Firearms Control

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend has illustrated the importance of striking the right balance. We all understand why the action was taken in response to the dreadful Dunblane incident in 1997. However, the issue of competitive shooting at the Olympics has been raised with the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, who I am sure would be happy to discuss it with my hon. Friend.

The Government welcome the timely report on firearms control that was published today by the Home Affairs Committee. I thank the Committee, under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), for its work on the issue. As I have said, we will consider its recommendations carefully, not least in the light of today’s debate. The House will understand that it would not be right for me to respond in detail today, but I want to deal with three key points.

First, the Committee recommended that the Government should codify and simplify the laws relating to firearm ownership. As I made clear when I mentioned the history of firearms legislation, those laws are widely dispersed across different Acts of Parliament. Furthermore, they are very complex. I believe that the issue would benefit from further attention, and we will therefore consider that recommendation carefully.

Secondly, the Committee recommended tighter restrictions on the granting of firearms licences to individuals who have engaged in criminal activity. That concern clearly arose from the shootings in Cumbria, and I raised it with the chief constable myself when I visited the area in August. There may be an opportunity for careful adjustment, but that will depend on the nature of the offence. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), will listen carefully to what is said in the debate and will use it to inform any future decisions. However, we welcome the Committee’s recommendation.

Thirdly, the Committee raised the issue of the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot. I understand why that issue has been raised, but I think it important to appreciate that many young people enjoy shooting in a safe and responsible manner. Assistant Chief Constable Adrian Whiting told the Committee:

“The evidence in relation to young people shooting does not give any cause for concern”.

We will of course consider the Committee’s response in full, but it is important for legislative changes to be proportionate.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Herbert]

Of course I give way to the Chairman of the Select Committee.

[Keith Vaz]

We published our report only 18 hours ago, so I do not expect the Minister to respond to each and every one of its 22 recommendations, but the fact that he has picked up those three points makes it clear that the Government understand the nature of the inquiry and the need for further consideration of the recommendations. Can he give me an idea—without necessarily specifying a month—of the approximate time within which the Government will respond to the report?

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary tells me that he is going to say “two months” in his winding-up speech. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman considers that a suitable period within which to respond to such a sensitive issue.

The issue of the mental health of applicants for firearm and shotgun certificates has also been raised. As the Committee has noted, it has now been agreed between the British Medical Association and the Association of Chief Police Officers that the police will notify a GP of the grant and renewal of a firearm and/or shotgun certificate. The implementation of that arrangement is being sought within the next six months. In essence, the process will involve a system of notification by way of a standard letter, which means that GPs will be in a position to alert the police if they have any concerns. The police will then be able to request a medical report under the procedures mentioned at the start of the debate. I believe that that is a welcome move. There will be further discussions in due course about the possibility of placing a marker on computerised medical records to create a more enduring record of which patients own a firearm.

I believe that that development indicates that the authorities have been able to take sensible steps to improve the operation of firearms laws in the light of public concern. However, I agree with the Select Committee’s suggestion that requiring firearms applicants to undergo a compulsory medical check would be costly and would be regarded as disproportionate.

Overall, the Committee’s contribution to an ongoing subject of consideration is very useful, and we will consider it fully before deciding on our final course of action. As we consider our response, it will be important to provide an opportunity for wider engagement with the issues, and we will announce shortly how we will ensure that it is provided.

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[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). I am afraid that I do not have her command of Latin or popular music, but I listened with great interest to what she said. Judging by the number of Members present, I am sure that others will make an equally important contribution to this very important debate.

It is not often that on the very same day that Parliament produces a report the Government hold a debate on the same subject. I have not experienced this kind of choreography before, but I am delighted that they have chosen to have this debate so soon after the Select Committee on Home Affairs published its report. I confess that when the Committee heard about the debate being held on 20 December, we worked very hard to make sure that our report was ready for the House to consider, because it would have been rather odd to have published it after the debate. I know that some who represent constituencies in the relevant area have had concerns about the timing of the debate, but the Government pledged to hold it by a certain time and they have kept their promise—obviously, they could not hold it tomorrow because of the winter Adjournment debate.

The debate gives us an opportunity to consider what has happened in this tragic year in which so many communities were touched by the violence of Raoul Moat and Derrick Bird. It is right that the Minister began and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), completed the sequence of paying tribute to all those who have been involved in this matter, including the emergency services and the relatives who gave evidence to our Committee in such a passionate and eloquent way.

This is a debate that we would rather not have, as we would rather consider these matters when there had not been a tragedy of this kind. However, the Committee’s report was not—I hate to use this word and everyone says that we should not use it—a knee-jerk reaction. We were keen not to react in that way and we wanted to review the previous Select Committee report on this subject, which was 10 years ago. It was appropriate to reconsider the issue and to draw on the terrible experiences of Cumbria and Northumbria.

[Tony Cunningham]

I should like to pay tribute to all the emergency services, but specifically to the health workers who suffered as a result of the shootings in west Cumbria. Perhaps hon. Members can imagine dealing with the consequences of shotgun wounds and bullet wounds: it must have been absolutely horrific, traumatic and terribly difficult for the doctors and nurses to deal with. I wanted to put on the record my tribute to their work.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to do so. In an emergency of this kind, many people are involved in alleviating the pain and distress of members of the local community—the list is endless. I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham), to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed), who wanted to stay for the entire debate but had a long-standing commitment that he could not break. The debate was scheduled after that commitment was made. We all remember the way in which my hon. Friends the Members for Copeland and for Workington and others represented the views of their constituents day after day on a 24-hour basis, and we all hope that we will never be in that situation in our own constituencies.

This is, in a sense, a House of Commons day. There was not a single area of disagreement between the two Front-Bench teams. There are points that Members in all parts of the House will want to emphasise, but there is agreement that we should look carefully at the reports that have been produced. I pay tribute to members of the Select Committee. Again, I apologise on their behalf. Most of them very much wanted to be present for the debate today but the severe weather and constituency commitments have prevented them from attending. They worked hard to make this a unanimous report where consensus was the order of the day. The report is not intended to have a go at any group in society.

I knew very little about firearms when I began the inquiry. That is why I was delighted to be involved in it—not delighted for the reasons that I mentioned, but pleased to gain some expertise in an area that I know nothing about. As Members of Parliament, we are supposed to be experts on everything, and it is not often that we say we know nothing about a subject. However, I knew nothing about firearms. The nearest I had got to a firearm was a water pistol when I was much younger.

I thank the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) who was extremely helpful to the Committee in a number of ways and to me personally. We asked that firearms be brought into the Committee so that we could look at the various types. Sometimes it is difficult for lay members—I am a lay member—to understand the difference between a section 1 firearm, a shotgun, a pistol and an air weapon. The hon. Gentleman arranged for that to happen. I thank the Serjeant at Arms and the Deputy Serjeant at Arms for allowing us to bring the weapons into the Committee. I think we gave them a bit of a fright when the firearms came in, but it was important for us to look at them.

I valued immensely my visit to Bisley, where I met so many talented individuals who had represented our country in shooting at the highest level and had won gold medals at the recent Commonwealth games. They were not bulky men with big muscles, though there were some of those about—not members of the Committee. Some were women, who had shot so successfully. One of them hung all four of her gold medals around her neck. I no longer need to be convinced of the importance of the sport. When we look at the figures, showing the hundreds of thousands who apply for a licence in good faith, with excellent characters, and get their licences, we know that we must be careful if we try to change the law.

That is not what the Committee suggested to any great extent. Like the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal, we suggested measures that we think can improve the situation. Hindsight is a wonderful gift and none of us possesses it. We do not know what is going to happen in the future. It is terribly difficult for the Government of the day, having had so many difficulties to deal with in the events that took place in Cumbria and Northumberland, to call it right. If anything happens in the future, and the odds are that it will—the evidence before us suggested that it will happen at some stage—we do not want people to be blamed for having failed to take action.

Some of our proposals are direct recommendations: we made 22 recommendations. Some are an invitation to the Government to consult further—for example, on the age at which children may apply for a licence. I was confused about that, as were the Clerks and members of the Committee. Therefore, for the convenience of the House, we set out the current law in a table that appears on page 42 of the report.

As the table shows, it is possible to apply for a licence for a shotgun at any age, but for a section 1 firearm, one can apply only from the age of 14. One may use a shotgun under supervision at any age, but, for a section 1 firearm, in certain circumstances, it is from the age of 14 with a certificate. To be in possession of a firearm unsupervised, the minimum age is 15 for a shotgun and 14 for a section 1 firearm. To purchase or hire a firearm and/or ammunition, the age is the same—18.

We did not suggest an age to the Government. We recommended that the Government look at the various ages. They may decide that there is no empirical evidence that a change is needed. However, we suggested a number of areas for consideration: the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot under supervision in the controlled environment of a shooting range, the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot under supervision outside such a controlled environment, and the age at which an individual is permitted to shoot unsupervised.

No age is specified in the report, although Mr Whiting said when I pressed him that he thought it should be 10. That was under pressure from the Chairman seeking to get him to alight on a particular figure. I was very surprised that there were 26 children aged 10 who had shotguns, even though I have a 15-year-old son who is in the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme. When he heard that I would be speaking about the subject, he said, “You’re not going to ban us from doing this, are you?” I said, “I’m not going to ban you from doing anything, apart from being on the computer for too long.”

We have asked the Government to consider the question of age. The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal need not fear. We are not coming to a conclusion; we are just saying that the matter requires further thought.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I heard the right hon. Gentleman this morning on Radio 4 on this subject. It was not clear from his response why he felt the need for a review. He did not seem to be suggesting that there was any particular problem in respect of the age at which children could hold a licence or could shoot.

[Keith Vaz]

I was trying to hedge a little because we have our personal views based on our interest in the subject, but the Committee as a whole took no view. I think it was right not to take a view because we had not taken a huge amount of evidence on the age limits. We therefore did not want to interfere with the current arrangements. We thought further examination was merited. As I said at the beginning of my speech, I am not an expert on these matters so it came as a surprise to me that children as young as 10 were able to shoot. It had to be explained to me at Bisley what they were all up to and that they were doing it for a purpose. I understood much better when I had heard that.

[Mr Ellwood]

The right hon. Gentleman’s report raises a number of issues, and this one is worth looking into in more detail. More information is required if we are to dabble with the numbers. It is clear that people cannot own ammunition until they are a lot older. It is clear that they cannot even use a weapon unless they are supervised or of a certain age. By discussing the ages, we are getting into semantics and away from questions about when the gun will be used and in what context. We are talking about the age of 10, when children cannot even buy ammunition or use it unless they are supervised.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is right. That is why we batted the issue over to the Government for them to look at. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) is the parent of two very young children, because they are regulars at the Westminster kids club party. Any parent would be concerned if they were not in the know about what is going on. We are not saying, “Let’s make it 10.” Let us consider the issues and let the Government perhaps come back with a view in the two-month timetable that they have given themselves.

My second point is about the 34 pieces of legislation covering this area of policy. It is a no-brainer that we need to consolidate. We need to make sure that the police and those responsible for holding such firearms know the law, which needs to be clear, so that nobody is under any misapprehension. That is why clarity of law and consistency are extremely important, and that is an easy one for the Government, as the Minister hinted in his very careful speech from the Dispatch Box.

