Police Service: New Governance Structure

Baroness Newlove Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, for bringing this debate to the House. From the number of speakers, your Lordships can see what a popular and hot topic this is. I look forward to hearing the speeches from so many noble Lords who, from their professional backgrounds, are knowledgeable and experienced. I want to concentrate on one aspect about which I have true knowledge and I shall speak from the heart. I refer to victims and how we will be served in the light of the new policing challenges that lie ahead.

I am a huge supporter of the police. I am very honoured to be one of the judges of the police bravery awards. However, when we read reports about where policing has gone wrong, poor record keeping, lack of communication, leaving it for others to do and passing the buck feature in every one. Sadly, the Hillsborough report, the serious failings in Rotherham and the inappropriate relations with the press we have seen in Leveson have knocked the public’s confidence in the police.

Police and crime commissioners are the most significant democratic reform of policing in our lifetime. They will work with the police to cut crime, give the public a voice at the highest level, hold forces to account and help restore trust. They are an independent voice but, most importantly, PCCs will have a duty to listen to victims and champion their interests. For the very first time, victims of crime will have a clear role in determining what the police should focus on and how. This is a massive step forward in helping the police and other services do their best for victims and put their experiences at the heart of how they deal with crime. It has to be less bureaucratic as real people’s lives are being blighted. For me it is about the language we use, understanding the problem, owning the problem and, more importantly, the solution.

What is it like being a victim? I am not going to go into my full story because I think noble Lords know it, but I shall tell the House how it feels. In 2007, I lost my late husband, but before that I was an activist in my community. The police never came out. They gave you a criminal record number for criminal damage. When you constantly go to meetings to say that you have problems on your street, you do not see the chief constable, you see messengers. While they might be very good officers, they are messengers. For me, it was essential that we got the top man. If you are at the top, you work for the people and speak to the people. I never saw that. As I walked back from a community meeting, I said, “Nothing will be changed until somebody is murdered”. Sadly, that was my late husband, Garry. You are made to feel vulnerable, you are made to think that it is in your mind, you have no solutions and nobody comes to your door.

A joined-up partnership is essential to stop this. It is a silent killer when nobody gives you an answer when you daily suffer intimidation and criminal damage to property that you work damn hard to keep nice. When you are told that it does not affect your street by somebody who lives on another street, it is very irritating. PCCs have a remit to bring all agencies together. I am concerned that we do not do that now. My late husband was killed in 2007, and I have had so many insults from agencies that do not work together. At a conference that I was speaking at, someone from one agency honestly and openly said to me that he had looked at his data and said, “Oh thank God, they weren’t on my patch”. How dare an individual who is at the top of his game in an agency that is there to protect the public say to me, “I could sleep”. I could not sleep, and I lost my husband because I could not sleep. This is the reality of real life on the street.

Whitehall talks a different language. I have to admit that I do not know a lot of that language, but I am honest and will say, “Could you put in plain English?”. I have no disrespect for your knowledge or your work path, but people on the street are not interested in police budgets or in the internal bickering and infighting. They want to feel safe on their streets. At the moment, while we say that crime is down, the perception of crime is very high.

Therefore, I would say to police and crime commissioners that the public are not interested in the colour of the party they come from. They want to feel safe in their streets. PCCs should not use victims or communities as a strapline and then go away. That strapline has been broken. We need issues to be resolved. The public need to know that they have a police and crime commissioner that they can go to. He or she is the pinnacle. No one should be dismissive of anyone when they do not know who is going to be elected. No one knows what is going to happen but there will be good and bad practices. Everything is risky.

I have to say that I did not know my chief constable until Garry was murdered in 2007. In 2012, I want to know who my police and crime commissioner is and, by God, I will be knocking on his or her door to make sure that he or she makes the community safer and sticks to the manifesto. Policing has to be accountable and must have a level of governance. People’s lives cannot be used. Lives are being lost and the lives of others are being blighted.