Clause 15 - Role of local authority overview and scrutiny committees
Police and Justice Bill
2:15 pm
Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary makes the point that perhaps Surrey and Sussex might be Brokenshire. Maybe that is dangerous territory. My apologies to the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) for getting it so wrong. I have always thought of him as having a fiefdom in his own shire, like a lord of the manor.
I am delighted that he is so supportive of the safer neighbourhood teams that this Government have implemented as part of our commitment to neighbourhood policing. I am delighted, too, that he thinks that they are doing such a good job. He is right: safer neighbourhood teams will receive publicity to build relationships and contact. I hope that the community call for action will not languish on the Home Office website, but be part of a proper communication with local people about the police’s new powers to tackle the range of issues that concern them.
If we are genuinely to empower people, it is important to give them the information that they need to get the authorities they rely on to take action to tackle the problems that are important to them. I quote a statement by the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) on Tory aims and values:
“We will stand up for the victims of state failure and ensure that social justice and equal opportunity are achieved by empowering people and communities”.
Nothing empowers communities more than the kind of power that we have set out in the respect plan, particularly the community call for action. It is radical, innovative, new, creative and imaginative, and it is about shifting power from the institutions of the state—the local authorities and police—into the hands of local people, so that they can challenge and get action on the things that are important to them.
The Government are doing something practical about the words “empower communities”. In marked contrast with the Conservative party, this Government are introducing practical mechanisms, so that local people who have been the subject of antisocial behaviour for far too long can get the authorities to respond properly. It is not a mainstream way of doing business. Because of the improvements that we are bringing to neighbourhood policing and our massive investment, particularly in safer neighbourhood teams, hopefully, people will not have to resort to that power every day.