Crime

My Lords, I join in the general thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, for raising this useful debate. Indeed, it was daunting for an admiral to look at the expertise among the speakers on this subject. I have learnt a great deal today and I am sure that all of us have found the debate very useful. I hope that I will be able to answer the bulk of the questions but, if not, I will come back to try to answer them. It is worth saying that during the past 11 years the Government have revolutionised the crime-fighting and policing landscape. As a Government, we have provided record levels of funding—as my noble friend Lord Judd articulated—delivered record numbers of police officers and introduced police community support officers. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, said how useful they are. We have created new powers and new partnerships, delivered against challenging targets—to which I shall return—and invested in new technology; all of which have seen crime fall by a third since 1997. We have transformed policing by introducing neighbourhood policing teams as a means whereby people become engaged in setting local priorities and making their communities safer. A number of speakers touched on that. It is an important area and an important route to go down. In April 2008 we will mark the real start of this new approach, whereby every person in England and Wales is able to contact a dedicated team for their area. Again, my noble friend Lord Judd raised that point, but neighbourhood policing was raised by almost everyone. However, we must not delude ourselves. We look ahead to some real challenges. Not only must we continue to cut crime and make communities safer, but we need to secure the confidence of communities in doing so. A number of speakers alluded to the fact that that confidence is not necessarily there. We are serving a public that, quite rightly, expect and deserve better information, improved accountability and timely and effective solutions across all of our public services. In tackling crime, one of our greatest challenges is meeting the needs and expectations of the public, winning their confidence and bringing them in as part of the solution. A number of speakers touched on that issue. Although crime has fallen by a third during the past 11 years, there is no doubt that the general perception is that it is rising, as a number of speakers have said. It is remarkable, but that is the perception. This matters because when crime falls, but people do not believe it, it means that they do not recognise the action that has been taken or the progress that has been made. This means that they are less likely to work with us by reporting and preventing crime. I shall consider the importance of Crimestoppers in a moment. There is no doubt that this frightfully important perception matters. It does not matter whether it is real or not; somehow we have to change that perception. We have to change the perception that the police are not visible enough. That is why we have put public confidence at the heart of the Home Secretary’s strategic priorities for policing and the new Make Communities Safer PSA. This new PSA places a stronger focus on more serious violence and provides greater flexibility for local partners to deliver local priorities, with an emphasis on increasing public confidence through improved quality of service from the police. That was an important initial burst on where we have come from and I shall now deal with some of the specifics. The noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, touched particularly on neighbourhood policing and I hope that my comments have shown that we are focusing on that. We will roll out neighbourhood policing teams in every area by the end of this year. This marks three years of hard work by forces and the rollout is only the start of this story. The next phase is to ensure that such teams are embedded into core policing activities and that effective partnerships are developed with other community safety agencies to tackle local priorities. It may be worth mentioning that I am going to Cambridge, and a number of Ministers are going to various other areas, as part of a nationwide rollout of neighbourhood policing to meet those involved, together with PCSOs, and to talk about the safer neighbourhood strategy. I hope to learn a lot more about it because I think that it is absolutely the right way to go. The noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, spoke about the third sector and Crimestoppers, and the noble Lord, Lord Imbert, gave a compelling speech about the things that have been achieved. The noble Baronesses, Lady Chalker and Lady Hanham, also talked about that. I know Mick Laurie, the director, very well. He is an ex-Army general, who worked for me for a number of years and he is a very good man. Indeed, shortly after coming to this post, I talked to him about this specific issue because I was interested in knowing whether there was some roll-on in terms of counterterrorism that might be of use, and whether people were phoning up about other people whom they suspected of being involved with extremists, and so on. I know that Mr Laurie recently spoke to the Home Secretary, who strongly supports, and recognises the quality of, the work done by the third sector in general and Crimestoppers in particular. We are committed to creating conditions to make the third sector thrive. It is crucial and people are getting involved in it. We are trying to develop funding arrangements that will give security—a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. In the current year, as noble Lords know, the funding for Crimestoppers is over £1 million, £900,000 of which is core funding, and £50,000 has recently been given to the Metropolitan Police to pilot a new service aimed at allowing young people to contact Crimestoppers anonymously. Therefore, we are trying to develop some of these issues. We are implementing a new third sector skills strategy and investing more than £85 million of new resources in developing third sector infrastructure. As I said, I hope that we will be able to develop a funding line that will give Crimestoppers some security in the future. However, I can say that there is no danger of that stopping at the moment because we accept that Crimestoppers is extremely valuable and very important. As I said, the noble Lord, Lord Imbert, mentioned some cases that showed exactly the sort of thing that can be achieved. People’s involvement in this is very important. It is not just a matter for the police, the security services and the public sector; it is important to get people