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§ Mr. David Prior (North Norfolk)I am delighted to debate rural policing as it is one of the most important issues facing North Norfolk and the constituencies of many other hon. Members.
We cherish many freedoms and take them for granted. None is more important, however, than the freedom to go about one's daily life in safety, without fear or intimidation. That principle lies behind the great cry of the founders of the American constitution for life, liberty and the pursuit of human happiness. The rule of law, and its acceptance by the people even when individuals may disagree with it, is a crucial hallmark of a civilised democratic society.
The line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour will always fluctuate. It is influenced by many factors, not least the prevailing moral consensus and the political complexion of the House of Commons. All politicians who, like me, believe in individual freedom must deal with the paradox that liberty is both constrained and preserved by law and order policies. However, no matter what our political beliefs, and wherever the line is drawn, all Members believe that people should not feel threatened by crime.
I shall not dwell on serious crimes such as dealing in hard drugs, murder or burglary; nor do I wish to trade statistics with the Minister of State, Home Office, about how much his Government have or have not spent on law and order, although I shall refer to their election promise to be tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.
Instead, I shall focus on a range of anti-social behaviour largely undealt with by the criminal justice system, but which can blight or ruin the lives of ordinary, decent people. That is as true in the countryside and our market towns as it is in our big cities. I shall illustrate my theme with a few real-life examples from my constituency. The Minister will recognise their type, and I do not doubt that he could add to the list.
A young man walks down the high street, spitting on the pavement or, worse, spitting into a young mother's pram, in which a baby is lying. A car driver deliberately throws a bag of takeaway rubbish out of his car window on to the street. A gang of children, in their early teens, defaces and vandalises newly planted trees. A group of 13 to 17-year-olds skateboard in a residential area, shouting obscenities and playing their radios loudly late into the night. Rowdy young adults drink too much, show off outside a pub and jostle and insult passers by, making old people in particular frightened to walk down the high street.
I could offer many more examples, but the House will have the gist. Across the country, many Members will hear the same complaints at their constituency surgeries. That kind of behaviour makes no headlines, and it is entirely absent from the crime statistics or the police league tables. Many young people involved are not real criminals. Most, though not all, will grow out of their anti-social behaviour and will settle down. However, their behaviour causes great distress to many decent people.
Some of those involved will fall into crime, perhaps stealing a car or dealing in drugs. They may become drunk and get into a violent incident. If bad behaviour is 1138 not checked, it can easily progress into serious criminal behaviour. We do not have time to go into all the reasons for anti-social behaviour, which is linked to family breakdown, poor employment opportunities and fewer organised leisure opportunities—a particular concern in my constituency where youth and community centres have closed. Those long-term problems are the causes of crime on which the Government promised to be tough, but on which they are finding it difficult to deliver.
My constituents want to know what the Government will do today and in the short term. I was brought up in rural Suffolk in the 1960s and 1970s. I remember the police house in the village; I remember the local policeman; I even remember "Dixon of Dock Green", though admittedly through a haze of nostalgia. The bobby on the beat was a reality. He may not have caught train robbers and murderers, but his existence prevented crime. He was part of the community. He knew the local villains and the parents of local troublemakers. Above all, he reassured the public. Visibility is important.
My view is not fashionable, and it can be easily parodied. Senior police officers and Home Office officials will no doubt say that police officers on foot or on bikes cannot catch modern criminals. That view misses the point because it is driven by crime statistics and league tables, clear-up rates and speed of response tables. It misses the much more intangible goal of a friendly, crime-free, happy neighbourhood.
If the police become too remote, they will increasingly be seen in a hostile light. To law-abiding citizens, a uniform should inspire familiarity and security, not fear and trepidation. Only if the local police are truly local will officers be able further to develop our important neighbourhood watch schemes and partnership approaches, which involve volunteers, parish councils, local authorities and—I hope—parents.
A local policeman who knows the community must be at the hub of any partnership approach, bringing professionalism, experience, judgment and authority. The police are custodians of a special bond of trust between the people and the law. Weakening or ignoring that bond does not bode well for anyone.
Against that background, I am concerned about staffing in North Norfolk. I am sure that other rural areas face a similar problem. North Norfolk has 1,325 miles of lanes and roads, 52,000 homes and a population that grows from 130,000 to around 1 million during the holiday season. It takes at least an hour to drive from one end of the constituency to another, and there are eight large market towns. Sandringham is at one end of the constituency, and Bacton—the largest gas terminal in the country—is at the other. Each poses particular challenges to the police.
