Westminster Hall
Thursday 11 June 2009
[Mr. Hywel Williams in the Chair]
Policing in the 21st Century
[Relevant documents: Policing in the 21st Century: Seventh Report from the Home Affairs Committee, Session 2007-08, HC 364-I, and the Government’s response, Cm 7553.]
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Ms Butler.)
2.30 pm
Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab): It is a great pleasure to be present on this occasion, with you in the Chair, Mr. Williams. I am extremely grateful to the Liaison Committee and to the House for allowing us to debate the Home Affairs Committee’s seventh report of the last Session, which considered the subject of policing in the 21st century. The purpose is to discuss the issues raised in our inquiry, consider developments since the report’s publication and address the Government’s response.
I welcome the new Home Office team, led by the new Secretary of State for the Home Department, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). I also welcome the new Minister who, I understand, has sought asylum from the Ministry of Justice in the calmer waters of Marsham street. It is always a pleasure to take part in a debate with the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley), who has spoken often and eloquently on policing matters on behalf of the Opposition. I also welcome the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes). I am sure that we will be joined later by other right hon. and hon. Members.
I pay tribute to the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), who did an excellent job. She was always willing to engage with the Select Committee on a range of issues, especially policing, which is right at the top of our agenda. I also pay tribute to the former Minister for policing, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), who was very willing to engage with us and Members on both sides of the House on policing issues. We wish them well on their chosen paths.
I and Committee members are immensely proud of our report. We decided to look in depth at policing, rather than conduct a one-off investigation. Members worked extremely hard to produce what I think is the Home Affairs Committee’s definitive report on policing. I thank Committee members for all their hard work. During our inquiry, we found examples of excellent practice, as well as areas that need dramatic improvement. The Committee was keen not to be confined within the walls of Westminster, so we travelled around the country looking at policing in different areas of England and Wales. I am pleased to say that we met stakeholders in places such as Newark, Reading, Monmouth, Colchester, Manchester and Stockport. All those visits provided us with an excellent opportunity to assess good practice and, in a sense, to act as a catalyst for it to be shared.
Witnesses painted an accurate picture of their personal experiences of policing in the 21st century. We heard from Sir Norman Bettison, from the Association of Chief Police Officers, and from Paul McKeever, the chairman of the Police Federation. We also heard from constables on the beat and a custody sergeant. Far too often, in Select Committee inquiries, we hear only from the top bods. In this sort of inquiry, however, it was important to look at the grass roots and the people on the front line of policing. We were pleased to see so many of them, either at evidence sessions or at our stakeholder meetings. Since the report’s publication, I have been approached by politicians, stakeholders, police officers and victims of crime who found the report refreshing and, in one view, essential reading on policing in this country. I hope that the Minister, even though he was appointed only last Thursday, has had a chance to read it and that he shares its conclusions.
The police service employs about 145,000 police officers, 77,000 police staff, 16,000 police community support officers and 14,500 special constables. It is one of the great institutions of our country and is essential to the make-up of our society. The aim of our inquiry was to establish the key challenges facing the police in the 21st century and what we need to do to ensure that they are equipped to meet them. That is set against a background of dissatisfaction among the public with the police service and among many senior officers with the increasingly broad and unwieldy role that they are expected to fill.
During the inquiry, which ran from February to July 2008, we considered the role of the police, particularly their ability to deal with 21st century social trends, including alcohol-related crime; the effects of increased immigration; their relationship with the public; funding; how to increase effectiveness through reducing bureaucracy; collaboration between forces; and making more use of police staff and other members of the work force. We drew a number of conclusions. The number of responsibilities placed on the police service expanded significantly in the late 20th century. It is now expected to deal with new dangers, such as internet-based child pornography and the terrorist threat, as well as tasks inherited from other organisations, such as victim support and monitoring sex offenders in the community. In the words of one police officer who gave evidence to us, is it really their job to take lost dogs home? We called for a fundamental review of their role.
In addition, pressure to meet quantitative Home Office targets has often caused officers to prioritise trivial offences rather than dealing with the most serious crimes. We welcome the Government’s undertaking in the policing Green Paper, which was published during our inquiry, to replace top-down targets with locally set priorities. We also encouraged greater use of officer discretion, backed by more efficient supervision. Public expectations of the police are not being met—worryingly, when last surveyed, in 2007-08, only half the population thought that the police were doing a good job, despite the continued fall in crime. The public want the police to be more active in dealing with minor crime and antisocial behaviour. We recommended that the police be more visible and responsive to the public and give greater consideration to the needs of the victim in investigating crimes. Communication is vital between victims and police, and reporting back on the progress of investigations could provide the answer to restoring public confidence in the police.
When right hon. and hon. Gentlemen visit their constituencies tomorrow, they will be visited by people with concerns about the police. Usually, the problem is that they do not know what is happening about their case—they do not usually have a complaint. With good customer service, many cases can be dealt with very quickly, without the need for people to see MPs. I hope, therefore, that by improving communication we can cut the time taken to deal with complaints about how the police handle their job.
