| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: I apologise to the Minister and to some of my noble friends if, like my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking, I am a tiny piece of grit in the collective shoe on this issue. I recall that, at Second Reading, I expressed greater support for and receptivity to the concept that we are discussing than some of my noble friends.
I appreciate that my principal exposure to policing, apart from Northern Ireland, has been in London, with the Met and the City of London Police. I acknowledge, of course, that I have never been a Home Office Minister and have not had that experience, but, during the previous Parliament, I could not go to a community meeting in Westminster—whether it be to do with an amenity society, residents' association or any of the three admirable police community consultative groups—without the issue of police numbers in Westminster and the police presence on the streets being raised. My noble friends Lady Hanham and Lady Gardner of Parkes alluded to similar experiences.
In part, that was against a background of complaints from the suburbs that they were being drained of police so that demonstrations in central London could be policed. However, it was also against a background of the loss of manpower from well policed areas of London—I use the phrase "well policed" in all its senses—to other areas of the city that had a faster deteriorating crime rate. In an ideal world, as other noble Lords have said, we would prefer full-time, regular police officers. However, it is true, in
harness with this, that some duties that must be fulfilled are a less than good use of full-time officers, with a consequential dilution of their morale.Given the difficulties with ethnic recruitment to the Met, I am conscious of the remarkable success of the Territorial Army in recruiting ethnic minorities. In the Green Jackets' TA unit in Mayfair, about half the recruits are from ethnic minorities and about half are from single-parent families. Incidentally, there is much to be said for a uniform and discipline in giving structure to the lives of the young people who come from such backgrounds. I am attracted by the use of this vehicle to draw ethnic minorities into the police in that preliminary way, in exactly the same way as the RUC Reserve was used in Northern Ireland, giving people the chance to experience policing, before deciding whether to become full-time officers.
There is a genuine irony in our attacking the Government for greater centralisation if we are not prepared to contemplate the possibility of decentralised experiment. Of course, as I also said at Second Reading, there are real problems in determining the powers of the new categories of officer and securing public recognition of those powers. However, we cannot discuss them, as we will do later, without assenting, at least, to the idea that there are parts of the country where such officers might be valuable.
I close with a reflection from the mid-1980s when I was the Minister responsible for Customs and Excise, which is obviously another law enforcement agency. I made 16 full day visits to Customs and Excise in different parts of the country. My experience was that, anywhere south of Watford, the only subject which Customs officers wanted to discuss was pay. North of Watford, that issue never arose.
It is a mistake to see the country as unremittingly homogeneous. There are different needs in different places. We should not forget that policing started in London because that was where the problems were.
6 p.m.
Lord Elton: Perhaps I may try to put the matter into perspective. The amendment only seeks to delete subsection (1)(a) of Clause 33 and we have three other subsections all aimed at recruiting civilians into policemen's uniforms doing policemen's work. Therefore, will the Minister tell us what proportion of personnel he hopes will be recruited under each of the four provisions?
It seems that people have been reacting to the amendment as though it were going to scrub out all civilian recruits of the new kind to the police service. That is very far from what will actually occur. The ones who are recruited as investigating, detention and escort officers, can all replace fully trained officers to become visible, as the noble Lord, Lord Condon, wants, and perhaps be available to be accompanied by the people under subsection (1)(a) which we are seeking to delete.
Lord Rooker: In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, the answer is most certainly not. That is because
this is an enabling power. It would be ludicrous for a Minister to stand up and give targets for community support, investigative, detention and escort officers. Amendments have been tabled relating to each type of officer. They propose either to scrub them out or to look at their powers and functions. At the appropriate time I will be happy to do that. However, bearing in mind all the previous debates, as well as the fact that this is an enabling power, it would be inappropriate for Ministers to give targets. It is a matter for the chief constables.I welcome the debate and all the points raised, although I wish the last five speeches had been the first five speeches. From the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, onwards, the debate seemed to me utterly realistic and the noble Lord, Lord Baker, made my winding up speech for me in a much shorter time than I am afraid I am going to take. I am extremely grateful for what was said by the noble Lords, Lord Brooke and Lord Baker.
