Policing and Crime

David T C Davies Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

May I begin, as I often do, by declaring an interest as a special constable with the British Transport police? A few people might wonder why I do that job. When I was on the Home Affairs Committee, I justified it by saying that I have always felt deeply about policing—that is the reality. That is one of things that brought me into politics. I felt even more deeply about the matter when I became the victim of a burglary myself. I can tell the Home Secretary the effect it can have on a family, particularly when one of the partners is often away from home and young children are involved, to know that someone has been walking around their house with a knife in their hand

In many ways, I am sorry to have to make this speech—it is not even a very well-prepared one—but I have to tell the Home Secretary that I am deeply concerned about some of the directions we are taking. I have a view that might be unfashionable, which is that burglars, rapists, murderers, people who commit acts of violence of any sort and people who sell drugs—there is a family in Monmouthshire selling ketamine to young children in school—need to be taken off the streets and sent to prison. They should not be released early from their prison sentences, and they do not deserve 50% off their sentences, which is why for the first time ever, I think, I was unable to follow the Home Secretary into the Lobby earlier tonight. I regret that very much, but, I will not be part of any Government who want to let people out of prison. I do not think the Labour party did a good job on law and order, but when I hear colleagues say that it banged up more people than we will, I start to question what I am doing here.

Home Secretary, I will find it much easier to follow you into the Lobby tonight, because the Opposition have tabled a motion based on money, and we all know that, frankly, you are in a no-win situation. Labour Members did what they always do—they taxed and spent, they borrowed and they spent, they printed money and left us all with a £1 trillion debt.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman address the House through the Chair, rather than the Home Secretary?

[David T. C. Davies]

I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I was saying that I have no problem in following the Government into the Lobby on this motion, because it is about money. I understand full well that cuts have to be made, because we do not have the money and because basic economics means that we cannot live off other people’s money for ever.

There is much we could be doing to support the police. Morale in the police is very low. We could be doing a lot about bureaucracy. That has been said for years—of course it has—but I can give specific examples. Officers spend 10 or 15 minutes filling out a stop-and-search form for each person they stop and search. They cannot stop and search the right people because code A relating to section 2 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 prevents them from searching somebody who has committed an offence that is probably non-arrestable when the police do not have direct evidence or anything on them at that moment. For example, at Liverpool Street station, I once stopped a beggar who had a long criminal record for carrying knives and drugs. I wanted to give him a quick frisk—not an invasive strip search, but a frisk—but I could not because although he had 20 or so convictions, I had no evidence that he had drugs on him at that particular moment. Give the police the tools to do the job, and they will do it well.

Public order police officers have one of the hardest jobs going. One minute they are told that they should not kettle people because it is against their human rights, but the next they are told, “There’s been a riot, the Conservative party’s offices have been invaded. We want robust policing next time.” The next time there is robust policing, but then there are more complaints about it from Members on both sides of the House who have never had to stand, outnumbered 10:1, in front of a load of rioting people and had to try to work out which rioters are passing the iron bars, which are throwing them and so on. There is no way that the police can turn round and run because they are in uniform. It is a very difficult and dangerous job, and if they do not always get it right, it is not altogether surprising.

There are things we could be doing to support the special constabulary to make much better use of it, such as employer-supported policing, which I have spoken to the Home Secretary about before. Quite frankly, however, if it comes down to money, there is a difference between me and Opposition Members. I would like more money put into the police force and the Prison Service so that we can look after our people properly. The first priority of any Government should be the defence of the realm and the rule of law. Where I differ from Opposition Members, however, is that I would say to the Home Secretary—even though it is not her decision—that I cannot understand why we are pouring into the third world money that is being spent on Mercedes Benz by dodgy dictators in Africa, while having to cut funding to the police and prison services here, resulting in our people being not as safe as they ought to be.

Let us be honest about this. If we are going to reduce funding to the police force, there will be a cut in service. There is no point trying to pretend otherwise, no matter what reforms we make. I offer the Home Secretary a serious suggestion. I have noticed that on many occasions the police have to waste a lot of money providing translation facilities for people who claim not to speak English. I have actually arrested people who were able to tell me in perfect English that they were not responsible for whatever they were doing—usually bag thefts and such things. They have an amazing level of English, but take them back to the police station and suddenly it has all gone and a translator has to be found at £50 an hour—and no doubt the translator follows them all the way through the court process as well. On rare and happy occasions, these people actually go to prison. When that happens, though, we have to spend money housing in our prisons people who are often illegal immigrants—that involves a certain expense, although not as much as the figures often quoted suggest—and afterwards we have to spend money trying to deport them if their countries will take them.

