Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I fear this may be a repeat performance. That case is now subject to appeal, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment before the appeal hearing is held.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of the recent case of a triple murderer who sued the Ministry of Justice for more than £800 because of alleged damage to his personal effects, including a nose hair clipper that went missing. Was legal aid allowed for the prisoner to bring that case? If so, was it a good use of taxpayers’ money?

[Chris Grayling]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that while I share his revulsion, the availability of legal aid was not a part of that case. The reforms we have put in place mean that prisoners cannot access legal aid for such cases, or indeed for a wide range of cases relating to conditions in the prisons they are kept in. I do not believe the taxpayer should be funding such court cases.

Police Federation Reform (Normington Report)

David Ruffley Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee, who speaks many words of wisdom. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) on initiating this debate. As he has pointed out, the Police Federation was set up nearly 96 years ago, as part of a concordat between the police and Her Majesty’s Government. A simple deal was struck: in return for not striking and not joining a trade union, the police would have a federation that would have unprecedented access to Ministers and would receive taxpayers’ money. Over many years, the federation built up a superb reputation for being measured, fair-minded and discreet. It built that strong brand, which was the envy of many other representative organisations and trade associations in this country and around the world.

When I first became an MP, the Police Federation actually had parliamentary advisers on both sides of the House, as my right hon. Friends the Members for Haltemprice and Howden and for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) will well recall. When I first came here, the adviser was the then Member for Bury St Edmunds, Eldon Griffiths, and he was followed by Sir Michael Shersby, the Member for Uxbridge at the time. They were well paid, as indeed was the Labour representative of the Police Federation, they were always called early in debates and they had a status within the House that gave them the chance to speak up for the police. That was accepted as being within the traditions of the House and it was very much part of the concordat struck all those years ago.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden has pointed out, there has been an incredibly unfortunate downhill spiral, which probably started 20 or 30 years ago, and professional standards have slipped. Part of the blame must lie with the previous Government, who in many ways undermined the police. They lost the confidence of the police on many different issues, not least through their determination to drive through force mergers and the fact that they encouraged the building up of this compensation culture.

My right hon. Friend has listed a large catalogue of examples that point to a totally unacceptable culture within the national Police Federation. I have had a lot of dealings with my local police federation in Norfolk, and I stress that at all times the people there have been totally professional and really impressive. They have gone out of their way to stand up for the interests of members of the constabulary within my constituency, and I do not believe they have ever leaked anything to the press or done anything that would undermine the integrity of the local police federation. Unfortunately, that excellent set of high standards and conduct has not been replicated within the Police Federation nationally. He described a culture of excess, explaining that it is so well exemplified by the new headquarters at Leatherhead and the whole saga of different incidents that have taken place over the past few years.

I wish to discuss two recent incidents that have led to grave concerns. The first is the behaviour of the three Police Federation members who went to the office of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield in his constituency: Inspector Ken MacKaill, Detective Sergeant Stuart Hinton and Sergeant Chris Jones. Their behaviour was totally and utterly unacceptable. They were shown to have lied and to have misled the Select Committee, and they should have been dismissed immediately.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my disbelief that when the three midlands officers were invited to give an apology in the Home Affairs Committee they declined to do so?

[Mr Bellingham]

Indeed. Their performance was utterly abysmal and it brought the federation into huge disrepute.

The other incident relates to what happened outside the gates of No. 10 Downing street. PC Richardson, the officer on duty, was quoted the other day as saying that it was “so wrong” of federation officials to stage-manage the incident. He said:

“It was nothing to do with them. Certain people thought they had a silver bullet with which they could overturn police reforms.

I’m speaking out because I feel I have been betrayed by the leakers, mischief makers and sections of the Federation. It has caused me 18 months of grief and by going public I expect I’ll get a lot more.”

That speaks volumes about a culture that has to change, and change soon.

In conclusion, we now have the Normington report, which contains a set of positive, constructive recommendations. Every hard-working, decent police officer up and down the country must reclaim their federation and try to restore it to the glory days of the past, when they had a federation that was the envy of every other organisation in this country. The Normington report provides the opportunity to do it, if it is accepted in full and implemented in full.

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[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, at the end of a very good debate. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and his colleagues on securing this timely debate. I pass on the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), who is the official Opposition spokesperson on policing matters. He has a long-standing constituency engagement, so I have been repatriated back from immigration to police matters to wind up the debate.

I declare a sort of interest, in that as a former police Minister and as the then shadow Minister, I met Sir David Normington and members of his review team to give them my private view of the issues we are debating today. I am glad that the analysis that has come out—there is broad consensus on it across the House—is what I shared with Sir David at my meeting with him.

There is common consensus not only about the issues raised in the Normington report, but about how the police do a good job in very often dangerous and difficult circumstances. The hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) has just mentioned that point, as did the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz); I look forward to his Select Committee’s report on this matter.

I had the very great privilege of attending the bravery awards, as the Minister will have done, for officers who have put their lives and limbs at risk in very dangerous circumstances. There is no officer who does not wake up every day of the week potentially to face a life-threatening situation or to have to seek a depth of courage that none of us in this Chamber has to experience. Even this week, police officers have been deployed to deal with floods and serious crimes. If the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden was in his place, I would tell him that every year I have had the privilege of attending memorial services for officers who have given their lives for their community. The police memorial services that I have attended have been dignified, solemn events, at which the police have paid tribute to their fellow officers.

On behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition, I welcome the fact that the Police Federation itself commissioned the Normington report. I also welcome the fact that the Police Federation recognises that mistakes have been made and that it might be out of touch with its members, as has been discussed, and that it has acknowledged the need for reform. As has been expressed from both sides of the House, the Police Federation independent review is a candid, frank, hard-hitting and strong report. The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) referred to that in his speech. The report looks in detail at how the federation operates and how its membership is represented, as well as at its structures, finance and professionalism, and it makes 36 wide-ranging recommendations for change.

We should remember a point that has been slightly lost in the debate, which is that Sir David Normington and his team were commissioned to produce the report by the Police Federation itself. Even given what hon. Members have said, there is scope for the federation to reflect on the report and its contents.

I spoke this morning to Steve Williams, who is the chair of the Police Federation. He happens to be from my local North Wales police, where he has been a senior officer for many years. He has been officially in post as chair only since last May, but he took over after the sad death of Paul McKeever in January. I think that he recognises the concerns expressed from both sides of the House about the need for reform and review. I know from talking to him that since the report was published that the Police Federation has held meetings across the whole of England and Wales this week in a two-day examination of the recommendations. I think that there is clear support for the direction of travel, and I hope that when the federation meets in May matters can be resolved in a way that meets the aspirations of every hon. Member who has spoken today.

[Mr Ruffley]

Is it the right hon. Gentleman’s understanding that the Police Federation has adopted all the Normington recommendations in full?

[Mr Hanson]

I have only had a brief conversation with the chair this morning, but I know that the Police Federation is trying to decide a response to put to its conference in May. I am not a member of the federation or party to its discussions, so I can do no better than to repeat the Home Secretary’s words at Home Office questions two weeks ago. She said:

“It is important that the federation has had the review.”

She went on that if changes are required, the Home Office would

“stand ready to work with the federation on them.”

She also said that the chair wanted

“properly to review the federation’s role and whether it represents officers”,—[Official Report, 27 January 2014; Vol. 574, c. 651.]

but that it is for the Police Federation, which initiated the review, to look at such issues. In his speech, the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) reflected that the Police Federation should have a chance to look at the issues.

The hon. Members for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham) and the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway) have all supported the recommendations. On behalf of the official Opposition, I want the federation to look very closely at resolving to support the recommendations, which include the important issues of having a revised core purpose; an annual public review of value for money; national guidelines on expenses, honoraria and hospitality; the publication of all expenses and of accounts; guidance for local forces about committee papers; a director of equality and diversity, which was a point made by the hon. Member for North West Norfolk; a rolling three-year equality plan; and an examination of professional standards, as well as ensuring that there is proper capacity of professional staff at head- quarters. The creation of an executive team, proper governance and decision making, a new professional means of selecting the general secretary and the election of the chair by the whole membership are positive recommendations to which I hope the federation will respond positively.

There may be some water between Government Members and me on the fact that I take the view that the Police Federation is a body in its own right, and that the best person to reform it is the federation itself. If it does not, there will certainly be matters for this House to look at, but only in due course.

The report relates to police professionalism and the need for reform more generally. The Police Federation needs to be part of that reform. The Independent Police Commission report on the future of policing, chaired by Lord Stevens, was established by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper).

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[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

May I express my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) who was its principal proposer, and to my 12 colleagues and both Front-Bench speakers who have contributed to it?

I contribute as a former special adviser in the Home Office during the rocky times with the Police Federation in 1992-93, when the then Home Secretary was trying to push through the Sheehy reforms. More recently, I was shadow police Minister in the previous Parliament. I am also contributing, and I declare an interest, as a friend and supporter of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), whose treatment by certain elements of the Police Federation led ultimately to this debate and to discussion of the Normington report.

