Clause 5
Policing and Crime Bill
9:00 am
David Ruffley (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)
It is early in the morning, hence my uncharacteristic lack of sharpness. I will redress that temporary deficiency by opening in a positive spirit on clause 5, the subject of which is collaboration. The Committee will be happy to know that the Minister and I agree on the principles that the clause will bring into effect. The Government and I believe that it will improve the quality of policing across the board. With your permission, Sir Nicholas, I think that it is worth spending some time in the clause stand part debate airing the recent history of collaboration and what the clause will do to take the argument forward. The clause has new and interesting powers, which I will ask the Minister about.
In September 2005, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary published a famous report, “Closing the Gap: A Review of the ‘Fitness for Purpose’ of the Current Structure of Policing in England and Wales”. Primarily and importantly, it examined the provision of protective services known in the trade as level 2 services. To some minds that is a sloppy shorthand, but I will use level 2 interchangeably with protective services to ensure that the Committee is not detained for too long. Those services relate primarily to serious and organised crime, child protection issues, terrorism and so forth. That important report came to the conclusion that
“when viewed from the context of the range of challenges and future threats now facing the service and the communities it polices, the 43 force structure is no longer fit for purpose. In the interests of the efficiency and effectiveness of policing it should change. Whilst some smaller forces do very well, and some larger forces less so, our conclusion is that below a certain size there simply is not a sufficient critical mass to provide the necessary sustainable level of protective services that the 21st century increasingly demands.”
At about the same time, the Bichard report into the Soham murders highlighted the ineffective co-ordination between police forces in tackling cross-border crime, which had the tragic consequences that we all recall. In 2006, the chairman of the Association of Police Authorities, Bob Jones, wrote:
“unequivocally that there is a gap in the capacity and capability of the service to tackle adequately level two criminality”.
He aired that view at some length in volume 12 of “Policing Today”.
In short, there is a general consensus across the tripartite structure that there are gaps at level 2. The consequences that flowed from HMIC’s report “Closing the Gap” ended in a recommendation that the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), took forward with a plan for force amalgamation. I shall not detain the Committee with, in my view, the unfortunate history of that Government initiative for merger, because now is not the time to go over old, controversial party political ground, and it would detract from the import of what is immediately at issue in the clause, which is collaboration.
However, it is important to understand the failed attempt to close the level 2 gap. It is up to all politicians of good will who want a sister service to do the job better to work out what we can do as a country to close that gap. It is impossible to envision a Government, whether the current Administration or an Administration of a future stripe, in the near or medium-term future, returning to the suggestion that there should be forced amalgamations or mergers whereby nine or half a dozen strategic forces are compelled to merge. For example, Cheshire constabulary would be stripped of its cap badges and independence and put into a north-western strategic force. That proposal was proffered by the then Home Secretary, following the report to which I referred. Unambiguously, it is not on the Conservative party agenda, whether in Opposition or should we be in Government, to revisit such matters.
It is worth repeating that there will be no mergers from us. I accept that the Minister will have his own views, but my understanding is that Her Majesty’s Government are not seeking to rerun the failed attempt at force merger. That is why the solution proffered by the clause must be seen as a direct response to the fact that we need an answer, although we do know that merger is not that answer.
After that brief historical reminder, I shall move to collaboration. On 17 July 2007, the Minister’s predecessor announced that 22 bids for demonstrator status had been received from which a total of 10 demonstrator sites collaborating on matters ranging from back-office services to serious organised crime had been selected. On 12 December 2007, the then Minister with responsibility for policing said that those initiatives had been selected from 22 bids to provide a balanced programme throughout England and Wales to explore and develop the models of collaboration between forces that can deliver vital level 2 services.
Above all, I emphasise that I am not advancing a dry argument about organisational structures and the process of machinery. Why was the collaboration process moved forward by the then Minister? He was right to stress that it was to protect the public more effectively and efficiently. His colleagues at the Home Office were also right to say that collaborative working was a key part of a national programme that the Government wanted to take forward and that it had the support—as it does now—of her Majesty’s Opposition. It was done in consultation with the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities. The selected demonstrator sites were offered £3.7 million of Home Office funding to contribute to the start-up costs and to cover the evaluation process managed by the National Policing Improvement Agency, which I should say, parenthetically, I find from my work on the Front Bench is an admirable organisation. It gives valuable advice to Her Majesty’s Ministers and to shadow Front-Bench Home Office Ministers.