There was a debate in the Committee about the role of GPs, but we concluded that we can live with the reasonable deal struck between the British Medical Association and the Association of Chief Police Officers—and therefore the Home Office. We should not try to interfere in the judgment of a general practitioner. Let the general practitioner alert the authorities if he or she feels that it has to be done. GPs will be very careful when they write their references or provide any information to those making such decisions, because they will not want to make mistakes. They also have a duty of confidentiality, however. The Committee was reluctant to intervene on that duty, but we felt it necessary to bring it to the attention of GPs themselves, if they needed reminding, because they have a crucial role in ensuring that proper consideration is given when licences are granted.

[Tony Cunningham]

Before my right hon. Friend concludes, will he comment on the Committee’s report concerning the media? My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) was extremely disturbed by the way in which the media covered the terrible shootings in west Cumbria.

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, we considered that issue in the inquiry, and it is in the report, although I cannot remember the exact paragraph. With such tragic events, the media tend to go to the scene, and there is 24-hour coverage, which understandably upsets local residents. One witness, it might have been Professor Shepherd or the witness from the health authority—

[Tony Cunningham]

Professor Ashton

[Keith Vaz]

Professor Ashton, I thank my hon. Friend. Professor Ashton said that the constant media coverage might encourage others to do the same, so one has to be very careful not to glamorise what happens.

The report has a section on key facts, and I shall read just a couple. The most recent figures show that there are 138,728 firearm certificates, covering 435,000 firearms, and 574,946 shotgun certificates, covering 1.366 million shotguns. That is a huge number, but the number of cases, tragic though they are, in which legally held firearms have resulted in homicide, deaths or injuries, is very small indeed. That is not to excuse the number or to say it is not important, but it needs to be seen in proportion to the number of guns that are about.

So the Committee has not sought to condemn or criticise; all it has sought to do unanimously is to make suggestions, so that, by closing the loopholes and ironing out the creases, our already tough law becomes not necessarily tougher, but slightly better. It is up to the Government to adopt the measures that we suggest. They have given themselves a two-month timetable, for which I am most grateful, and we look forward to re-examining the issue.

We have decided to publish our recommendations in a grid on our website—we decided to do that after the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) left the Committee—and, as soon as the Government meet those recommendations, we give them a tick. So far, in our three reports, we have totalled about 60 recommendations, and there are 22 in the report before us. We look forward to ticking as many as possible. If we cannot tick them, and if the Government have a better measure to put in place, we will give them the credit they deserve. The Minister and the Government have handled the matter sensitively and carefully and the Opposition Front Benchers have dealt with it in an equally proper way. This is the House at its best, and I hope that the debate continues along those lines.

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[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Every year, deaths from gunshot wounds are an all-too-common occurrence in our country, as a result of homicide and suicide. Before this debate, I read a report prepared by the Gun Control Network, which monitors the firearms incidents that take place in our country. That report makes for shocking reading.

In one month alone—November—the Gun Control Network has highlighted huge numbers of firearms incidents. They include seven fatal shootings, five of which were apparent homicides—three in north London and two in the west midlands. In London, two men died after a double shooting in Islington and another victim died when he was shot in a car in Finchley. In the west midlands, a man was shot dead in a house in Bilston and a man whose body was found in Smethwick had died from a gunshot wound to the head.

Two apparent suicides were also reported for that month. A man is thought to have taken his own life after he was seen in a street in Ashington, Northumberland with a gun, and a man was found dead at his stables near Rosewell, Midlothian in a suspected shotgun suicide. Thirteen other victims were shot—five with airguns and imitation weapons. A teenager was shot in Croydon and two men suffered leg injuries when they were shot in Clapham. In Merseyside, a man was shot in the legs in a street in Huyton. A victim was shot in the stomach with a shotgun in Croxteth and a man was shot in the leg in Stockbridge village. In south Yorkshire, a man sustained a minor injury when a shotgun was fired through the window of a house in Totley, Sheffield.

Five other people were hit by pellets from ball-bearing guns or air guns. In Shropshire, a boy was struck by a pellet from a ball-bearing gun in Oswestry and a cyclist was shot in the head with an airgun in Arleston. In south Yorkshire, a jeweller in Rotherham was shot in the face by an armed robber with a ball-bearing gun, and in Suffolk a woman and a teenager were struck in the head by airgun pellets on the same street but in separate attacks in Lowestoft. A man was shot in the hand by police in Copthorne, West Sussex. He was later charged with possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.

I make this point because the pro-gun lobby likes to imply that people who take part in so-called legitimate shooting activities are extremely responsible. We have heard a lot of talk about knee-jerk reactions, but whenever there is an appalling incident such as the one in Cumbria, there is always a knee-jerk reaction from the pro-gun lobby. The House should consider the sobering thought that back in 1987, when Michael Ryan was indulging in a massacre in Hungerford, killing 17 people and injuring 15 others, Thomas Hamilton was seen to be a fit and proper person to hold a firearms certificate. Yet we know the tragic consequences in 1996 in Dunblane, where Thomas Hamilton killed 18 people and injured 15 others. When Thomas Hamilton was indulging in that killing spree, Derrick Bird in Cumbria was deemed a fit and proper person to hold a firearms certificate, and we know what happened earlier this year when 12 people were killed and 11 were seriously injured.

In my view, the country would be a far better place if guns were completely banned and nobody was allowed to own them. I recognise that that might be a step too far at this stage, but it is essential that this Parliament takes action to address the gun culture in our country. It is a frightening statistic that almost 5,000 young people—5,000 children—hold a firearms certificate. What kind of message is that sending out to the country at large? I am a councillor in Derby as well as a Member of Parliament. In a park in Normanton in Derby, there was a tragic and fatal incident in which a young man of 15 years of age was shot dead with a gun. I accept that that gun was obtained illegally. However, when the law of the land allows 5,000 children legitimately to hold a firearms certificate, it sends a very bad signal.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) has pointed out, there are 34 separate pieces of firearms legislation. The time is long overdue for a new, simpler, unified piece of legislation covering the ownership of firearms. As I have said, I would like to see a complete ban on guns, although I accept that that will not happen in the foreseeable future. However, it is appropriate to ban the private storage of firearms in people’s own homes. I cannot see how anybody in this House can legitimately argue that somebody should be able to store firearms in their own home. Why is that necessary? There is no foolproof method of dealing with this other than a complete ban on firearms, but taking them out of people’s homes would be a huge step in the right direction towards preventing the sorts of appalling massacres that we have seen in Hungerford, Dunblane and Cumbria.

That is one of the measures that I would like to see, but we could go further. The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) has referred to the notion that a person who has a firearms certificate might be deterred from seeing their GP, if they felt that that GP could report them to the police as not being a fit and proper person to continue to hold a firearms certificate. However, there is a way round that: a mandatory, annual medical test to check on individuals who hold firearms certificates would ensure that they are mentally capable and fit and proper people to continue to do so. That measure would get over the problem that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned.

Other hon. Members have referred to the Prime Minister’s comments in the wake of the Cumbrian shooting, when he said that nobody can

“stop a switch flicking in someone’s head”.

Adopting the approach that I am suggesting would not be foolproof but it would be a considerable step forward in preventing the sorts of terrible incidents that we have seen. I urge the Minister to take it on board and respond to it appropriately.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has considered this issue and has made a number of recommendations, including the involvement of the medical profession through allowing police to see the medical details of applicants and permitting a formal approach to applicants’ families to ensure that they are happy for their family member to obtain a firearms certificate. That would be a huge step forward. We need, as a Parliament, to take appropriate steps. In the past, we have taken measures that clearly have not gone far enough, and we need to go considerably further. I accept that these measures need to be proportionate, but how do we judge what is proportionate when we see the number of innocent lives that have been lost as a result of people who have held firearms legitimately and then, through the inadequacy of our legislation, been able to go on a killing spree? I hope that the Minister will deal with those points.

We need to take more robust measures in relation to the illegal ownership of firearms. I would not allow children to have firearms certificates at all, but addressing the age at which young people are able to do so would be a good step in the right direction in terms of the signal it sends. We also need to look at other measures that we can take by working with young people and supporting youth organisations, which do some excellent work in bringing home to young people the consequences of gun crime. That would prevent more tragic incidents such as the one that occurred in the ward that I represent in Derby, where Kadeem Blackwood, a young man of 15 years of age, had his life tragically cut short. We have to empower youth organisations to enable the sort of educative work that would help to turn young people away from firearms.

[Keith Vaz]

I, too, was concerned about this when I began the inquiry. My hon. Friend has spoken very passionately about these matters. Does he not accept, however, that it would be very odd if we did not allow people the chance to enjoy their sport in a shooting range, in properly controlled circumstances with a proper licence?

[Chris Williamson]

My own view is that I would ban guns, and there would not be shooting ranges because people would not have guns. However, at the end of the day, politics is the art of the possible. If we could have the properly controlled circumstances that my right hon. Friend has mentioned but, within that context, prevent people from having private storage of firearms in their own homes, that would deal with his point and also prevent the potential for the sorts of terrible massacres we have seen in some parts of the country.

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[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Like everyone who has taken part in the debate, I want to express my sympathies for those who were involved in the incidents in Cumbria and Northumberland, particularly David Rathband, the police officer who was blinded by Raoul Moat. I join others in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed), the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham). In making their interventions, they showed how these events have affected their constituents and made a significant contribution to the debate.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee, told us that the Committee had made every effort to publish the report in time for today’s debate, so we are extremely grateful for the hard work that members of the Committee have done on behalf of the House in order to inform the debate. It is a shame that it is taking place on a day when there is a one-line Whip and the weather is so inclement that undoubtedly some Members who would have wanted to be present cannot be here. My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland was unavoidably taken away. I know he was extremely disappointed not to be able to participate in the debate.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East emphasised the need to avoid regulation that would put our sports people who take part in firearms events at a disadvantage. He highlighted the issues surrounding the various age limits relating to guns. In order to save time, I shall not read them out from the table on page 42, as he did. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, these have been batted over to the Government to consider and we look forward to their response to the anomalies identified by the Select Committee.

We look forward, too, to the codification of the 34 pieces of legislation that have been introduced over the past century to regulate guns in the UK. My right hon. Friend referred to the need for GPs to recognise their crucial role in alerting police to the potential dangers posed by some of their patients who have gun licences.

The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) compared the attitudes of people in the USA with those of people in the UK, highlighting the fact that there was little appetite among people in the UK for owning guns. They do not have the same attitude as people in the USA to the right to own a gun. She said that changes to gun control would not have stopped the incidents in Cumbria or Northumberland, and questioned the need to regulate further, but she called for action on criminal behaviour, an issue highlighted in the Select Committee report.

The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) called for an evidence-based approach to making changes and stressed the need for any changes to be proportionate. He wanted the issue of imports to be addressed and spoke of the potential role of elected police commissioners in future in tackling gun crime. He, too, cautioned against regulating in a way that would impact on sport, which was a regular feature of the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) was a major dissenting voice in the debate. He gave figures for November which showed a large number of incidents involving firearms to support his case for stricter regulation. His preference was for a complete ban on gun ownership, but he recognised that that view might not command a majority in the House. He urged the Government to look at the recommendations of the Select Committee and to regulate more stringently in future. He also called for a mandatory annual medical test and a complete ban on guns being stored in homes.

The hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) reminded us that gun crime takes place all too frequently in our society and that our job as legislators is to protect the public. He called for more data to be collected by the police on whether guns used in crimes were legal or illegal. Again, that is an issue referred to in the Select Committee report. He mentioned the important role of sports people in wildlife conservation, a theme picked up by the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), who referred to the vital role and the money invested by people involved in gun sports in wildlife conservation and husbandry. He also expressed concerns for the future of firearms sport, as did many hon. Members, and he was concerned to ensure that GPs do not become agents of the state who are required to breach patient confidentiality in passing information to the police.

The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) paid tribute to the Swadlincote gun club and cited the importance of shoots to her local economy. I have never held a gun, let alone fired one, apart from an air rifle that somebody else owned when I was young, but I had a friend who managed a shoot, and we had interesting conversations about the investment and contribution that shoots make to local economies, so I have nothing but respect for people in that industry. The hon. Lady opposed the recommendation of a single licence, but she commended Derbyshire police on their handling of the licensing process.

The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) laid claim to the lowest rate of gun crime in the country and questioned whether evidence showed that changes to gun regulations would make a difference. He, too, said that we need to focus on and target illegal gun crime, and he referred, from his professional experience, to the danger of stigmatising people with mental health conditions and breaching patient confidentiality.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who opened the debate for the Opposition, made a number of points. She mentioned the considerable possible savings from staggering the renewal of existing licences and dealing with the bulge in renewals that the introduction of previous legislation caused. We will be interested to see the Government’s response to that. She also wanted the Government to respond to the Committee’s 22 recommendations, and they say that they will do so within two months. Given the importance of the issue, we would also like confirmation that they will do so on the Floor of the House in the form of an oral statement.

[Keith Vaz]

First, may I congratulate my hon. Friend on his long-overdue elevation to the Front Bench?

Some of us have already received e-mails following the publication of various reports, and this is a debate that should include the public. We as parliamentarians need to have the final say, but it would be worthy of us to allow a more general debate on some of the issues.

[Clive Efford]

I could not agree more. The wider public—in particular, those communities directly affected by such incidents—will want to respond to the recommendations of my right hon. Friend’s Committee, and to have some input into the Government’s response.

Police Funding

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for allowing us the opportunity to discuss this very important issue. As I did not have the chance to say this yesterday, I hope you had a very happy wedding anniversary.

On 20 October, the Chancellor announced the outcome of the 2010 spending review. The budget of the Home Office will fall by 25% in real terms from 2010-11, and within that the resource budget will fall by 23%, or £2.2 billion. Administration costs are due to fall by 33% and the capital budget by 49%. Taken as a whole, the Home Office has received a settlement with cuts more than twice the average of all Departments, which is 11%. Even ignoring the protected Departments of International Development and Health, the average cut for all other Departments is 17%, or 5% a year.

The comprehensive spending review document states that the Home Office settlement includes support for major policing reforms; a reduction in police resource funding by 14% in real terms by 2014-15; £1.8 billion of capital investment over the spending review period; spending for the delivery of a new national crime agency; and overall resource savings of about 23%. In real terms, central Government funding for the police is due to fall by 20% by 2014-15. As the House will know, part of the police’s funding comes from the police precept, and if the police authorities decide to increase the precept at the rate forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the overall level of police funding will decline by 14% by 2014-15. There is therefore widespread concern about the level of funding for the police and the Home Office over the next five years, and about the way in which it will be achieved.

What has been described as front-loading—the cuts happening in the first few years—has already caused concern. I understand that the Association of Police Authorities recently wrote to the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, whom I see on the Government Front Bench, to express that concern. It stated that

“a sensible, realistic approach is necessary to realise the savings objectives and avoid long-term damage to policing capability”

and that its members were

“deeply concerned that front-loading cuts will strip out the required financial flexibility police forces need to transform their working practices in order to make savings.”

The CSR document, about which I am sure we will hear more from the Minister, expresses the hope that the savings will be achieved through reducing bureaucracy, modernising pay and conditions for staff, introducing directly elected police and crime commissioners, abolishing the National Policing Improvement Agency and cutting counter-terrorism by about 10% in real terms. After the CSR was published, KPMG was reported as estimating that 18,000 police officers could be lost over a four-year period. The Police Federation was reported as estimating that the number would be 20,000. At Home Office questions on Monday, the Minister said:

“By cutting costs and scrapping bureaucracy, we will save both money and man hours, so I am confident that the spending review should not lead to any reduction in police officers visible and available on the streets.”—[Official Report, 6 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 14.]

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend might like to know that this morning a number of my hon. Friends and I met the Minister to discuss the impact of the cuts on the West Midlands police force, which is 80% dependent on central Government funding. My right hon. Friend talks about the impact of the cuts on police numbers, but where police authorities are wholly or mainly dependent on central Government funding rather than the precept, the impact on local communities and police visibility will be that much worse.

[Keith Vaz]

The Home Affairs Committee has already heard from Chief Constable Sims of West Midlands police. It organised a seminar in Cannock Chase, which is not a million miles from my hon. Friend’s constituency, where those concerns were raised. The problem is that individual police forces are currently unable to tell us precisely what effect the cuts will have locally. We will have to wait for the publication of the settlement, which we anticipate in early December. When the Minister speaks, I am sure he will tell us precisely when the provisional police settlements will be announced and placed before the House. He is smiling, so perhaps he will announce the figures today and we can question him on them. I am sure that we will hear soon. Until we do, we will not know precisely what is happening.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Apart from the cuts, which will reduce the overall number of police, I understand that the CSR will mean a freeze on recruitment, the likely application of regulation A19, which will get rid of the more experienced officers, and a freeze on pay. Do they sound like the conditions for a highly motivated, well performing police force?

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend asks almost a rhetorical question to which the answer must be, “No—people will not be motivated if those cuts take place,” but he is right to raise those concerns. That is why this debate is important. The Home Affairs Committee is of course aware of the deep concern in the west midlands, which is demonstrated by the number of west midlands MPs in the Chamber this afternoon.

A number of police forces have already issued statements on how the CSR will affect them. In a statement on 22 November, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police and the treasurer of the Greater Manchester Police Authority said:

“Final spending details are not expected until the end of November or early December but if the headline reductions in spending totals for the Police Service are ultimately reflected in GMP’s Formula Grant and Specific Grants, the Force and Police Authority will need to find savings of £134m over the four year period…Savings of £52m will need to be found in 2011/12.”

They estimate in their report that GMP will lose approximately 2,950 posts from a total of 12,000 over the four-year period, and BBC News has reported that 1,387 officers and 1,557 civilian posts could go in Greater Manchester.

Northumbria police also issued a statement, saying that the likely impact of the cuts would be the loss of 450 members of the civilian staff out of a total of 2,500. As my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) said, it looks as though 2,000 jobs will be lost in the West Midlands police force, including 1,050 police officers over the four-year period.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I should declare an interest, because my son is the chief executive of a police authority. Will my right hon. Friend reflect on the large numbers of police officers that will be lost? The Government imply that the loss of police officers will not be seen on the streets because people can somehow be pulled out of back offices, but many officers who are not on the streets investigate internet-related crime and child abuse, and undertake intelligence and scientific activities to prevent crime. They investigate a range of crime, the evidence for which is not to be found on the streets of our towns and cities.

[Keith Vaz]

My right hon. Friend is extremely knowledgeable, as a former Police Minister. He will know that, depending on the police authority or station, 85 different functions could be performed every day in a police station by people from IT experts to those on the switchboard and reception. Of course, the temptation is to remove the back office, but if we do so, those in the front office—the visible police officers—will have to go there, because there will be nobody else to do that work. My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the problems caused by the suggested front-loaded reductions.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that West Midlands police assume in their planning that they will be unable to cope with cuts on the scale being forced on them by the Government without compulsorily retiring up to 400 of the longest-serving police officers under A19, and without a significant reduction in visible policing on the streets—fewer bobbies on the beat—in the west midlands generally and Birmingham in particular?

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is rightly concerned about that. I will be going to Birmingham in a week’s time at the invitation of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak to see how the CSR will affect visible policing.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

In response to an earlier question about the functions of police officers, it has to be said that many were affected by the previous Government’s ill thought out, badly drafted legislation. For example, the short-term, knee-jerk reaction dispersal orders simply moved one problem to a different street in the same area, which I often saw as a cabinet member for safety in Medway. Of course we must consider the various functions of police officers, but in the past 10 years the police have been tied up with functions they should never have been dealing with.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. One thing I hope we can avoid at all costs is the kind of knee-jerk reaction that he mentioned. I would hate the police service to be subject to the same kind of reorganisation that we have had in the NHS in the past 20 years under the previous Government and the one before that.

I do not intend to go on for long, because many right hon. and hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate. The Home Affairs Committee hopes to assist the Government in this difficult process—we want to approach the proposals in a comradely and constructive way. I am glad to see so many members of the Committee in the Chamber. Our longest-serving and most distinguished member, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) is here, as are my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak. The hon. Members for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) are members of the Committee, and sitting behind them on the Government Benches is a non-member, the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti). The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) is also in the Chamber. She was a member of the Committee but was poached within weeks of her appointment by the Minister to become his Parliamentary Private Secretary. I am sure she is doing a great job.

The Committee has decided to undertake a trilogy of reports on three different aspects of the proposals to assist the Government. It is rather like “The Lord of the Rings”. We have just published our report on police and crime commissioners. As the Minister knows, members of the Committee have different views on the desirability of police and crime commissioners, but I hope he found our report helpful. It outlined a number of issues that we feel could be of value to the country.

We were very concerned that the figures for the cost of police and crime commissioners came out only after we had published our report. Indeed, the proposals came out on the very day that we published our report. Perhaps we can improve our co-ordination. I am not saying that we should be like “Strictly Come Dancing”, but if the Government and the Committee communicated a little bit better, we might be able to see the proposals before we commence our reports, which would make what we say more valuable.

The second report was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak and my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, and we will look at the CSR in the light of the decisions that the Minister will make imminently about how much police forces will have as part of that second report on a reduction in police bureaucracy. There is common ground on both sides of the House about the need to reduce police bureaucracy. When my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) was the Minister with responsibility for the police, he also said that he wanted to cut red tape. In the 23 years I have been a Member of Parliament, Ministers have always said that they want to cut red tape, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we need to ensure that it actually is reduced. That is why I hope that Jan Berry will have her term as the police bureaucracy tsar renewed, so that rather than just writing a one-off report she can continue to monitor the situation.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that savings would have to be made whichever party was in government? Will he give us a preliminary figure that he—personally or as the Chair of the Committee—would accept for the reduction in police budgets and numbers?

[Keith Vaz]

I am afraid that I cannot give him a personal figure. The Committee has not met and has not discussed this matter, nor have we conducted our report. Members of the Committee would be most concerned if I started speaking on behalf of the Committee on a matter that we had not considered. I know that the hon. Gentleman has a great interest in policing matters, and we will look at this very carefully. We will of course take evidence from the police and from others.