The Normington report is a scathing and searing deconstruction of a deeply dysfunctional organisation, and if there is a more critical report commissioned by a body of itself, I have yet to see it. The “top-to-bottom” overhaul of the organisation—those are the words of Normington—refers to

“its cultures, behaviours, structures and organisation”,

and I wish to emphasise at the start of my remarks that we should not allow this matter to become a cosy understanding with the Police Federation that it will reform itself. I have been in this place too long to see well-argued and important reports lost. Everyone agrees that the recommendations should be carried out, but then they plough into the sand. That is why I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend the Minister say that he would not shrink from using the legislative tools at his disposal to ensure that the necessary reforms and recommendations in the report are implemented if the federation does not get on with doing that itself.

The report refers to

“a phased programme of reform over the next two to three years,”.

I would like the federation to publish a clear timetable that we can come back to and debate in this Chamber, to see how quickly it is implementing the reforms. The reason we need that is that Fiona McElroy, a former principal private secretary to the Attorney-General, no less, was sacked because she had “serious concerns” about the management of the federation’s accounts. Most troubling is that—this was only a few days ago—she was opposed by a “vocal minority” who were resisting attempts to implement the changes recommended by the Normington report. I am afraid I am not as sanguine as many colleagues who have contributed today about the ability of senior members of the Police Federation to reform themselves. Who are these individuals and to whom are they accountable? Given the evidence I have cited, they seem to be a roadblock to reform.

[Mr Blunt]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Ruffley]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I shall not give way as I am aware of the time.

The report mentions many things, but it begins by mentioning the police reform proposals—not just those by our excellent Home Secretary, but I think this would also apply to some of the reforms at the end of the previous Parliament—and states that the federation was

“a weak voice in the discussions around reforms.”

Speaking from experience, I found that too many senior leaders of the Police Federation were—and I regret to have to say this—much more interested in pay and rations, remuneration and pension changes, important though those are, than in changes to police working practices, reducing police bureaucracy, and all the things that are central to modernising the police service today.

On accountability and ethics, Normington has quite a bit to say:

“Throughout our inquiry we have heard allegations that some Federation representatives…have personally targeted successive Home Secretaries, Andrew Mitchell, Tom Winsor and others”,

Colleagues have mentioned that issue, but I was particularly struck by what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said. He reminded us of the constitutional position that the police service—and, by extension, the Police Federation—has in this country. It has a constitutional responsibility to be utterly impartial, to make judgments and decisions free from political interference or bias, and to do so without fear or favour. It should be beyond politics, but the history of the Police Federation over the past few years shows that that constitutional obligation to which my hon. Friend referred has not been fulfilled.

Then there are the views of the elected representatives and the people who run the organisation. Normington states:

“There was considerable evidence of distrust among elected representatives, exacerbated by divisions and mistrust at Head Office”

in Leatherhead.

What about the professionalism that we need to engender in the Police Federation and the change of culture? That is the subject of recommendation 1, which hon. Members have drawn attention to, and which I think is worth reading into the record:

“The Federation should adopt immediately a revised core purpose which reflects the Police Federation’s commitment to act in the public interest, with public accountability, alongside its accountability to its members. This should be incorporated in legislation as soon as practicable.”

I disagree with only one bit of that: it should not be “as soon as practicable” but now.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden said in his outstanding opening speech that we need an early adoption of the report, not this May when the Police Federation’s triennial elections are held. Before those elections we need a clear statement from anyone seeking to stand for office in May that they will adopt and sign up to every one of the Normington proposals. Without that, I think we are entitled to feel that they are not acting in good faith. There is unanimity across the party divide, including from the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) speaking for the Opposition, and who made a helpful speech, and from Conservative Members. It is perfectly clear, beyond peradventure, that no one can have any doubt about the necessity of these proposals.

We also need to remember the phrase “Follow the money”, although we should not read too much into the fact that it comes from the Watergate scandal. If I have gleaned anything from the debate, it is colleagues’ comments—they have obviously read the report—on the financial opacity and the scandalous lack of accountability, not only in respect of members’ subscription fees, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) said, but of the taxpayer money that goes into the Police Federation, which, as has been mentioned, is a statutory body. Surpluses have been generated at national level and substantial reserves have been amassed. They put the organisation on a sustainable footing, but, by the way, that is largely the result of an increase in subscription charges of more than 23% in 2010 alone.

That is not the end of it. The 43 branch boards operate as separate businesses. Together, they have reserves of approximately £35 million. The report raises concerns about the lack of accountability. After its publication, I heard Sir David Normington say that although he was brought in by the Police Federation to undertake an independent forensic review, he was denied access to the No. 2 accounts. Who denied him access? We should be told. Why were there any bars on his looking into the No. 2 accounts? It is why recommendation 31 is:

“All accounts including Number 2, group insurance and member services accounts, funds, and trusts to be published. A general financial transparency clause is needed in regulations”

for which, I might add, the House will have responsibility,

“including a requirement to publish and report all income that derives from and funds Police Federation activity.”

Normington also says that all branches should be required to publish full accounts online. Those of us who are subject to the rigorous Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority regime will say that it is about time they did that. I very much look forward to that so I can look up the accounts of the branches in my part of East Anglia.

Recommendation 36, on finance, states:

“There should be a 25 percent reduction in subscription levels for one year in 2015 financed by the reserves of the rank central committees. An extension of this one-off reduction should be reviewed for subsequent years on the basis of existing reserves, reserves in unpublished accounts, and an estate strategy once the reform package is complete.”

The report demonstrates that a review could mean further reductions in the subscription levy. I believe that members of the federation should actively consider that and hold their elected representatives to account. In that respect, I want to steal a phrase from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham) who, in an excellent speech, reminded us of a great tradition of the Police Federation and some of its good history, but also said that now is the time for its members to reclaim their federation. Subscription levels would not be a bad place to start.

On the estates strategy, my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden said that, ultimately, the sale and disposal of that palace of varieties, which has cost excessive amounts of money to build and run, could be a sign of true culture change on the part of the federation—the kind of change of ethos for which the report so powerfully calls.

I should like to comment on a few of the speeches that have been made in the debate that are worthy of note. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) repeated something that many colleagues have said. He said that recent events have shown that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield has been completely vindicated. The right hon. Gentleman also questioned whether it was remotely sensible, appropriate or seemly to continue suing members of the public, including my right hon. Friend.

We heard eloquent contributions from the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and from my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway). My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate reminded us that there could be a £500 per member dividend, but asked whether restitution could be made to the British taxpayer, who will have an interest in those huge sums, many of which are not accounted for.

My hon. Friends the Members for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) spoke from huge experience as forensic members of the Home Affairs Committee. Both talked about the lack of accountability in financial accounting. They also said that many public services have been reformed, but that the way in which the police do business has not been reformed. I pray in aid a phrase used in 2006 by the current Prime Minister. I was speaking to Police Federation Members when the Prime Minister said that the police service is

“the last great unreformed public service”.

My word, they did not like that, but reform should be a reality. They should not fight history but embrace the future.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who pointed out that reform of the interoperability of the blue-light services requires the Police Federation to get with the programme.

I conclude with one observation. The Police Federation must not be a roadblock to reform. It must not block either Her Majesty’s Government’s policy programme of reform or reform of itself.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes the Independent Review of the Police Federation conducted by Sir David Normington and calls upon the Government to take action to implement the report’s recommendations and to reform the Police Federation.

Police

David Ruffley Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Given that the right hon. Lady has presided over this budget in her time, she knows perfectly well that money is not taken from one budget and given to another. One of the big things that the City of London police do is to fight cybercrime and fraud. People in Salford, like those in my constituency and in every other constituency, want the police to be as effective as possible in fighting fraud and cybercrime. That is why that money needs to be spent.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will have looked at the Opposition’s commitments on funding, so will he help me? Will they match our spending totals for policing and the police grant settlement or will they do something different? I am completely in the dark.

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend, as ever, puts his finger on the right point. The shadow Chancellor is saying that an incoming Labour Government would cut departmental spending, but all the mood music from those on the Opposition Front Bench is that they would increase public spending. That is a central incoherence at the heart of Labour policy. I hope that in his response, the shadow policing Minister will clear that up and answer my hon. Friend’s very good question.

Despite having been in post for just over a year, police and crime commissioners have contributed to the transformation of policing. The recent National Audit Office report confirmed that PCCs are driving improvements and value for money in a way that unelected police authorities could not. Their engagement with the public is much greater than that of the old police authorities. For example, one PCC has seen an 800% increase in the volume of correspondence compared with what the police authority received. PCCs have also been at the heart of reform and have embraced new technology. For example, my local force in Kent is using predictive policing, which combines historical data with predictive algorithms to identify the areas that are most likely to be affected by crime, thereby helping it better to allocate resources and target the deployment of officers.

