Fighting Crime (Public Engagement)

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire). I served with him for more than two years on the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee. He was then very quiet and studious, intervening in a most helpful way in the surroundings of a Select Committee. He has turned into a veritable Rottweiler since joining the Front-Bench team. I do not know whether it was the influence of the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), who is sitting on his right, that made him find his proper bearings. I am sorry that the shadow Home Secretary has just left. It used to be good cop, bad cop; we now have bad cop, bad cop: two very strong local PCs, with the divisional commander, the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), who has just left the Chamber, as a benign chief superintendent looking after the two PCs. The Opposition used to quote Rudy Giuliani as their model for dealing with crime; it is now Cherie Blair and Louise Casey. How things have changed. At least they have not quoted President-elect Obama. This must be the first debate since Tuesday in which nobody has mentioned him—so I thought I would anyway, just in case people felt that I was not being supportive of him. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) on his promotion in the Home Office to the role of Minister of State; it is a very worthy promotion and he will be a superb police Minister. He is of course the son of a police officer himself. I am not sure whether he arrived at his first meeting saying, in the words of ““Dixon of Dock Green””, ““Evening all””, but we certainly have someone in the job with enormous ability and an understanding of the police force, and we are very proud of what he has done so far. We in the east midlands are extremely proud to have him as our local Minister. Anyone who can go out on Halloween with the specials in Nottingham deserves our respect and thanks. I am sure that we will also hear from the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell), who has taken over the old job of my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling. We welcome him to his new position. I am sure that, as a former Whip, he has been preparing to be junior police Minister for the past four years or so. May I congratulate the Government? I feel that I must do so in order to redress what has been said by Conservative Members, even though, as Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, I try not to be a Government patsy. I thank the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing for ensuring that one of his first acts in post was to settle the police pay dispute for this year by giving them a settlement lasting three years at 2.6 per cent. That was the best and the right thing to do in the circumstances. Like me, he and the Prime Minister, along with many right hon. and hon. Members of the House, attended the Police Dependants Trust event only yesterday, when the Prime Minister rightly paid tribute to the work of the police and the exceptional nature of their job. I am so glad that this year I will not need to spend the period before Christmas joining the police on a big march through London saying to the Government, ““Please pay up on the police award.”” The Government did the right thing. We must never be in a situation where the Government and the police fall out over pay, and the Government should always abide by the decision of any independent arbitration, rather than leave officers, who have no ability to strike, to take to the streets to demonstrate. Perhaps that is all in the past, so I say to the Government, ““Well done. Thank you for doing that. It is a good thing to get out of your in-tray.”” The shadow police Minister mentioned the appointment of Jan Berry. It is another case of the Government's appointments being used against them, but the Home Secretary was right to appoint her to her position. She is not quite poacher turned gamekeeper, but I hope that her vast experience will mean that she will be able to assist the Government in their difficult task. Everyone on both sides of the House agrees—I have heard this so many times in debates on crime and policing over the past two years—on the need to cut police bureaucracy. Someone said that we should have a bonfire of targets. We should do that, so I think that Jan Berry's appointment is a very good thing, and I hope that the Government will be able to listen to her sensible suggestions. At midnight on Monday, the Home Affairs Committee will publish its long report into policing in the 21st century. We began our inquiry in February, and it has taken a great deal of time. One member of the Committee is in his place, the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies), and another, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), has just left the Chamber—he will doubtless pop back in during this debate. They will attest to the fact that the Committee took a great deal of time over the report, listening to a large number of witnesses and travelling the country—we visited Reading, Monmouth, Staffordshire and Manchester to take evidence. I hope that the House will be pleased with the report. I have to be careful that I do not inadvertently tell the House what is in it, because it has been embargoed and we must not allow leaks, even to the House itself. I hope that everyone will be waiting outside Her Majesty's Stationery Office on Monday to receive their copy at one minute past midnight. The hon. Member for Hornchurch takes public engagement in fighting crime literally, in his new guise as Mr. Nasty. That public engagement does not necessarily mean that the public have to fight crime themselves, although I understand the circumstances in which he and others feel it is necessary to do so. He should acknowledge the copyright of the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), another member of the Home Affairs Committee, who originally put through this House a private Member's Bill on so-called have-a-go heroes as a result of the situation in his constituency. Of course, there are circumstances in which such an approach is necessary and important. More importantly, however, we need to get the public on side. Fighting crime should be above party politics; and I am surprised that after so many years it still is not. Unless we engage the public in fighting crime, we cannot fulfil the lofty ambitions of Sir Robert Peel quoted by the hon. Member for Hornchurch. I know that that sounds like centuries ago—certainly longer ago than ““Dixon of Dock Green””—but core values are extremely important to tackling crime. Everyone acknowledges that the nature of crime has changed since the days of Robert Peel—for example, we have internet crime, which of course was not possible then—but those core values remain important. To borrow a phrase from new Labour, we need core values in a modern setting. We must make them relevant to the lives of ordinary people. That is why, on 17 November, with the help of the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) and the deputy Mayor of London, Kit Malthouse, the Select Committee will launch another inquiry into knife crime. We felt that it was important to involve all political parties, hence the involvement of the hon. Gentleman, the deputy Mayor and others—although, sadly, the leader of the Conservative Party could not attend because of diary commitments. It is important to reach a consensus on how to deal with issues such as knife crime, and crime in general. That is what the public want; they do not want to see us squabbling—not that we have been squabbling today; we have to put forward our different ideological views. However, on crime, the public expect us to be above party politics. Crime affects every member of the public—men, women and children—from birth to death. Everyone, at some point, will be involved in the criminal justice system, whether individually or through a family member, either as the perpetrator—of course, that does not apply to anyone in this House—or, more likely, as a victim, or as somebody who knows a victim, observes a crime or reads a newspaper. The responsibility for everyone to rise above politics is extremely important. I also praise Louise Casey—we are all quoting her like mad, even though she is not here—who has done a pretty good job. She has been allowed to do some ““blue-sky thinking””—as it is called—on the Government's crime policy. She is right to mention the public's worry that crime is rising, although statistics tell us that it is falling—that is what the British crime survey has told us for the past 11 years. We must overcome that difference in perception, which has been identified by the Opposition and acknowledged by the Government. We must have faith in the organisation and the individuals fighting crime for us—the police. They need to be well paid, well resourced and well respected. Ian Johnston, the head of the Police Superintendents Association, told his conference:"““The greatest challenge facing policing today is the issue of public confidence.””" When I intervened on the Minister, I mentioned that more than 40 per cent. of those who have had contact with the police have less confidence after their experience than before. Those are the worst figures in the public sector, which should worry the Government and chief constables. This Government have invested more money in fighting crime than any other—the Opposition will probably not accept that, but the statistics bear it out. The police are better resourced than ever before. However, when I try to intervene in cases and ring a police constable—yes, the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee actually does this—to find out what is happening, often I am told that the police officer in charge of the case is either sick, out of the office, at lunch and will ring me back. Even I—an elected representative trying to intervene in a case—have found a lack of proper communication. That is the first thing that we need to consider.