Policing (England and Wales)

Chris Loder Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I would like to begin by putting on record our continuing gratitude for the selfless service, bravery and professionalism shown by our police officers and police staff. This pandemic has been a powerful reminder—not, frankly, that one should have been needed—of the risks they take daily on our behalf. I say to the Minister that warm words are not enough. It is scant recognition for these officers and staff that they are rewarded for their efforts throughout the pandemic with a pay freeze.

I call on the Minister to work quickly with the Health Secretary to introduce concrete plans to make good on lukewarm commitments to prioritise frontline officers in the vaccine roll-out. We know that officers are not able to control who they come into contact with—they are unable to socially distance as they go about their duties—so it is vital that they are able to be vaccinated as soon as possible. Officers have made the ultimate sacrifice and died from covid while on service, so it is vital that we extend that protection as soon as possible.

Even before the pandemic, the risks and the pressures heaped on police officers have increased significantly over the past decade. Attacks on police officers have jumped by 50% over the past five years. That is, sadly, unsurprising when we have seen such steep increases in violence and violent crime on the streets and in homes across the country. Officers have been placed in an impossible position. This Government oversaw huge cuts to police officer and staff numbers. Between 2010 and 2019, police officer numbers fell by 21,000. At the same time, there have been huge cuts to the services that are vital to preventing crime in the first place—youth clubs, mental health services, local councils and probation.

The Home Secretary and other Ministers like to talk tough, but the reality is that they are soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime. [Interruption.] The results have been devastating for victims of crime right across the country. The Minister chuckles, but in fact, violent crime has risen in every single police force area. In 2019-20, violence as a proportion of all police recorded crime reached its highest level since comparable records began. The Home Office’s own research has shown the link between cuts to police officer numbers and violent crime. It is good that the Government have finally woken up to the huge damage that their police cuts have done to public safety and started to replace some of the huge numbers of officers they have cut. However, it should not have taken the devastation that rising crime has caused to families and communities across the country to spark that action.

In terms of the new recruits promised, I call on the Government to do everything possible to improve diversity in recruitment. I know all Members will agree that joining the police is a noble calling, and it is vital that police services look like the communities they serve. That is one of the many lessons we need to learn from the powerful testimonies that so many black people have shared in the past nine months, and it is incumbent upon us to act. There are excellent examples of initiatives to try to improve diversity that it would be good to share across the country. Much more needs to be done to ensure that officers from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities rise through the policing ranks, and we must put in place better structures to enable greater community involvement in police training.

Looking more widely across the criminal justice landscape, I again call on Ministers to properly commit to fully implementing the recommendations in the Lammy review and other reviews that the Government have commissioned in recent years. It is vital that we all live up to the words uttered on building a more equal society.

[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for giving way. He suggests that the Government are giving warm words in their commitment to the police, which I wholly disagree with. The Mayor of London has kindly given an exemption from the congestion charge in London to emergency workers, but not to police officers and police staff. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman might share his view on whether real prioritisation of the police is something that the Labour party supports.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

It is nice actually to take an intervention. That is not something we can do regularly in House debates at the moment, but on the point raised by the hon. Gentleman in his attempt to criticise the Mayor of London, I have to say that the Mayor of London has been taking action on violent crime. The rise in violent crime is right across the country. In terms of prioritising police officers for the vaccine, that is precisely the case I am putting to the Government. They have been saying warm words about that, too, and I am asking them to make good on those warm words that I know they have been uttering to police representatives for some time. We would all agree about the dangers that police officers put themselves in every day, which is why I am asking for this action to take place.

Moving back to the funding of the commitment on police recruitment, as ever with this Government, the devil is in the detail, and the policing grant is no different. I point out, first, that when the Prime Minister pledged to increase the number of police officers, he did not make it clear to voters that a significant proportion of it would rely on increasing the council tax precept by £15 a year, at a time when family finances are very hard-pressed. In his opening remarks, the Minister described it as flexibility; I would describe it as a Government who are not putting the needs of families first.

