HC Deb 12 July 1990 vol 176 c444
5. Mr. Harry Greenway

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on funding of the Ealing borough police consultative committee; and what changes there have been in its membership.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

Funding for the Ealing community and police consultative group is provided from the Metropolitan police fund, as is the case with all 41 police-community consultative groups which operate in the Metropolitan police district. The cost of running the Ealing group in 1989–90 was £33,000.

I understand that Ealing borough council has recently appointed representatives to the Ealing group. I welcome that move, and urge the three London borough councils—Brent, Hackney and Lambeth—which have yet to take up their places on their local groups, to do so.

Mr. Greenway

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Ealing borough police consultative committee has done an excellent job for several years? Will he also confirm that Labour councillors refused to attend a single meeting when Labour was in control of Ealing borough council and that the same councillors spent millions of pounds of ratepayers' money and employed 10 staff to abuse the police and make their work difficult? They were led by a Labour councillor who was the deputy leader of another borough. Does not that give the lie to Labour Front-Bench spokesmen who pretend to support the police? They do not.

Mr. Lloyd

My hon. Friend is right. The Ealing consultative group has been doing extremely good work without Ealing borough council representation, but it will now be able to do better work because it has that support. It is extremely interesting that of the five councils that did not send representatives to their consultative group, the residents who felt disadvantaged by that turned two of those councils out—quite right too. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Order. Home Office Questions are extremely important. They are about good order in the country. I hope that we can treat them with equal good order in the Chamber.