Policing in the Metropolis

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 8:17 pm on 28 February 1983.

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Photo of Mr Vivian Bendall Mr Vivian Bendall , Ilford North 8:17, 28 February 1983

I shall try to be brief. I wish to add my congratulations to Sir Kenneth Newman not only on a far-reaching report on the future of policing in London but on producing it so quickly since taking office. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for allowing a wide-ranging debate on the matter so soon after the report was produced. The quality, breadth and depth of the debate has proved the extent to which their efforts have been worthwhile.

I welcome the setting up of the groups to be established in areas around London. I agree with the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) that there are problems of racism in parts of the police. I discovered this in my area on one occasion. I share the hon. Gentleman's anxiety. I have experience of the activities of the National Front towards the large Jewish community in my constituency.

But we have also to remember that there are extremists at the other end of the spectrum who often use ethnic communities to try to put forward their policies, causing the same racial problems of which we accuse the National Front. This is extremely dangerous. We have to recognise that there is a policing problem in areas where the communities are cosmopolitan. They are there, and they are utilised freely by people seeking to achieve their own ends. Sir Kenneth and others recognise this. We read in his report that we need more police recruits from the ethnic communities. I welcome that and wish him well. I hope that this kind of recruitment continues.

Important though it is for Members of Parliament to play an active role in community policing, it is also vital for Members of Parliament to help make the public aware of what community policing is all about. In my part of Ilford the police are very much involved, and the public are urged to back their campaign. The police are conducting an all-out war to snare crooks. A publicity campaign is being conducted by the commander of J division to make the public aware that the police cannot always detect and resolve crimes. This is especially true of burglary, where there are great difficulties. Some years ago, strangely enough, women did not go out to work and the family home was not left unattended as it is today. Today's burglar has a much easier task. He can break into a house with impunity in the daytime, whereas he used to commit his offences at night. That is one reason why daytime burglary is on the increase.

The resolution of these problems will need a great deal of good will between the police and the public. It will need a greater involvement at the grass roots. It means putting the police back into the community where the policeman is known and can be approached easily. During the past two decades our police have been put into cars, with the result that they are no longer known to the people and there is not the closeness that there used to be between the constable on the beat and the people living in the neighbourhood. Another of Sir Kenneth's objectives will help, because he wants to give greater responsibility to the four divisions.

Another difficulty that we have faced in the metropolitan area is that divisional commanders have changed with great rapidity. I have had experience of this in J division in the last few years. No sooner has a commander come into an area and become known and understood by those around him—Members of Parliament, leaders of the local authority, local councillors, justices of the peace and others—than he has moved on. Divisional commanders should remain in the divisions for longer periods than they have in the recent past. Only then shall we get the continuity that has been absent.

A great deal of concern has been expressed about unemployment, especially among young people, and how it contributes to high rates of crime. It is obvious that unemployment, with young people idle on the streets, leads to problems. However, I do not accept that it is leading to the problems that have been expressed in the debate. If so, why is crime in the provincial cities in the north nowhere near as great as it is in Greater London, when unemployment in the north is much higher than it is in the Greater London area?

I suggest—I believe in facts—that for a decade police numbers in Greater London have declined. Numbers are now building up again as a result of pay and Edmund-Davies. In the past, many experienced men in the police force retired early. Some are still retiring early, but not in the numbers that they were. One reason is related to what happens in the courts. The problem is no longer pay. Any policeman to whom one talks about pay is satisfied with what has occurred over the past three or four years.

One of the problems, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne), arises especially in courts such as Snaresbrook. The police go for a conviction, but find that many people serving on the jury are criminals who have been convicted several times. The police know that the defendant is guilty, but they cannot get a conviction because the jury has more people on it who have been inside prison than have not.

That is one factor, but there is another problem in the courts. If we examine the police, we must also examine how we will deal with those who are guilty. We must consider how we will back up a changing, more modern, technically advanced police force.

There are many cases now involving organised crime, particularly at the Old Bailey, where juries have to be discharged not on one, but on two or three occasions, because jury men have been got at. More often than not, after a second or third jury has had to be reinstated, juries end up having protection. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) knows these facts only too well through his representation of the Police Federation. It is important that we consider these other aspects when we examine policing as a whole.

I am concerned that we should move in the right directions and have the right understanding between the public and the police and that we get convictions and penalties at the right level.

As has been said many times today, we have one of the finest police forces and one of the safest capital cities in the world. However, if organised crime, crimes of violence and crimes involving the use of firearms continue to increase at the present rate and there is a corresponding increase in police carrying firearms to combat that problem, we shall not have the safety that we have come to know and understand. The problems will become more immense and the use of firearms on our streets will become greater.

The report may only be a beginning, but it is an important document for the future of law and order, democracy, and the well-being not only of the people of Greater London but of the whole country.