Will the Minister confirm why the Government have decided to slow the speed of police recruitment so sharply? He will be aware that police forces across the country were planning for 6,000 officers to be recruited in year 1, 8,000 in year 2, and 6,000 in year 3. However, we now know that there will be 6,000 officers recruited this year and presumably 8,000 in year 3. What is the reason for this worrying slowdown, which will mean thousands fewer officers on our streets?

Also, it will not have escaped attention that there is a sharp decline in the amount of funding that the Government have allocated to recruiting the promised officers for this year. When setting a target for 6,000 officers for 2020-21, the amount of money allocated was £750 million, but for 2021-22 the amount for the same number of officers—6,000—has sharply reduced to £400 million. The Minister may say that that is in part due to so-called front-loading of costs for additional officers.

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[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this debate. I have listened intently to the debate this afternoon, and there have been many impassioned contributions to it. There has been much criticism of the Government, but I just want to say to Members on the Opposition Front Bench that there are opportunities for the Labour Mayor of London to show real appreciation of our police officers here by making sure that police officers can be exempt from the congestion charge in the same way as other emergency service workers are. I would implore them to make their petitions to the Mayor.

Today I would like to very much commend Chief Constable James Vaughan of Dorset Police and the whole Dorset force for the sterling work they have done over the years, but particularly over the last 12 months. It is also fitting that I thank the outgoing police and crime commissioner, Martyn Underhill, for his service and work as an independent police and crime commissioner for Dorset. I also very much commend the Conservative candidate, David Sidwick, who will be standing in the forthcoming election in May.

I am particularly pleased that, despite some political movements calling for the police force to be defunded, the Government continue their commitment not just to fund the police but to grow their capability. Dorset policing has had an uplift under those arrangements of £7.7 million. Thirty-nine more police officers are committed to Dorset, and I know that the coastal town of Lyme Regis in my constituency will benefit specifically.

I cannot let this opportunity pass without specifically commending those Dorset police officers who have worked extremely hard during this period of covid. Many Dorset police officers were prepared to go and support other parts of the country—particularly Kent, with the ports in the run-up to the end of the year. On behalf of all the constituents of West Dorset, I cannot say enough how grateful we are to those fearless members of the police force. I should also say that I speak on behalf of my colleague and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and, I am sure, all other Members from Dorset in the debate.

It is quite rare for a Member from Dorset to be interested in Northumbria. Despite the fact that the Government are making good progress and we are seeing an extra £7.7 million, the Minister will well know from our previous correspondence that the police funding formula, and Dorset seeing more and being more fairly treated under it, are very important to me. We in Dorset received just 51% of our police funding through the national police funding formula, whereas Northumbria receives 80%. I very much look forward to the coming year, when I am sure the Minister will do as much as he can to review that formula.

As I have pointed out, Dorset has done a huge amount, but I would like to highlight the fact that we have many challenges with crime. The ongoing difficulty is actually growing when it comes to county lines. Small market towns—my home town of Sherborne, as well as Lyme Regis, Bridport, Dorchester and Beaminster—are now seeing county lines activity, and not just a little. We are seeing cuckooing at a level I never, ever thought I would see in the rural constituency of West Dorset. We see drugs being trafficked from Liverpool, from London, from Bristol and from across the country to this rural and coastal constituency. That is what is driving me to ensure that the Minister knows we feel very strongly about the funding formula. We in Dorset need to get to grips, as other parts of the country do, with the county lines disgrace we see across our country today. I am sure the Minister will take that on board. Hon. Members who have spoken in the debate—particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) and for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous)—have articulated similar concerns from their constituencies, and I reiterate those.

In 2014, when I was a councillor on West Dorset District Council, I fought hard to ensure that our rural police stations remained open. That was at a time when I did not quite see eye to eye with the outgoing police commissioner, but none the less we found a way to keep them open and to keep access to them open to the local community. It is fair to say that we need to do more in that area now, and I implore the Minister, in his work going forward, to give that due consideration, for which I thank him very much.