As the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee pointed out, we have set up the College of Policing to increase the professionalism of the police. I am grateful for the support of the Home Affairs Committee for the College of Policing. I want policing to be regarded as one of the great professions, alongside the law and medicine. The college will produce an evidence base on what works and lead a transformation in how police officers and staff do their jobs. The college will soon publish the first ever code of ethics in the history of British policing. Given that we have just been discussing the ongoing Hillsborough process, I am sure that the House will recognise the importance of that code of ethics. It will be a clear declaration of the principles and values that are expected of all police officers. It will ensure that officers act with high ethical standards in all their conduct.

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[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is right. After the 2007 crash, all parties faced the question of how to make reasonable economies. The 12% proposal, which was carefully thought through and which we embraced, would not have put the front line at risk. A 20% cut has put the front line at risk. In addition, the fabric of partnership working is being stretched ever further and our communities are increasingly feeling the consequences.

The Government’s delay in announcing the threshold was unacceptable and has meant that police and crime commissioners were left in the ludicrous situation of having to propose their police precepts, under a statutory duty created by this Government, without knowing whether they would have the power to implement them. We have heard a lot about localism from the Government, but calls from police and crime commissioners for clarity about funding were repeatedly ignored in Whitehall.

Now that we have seen the settlement, I cannot say that it makes up for the hold-up by the Government. The Conservative party and their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, are cutting police funding by 20%. In the last three years, that has already resulted in the loss of more than 15,000 police officers. I have seen firsthand in Birmingham and the west midlands some of the finest police officers one would ever want to meet or work with forced out under the A19 rule.

The loss of 15,000 officers was more than the experts predicted and a higher number than HMIC said would be safe. But the Government plough on regardless with this settlement. It is not only wrong in itself: it is increasingly damaging police morale. The pressure being put on our police by these unsafe cuts is starting to take its toll. Just last weekend, we learned that 800 police officers are off work on full pay as a result of stress-related sickness, costing the taxpayer millions of pounds every year. Just last year, police officers took 250,000 days off because of stress-related illnesses, a 15% increase over the three years up to 2013. Chief constables are blaming staff cuts for the staggering rise in sick days for depression and other mental issues.

In government and in opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn, the distinguished former police Minister, said that some reductions in expenditure were necessary, given the economic circumstances, but as hon. Members have said today, we agreed with HMIC that a cut of 12% could be achieved without harming front-line policing. As we said at the time—it is important to remember this—a reduction of 12% over a Parliament, and of around £1 billion a year by the end of the Parliament, would have involved making tough choices if we were to succeed in protecting police numbers. Such tough choices included cuts in overtime, reform of procurement, collaboration, and altering shift patterns, but we believed then and believe now that that was the right approach, and that those savings were and are possible.

Conversely, the Government’s approach—they have ignored the HMIC advice and cut police funding by 20%—resulted in the loss overall of 15,383 police officers in the first three years of this Parliament, which is more than even the most apocalyptic predictions and proof that going beyond 12% meant cutting police officers, not waste, as my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) has said. The Home Secretary has said:

“Crucially, all the savings that I have set out can be made while protecting the quality of front-line services.”—[Official Report, 23 May 2011; Vol. 528, c. 714.]

She has repeatedly said that, but 10,460 bobbies have gone from our streets since the general election.

[Mr Ruffley]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the concept that falls in crime are determined not only by the number of police officers on the beat, but by how they are organised? It is not just a numbers game.

[Jack Dromey]

I totally agree. Numbers are crucial, but how officers are best deployed is too. I have seen at first hand inspiring examples—I am sure the hon. Gentleman has seen the same in his constituency—of developing relationships with parts of the community in an intelligent way and doing things in a smart way with other partnership agencies, and of sharing buildings and back-office resources. That was at the heart of the 12% HMIC proposal—it said that we should be better and smarter, but cutting 20% is going too far, too fast, with unacceptable consequences for the front line.

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[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) says “cuts”, which he has not promised to reverse; we say “reform”. We have the most reforming Home Secretary in the last 50 years when it comes to running and managing the police. When she entered office, she cleared away hundreds upon hundreds of Labour targets—key performance indicators, public service agreements; targets were coming out of constabularies’ ears—and she said, “We’re going to have one target—to cut crime”. And she is delivering on that target. Crime is down 10% since this coalition came into effect.

As the shadow police reform Minister in the last Parliament, I had occasion to study the history of police reform. What strikes me about the current plans is how coherent and effective Ministers have made their proposals. First, we have introduced locally elected police and crime commissioners, the idea of which was criticised even before it had begun. There was sniping about the low turnout at elections, but let us remember that 5 million people voted in those elections—5 million more than ever voted for local police authorities—and a single focal point of accountability for local people is now a reality.

My own PCC, Tim Passmore, in Suffolk, has frozen the police precept two years running, is driving collaboration with Norfolk constabulary and believes that we should, as other Members have said, look at forcing new savings from police service budgets by amalgamating and collaborating with other blue-light services. We have heard that fire services should be part of the PCC’s remit, and Mr Passmore is arguing hard for that. Also, we need to think much more imaginatively about the sharing of overheads, not just with the fire service, but with county councils. In my own area, it is shocking that the East of England ambulance service trust has four control rooms and mini-headquarters. Those should be sold off and joined up with the other blue-light headquarters of the police constabulary in Suffolk and the fire service.

The police reform agenda that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has begun contains some very coherent national themes. The new National Crime Agency brings coherence to level 2 crime, protective services and fighting organised crime, while under the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims, we have a new focus on increasing productivity among police officers. The numbers game that the Labour party wants to play simply will not wash. It talks about the loss of up to 15,000 uniformed officers since 2010, but it has not pledged to find the money to reinstate those officers, and there is a reason it probably should not bother: it is not just the number of officers that will lead to reductions in crime and better crime prevention; it is how those officers are deployed.

[Hazel Blears]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the reforms relating to serious and organised crime and the NCA depend on the success of neighbourhood policing, because the golden thread of intelligence, which every force relies on, starts at the community level? Unless we have that intelligence feeding all the way through to serious and organised crime and into counter-terrorism, we will lose that connection, and that requires numbers. We cannot build relationships unless we have people on the ground doing that job.

[Mr Ruffley]

The right hon. Lady misunderstands me. I am obviously in agreement that the bedrock of British policing, whether it is level 1, 2 or 3 policing, is neighbourhood policing and safer neighbourhood teams. That is a given. I am suggesting that with better productivity among existing uniformed officers we can deliver the falls in crime further into the future that we have seen in the last three years. How might we do that? The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims has talked about the new generation of productivity tools: electronic tablets, computerised forms and body-worn video cameras that will reduce the amount of form-filling back at the station. My right hon. Friend came to Ipswich a few months ago to see a pilot that Suffolk constabulary is running on body-worn video cameras so that police officers can spend less time behind a desk back at the station computing and filling in forms and can instead get on with visible policing on the front line.

In addition, Ministers have created something that was long overdue and which the Labour party had 13 years to create; a police ICT company that has offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy police technology in a joined-up way, so that we do not have 42 forces doing their own thing and wasting money, with interoperability being limited and the power of bulk purchasing completely ignored.

My right hon. Friend touched on the fact that we need to look not just at higher productivity, but at standards in policing. In that, the Home Secretary has been no slouch either. She has instituted the new College of Policing, which has taken a fresh look at how we professionalise the police service at all levels, with better training and an insistence on higher ethical standards. She is talking about direct entry so that very able men and women from other disciplines—whether the armed forces or business—do not have to do the compulsory two years’ probationary constable time before they can ever run a police force.

The Normington proposals, announced a few days ago, will radically reform the Police Federation and will also engender a higher sense of ethical responsibility among the 125,000 police officers that the federation currently represents. We also have the Winsor review, parts one and two of which are controversial as they make changes to overtime, salary levels and entitlements. But Winsor modernises the work force of the police service so that it conforms to the norms of every other part of the British economy, all other public services and the private sector. Winsor says simply that we should not just pay police officers according to time served, pretty much regardless of their performance. Instead, we should reward specialisms and capabilities so that younger officers who are going out and improving their skills, getting better training and producing higher performance, have that reflected in their remuneration. We are doing that in the teaching profession; it would be inexcusable to make the police an exception. Police exceptionalism in this regard is not sustainable in the public services today.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

I would be interested in my hon. Friend’s views on the future of police community support officers who, in my county of Leicestershire, offer a good presence on the ground and are very good at gaining intelligence that they can pass on to police officers.

[Mr Ruffley]

In response to the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), I said that there is general consensus across the House that neighbourhood policing teams and beat officers are the bedrock of British policing, not just in providing reassurance to the local populace but in being a vital source of intelligence, whether on organised gangs, drug dealing or whatever.

I hope that my hon. Friend will have seen a fall in crime in his constituency. The dramatic 10% fall in the last three years suggests that the claims made by Jeremiahs from the Labour party, and some sections of the police service, that the Conservative spending plans would lead inevitably to a spike up in crime have proved absolutely groundless.