involved. The link to SOCA is also very important. As I said, it would be nice if there were some spin-off in the area of counterterrorism, but that is not the driver for this; the driver has to be within the crime sector. My noble friend Lord Simon rightly raised the issue of traffic police and said how vital policing on the roads is. I agree entirely. Of course, decisions on the allocation of resources, including for roads policing, are matters for chief constables and police authorities. If we articulated too strongly exactly how things should be done, that would run counter to what we want in terms of what, in the military sense, I call ““mission command””—that is, allowing people to get on with what they see as the issues within their own areas. However, my noble friend is absolutely right that these things are crucial. My noble friend mentioned automatic number plate reading technology, which has been a huge step forward. It was originally developed in Northern Ireland and its use is now spreading here. It allows police officers to focus more effectively on criminals using the roads. The fixed site and mobile units are reporting significant successes in this area, which I think we all welcome. My noble friend Lord Simon also mentioned police fleet management. This is not an area in which I am deeply involved but I share his concerns. With 43 police forces, we are talking about not just cars but a whole raft of issues—for example, communications and the very few helicopters that we can afford. It is not very clever if there is not always cohesion in moving forward on procurement so that we achieve the best value for money across all 43 forces, taking into account issues of compatibility and so on. However, it is good to see cohesion where we have been pushing for best-value reviews with police authorities. Thames Valley and Bedfordshire police are a classic example of where the forces successfully converged their fleet management. I think that this needs to be expanded, and my noble friend is absolutely right that this is something that we need to move forward on more. We must never be complacent about deaths on the roads, which are an appalling and dreadful waste. The fact that the statistics for this country are better than those in a lot of places in Europe does not mean that we can sit back and say that that is fine. Such deaths are appalling. Over the past years, we have put a lot of effort into the problem of drink-driving, but it is dreadful to see that its incidence creeps up slightly. I think all of us in this House would say that we have to keep the pressure on that because of the devastation that it causes. The issue of targets was raised, as were the problems that they cause. The new government targets announced on 9 October give much more prominence to tackling more serious crime, particularly the most serious violent crime and acquisitive crime. However, as was set out in our new crime strategy, launched last year, overall we are reducing the number of central targets and trying to give much greater flexibility to those at the front line to respond to local priorities. While government targets set the strategic direction for police services, it is for forces to exercise discretion in balancing those targets against local priorities. The Flanagan report stated that targets had achieved considerable successes and had moved things forward. From my experience in the Navy, I can say that, although it is sometimes very uncomfortable to have targets set for you—and they have to be cleverly worded—good leaders use them to ensure better delivery and do not use them as an excuse to say, ““This is why we are doing something else””. I think that we have to be very careful in forming a view on targets because before we had them there was no way of measuring certain things. They can be irksome at times when you think that someone is monitoring you and that that person does not necessarily trust you and feels that you have to deliver something, but I am afraid that that is what a Government and a service have to demand to ensure that we get the right sort of delivery. The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, and the noble Lord, Lord Dear, asked why Flanagan had not addressed things more widely in his review. We were very grateful to Sir Ronnie Flanagan for both his reports and, as I said, we will respond to the recommendations shortly. There has been an interim response but there will be a much more detailed one in due course. A number of speakers asked exactly when that would be available. I hope that the detailed response will be out very soon. Easter and other things will delay it but it will be issued very shortly. A number of noble Lords talked about the Green Paper on policing. I will come back to that later but I very much hope that we will issue it before the Summer Recess. No doubt, my team in the Box are now shrieking with horror and are about to sprint out of the Chamber, but that is certainly what I hope will happen because it is a crucial piece of work. As a number of speakers said, it will have to address an awful lot of issues and we need to get it right. The noble Baroness and a number of other speakers referred to bureaucracy and red tape. None of us wants to see excessive bureaucracy, but I fear that there has been too much of that within the police. Sir Ronnie’s report contains a package of measures to reduce unnecessary police bureaucracy that could save time equivalent to 3,000 police officers. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, we are implementing some of the things that she mentioned now. We are cracking on straight away because we certainly need to stop that sort of bureaucracy. It clearly upsets a number of officers, and I do not blame them. Again, I go back to my own experience within the Navy. It is amazing how people further up the chain start throwing out extra report forms to see what is going on, and that often stops people getting on with what they are meant to be doing. We need to look into that carefully. There is a place for certain reports, but we need to monitor the matter—we have to ensure that it does not get in the way of the job being done. I admit to being caught out on the question of the Bexley pilot, and the Box has been caught out as well. Perhaps I may get back to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, on that point. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Dear, raised the issue of selection of senior police officers and touched on the requirement for training for senior police officers, which is extremely important. I am looking at my response, but I am not 100 per cent happy with it. I know from being part of a very large structured organisation that you have to go through that sort of mechanism very carefully. In military terms one has the Royal College of Defence Studies, the Higher Command and Staff Course and so on and I know that there are certain colleges in the police service. This is so important that we need to look at it quite closely so I should like to take it away for consideration. It is an important area and if it is not right, we need to get it right. Only by doing that will we have the right people to drive forward all the changes that we need to make. On bureaucracy, I know that the Home Secretary wrote to the right honourable David Davis, showing how 9,000 forms had been abolished. That rather worries me because if 9,000 forms have been got rid of and everything moves on normally, then maybe things were not right. Thank goodness we are actually tackling that. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, raised the issue of perceptions, which I have touched on, and their importance. He also mentioned targets and the police in the future. I understand where the noble Lord is coming from because there have been such huge changes in the world, and that is partly the reason why we have produced the national security strategy, on which I shall respond to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, later. Those changes have impacted on all areas of public life, not just on the police. It would be wrong to say that we have just tinkered with the police and that the previous Government, the Conservative Government, just tinkered with the police. Over the years, a number of changes have been made. Although, in the Green Paper, we shall have to consider clearly where the police force is going, we cannot expect a root-and-branch statement of total change because every public sector area has had to change over the past 100 years. The changes that have taken place are not just tinkering. After the previous debate on this subject, I looked very closely at the possibility of a royal commission and it did not make sense—that was not the way to go—but I hope that the Green Paper will address some of those matters. I hope that we shall have an answer that satisfies this House and the police service that things are moving in the right direction. I believe that our police force will be able to handle the London Olympics. That does not mean that we do not have a huge amount of work to do. I have just changed the structure of how security will be looked at for the Olympics. We have produced a proper risk assessment because there was not one before and stemming from that will be a fully costed and detailed security plan, which we shall have to amend as time goes on. Does that mean that there will be changes in certain areas? Yes, it does. Various noble Lords asked what the impact will be on the whole of the United Kingdom when this event takes place. This is a gigantic event when one considers the sheer numbers of people involved. During the Games all sorts of other things will be going on. I believe it will be the Queen’s jubilee, or some such event, and there are the normal events such as the Notting Hill Carnival, Cowes week and Henley; they all have to be looked after in the same timeframe. Yes, I believe our police can do it and we are putting in place the right measures. It is highly complicated. The linkages and the interdependences are great but we shall get there. I have a number of people putting a great deal of effort into this. So far we are probably ahead of any other nation that has put on the Olympics. I have to admit that we have more problems than, say, the Games in Sydney where the geographic position made matters easier than it is for us in this country. The noble Lord raised the issue of empowering local people. We will make local crime data available on a monthly and a consistent basis to people by July this year, which I hope will help them to understand community safety issues. I hope that covers that point. I shall turn to the very good points raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman. Cybercrime is an issue about which I have been particularly worried. Perhaps in the past we have not taken it as seriously as we should have. The Government and I take this seriously. I have been in touch with the Cabinet Office to try to ensure that we start doing the right things. We have a range of public and private-sector initiatives which have been mentioned by a number of speakers: for example, there is Get Safe Online, which lets people know and understand this issue. The noble Viscount is absolutely right—I was not aware of this until I started to look into it—that this issue worries more people in the UK than many other crimes such as burglaries, muggings, car thefts and so on. It is a real worry and people are right to be worried. We are taking the matter seriously—I must not call it unimportant as it is bloody important for people who lose things. The subject covers wider matters, such as security of the state as well. There are some real issues here; it is highly complicated and very difficult. One has to put against it the fact that we are probably the leading e-commerce economy in Europe and one of the leading such economies in the world. That is why we are so successful in a globalised way, but we have to get this right because if we do not we shall be in real trouble. I thank the noble Viscount for raising the issue. We have much to do. The noble Viscount also raised the issue of DNA. That should be a debate in itself and I hope it will be. I will not go on about that but there is no doubt at all, as the noble Lord, Lord Imbert, mentioned, that DNA is a wonderful tool for getting people who have done dreadful things. However, there are so many other aspects to the subject that we need to debate them. I am sure everyone would agree with that. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for all the data and statistics that he raised. I realise that I have gone on far too long but I would like to turn to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. I thank him for his welcome and his unexpected accolade for this Government. I have never had a problem with bureaucrats; I can normally handle them quite well. I think his view of the Home Office is rather an old view of the Home Office; it is a very different place now. A national security strategy is very impressive. I have not been able to answer all the questions that have been put and I am sorry that I have not got on to the issue of counterfeiting because I wanted to touch on that. Perhaps I can reply in writing. I am aware that I have gone well over my time.