The noble Lord, Lord Baker, is right in saying that incredibly complex training is required of today's police. The noble Lords, Lord Waddington and Lord Elton, referred to half-trained people being used to police the streets. That is wrong and I shall turn to that matter later.
I have lived in London for many years but I do not count myself as a Londoner. I learn as I go along. There are issues relating to London in respect of which some boroughs are setting up their own policing function. There will be a combination of the community support officers and the accreditation schemes, to which we will turn later. They have the stamp of approval of the commissioner in London. It is better to use such people and schemes rather than having freelance people working for boroughs or private companies on private estates. Such a framework reassures the public. If efforts are led by the boroughs, in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police, so much the better for the accreditation schemes. There is a lot of merit in them.
The answer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, is yes, yes and yes. It also leads to the conclusion that the fear of crime is much too high. It is a major problem. However much we talk about crime statistics going down in one area, or up in another, the fact is that the public's fear of crime far outweighs the reality of what is happening in their local communities. We must recognise that fact.
There are too few police officers. I said during the course of our earlier debate that there is a target to achieve 130,000 officers by spring of next year. I also said that the Home Secretary would set a new target because that gave the lie to the suggestion that once we had achieved the target the number would remain stable and alteration would be only by means of community support officers and others. That is not our intention, by any means.
I am not going to argue about the numbers. One of the statistics that I always remember from 1979—probably the trickiest of the seven general elections I
fought—was that there were then 15,000 more police officers in the country than there were in 1974. I do not believe that the then Labour government received any credit for it, but it is a figure that I have always remembered. I accept the number of police and special officers has gone down in the past few years and that civilian support has gone up.The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and I were constituency neighbours for many years. In response to his remarks, let us suppose that in opposition someone had come to me from the then government when he was a member of the Cabinet and said, "You've got real problems on an estate in a ward in your constituency. There are real problems with what would be relatively minor offences but to the people concerned the crimes are the most serious matters in their lives. Balls are knocked up against gable walls hour after hour after hour; bikes are everywhere; dogs are fouling the pavements; and youths are messing around with alcohol. There are not enough police to do the job but we have a few uniformed blokes organised and controlled by the police. Do you want them?" Does the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, really think that I would have attacked a government who would have come along and said, "This is probably a good idea. It may help your constituents"? No, of course I would not and he knows that.
The issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, are important. The priority is right. I agree and I believe that the public will agree that we would rather have police. The specials are not always available when one needs them and the community support officers are a uniformed presence with certain very limited powers. I agree with the noble Baroness's analysis.
The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, made the point about the diary of the police officer. We debated that matter at Second Reading. I do not have the figure in front of me but I believe that either 43 per cent or 47 per cent of a police officer's time is spent at the station. Why is that? It is because of the paperwork. The average amount of time spent on the paperwork required of a police officer in respect of an arrest of any kind is three and a half hours in the station. Whatever the crime, the police officer spends three and a half hours off the street and in the station.
What is proposed in the clause—the detention, investigation and escort officers—is intended to cut the amount of time that a police constable is in the station when he could be back out on the beat, as set out in the White Paper. There is nothing new there. The argument is not that the police do not want to go out and are hiding in the station, as implied by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. Far from it, they are tied down in the station because of the paperwork and everything else. I suspect that we have all seen what happens. As I say, the average time is three and a half hours off the beat.
I do not want to separate the noble Lord, Lord Tope, from the last five speakers, but the problem is that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, came in the middle. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, spoke from his knowledge of Hendon college. I have none and I must make a point of visiting the college. He said that it was full. We can say with some certainty that we will have 130,000 police officers by spring of next year because we know the retirement rates, the wastage rates, the ill health rates and the recruitment and training rates. We can be confident that we can hit that target. I believe that is a valuable point and I am grateful that he was able to make it.
Returning to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, I do not believe that the community support officers are at odds with tradition because traditions have changed. We shall come to that later in the debate.