I wish to refer to the numbers and to provide some perspective for the benefit of Members, who might be surprised to learn that in the last year of the previous Conservative government, 1996-97, the gross revenue expenditure on policing services was £6.907 billion. Last year it was £12.887 billion. Those are cash figures that do not take account of inflation. But there has been a doubling in the gross revenue expenditure on police services since 1997. I am glad to see the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) in his place; he is an immensely distinguished and wise Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, which has drawn attention to the statistic that I have just produced.

The very idea that a very tight, and necessarily tight, spending settlement will result in the ceiling falling in, in neighbourhood policing collapsing and in crime going up is fatuous. We have seen in cash terms a doubling in fewer than 20 years. Although policing has got more sophisticated and there are no doubt many greater demands on some parts of our police constabulary, it is still beyond belief to think that these are “savage Tory cuts”. That is the stuff of caricature and we should have no more of it.

If one looks at the Home Office core grant—not the overall spend—one will see that in the last year of the Labour government, 2009-10, the core grant was £4.606 billion. This year it is £4.583 billion. I would not think that that is the kind of reduction in core grant that will lead to a diminution in the efficiency of the police. If anything, it should drive up efficiency and productivity. I repeat; Labour, in this debate and before it, has so far as I am aware—I am sure the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington will correct me after the debate—not promised to reverse those necessary reductions.

[Andrew Bridgen]

My hon. Friend talks about reductions. In my county of Leicestershire, recorded crime is down by 25% since 2010.

[Mr Ruffley]

Those are truly heroic figures and great testimony to the police men and women in the Leicestershire constabulary, to the police and crime panel and to the police and crime commissioner. I have no doubt also that my hon. Friend spends a great deal of time scrutinising and holding the police service in his constituency to account, as do I with my Suffolk colleagues.

In the last year of the Labour Government, Suffolk constabulary, to be parochial just for one moment, saw a principal formula of £41,498,000—again, these are cash figures. In 2014-15, that is projected to rise in cash terms to—wait for this, Madam Deputy Speaker—£43,627,000. If we add in council tax support funding, specific grants and the business rate contribution, which has latterly taken over from the revenue support grant, the total general and specific grants received by Suffolk constabulary in the last year of the Labour Government amounted to £70,969,000. In 2014-15—the year that is the subject of this debate on the grant settlement—the figure is £77,915,000. Total funding for Suffolk in the last year of the Labour Government was £110,335,000; in 2014-15 that will rise to £116,579,000.

I give those details simply to illustrate that this caricature of cuts really does not wash. Although we had 51,000 recorded crimes 10 years ago, Suffolk constabulary posted 38,000 crimes in 2013—a significant fall in our county. Policemen and women in Suffolk deserve the credit for that, which is proof—if proof were needed—that they are doing more and being more productive, against a very tight financial backdrop.

We have had a great deal of shroud waving today and heard a lot of criticism of what should really be a source of celebration—the most modernising package of police reform in over half a century and a clear-eyed and immensely capable Home Secretary seeing through this difficult agenda with much less hostility, criticism and obstruction than anyone would have predicted before the last election. It is in that spirit of purposeful reform, which is embodied in my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, that I conclude my remarks.

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[Mr Ruffley]

If morale and the terms and conditions are as bad as the right hon. Gentleman seems to be saying, is that at all reflected in the numbers of young men and women seeking to join the police service? How is recruitment going?

[Keith Vaz]

That is a very interesting point. I do not know, but I understand that recruitment is not going terrifically well in certain areas of the country, although it is in some. That is why I am concerned about the £1,000 that people have to pay for the certificate in policing. I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about recruitment when he sums up. Of course, rather than young people joining the service, I am talking about very experienced people who want to get out. We need to take that into consideration.

[Keith Vaz]

I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. That is an issue we must deal with and Ministers must engage with the police service much more than they have done.

I agree 100% with the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds about the revolution in policing. I am not sure that I can get away with being quite as nice to the Home Secretary as the hon. Gentleman was, given that I am an Opposition Member of Parliament. I cannot show favouritism because the Home Secretary appears before our Committee—that of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and myself—on a number of occasions and I must be independent. I agree that there has been a revolution in policing and I am on the record as supporting what the Government have done.

If there was a fault of the previous Government, who presided over a golden age in policing in the amount of money given, it was that no questions were asked and no reforms were required. There was a very large cheque—of course, the shadow Minister was not a Member then—

[Mr Ruffley]

It was not his fault.

[Keith Vaz]

It was not. A very large cheque was given but nothing was received in return by way of reform.

The creation of the NCA and the College of Policing and the abolition of the National Policing Improvement Agency, which I do not think functioned particularly well, and of the Serious Organised Crime Agency are examples of where the Government have got it absolutely right. We have a new landscape of policing, but I wonder whether this is the time to go ahead with such widespread cuts while knowing that to get the new structure up and running successfully it must be well resourced. The worst possible thing is to have new structures without providing the money that is necessary for them to do their job. I hope that if those organisations require additional resources they will be given them.

I bumped into Keith Bristow recently as he was coming out of the Home Secretary’s office and I reminded him that he had not appeared before the Committee for a while. He told me of all the NCA’s successes. He is very much a hands-on person and will go on operations, and he invited the Select Committee to join him on an NCA operation. The problem with SOCA was that we never knew what it was doing as well as we know what Keith Bristow and the NCA are doing. Why? Members of the NCA tell the press that they are going to raid someone and everyone turns up and we all know the good work that the agency is doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The decision on whole-life tariffs was entirely regrettable and should not have been taken, and certainly not at the level of an international court. I assure him and all colleagues that the decision simply redoubles my determination to deliver a strategy, which I will do next year, for our party to go into the next general election with a clear plan for change.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

On 4 November in the Chamber, the Home Secretary said that we should consider replacing the Human Rights Act 1998 with a British Bill of Rights. Given that the relevant commission reported to the Secretary of State last December, when can we expect draft legislation to abolish the Act in this Parliament?

[Chris Grayling]

I can give my hon. Friend an assurance that we will publish proposals for change in the new year, and they will include a replacement to Labour’s Human Rights Act 1998. I can also assure him that we, as a party, will publish a draft Bill later next year. Whether the coalition and this Parliament will choose to accept such a Bill, or whether it needs to wait for a majority Conservative Government, is something I suspect we will discover then.

Voting Eligibility (Prisoners)

David Ruffley Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I really believe that is the central issue, which is why I feel so passionately that we need to reform the system, which has moved a long way from the noble motives of its conservative creators, who were trying to address some of the appalling situations that people in Europe found themselves in at the time. It was not about whether prisoners had the right to vote; it was about people being put in mental hospitals for the rest of their lives without trial as an excuse for taking them out of the political process. That is the kind of thing we should be fighting.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on doing something previous Secretaries of State for Justice have not done, which is invoke parliamentary sovereignty, but I gently suggest that that takes us only so far. It is likely that ambulance-chasing compensation claims will be made, so will he indicate what steps he is taking now, by way of contingency planning, to prevent any prisoners from making claims, in either the European Court of Human Rights or English courts, for denial of their alleged human rights?

[Chris Grayling]

I cannot say too much about all the detailed plans I have at the moment—I am in the early stages of thinking through some of the broader issues—but one point I will make is that I have asked the question about the use of the legal aid system for purposes that I do not believe it was designed for. I hope to bring forward further thoughts on that before too long.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

For a long time, victims have felt completely unsupported by the criminal justice system, and it is my job, as victims Minister, to try and put that right. I am glad to have the opportunity to do so. We are raising money for victims through the victims surcharge and the Prisoners’ Earnings Act 1996, and we are giving victims a louder voice through the appointment of a victims’ commissioner. I look forward to making that appointment, and meeting and working with the commissioner.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

3. What plans he has to increase public confidence in community sentences.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

6. What plans he has to increase public confidence in community sentences.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

The Government are determined to ensure that community sentences deliver punishment, rehabilitation and reparation. We are legislating to require courts to include a punitive element in every community order, as the public would expect, and to enable the electronic tracking of offenders.

[Mr Ruffley]

I hope that Justice Ministers will not go soft on introducing an element of shame and real punishment in these new community penalties. I am told that under community payback offenders might wear a yellow vest with the words “community payback” on the back, and that these can be removed if the probation staff think it appropriate. What we need are community punishments where offenders are in the community with orange dayglo boiler suits with the word “offender” on the back to inculcate some sense of shame and to make these tough sentences, not the soft ones we have had up until now.

[Jeremy Wright]

I have a good deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend. When I have seen community payback in the community, it has been evident that those carrying it out are offenders. They are easily identifiable. That is partly for the reasons he gives, but it is also to ensure that people in the community understand that work is being done to repair some of the damage that these offenders have done in the communities where they are working.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

2. What recent representations he has received on the implementation of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

None.

[Mr Ruffley]

I am very grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for that detailed reply. He will know that there is concern, certainly on the Government Benches, that the European Court of Human Rights gives insufficient weight to the decisions of national courts, and that in addition, given the backlog of more than 150,000 cases, the Court is not devoting its entire time and attention to truly serious abuses of human rights. In that context, what are the Government doing to ensure that votes of national Parliaments and decisions by national courts are better taken into account by the European Court?