The final report that we intend to produce is on the new landscape of policing. The Government have not finally decided precisely where every bit of the old landscape will fit in the new landscape and we hope to help by setting out a landscape that will be accepted by the Government and the Opposition, so that whatever happens on 5 May 2015—or whenever the fixed-term election will be held—and if the Labour party is returned to power, we will not have another reorganisation, as we have had in the health service. Let us reach a consensus about how to proceed.

To that end, I was very pleased that the Minister was able to come to the summit meeting that was organised in the constituency of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase a few weeks ago. I hope the Minister took away the message that there are stakeholders in the policing process who want to be engaged in what the Government are doing. We heard an excellent speech from my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary, and other Members of Parliament attended. We now have, in people such as Hugh Orde, Denis O’Connor, Paul Stephenson, Paul McKeever and others, some truly outstanding leaders in the profession, but we—Parliament and the Government—need to work together to ensure that we have a permanent landscape and to deal with the reductions in a particular way.

I am very concerned that there will be a reduction not only in the number of police officers but in the number of police community support officers. I was deeply concerned by the press statement issued by the chief constable of Lancashire police—which covers the area of Chorley, if my geography is correct, Mr Deputy Speaker—to the effect that every PCSO has been put on notice that they may lose their posts. They have been a terrific addition to policing.

I recently went to a residents meeting in London—I normally speak at residents meetings rather than attend them, but I was attending as a constituent of the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord). The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) was also there. We heard an excellent presentation from a local PCSO about the work that he does, which includes reducing the work load of police officers, enabling them to do their jobs effectively.

[Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that of the 427 PCSOs who received the at-risk notice from Lancashire constabulary, only 149 are completely funded by that constabulary?

[Keith Vaz]

I did not know that and I am most grateful to the hon. Lady, who is another member of the Committee. However, that still does not address the reductions. If we are to proceed with a view to reaching a consensus—people have strongly held views—we must agree that there is of course a need for an overall reduction in the police budget. However, that hurts us as local MPs when it affects our local areas.

The public want to be able to pick up a phone to report a crime to a police officer and to ensure that that crime is dealt with as quickly as possible. If that is the bottom line, I hope that this debate can be conducted in a way that achieves that purpose. Let us put our party political differences to one side and concentrate on the fact that if a reduction in resources means fewer police officers—as I think it will—the Government will need to think again, and possibly ask the Treasury for additional resources so that we match the spending on the national health service and education. Law and order—the prevention and detection of crime—is a key issue for our constituents and we need to do everything that we can to ensure that it remains at the forefront of people’s concerns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe]

I can show the hon. Gentleman where in the statement the Secretary of State gave the estimate for what he expected the reduction in the number of people going to prison to be. He stood at that Dispatch Box and said it, and everyone who was in the Chamber heard it—unless they have selective hearing.

I shall now return to what I was saying. There is a difficult balance. Perhaps the cuts are just too much, and the Home Office has got a particularly poor deal. I was surprised to discover, from the evidence that the permanent secretary to the Home Office gave to the Home Affairs Committee, that the Department has not carried out any research into the impact of the cuts on crime. That came from the very same permanent secretary who three years ago ordered a report on the potential impact of a recession on crime. It seems slightly strange that the man who feared then that a recession could lead to a rise in crime, and who said that we should investigate the potential outcomes, does not seem remotely troubled that a background of massive cuts and far too rapid reorganisation could have a similar effect. Perhaps it is just as well that he is planning to retire.

[Keith Vaz]

The point to emphasise is that the outcome of the research commissioned by the permanent secretary for Jacqui Smith when she was Home Secretary was that crime would rise during a recession, and that was assuming a level playing field for the number of police officers.

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[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

It gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), because it gives me an opportunity to express some concern about the fact that I listen to the same statements and participate in the same debates as him, yet I hear different things being said. If he looks carefully at what the Secretary of State for Justice said yesterday about prison sentences, he will see that he was clear that prison is entirely the right place for criminals to be. However, there are a limited number of cases, involving non-violent prisoners who have been given very short prison sentences, in which if it can be proved that a community sentence would more effectively address their reoffending behaviour, that is the appropriate course of action. That, the hon. Gentleman will find, is what the Secretary of State said yesterday, and there is broad agreement in all parts of the House that it is a sensible thing for him to have said.

I am pleased that we have the opportunity to hold this estimates day debate today. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) referred to “Strictly Come Dancing”, and said that he was a little worried that the timing of Government announcements was not in keeping with the publication of his Committee’s reports. One could perhaps make the same comment about the timing of this debate in relation to the police settlement. Clearly, Ann Widdecombe and Anton du Beke have had some involvement in the timing of this particular choreography, and I suspect that we will have to have a further debate once the police settlement has been announced.

[Keith Vaz]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. Unfortunately, this was not in the hands of the Select Committee, although we did ask for the debate. May I also take this opportunity to acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s presence at the seminar in Cannock Chase, and the contribution that he made to those deliberations, for which we were very grateful?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I commend him and his Committee for their excellent work, and for the advice, recommendations and guidance that they provide for the Government.

The recent report produced by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, the Audit Commission and the Wales Audit Office on police spending, and the ways in which efficiencies can be achieved, is pertinent to the debate. It shows that police spending has grown significantly—by nearly half—since 1997-98. During that same period, the council tax contribution towards police expenditure has gone up by nearly 150%, so the increases have clearly had a big impact on council bills. It is also worth pointing out that only half of the efficiency savings achieved by the police in 2008-09 were used to reduce budget pressures. There is clearly a potential for more efficiency savings to be achieved, and for those savings to be put back into dealing with budget pressures.

All this has to take place while maintaining public confidence in the police. The report is helpful in pointing out that the forces that have achieved the highest cashable efficiencies do not have lower levels of public confidence. One would therefore hope to be able to square that circle, and the report supports that proposition. A priority for police forces must be to ensure that their threat, harm and risk assessments are finely tuned to value for money considerations and to the savings that they need to achieve, so that there is a clear linkage between them.

For me, the strongest point in the HMIC report was that forces are going to need strong leadership to achieve those transformational changes. If they are going to get beyond the typical 3% annual efficiency savings that have been made in recent years, that will require transformational change and significant leadership. The report goes on to state that this is perhaps not always recognised by chief constables. It states that less than a third of chief constables identify leadership skills as important in securing better value for money. I hope that the Association of Chief Police Officers will look into that, because transformational change will clearly need to involve collaboration with other organisations, other forces locally and other partners, and that is not easy to achieve. It will require significant leadership behind it. The report also flags up the fact that more than half of chief constables said that local police unit commanders lacked the financial skills to deliver the savings. Again, that illustrates the need for additional support to ensure that the necessary training is given, so that the significant savings that some forces have already achieved can be achieved by all of them.

Another important barrier highlighted by the report relates to the need to reassure the public that what matters is not the number of police officers, but what the police do. I have to confess that I am a recent convert in that regard. I am sure that there are Members here who received campaign literature from the Liberal Democrats that talked about additional police numbers. That is something that I cannot disguise, and I will not attempt to do so. However, recent reports have made it clear that we need to improve on the figure of only one in 10 officers being visibly available at any one time, and it is surely not impossible for forces to look into that in greater detail. The public are worried about the perception of police numbers and the availability of police on the streets, but that concern can be addressed if we can achieve a better turnout of officers, even if there is a requirement to reduce force numbers.

Others have talked about police overtime. I do not want to overemphasise what can be achieved by reducing overtime, because there are clearly occasions when police forces do not have control over that factor. Tuition fees demonstrations spring to mind. By allowing overtime to be used, local police forces are often in a position to provide additional tasking to hit a particular problem at a particular time. Having said that, it is clear that some forces are achieving significant savings by reorganising the way in which their overtime works, and one would expect other forces to be doing the same thing.

Members on both sides of the House will support the need for more sensitive and more effective procurement. The fact that 14 forces will have managed collectively to save £18 million by 2012-13 through the national forensics consortium leads me to hope that the other 29 forces that are not part of the consortium will actively consider participating in it, because of the potential collective saving of up to £40 million if they were to join it.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman was part of the Select Committee when we published the report “Policing in the 21st century”, in which we mentioned procurement. This is a no-brainer, is it not? Why do all those police forces still buy on their own, even if it is in collaboration with 14 others? Surely there should be more effective leadership, whether from the National Policing Improvement Agency or from the Home Office, to ensure that they buy in bulk.

[Tom Brake]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. That is indeed a no-brainer, whether it involves vehicles or IT systems. We need to be careful, however, particularly when the “no-brainer” centralised procurement involves taking existing IT systems and moving them on to a common platform, as that can be quite a complex undertaking. Certainly, projects of that nature in the NHS have proved technically challenging, and such projects need to be dealt with very carefully.

The report identifies up to £1 billion of savings that could be derived without hitting the front line. I take the point made earlier, that it is wrong simply to say, “Front line, good; back office, bad,” particularly if the work going on in the back office involves officers engaged in detection and investigation. It is not possible to achieve a simple transfer. However, Members who have seen the HMIC report will know that there are currently 200 officers working in human resources departments. That might be a police role in some shape or form, but I find it difficult to imagine that all 200 of those officers working in HR are working on tasks that require a trained police officer. There is therefore scope for savings in those areas, and in others.

I have mentioned the fact that between the point at which a crime is reported and the final appearance in court, about 100 different processes take place. Some of those involve the police, and it is clearly a labour-intensive process. Anything that can be done to simplify it, while keeping all the usual safeguards in place, will, I am sure, help to improve efficiencies for the police, for the court system and beyond.

The report makes a number of recommendations; I shall highlight a couple of them before finishing. It underlines the need for police authorities to set savings targets for their forces that are more ambitious than those of previous years. I know that that will be a tough call for police authorities at the moment, and it is fair to say that they are not unanimously behind the coalition Government’s proposals for elected police and crime commissioners. I know that the police are all professional in their approach, however, and a number of them want to put their names forward for election as police and crime commissioners, so I am sure that they will want to demonstrate their commitment to achieving significant efficiency savings.

I have underlined the importance for the police of making sure that the threat, harm and risk assessment is closely linked with any financial or business planning, and I have also underlined the need, if these transformational changes are to be made, for some clear leadership from senior officers. The changes are not going to happen by themselves; they will need someone to drive them. The Government’s role should be to ensure flexibility to allow partnerships between forces and other partners to develop so that substantial savings can be achieved. If a carrot were provided by introducing a linkage between future grant allocations and the efficiency savings that forces achieve, I believe that that would help.

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[Mark Reckless]

Having a national champion on bureaucracy in the way that it has been organised by the Association of Chief Police Officers, which is an organisation that does not entirely respond to this House and has little if any statutory basis, is not the way to tackle bureaucracy. We have had far more success in finding savings in Kent by having a majority of elected members who sit down with the officers who spend the money.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman rightly says that the work is best done locally, and he showed me the good work being done in Kent when I went to visit his constituency, but there is a need to share good practice. What I saw in Rochester and Strood ought to be rolled out in other parts of the country. So even though the savings are made locally, there needs to a mechanism—it could be the Home Office or this could be done through Jan Berry—that will make sure that other police authorities can follow what Kent is doing.

