James
Brokenshire: My hon. Friend has latched on to an important
point in the community call for action. I remember the debate in the
relevant Bill Committee on the 2006 Act. One concern expressed at the
time was that the community call for action might get in the way of
existing arrangements that the police had established—ward beats
and ward panel meetings—and a formal requirement such as going
to a new committee at the local authority might add to the levels of
bureaucracy that the police already have. Is that a concern that my
hon. Friend has picked up or that he
shares?
Mr.
Ruffley: My hon. Friend, who was on the Committee for that
Bill, is entirely right. It is a concern that I have picked up. Police
with whom I have spoken are sceptical of the concept. In fairness to
the Minister, it is also right to say that many police—not
all—are sceptical of the arrangements that the Government
outlined in their Green Paper, but are not wholly in agreement with Her
Majesty’s Opposition. However, on the community call for action,
police sceptics are surely right. It is more bureaucratic and shows no
signs of being implemented in any significant way. Like so much
criminal justice legislation since 1997, it seems to be a case of the
legislation being put on the statute book, announced with a fanfare and
getting a press release and a bit of coverage on the airwaves, only for
silence to follow. Nothing happens and the police say that it is
another bit of useless legislation. That, in answer to my hon. Friend,
would be my assessment, unless the Minister’s reply tells me
otherwise.
The
Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing
(Mr. Vernon Coaker)
rose—
Mr.
Ruffley: I am still on my feet and if the Minister wants
to intervene, I shall let him.
Mr.
Coaker: I can be specific on this point, which I hope is
helpful to the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend. The community call
for action has become the council call for action, as he will be aware,
and is to be implemented in April this
year.
Mr.
Ruffley: I am grateful to the Minister. I hope that he
will have even more important points of information that he can share
with the Committee, but with that I conclude my remarks. I look forward
to the Minister’s answers to some of the wider points,
particularly in relation to business
crime. Paul
Holmes (Chesterfield) (LD): May I echo the comments about
the pleasure of serving under your chairmanship, Sir Nicholas? Like
you, I travelled down from the north, but yesterday rather than Sunday.
I shall only observe that it is amazing how the south grinds to a halt
when we get a little bit of
snow. Turning
to the business in hand, in principle we agree with the thrust of the
amendments. Should the police consult business about local crime
problems and how they should be dealt with? Of course they
should—that is self-evident—just as they should be
consulting with every section of the community. The British Chambers of
Commerce original submission in response to the Green Paper, which has
already referred to, gave some excellent examples of how business feels
that it is often not consulted by the police and how problems such as
business crime on out-of-the-way industrial estates or shoplifting are
ignored. The submission also gave some excellent examples from places
such as north Staffordshire, Barnsley and Rotherham, and Greater
Manchester, where local action and partnerships between chambers of
commerce and police forces led to some very good effects on crime on
those
patches. Of
course we support the principle that the police should consult with
business, as with every other part of the community. Like other MPs, I
can draw examples from my local patch. Recently, a group of business
men came to see me about an outbreak of petty vandalism and arson,
which could have led to a death in one case, that was affecting one
road—about six or seven businesses—near to where I live.
There was a mixture of businesses, from a corner shop to a
hairdresser's to an accountant to a picture framers and several others.
As I sat talking to them about this outrage, which had taken place over
a month or two, the first question was, “Have you reported it to
the police?” Two out three of the people who came to see me
said, “No, of course not, there is no point because we’re
not going to get a response.”
11
am I
pointed out that I know that Derbyshire police pursue an intelligence
leg of policing whereby each week they review the computer profile of
where the calls are coming from, be they nuisance calls or calls about
vandalism, shop break-ins, burglaries and so on, and they direct the
scarce police resources to the pressure points. I pointed out to the
business men that, unless they reported these incidents, providing
something to be logged on the police computer, the police would not be
alerted to the fact that a pattern was emerging in one particular area
of town—in this case, around the small row of shops and
businesses where they operate.
Similarly,
last year some publicans came to me about Pubwatch, which they have set
up with great enthusiasm in Chesterfield town centre. However, they
felt that they were not getting a good enough response from the
authorities to make Pubwatch work effectively. They had looked at what
the scheme had done in other parts of the country, where local
businesses—in this case publicans—were working well with
the police and the local authorities to tackle the crimes of
alcohol-fuelled misbehaviour and violence around the town centres. They
said that they want more of that in their area, but they felt that they
had to come to their local Member of Parliament to ginger up the police
and authorities to be a bit more responsive. There are a lot of
examples like that, which everyone could recount.
