Crime and Policing

I open by saying that I agreed with much of the contribution of the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans). It is interesting that both he and the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) talked about good practice being carried out by police officers in their communities. On that basis, it is clear that the Labour Government have not totally prevented good practice over the past 13 years. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and other colleagues have said, we would never say that everything is perfect. There will never be a perfect way to tackle crime, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) said. However, when it comes to challenging crime and antisocial behaviour in our communities, the cup is half full, if not even more. There has been a change in attitudes towards law and order over a number of years. I welcome the examples of best practice that have been given, and they have occurred partly because of the direction that the Labour Government provided. We were more focused on community policing and on the police working with other organisations, whether they are local authorities or, as the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth said, football clubs. In making important changes, we recognised that tackling crime and disorder in our communities could not be the preserve of police officers alone. As a former Home Office Minister, I feel frustrated about the challenge of making best practice more mainstream. I was interested when I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), because as a Home Office Minister back in 2003 I visited Wales. That was some years ago now, but I saw there examples of the type of community and neighbourhood policing that we have thankfully seen in England in recent years. There was an attitude and approach in parts of Wales that was not being picked up elsewhere at the time. Although I have the greatest regard for many people from the Association of Chief Police Officers whom I have met over the years, I believe that it has failed as an organisation to see best practice and say, ““This is what we should have more of””. I link that point to one about accountability. I would not like Government Members to characterise Labour Members who are passionate about tackling crime in our communities as being anti-accountability, or as believing that the current structure of police authorities is perfect. I have said in previous contributions that I am not a cheerleader for the idea that everything is absolutely great. If we are to talk about the big society, we need to consider how we can give our communities information about best practice so that they have the power to demand more of it. A bogus argument is sometimes made that communities are somehow so different from each other that nothing can be learned. I do not believe that, and I do not believe in reinventing the wheel. Communities should look to other areas to see what has worked and what has not. Yes, they should make the service bespoke for their area if they need to, but for goodness' sake, they should seize best practice with both hands. If they want to rebrand it, they can get on with doing so, but they should not be so paternalistic and parochial about their own patch that they cannot see the wood for the trees. I hope that in our discussions in the months ahead about the accountability of the proposed elected commissioners, we will think beyond simply what such a commissioner can do and consider how to ensure that there is accountability, because chief constables also have to be held to account. I attended a lunch a few months ago, before the recess, at which Sir Paul Stephenson spoke. What he said about a number of issues was interesting, and I was intrigued by what he was prepared to admit. When it comes to bureaucracy—I put my hand up and admit that those in government can always do more about it—he said that too often, he had seen his colleagues at the most senior level add layers of bureaucracy over and above what the Government were asking. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth, who has now left the Chamber, talked about officers having to fill out a form to use the bathroom, but I can say with pretty much 100% certainty that that was not a diktat from central Government, even if it somehow emerged in his police force. Although we must consider Government bureaucracy, we must also examine ways in which the forces themselves create bureaucracy. That is clear in procurement, with forces being parochial about having their own design of car or uniform that is different from those elsewhere. I wish the coalition Government the best of luck in dealing with that, because it is not easy. There are incredibly strong vested interests in all areas of public policy, including crime and law and order. I might be out of sync with my Opposition Front Benchers on this, but whatever went wrong, it was a shame that the previous Government did not get to a better place on creating larger police forces. I absolutely agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart), who talked about a larger force for Scotland while at the same time having local units based on local authority boundaries. I sign up to that. In the last policing debate in which I spoke, I said that people in Doncaster are more interested in what Bob Sanderson is doing—he runs our local police—than in what the chief constable is up to down in Sheffield. The local police force is what counts. On accountability and neighbourhood policing, I am pleased to report from my experience in Doncaster that although the monthly meetings between the police and members of the community—councillors are also often involved—on how neighbourhood policing teams can best focus on what people are most concerned about had a bit of a rocky start, I am now getting feedback from the police, the public, councillors and those working for local authorities that they are starting to gel and to work. Those meetings are an important part of local accountability, and they are important in ensuring that the police and agencies who work with them understand local policing concerns. We have heard much discussion of police officers. Departments and outside agencies will face cuts not of 20%, but of anything between 25 and 40% cuts, and we know that 70% of the police budget is spent on paying officers' wages, so it is impossible that there will not be substantial cuts in police numbers, which I am very concerned about. The Government's solution—or part of it—is that we should recruit 50,000 additional special constables. I do not know where that figure comes from, but there are currently 15,000 special constables, so expecting an additional 50,000 volunteers is ambitious. The Government also expect those unpaid, part-time volunteers to replace full-time, professional police officers. I worry about that. Special constables make a great contribution, but they are not a substitute. For one thing, they have only to work for a minimum of 16 hours a month, but for another, they must fit their police hours around paid employment and family life. They cannot be required to turn up for work at particular times or on particular days as part of an organised strategy to bear down on the different sorts of crimes that are committed in our neighbourhoods. The truth is that chief constables cannot plan their forces around volunteers. I agree with my colleagues about CCTV evidence and the DNA database. I am very worried about those tools being undermined, which will undermine police officers' ability to do their jobs. Although this is a Home Office debate, we need to touch on penal policy, responsibility for which has been split off to the Ministry of Justice, because punishing crime is an important part of effective policing and dealing with crime in our communities. It is a complicated matter. Prison has many functions, of which rehabilitation is one, but that has not always been carried out as effectively as it ought to have been. However, prison also protects the public from serial and dangerous offenders. We have only to ask police officers to find out about the respite that a community can get if, say, a serial burglar who has committed 40 crimes in a few months is put in prison after everything else has been tried. We should have an informed debate on policing—it is too important for a back-and-forth debate. I believe that we last had a commission look at the role of the police in 1962, so perhaps it is time to think about another commission. The debate is about more than the deficit; it is about creating a 21st century police force.