[Mark Reckless]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, the Chair of our Home Affairs Committee, for his comments. He has kindly arranged to use our website to promote some of that good practice, such as the safe exit scheme and our offender management unit, in which we are working closely with probation and other agencies. There is enormous scope for savings through such collaboration.

I do not understand why most forces in the country are not making significant savings through collaboration. I know that Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire have quite a strong programme, but I have not seen any other forces that have anything like the level of collaboration or are making the savings that have been delivered in Kent and Essex. That might be because the forces and counties of Kent and Essex are of a similar size and there might not be the sensitivities about one force being perceived to be taking the lead. It might also be because the personalities and individuals involved are particularly committed to the process. We now have, however, one single directorate to deal with all organised, serious and major crime. A substantial number of police officers have been transferred from each force into a joint directorate that reports to a single assistant chief constable. We have a single director of IT and we procure all our services through a joint procurement centre, and I do not understand why other forces have not taken the opportunity to find savings so that they can reinvest them in the front line. It is happening to an extent, but collaboration elsewhere has been very disappointing.

I am speaking about collaboration not just between forces but between different agencies, such as working with councils—a point we heard about from my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti). In Medway we have a basic command unit that is coterminous with the unitary council. That might have assisted us, but it is by working as a team and focusing the resources on the areas where the public want to see them used that we have managed to find savings, to cut crime and to improve confidence at the same time.

Although the process is different in policing from elsewhere in the public sector, there will be the introduction of directly elected police commissioners alongside the front-loading of the reductions, the potential pay freezes for two years and the review of terms of conditions—and I greatly welcome the work that Tom Winsor is doing. I made the point in my ten-minute rule Bill about the importance of police forces’ being able to make a rational decision about how many officers, PCSOs and other civilians they need—that issue has also been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak—and it is essential that forces should have the freedom to make that decision. I am delighted that Tom Winsor is working so hard on that and we look forward to his interim report in February. We must knit together the democratic control and the greater efficiency through collaboration, as well have as a sensible review of terms and conditions while recognising how much the police do and what they do to serve this country and our communities. These estimates and the proposals for directly elected police commissioners are the way forward. They will lead to a revolution in policing in our country that will put the public in charge. It is possible for that to happen even in the tightened financial environment in which we find ourselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

With the leave of the House, I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for letting me speak at this point in the debate. I shall explain why I am doing so. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley), who is the youngest member of the Home Affairs Committee. That is my cue to say that the second Wednesday in December is the date of the annual Westminster children’s party for the children of MPs and staff. I am the host, as I have been for the past 14 years; my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), the shadow Home Secretary, is Santa Claus, so please do not detain him for too long. Unfortunately, I am therefore unable to be present for the end of the debate, although I wish I could be. I will certainly read with great care the report of the speeches made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), the shadow Minister, and by the Minister.

The debate has been outstanding, with some excellent speeches, and I commend the hon. Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), for Hexham (Guy Opperman) and for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and the hon. Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). I also commend the four members of the Home Affairs Committee—my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), and the hon. Members for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) and for Cannock Chase—for their contributions.

This debate gives us the perfect setting for hearing what Front Benchers have to say about these issues. I can pledge to Parliament—we have been elected by the whole of Parliament, with members of the Committee elected by their party groups—that we will look at the policing issue very carefully indeed. We will produce thoughtful reports. Sometimes, obviously, we will have to be critical of the Government. When they are doing the right thing we will praise them. I can promise the Minister that we will ensure that the reports are thorough, and that they help him and the rest of Parliament to deliberate on these very important issues. I shall now hand over to those on the Front Benches.

Rehabilitation and Sentencing

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I will not go into another precise estimate, but we need to reduce the number of women in prison. The previous Government worked on that. It is important to realise that women who go to prison—many fewer do so than men—tend to have a particular combination of problems. Compared with men, a much higher proportion of women in prison have a history of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and a disordered life, in all kinds of ways. Focusing on that is likely to reduce the women prison population, and we will do that. Of course, as with men, there is a hard core of women who are hardened criminals or antisocial people, and they must be incarcerated for long sentences when they do something that deserves it.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I have no quarrel with the vision set out by the Secretary of State for Justice. It is in keeping with many recommendations made by the Home Affairs Committee over many years. I do have a quarrel with the detail, however. Last year, there were 4,600 hospital admissions as a result of knife crime. Will he confirm that it is still the policy of the Government that those who are caught carrying knives will be sent to jail?

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman does not differ in principle. I do not think that Opposition Front Benchers do either; they certainly do not have an alternative to put forward. Knife crime is a very serious matter. We are clear that the use of a knife in crime is serious. Anybody who stabs somebody else will go to prison—they usually do and they always should. Anybody who uses a knife in a threatening way in the course of a crime should go to prison. Anybody who carries a knife in circumstances in which its imminent use is likely should go to prison.

However, we have to avoid absolute tariffs that set in statute what the punishment should be for every particular offence. That was a mistake made by the previous Government. To fill up more than 20 criminal justice Acts, they produced ever more complicated and prescriptive rules, which judges sometimes find incomprehensible and which sometimes are in danger of flying in the face of the obvious justice of an individual case or the long-term interests of society.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

Yes, I can confirm to my hon. Friend that we are consulting on removing all immigration matters from the scope of legal aid, other than for those in immigration detention. That means removing matters such as varying leave to remain—for example, if a foreign student wants to change their visa to get permission to work instead, or, indeed, to stay here for longer. Such cases will no longer be at the taxpayer’s expense.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

One of the ways in which we can cut down on waste in the legal aid budget is to address no-shows by Home Office officials at immigration hearings. Can the Minister tell me the number of cases in which Home Office representatives do not turn up to these hearings and the cost of that to the legal aid bill, or will he write to me with that information?

[Mr Djanogly]

I will write to the right hon. Gentleman with that information, but I can tell him that it is an issue. Defendants’ representatives not turning up for hearings is also an issue.

Guantanamo Civil Litigation Settlement

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I know of my hon. Friend’s continuing interest in this subject. As part of our policy considerations in the light of the public spending review, we are having to examine the criminal injuries compensation system and the proposed terrorist injury compensation system. We are having to decide how we should judge the Government’s responsibilities for compensating those who have been injured by crime, either at home—we have always compensated those people—or abroad: I know that my hon. Friend has been campaigning for that.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

A year ago, I wrote on behalf of the Home Affairs Committee to the previous Attorney-General, asking about the police inquiries, and I see that the Secretary of State is surrounded by Law Officers today. While not seeking to influence or instruct the police, which would be totally improper, surely it is in everyone’s interests that we know if there is a timetable. What is holding up this inquiry, which has gone on for several years?

[Mr Clarke]

If the police follow these exchanges, I am sure they will note the right hon. Gentleman’s impatience that we move on and get some resolution to inquiries, which I think have been going on for about 15 to 18 months. He knows, because he is as good a lawyer as anybody else involved in these discussions, that it would be quite improper for anyone to approach the police and put pressure on them to put in place a timetable or to press them one way or the other.

Legal Aid and Civil Cost Reform

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

At present, about half the total number of clinical negligence cases are brought on a no win, no fee basis, and about half are brought on legal aid. No doubt some are privately financed. No win, no fee is a perfectly suitable way of proceeding in clinical negligence cases. We have decided that that—as amended by Sir Rupert Jackson—is likely to be the way in which people will proceed in future. What we have done completes a process of steadily taking legal aid out of criminal injury claims, which has been going on for some years, and I commend it as a logical next step.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The last Government, of course, also cut legal aid. The issue is quality, and how we focus that legal aid.

This morning, by chance, I visited our old college, where I saw the portraits of former Lord Chancellors who had attended it. When the college puts up a portrait of the current Lord Chancellor—or he may even be entitled to a mini-statue in the grounds—how would he like the epitaph to read, in relation to legal aid?

[Mr Clarke]

The last Government made many changes to legal aid, which stopped the increase in spending throughout most of the past decade. I have tried to return to basic first principles, and to ask “What is legal aid for?” Let us now put in place a logical structure that is defensible and may last.

I have not the first idea what kind of statue or picture that the college that I share with the right hon. Gentleman might ever erect to me. I do not think that a mini-statue would do justice to my full stature, but I should be very flattered if anything at all were put up. However, I trust that the college will acknowledge that we have tried to create a logical and defensible system which can be afforded by a civilised democracy that needs a legal aid system.

I should probably experience more difficulty in persuading my legal friends and the legal institutions to which I belong of the wisdom of all this than in persuading my old college.

Public Disorder (NUS Rally)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Of course it was worrying for the staff at Conservative campaign headquarters in Millbank and for other members of the public. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary spoke to Baroness Warsi during the day about that experience. I also agree with my hon. Friend that this is the place where democratic debate takes place over issues of public policy. No one questions the right of those students to march yesterday and to make their case, and 40,000 of them did so peacefully. There is plenty of opportunity to debate policy, but there is neither a need nor any excuse for a minority to resort to violence.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I join those on both Front Benches in congratulating the Metropolitan Police Commissioner on admitting what went wrong yesterday and holding a thorough investigation? I am sure that members of the Home Affairs Select Committee will be keen to look at those findings, especially in view of the criticism that the police received following the G20 protests, to find out whether they might have felt the need to adopt a different approach. Everyone has rightly condemned the violence. Has the Minister received any information that lecturers were also involved in organising this protest? If that is the case, and it is more than just anecdotal information, will he speak to Ministers at the Department for Education to ensure that their establishments look carefully at the way in which their employees have behaved?

[Nick Herbert]

I have received no such information. I repeat that the vast majority of the 40,000 who were demonstrating yesterday did so peacefully, and the Government have no issue with that, or with their right to protest. The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the response to the Tomlinson incident. I discussed this with the commissioner of the Met this morning. He was clear that there had been a failure on the part of the police force to assess the risk properly, and he is reviewing that. He did not seek to attribute the blame to any deliberate change in policing tactics as a consequence of the Tomlinson incident. It is worth reflecting, however, that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary stated in a formal report following the Tomlinson incident that the British model of policing

“can be easily eroded by premature displays of formidable public order protective uniform and equipment which give the perception—inadvertent or otherwise—of a hardening of the character of British policing.”

That was a criticism directed towards the police by the inspectorate, and it shows that they have difficult balancing judgments to make.

Police (Public Trust)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in my first Westminster Hall debate under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. It is also a real pleasure to follow the contribution of the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard). I regard him not only as a friend, but as someone who thinks carefully before making his speeches. His was a very thoughtful speech, which raised several issues of concern to Members on both sides of the House. I am sure that the Minister and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who was in the Minister’s position until very recently, will have taken on board many of the points made by the hon. Member for The Wrekin.

The debate is well attended, which shows the tremendous interest in the House in policing issues. The hon. Gentleman was right to end his speech by praising the work of so many police officers, but he was also right to mark up a number of issues that really need to be addressed. Our debates in the House deal largely with the great issues—the structures and the new landscape—of policing, and we sometimes forget individual cases. Such cases are often brought to the public’s attention through the media and therefore have a disproportionate influence on how people regard the police. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a number of cases.

