§ Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater)I am grateful to be able to bring to the Minister's attention the situation of policing in Somerset. Running late is a bit of a novelty. Perhaps the microphones should always go down—things might go a lot quicker and less painfully. It has certainly been a long time since I saw an hon. Member get up and say, "Can I have a yes or no from the Minister?" It was very unusual but very nice to see.
This debate is slightly unusual. I am interested in policing in Somerset but we come under the Avon and Somerset constabulary area. That area was set up to include Bristol and a very large rural hinterland. As the years have passed, we have discovered that Bristol—which is now a large conurbation—takes more and more resources. Many of Bristol's problems are not problems that we have in rural Somerset. As a result, public service agreement targets have caused more and more problems for the chief constable.
I recently had a meeting with Steve Pilkington, the chief constable of Avon and Somerset constabulary. He has been trying to work his way through the raft of targets that he has been asked to hit. The latest target is to reduce burglary in Bristol. He has been very successful in doing that, but the problem is that burglary in rural areas has gone up. It is not that he is not trying to keep the levels down; it is that the resources that he requires for the enormous Bristol conurbation are way out of proportion.
The PSA targets should be broken down further to consider both rural and urban policing. I know that it is unusual to have such a big conurbation at the top of an area, but policing resources for rural Somerset should be readdressed. I imagine that hon. Members who represent Bristol will have something to say about that, and will say it louder than I am saying this, but there is a problem. Owing to the fact that the policing plan is national, it does not consider local variations. In Somerset, the national picture cannot be turned into a local picture with the flick of a magic wand.
The chief constable's task is to spend enough money to stand still, but the precept this year means that he will not be able to do that. His additional spending for 2003–04 is £21 million—just to stand still. The inflation part of that, and pay awards, account for £8.6 million and the extra cost of police pensions accounts for £1.9 million. Service growth accounts for £11.8 million. He has nothing extra to expand policing in his area. The chief constable will have to try to deliver with what he has got.
It is very worrying to receive a letter from a chief constable saying that the likely cuts in the precept could result in up to 100 officers having to go. He has made it clear that that will not happen—so I do not want to scare the Minister into thinking that it will—but he is extremely concerned, as any chief constable would be, about what he has been offered. To hit the PSA targets, he now needs to provide an extra 193 officers and 130 support staff. That represents a rise of 6 to 7 per cent. in policing numbers.
What targets will the chief constable have to try to achieve? They are: a 15 per cent. detection rate for domestic burglaries; a 6 per cent. detection rate for theft 253WH from motor vehicles; an 18 per cent. detection rate for robberies to be reached over two years; and to attend 80 per cent. of calls within 10 minutes in urban areas. One should note that that is the urban, not the rural, response time for policing in Somerset.
The Minister and the Government are imposing those targets on a chief constable who is finding it difficult to know where resources will come from. His increase in Government funding this year is £4.6 million—or 3 per cent. However, that figure would have to be £11.4 million just to allow policing to stand still. He will not be able to make up that differential unless he does so through efficiency measures or by putting up the precept in Somerset. That is the important part.
After this year's budget increases, pay and national insurance contributions alone will total £7 million. Over and above that, £2.8 million will have to be put aside for pensions. The only other sums that the chief constable will receive to meet the PSA targets—I have checked this carefully—are for certain specific Home Office projects on crime detection or crime reduction.
I wonder whether the targets are achievable. The increased revenue forecasts for 2004–05 and for 2005–06 are £20.5 million and £35.4 million respectively. Policing is getting more and more expensive. We want police, we need police and they do an extremely good job, but as resources are cut, it becomes harder and harder to see where the extra money will come from and how west Somerset will cope. The first thing that the inspector said to me was that we need resources. He said, "We have a drugs problem and other normal policing problems, yet I have to second officers to Taunton, Yeovil and other places." I see that the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) in present. The police consistently face the problem of trying to balance the books.
My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook), who unfortunately cannot be here because he is serving on the Standing Committee considering the Hunting Bill, has made the point that on the enormous expanse of Exmoor, radios do not even work—never mind policemen. Police in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) have found it hard to hit the response times for the fairly elderly population of Burnham-on-Sea and Highbridge because of the problems of such an unbalanced society. Elderly people require slightly more; they demand high-quality policing at all times.