Like so many
other parts of the community, businesses feel that there is no point in
reporting crime and that they will be ignored if it is relatively
low-level, petty crime, or the sort of victimless crime involving
property rather than people. They feel that the police and authorities
will not pay attention to them. As the British Chambers of Commerce
submission and examples such as Pubwatch show, if the two sides
interact they can get excellent results. There are some superb examples
of partnerships.
The same
principle applies in parish councils and town councils. I was a parish
councillor for four years and I well remember the local beat constable
coming along regularly to report what was happening in the patch and to
get the feedback from members of the community who attended those
meetings. I chaired one of the local community forums for Chesterfield
borough council, and we always used to have the local beat officer
along. We used to make a big point of moving the beat officer right to
the top of the agenda, because there was nothing worse than a beat
officer having to spend the whole of a two or three-hour meeting
listening to all the business that was on the agenda before it got to
the point that was relevant to them. That would have been two or three
hours that they could have spent pursuing their duties elsewhere. We
can impose duties to consult and to listen to all sorts of groups on
the police, but we need to do it in a way that will not tie the police
up in yet more bureaucracy and meetings to no avail.
Although I
agree with the principle behind amendments 76, 48 and 77, I
have one or two questions. One relates to the obligation that would be
imposed on the police to carry out regular, independent surveys through
an opinion poll company or similar, to find out what the local
community felt about policing and what the issues and the responses
were. How regularly would those independent surveys be conducted? Who
would bear the cost of them? What response would the police then be
required to give?
We are now
back into the territory that we discussed on Second Reading and when
taking evidence from witnesses last week. The Bill as drafted states
that local police authorities and police forces will “have
regard” to what the local community tells them. What exactly
does “have regard” mean? In this case, it means they must
have regard to the findings of frequent opinion poll surveys of
business people, but how are the police to decide to which source of
information and views they should give priority, especially when the
Bill gives Ministers extra powers to direct police authorities to do
certain things? We have already raised that question in previous
debates: what happens if the Minister’s direction and the local
community’s response of, “No, this is what we
need,” clash? That takes us
to the territory highlighted by Liberty, which has already been
discussed, relating to what will now be called the council call for
action. I will come back to the issue when we discuss new clause 2 and
new clause 4, which stand in my name. The call for action in the 2006
Act calls for a local councillor to take prompt action when approached
by members of their ward, which in this case could be local businesses.
Councillors must indicate what action they propose to take to resolve
the problem.
What can that
individual councillor do? A district or a borough councillor has no
direct input to the police authority. A county councillor or a city
councillor who is not on the police authority has no direct input to
the police authority, either. Through the local crime and disorder
reduction partnership, individual councillors might be able to have
some impact, but by and large they will not. Do not the provision in
the 2006 Act, the provisions in the Bill about ministerial direction
and having regard to community calls, and the amendments’
requirement to have regard to views of businesses gathered through
independent surveys carry the risk that the police authority will be
unable to reconcile all the different people instructing it? It is a
balancing act.
If the police
authority is constantly going to be directed from London, as well as be
expected to take notice of local opinion, there will be a tension. When
I asked about this last week, I was told that it would sort itself out,
but it is not that simple. If responsibilities are being placed on the
police to do this, this, this and this, especially when they do not
have control over their own funding and manpower levels, at some point
they will have to take decisions. They will ignore that instruction, or
that request from the community, or that request from business in order
to do something else.
I believe
that we should give the police authorities more independence to take
those decisions purely in the light of local circumstances. In
principle, I support the amendment, but I should like some
clarification of how frequent the surveys should be, who will bear the
cost and how the police authority will have regard to what these
surveys reveal in their regular
reports.
Mr.
Coaker: This is the first time, apart from an
intervention, that I have got to my feet in this Committee. May I start
by welcoming you to the Chair, Sir Nicholas, of this formal part of our
proceedings?
I also
welcome all other members of the Committee. As is customary, I welcome
to the Committee my shadow, the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds. He,
the hon. Member for Hornchurch and I have had many interesting and
informative debates. I will try to answer all questions I am asked.
Although I may not always agree with people, I will try to make
progress and to take account of the opinions and views expressed. Where
possible and where I believe it appropriate, I will try to change and
adapt. It is good to be here.
I join the
hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds in his generous tribute to the work
done by police officers and staff up and down the country: they do an
excellent job. As he said, they often do that job in difficult and
dangerous circumstances. I am sure that the hon. Member for
Chesterfield shares those sentiments.
This is an
important debate and the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds has raised
some interesting points. He and the hon. Member for Chesterfield spoke
about businesses not reporting crime and people not feeling confident
about reporting crime because they do not feel that it will make any
difference. It does not matter whether it is a business, an individual,
a youth club or a family: everybody should report crime. That is a
basic principle and a basic standard. I take the point that sometimes
people say it is not worth it, but the starting point has to be that
people should report crime when it occurs. I know that the hon. Member
for Chesterfield would agree with that and I know he was making a
particular point about business, but it is important to set out right
at the start that reporting crime, regardless of the category one could
be put into, is of particular importance.