[Mr Clarke]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. We addressed that during our chairmanship of the Council of Europe. We had a conference at Brighton of all 47 member states and produced the Brighton declaration. Our considerable achievement there was not very widely reported because, not surprisingly, the media regarded it as a footnote to the Abu Qatada case which was in the newspapers at the time. Forty-seven countries agreed that we should have a greater margin of appreciation, to use the jargon, and that more regard should be paid to those decisions of the courts of nation states which had obviously addressed their obligations under the convention. That will have a considerable impact on future cases.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

I think we will be positive about exactly that kind of proposal—we have already published formal consultation proposals to strengthen community sentences, which was one of the recommendations in the report. That is important, because the report itself drew attention to the fact that those who were brought before the courts in relation to the riots had 11 previous convictions, which showed that the justice system had not been effective in dealing with such problem offending.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

Yesterday, the Government published their response to the consultation entitled “Getting it Right for Victims and Witnesses”. For too long, many victims have felt themselves to be an afterthought for the criminal justice system. Our reforms will ensure that victims and witnesses get the support they need when they need it. Our proposals include an aim to raise an additional £50 million from offenders to be spent on victims’ services. Responsibility for commissioning most victims’ services will eventually go to democratically accountable police and crime commissioners, ensuring that decisions about service provision respond to local need. We will reform criminal injuries compensation so that it is focused on victims of serious crime and is sustainable, and there will be a new victims code making it clear what victims can expect from the criminal justice system and ensuring that they are treated with dignity and respect.

[Mr Ruffley]

A UK prisoner is litigating in the European Court of Human Rights asserting his right to vote. When does the Secretary of State expect that decision to be handed down by the Court, and does he expect the House of Commons to be able to vote on the issue of votes for prisoners?

[Mr Clarke]

There has been repeated litigation involving several member states that do not allow prisoners to vote, as we have never done. The most recent litigation was Scoppola v. the Italian Government, in which our Attorney-General intervened on behalf of the British Government to argue that Parliament was more responsible for this issue than the Court. The Government will respond to that judgment, which went against a blanket ban, in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. She will be as pleased as I am to hear that there has been a change in the clinical policy within prisons in regard to how detoxification is undertaken, resulting in a much stronger emphasis on abstinence than on maintenance. We now need to get right the transition of drug-addicted offenders from custody to the community.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

7. Whether he plans to extend the use of private companies in the management of prisons.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

Our plans for competing custodial services are set out in the “Competition Strategy for Offender Services”, published in July 2011. That involves the competing of eight prisons, seven of which are currently in the public sector. We are considering bids from seven providers, including the public sector Prison Service, which has partnered with Mitie and with the Shaw Trust and Working Links in the third sector. That means that even if the public sector-led bid wins all the contracts, the use of private company management will have been extended as a result of this round of competition. We will announce the services selected for phase 3 of the prisons competition in November this year.

[Mr Ruffley]

I congratulate Ministers on introducing private sector disciplines into the Prison Service faster than any of their predecessors. Payment by results will mean that contractors will be rewarded if they cut reoffending rates when prisoners leave jail, and penalised if they do not do so. When does the Minister expect the first benefits of that policy to be seen?

[Mr Blunt]

My hon. Friend has finely summed up the positive benefits of our policy. The first benefits are already being seen in the payment-by-results programmes in the Peterborough and Doncaster prisons. We should remember that the Doncaster prison proposal came forward from Serco, which is rebidding to manage a prison that it already runs. It is proposing to put part of its contract price at risk against its performance in driving down the reoffending rate.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I would be slightly more inclined to take lessons from the hon. Gentleman if he was even vaguely on the money. Within two weeks of the contract going nationwide, the Ministry of Justice was right across the problems and put in place an action plan to address them. The idea that we are not interested in the matter, when we are making £18 million of savings in the provision of interpreters under a process that was commenced under the previous Administration and after interpreters had been grossly overpaid and had taken advantage of the system that was in place under that Administration, is beyond belief.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

T5. The Secretary of State will be aware that the Prime Minister said on 25 January of the European Court of Human Rights that,“we are hoping to get consensus on strengthening subsidiarity—the principle that where possible, final decisions should be made nationally.”Does the Secretary of State agree with me that subsidiarity should start and end with votes for prisoners in this country?

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

The statement that my hon. Friend just read out is the basis on which we are negotiating with the other members of the Council of Europe on reform of the Court in Strasbourg, which everybody agrees needs reform urgently. The principle of subsidiarity is very important. We are not negotiating on existing judgments on any subject. Obviously, we are trying to comply with the obligations of the European convention on human rights in a more effective manner, which I think the courts in this country usually do in their judgments.

Prisoner voting is an entirely separate matter, which the House has already considered. The latest stage is that the Attorney-General has been making representations on behalf of the British Government in an Italian case on which we are awaiting a judgment. The issue is therefore still under legal review.

Police

David Ruffley Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I believe that chief constables—including, notably, the chief constable of Cheshire—are committed to maintaining the quality of their front-line service, and to finding new ways of delivering that service, in the light of the reduced resource that they confront.

The police do important, often difficult and sometimes dangerous work, and we should continue to value police officers and staff. I appreciate that changes to pay and pensions are difficult for them, but reform is necessary. The changes in police pay will not reduce basic pay, and, crucially, will help to protect police jobs, keep officers on the streets, and fight crime. Together, the changes in pay and conditions will save half a billion pounds a year on top of HMIC’s savings.

The second way in which savings beyond those identified by HMIC can be achieved is through forces working together, harnessing their collective buying power and rationalising where duplication is wasteful and inefficient. The 43 forces of England and Wales have between them 2,000 different IT systems and 300 data centres, and employ 5,000 staff, yet—as officers frequently tell me—the IT systems in forces are still not good enough. We are therefore enabling forces to introduce better, more cost- effective IT arrangements, for instance through the proposed new ICT company.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

In the context of smarter and better procurement, can the Minister give us an update on the HMIC figure, which suggested that if all the 43 forces were as efficient procurers as the most efficient, £1.5 billion a year could be saved?

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend has made a good point. HMIC savings were predicated on forces becoming as efficient as the average. One of the points that the Government have been making is that there is no reason why we should not raise force performance to the level of the best. That is not some arbitrary target; we know that some forces are already achieving greater efficiency. We believe that there is potential for at least £180 million of savings per annum through ICT. Forces have already made substantial savings. Police spend was some £73 million lower last year than in 2009-10, and there are opportunities for forces to go further. We are using the national buying power of the police service—indeed, the whole public sector—to do things better and more cheaply. We are requiring the police to procure more and more equipment together. Those changes alone could save a further £200 million per annum by 2014-15.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

If the right hon. Lady agreed with that herself, why does she remain committed to these 20% cuts? That is what she is committed to: the HMIC savings plus the pay savings, the procurement savings, and the savings her shadow police Minister has identified through overtime. All of that adds up to far more than 12%. [Interruption.] She is shaking her head in denial, but that is the truth of the matter. The Opposition are pretending that they are not committed to the same level of cuts, but when pushed, they have to admit that they are. Police officers will know it, and the public will know it. The Opposition cannot credibly campaign against cuts when they remain committed to these levels of reductions in spending themselves.

[Mr Ruffley]

According to the House of Commons Library, if we take the spending review presumption that police authorities will choose to increase the precept at the level forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, there will not be a 20% reduction by 2015; instead, there will be only a 14% reduction in real terms.

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend is, of course, right. If forces choose to increase the precept, under the OBR expectation, the reduction would be less than 20%. Even if all forces froze the precept for the next three years, the reductions in police force budgets would be less than 20%. There is not a single force in the country that is facing a 20% reduction in budget. This is another way in which the Opposition either fail to understand what is going on or seek to present a different picture to the public.

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[Yvette Cooper]

I am afraid that the Policing Minister is living in fantasy land. His figures simply do not add up, because 16,000 police officers are going as a result of his plans. We have made it clear that pay restraint was built into the Labour Government’s proposals from the beginning and we have supported it since; we need pay restraint to deliver the 12% savings. But if we want to protect the number of police officers, we need to have 12% savings and not 20% savings.

The Minister will also know that when HMIC carried out its report that projected that 16,000 officers would be lost, the pay freeze he introduced was already in place. So HMIC has taken into account his pay freeze in saying that 16,000 officers would go and front-line services would be hit. That is happening across the country.

The right hon. Gentleman needs to get in touch with what is happening in police forces across the country, because his coalition partners and Back Benchers are. What are they saying? Across the country—from London to Lancashire, from Norfolk to Devon—MPs are campaigning against cuts and against station closures. Listen to this, from an MP campaigning to stop station closures:

“With well-known faces out on the beat, and a high police visibility, residents clearly feel safer, and crime goes down. Residents…value and cherish their local police team, and don’t want to see their numbers cut.”

