Orders of the Day — Crime

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 2 February 1966.

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Photo of Mr Richard Sharples Mr Richard Sharples , Sutton and Cheam 12:00, 2 February 1966

The debate, and the Motion put down in the names of my right hon. Friends and myself, reflect the growing concern both of the House and of the public generally at the steeply rising rate of crime. No one listening to the speeches from both sides of the House would dispute that this has been both a useful and a constructive debate.

In many respects there is a considerable degree of agreement on both sides of the House as to the nature of the problem. There is no point in exaggerating the problem, but the House and the country must face the fact that society today is losing the battle against the criminal. In his Report for 1964, the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis said: 1964 has proved to be the worst year of the century for crime". If 1964 were bad, 1965 will be even worse. A difficulty with which we are faced in a debate of this kind, as was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft), is the time lag between the end of the year which we are discussing and the preparation and release of statistics for crime. Unless the statistics are published very much earlier than has been the case in the past, we shall not get the figure for 1965 until well into the latter half of 1966. We are, therefore, always discussing crime figures which relate to a time well in the past.

But The Times published on 18th October, 1965, the result of a study which it had carried out by means of an inquiry among various police forces, and this study showed that the rate of rise in crime for the first eight months of 1965 had continued almost unchecked throughout the whole of the country. Some of the results for 1965 shown by this survey are quite alarming. Looking at the figures produced for the Metropolitan area alone, we see that crimes of robbery and assault with intent to rob were up by more than 32 per cent. in the first eight months of 1965, compared with the first eight months of 1964. Robbery was up by 18 per cent. and breaking into shops and warehouses by 17·8 per cent. The number of thefts from motor cars—one of the biggest sources of crime there is—went up by 42 per cent.

It is significant from this survey that, of the 10 areas surveyed, only Liverpool showed a significant drop in the rate of crime. It is important to realise that in Liverpool and Lancashire generally the police authorities have been at the forefront in introducing modern methods of prevention and detection.

It is almost beyond dispute that the rate of crime largely depends on the chances of being caught. To far too many people crime is a paying proposition. The risks are comparatively small. The figures for London are probably the worst of all and in this area the criminal has a four to one chance of getting away with it. The gains from crime are considerable. I telephoned the British Insurance Association this morning and asked if they could give me the figure for the amount which had been stolen during 1964. I was given the figure of £34 million.

It is no use blaming the police for what has happened and I am glad that no hon. Member on either side of the House has sought to do that. The police do an excellent job in conditions of increasing difficulty. The professional criminal has modern equipment and modern means of communication at his disposal. He has these things because he can afford to buy them. The police are handicapped by the shortage of manpower, which leads to split shifts, the failure to get rest days and excessive overtime. The Police Federation carried out a survey recently and it revealed that C.I.D. officers in many areas normally work 16 to 17 hours a week overtime. I believe that even more overtime is worked in the Metropolitan area.

The police are also handicapped by a lack of communications equipment, modern two-way radio sets, which should be provided for policemen on foot. In his speech the Home Secretary said that he was taking urgent measures to deal with this problem and he placed great importance on the provision of these sets. His hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, answering a Question the other day, said that a further 2,000 sets would be provided in the financial year 1966–67. Does the Home Secretary really think that 2,000 sets for the whole country will provide a solution to this problem? Is that the degree of urgency he places on this? Many policemen feel that they are not getting a square deal. They feel—and I agree with the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) on this issue—that they are not getting the co-operation they should have from the public or from the Government. They are being frustrated by a lack of equipment.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth, I do not want to enter into the pay dispute. One complaint of the police is the long delay there was in bringing their claim to arbitration—the months they had to wait for answers to letters addressed to the Home Office.

They are frustrated by the ever-rising burden of duties which the House and the Government place upon them. Whatever may have been the reasons for publishing the pamphlet, "How to Complain Against the Police"—and I accept that this was a recommendation of the Royal Commission—it is quite certain that both the timing and the handling of that pamphlet were absolutely deplorable. The Home Secretary has inherited a difficult position. When he assumed office he was sent an open letter from the Police Federation of which I will read only a small part. The Federation said: Morale in the Service is lower than it has been for a long time and there are several contributory factors. … Our members can now see little hope of ever securing a shorter working week, having more rest days, enjoying a normal family life. The domestic pressures which have forced out many good men who liked the job and wanted to make it their career, have now been renewed and our members may find it hard to resist them. If the manning situation deteriorates still further, the responsibility for such a gross betrayal of the general public must rest fairly on the shoulders of the authorities. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will do all he can to restore that position, but let there be no doubt about the difficult position which the right hon. Gentleman has inherited.