We live in exciting times as far as policing is concerned. The Home Affairs Committee is certainly extremely busy scrutinising the Government on a number of policing issues. We have decided to conduct three inquiries into policing this year—they are rather like “The Lord of the Rings” in that they are a trilogy. The first report will deal with police commissioners, and we will rush it out by the end of October because the Bill dealing with the issue is due before the House in November. The second report will deal with the elements of the planned national crime agency, which will result in legislation next summer. The third report will relate to the comprehensive spending review, and I fear that a number of the issues that we raise today will have to be seen in the light of what the Government decide to do about the policing budget.

I want to raise a number of issues that I think will be of use to the House. As constituency MPs, we all have examples of dealings with local people who are concerned about the police, although none of us, except the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart), has actually served in a police force.

One of the easiest things for the police to look at, which actually costs no money at all, is how they deal with the public. Good customer service is essential to ensuring that we have policing by consent and it means that when people send letters to chief officers or local commanders, they get a reply very speedily. One of the points made to the Committee in its short inquiry into the Independent Police Complaints Commission earlier this year—in fact, it was in our recommendations—was that if police at the local level dealt more efficiently and effectively with concerns raised by the public, the need for complaints would diminish.

The first aspect that I want to raise is therefore very much in the hands of the police, and what happens depends very much on the personality and character of the chief constable; if the chief constable wants to make sure that something works, it will work. I had a useful meeting last Friday with the new chief constable in my area, Simon Cole. I raised my concern that when I write to the police on behalf of constituents who come to my surgery on a Friday, I do not get a reply for weeks or even months. All that those constituents want to know is what is happening about their cases. If they know, they will be satisfied. They might not be satisfied with the outcome, but they will at least know what is going on.

Providing good customer service and responding to concerns are therefore important. The Fiona Pilkington case occurred in Leicestershire. As hon. Members know, Ms Pilkington made 33 complaints to the local police force before she drove off and set her car on fire. That is an example of what happens when people do not get a response. I hope that everyone learns the lessons of what happens when the police do not respond; I know that Leicestershire police have. If forces get their house in order and provide the right service, that will be very helpful.

The second issue is visibility. I do not know whether the Minister knows how much his budget will be next year or whether he has just received a text from the Chancellor asking him to go to No. 11 to discuss it, but I am sure that his budget will be cut. If it is cut, to the levels that he and I think possible, that will have a huge impact on some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for The Wrekin. The police cannot perform the functions that the public expect them to unless they have the budgets to enable them to do so.

[Mark Pritchard]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that discipline and leadership in the police do not necessarily have to come with a price tag?

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

I accept that absolutely; it is one of the common-sense issues that could be dealt with quickly. If someone needs to be disciplined they should be disciplined. There is a defensiveness to the public sector. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has encountered cases against the local health authority in his constituency, as well. When we write in because someone is concerned about their treatment, there is always denial—all the way to the doors of the High Court. Some of the issues can be dealt with by providing proper leadership.

That leads me to my third point, which is about the new landscape of policing. The Minister has a great opportunity, in deciding what will go into the national crime agency, to deal with issues of leadership. Leadership is not being provided at the moment. We took evidence yesterday from the deputy Mayor of London—the kind of no-nonsense politician one wants in charge of a police force. With people such as Mr Malthouse around, one wonders whether there is a need for elected commissioners; there is always someone like him in every local authority.

I hope very much that the Government will pause and think before they shove everything into the national crime agency. The National Policing Improvement Agency is supposed to go in there, with all its police improvement functions, and so is the Serious Organised Crime Agency. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre is going in there, and the databases will too.

I know that it is hoped that we shall save money—and we all want to get value for money from the police service—but there may be an opportunity in the few months that remain to deal with the issue of police leadership. There will be arguments on either side about whether that should go to ACPO, about which some hon. Members have concerns. I think that it is an organisation that can be developed to take over Bramshill and provide the necessary leadership.

However, to get the police constables of the future, who will be responsive to the needs of the public, it is necessary to start at a much lower level. The career development that is so vital, especially in policing, should be conducted by an agency that is not the national crime agency. All the good work that is being done by the NPIA should go somewhere else, although I do not have a fixed view on where. The Select Committee will consider the matter, but that work is not suitable for the NCA.

The hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), who spoke briefly and had to attend to other duties in the House, mentioned the Kent constabulary and the good practice there. I saw good practice when I went to Staffordshire a year and a half ago. The former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling, knows that I am going to raise this issue, which concerns the forms that Staffordshire police were filling in. They had reduced them from 24 to one.

I wrote to Jacqui Smith and said, “This is brilliant; can you please write to all the chief constables and make sure that it is rolled out throughout the country?” It took months and months before it happened. The Select Committee has its own website—I do not know whether the Minister has seen it—which notes good practice by police forces. One of the examples is what is happening in Kent. Guarding against bad practice, which is what the hon. Member for The Wrekin was discussing, is a good way to ensure that good practice happens. Perhaps it happens through guidance from the police Minister, or perhaps it happens when the dos and don’ts are shoved on to the Home Office website.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

There is an example of good practice in Northern Ireland, where the Police Service of Northern Ireland has made clear progress over the years. Part of core policy for the PSNI is the interaction of community officers with the general public. They get to know each other and a relationship builds up. Also, for many, there are vocational callings. Some people who are community officers have that vocation in life. That is what they are called to do, and their qualities can be seen coming through in policing.

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there are many lessons that can be learned from the progress made by the PSNI in Northern Ireland and the way in which it is developing its relationship with the general public?

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, there are, and the Select Committee members look forward at some stage in the future to coming to Northern Ireland to see what has happened. The developments have been amazing, and the appointment to the PSNI of Matt Baggott, the former chief constable of Leicestershire, is very welcome. We look forward to visiting him there.

On 22 November, the Select Committee will hold a seminar in Cannock Chase. I have written to the Minister to ask him to speak at that seminar, which will deal with all the issues that I have outlined. It is only 41 minutes away from the Wrekin, so I hope that the hon. Member for The Wrekin will attend. The purpose is outside the context of Westminster, where we can get very political about policing issues. Members on both sides of the House and people on neither side—because we hope that there will also be many police officers and members of police committees there—will discuss the new landscape that is proposed.

I am not one of those who feel that the Government have gone too fast on policing. They are right to have set out a strong agenda for change, but I urge them to heed the views of others who may have an input to make into the matter. I know that the Minister respects the work of the Select Committee because he poached one of our best and newest members—the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod)—as his new PPS.

The Minister will not agree with everything that we say, but given what the hon. Member for The Wrekin has said and what others will say, let us not rush ahead on some of the issues. Of course principles are important, but we are dealing with a new landscape. Let us make one that is above party politics and based on consensus, and that will last for at least a generation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Crockart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point, but that is the defence that is used when none other can be found: “We know things that you don’t.” In fact, what is being said is: “We may know things that you don’t.” That justifies any means by which communities are policed, which simply is not acceptable. Clear guidelines have been laid down for looking into those offences. We are having a major review of much of the terrorist legislation that is being used for such measures. I hope that we reach a position where we can deal effectively with such concerns and potential problems without using the types of behaviour that have damaged public trust in that police service.

Another example, highlighted this week in The Guardian, demonstrates the far more serious flipside of the racial problem outlined by the hon. Member for The Wrekin in relation to policing and justice more generally. It showed that, per capita, seven times as many black Britons were incarcerated than white Britons, which is an even higher ratio than in the United States, where four times as many black people are in prison than white people. Those data, which come from the recently published Equality and Human Rights Commission report on fairness in Britain, show just how much of an effect decades of racial prejudice in the criminal justice system have had on the black community. Another figure that is particularly striking, and that again goes to the heart of the targets culture, shows that black Britons constituted 15% of the stop and searches in Britain in 2008, despite making up only 3% of the population.

All the factors that I have outlined contributed to public confidence reaching new lows. In response to that, Labour again reverted to type, refusing to acknowledge that central meddling was the culprit, and tried to deal with the problem through targets, setting a target for improving confidence in forces’ local crime and disorder-fighting strategies by a minimum of 12%. It also set a national confidence target, to be measured by annual surveys.

What is the answer? How do we reconnect the police with the public they serve? There must be a wholesale revision of the interaction between the police and the public. The coalition’s plans to bring in locally elected police commissioners is certainly a step in the right direction, and there is certainly something to be said for increasing the local accountability of police forces. If communities are involved, they will be able to have more input into the priorities of local police forces, which will go a long way towards restoring trust in the force.

[Keith Vaz]

I ask the hon. Gentleman the following question because he is a former senior officer: does he think that, within the proposals for elected police commissioners, operational independence is guaranteed?

[Mike Crockart]

As it stands, the position is that operational independence must be maintained, and I would argue that it must be sacrosanct. To a large extent, operational decisions have to be made quickly, but that may not be possible under new structures. The amount of information that is needed to make such decisions is immediately available to senior police officers, and they are absolutely the right people to make those decisions.

I have some concerns about the detail of the scheme. I feel that it is probably not local enough, so I hope, as we have urged in our submission to the Home Office, that the plans will be trialled to ensure their effectiveness. It is clear that accountability for policing priorities and dialogue between the consumers of policing and the providers of it need to happen at a much lower level, and in a much more regular and inclusive way. Only by doing that will we restore a degree of public trust in the police and, in so doing, re-establish the principle of policing by consent. That will ultimately answer my original question, what are the police for? This is about working with and in communities to improve people’s lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker]

The point I am making is not so much that the statistics are confusing but that people pick out bits from them to prove their point. The overall crime statistics reflected in both the BCS and recorded crime figures show significant falls in crime. What should we do, if we want to ensure people’s trust and confidence in the police? What confidence can one have in the police?

At a recent conference, the Home Secretary said that the biggest factor was whether crime is falling in police force areas. She said that that is the measure that we should use to give the public confidence and trust in their police force, and to know whether police forces are being effective.

The hon. Member for Newton Abbot spoke about crime falling in her area. That has to be the banner headline. If we try to undermine the statistics all the time, it is no wonder that people’s fear of crime rises.

In discussing how we keep confidence and trust, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East said that some aspects are not hugely difficult. What seems to be difficult is for it to happen in every community in the country consistently and persistently. The things that drive confidence and trust are neighbourhood policing and a visible police presence, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) said. There will be a debate about whether that has happened or not, but we need neighbourhood policing, visible policing and police being around and responding properly when phone calls are made about antisocial behaviour by a few kids on the street.

We are all constituency MPs. How many people come to us about terrorist incidents? Not many. How many come to us because they phoned up about what may seem a trivial incident but, to the member of the public, is fundamental? If that is responded to, even though it may seem trivial, confidence and trust in the police go up. People are not stupid. They know that sometimes things are difficult to deal with, but they expect that if they are worried about a kid who keeps banging on their door, somebody will say, “Yes, it should not happen. We are very sorry.” In the best cases—in an increasing number of cases—the police are recognising that and responding in the way that we would all want.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Member for Edinburgh West discussed the targets set by central Government, which he felt were unhelpful to policing. However, as I mentioned in my speech, during the previous Administration I found that central Government were able to pass on good practice. From his experience, does my hon. Friend believe that it could have been done better? There needs to be a better understanding of the fact that the Home Office has a role in ensuring that good practice in one part of the country is occurring elsewhere. If it does not have such a role, who does?