Government grants to the police have increased by 19 per cent. over the past decade. Overall police spending was estimated at £12.6 billion in 2007-08. However, a number of functions are putting particular pressure on police resources. Foreign nationals take longer and cost more for police forces to process than British citizens. Rapid immigration has led to funding shortfalls in some areas. The Government must give greater assistance to forces in areas experiencing rapid population change.
We discovered that a huge amount of police time and money is spent dealing with alcohol-related crime. Changes in the licensing laws mean that forces have to deploy officers for longer. We conclude in our report not that the change in the licensing laws had resulted in more crime, but that the work load of the police had increased because pubs and clubs were open for longer. Some 45 per cent. of victims of violence describe their assailants as being under the influence of alcohol, and 70 per cent. of police officers believe that attending alcohol-related incidents diverts them from tackling of crime.
We supported the principle of mandatory contributions to policing from alcohol retailers; we advocated that the practice of loss leading should be ended; and we felt that it was important that there should be compulsory, and not voluntary, standards for the alcohol industry. I welcome the Government’s recent steps to ban irresponsible drinking promotions, such as, “All that you can drink for a fiver”. I will explain later why more should be done. The Committee was keen not to be seen as a killjoy or as being responsible for the death of the happy hour. However, irresponsible drinking can turn into “unhappy hours” for victims of alcohol-related crime. Drinking responsibly is not a crime and should not be treated as such, but something must be done to prevent the huge drain on our public services, which is happening because of irresponsible drinking.
Faced with tight funding, the police need to identify ways to free up resources. We were disappointed at the lack of progress in reducing police bureaucracy. Witnesses estimated that officers spend around 20 to 30 per cent. of their time completing paperwork, and the average officer spends only 14 per cent. of their time on patrol. We welcome plans for shorter crime-recording forms and new processes for digitally recording stop and account. We were invited by a member of our Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), to visit Staffordshire police, which reduced its crime-recording form from 14 pages to one, which it estimates saves officers 20 to 25 minutes per form. The use of personal digital assistants in Bedfordshire has increased visible patrols from 14 to 19 per cent. for each officer. All frontline officers should be given PDAs.
Mr. David Ruffley (Bury St. Edmunds) (Con): On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the Staffordshire experience and the three other forces that piloted more officer discretion and shorter, sharper crime recording practices, was that work utilised in other forces?
Keith Vaz: As Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, I have made it my practice to write to the Home Secretary about the things that I think should and should not be shared with other parts of the country. In this case, I wrote to the then Home Secretary to suggest that the practice should be followed in every single force. It is not necessary to wait for pilots. As someone once said, “We have in Government more pilots than British Airways.” If something works practically, it is essential to do it everywhere. I am not sure whether I got a reply from the former Home Secretary, but I am sure that the Minister will let us know whether that practice has been taken beyond the pilot areas. I certainly found the practice—and I know that the hon. Gentleman must have found it—extremely useful.
We supported the greater use of non-warranted police staff in areas in which it is cost-effective, but not to the extent that the number of police officers required for maintaining public order is significantly reduced. Initially, the arrival of PCSOs was treated with concern by some police officers, but now they are a vital part of the local police service. It is important that we give credit to the police for the way they have worked so closely with PCSOs when, initially, there was concern from organisations such as the Police Federation.
Regional collaboration on sharing services to cut costs works well in some parts of England and Wales, but progress elsewhere is too slow. There also remains a gap in the provision for tackling serious and organised crime. I am pleased to say that the Committee is shortly to hold an inquiry into the Serious Organised Crime Agency. At the same time, it will examine the work done by Europol, which is now led by a dynamic young British former police officer, and which celebrates this year its 10th anniversary.
We did not support forced mergers as a solution, but we felt that if regional and local police forces wish to collaborate, they should be allowed to do so. As a local MP, I do not want to see my police force in Leicester being run from Nottingham, which is probably where it will end up. For some reason, everything is always put in Nottingham rather than in Leicester or Derby. I am very happy to see police forces collaborating, but I do not want to return to the policy of forcing mergers, because it was unsuccessful.
We found no evidence of a drop in the number or quality of police officer applicants. Officer posts attract, on average, six applicants. However, we had some concerns over retention, especially in the south-east. Regional forces lost 1,038 officers to the Metropolitan police over the previous five years. That is something that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) successfully highlighted to the Committee.
As for the rest of the work force, we advocated greater standardisation in the deployment of PCSOs and consideration of whether they could be granted some powers of arrest in very exceptional circumstances. We did not advocate affirmative action, but we were
concerned about the lack of Government progress on the diversity targets set by the Government themselves under a previous Home Secretary, now Lord Chancellor, following the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. We felt that greater efforts should be made to encourage more people from the ethnic minority communities and more women into the senior levels of policing in this country.
Finally, we concluded that the Home Office should give back more control over policing decisions to local forces, which would result in a bottom-up approach to policing. There should be greater accountability of policing to the public at a local level. However, we were clear that proposals originally put forward by the Home Office to restructure police authorities did not meet that need and threatened to undermine the partnership that was already working between the police and local authorities as well as having the potential to be exploited by extremist parties.
