Police: Professional Standards
Alison Bennett Excerpts(1 week, 1 day ago)
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Sarah Jones
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We saw a collapse in the numbers of police then huge recruitment under the last Government, which meant that we lost a lot of officers and gained a lot of new officers. The turnover of officers is higher than I would like it to be, for lots and lots of reasons; there is a whole other debate about keeping our workforce where it is. We have to have people with experience and expertise, and we want to try to develop that through our neighbourhood policing plans, for example. We want an increased number of people working in those neighbourhood roles, and we want them to stay in position.
In previous years, neighbourhood policing was very much a turnaround profession in which people would work for a short period of time then move on to something else. We want neighbourhood policing to be seen as a brilliant thing to do in the long term as a police officer, and I hope that will help. It is very much our intention that those officers will be better police officers as a result of the expertise they develop about their communities—the people who they are there to serve. The hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) makes a good point. I do not have all the answers, but it is absolutely key that we try to get that expertise and to get people to stay in the force for their whole career.
As I was saying, the Angiolini inquiry is considering a range of issues in policing and the safety of women. We are already working to deliver the recommendations from part 1 of the inquiry, and we will look very carefully at part 2 when it comes out.
The hon. Member for North Cornwall mentioned the challenges in Devon and Cornwall police in recent times, and we all know about them. I acknowledge the significant progress that has been made by the force under the leadership of Chief Constable James Vaughan. The force has recently come out of the “engage” stage of monitoring by the inspector, which is a clear indication of progress, and I hope that the professional standards team is also on that journey of progress. When I meet the chief constable, I am sure that I will raise today’s debate.
Regarding the complaints system, the hon. Gentleman quite rightly talked about his constituents’ frustrations. People who are dissatisfied can apply for a review to the police and crime commissioner or the IOPC, but whether the case gets reviewed or not depends on its nature. I was interested in the suggestion of other forces policing each other, as it were, and the White Paper on police reform considers some of these things; we are looking at that at the moment and hope to publish it in the autumn. We can learn lessons from local government and elsewhere about how we ensure our policing is done in a way that means that where there are problems, there are good and effective ways of trying to resolve them.
I also hope our police are available to Members of Parliament, have good relationships with them and speak to each other, because that in and of itself is important. I would not undervalue the important role of Members of Parliament in raising these cases, and I hope that everybody has good relationships with their local police.
Police and crime commissioners have an important role in this space as well. They are the ones who are directly elected and responsible for holding their chief constable to account for the force’s performance, and they are also responsible for the appointment, suspension and removal of chief constables. They have the ability to determine which officer is best placed to lead the force.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I am an MP from Sussex. We are about to go through local government reorganisation and see the creation of a Sussex mayor, and as part of that process, the role of the police and crime commissioner is going to become redundant. How does the Minister think that new mayoral responsibility is going to work in practice? Is it going to be exactly the same as it currently stands with PCCs, or will it be different?
Sarah Jones
The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. We are moving to a system with an increasing number of mayors, and the functions of police and crime commissioners will roll into the mayoral authority. The responsibilities vary from place to place—the larger devolved mayoral combined authorities are more developed and have bigger teams. We will see these systems develop over time, but it is an interesting development, and one that I think can work. I have worked with mayors who have that policing function who have had a deputy mayor who has the police and crime commissioner role. That works very well—it can be a powerful thing—but of course, people do not like the changeover. If the hon. Lady identifies particular problems or challenges, I am happy to have conversations with her and pick those up.
I should conclude, or we will run out of time. I thank the hon. Member for North Cornwall for securing the debate and for remembering his constituents, on whose behalf he has brought these issues before Parliament. I would like to think that as we move towards the reform of professional standards across the whole of policing, we will recognise that a lot of the challenges we face are matters of resource. It is not that the people who are doing the policing are not great people; it is often a matter of time and resource. However, it cannot be right that people have to wait such long periods of time and feel such frustration. Of course, I will look at the case that the hon. Member has raised—if he writes to me with more detail, I will be happy to look at it in more detail—but I thank him again, and thank everybody else for their useful contributions tonight.
Question put and agreed to.
Immigration System
Alison Bennett Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Yvette Cooper
One of the most important aspects of the White Paper will be the increase in the immigration skills charge, meaning that where employers are recruiting from abroad and there are shortage occupations, they will be contributing more to support skills and training here in the UK, including support for our young people to get the apprenticeships and jobs they need.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
The announcements today will deepen social care workforce shortages and risk harm to those who receive care. Have the Government considered the impacts on the sick, the frail and the elderly who rely on care workers to provide vital support? Will the Government publish an impact assessment setting out the effect of their reforms, and what will they do for the quality and availability of care and about the work of the Casey commission?
Yvette Cooper
As I pointed out in my statement, the number of care workers recruited from abroad has fallen since the initial big increase, and it is important to prevent such an increase taking place again, because we have seen significant exploitation. As a result of introducing higher standards, 39,000 care workers were displaced: they came here to do jobs that either did not exist or did not meet the right standards. We urge care providers to recruit from the pool of people who are already here.
Church of England: Safeguarding
Alison Bennett Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Luke Myer
I could not agree more; that is the crux of my speech. It is essential that the victims and survivors are heard. I am grateful to the Minister and the Second Church Estates Commissioner, both of whom are leaders on these matters, for being here to hear the stories and to respond.
