HC Deb 08 June 1956 vol 553 cc1572-86

3.16 p.m.

Mr. J. A. Leavey (Heywood and Royton)

I beg to move, That this House, while welcoming recent improvements in the pay and conditions of service of the police, urges the Government and the police authorities to promote the most efficient employment of all police resources. Because of the valuable and informative debate which we have had today, there is less time than I might have hoped to deal with this important subject on which I have the good fortune to initiate a discussion, namely, consideration of the police service. It is not without significance that this subject appears on the Order Paper sandwiched between a Motion on the public relations of public authorities and a Motion relating to traffic congestion in the London area. Therefore, it seems to be appropriately sited.

A characteristic condition which has been noticeable in this country since the war, in general terms, has been the extent to which demand for all the goods and services that we can produce has exceeded the available supply. In this the police service has not escaped. It has been put colloquially that all the time there have been ten jobs and only nine men to fill them. Many of us feel that, with certain reservations, this has been a happy state of affairs. The Report of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary put it somewhat more accurately when it published tables in its Report for 1955 showing that in England and Wales there were 47,992 policemen of the various ranks available to do what the establishments said should be done by 53,647.

There are three main observations which can be made about the general situation, and I shall list them. First, we should ask ourselves whether we should have more policemen, whether we should strive to make up the establishments; secondly, whether we ought to reduce the number of duties which we call upon our police to perform; thirdly, whether we should contemplate using our police as efficiently as we could.

As to my first general observation, it is the accepted view that the establishments of the various police forces throughout the country are sensibly and realistically based. They draw upon well-tried data relating to population density, area, and so on, and there is always the healthy sanction that the authorities concerned have to pay half the bill. The question must none the less be asked whether we are tackling existing problems the right way by aiming to increase recruiting and reduce wastage so that the establishment figure is attained.

Inseparable from this aspect of the problem is the attractions that we offer to draw more men into the police service. I do not want to touch in any great detail upon pay and conditions, but they are obviously significant. I welcome very much the improvements in pay and conditions of service which were negotiated last year. The increases were, generally speaking, about 15 per cent. The reduction in the working week from 48 to 44 hours was, I am sure, a move in the right direction. I regret, as I think the police authorities do, that the reduced hours are not being worked in a number of police forces because there is still a deficiency. The consequence is that the extra day cannot be an off-duty day, and, thus, police constables are required to work when they would ordinarily have a day off.

There is an aspect of police conditions of service which is sometimes overlooked but ought not to be overlooked by the general public, who are, after all, the employers of the police. It is an aspect which undoubtedly makes the life of the police officer and his wife and family somewhat different from that which others are able to lead. Unavoidably, the police officer lives somewhat separate from his fellow men. Therefore, his conditions of service should have some special attractions by way of security, such as pension, good housing and conditions. Although I do not want to go in detail into the question of pay and conditions, it is obviously inseparable from the problem confronting us.

I want to turn for a moment to the second alternative, whether we should consider, if we are not to get our police forces up to establishment, to some extent reducing the range of duties that we ask our police forces to perform. This would be practically a reversal of the steadily developing tendency which has been noticeable ever since Sir Robert Peel sent out his officers into the streets of London about 130 years ago. I do not quarrel with the general development of the usefulness of our police services in the broadening of their activities, but there is a useful Report on this subject by the Committee on Police Extraneous Duties, listing a number of duties which it is suggested the police should not be called upon to undertake.

In looking at that Report as a layman—I speak as a layman in this matter, but I make no apology for it even in this age of specialists, because I believe that there is still room for the view of the man-inthe-street—I was interested to note that even recently—the Report was published in 1953—police were being asked to undertake such unusual duties as washing bodies in mortuaries, serving as town criers and supervising the licensing of shoe-blacks.

I am sure that it is right to argue that if the man is there on the spot, he can carry out some of his other duties while he is there and thus avoid serious wastage. However, there is a dangerous extension of that argument which runs that while a man is reading the electricity meter he may as well read the gas meter, also. There is something in that principle, although, generally speaking, the country as a whole, to the extent that it gives any thought to this matter, will agree that we should not employ highly trained, highly skilled and admittedly expensive police as odd-job men.

To some it may be a surprise, although it was no surprise to me, that among the extraneous duties which the Report listed, there was no substantial reference to traffic duties. In our discussions there is always some link between the duties which the police perform in connection with traffic and those which they perform in the apprehension of criminals and so on. It is not my view that we should work towards a special corps of traffic police who would be different in their training and qualifications from ordinary police constables. I hope that the Report of the Committee, which is a valuable document, will not become a dead letter, but will be read and digested by police authorities throughout the country.