In our area, we have the parish warden scheme, which was set up to build up police resources. I have no basic problem with that; as an idea, it is sound. Our two wardens do an extremely good job; they work hard. When funding for them runs out, however, it will fall to Sedgemoor district council to pay. It cannot afford to do so. We would like parish wardens, and I am sure that the Minister will say that he would like to give them to us, but district councils cannot afford to fund the posts. I would like many more people to be taken on as parish wardens to try to help the police.
I would also like more special constables. As an ex-Territorial Army soldier, I know the importance of volunteers. Special constables do a phenomenal job. Bridgwater has the biggest carnival in the world; it commemorates the battle of Sedgemoor. The specials police an event that sees 150,000 people arrive in a town of a population of 30,000. There is never any great 254WH trouble because it is policed beautifully. We know what is going to happen. We have the right people to do the job now, but given the terms and conditions and the fact that they are volunteering for what can be an extremely difficult job, the problem in future will be recruiting.
§ Mr. David Laws (Yeovil)I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Does he agree that the prospect faced this year by his constituents and mine is a 35 per cent. rise in the police precept in Somerset in order to fund what is essentially a crime problem in Bristol? Does he also agree that Home Office Ministers should consider funding Bristol's particular problems centrally rather than at the expense of residents in Somerset? Does he further agree that if the raiding of Somerset's budget to fund Bristol continues, there will eventually be pressure for Somerset to join the more rural counties such as Dorset and to break the link with Bristol altogether?
§ Mr. Liddell-GraingerThe hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly valid point. He is absolutely right. The chief constable has said that he can envisage council tax on a band D property rising this year by £25.45—just to be able to police the Somerset area. As the hon. Gentleman said, perhaps we should be talking about Somerset joining another rural area such as Dorset or Devon, because as a rural area we cannot afford to police a large conurbation.
An interesting piece appeared in Bristol's Evening Post in October. The chief constable, Steve Pilkington, wrote to all the area's MPs to say that if we do not sort out the issue, council tax will have to go up. The article said that his letter was a stark warning as the Government prepared to announce the conclusion of consultation on radical changes to the funding formula for local authorities. There is real concern. I am sure that the Minister would agree that when important local newspapers lead with such stories, it does not do the morale of anybody in the area any good.
I want to bring the problem of raves to the Minister's attention. Before people ask why we are discussing raves in Somerset, I point out that Glastonbury is down the road, where one of the biggest outdoor festivals in the country takes place. We also have Steart common, an area of unspoilt beauty. In 2002, there were two raves there, which ended up with 4,000 people trying to get past three policemen. The inspector had no choice but to withdraw the policemen. The chief constable was magnanimous in saying that there were problems but that a large number of people had come through Bristol and having got away from being held there had gone to an area in Bridgwater from which they could not be removed. The resources to police rural Somerset are not sufficient. There have been opportunities to give money, and the local council, the local police and the enterprise agencies have each given £1,000 to put up gates to try to stop such people, but policemen are needed to head them off. We do not have them.
The courts system is now under threat. I know that this is not the Minister's responsibility—he is concerned with rural policing—but the court in Minehead is to shut, the court in Bridgwater is under threat, and other courts in Somerset may be closing. The police in west Somerset fear that, having arrested an offender, they will have to take him to Taunton. We only have buses; if 255WH people do not have a car, they are stuck—and the buses do not exactly arrive every 10 minutes. That type of problem is creating enormous worry in the police system. If Bridgwater courts shut, cases will have to go to Taunton. We have an industrial town in the middle of Somerset, with all the attendant problems. Will the Minister consider how policing will be carried out if we do not have the courts system in the area to cope?
Another problem concerns the probationary service. Last week, the Somerset County Gazette ran a story, which is now confirmed, on how the probation service might have to change the way in which it works because magistrates are stopping case after case to wait for late reports. Police time, effort and resources are being wasted. We are squandering what we have. As I said when referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton, my constituency covers Exmoor. If a policeman goes there, not only can he not use his mobile phone because there are no masts for his radio, but he cannot be contacted to find out what has been going on. That is a long-term worry.
The Government are putting the onus on local authorities, which are being used to cover a hole in the economy. The Government's thinking is to put the onus on them to raise the precept by 40 per cent. and ensure that local people have to raise the money so that they make the decision whether they want the policing level that they deserve. Will the Minister please look again at the calculations and allow the chief constable of Avon and Somerset to put his case? Will he make sure that the precept means that we have policing in real terms without having to beg central Government every year or put 30 to 40 per cent. on the council tax payers of Avon and Somerset?