My noble friend Lord Mackenzie mentioned park keepers and conductors on buses. In some ways it is true that community support officers will fit more neatly into the accreditation schemes. However, it is a fact that we used to have more of a uniformed presence about. I can remember that even over my short years. It used to be said of the park keeper, "The parky's coming after you. You'd better scamper". I recall that at the time I was scrumping apples in someone's back garden. Traditions have changed, and no longer do we have a uniformed presence in our public spaces.
In that sense, I do not believe that the proposal to introduce community support officers, to be taken up at the wish of chief police officers, goes against tradition. Such officers will fit in better with modern society and will meet the changes that have taken place.
Again, my noble friend Lord Mackenzie made the point that the problems are not found only in London. I accept that, although I freely admit that much of the pressure to embrace community support officers has come from the Met. It may well be that other chief constables will sit back in thinking mode to watch and discuss what happens in London. However, they will have to be careful because London is in no way a mirror image of the rest of the country. Far from it. The rest of the country can be a great deal nicer. But it could be said that London will act as a virtual pilot for the rest of the country.
Mr Blair has told me that he sees no problem whatever in the recruitment of community support officers. That brings me to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, who pointed out in our brief discussion that community support officers may well be able to strike a better balance with the ethnic minorities—as is also the case with the specials—than is possible in the regular force. Perhaps it will be a better route for recruitment. I believe that there is a good deal of support for and agreement with that view among professional police officers.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, was far too harsh on the issue of training. He criticised subparagraph (c) of Clause 22(3). However, subsection (3) states:
- "A chief officer of police shall not designate a person under this section unless he is satisfied that that person—
- (c) has received adequate training in the carrying out . . . of the powers",
I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Condon, that the first priority must be more police on the beat, which was repeated by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner. It is a fair point. The noble Lord went on to list three areas within the Met where community support officers could prove to be extremely useful, on occasion working alongside regular officers but not necessarily all the time. For example, if a roadblock has to be set up and searches carried out, surely the job of patrolling the cordon of the roadblock while regular officers carry out the work of stopping cars and conducting searches is an ideal role for a community support officer. It would free up regular officers for their work. Indeed, in London community support officers could prove extremely useful in the traffic endeavour.
The noble Lord also reiterated a point he made on Second Reading—that community support officers could well enhance the security effort following the events of September 11th, a point that many noble Lords brought up. Many police officers were drafted in, but then we were told that they were bored out of their minds because nothing happened. We were lucky that nothing happened, but that was because there was a uniformed presence on the streets. The point is that we will never know. It was a precautionary move, wholly justified in the circumstances; indeed, it remains so. We are therefore wholly justified in looking at other ways of ensuring that all the tasks set for the police are carried out.
Although the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, was not totally supportive, by and large he appeared to want to see how this would work—I am paraphrasing from my notes, which are not that good. We are holding here very much a Second Reading debate on whether we should have community support officers. I accept that, because we are not debating their powers. We shall come to that in Schedule 4, where Members of the other place sought to limit the options for chief constables.
The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, expressed a fundamental point and put forward a fairly extreme view: no community support officers, whatever their
powers. That takes the extreme view reflected in the purpose of the amendment which I hope that the Committee will not support because it would certainly negate the remainder of our debate looking at the powers, and it is too extreme.I turn now to my speaking notes, because I must put one or two points on the record that may not be in direct response to the remarks of noble Lords. There are no powers of arrest for community support officers. However, as one noble Lord pointed out, the introduction of such officers marks one of the key proposals in the White Paper and we consider it to be one of the major elements of this piece of legislation. We make no bones about that. This is enabling legislation, it is not prescriptive and it will be up to the chief officer to decide whether to go this way. I shall make the point again that the Metropolitan Police have argued strongly for such a proposal, given the scale of the demand for officers to provide a counter-terrorism presence. However, the role of the community support officer will have a wider application.