The third consideration is whether we are making the very best use of our police forces, whether or not we have reached the appropriate levels of establishment, in the sense that we are providing them with the best possible leadership, the best possible training and the best mechanical aids of which we are capable, consistent with the efficient administration of public money. The word "efficient" appears in the Motion, and by some it is regarded as a somewhat cold-blooded word and, therefore, not consistent with good human relations. That is a misconception.

One of the over-riding problems which we face today in all walks of life is the need to ensure that human energy, human ingenuity, and all the mechanical resources which we have at our disposal shall be used to the maximum possible advantage. The survival of the nation very largely depends upon applying those resources to the maximum advantage, so that there shall be no waste. Those two precious elements, time and energy, are things which we cannot afford to waste. A community which has recognised that we cannot possibly afford unemployment cannot justify mis-employment.

I hope that those matters will have continued consideration, but not in the sense that police forces should be lavish in their expenditure upon gadgets of one sort or another. I do not suggest that we should interfere with the basic rôle of the police constable as he patrols his beat. I am sure that the policeman on the beat is quite indispensable, and his relationship with his beat is intimate and personal.

That is half its value; indeed, to the evil-doer it is sometimes a good deal too personal. I believe that it is a very valuable characteristic, and it makes the police officer the man who keeps us out of trouble rather than gets us into trouble. That relationship has been largely responsible for building up a situation which exists here but is not duplicated in any other country, namely, the relationship between the general public and the police forces.

I am sure that when bicycles were first introduced into police forces a chief constable or magistrate somewhere lifted up his hands in horror at the idea of mechanising the police, and painted a terrible picture of an aloof policeman going along the road on his bicycle, thus losing the personal contact and personal touch which had always been so valuable. I suspect that there may be some who are still anxious about the matter, and are dragging their feet in this question of the introduction of mechanical aids which would make the police constable much more useful and better able to carry out his duties.

I am sure that we can raise the general efficiency of our police forces, and it may be that in time it will enable us to return to the consideration which I attempted to draw to the attention of the House a few moments ago. namely, the question whether or not we should have establishments at their present level. There are many applications of this principle. There is no doubt that the team of policemen in a car, equipped with a radio set, and operating upon a proper radio network, has been an enormous boon.

I should like to see—and I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to say something about this the extension of this principle by the introduction of motor scooters, as has happened in some forces, each equipped with an individual radio set, so that the police constable has a proper communication network. That would enable him to cover a wider range of country, not necessarily as a matter of routine, but when the need is urgent.

I do not believe that there is a serious danger of losing the intimacy of the police constable on the beat by using these methods and adding to his efficiency in these ways. I recognise that it is very easy to suggest these things, forgetting that they all cost money. It is a question of balancing one need and one claim against another. We must try to strike a reasonable balance in the distribution of our resources.

A further point which should be considered in this context is the use of civilians. The Report to which I have already referred suggests that certain duties could be carried on by civilians. Valuable work is also done by policewomen, who are now regarded not as substitutes but as persons who have earned for themselves a high reputation in their own right, and who are quite capable of carrying out a number of duties. Their strength is increasing in the various forces.

I am not wholly sold on the idea of the policewoman on point duty, however. I have some sympathy with those who suggest that the arms of the lady police officer might be more properly employed in beckoning something other than lorries and cars, or even in repelling them. There is also some ground for anxiety about the use of policewomen for interrogation Ever since the stenographer was introduced into our offices, the plea of being detained late at the office has aroused wifely suspicions, and it is certain that being detained at the police station has aroused the gravest family fears. If we are to have a combination of those anxieties we might create a serious social problem. But I would not want to be flippant about policewomen because I feel convinced that they have a very important rôle to play.

There is also the question of police dogs. I hope that is a matter which will not be overlooked. Police dogs are widely used on the Continent, and I hope that progressively they will be made more use of in this country.

If we can get this open-minded and broad-minded approach to the police services, we shall find not only that we are raising our establishments, but that the men in those services and the money which we are spending on police work are perhaps better employed. I assure the House that if we approach the matter in that way, we can establish a police service which will become the example for other countries. We want to see throughout the country a police service which gives good value for money to the taxpayer and, at the same time, gives good value to those who serve in it.

3.36 p.m.

Dr. Donald Johnson (Carlisle)

I beg to second the Motion.