Yesterday, 15 constables, two sergeants and one inspector were on duty. That simply is not enough. There is no hope for genuine community policing unless more officers can be on duty. This year's police settlement holds out no hope for improvement. Norfolk has been given no real spending increase, but policing costs are rising. As Brian Landale, chairman of the police authority, wrote earlier this year to the Home Secretary:
The funding increase for the Norfolk Police Authority is very disappointing and falls short of the increase required to maintain even a standstill position … Crime in Norfolk may have to be fought on a Shoe String.1139 The Police Federation said of the more general 1999–2000 settlement:One of the Government's main manifesto pledges was to support law and order but Treasury officials have swung the axe on police budgets. This will result in fewer police officers, the closure of local stations and a reduction in frontline services.The situation may worsen as police authorities are shoe-horned into what is euphemistically called best value, which is designed to improve efficiency. How can we put a value on local community policing? How can the visiting of schools to talk about drugs be turned into an efficiency measure? How can we effectively measure crimes that never happen? It seems that we are all accountants now, and I am concerned that best value will make it even more difficult to justify more policemen in the community and on the beat.I hope that the Minister will take some of my points on board. I know that he does not have a magic wand, and that he has to grapple with extremely difficult issues—many of which existed long before he came into government. However, I hope that he accepts that bad and anti-social behaviour is a real problem, that local policing can help to prevent such behaviour, and that we need more and visible policemen on the beat in rural areas. I hope that he will find the resources to fund those policemen, and that he will stress to police authorities the importance of community policing and partnerships.
§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng)I thank the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Mr. Prior) for giving the House the opportunity to examine the issue of the policing of rural areas. The House would do well to take that matter seriously. My postbag shows that hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned about crime and disorder in rural areas. The Government are determined to put in place, as we have begun to do—not least with the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which is an important innovation—measures to give local communities the opportunity to enter into effective partnerships with the police to bear down on crime and disorder. We are determined to ensure that those issues are treated with the seriousness that they deserve.
I welcome the hon. Gentleman's determination to avoid the simple trading of statistics in considering the matter, but the Audit Commission's latest figures show that crime in Norfolk is significantly below the national average of 78 crimes for every thousand people, at about 67 crimes per thousand of the population. Nevertheless, as the hon. Gentleman says, the sense of well-being, safety and security of our fellow citizens is not reflected in a simple examination of the bare statistics; it is much more intangible than that. It is affected by behaviour and conduct that does not necessarily show up in those statistics.
The examples that the hon. Gentleman gives will be familiar to people in rural and urban areas. He describes what I call corrosive conduct, because it is corrosive of the fabric of local communities. It is precisely because the Labour Government recognised that, that we introduced the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, and tackled, for the first time, the sort of conduct of which he complained. 1140 The courts now have the power to impose anti-social behaviour orders with an ultimate criminal sanction, but initially with a civil burden of proof.
The child curfew orders and the child safety orders are designed to assist in dealing with the unacceptable conduct of children, of young people, or even of older members of the public who should know better, but who act in a way that is fundamentally unacceptable to decent, law-abiding people. As I said, such conduct is corrosive of strong, successful local communities. We have now given the police, local authorities and the courts the power to deal with that sort of behaviour. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will use his good offices to ensure that, in Norfolk, his local authority and the police do use those powers. I hope that he will ask the sort of questions that should be asked, if the conduct that he has described goes unchecked.
The hon. Gentleman also raises—significantly—issues relating to police numbers. I understand his concern to ensure that policing in his constituency and in the county is effective and efficient. I understand that and I welcome it. The hon. Gentleman was gracious enough to point out that we are discussing problems that existed before the Government came into office. However, I have to point out to him that the Conservative Government had 18 years in which to tackle them; they did not do so, and it is the Labour Government who have had to take up the cudgels on behalf of the very people whose concerns the hon. Gentleman represents in today's debate.
I hope that he will realise that, in calling for an effective and efficient police force, he certainly enjoys the support of the Government. We have ensured that, in respect of Norfolk, the budget of the police authority will increase by 5.5 per cent. this year to £86.9 million. That is above the national average of 3.1 per cent. I also point out that the budget for the years between 1992 and 1999 was set by right hon. and hon. Members who now sit—rightly—on the Opposition Benches. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take up issues relating to police funding with his colleagues, who were responsible for that budget, and with his colleagues in Norfolk, who are responsible locally. The ball is very much in their court; we have increased the resources available to the police. During the next three years, we shall add an extra £1.24 billion to the police budget, over and above the moneys that would have been spent if the Conservatives had been returned to power and had implemented their budget projections.
Despite the concerns that the hon. Gentleman expresses, it is important to realise that Norfolk spends considerably more than its two immediate police force neighbours, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. I make those comments to the hon. Gentleman not in a spirit of party political acrimony, but in order to urge him to reflect on those issues with the chair of the police authority and with the chief constable. As right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House will be aware, I am only too happy to meet them to discuss their concerns about police funding, but it is most important to understand the basis on which that dialogue can take place.
The hon. Gentleman has expressed concerns about visible policing. I stress that those matters are primarily for the chief constable and I hope that he has raised them with the chief constable. It is not for me as a Minister—or for any Minister of the Crown, or for any right hon. or hon. Member, be they in government or in opposition—to tell chief police officers how to do their job 1141 operationally. For good constitutional reasons, chief officers rightly have operational control over their forces; they determine the deployment of the manpower at their disposal.
