in many of our larger cities, in areas of extreme deprivation, there are almost feral groups of very angry young people...Many have experienced family breakdown, and in place of parental and family role models, the gang culture is now established. Tribal loyalty has replaced family loyalty and gang culture based on violence and drugs is a way of life.”
She went on to deliver a damning critique of criminal justice policy, saying:
“in an age of cost-benefit analysis...there is no appetite for solutions that have no visible return and no patience for any which will not bear immediate political fruit.”
We have heard in this debate the sorry catalogue of the Government’s failure to deliver on law and order after nearly 12 years in office. Sixteen years after a young and ambitious shadow Home Secretary set out his analysis of the need to tackle crime and its causes, we see a society in which youth disorder is rife and violent crime up by a staggering 88 per cent. [ Interruption. ] It is not untrue. The Lord Chancellor should not intervene from a sedentary position, because these are his own Home Office statistics, about which there was an intervention on the Home Secretary. Perhaps he might choose to explain why more than 50 knife crimes are now being recorded every day, and fatal stabbings are up by a third, at an all-time high.
Tony Blair’s most famous pledge—the one that marked him out as new Labour and helped him ride to the Labour leadership—was never delivered. What a contrast with the inheritance that Labour received. Tony Blair’s then opposite number, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), was the first Home Secretary in decades to reverse the trend on rising crime. By force of will— and, of course, with the benefit of some pretty special advice—he changed the culture of the Home Office. In much the same way as, 10 years earlier, Baroness Thatcher challenged and changed the assumptions of the British establishment that their job was simply the civilised management of Britain’s relative decline, my right hon. and learned Friend challenged and changed the perception of those at the Home Office that their job was simply to try to manage, as best one could, inevitably rising crime levels.
These lessons we have learned. That is why I suggest that right hon. and hon. Members pay careful attention to the comments of my hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary, not only in introducing this debate but in the speech that he made yesterday to the Local Government Association. The remarks introducing him made by the Leader of the Opposition—the former special adviser to the last Conservative, and last successful, Home Secretary—also bear examination. Change is coming. Focus will be given to the Home Office and the police. Addressing the causes of crime will belong to the rest of Government; the Home Office will address crime. The police will be transformed from the centre, with a straightforward mission to fight crime and empowered by clear local accountability.
We have also learned what is not the answer. If legislative activism, money, eye-catching initiatives and bureaucratic accountability were the answer, it is inconceivable that the trend of falling crime inherited by this Government would not have continued. There have been 25 policing or crime Bills since 1997, with the latest major Bill, the Policing and Crime Bill, making its way through Committee as we speak. This endless stream of legislation might keep shadow Ministers engaged as they try to meet the challenge of getting up to speed with the latest legislative ideas in the much reduced time available to Parliament to examine them properly, but the overall effect has been highly doubtful. Such has been the blizzard of new legislation that it is well known that the judges are struggling to keep up. They are spending more time on legal refresher courses than ever before, with courts having to close as a result. If judges are struggling with this legislative blizzard, what on earth do Ministers think it is like for the police, who are expected to police the 3,000 new offences thus created?
During the economic good times, the Government failed to keep our streets safe or to provide the prisons required to lock up the criminals who stalk them. The gloomy economic outlook that we face today means that the challenges facing the police over the coming months will get worse. Indeed, as the then Minister of State at the Home Office, the right hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), said in response to a leaked Home Office document, it is “blindingly obvious” that some aspects of crime increase in a period of recession. It was reported in The Guardian yesterday that Superintendent David Hartshorn, the head of the Metropolitan Police’s public order branch—Britain’s most senior police officer with responsibility for public order—raised the spectre of riots, with people who have lost their jobs, homes or savings becoming “foot soldiers” in a wave of potentially violent mass protests. Today, The Times highlights the fall in police numbers as the ugly reality of Government finance starts to make itself felt. The mismanagement of the economy, like the mismanagement of the police and criminal justice system, has left people more vulnerable to crime and left our society more vulnerable to social disorder.
The Government are no closer to delivering on crime today than when they first came to power. Whichever way Ministers spin figures on crime, it is clear that violent crime is up, robbery is up, gun crime has nearly doubled and knife crime is on the rise, with fatal stabbings at an all-time high. Labour has failed to empower the police to tackle the criminals, and has left some of our town centres virtual no-go areas for law-abiding citizens. Instead, despite years of criticism from the police and from the Opposition, the police are still spending a fifth of their working day dealing with paperwork. Talk about wasting police time! The huge growth in the use of discretionary cautions means that when police officers do encounter criminals, it is far less likely that the criminal will ever end up in a court, let alone a prison cell. Despite all the rhetoric on knife crime, the Government still refuse to apply a presumption that carrying a knife will mean a prison sentence. Despite initiative after initiative and an unprecedented volume of criminal justice legislation, the net result after 12 years of this Government is that people feel less safe, in parts of our country antisocial behaviour has become the norm, and the innocent citizen feels that his own liberties have been curtailed to no useful purpose.
It is time for a Government who are serious about tackling crime head on by releasing police officers to deal with the criminals, and time to mend the broken society that has allowed criminal behaviour to become endemic in our towns and cities. I commend the motion in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell, who, in speaking to the Local Government Association yesterday and in the House today, has demonstrated that he will be a worthy successor to the last Home Secretary who turned back the tide on crime—another inheritance that has been so scandalously squandered by this wretched and unhappy Government.
7.9 pm
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