Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab): It is a great pleasure to be present on this occasion, with you in the Chair, Mr. Williams. I am extremely grateful to the Liaison Committee and to the House for allowing us to debate the Home Affairs Committee’s seventh report of the last Session, which considered the subject of policing in the 21st century. The purpose of the debate is to discuss the issues raised in our inquiry, to consider developments since the report’s publication and to address the Government’s response.

I welcome the new Home Office team, led by the new Secretary of State for the Home Department, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). I also welcome the new Minister who, I understand, has sought asylum from the Ministry of Justice in the calmer waters of Marsham street. It is always a pleasure to take part in a debate with the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley), who has spoken often and eloquently on policing matters on behalf of the Opposition. I also welcome the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes). I am sure that we will be joined later by other right hon. and hon. Members.

I pay tribute to the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), who did an excellent job. She was always willing to engage with the Select Committee on a range of issues, especially policing, which is right at the top of our agenda. I also pay tribute to the former Minister for policing, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), who was very willing to engage with us and Members on both sides of the House on policing issues. We wish them well on their chosen paths.

I and Committee members are immensely proud of our report. We decided to look in depth at policing, rather than conduct a one-off investigation. Members worked extremely hard to produce what I think is the Home Affairs Committee’s definitive report on policing. I thank Committee members for all their hard work. During our inquiry, we found examples of excellent practice, as well as areas that need dramatic improvement. The Committee was keen not to be confined within the walls of Westminster, so we travelled around the country looking at policing in different areas of England and Wales. I am pleased to say that we met stakeholders in places such as Newark, Reading, Monmouth, Colchester, Manchester and Stockport. All those visits provided us with an excellent opportunity to assess good practice and, in a sense, to act as a catalyst for it to be shared.

Witnesses painted an accurate picture of their personal experiences of policing in the 21st century. We heard from Sir Norman Bettison, from the Association of Chief Police Officers, and from Paul McKeever, the chairman of the Police Federation. We also heard from constables on the beat and a custody sergeant. Far too often, in Select Committee inquiries, we hear only from the top bods. In this sort of inquiry, however, it was important to look at the grass roots and the people on the front line of policing. We were pleased to see so many of them, either at evidence sessions or at our stakeholder meetings. Since the report’s publication, I have been approached by politicians, stakeholders, police officers and victims of crime who found the report refreshing and, in one view, essential reading on policing in this country. I hope that the Minister, even though he was appointed only last Thursday, has had a chance to read it and that he shares its conclusions.

The police service employs about 145,000 police officers, 77,000 police staff, 16,000 police community support officers and 14,500 special constables. It is one of the great institutions of our country and is essential to the make-up of our society. The aim of our inquiry was to establish the key challenges facing the police in the 21st century and what we need to do to ensure that they are equipped to meet them. That is set against a background of dissatisfaction among the public with the police service and among many senior officers with the increasingly broad and unwieldy role that they are expected to fill.

During the inquiry, which ran from February to July 2008, we considered the role of the police, particularly their ability to deal with 21st century social trends, including alcohol-related crime; the effects of increased immigration; their relationship with the public; funding; how to increase effectiveness through reducing bureaucracy; collaboration between forces; and making more use of police staff and other members of the work force. We drew a number of conclusions. The number of responsibilities placed on the police service expanded significantly in the late 20th century. It is now expected to deal with new dangers, such as internet-based child pornography and the terrorist threat, as well as tasks inherited from other organisations, such as victim support and monitoring sex offenders in the community. In the words of one police officer who gave evidence to us, is it really their job to take lost dogs home? We called for a fundamental review of their role.

In addition, pressure to meet quantitative Home Office targets has often caused officers to prioritise trivial offences rather than dealing with the most serious crimes. We welcome the Government’s undertaking in the policing Green Paper, which was published during our inquiry, to replace top-down targets with locally set priorities. We also encouraged greater use of officer discretion, backed by more efficient supervision. Public expectations of the police are not being met—worryingly, when last surveyed, in 2007-08, only half the population thought that the police were doing a good job, despite the continued fall in crime levels. The public want the police to be more active in dealing with minor crime and antisocial behaviour. We recommended that the police be more visible and responsive to the public and give greater consideration to the needs of the victim in investigating crimes. Communication is vital between victims and police, and reporting back on the progress of investigations could provide the answer to restoring public confidence in the police.

When right hon. and hon. Gentlemen visit their constituencies tomorrow, they will be visited by people with concerns about the police. Usually, the problem is that they do not know what is happening about their case—they do not usually have a complaint. With a good level of customer service, many cases can be dealt with very quickly, without the need for people to see MPs. I hope, therefore, that by improving communication we can cut the amount of time taken to deal with complaints about how the police handle their job.

Total Government grants to the police have increased by 19 per cent. over the past decade. Overall police spending was estimated at £12.6 billion in 2007-08. However, a number of functions are putting particular pressure on police resources. Foreign nationals take longer and cost more for police forces to process than British citizens. Rapid immigration has led to funding shortfalls in some areas. The Government must give greater assistance to forces in areas experiencing rapid population change.

We discovered that a huge amount of police time and money is spent dealing with alcohol-related crime. Changes in the licensing laws mean that forces have to deploy officers for longer periods. We did not conclude in our report that the change in the licensing laws had resulted in more crime, but that the workload of the police had increased because pubs and clubs were open for longer periods of time. Some 45 per cent. of victims of violence describe their assailants as being under the influence of alcohol, and 70 per cent. of police officers believe that attending alcohol-related incidents diverts them from tackling other kinds of crime.

We supported the principle of mandatory contributions to policing from alcohol retainers; we advocated that the practice of loss leading should be ended; and we felt that it was important that there should be compulsory, and not voluntary, standards for the alcohol industry. I welcome the Government’s recent steps to ban irresponsible drinking promotions, such as, “All that you can drink for a fiver”. I will explain later why more should be done. The Committee was keen not to be seen as a killjoy or as being responsible for the death of the happy hour. However, irresponsible drinking can turn into “unhappy hours” for victims of alcohol-related crime. Drinking responsibly is not a crime and should not be treated as such, but something must be done to prevent the huge drain on our public services, which is happening because of irresponsible drinking.

Faced with tight funding, the police need to identify ways of freeing up resources. We were disappointed at the lack of progress in reducing police bureaucracy. Witnesses estimated that officers spend around 20 to 30 per cent. of their time completing paperwork, and the average officer spends only 14 per cent. of their time on patrol. We welcome plans for shorter crime-recording forms and new processes for digitally recording stop and account. We were invited by a member of our Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), to visit Staffordshire police, which reduced its crime-recording form from 14 pages to one, which it estimates saves officers 20 to 25 minutes per form. The use of personal digital assistants in Bedfordshire has increased visible patrols from 14 to 19 per cent. for each officer. All frontline officers should be given PDAs.

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