[Vernon Coaker]

I was coming to the point about good practice. My right hon. Friend is right. The Home Office does have a role, as do the police, police authorities and others, in disseminating good practice and good information. We have talked before about good community engagement, good communication, informing people about what is going on and having meetings. All those things are fundamentally important, as is answering letters, and so on.

The Home Office has a responsibility for disseminating information, whether through websites or in other ways. I am interested in whether the Minister believes that that is so and whether he will deal with some of the issues that right hon. and hon. Members have raised this afternoon, notwithstanding his not agreeing with certain cultures and targets. What role does he think the Home Office has to play in driving up confidence and helping restore trust?

Briefly, on trust and confidence, my experience is that the Minister has responsibility both for police and criminal justice. In respect of confidence and trust in the police, the issue is not only about what the police do, but what other bodies, including local authorities and local councils, do. What those bodies do drives trust as well. For example, the clearing up of graffiti and things like that makes a difference.

How the police interact with the criminal justice system is fundamental. There is a big issue here. Sometimes the police get blamed for the criminal justice system not working effectively with respect to the police. We need to get better in respect of one thing in particular. One of the biggest confidence and trust builders is for local people to know that somebody who is causing real problems in their area, and is arrested by the police and taken to court, has been dealt with by the courts and taken through the criminal justice process.

I should be interested in hearing what the Minister expects from the spending review. Other hon. Members have mentioned what will happen with respect to the coming cuts. We have all talked about visible policing and the importance of officers on the beat. How on earth are we going to maintain police numbers and the current numbers of police community support officers? How are we going to cut bureaucracy if police staff are going to go? What will happen to the number of police stations? What will happen to police station opening hours? What will happen to confidence and trust in an environment where all that is happening?

We are talking about trust and confidence in the police. Part of the modernisation of the police has been the establishment of a number of specialist units, which some people regard as a waste but I think are fundamental. Domestic violence would not have been tackled to the extent that it has were it not for the training and development of specialist domestic violence units in many police force areas.

The same is true of sexual violence. Victims of sexual violence want to know that a specialist officer is dealing with the case. What is happening to child protection? All those things are fundamental. If we want confidence and trust, it is all very well to say that that should be mainstreamed into police business and into their main work, but often when that happens there is a loss of focus with regard to such matters.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East mentioned the new national crime agency, which is supposed to take in the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and the National Policing Improvement Agency. I thought that the national crime agency was to be an operational crime-fighting body. The NPIA deals with training, the police national computer and so on. Why would something like that be put into the NCA? If people are to have confidence in the NCA, they want to see a crime-fighting body, not one that encapsulates some of the necessary functions of the NPIA.

Finally, on accountability, the hon. Member for Edinburgh West mentioned elected police commissioners, said that he went along with that proposal and then slightly qualified what he said. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East asked whether those commissioners would have operational independence. We oppose the creation of elected police commissioners. First, will the Minister clarify whether the Government’s policy is still, as it was when they were in opposition, to have the power of recall so that another election, to get somebody acceptable, can be held if somebody unsatisfactory is elected as a police commissioner?

Secondly, if the police are still operationally independent, which they should be, of course, what can an elected police commissioner do if he does not agree with what the chief constable does? If the chief constable operates ineffectively, either the commissioner can do something about it or he cannot. How can the elected police commissioner be held accountable if the chief constable is operationally independent—something over which the commissioner has no influence? What will the role of the elected police commissioner be with respect to a chief constable, if the former sees the latter acting unsatisfactorily?

I shall finish where I started, by congratulating the hon. Member for The Wrekin on prompting the debate. He raised some real issues, as did other hon. Members. I say to all police officers out there that the vast majority do a good job in difficult circumstances and they have the full support of every Member of Parliament, notwithstanding some of the difficult incidents that we hear, see and read about. We know that there are bad officers, but we also know that they are not a reflection on the police force as a whole.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

Hear, hear.

[Nick Herbert]

I note the intervention from the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. That is a genuine offer; this is the moment to make such a move.

My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin talked about leadership, and I strongly agree with him about the value of leadership in policing. We have asked the former chief constable of Thames Valley police and chief executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency, Peter Neyroud, to conduct a study into how we can ensure the right leadership and training in the police. In the end, however, that must rest with the police themselves. Part of the reforms that we wish to introduce concerns the reform of the Association of Chief Police Officers to ensure that it takes responsibility for such matters in an accountable manner.

My hon. Friend also called for a review of agencies and quangos, and he will be hearing a great deal more about that in due course. We have proposed a decluttering of the landscape surrounding policing by winding up the National Policing Improvement Agency and taking those functions to a new national crime agency.

On the point raised by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), I will of course pay attention to all issues and concerns that are raised by people about the whole spectrum of reforms to policing. As he will know, I have been attending to those issues, and I have taken care to pay attention to the views of stakeholders, police organisations and so on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern about this and note the ten-minute Bill he recently introduced. The Government believe that wherever possible foreign national prisoners should serve their sentences in their own country. Negotiations on a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement with Nigeria will be concluded as soon as changes to Nigerian domestic legislation have been made.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

In evidence to the Home Affairs Committee this morning, Lin Homer, the head of UKBA, told us that 14% of the prison population were foreign nationals and that 700 officials were working in her department on this issue. As it is a priority for the Government, is the Minister confident that he has sufficient staff dealing with what is a very important issue?

[Nick Herbert]

The Government are determined to improve performance in the removal of foreign nationals and in prison transfer agreements. The right hon. Gentleman will know that only 41 prisoners were transferred this year, but compulsory transfer has been available only since November 2009, so we expect performance to improve.

Police Grant Report

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Police (Nick Herbert)]

I beg to move,

That the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) for 2010-11: Amending Report 2010-11 (House of Commons Paper No. 47), which was laid before this House on 10 June, be approved.

The Government’s top priority is to reduce the unprecedented budget deficit that this country faces. As a first step towards achieving that aim, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced on 24 May a £6 billion package of savings across the public sector. The Home Office share of this spending reduction is £367 million. In order to minimise the impact on the police service, the Home Office has cut a greater than proportionate share of its central budget by bearing down significantly on overheads and reducing waste, including cuts to consultancy services, marketing costs and travel. National policing organisations have been required to make significant savings too. For example, the National Policing Improvement Agency will make a saving of £40 million this year, on top of a £73 million saving already planned for this year. That is a greater proportionate cut than we are asking police forces to make.

However, the police account for well over half of Home Office spending, so we cannot make the necessary savings at the centre alone. We need the police to contribute to the drive to efficiency. On 27 May, I announced my intention to reduce this year’s core Government funding to the police by a total of £135 million. I propose that this will mostly be achieved by a £115 million reduction in rule 2 grant, for which the Government today seek the House’s approval. Those proposed reductions to police funding are fair and reasonable. Every force is treated equally, with a cut equivalent to 1.46% of their core funding from central Government.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

I give way first to the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Keith Vaz]

Obviously the Minister regards those reductions as fair and reasonable; others might not regard them in that light. At the end of the day, he must have received some advice from his officials, so will we have fewer police officers on the front line as a result of what the Government propose to do?

[Nick Herbert]

We do not believe that there need be fewer police officers as a consequence of the savings that we are asking the House to approve today, for the simple reason that, as I said, the savings amount to less than 1.5% of the core funding that forces receive from central Government. Police forces can make those savings and the front line can be protected.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Flint]

I want to make some progress, as I have taken lots of interventions and I am very conscious that other Members want to contribute to the debate.

The reality is that as a result of improved communications, new technologies and international mobility, serious and organised crime is becoming more sophisticated and increasingly global in reach, making the police’s job more difficult. As I have said, we are dealing with 21st-century criminal entrepreneurs. They are involved in all sorts of rackets from counterfeit goods to human trafficking, prostitution and, of course, drugs, and what we need is a 21st-century police response.

The reality, however, is that many smaller forces—there are 19 in England and Wales with fewer than 2,000 officers—already struggle to meet the challenges of modern crime, and across the board, as Sir Paul Stephenson made clear in his speech on Monday evening, police resources for tackling serious and organised crime are “unco-ordinated” and “inadequate”. I am afraid to say that that is partly due to the police structures we have and a parochialism that does not address some of these serious crime issues. Many Members—probably on both sides of the House—will defend their force structure, even though it might not help or deliver the capacity to deal with some of the crimes I am talking about. That is why I believe there is a very strong case for borough level local policing, but I am certainly not convinced that at the force level some of the sizes of organisation we have are either manageable, good value for money or even delivering what we need.

The police believe that there are 68 criminal organisations with assets in excess of £10 million. These are organisations whose operations are complex and do not respect national borders, let alone police force borders. While inter-force collaboration is certainly improving—there are many good examples of it up and down the country—as the Bichard report clearly highlighted, the way our police service is structured means that all too often individual forces act separately and fail to share information with other forces. In an age in which criminals can escape quickly across police force boundaries, it is not sustainable for police forces to have to notify other forces in advance, or have protocols in place, before they can track and apprehend criminals. It slows everything down; it is not a good use of resources.

In the case of the London and Glasgow bombers in June 2007, when terrorists placed two car bombs outside a nightclub in London’s west end before driving to Scotland to ram their jeep into the entrance at Glasgow airport, detectives from London following the getaway car were concerned that if they had to make arrests en route they would have to ensure that local forces were notified and put on stand-by. Later there was also confusion about which force should lead on the case—whether it should be the Metropolitan police which had started the investigation, or the Strathclyde police in Glasgow where the case finished up.

It is also difficult for smaller police forces to invest in the assets that are needed to run complex, and often international, investigations effectively. There is a case for investigations into serious and organised crime being led by larger, more centralised crime-fighting units, and merging some functions or responsibilities, or even forces, could offer economies of scale and reduce bureaucracy and costs and lead to better outputs. Alternatively, as Sir Paul Stephenson suggested, we could have a nationally co-ordinated, federated structure for tackling organised crime, whether led by the police service or as part of an extended Serious Organised Crime Agency remit.

[Keith Vaz]

I wonder whether my right hon. Friend has had an opportunity to look at the Select Committee’s detailed report on the Serious Organised Crime Agency that was concluded earlier this year, in which we raised the issue of targets as opposed to cost. If the Government are right, we are spending £500 million on SOCA, but it sees only £23 million. Does she not think that these targets need to be improved if we are to get value for money?

[Caroline Flint]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend, and the Select Committee did very good work on SOCA. I am very proud to be the former Home Office Minister who established SOCA. We brought together the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the drugs investigation arm of Customs and Excise. However, things have gone wrong on asset recovery, on which we needed to make more progress. Also, when we developed SOCA and since, we failed properly to consider its relationship to forces around the country. It is not just a question of having a national body, but of what is happening on the ground. The link between local policing and national police services such as SOCA is absolutely crucial, and I agree with my right hon. Friend that much more needs to be done to get that right.

The point is still well made that we can look for savings as well as better outcomes, but given that we are discussing the police grant, we must task the Minister with explaining how we are to protect the existing situation. Yes, there needs to be improvement, but we do not want to go backwards in our efforts to tackle organised crime through these reductions in the police grant.

