Police

Gordon Birtwistle Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

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

It is undeniable that under this Government, in the year and three quarters for which they have been in office, the police have suffered serious setbacks in funding and staffing, and are doomed to suffer far more. The excellent record of the Greater Manchester police force in crime reduction and detection is likely to suffer—it says so itself—to the severe detriment of our constituents, whom, in the end, this is about.

Yesterday evening, the chief constable of Greater Manchester came to the House of Commons to brief hon. Members about the situation faced by Greater Manchester police. We must consider it in the context of the crime reduction figures that it has achieved, which are exemplary, with reductions in every category. It is on target or within 10% of the target on all the main priority performance measures in the 2011-12 policing plan. There are excellent prospects of its achieving the end-of-year target for serious acquisitive crime, domestic burglary, vehicle crime and serious violent crime, and good prospects of its doing so for total crime, antisocial behaviour and theft.

Greater Manchester police’s detection rates are higher than this time last year in all priority areas, with good prospects of its achieving the end-of-year detection targets for serious acquisitive crime, domestic burglary, vehicle crime, serious sexual offences, robbery and rape. That is what it has achieved.

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I will, although the hon. Gentleman has not been here for the debate and just came into the Chamber a few minutes ago. If he wants to intervene on me, he can do so.

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I did not intend to intervene in the debate, but his comments led me to do so. Should we not congratulate the chief constable of Greater Manchester police on delivering what he has delivered with less money, rather than complain about what is going on there?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

The hon. Gentleman could have said that to the chief constable himself if he had bothered to turn up for the briefing yesterday evening.

The cuts that are going to take place will damage what Greater Manchester police has been able to achieve. There is a shortfall of £134 million over the four years to 2014-15, and funding is down for the predictable future. Already, there has been a fall of 4% in the number of police officers available to the force, and there will be a huge fall from 7,656 to 6,556 by 2015.

In considering what the feelings of Greater Manchester police are, I turn to Inspector Damian O’Reilly, one of the finest police officers in this country. He operates in my constituency and was the winner of the national award for community police officer of the year. He contacted me last evening and told me that I was welcome to quote him by name. He says that the cuts are

“cutting away at the muscle of the organisation, not just the fat…With cuts to pay and conditions we feel really undervalued.”

That is what one of the most outstanding police officers in the entire country has to say. He has a fantastic record of crime reduction and control, so his views are more authoritative than mine or those of anyone else in the Chamber.

Let us look at how other people are feeling about the cuts. I received a letter a few days ago from a police constable in my constituency. I will not mention her name, because I do not have her authority to do so, but she wrote:

“I have great concern in relation to the police pay and condition that I will be victim of this year, paying more in to my pension and working for longer hours for less pay…I work full time hours and have a mortgage to pay for, I am genuinely worried about my future with the police force and how it’s going to affect my financial status.”

With sentiments and misgivings of that kind, how can she and her colleagues be expected to continue to give their full heart and attention to preventing crime? Of course detecting crime is important, and Greater Manchester’s figures on that are excellent, but we need to prevent crime. If we send a police constable who feels like that out on to the streets, she will still work as hard as she possibly can. How should we feel about exploiting such people and not giving them the recompense and recognition to which they are undoubtedly entitled?

The issue is not simply police detection, but, as the previous speaker pointed out, social environment. In constituencies such as mine, where unemployment is at 10.3%, and youth unemployment is twice that, we are forcing kids out on to the streets. The overwhelming majority of young people are decent and law-abiding and will never commit a crime, but if they are out on the streets, with no facilities, having been forced out of higher education by the abolition of the education maintenance allowance, they are put in temptation’s way. It is essential that we stop that.

As the chief constable concurred in our discussion yesterday evening, although the sharp end of policing is important, so is the social background and context. He explained how his people work with social organisations both to reduce crime and to reclaim those who have committed crimes. If we shove young people into prison or detention when we could do other things to make them good citizens, they will learn how to be criminals. If they are out of prison and not committing offences, they can learn to be good citizens.

An organisation in my constituency called Reclaim does marvellous work to reclaim young people who have offended and give them socially useful tasks. It incorporates them into an organisation in which they know and respect one another. The police work with Reclaim, which is one of the most important bodies in stopping young people turning away from law and order and into crime. I very much hope that its recent application for £125,000 from the social action fund, administered by the Cabinet Office, will be favourably considered. Money spent on policing is important, and I deplore the cuts in the moneys available to spend on policing, but money to reclaim young people from potential lives of crime and make them into good, valuable, positive citizens with a social commitment is even more important.

The police, and certainly those in Greater Manchester, do a fine job. They have wonderful connections with the local population. Inspector O’Reilly does “report back” meetings, the most recent of which was attended by 600 people, which shows the extent to which the police are connecting with the people in Gorton and the rest of my constituency. They do a fine job and deserve far better.

My constituents want to feel safe when they go out on to the streets and in their homes. That is not being helped—it is being damaged—by this Government of cuts and stunts. The chief constable has said how valuable co-operation is, and I agree with him. I hope we can work together to reduce crime and to give the members of our police force the confidence that we in the House of Commons support them in the essential and often dangerous work that they do.