I wish to deal very briefly with a question which is, perhaps. a somewhat delicate one, the structure of police administration as between central and local authority. It is, of course, integral in the historic development of our police that it is based on the very proper fear of a centralised police State and a consequent danger to democracy. It was mainly due to that, of course, that our police forces and the power which accompanies them were devolved on a local basis by the various Acts of a hundred or more years ago.

As we know, this spirit still persists and though altered in detail by the recent amalgamations brought about by the 1946 Act, in which smaller and more obviously unworkable police forces were amalgamated, none the less our police are essentialy devolved on local authority, with certain supervisory powers of the Home Office for establishment, service, and so on. More recently there was the welcome provision of centralised services such as the forensic science laboratories.

I am the first to welcome the careful way in which the essential principles of devolution have been retained while being combined with this centralised system of supervision. Nevertheless, as I stated, the position is that whereas we have avoided one police State, we have, as far as the criminal law is concerned—and that is essentially what I am exclusively dealing with —about a hundred or more, so to speak, independent police authorities in the country, each entirely under its chief constable and watch committee. The only exceptions, of course, are the Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard, which are answerable to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Home Secretary.

At the risk of stating the obvious, one must, of course, dispel the general illusion of the man in the street that Scotland Yard is in any sense a national police force. Of course, it is nothing of the kind. It will and can only intervene in provincial matters when it is asked to do so. To quote a hypothetical case, supposing one lived in the County of Blank and suspected that a crime had been committed and was not satisfied with what had happened locally, if one went to Scotland Yard the first thing one would be told would be that it would not interfere and did not have the authority to interfere.

The question I should like to ask my hon. Friend, and about which I should like him to say a word or two when he replies, is whether this set-up, which was all right for dealing with the crime of the common burglar and footpad of a hundred years ago—the criminal who came from the dispossessed members of society—is really adequate for dealing with the modern criminal, and not only from the point of view of increased mobility.

That is only one factor of the criminal of today. It is the way in which, for instance, he has penetrated into the modern café and club society. We have to recognise that, when the modern criminal is successful, he is a very successful person indeed, as was instanced by the party to which I had occasion, some months ago to draw the attention of the House. It was a somewhat infamous Billy Hill party, in Soho, which showed that the successful criminal is a man who is socially acceptable and who has penetrated into society in a way that was quite unknown in former times.

The question which I have to ask my hon. Friend is whether he is really satisfied that the modern set-up in regard to crime is adequate for dealing with this situation in modern conditions, with this complete independence of police authorities, the inability of the Home Office or of any central police authority to interfere. Though we do not want anything like the F.B.I. in America, which has developed very considerable power in similar conditions and circumstances, and though I do not advocate anything of that kind. I want to suggest to my hon. Friend the possibility of individual cases being put up to the Home Secretary and the Home Secretary being able, on occasions, to intervene when he feels that he has been presented with evidence that satisfactory action has not been taken.

I find that I have already exceeded my time, so I will confine myself to asking my hon. Friend to give an answer to that question.

3.42 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Leavey) in selecting this subject for debate, and to thank him and the hon. Member for Carlisle (Dr. D. Johnson) for keeping their remarks short. I wish that we could have heard more from both hon. Gentlemen, because they covered some most interesting points which should be further developed.

I shall take only a few minutes, but, in passing, I want to make one or two comments which I should have liked to develop at greater length. Firstly, I wish to say to the Joint Under-Secretary that I hope he will keep the confidence of the police force in the use of the police college. There are certain restrictions being placed on the entry of men to the police college, which police forces in England and Wales feel may be likely to transform the nature of the college. Secondly, I would ask him if he will speed up the issue of the regulations in respect of police pensions. I know that the difficulty does not lie with him, and that he gave certain undertakings on this matter during the passage of the Police (Pensions) Bill through this House, and that he has done his best to redeem them. On behalf of the Police Federation, which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, I represent, since I am their industrial consultant, I say that they accept what he has put in front of them as representing the undertaking which he gave, and that we should like to see it carried out at the earliest possible moment.

I want to say a general word or two about negotiating machinery, because that is new since we had a major debate in this House on the general subject of the police. Negotiating machinery is good machinery. It provides for the equivalent of a Whitley Council, with both sides negotiating their differences, and provides an arbitration tribunal to settle those differences where disputes exist. That machinery has been used, in my view, adequately and properly, and if I have a complaint to make about it, it is the slowness with which it acts. I hope the Home Office will do its best to ensure that there is speed in negotiations, since if a settlement is agreed quickly, it has twice the value of one that drags on until the concession eventually given is really felt to be almost a grievance by the time it has been secured. We have reached a point in the use of this new negotiating machinery where we are in danger of running into a crisis, and it is that which I wish to draw to the attention of the hon. Gentleman.