§ The Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety (Mr. John Denham)I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) on obtaining a debate on policing in Somerset. I will try to reply to as many of his points as possible. He spoke forcefully about the situation in Somerset, but his argument revealed some misconceptions. It is not the case that the Government have set a vast raft of public service agreement targets. This year, the Somerset force has three nationally set targets: on burglary, car crime and street crime. All the others that the hon. Gentleman mentioned are either generated locally by the police authority or are set by it against national best value performance indicators.
It is one thing for the Government to say to a force that aspects of its service must be measured because it, like any service, needs to know how well it is performing, but quite another thing for the Government to impose targets on forces. Under the new national policing plan, the burglary target is not set nationally—certainly not at this stage—but we have invited forces to set burglary and car crime targets. Overall, we wish to achieve the PSA standard that has been set. We should not confuse targets that have been set by the local police authority and police force with Government-imposed procedure.
§ Mr. LawsDoes the Minister deny that the priorities of the Avon and Somerset constabulary were essentially micro-managed by his Department during the recent street crime initiative in Bristol, in order to meet specific objectives?
§ Mr. DenhamThere was no micro-management by the Home Office, but there was a common approach to tackling street crime among the 10 forces with a major problem, of which Bristol was undeniably one. For people in the Avon and Somerset area, the initiative achieved a dramatic reduction in street crime. [Interruption.] There was a dramatic reduction in street crime.
Additionally, the initiative focused attention on other aspects of the criminal justice system, and the benefits are spreading to other areas. For example, it led to the introduction of the Crown Prosecution Service premium service. In October, that was extended to the whole of the Avon and Somerset area, so it is not the case that the advantages accrue only in a small area.
It has been interesting to hear from both Opposition parties—through the hon. Members for Bridgwater and for Yeovil (Mr. Laws)—about the break-up of the constabulary that they advocate. I am surprised to hear, particularly from the hon. Member for Yeovil, the idea that areas with the highest levels of crime should not receive additional resources. Let us compare Bristol and Sedgemoor, for example. In Bristol, 48.2 households per 1,000 are burgled. In the Sedgemoor area, the figure is 16.2. In Bristol, 17.4 households per 1,000 suffer theft of a motor vehicle, whereas in the Sedgemoor area the figure is 3.1—and so on.
I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Bridgwater that his constituents have every right to feel safe and secure in their own homes and in the towns, villages and isolated communities in which they live. However, it is equally right that the Government and the chief constable of Avon and Somerset give priority attention to communities where crime levels are highest. I would find it very surprising if anyone were seriously to advocate that we did not do so.
The Government have made specific provision for funding for rural areas. The hon. Gentleman referred to a newspaper article that I believe he said was published before the funding formula was determined. It warned about the consequences of changes to the formula. He will know that we did not make some of the changes on which we had consulted. For example, we left things as they were in respect of the rural policing fund, from which the Avon and Somerset constabulary benefits to the tune of £1 million a year. It is expected that the chief constable of Avon and Somerset will have used that money to enhance policing in rural areas.
As a point of principle, we should not separate out the costs of forces that cover major cities from the rest of an area. None the less, we recognise that additional costs exist in cities such as Bristol. That is why it has had extra money from the street crime initiative. It has also had additional Home Office money, for example, in the communities against drugs initiative. Central Government have recognised the need to provide some earmarked funds for rural areas, such as most of Somerset, and to meet the additional costs that are involved in the city of Bristol. That balanced approach has been right.
257WH I reassure the hon. Member for Bridgwater that we are concerned about rural areas. That is clear in the development of the police standards unit and the new performance assessment framework for the police. We are not concerned solely with those parts of the country that have the highest crime rates. We will be looking for an increase in policing performance throughout the police service. We would look with as much interest at a rural basic command unit that was performing less well than its comparator BCUs in the same or other police forces as we would at an inner-city area BCU that was not doing as well as those in other inner-city areas. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will not focus solely on the higher-crime urban areas during the next two or three years. If a police service in a rural area is performing poorly down to BCU level, we will want to identify that, support it and work with it to improve its service.
I turn briefly to the funding formula. It is worth looking at what has been achieved on police officer numbers, especially against the background of a debate that may have left the impression that Avon and Somerset police have not been dealt with very well over the years. The latest published figures show that Avon and Somerset had a record number of 3,096 police officers at 31 March 2002–107 more than when the Labour party came to office in 1997. The constabulary is committed to increasing police officer numbers further and it is recruiting well. Between April and December last year, 157 new officers were recruited. The police force itself has forecast a strength of 3,187 by 31 March 2003—another record number.