Following our representations to the Government, in the report and in a letter following the one-off session that we held in December, we were delighted to hear that the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Redditch, withdrew her proposals to introduce direct elections to police authorities. Instead, the Policing and Crime Bill, which has reached Committee in another place, inserts into the Police Act 1996 a requirement for police authorities to have regard to the views on policing of the people in their area. We were pleased that the Government strongly welcomed our report and that the then Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling, was able to appear before us in March to give us an update on the recommendations. However, we are disappointed that the Government have failed to take up our recommendations in a few key areas, notably around minimum pricing for alcohol.
The Government’s chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, has since proposed the introduction of a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol, which would mean that a standard bottle of wine could not be sold for less than £4, a 2-litre bottle of cider for less than £5.50 and the average six-pack of lager for less than £6. He considered such a move could, after 10 years, lead to 3,400 fewer deaths and 100,000 fewer hospital admissions a year, and that it would also have a significant impact on crime rates. Alas, the Government did not follow the medical advice of their own chief medical officer. The Policing and Crime Bill introduces some measures towards reducing alcohol-related harm—for example, it increases the maximum fine for consuming alcohol in a designated public place—but the Committee feels that they are not sufficient. I am sure the Minister will give us more information. We welcome what the Government have done so far, but we believe they need to go much further.
Since our inquiry, the UK has fallen into a recession and there are concerns about the potential impact on crime levels and speculation about capping the numbers of officers. I hope the Minister can reassure the House that no cuts will be made to the police force in England and Wales in the foreseeable future. The chief constable of Gloucestershire, Dr. Timothy Brain, who gave evidence to the Committee in March, described what tends to happen during recession. He told us that during the second half of the 1970s through to the mid-point of the 1980s, crime rose by about 124 per cent.
The police have received record funding in the past decade; we must ensure that police forces continue to be properly resourced to meet the challenges. We were therefore concerned to hear of the problems faced by some forces—they were described to the Committee as second-tier forces—that are losing out because of the police funding formula. The new chief constable of West Midlands police, Chris Sims, warned last week that officer and staff numbers are likely to be cut. The Home Secretary must take heed of Sir Ronnie Flanagan’s recommendations on the formula.
Capping is also causing some forces concern: Surrey police authority is seeking a judicial review of a Government decision to cap its budget, which resulted in a loss of £1.6 million; Derbyshire police authority is also planning an appeal to the Government against future budget restrictions; and Leicestershire police narrowly escaped being capped last year. Forces should never be in a position in which they may have to cap their budget. This Government have done so much for policing. Surely we should ensure that the situation does not come to cuts in our forces.
I know that the Minister is concerned about his budget, but I say this to him: the National Policing Improvement Agency has spent £70 million on consultants at the same time as police forces have to cut officers. That is simply not acceptable. The funding difficulties make it imperative that the police operate as efficiently as possible. It is estimated that officers spend around 20 to 30 per cent. of their time on paperwork.
The previous Policing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling, told us in March that 26,188 hand-held devices had been issued to police forces across the country as part of the Government’s target of delivering 30,000 devices by March 2010. Jan Berry’s lead on reducing bureaucracy in the police provided the Committee with an excellent framework to investigate that further—it is impressive that someone can go from marching with 100,000 police officers and support staff through the streets of Whitehall and end up becoming the Government’s tsar on cutting red tape, but we welcome her appointment and look forward to her report. My own local constabulary, Leicestershire, recently deployed hand-held devices to 450 beat officers and PCSOs who patrol on foot or bicycle after discovering that officers were spending at least one third of a nine-hour shift at their desks accessing or recording information on the computer systems. The Committee and I want all front-line police officers to have access to a mobile device.
We were pleased to be assured that our concerns about capacity issues on the Airwave radio network, which is now used by all officers, are being taken seriously, particularly in the light of the forthcoming Olympics. However, in an article in Jane’s Police Review last week, Barrie Trower, an independent research physicist, predicted that Airwave users could be at risk of thousands of slow-growing brain tumours. The Minister has just taken up his post, but I hope that he can assure us that there are no health dangers with Airwave.
The Committee continues to scrutinise the work of the police and in the next 10 days we will publish our report on the policing of the G20 protests. I hope that it will recommend positive action for the police to take in response to the criticisms they have received.
I am sure that the House will be aware of the disturbing news this week that police officers allegedly tortured
suspected drug dealers during questioning. I hope that the Minister ensures that those allegations are investigated quickly and that they are responded to with the appropriate action. As I am sure he knows, if he does not do that, the Committee will—it is very willing to hold further inquiries.
Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Minister and the hon. Members for Bury St. Edmunds and for Chesterfield for their presence here today, and members of my Committee for their work. I hope that the Government continue to take our conclusions and recommendations into account in working towards delivering a first-class police service that will be fit for purpose in the 21st century.
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