I know that
businesses say what the hon. Gentleman recounted. My hon. Friend the
Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department is working hard on
some of the issues that businesses have raised, such as dealing with
repeat offenders. I talked to the police and the Crown Prosecution
Service about that when I had responsibility for that area and I know
that my hon. Friend has done so,
so. Variation
across the country is an issue. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds
made the point that, in some parts of the country, businesses do not
feel that they are included in neighbourhood policing work and CDRP
work. However, in other areas of the country, businesses say that they
have a fantastic relationship and that they do brilliant work; they say
that the police respond quickly and appropriately, as does the local
authority. As the hon. Member for Chesterfield said, the challenge is
to ensure that we bring everybody up to that standard. At local level,
the CDRP can prioritise business crime as a particular challenge in its
area. Important though we think business crime is, we are all for local
decision making, so we will not dictate that CDRPs must do
that. I
will deal with a couple of the other points raised by the hon. Members
for Bury St. Edmunds and for Chesterfield before making some more
general comments on the amendments. The hon. Member for Bury
St. Edmunds is quite right to talk about the ring-fencing of
the neighbourhood policing budget for a further year next year. It will
be uplifted, subject to tomorrow’s announcement, by 2.7 per
cent. to £332
million. The
hon. Gentleman asked about the difference between clause 1 and what is
in the 1996 Act, which also came up in the evidence session. It is
important to recognise that the 1996 Act talks about “obtaining
the views”, whereas we are placing a duty on police
authorities “to
have regard to the
views”. The
lawyers tell me that that is a much stronger obligation. I often
approach such issues from a common-sense point of view and it seems
much stronger to me. The vast majority of people would see “must
have regard to” as a much stronger requirement on police
authorities than simply “obtaining the views”. With the
latter, the views can just be collected in, the box ticked, but nothing
done. If regard must be given to the views, it must be possible to
demonstrate in inspections that account has been taken of the
views. The
hon. Gentleman also asked who are “the people”. There is
no new definition: they are the same people to whom section 96 of the
1996 Act refers. There is no
strict definition. He asked whether we should assume that it refers to
the common-sense definition of “the people” that we would
all understand. The answer is yes. It has been interpreted as all the
people, or at least a representative sample of people who live and work
in the area. Hopefully I have gone some way towards answering his
question. The
hon. Member for Chesterfield asked whether the clause gives local
people the power to interfere in policing matters. It does not require
the police authority to follow somebody’s views automatically
simply because they put their hand up at a public meeting. That would
be ludicrous. We have all been to public meetings where people have put
their hands up. That is clearly not the intention behind the measure.
However, clearly, we can also not ignore people’s views. That is
why the clause says that authorities must
“have regard to
the views...of
people”. It
would be ludicrous if five people in five different meetings put their
hands up and said, “We think this or that should be
done,” and could automatically expect any police officer or
police authority to do
it. 11.15
am
I am sorry if
I gave the hon. Gentleman the impression of being dismissive when I
gave evidence; I was not trying to do that at all. However, there comes
a time when judgments have to be made. We have different views on how
to make people accountable for making those judgments, but people
nevertheless have to make judgments about what they should or should
not do.
We have to do
that as Members of Parliament. The hon. Gentleman’s constituents
will go to him with a view about something, and say that everybody
agrees with them; five minutes later, someone else will have a
completely different view about the issue and say that everybody agrees
with them. Members of Parliament, police officers and police
authorities alike must, at the end of the day, demonstrate that they
have listened and had regard to people’s views, but there will
be times when they have to make a judgment. Is that representative? The
duty to ensure that views are represented is required under section 96
of the Police Act 1996, and under the
Bill. I
agree to an extent with the point made by the hon. Gentleman, but the
amendment is unnecessary. Why? I agree that the views of local
authorities, and the business and voluntary sectors, should be
considered when the police authority carries out its functions. To that
extent, as I said, I accept the sentiments that are behind the
amendment. However—there is always one of those—the hon.
Gentleman seems to think that “people” does not include
local authorities, businesses and the voluntary sector. The Committee
should be clear, as I am, that
“the views of
people
in” the
authority’s area is a wide standard. It can include people who
live and/or work in the area; people in businesses; people in the local
authorities; and people in the voluntary sector
organisations.
If the hon.
Gentleman puts those groups in the Bill, why not include the charitable
sector, lobby groups or pubs? Why not include a range of other people
and organisations?
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