Policing

Owen Thompson Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is somewhat ironic that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) criticises him for cherry-picking from a survey when that is exactly what the motion on the Order Paper does? It picks one line from any number of different points in the survey. In fact, if we cherry-pick in such a way, we can make surveys say anything we want. We might even be able to find one that says that the Labour party is a credible political force.

[Richard Arkless]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The reality is that over 1,000 more police officers are on the streets in Scotland. That is what the public want and that is what they have received. There is a 79% satisfaction rate that, if people complain to Police Scotland, it will be dealt with in an efficient and responsible manner. To me, those two indicators are key. Our police perform well and the people in Scotland live in a country that is safer than it has been in my lifetime. I am very proud of that statistic.

The survey was the first ever of that nature carried out by Police Scotland. Officers embraced the opportunity to participate and there was a high response rate. There is a huge amount of interest in the results. It is important that they are used in a constructive and positive way to help to build a better police force in Scotland both for staff and civilians. Indeed, the chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, Brian Docherty, recently said that Police Scotland was an excellent service and should be recognised as such.

Interestingly, there is no comparable survey of police forces in the UK. Perhaps one should be undertaken with haste so that we can have a clearer picture of the police service throughout the UK. These reports should be read by everybody in the Government and the Opposition, particularly those who voted for continued austerity cuts. Sadly, most of the stresses endured by our police are the result of the continued UK austerity measures. Unison, which agrees, has said:

“It is clear from UNISON’s 2014 police staff stress survey that our members are suffering adverse effects from the impact of the UK government’s austerity cuts to policing.”

In conclusion, the creation of Police Scotland has allowed the Scottish Government to defend front-line services from Westminster austerity. I am proud that we have more police officers on the streets of Scotland, I am proud of the selflessness and dedication shown by Police Scotland members during these challenging times, and I am proud that Scotland has never in my lifetime been a safer place to live.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

When my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) made his speech, there were a number of calls from Labour asking why we would not be supporting the motion and why we were not turning our focus on the Government rather than on Labour, so let me start with the motion.

The motion starts by expressing concern at the loss of 17,000 police officers, and that is very concerning, yet in Scotland police officer numbers have been maintained, with an extra 1,000 since the Scottish Government took over in 2007. The motion claims that there is some evidence that crime is rising, but in Scotland crime is at a more than 40-year low because of the actions of the Scottish Government. The motion states that the police budget could be cut by between 25% and 40%, but in Scotland the Scottish Government, operating within a fixed budget, have had to make difficult decisions but have not made cuts to anything like that extent. If it was not for the fact that we have to pay VAT for police services in Scotland, which is not the case across the rest of the United Kingdom, there could perhaps even be extra money that could be invested.

When we can agree on all those points, why on earth does the motion have to include a line about the Scottish Government? It is bizarre that in a week where we have seen the first piece of legislation classified as England and Wales-only we have a motion from the Labour party that talks about a matter that is devolved to Scotland.

[Anna Turley]

Surely one of the most tragic and distressing incidents we have heard about in the past few months was the terrible incident on the M9, in which two people died after being left at the side of the road for three days. HMIC conducted a review into the call handling on the back of that and produced a report that found significant issues with poor performance. Does that not show that there are significant issues with performance in Scotland and that it is absolutely right that we should raise them in this Chamber?

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Thompson]

Any force can have issues at any time. That was a tragic incident and I know there has been consideration of exactly how that happened, but such things happen regardless of where they are. Why include these references in the motion? It talks of the Scottish Government’s oversight, but if we listened to Labour Members of the Scottish Parliament, we would often be forgiven for thinking that they were asking for direct political intervention in the management of the police rather than any kind of oversight. That is not what anybody in this Chamber would want.

I want to pick up on the point about oversight, as I have a particular situation locally. Immediately before I was elected to this Chamber, I was the leader of Midlothian Council, and I have been a councillor there for 10 years. I saw how the council interacted with the police services pre-Police Scotland and post-Police Scotland. Pre-Police Scotland, Midlothian Council had two representatives to scrutinise police activity locally. They tended to be from the administration and, up until 2012, that was always the Labour party, so I, as a local elected member, had no oversight of the police in my local area. When Police Scotland took over, a local safer communities board was established in Midlothian that allowed members of the council across the political board to have direct interaction with the police and a direct say in the local policing plan. It is deeply unfortunate that today’s Labour motion criticises the Scottish Government’s oversight when the Labour party in Midlothian is the only Labour party in the whole of Scotland not to participate in the safer communities board to oversee local police operations. From my point of view, it is hypocritical for Labour to be saying anything about oversight of the police when a local Labour party will have nothing to do with the oversight of police and fire services.

Let me move on. The cuts to police services are tragic and, because of the Barnett consequentials, they filter through to Scotland. We need to ensure that we do everything we possibly can to maximise investment in policing so that we can continue to maintain the lowest crime levels we have seen in more than 40 years and to make the improvements we have seen across the country. If the Government would take just one more look at VAT, that would enable us in Scotland to make some of the changes we need to continue the progress we have made.

When I look at this motion, I cannot help thinking that somebody on the Labour Benches looked at a previously drafted motion and said, “Hang on a minute. We haven’t mentioned Scotland, so we need to do so.” It has ended up looking like a typical example of the Labour party saying, “#SNP bad.” The section about Scotland makes no sense at all in the context of the rest of motion. Had it not been included, I can see myself supporting the motion. Why has Labour included it? Was it simply to make SNP Members vote against it? It is utterly bizarre. This is a strange situation to find ourselves in, and it is really sad that it has come to this on such an important issue.