That is no rogue Back Bencher straying from the line—that was the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone). I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I did not notify the hon. Lady that I was going to refer to something that she, as a Home Office Minister, had said, which is a convention I like to respect. I had expected, however, that Home Office Ministers would be on the Front Bench to support the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, but it turns out that the Home Secretary cannot even convince her own team, never mind the country, that what she is doing to the police is right.

By the way, where is the Home Secretary? Where is she, on the day that she expects Parliament to vote for the biggest annual cut to police funding for generations?

[Mr Ruffley]

I respect the right hon. Lady, but she must be aware—her memory cannot be failing her that much—that throughout the previous Parliament, the Minister of State responsible for policing always opened this debate and the shadow Minister, which was a post I held for a time, always responded. She knows that full well.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman will also know that in the previous Parliament the Government were not introducing the biggest cut to policing for generations and not taking responsibility for it. Last year, when a Minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government introduced the biggest cuts to council funding in a generation, the Secretary of State came to the House to debate it and to defend it. The Home Secretary has not done the same.

The Home Secretary has a history of hiding. Yesterday, she had to be forced to the House to tell us what she was doing about Abu Qatada, and when our borders were breached, she went to ground. We have not seen her do a proper TV or radio interview for nearly six months. She is hiding from the media and hiding from this House. We miss her. We have hardly seen her since her conference fiasco with Catgate. I know she is keen on all things feline, but even Macavity used to appear once in a while. We urge her to come back. Once again, we are left with the poor old Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, with his smokescreens and his fantasy figures—hung out to dry by the Home Secretary again.

The Minister obviously has not been talking to the Prime Minister, because today the Prime Minister claimed that the proportion of front-line police officers has increased. Today we heard from the Minister that the number of front-line officers might be cut, but the Prime Minister said that the proportion has increased. That is not true, is it? I ask the Minister to confirm whether he believes it is true that the proportion of front-line police officers has increased.

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[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

Speaking as a former special adviser to the Home Secretary at the time of the Sheehy reforms in the 1990s and as a shadow police Minister in the previous Parliament, I think it is worth putting on record that policing is about leadership and that leadership from the top at the Home Office has indeed been supplied by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and her deputy, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice. They have shown a great deal of skill in negotiating a very difficult settlement for the police. The Winsor review has been an important contribution to getting more for less from the police budget. One does not have to talk up the Home Secretary’s book on this; the facts are quite clear. Part 1 of Winsor, which went to arbitration, has gone through with the support now of the Police Federation, and that is no mean feat.

I shall not spend too much time rebutting the number crunching of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). Even her own party accepts that there must be constraints on public spending, and that extends to the police force. Why? Because as a result of the economic crash in the previous Parliament, this country is now spending £120 million a day on debt interest alone. That cannot go on and public spending control is something that any responsible Government would have to put in place. The police force and the public understand that stark fact. I have yet to meet a police officer or a constituent who thinks the country can afford significant real-terms increases in police services.

On the total Government grants before us today, we see that the reduction in Government funding including specific grant allocations will be 4% in 2011-12 and 5% in 2012-13. They will be lower in 2013-14 at 2% and lower still in 2014-15 with a 1% reduction. Across local government there has been a reduction in the amount of funding allocated to specific grants, and some of the specific grants that police authorities have historically been used to receiving, such as the crime fighting fund and the basic command unit fund, have been absorbed into the police main grant.

Let us not forget that real-terms gross revenue had increased every year from 1996-97 to 2007-08. Those were very big sustained year-on-year increases. Sadly, they were spending increases that were allocated when we did not have the money on a sustainable basis. It was a boom time in the economy and the previous Government were spending money that they did not have.

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend refers to the increases in spending in central Government grant, but does he recognise that much of the increase in spending locally came directly from local taxpayers through massive increases in the police precept—in my area 500% over the course of the previous Government—and that, similarly, is not sustainable and fair on local people?

[Mr Ruffley]

Council tax as a proportion of the total police spend that all police authorities have will be about a quarter for 2011. It was half that—12%—in 2001-02, so the statistics bear out the experience that my hon. Friend has had in his police authority.

Returning to the historical increases, there was another interesting statistic that the Home Affairs Committee calculated. Between 2000 and 2008 the real-terms increase in total police spending was a whacking 20%, so I suggest, and I am sure Government Members would agree, that the police are looking at historically high real-terms spending figures over the past 10 years, compared with what they have ever had in the past. The shadow Policing Minister is chuntering from a sedentary position. Does he want to intervene?

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He will know that there was a 43% reduction in the number of crimes and the number of victims over that time. The two might well be related.

[Mr Ruffley]

I do not agree with the rather heroic numbers that the right hon. Gentleman gives for falls in crime, and I would not necessarily attribute that to brilliant Government policy. I would attribute it to hard work by police officers on the ground. He claims too much for himself, but that is not untypical of Labour politicians.

Funding was made available in the spending review to help police authorities deliver a council tax freeze in 2011-12. Should every authority participate in the freeze, it is estimated that they will receive a total of around £75 million in each of the next four years to compensate for the income that they would otherwise have raised from council tax increases, and funding for this is pencilled into the settlement.

Before moving on from the national police totals, I want to touch briefly on the claim made by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford that this is a 20% cut—she is obviously trying to get the soundbite off the runway. I think that she was referring to the published grant totals, but were she to look at total police spending and not just the grant figures, which means putting council tax into the equation and taking into account the Office for Budget Responsibility’s assumptions on forecast levels, she would see that the total police budget will clearly reduce spending by the end of this Parliament not by 20%, but by 14%, which is much nearer the 12% figure she coughed up for Labour’s plans. Therefore, we are not too far apart if we look at everything, rather than just the bits of the financial equation she was inducing us to look at. She gave us only half the picture.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

My hon. Friend, in making his case, properly draws attention to the 14% real-terms cut, but does he recognise that, because of the pay freeze and reforms to police terms and conditions, the actual cut to policing services will be significantly less?

[Mr Ruffley]

I certainly do. My right hon. Friend the Policing Minister gave a tour de force earlier when he explained in detail exactly how we might achieve more for just a little less spending. I reinforce the fact that between 2000 and 2008 there were heroic real-terms increases, and they have not gone away. We are not wiping away from the baseline the very high totals that were accrued, sadly, on the back of money that we subsequently discovered the country did not really have. Nevertheless, this is by no means some hacking-off-of-limbs strategy, and I think that it does a disservice to a grown-up debate to suggest that it is a bleeding-stump strategy.

I would like to say something about my local police force in Suffolk. Suffolk has the second lowest cost per head for policing out of the 43 forces in this country. It has an historically low crime rate, because by and large we are a very civilised and well-behaved county, which is why I am particularly proud to represent a Suffolk constituency. I acknowledge that the chief constable, Simon Ash, with whom I have a fruitful and friendly dialogue, is concerned about the effect that the spending constraints we are considering will have on his force. I do not agree with him, but it might be useful to remind ourselves of the composition of police spending in Suffolk.

The general grant from the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government to Suffolk for 2011-12 was £76.9 million. Specific grants added to that were £4.4 million. The council tax precept was £41.4 million, and fees and other charges were £6.4 million. That means that just over £129 million was spent in the current financial year on keeping Suffolk safe. The savings that the force has made in the past two years are quite instructive. The actual savings for 2010-11 totalled £2.6 million—consider that as a percentage of the £129 million spent overall last year—and the forecast annual savings for the current financial year are even higher, at £3.9 million. Projected savings for the four years from 2012-13 to 2015-16 are as follows: £7.3 million, £3.7 million, 2.3 million and £0.9 million.

Approximately 60% of the savings in Suffolk over the comprehensive spending review period will be achieved through collaborative working and better procurement, particularly with Norfolk constabulary. That really bears out the statements that my right hon. Friend the Policing Minister made earlier. Suffolk is finding 60% of the savings not through vicious head count cuts to uniformed officers—over half the savings are the result of smarter thinking, which I think should have been done before now. In the last Parliament the totemic collaborative project was between Essex and Kent, which was the example everyone cited, but the Norfolk and Suffolk model undoubtedly equals that, because it is delivering the savings that should have been delivered many years ago.

What about the number of uniformed officers? This is extremely politically sensitive—some might even say toxic—and much has been made of it by Opposition Members and Front Benchers. To provide some perspective, in my police authority area the number of full-time equivalent uniformed officers, as at 31 March 2009, was 1,291. At March 2010 it was 1,246 officers, and in March 2011 it was 1,241. The next set of figures is quite instructive. The chief constable argues that by 31 March 2015, if the one-year council tax freeze grant is accepted from April this year, the number of uniformed officers will be 1,189. Even if the council tax freeze grant is accepted, he predicts a reduction from 1,241 to 1,189. He says that if a council tax increase is approved from April 2012, the reduction would be fewer than 10 officers. If we go the council tax increase route, the number will fall from 1,241 to 1,232. He is arguing, as he has said in the regional press, that there will be a reduction in the number of police officers in Suffolk.