Examining this issue has the potential not only to make the police more effective, but to help to deliver the savings that need to be found without necessarily reducing the number of police on our streets, and to become more effective in tackling serious and organised crime. The cost of such crime to the country is £40 billion, and there are 38,000 organised criminals and 6,000 criminal organisations. There will be no new resources for dealing with organised crime and even if there were, they would never be enough to tackle terrorism, for example.

This is a serious issue that needs to be looked at as these cuts are made, in order to ensure that we do not lose our capacity, which is already varied throughout the country, to tackle the most serious crimes that our neighbourhoods face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the thoughtful speeches of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson). We all thought that his ambition in life was to be the Member of Parliament for his city, but now we know that he really wants to be the sheriff of Peterborough. Whether he goes and hugs those trees is another matter, but the constituency angle that he has taken should be considered by the House when dealing with the police grant.

I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box for his first of what I hope will be many debates on the police grant. I hope that he will pass on our very best wishes to the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley), who as shadow Police Minister was a frequent attendee at these events and whose comments from the Dispatch Box were very incisive.

These are difficult times and of course we understand that a new Government are always keen to blame the previous Government for the decisions that they will make. I, too, was present at the debate earlier this year when the police grant was, in effect, agreed by both sides of the House. I do not know what those on my Front Bench have decided to do, but I assume that they will vote against the reduction in the police grant. I am not sure—I am sure that somebody will remind me—but I think that in February the House was unanimous in approving the grant, and rightly so. This is one of the priorities of the people of this country.

I am glad to hear that in the Labour party manifesto the Home Office budget was ring-fenced. I cannot absolutely remember the section, although I imagine that my right hon. Friend the shadow Police Minister wrote it, so he would know. I am sorry that the Government did not do the same thing as part of the coalition agreement. I understand that we have to preserve the budgets of the national health service and education, but as far as law and order is concerned we—or the coalition Government—will regret the fact that they did not work harder to keep the Home Office budget intact. Why? This is a key priority, as the hon. Member for Peterborough has said, for every single Member of this House through the prism of their local constituency.

We know that the demand from local people is for more doctors and nurses, better schools and more police officers. Every single local campaign—not just campaigns launched by the Liberal Democrat party, as some would say—local petition and local survey shows that local people say that they want more police officers. The visibility of a police officer on the beat is the absolute sign that the public are being protected. Anything that cuts into that budget and prevents the reality of the local police officer on the beat will cause each and every Member of this House some pain.

Clearly, Opposition Members will feel some pain because Ministers and Government Members will always say, “Well, this is because of the shadow Chief Secretary’s letter, so we have to do all this.” Looking around the Chamber, I think that I might have been here longer than anyone else who is present—although not longer than every Member put together—and one thing that I remember and that Members should remember as elected representatives is that, ultimately, memories are quite short. Over a certain period, one can use the mantra, “They left us with no money”—eight weeks is not long enough not to use it—but by the end of the year local people will be very frustrated when they pick up their phones and the police officers they want are not there.

That was why I was so pleased to hear the commitment made from the Dispatch Box this afternoon by the Police Minister: he anticipates that, notwithstanding the reduction in the police grant, the number of police officers in front-line services will remain intact. Of course, the actual analysis is out of his hands. At the end of the day, it will be for local chief constables and police authorities to say whether that is what happens, but I know that that is his ambition and it is a very good ambition for a Police Minister to have. It is a very good ambition for a Conservative—even though it is a coalition Government—Police Minister to stand up at the Dispatch Box in the House of Commons and to say in his first speech, “We do not want to reduce the number of police officers. We want to keep it the same and perhaps, if we get those structural changes, to increase it.” As he knows, one of the great achievements of the previous Government was a record number of police officers—147,000 police officers, 16,000 police community support officers and 79,000 new civilians working in the police force. These are figures to die for, in my view. Every Police Minister would love to get to the Dispatch Box and say that those figures will remain intact.

We must work with the Government to try to ensure that that happens. I know that it sounds odd, but I have always seen policing issues as above party politics. There is agreement that local people want to see crime reduced, they want to see their police officers out on the beat and they want to be able to see quick responses to their problems, so let us see whether there is a way in which we can help the Government to do that. Tomorrow, the Home Secretary is coming to give evidence to the Select Committee—it will be her first appearance. I am very pleased that the Police Minister is coming in two weeks’ time, and I thank him for the speed with which he responded to my request. That is the appropriate mechanism to analyse the Government’s claims and the concerns of local police committees and chief constables. We want to get to a position where we use the pot of money properly and adequately, so that there is not the reduction in numbers that I think will happen but the Minister hopes will not.

Those changes that we have heard about today have been present in every debate that we have had on policing, certainly during the three years for which I have been the Chair of the Select Committee. The first is structural change, by consent and not for structural change’s sake. The second is collaboration. As we have seen throughout the country, forces are working together, whether that involves borrowing a helicopter, as they did in Cumbria during the Whitehaven tragedy, or the way in which the police force in Northumberland reacted so quickly to the problems of the past two weeks. Such collaboration is ongoing. The third is better procurement, so that we have one set of contracts rather than 43.

The fourth change is ensuring that we do not just have initiatives. I accept what the Minister says when he asks what the point is of a brand-new police station—people do not really want their police officers in a police station; they want them outside. But sometimes we need brand-new police stations. We cannot expect all our police officers to operate from a Doctor Who-type TARDIS. There have to be police stations to hold people in detention, so that officers can deal with those requirements that legislators place on our local police forces.

The fifth change is a reduction in bureaucracy. Of course, we all agree that that should happen. Let us implement the Berry report and the Flanagan report in full. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) was a member of the Select Committee in the last Parliament and he co-authored the report “Policing in the 21st century”, which talked about all those things but also about investment in technology. In the long term, we can cut bureaucracy by giving police officers hand-held computers. The Minister will not win his battle with the Treasury for more money, because he is trying to cope with less money. However, that is what we have to do in the future.

We have an investment in this matter on both sides of the House as constituency MPs as well as a duty to the public to ensure that we work together to try to cut away waste. I do not think that there is a huge amount of waste in the police force. I know that we have heard about potted plants and iPods in certain Government Departments, but there is always a story like that. I assure the Minister that in a couple of years’ time, the Opposition will be coming out with such stories. The fact is that we need to ensure that when we give money it is monitored much more closely. Perhaps there ought to be more strings. The last Government were probably too generous in providing so much funding and not very firm in monitoring it.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is a question not just of pot plants and mood music, but of the fact that police forces in England and Wales have to deal with some 6,500 pages of nationally given guidelines from the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers? Her Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary said only a few days ago that putting those documents end to end would reach as high as the Eiffel tower. That is waste and bureaucracy, is it not?

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, it is. I do not say that everything the last Government did was absolutely perfect. I have related one example to the House on many occasions. I once went up to Staffordshire and looked at the work of Staffordshire police to reduce from 24 sheets to one sheet the documentation that is required when someone is charged. After that, every time the Home Secretary got up, I asked, “Have you rolled out this brilliant idea across the country?” but the answer was no, because the system worked so slowly. We will expect better from this Police Minister, because he is so keen to deal with waste. We want to make sure that good practice is adopted as quickly as possible and is rolled out. We do not want excuses such as that it takes a long time to write a letter to chief constables.

The points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) are correct. I did not know that she actually invented the Serious Organised Crime Agency; had I done so, we would have called her to give evidence. There are examples of our providing huge amounts of money, such as half a billion pounds for SOCA, which seized only £23 million, and £400,000 for the National Policing Improvement Agency, and spending £79 million on consultants. Those are the kinds of issues that we should have dealt with in the past 13 years, but sometimes Ministers cannot, as the new Minister will find, know exactly what is going on.

[Caroline Flint]

They do not stay long enough.

[Keith Vaz]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. In her case, she was promoted to become the Minister for Europe and the rest is history. We need Ministers to stay in place long enough to see what happens when their decisions are implemented.

The Select Committee will be constructive and will not just condemn. We are going to put good practice on our website, without waiting for it to go on the Home Office website, with lots of arrows pointing to good practices and asking, “Why isn’t this followed in Cambridgeshire, Essex, Leicestershire or elsewhere?” We will hold the Government to account on that.

The Minister has repeated the words that were used at the Association of Chief Police Officers conference of 1 July, saying that he wants the police to be crime fighters, not form fillers. We all agree with that—there is no problem with that statement—but a reduction in the police grant is proposed today, and if the comprehensive spending review cuts the police budget by 25%, ACPO has said that would mean 20,000 fewer police officers. There will be conflict between the Government and the police force, because it will not remain silent, just as it did not remain silent on police pay.

I had only one really robust conversation with the previous Prime Minister, which will not be in my memoirs, although I have thought of a name for them: I am going to call them “The 23rd Man” rather than “The Third Man”. That robust conversation occurred when I reminded him that we had a duty to respect the police. There is no point in Ministers and shadow Ministers, every time there is some great tragedy, coming to the Dispatch Box and praising the police but then not giving them the pay rise that was agreed in arbitration. When we are in the position of cutting perhaps 20,000 police officers, we will have a severe problem and the police force will be in conflict with the Government. I hope it does not come to that.

I hope also that Parliament will support the Minister in his battle with the Treasury. I know it is difficult for Ministers to do this in the current economic climate, but policing policy needs defending. The Minister should feel confident that he can go to the Chancellor, quote speeches such as that of the hon. Member for Peterborough and say, “At a local level, we cannot have fewer police officers. We must retain the level and we must invest in our police service.” I joined others on the streets of our capital to oppose what the Labour Government did on police pay, because I think that we need to defend the police not just at the Dispatch Box, but outside.

[Robert Halfon]

I am interested to hear the right hon. Gentleman’s eloquent speech. He talks about retaining numbers, but given that 80% of the police budget is spent on staffing costs, which is a huge amount, surely one way of retaining the numbers is by reducing that 80%.

[Keith Vaz]

That will, of course, happen with the reduction before us today, even though some chief constables have said that they will not make police officers redundant. Under the proposals that Treasury Ministers have put to the Home Office for a reduction of 25%, I am afraid that that will happen. What I am saying is that the hon. Gentleman will have to go back to Harlow, as I will have to go back to Leicester and other Members will have to go back to their constituencies, and explain why that has happened. The mantra, “They left us with no money,” is not going to be enough, so we need to work constructively. We need to help the Minister to do battle with the Treasury. We need to try to ring-fence this budget, because policing is just as important as the NHS and just as important as schools and education. It needs to be protected. I hope that the Minister understands that in the months ahead, with the CSR and other considerations, he should feel free to come to Parliament and listen to what colleagues are saying about the impact at local level. If he does that, he will understand that the global figures are one thing, but that the cuts at local level will be severe.

This is an important debate and I hope that we will have another opportunity in the near future to discuss all the other ideas that Members have put forward, because the package cannot stand on its own. It has to be done with all the other reforms and changes that are necessary. I thought that my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) was a pretty good Police Minister, but if he were here doing what the present Minister is doing, I would vote against his Government, because I think it is wrong to reduce the police budget in this way. We need to realise how important this area of policy is and do our best to defend it.