Recently the Police Federation rook a case to arbitration and received a favourable award. In order to implement this favourable award, which gives them a measure of back pay, it will be necessary, according to the Joint Under-Secretary—and I take his case for the moment—to introduce legislation in this House. The effect of the legislation would be to put the police on the same basis and in the same relationship so far as pay awards are concerned as other bodies of industrial workers in this country. At the moment, only three other groups besides the police are excluded.

Having won its case, the police service expects the Home Office to implement the award that has now been given. If that is not done, I say advisedly that the Home Secretary and the Home Office will be cutting away from the confidence which the police repose in that arbitration machinery. The case has been heard and its merits decided. The award has been given. It is now for the Home Secretary and the Home Office to implement that award. That is all I wish to say on the matter, except that I think it is now over three years since a former Home Secretary promised to remedy this difficulty. So far, there has been no attempt to find a remedy. It would be a great misfortune if the business the Home Office wished to get through the House did not receive the enthusiastic co-operation of us all until we felt that this long-standing grievance had been remedied. With those remarks I leave the subject and thank the House for listening to me.

3.47 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Younger (Grimsby)

I and my right hon. and hon. Friends consider it valuable to have frequent debates on the police service—it is only just over a year since we had the last major debate—for the simple reason that outside conditions are constantly changing and it is essential that we should review police conditions and not just police pay in the light of changing conditions. A year ago some doubt was thrown on the proposition that pay was an important factor in police recruiting and wastage. I think that the most recent figures since then show that was a wrong assumption, and that it is an important factor. Therefore, on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I associate myself with the welcome which has been given to this debate.

3.48 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. W. F. Deedes)

I readily agree with the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Younger). We are all indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Leavey) for providing us with an opportunity to discuss, albeit more briefly than some of us would like, the contribution which modern developments can make to police efficiency. I hope he will agree that the debate in itself will do a good deal to promote the object of his Motion. There is no more effective way of encouraging the wider adoption of new ideas and methods than by publicising experiments which are being carried out, and an occasion such as this provides an opportunity to do so.

This debate comes at a time when there is an urgent need to cut down public expenditure both central and local. The police service is one in which the bulk of the expenditure is on the pay and emoluments of those serving in the forces and on the pensions of those who have served, which limits the scope for economy. Moreover, recent improvements in the conditions of the service, which have, as I shall show, had beneficial effects, must inevitably mean an increase in the cost of the individual officer and so the cost of the service will increase.

The introduction of reduced working hours for the federated ranks has, I am glad to say, had the effect of checking immediately the serious loss of manpower caused by men leaving the police force after some years of service, but long before the age of retirement. On 30th April, the strength of the police forces in England and Wales, including police women, was 66,708, which is the highest figure so far achieved. Such a figure is welcome and necessary, but the cost involved must be accepted as justified. We still need 9,000 to bring the police strength of this country up to the authorised establishment, and the cost involved there must be accepted as justified.

Pay and hours are most important factors. I think they are not perhaps the only factors; nor even are questions of security, pensions and housing to which my hon. Friend referred. What must also weigh with the prospective recruit are prestige, interests, equipment and organisation, and, not least, the sense that as far as practicable the policeman will have reasonably modern methods for dealing with modern problems of law and order.

This is, after all, the age of the technocrat, and in that direction many youthful instincts turn. Our own policemen have not yet, as my hon. Friend observed, been automationalised, and I hope to goodness that they never will be. They are still regarded in foreign lands as symbols of sympathetic humanity, and long may they so remain, but they have to keep up with a mechanically-minded and indeed a mechanically-propelled age, and not only for the sake of efficiency and for conserving manpower but also to attract the imagination of young men choosing a career, it is important that we should bear that in mind.

Having said that, I should like to say in direct answer to something which my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Dr. D. Johnson) said, that the police forces in the United Kingdom are not uniform. Their requirements are diverse and their experience in types of crime are all varied, as any figures show. Standardisation and centralisation to which my hon. Friend referred are not always the road to efficiency. They are not always the best answer. It is wrong to assume that a good idea and a good system in one place when dealing with police work is necessarily going to be a good idea and a good system everywhere else. What is desirable is that good ideas which contribute to the solution of these problems of conserving manpower, of modernising methods and making use of all our resources, should be made widely known. That I accept.