The figures are not hugely welcome from my point of view, because I believe neither that we should increase council tax in Suffolk, nor that the chief constable needs to reduce the number of officers by the magnitude he suggests, and he argues that officers will have to be lost whichever route is taken. I firmly believe, and agree with the Government, that visible policing is not a direct function of the numbers alone. There is not a positive correlation of one between the number of officers and excellent policing.

The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford was perfectly right to say that we needed 16,000 officers on the streets when the London riots were at their zenith, but those were, by and large, extraordinary events. We certainly did not necessarily need more police officers in order to get 16,000 on the streets. Many of us thought that rather bad management by the then leadership of the Met meant that it took three days or so to get 16,000 uniformed officers on the street. They existed, as we have more than 140,000 uniformed officers in Great Britain, so getting 16,000 Met officers on the street was not purely a numbers game; they were there already.

[Andrew Percy]

The shadow Home Secretary’s local chief constable at the time of the riots said that the issue was not about numbers, and he went on local TV to say that he had no issue with numbers and had, in fact, got enough numbers to “invade a small country”. Those were his exact words, on Yorkshire TV.

[Mr Ruffley]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

If the hon. Gentleman is so clear in his mind that the number of police on the streets does not necessarily correlate with the effective combat of crime, will he explain why the Liberal Democrat election manifesto—I realise he was not responsible for it—promised 3,000 more police on the streets?

[Mr Ruffley]

I am delighted to respond to both points.

First, I did not say that the number of police officers on the streets does not matter, but I will make it clear that the number of uniformed officers in any force does not equate to the number of police officers on the street; we absolutely can have more visible police hours on the street with a theoretically smaller number of police officers, and I shall explain how that comes about. Let me repeat: we can have more visible police hours on the street with fewer officers than we have now, and if the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton will bear with me, I will explain to the House how that is possible.

Secondly, on the Liberal Democrat manifesto, let me say why the party political to-ing and fro-ing is not terribly productive or profitable. The right hon. Gentleman’s party is campaigning—it would appear, from today’s debate—against the reductions in policing, which, it says, are cutting the number of uniformed officers and really will not do, but I just remind him of what the previous Labour Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), said on “The Daily Politics” just before the election. When he was asked whether Labour could guarantee that the number of police officers would not fall if it formed the next Government, he replied really rather elegantly, that no, he could not guarantee that police officer numbers would not fall. Most of us have a great deal of respect for the right hon. Gentleman, who has one other virtue, which is clear honesty. He was not guaranteeing that more officers would be paid for if Labour won the election; he was not even promising that the same number would be retained.

I shall explain briefly what I mean by “visible hours on the street”. There is a shocking statistic from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary—it was true under the previous Government and was still true last year—and it is that at any one time only 11% of the police officers in this country, of whom there are more than 140,000, are available for visible policing on the street. That is an amazing statistic: only one in 10.

The question is, how can we get more police visible on the street, given that there are more than 140,000 of them? There are two ways. First, we should reduce bureaucracy. Now, I do not suggest for one second that reducing bureaucracy will make up for the current tough public spending round, but the Government have already taken incredible steps in their first 18 months in office. They have abolished the policing pledge, the public service agreement targets, more than three dozen key performance indicators, the fatuous local area agreement targets and the stop and account form, which in fairness the previous Government had also proposed.

The current Government have also streamlined stop and search procedures. In addition, they have made changes to health and safety, and in addition to that they have abolished the quite nonsensical target, which police thought unnecessary, of drug tests for 95% of those arrested on trigger offences. That is quite an impressive reduction of bureaucracy in a first few months, and there is more.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the introduction of police and crime commissioners will also bring more rigorous oversight to police budgets? From the perspective of north Yorkshire, where our local police authority spent £250,000 on legal proceedings against the chief constable, that will be a welcome move later this year.

[Mr Ruffley]

I am confident—it is my hope and, indeed, expectation—that with one person we will engender a greater and sharper sense of focus and accountability, which we lack under the current regime of 17-person police authorities.

[Mark Reckless]

Is my hon. Friend also aware that in a unanimous report the Home Affairs Committee came to the same conclusion, supported I believe by its five Labour members, that a single elected individual, instead of a diffuse police authority, will increase the focus on finding savings and is likely to drive out costs in policing?

[Mr Ruffley]

Yes, and to those who say that a single individual will not necessarily have the skills to provide leadership and to be a good manager and forensic accountant, the straightforward rebuttal is that one would expect someone who was going to be up for re-election after four years to have their mind focused on what the electorate wanted and to bring in people who could help with that work. At the end of the day, the mandate given to an individual, and the knowledge that they are accountable to the people, should certainly focus the mind—not the minds of 17 people in a diffuse police authority, but the mind of one individual, who will certainly be accountable as police authorities are not so accountable at the moment.

On the ways in which a smaller number—not a hugely smaller number—of officers can deliver more police hours, I must say that they will be required to spend less time during the average shift in a police station and more time visibly on the streets. I have said that reducing bureaucracy is one way in which we can square that circle, but the Government’s future work, which I know my right hon. Friend the Policing Minister is driving forward personally, involves a streamlined crime recording procedure. The previous Government undertook such work, to which I shall be generous and pay tribute.

The four-force pilot involving Leicestershire, West Midlands, Shropshire and Surrey created a more streamlined and time-efficient way of recording incidents, with police officers given the discretion, over a certain range of offences, to write shorter reports. I should like to see that regime become absolutely standard throughout the 43 forces, so it would be useful to hear how many have adopted it.

There is more to be done on rolling back statutory charging. It is ridiculous that for quite a slew of offences a charging sergeant has to ring up the Crown Prosecution Service to get permission on some triable-either-way offences. It is fair to say that—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am very concerned that the hon. Gentleman is in danger of taking more time than the Front Benchers. That is not good for all those hon. Members who have waited a long time. We are on a time limited debate, which finishes at 3.47 pm and we have another 10 speakers to get in, so I hope that he is now coming to the end.

[Mr Ruffley]

I take note of what you have said, Mr Deputy Speaker, and shall bring my remarks to a conclusion; they were coming to a conclusion anyway.

The second way in which we can get the police to spend more hours visible and out there, so that people are aware that they are around, is greater collaboration. I will not repeat some of the initiatives that the Government—this Home Secretary, this Policing Minister —have driven forward, but that work goes ahead in Suffolk, delivering the efficiency savings that can be ploughed back into the front line. As I said, the savings could amount to £1.5 billion out of the total police budget if all the forces became as efficient as the currently most efficient one. That money could be ploughed back into the front line to obviate the need for any significant reduction in uniformed officers.

The message must go forth from this debate that in a tough economic climate, the spending reductions against historically high levels of police funding are not fatal to the fight against crime. The police must do more with less. The public want them to; they want the police to spend more time on the streets and less time behind their desks. In that spirit of cheerful optimism, I commend the Government’s policy and announcement today.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I will now have to put a time limit on speeches. I am sorry to hon. Members waiting to speak; they must take the matter up with others. There is now to be a 10-minute limit, although that might have to be reduced.

--- Later in debate ---

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

In August, Birmingham was hard hit by outrageous and unacceptable behaviour that saw communities terrorised, but led by our admirable chief constable, Chris Sims, police officers restored order. They were truly heroic. They were the thin blue line protecting communities from rioting and robbery.

What was absolutely wrong, however, was Conservative Ministers returning from holiday in their Bermuda shorts seeking to take the credit despite having had nothing to do with the work of restoring order to the streets. What was absolutely wrong was crazy talk about baton rounds, water cannon and bringing in the army, which would have led to a downward spiral into yet further violence. The police were right to reject such nonsense and instead defend the British model of community policing. They, themselves, have learned painful lessons from history, from Scarman, through Macpherson and onwards, that we can only police the community with the support of the community. It was Chris Sims who said that had it not been for that support, his officers would have struggled to restore order.

When Labour was in government, we, together with the police, made a real difference—they, on the one hand, evolving that unique model of British community policing, and us, on the other hand, investing in the police service, resulting in nearly 20,000 additional police officers and 16,000 extra police community support officers. The consequence was a 43% reduction in crime. We were the first Government in history to leave office with crime falling rather than rising.

What is also absolutely wrong—I ask Government Members to search their conscience on this—is to break a promise. The Liberal Democrat Leader said, “Vote for me and you will have 3,000 extra police officers on the beat.” Not one Conservative Member went to his or her constituents and said, “Vote for me and I’ll cut the number of police officers on the beat.”

The consequences in the west midlands are serious. Twelve hundred police officers are going. We have heard some creative accounting and fantasy figures, but may we return to the real world of what is happening at the sharp end? Some 634 officers have gone already, most of them forced out under regulation A19, and among them are some of the most outstanding police officers in Birmingham and Britain. There is Tim Kennedy, a detective with one of the best records of tackling acquisitive crime and a high detection rate; Tony Fisher, who put away, first, a robber who had stolen from pensioners at cash points for 13 years and then a machete-wielding robber of local shops for 17 years; Dave Hewitt, an outstanding neighbourhood sergeant; and Mark Stokes, the acknowledged national expert in designing out crime on our streets and estates. Sixteen officers are going from the counter-terrorism squad, including the head of counter-terrorism and the head of crime. All are being forced out against their will. They are some of the best officers I have had the privilege of working with—I am proud to call them friends—but they are being forced out at the age of 48 or 49.