The Home Secretary should take some of the money that is meant for the third world in the third world, and use it on people from the third world who are over here breaking the law—not all of them are, of course, but some of them do. [Interruption.] Yes, I appreciate that I quite often put my arguments across in a clumsy fashion—although from what I have seen, that is no barrier to high office in this place—but I have one priority in mind: the safety of our people.

The other day I was talking to somebody who was brought up in a mining village—I can tell the Home Secretary who it was afterwards. That person was a Conservative party agent—a true working-class Conservative of the sort who put in people such as Margaret Thatcher and John Major. She was not just a member of the Conservative party, but someone who went out and campaigned, and had been an area chairman. However, she has now left the Conservative party because she feels that we have abandoned people such as her on issues such as crime and immigration. I have the utmost respect for the Home Secretary—far more, in fact, than for many other members of the Cabinet—and I will happily follow her through the Lobby this evening. However, I very much hope that working-class Tory voters—and perhaps even working-class Labour voters—will be voting Conservative at the next election, and will not feel let down and betrayed. I have canvassed many houses in my lifetime and met many people who said that they would vote Conservative. Not one of them has ever said to me, “I’m voting Conservative because I want you to let more people out of prison.” Let this not be the message from the Conservative party if we ever want to win an election again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

Indeed, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Clearly, a number of forces around the country are adopting approaches or policies to ensure that police numbers are maintained. Another good example is Cleveland, where by working with Steria the force has been successful in achieving savings of £50 million over a 10-year period; it has been able to achieve 20% reductions in the areas on which they are working by focusing on cutting bureaucracy, increasing mobile access to make the police more effective when they are out in the field, and improving case file preparation, which no doubt leads to more successful prosecutions. When the will is there, much is achievable in making greater efficiency savings and focusing on police numbers. The Government are right to tackle the issue of police terms and conditions. It has been on the agenda for many years, but has never been tackled. It was time for the Government to grasp that particular nettle and progress is now being made.

It was also the Opposition’s choice not to debate one of the most effective ways of tackling crime, which is by cutting reoffending. Community sentences were mentioned in the earlier debate. With community sentences, 51% of people reoffend as opposed to the 59% who reoffend after being given a prison sentence. These are comparable groups of offenders: in one case, with a community sentence properly enforced, there is only a 51% reoffending rate; when a similar group of prisoners are sent to prison for one year or less, 59% reoffend.

[David T. C. Davies]

Is the hon. Member aware that that report also showed that anyone sentenced to more than 12 months in prison had the lowest reoffending rate of all? Is not the lesson we should draw that long prison sentences are more effective than anything else?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am drawing on one part of the report; he is drawing on another. It is very clear that community sentences, for people who would otherwise have been given a short prison sentence, actually reduce reoffending. That means fewer victims. Surely, if we are having a rational debate, that must be a matter of interest to all Members.

For community sentences to be effective, I underline the importance, as stressed to me by User Voice, of ensuring that rehabilitation is retained within the community sentence scheme. In its view, those sentences are more effective than prison sentences because the rehabilitation component is there. I hope that that will remain part of the community sentences that are going to be issued.

Work in prison is also important. It is effective in tackling reoffending because it gives prisoners skills that they can use, as well as providing—according to the Howard League, which published a report today—something like £17 million that can go into the victims fund. I am sure that everyone would welcome that as well.

Volunteering in prison is potentially just as effective in reducing reoffending as work in prison. Last week the Prison Reform Trust launched a very successful scheme at High Down prison drawing on the skills of listeners, and I am certain that the reoffending rate among former prisoners who have participated in it will be less than that among those who have not.

The Opposition did not, of course, choose to call a debate about the most cost-effective ways of solving crimes. Today I was fortunate enough to visit Crimestoppers, which happens to be based in my constituency. What it is achieving at a cost of £4.5 million has been valued at £120 million. Last year it helped to solve 50 murders. It favours payment by results, because it believes that it has a very successful model. By using the public as a resource, it is able to bring cases to court much more quickly than it could have done had it followed the normal court and police processes.

The Government have set out in a concrete and substantive way what we believe will be effective in tackling crime and what we believe is necessary to deal with inefficiencies in, for example, the back office. I feel that it was incumbent on the Labour Members who tabled a debate on this subject to set out what their alternative would have been, but I am afraid that that has been totally lacking this evening.