My hon. Friend asked whether I was satisfied with the present set-up. I can only answer briefly by saying that a great deal of co-ordination—an over-used word, but in this case applicable—goes on between the chief constables, and C.I.D. at Scotland Yard and the provincial police, and we are satisfied that most, if not all, the aims which my hon. Friend has in mind are achieved.

My hon. Friend referred to the question of extraneous duties and he talked about the Committee's Report. In the light of the recommendations that they made, the Home Secretary has asked police authorities to review extraneous duties. The Inspectors of Constabulary followed this up by discussing during their inspections two years ago the question of relieving the police of certain extraneous duties, and there has been some reduction in this kind of duty which the police are asked to undertake. I can assure my hon. Friend that we do not regard the Report as a dead letter and I would add that the Inspectors will give further attention to it in the course of this year's inspections.

I was glad to know that my hon. Friend did not want a traffic corps outside the police force. We agree with his point of view, but it is a lengthy argument and I am relieved to know that I do not have to pursue it at this point.

My hon. Friend talked about the mechanical age, and in particular the motor cycle and the wireless. I fully agree with what he said. The House may be interested to know that as a result of some experiments which have been carried out with the co-operation of selected police forces, a wireless set has been produced which, after extensive testing on a number of motor cycles, has been found suitable for use by county and borough police forces. Experience has shown that the performance of the sot is, generally speaking, as satisfactory as that of the wireless equipment installed in police cars now in use in nearly all the forces. In March, all the police authorities were asked to tell the Home Office the number of motor cycles they wished to have equipped with this wireless. We have received a great many applications, and a number of sets have already been installed. Arrangements have been made for a month's free trial of a wireless set on a motor cycle, where this is required by any police force.

My hon. Friend mentioned the use of the mobile patrol. It is no detriment to the prestige of the man on the beat to say that the policeman equipped with a light-weight motor cycle or scooter in place of the foot patrol can do a very good job and help to conserve manpower. It is work best suited to the extensive suburban or semi-rural area, and its introduction has been stimulated in many cases by the demands of the 44-hour week. We have a very favourable report to give on this matter. One example is from Cambridge, where the chief constable has put 11 Vespa motor-scooters into action and has directly compensated for the 44-hour week. Another is in Liverpool where there was, and still is, a gravely depleted police force, and where there has been an increase to 50 motor-scooters.

The advantage is that a constable can cover a much greater area. The disadvantage is that the public may not always recognise that the policeman is available to them if they want him. It may take a little time for people to realise that a policeman passing slowly on a motor cycle or scooter is available on call if required.

My hon. Friend mentioned the women police. I can report that the total establishment, which is now 2,445 against 1,725 five years ago, shows the increased importance we attach to it. Against that establishment, the strength has increased from 1,384 to 2,111. That shows that chief constables are well aware of the value of women police and of the contribution they make. There is no doubt of their capacity to fill a great part of the field customarily occupied by police men.

The force must remain predominantly male, but in dealing with traffic, patrolling, the prevention and detection of crime and the adolescent and in preventive work, policewomen can play a very great part. I would only mention Sergeant Bush and Policewoman Barrett, who played a most distinguished and courageous part.

I wish I could go on to deal with the other points raised by my hon. Friend, but I must say a word or two to the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan). I took note of what he said, particularly about the forthcoming regulations on police pensions and about the recent award of the arbitrators. I do not think he will expect me to say more, as the award of the arbitrators was received only a week ago, on 1st June. My right hon. and gallant Friend and the Secretary of State for Scotland have not had time yet fully to consider it, but the House may take it that it will not be long before their decision is made known.

Mr. Callaghan

Favourably?

Mr. Deedes

I am making no comment on what I have just said.

We are talking of a very highly individual Service, which calls in every individual case for initiative, enterprise, and, not seldom, courage. However much we resort to modern methods, the quality of the police force will depend ultimately on the quality of the men and women attracted to the ranks. Most of the rest of the world recognises that fact. We have been very fortunate in that quality, and I believe we still are. We should leave nothing undone to see that the quality is preserved. That lies at the heart of all that the hon. Gentleman seeks by his Motion which, on behalf of the Government, I have much pleasure in accepting.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House, while welcoming recent improvements in the pay and conditions of service of the police, urges the Government and the police authorities to promote the most efficient employment of all police resources.