To add insult to injury, some of the officers forced out under A19 were approached after the riots by G4S, which was brought in to help deal with the post-riots investigations, and asked whether they would like to come back and work as a police officer once again, but this time for G4S, actually costing the taxpayer more. We also had some absurdities, such as when the community in Quinton was told, “We’ll no longer be able to keep open the front office”—where the public come in and interface with the police—“but perhaps we could, if you were prepared to man the police station yourselves.” Where will it end? Next the Government will be asking local communities to arrest criminals themselves.

We have heard repeatedly from the Government—I quote the Home Secretary—that “We can make all these savings while protecting the front line.” However, let me set out what we have discovered is actually happening on the ground, right now, in the west midlands. Thirty-two front-line police officers—some of the best still serving—have been taken off the front line and put into the back room, because the police are having to cope with cuts on an unprecedented scale and at an unprecedented speed. As a consequence, there are two detectives in Birmingham South who are off the front line and into the back office; three in Sutton Coldfield—off the front line, into the back office; four in Birmingham South, Bournville neighbourhood—off the front line, into the back office; four in Coventry—off the front line, into the back office; eight in Dudley—off the front line, into the back office; and 11 in Solihull—off the front line, into the back office. They include one officer, in Birmingham South, Bournville, who has been taken off the front line and put into a back office to do filing, in the post-riots filing system.

[Mr Ruffley]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, and I do not doubt that those movements to the back office have been made, but that is exactly the kind of thing that the Government think is wrong. I wonder whether he could share with us the explanation of the chief constable, who is ultimately answerable for that movement of uniformed officers into the back office.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). Both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) spoke passionately about their local areas. Notwithstanding the debate over police numbers, I think we all recognise the huge amount of work being done at a local level. I shall start with a couple of local issues, before moving on to the wider national issues.

On the situation in Leicestershire, we will sadly see a reduction in the police grant of almost £4 million. When I spoke to Chief Constable Simon Cole this morning, he talked about a very complicated formula that first gave us the money but then took it away because of the damping element. He, like every police force, will struggle to meet the ambitions that he and others have to achieve the reductions that the Government have put in place.

Last Saturday’s events, when the English Defence League marched through Leicester, remind us that police authorities struggle not only because of the reductions but because of events occurring that cannot be predicted. I want to pay tribute to Simon Cole and to Leicester’s mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, for how they handled that march. The EDL is not welcome in Leicester, but it was given the opportunity to march because we believe in the fundamental principles of freedom of speech. The fact is that the 2,000 police officers who came out on to the streets will cost £800,000. With the possibility of an EDL march in Leeds, the people of Leeds—in the end, it is the taxpayer who will pay—are going to have to pay another large sum. When I intervened on the Minister, I know he said that applications for a special grant can be made, and we will ask him to help us with these costs, because these are not costs of our making; we had to police that demonstration.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington alluded to the recent riots, which reminded me that local police forces have been left with a shortfall. I have figures for the Metropolitan police. I am told that costs under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 will be £198 million, with a further £78 million for operational policing costs; yet the Home Office will pay only £100 million and £52.7 million for the policing costs, so there is a shortfall of about £20 million for the Metropolitan police. I hope that the Minister will give some reassurance to areas such as Birmingham, and to a lesser extent to Leicester, where there were disorders rather than huge riots, but most particularly to London, that help will be forthcoming from the Home Office, as the Prime Minister promised when I put the point to him during his statement just after the riots. He said that the Government would meet the costs of all the extra issues that arose as a result of the riots; I can give the Minister the Hansard extract if necessary.

I do not want to talk about numbers, as the issue has been well rehearsed eloquently by right hon. and hon. Members of all parties, particularly by the shadow Home Secretary and the Minister. What I want to talk about is procurement, as this is an area in respect of which there will be common cause. IT procurement costs the public £1.2 billion annually. The Minister has told us that the Government are keen to ensure that savings are made. Forces currently have 2,000 separate and bespoke information and communication technology systems that are serviced by 5,000 different members of staff.

The National Audit Office recently published a report on the use of mobile phones, and I declare an interest in having a BlackBerry, although I am not certain that I use all its features. However, in my conversations with the BlackBerry people, they assure me that the BlackBerrys they have given to South Yorkshire police, for example, have resulted in savings of £6 million. This is not rocket science. It was a recommendation of the Select Committee in November 2008 when we said that sufficient funding should be

“made available as soon as possible to enable all frontline officers to have access to”

hand-held devices. We talk about waste and procurement; that would have saved a huge amount of money. We still face a situation in which police officers of different police forces are buying these services from different suppliers and are operating different devices.

I understand that the system in South Yorkshire—I am sure the Minister will be familiar with it—allows the individual police officer to access the police national computer, the warrants database, the electoral roll, command and control, case study records, intelligence briefings, crime tasking, electronic witness statements and shift briefing. That is the sort of thing we need to give our police officers so that they do not spend their time dealing with the bureaucracy of which the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton spoke. We are all against bureaucracy; who wants the police to be filling in lots of pieces of paper?

If we look at new technology—I do not know whether a mobile phone is described as such these days—I believe this is the way for us to go forward. Nineteen forces have mobile phones for fewer than 50% of their officers, and according to the National Audit Office only one in five use it effectively. We give out the equipment, but perhaps do not train officers as effectively as we should.

I am all for the Minister mandating collaboration. I know that the Home Office and central Government are reluctant to tread on the toes of individual chief constables, but police and crime commissioners are going to be introduced in November, and I hope they will have a leading role to play on procurement. We need to be in a position not to allow all 43 forces to buy their own equipment. The Minister was here for Prime Minister’s questions when my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) raised the issue that four police authorities were buying Hyundai police cars. Of course, my hon. Friend’s point was about British jobs given that they come from North Korea, but I saw the issue as being primarily one of why all our police cars are not the same; I wondered why, when I went to Kent, there was a different make of police car from those I saw in Leicestershire. This is a no brainer.

I am pleased with what the permanent secretary at the Home Office said. I was glad when she was not appointed the head of the home civil service—not because I do not think she is capable, as I think she is an extraordinarily capable woman, but because I think the permanent secretary to the Home Office is a big job to do. When she came before the Committee she talked about the so-called Argos catalogue—her choice of shop; I do not know whether Dame Helen goes there regularly. We have been pushing for a long time for a catalogue with nationally agreed prices from which everyone buys. Why the previous Labour Government did not do that, I do not know. My defence is that I was the Minister for Europe so I did not have a chance to be in the Home Office. My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) did a great job as a Minister, but this is a difficult task, as he will tell us.

[Mr Ruffley]

The right hon. Gentleman’s Committee has done much under his leadership to raise awareness of the efficiencies that can be delivered by police forces from existing budgets. When he talks about mandating collaboration, is he suggesting that the whole of England and Wales should be divided up and that every force should be mandated to collaborate with a neighbouring force or neighbouring forces?

[Keith Vaz]

It could be that; of course legislation allows that to happen. The Minister has told us what he did about helicopters with the National Police Air Service. As I remember, South Yorkshire did not want to share its helicopters but the Government said, “You have to share, because a helicopter is quite an expensive piece of equipment.” I do not care where it is done, and I do not think we should hang ourselves on a hook as far as who should say what, but it is common sense to be in a position where we can do this. I think Dame Helen Ghosh gets it, and that is why the Committee will interview her on a regular basis about her commitment to procurement. We want to see not just the kind of savings we have had so far, but much bigger savings.

Finally, let me speak about police pay and conditions. We all have huge admiration for the police. Tom Winsor will be appearing before the Home Affairs Committee shortly, and I think the Minister needs to take the temperature of the Police Federation and ordinary police officers. He meets them every day and sees them on many occasions, so I cannot lecture him about this, but morale is very low and I think that Mr Winsor has gone too far. We need to be very careful when we deal with police pay and conditions. The previous Labour Government got it wrong—Jacqui Smith got it wrong and so did my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown)—when they did not allow the pay rise that the police ought to have been given when the arbitration committee decided that they should have that pay rise. This time, we should make sure that we carry police officers with us in making the massive changes that the Government are putting in place. That is vital because this is the biggest change to the policing landscape we have seen in this country since Sir Robert Peel’s time.

We should remunerate the police well, we should not be mean and vindictive to them and we should not get rid of the most experienced officers. That is something we are seeing in this House, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington mentioned, where some of our most experienced people are being told they have to go. When I say in this House, I do not mean Members of the House, luckily, as I have been here a long time, but those who guard the Palace of Westminster. We need to value that experience. I hope that the Minister will look again at pay and conditions and will try to bring Mr Winsor under a little bit of control. We are dealing not with railways—I know Mr Winsor was the rail regulator—but with real people in real jobs who protect our constituents. They are the people we lionise in times of crisis, and we should reward them properly for the work they do.