The stories include that of Mr X, who was the first and only survivor to have an ISB case review published. Throughout his life, Mr X has sought justice after he was abused by three individuals in the Church. He ended up having his business and livelihood destroyed by civil litigation and he is yet to see justice. Another survivor told me of an ongoing, decades-long fight for justice. West Midlands police commented on the case:
“it doesn’t normally take 20 years for a complaint to be investigated”.
Another survivor, a woman who wishes to remain anonymous, told me that she now has a heart monitor because of her severe panic attacks. She told me:
“The priest that abused me still lives in my area. The community has ostracised me and I am now housebound, I want the truth to come out. Jas and Steve have supported me the best they can, at one point we talked every week. If they had not been there I think I would have taken my life.”
Another survivor told me that he feels that previous recommendations have fallen on deaf ears, with steps to protect perpetrators rather than to support victims. Perhaps most harrowingly of all, one of the ISB 11, who is just over 18 years old, having initially suffered abuse at the age of eight, is still fighting for justice. At such a young age, he has already been waiting over half his life to see justice. I have no doubt that many Members across this House will have heard similar stories.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate and for setting out what has happened in such measured terms. Mr X is a constituent of mine. I spoke to him this afternoon, and he described to me the catalogue of betrayals that he has been subject to from the age of 12 until now at the age of 56, initially through the abuse and then through subsequent failings by the Church of England. I thank my constituent for retelling his story to me; it is the 28th time that he has had to re-tell the story to a stranger. I thank him for sticking his neck out to try to get change. He told me that he has lost the ability to walk away from this. Does the hon. Member agree that it is only through meaningful accountability from the Church of England that he will get justice?
Police Grant Report
Alison Bennett Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Sarah Olney
The hon. Gentleman is precisely right. Having had conversations with local police teams, what I find frequently is that there is a large turnover of police officers in neighbourhood policing, which really affects the ability of police officers to develop a relationship with their local communities. That lack of experience can be so telling when it comes to responding to issues such as antisocial behaviour.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
Although I represent a Sussex constituency, when I knock on doors in towns across my constituency I often discover that I have Met police officers living in my patch. I vividly remember a conversation last year with an officer in Burgess Hill, who told me the only reason he was still in the police was out of loyalty to his colleagues. Does my hon. Friend agree that more needs to be done to boost morale in the police?
Sarah Olney
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I speak to my local police officers—the officers patrolling the streets of my constituency—I find very often that they actually live quite some distance from the communities they serve. That is obviously a direct result of the cost of living in London, but it creates a real problem for Londoners in that they are not served by Londoners in the police force. My hon. Friend is also exactly right about morale—that really has to be urgently addressed.
This story is common across London. More than 100 police stations have been closed by the Met, while there has been a 64% reduction in community policing since 2015. However, the Met is now in a position where it cannot sell off any more of its estate to balance its budget, and it is clear that it requires a significant influx of funding.
The Metropolitan police is responsible for policing regular and well-attended protests in central London, which require a greater intensity of resource to police. In Richmond Park, we regularly see our local officers abstracted away from their neighbourhood responsibilities to provide additional support at these events, which has resulted in a lack of cover on our streets, which adds to people’s anxieties about the lack of policing.
Recently, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has warned about the deeply concerning shortfall faced by the Met. In December, referencing a £450 million funding shortfall, the commissioner warned that if substantial funding is not provided, the Met would be forced to cut 2,300 officers and 400 members of staff in the next financial year. The funding proposed by the Government today is, therefore, a drop in the ocean compared with what is required to prevent cuts to our London officers, and this provision of funding is certainly not in keeping with the Government’s promise to restore neighbourhood policing numbers to our communities.
While I cannot match the speeches on rural crime from my hon. Friends the Members for Winchester (Dr Chambers) and for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), my constituency does have a significant police force, the Parks police, which specifically patrols the Royal Parks. The Parks police plays a crucial role in keeping crime and antisocial behaviour in the Royal Parks across London to a minimum, while its expertise in its domain enables the force to quickly address emergency situations. In response to a survey I recently conducted, nearly 1,000 of my constituents voiced their strong opposition to any proposed cuts to the Parks police, as well as providing first-hand accounts of times the Parks police helped to provide a quick resolution to what could otherwise have developed into a crisis situation.
With all that in mind, will the Minister provide us with assurances that the new grant funding for our police forces will mean that cuts to such important and valued police departments are not on the table? I urge the Minister to go further, and to really consider the specific demands of the Metropolitan police and the valuable work it does right across our city in keeping our community safe.
Respect Orders and Antisocial Behaviour
Alison Bennett Excerpts(9 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Dame Diana Johnson
I welcome my hon. Friend; her experience as a former prison officer will be invaluable in this place, bringing that knowledge to share in our debates. She is absolutely right; prevention, which has been ignored for too long, is really important, particularly in relation to young people. That is why we will set up the Young Futures programme—the youth hubs—to, as the Home Secretary said, wrap our arms around those teenagers who might be getting into trouble, making the wrong decisions, and getting involved in things that they should not be involved in, and we will have that preventive pathway to ensure that they start to take the right steps forward.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
My constituent Linda, along with other members of my community, is extremely concerned about antisocial behaviour in Burgess Hill. Car racing, e-scooters and bike thefts are causing fear and distress to residents across the town. As the Minister noted in her statement, the impact of that behaviour should not be minimised. I have raised these issues with both Sussex police and the police and crime commissioner. What can the Minister do to ensure that Sussex police have sufficient resources to stop a small number of perpetrators having a disproportionate effect on law-abiding constituents across Mid Sussex?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Sussex Members of Parliament are listening very closely to the Minister.