HC Deb 15 June 1998 vol 314 cc4-6
3. Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley)

What public events require the payment of policing charges. [44243]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien)

Chief officers of police decide when to make a charge for providing a special police service, for example policing football matches. A charge is normally made where the event concerned takes place on private property, or is arranged by a commercial organisation, or the policing work falls outside the police's core duty to keep the peace and protect life and property.

Mr. Pike

Is not the Lancashire constabulary completely out of order in trying to charge football clubs in Lancashire for what is known as the reserve—police off the ground? That is a matter completely for the police, as it would be in the case of any public event. There is no dispute about the fact that police on the football ground are charged for, but those in the reserve and off the ground are a matter for the police to determine, and pay for themselves.

Mr. O'Brien

It is for the chief constable to decide policing needs. Forces should charge for officers deployed inside the ground, where the chief constable believes that they are necessary to preserve order, and for any reserves that are needed in order to do so. The courts and the Taylor report on the Hillsborough disaster endorsed that view. Officers deployed outside the ground are usually there at public expense, even if they are marshalling fans towards the ground. I understand that one of the issues at Burnley is whether officers held in the reserve outside the ground are to be included in the charging provisions. I hope that those issues can be resolved locally, as they have been elsewhere.

Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)

Does the Minister agree that the football clubs who pay those charges, and the police, have, by their co-operation, achieved a remarkable improvement in behaviour surrounding English football, and that many of the people who have caused trouble in the past are no longer to be seen at English football matches? When so much has been achieved, is it not that much greater a matter of concern that a travelling circus of drunken hooligans, some of whom may have had neither the intention nor the hope of attending an England football match in France, are giving the game a bad name?

Mr. O'Brien

The right hon. Gentleman is right. Much good work has been done by football clubs and the police—and by the House, with restriction orders and so on—to improve the position at football grounds in our country. It is shameful that the behaviour of a minority of the fans who have gone to France for the football match have besmirched the name of English football. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, we need to ensure that we co-operate with the French, to tackle these people—the right hon. Gentleman rightly chides me for describing them as fans—who go abroad and damage our country's reputation.

Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry)

Given the earlier exchanges, and the great effort that has been made to exchange with other policing authorities information about football hooligans, is the Minister not a little worried that, in this case, there seems to have been some failure of intelligence, or of the application of intelligence? Although we do not want to be wise before we know all the facts, is it not extremely important that we examine, with the French and other authorities, whether there is some failure to translate information into action?

Mr. O'Brien

We have kept in very close contact with the French authorities via the National Criminal Intelligence Service and by direct contact between the Interior Ministry in France and the Home Office here. Liaison has been very good. We have exchanged information available to us about people who are likely to cause problems, and at the moment our information is that the French authorities have acted very well on that. There is no evidence that there has been any failure on the French authorities' part to deal with those issues.

We believe that we have simply been let down by those people who have gone to the match from England. In a sense, we owe an apology to the French for the behaviour of some of the people that have travelled from England to France. We need to ensure that we continue that co-operation with the French authorities; we are committed to doing so.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

Does my hon. Friend agree that it was near enough a racing certainty that there would be trouble as soon as the match was designated for Marseille? It was an open invitation to the English National Front to fight the French National Front.

Mr. O'Brien

There are no excuses for the way in which the fans have behaved. We know from experience of British football matches that, all too often, extremist right-wing organisations—such as the National Front and the British National party—engage some of their supporters in disruptive behaviour surrounding matches. We need to ensure that we have in place the means of dealing with those elements, and that we keep the French authorities informed about any information that we have about extremist right-wing elements that may be seeking to encourage English fans to behave disruptively.