The British Crime Survey shows that, while the incidence of crime is generally falling, the fear of crime is not. It is important to take that fact on board. There is an unfulfilled public expectation to see a police presence on every street tackling low level crime and anti-social behaviour. After all, most people expressing a fear of crime because they have come up against it do not do so because they have been involved in a bank robbery or a terrorist offence. They have not become entangled in major, serious crimes. Rather it is youths misusing alcohol and behaving in an anti-social manner. While that might be classed as low level crime in the hierarchy of crimes, for the individual suffering from it, it is the thing that sends them out of their mind.
People can become absolutely obsessed with what happens once local youths and miscreants start to misbehave. Those petty crimes can take over their lives and make them physically ill. That was certainly my experience when representing areas of Birmingham where there were such difficulties. I could not go to the chief constable and say, "Put your top man, or your top lady, on to this". I knew that there were other problems. I could not claim that those petty crimes were the most important policing issue in the City of Birmingham, but for my constituents it was the thing that was ruining their lives.
At that level we can make a difference. Giving a lever to chief constables in the form of community support officers is what it is all about: it will help them to make a difference. Initial audits and consultations carried out by the crime and disorder reduction partnerships have shown a strong public concern about these relatively minor aspects, sometimes no more than noisy youths. Many people suffer from the problems of anti-social, sub-criminal behaviour which can blight entire communities as well as individuals.
Community support officers will not replace police officers. As I have said, we are committed to increasing police numbers to the figure of 130,000 and we shall set a new target when we reach it. Community support
officers are not intended to have the full range of powers of a regular constable or a special. I remind the Committee that specials are not civilians playing policeman; they are fully attested constables but, by definition, they are not always around when they are needed. They are not available at 3.30 in the afternoon when someone might be playing up near the entrance and exit of a school. Someone must be sent along to sort it out and to show a presence. That is the kind of problem which can be dealt with by community support officers.Community support officers will free up regular officers to carry out the duties which require their full powers. The role of the community support officer will be limited and will be clearly focused. Unlike regular beat officers, whom they may support, community support officers are unlikely routinely to be called away to deal with more serious crimes. Unlike special constables, who are generally only available at weekends—by definition they have full-time jobs elsewhere—the community support officers will be available at the times of the day when the chief officer requires them; for example, for transport routes in the middle of the day and for estates and communities in the school holidays. There are people who dread the onset of school holidays because of minor crime. If the chief constable has the resource of community support officers working with other organisations in known areas, he can nip it in the bud.
There are a number of safeguards throughout this part of the Bill—which I shall not debate in detail now—in regard to the designation of support staff and the exercise by them of these limited police powers. The Bill provides that the chief officer must be satisfied that a person is suitable to carry out the relevant functions, is capable of carrying them out and is adequately trained. The chief officer may modify or remove the designation, including the powers conferred on community support officers, at any time he chooses.
Such support staff, employed by a police authority and under the direction and control of the relevant officer, will come within the remit of the independent police commission, as we discussed earlier in Committee, and will come under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act codes of practice. So, to that extent, people can be reassured that there will be a uniformed presence, with extremely limited powers, in areas where people's lives are made a misery.
It is worth the effort to allow the Met, or any chief constable who wishes to do so, to pilot this operation—it is not something that we are imposing—and we could then see how it works and if it is up to the job, which we believe it will be. I hope that the noble Lord will not pursue his amendment to a Division.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: We have had an amazing debate in which we have inevitably gone across the length and breadth of this subject, including the community safety accreditation schemes. I hope the Committee
will forgive me if I express the hope that we do not have to go over it all in duplicate when we come to those schemes; that would be superfluous.I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate—even to those behind me who disagree with the amendment. I do not detract from what we have suggested and I will explain why. Among other matters, we are talking about the quality of policing and we should first get the proposal into perspective. The amendment refers only to community support officers who, if we accept the designation, will be civilians already employed by and doing a full-time job for the police.
If we accept the designation, one of the qualifications on the use of these people is that it will apply only during their normal employment hours. So very often they will not be available on the street at those times when there will be, perhaps, most pressure. We need to face that.
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page