§ Mr. Liddell-GraingerI was arguing not about whether recruitment or numbers were right, but about the fact that the amount of money needed to continue to recruit just to maintain the number of policemen and women and to fund them will not be provided unless there are enormous county council precepts.
§ Mr. DenhamWhat may not have come across from the earlier parts of the debate is that, in addition to the 3 per cent. increase in police grant, to which I will return in a moment, the Government are directly picking up, through the crime fighting fund, the cost of a significant proportion of the additional police officers who have been recruited in the past couple of years. Indeed, we anticipate being able to provide further ring-fenced money to Avon and Somerset for new officers—paid for, or sponsored by, the crime fighting fund in the coming years. We are not only picking up the costs of recruiting officers in one particular year. The salary costs of those who were recruited two years ago are still being paid by central Government through the crime fighting fund. That principle of a level of continued Government support for additional officers will continue in the next financial year.
That illustrates a basic point that needs to be made. It is understandable that the focus has been on the headline figure of police grant increase. That figure has varied from a floor of 3 per cent., which Avon and Somerset has received, to a ceiling of 4.9 per cent., even for forces that the formula says should get more. I am 258WH sure that the focus will be the same next week when we discuss the police grant. That grant increase is, however, only a part of the resources that are being made available to forces through the crime fighting fund.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned that the radios do not work in one part of west Somerset. The new airwave radio system is funded from central resources; it is designed to ensure that police officers have radios that do work. We will also be providing centrally funds to meet the costs of introducing the case-in-custody scheme. That major information technology innovation will provide the greatest opportunity to free up police officer time and get them away from paper-based systems. There is much more in the funding that is being made available than the headline increase in the police grant. Indeed, including capital and ring-fenced funds, police resources will increase by 6.2 per cent. overall this year, rather than by the average of 4.3 per cent. increase in the police grant.
Of course, people will always want more, and it is good that local communities have been committed to supporting their police service in recent years when people have sought extra resources. Somerset's precept for policing is a little—but not massively—below the average; presumably that reflects decisions that have been taken. It is for the police authority to decide what precept it will set. There is nothing to suggest that anyone wants to do anything other than enable the police force to continue to operate effectively at a local level.
The hon. Member for Bridgwater mentioned a few other issues with which I would like to deal. I would hope that, where parish warden schemes have been a proven success, people would find ways to continue supporting them. In most of the places to which I have been, people have found the scheme remarkably cost-effective, as there has been a reduction in costs—whether through less graffiti and environmental damage, or through fewer abandoned cars—which has benefited local taxpayers.
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman about the valuable role of specials. He may know that a national specials weekend is being organised for 21 to 23 February to promote their role. I shall soon write to all hon. Members, inviting them to contact their local police force and offer to be involved in promotional activities that weekend. It would be enormously helpful if hon. Members involved themselves.
I should like to touch on the thorny issue of raves. I share the anxiety that raves should not become an excuse for disorder, antisocial activity, criminality or behaviour that intimidates local communities. I also recognise that the effects of raves are not always limited to the duration of the event itself. They may bring traffic congestion to unsuited roads, and there may be rubbish or problems with people moving on somewhere else after the police have used their initial powers.
Legislation was introduced in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 as a response to the growing phenomenon of the rave and the associated difficulties. Section 63 allows the police to direct rave-goers to leave 259WH an event in certain cases. If they refuse, police are provided with a power of arrest, and on conviction the offence carries three months' imprisonment and/or a fine. The police also have powers to seize sound equipment in certain circumstances.
In the White Paper "Justice for All", published last summer, we said that we were considering extending police powers to include smaller raves and raves in buildings in which people are trespassing. We are also aware of the problem, raised by Avon and Somerset constabulary, of organisers who are directed to leave simply moving to another venue and starting all over again, and bringing misery to another community, as 260WH the hon. Gentleman says. We are considering making it a criminal offence for someone who is given a direction to leave a rave to attend another outdoor or trespassary indoor rave event within 24 hours of that direction being given.
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I understand from the chief probation officer for Somerset that although the magistrates courts building in Minehead will close at the end of March because it is too big, the service is looking for alternative accommodation. There is no suggestion of reducing the level of service to the community in Minehead.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes to Five o'clock.