In the discussions that I have held with chief constables, their concern is to build and to use the tools that the Labour Government have given them in order to mobilise the whole community in opposition to crime and disorder. We must avoid slipping into the mindset that it is all down to the police, and in which we say, "If only we saw more of our policemen and women." In the main, our policemen and women do a first-class job; they are there when we need them. I know the chief constable of Norfolk and am aware of how seriously he takes those issues. I assure the hon. Gentleman that, if he has specific concerns about deployment, he should, in the first instance, discuss them with the chief constable, especially in relation to manpower.
We should bear in mind what the previous Government did in relation to manpower. I remind the hon. Gentleman—I repeat, not in a spirit of party political acrimony—that his right hon. and hon. Friends took from the then Home Secretary the power to determine police force numbers. The Home Office had that power, but it was taken by a Conservative Home Secretary and a Conservative Government, whom the hon. Gentleman supported—although he did not grace the Benches of this place—and for whom he went about on the stump in Norfolk garnering support. His reward was a majority of some 1,233 votes—I believe that that is the extent of it. The hon. Gentleman must understand the way in which we approach those issues. We hear what he says, but deployment of the not inconsiderable manpower resources at the disposal of the chief constable in Norfolk is, first and foremost, a matter for him.
We need to confront some real issues together. We must recognise that, while rural areas overall enjoy a lower rate of crime than urban areas per head of population, they experience the same concerns about burglary, robbery and anti-social behaviour. People in rural areas need to feel that they can go about their business—as the hon. Gentleman described—without fear. That is the right of people in both rural and urban England. Meeting those needs will require different and distinct strategies. We must ensure—I am absolutely determined to do this—that we deliver the crime and disorder strategies and outcomes that are now in place and are being taken forward. We must evaluate those outcomes, bearing in mind the special needs of rural areas.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Home Office is addressing the issue of sparsity. We are awaiting the outcome of research into that area because sparsity is a real cause of concern operationally for rural chief officers and their management. Other issues involve the role of the rural equivalent of neighbourhood watch. Some very good schemes have been established in the countryside that target the theft of agricultural machinery, for instance. The hon. Gentleman will know that that is a real problem in rural areas. He will also be aware of concerns in some rural areas about the modern equivalent of stock rustling. There is a real job of work to be done in mobilising the whole community with regard to appropriate property watch schemes. We must all take responsibility for each other and for each other's property.
1142 We must also ensure that the Government's crime and disorder reduction programmes and our investment in that area benefit rural areas. I assure the hon. Gentleman of our determination in that regard. For example, good practice has been developed in terms of the relationship between police and schools. There are opportunities to fund some piloted work to ensure that schools work closely with local police, and significantly with local businesses, in order to bear down on some forms of crime and anti-social behaviour in which young people are involved. For instance, the problems of alcohol and drug abuse by young people will benefit from the partnership approach that the Government are seeking to engender.
The emphasis is on partnership and on evidence-based practice. We must ensure that the whole country—rural and urban areas alike—benefits from what the Government are seeking to achieve. I know that Norfolk will play its part. It has identified its priorities. The chief constable plans to make efficiency gains of £1.7 million this year and to re-invest those gains in a variety of initiatives designed to improve performance in priority areas. The hon. Gentleman will be glad to hear—bearing in mind the examples that he gave—that the chief constable is particularly concerned about reducing incidents of disorder by some 7 per cent. It is important to build on the strategies that we have put in place locally as a result of the Crime and Disorder Act. We must set targets and ensure that they are owned by the local communities who set them. That is why I particularly welcome the Norfolk chief constable's target for reducing disorder. We must work together to achieve those targets.
We have put in place the mechanism for delivering that result. We have invested an additional £150 million in more closed-circuit television schemes that will benefit both urban and rural areas. We are in the business of ensuring that our approaches are innovative. I shall give one example. I visited Ipswich a few months ago where I met men and women who have a special constabulary post in the local hospital trust grounds. They are trying to link the work of that post not simply with the CCTV provision within the hospital—which has drastically reduced the number of assaults on staff by patients and their families and other incidents of crime in the hospital—but with the wider community. Some interesting and important examples of good practice are being developed in rural areas, and they should be extended nationally.
The targeted policing initiative in our crime reduction programme will include vehicle crime—which I know concerns the hon. Gentleman. The initiative will cover 1,000 square miles in a rural part of Northumbria, encompassing the towns of Hexham, Haltwhistle, Prudhoe and Corbybridge. The Government are making that sort of initiative possible. A mobile police station will tour the county, tracking, and dealing with crime as it is reported. Those measures offer the prospect of delivering visible policing in new, innovative and efficient ways that I know will gladden the hon. Gentleman's heart.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for introducing this debate. It has been a good discussion and his contribution has proved helpful and useful. Through partnership—we want to see partnership in the House mirrored on the ground—we can make a real difference in reducing crime and disorder in rural and urban areas alike.