Police and Justice Bill

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) on yet another example of his fresh and original thinking, which is increasingly a hallmark of Conservative Members. I know how hard my hon. Friend works on behalf of his constituents and I greatly enjoyed his contribution. I thank all those engaged in law enforcement and the criminal justice system in the Kettering constituency, and I make a plea to the Government to use the Bill as an opportunity to rename the criminal justice system the victims justice system. I do not think that I have heard the word ““victim”” at all in the whole debate, and I have been here since the beginning. We often forget that we are talking about victims of crime, and victims of bad acts often committed by bad people. If the Government were to change the name of the criminal justice system as I have described, that would help to change our focus on this important topic. I have spent 18 days out of 22 on the police service parliamentary scheme, and I have four exciting days lined up, including three nights on the streets of Kettering, before the end of March. Speaking on the Bill gives me the opportunity to draw to the Minister’s attention some of the lessons that I have learned while on patrol with local officers. To sum it all up, I want to get across to the Minister the fact that 90 per cent. of crime in the Kettering constituency is committed by 50 persistent and prolific offenders. All the police officers and others engaged in the criminal justice system to whom I have spoken have said the same, no matter which part of the country they come from. Before I move on to that theme, I shall highlight two specific points. The Government are thinking about changing the powers given to police community support officers. On one of the nights when I was on patrol with the local police in Kettering, we ended up in a village called Barton Seagrave, where the police officer and the two PCSOs I was with did their best to disperse 30 youths who were congregating around the local school and the local community centre. The police officer did his very best and he could issue a fixed penalty notice and arrest another suspect. However, the PCSOs could not do anything apart from appear there in their visible police uniform. That is because at that time, Barton Seagrave was not designated as a dispersal zone. It is, I am glad to say, now designated as such a zone and those PCSOs are regularly deployed to Castle way and the streets off it in Barton Seagrave, and have the powers to disperse those youths. Without the dispersal zone status, they would not have that power. The Bill covers the powers that the Government give to PCSOs, so will the Minister give them the power to disperse people without the need for dispersal zone designation? My other point is perhaps a little more mundane, and relates to my role as a councillor on Kettering borough council. The council helps to fund the eight PCSOs in Kettering, and the original idea was that they would walk down Kettering high street and deal with all sorts of infringements of the law—criminal or otherwise. One of the issues that the council particularly wanted them to be involved with was problem parking and car parking offences. The chief constable of Northamptonshire has ruled that PCSOs should not have that power, so Kettering still has a car parking problem. The idea of having a law enforcement officer tackling all sorts of issues, such as car parking and criminal behaviour, just by walking down the street cannot be carried out in Kettering. I understand that PCSOs in other police force areas have ticketing powers, so could the Minister address that point? I now return to my main theme—that persistent and prolific offenders commit 90 per cent. of the crime. In the northern police area in Northamptonshire, which includes Kettering, Rothwell, Desborough, Burton Latimer and Corby borough, 50 individuals commit that proportion of the crime. The police know who they are, and their pictures and names are on the wall in Kettering police station. The persistent and prolific offenders—PPOs, to use the jargon—know that the police know who they are. The whole business is a game of catching the PPOs in the act. The people of this country deserve better than that, and I have come to the conclusion that the only way to tackle the issue seriously is to take the PPOs out of the equation. To be brutally frank, they are bad people doing bad things. Prison is not tough enough for them. Many of them who are arrested and put in prison see it as a break. They have recreational facilities, they are well fed and they often have televisions in their cells. Many are disappointed to be released even if it is just a third of the way through their sentence. The police are advised when the offenders will be released on to the streets of Kettering again and they try to catch them in the act the first weekend after they are released. I have drawn up the simple equation of dividing the costs for local policing in Kettering, the local court system, the local prison, the probation service and all the rest by 50, which represents the number of PPOs. That shows that a huge sum of public money goes on each of these hardened criminals. I am afraid that we are not going to change these people’s habits. They are always going to be criminals until they decide otherwise. We have to come up with some kind of system whereby such people are not allowed their liberty until they promise not to reoffend—and the Bill provides a perfect opportunity to do that. The pressure should be on them to demonstrate that they are prepared to be responsible, and not on the rest of us to try to catch them in the act yet again. Northamptonshire police excel in two specific respects—forensics and automated number plate recognition technology. However, both are under threat. I am pleased to say that Northamptonshire police force is one of the best in the country at forensics, which basically involves fingerprint technology and the use of DNA. Twenty years ago, there were regional police forensic departments. That was changed and the service moved down to force level, and all the evidence demonstrates that forensics work best with a force of about 1,500 officers. They are particularly effective at detecting car crime and burglary, and the use of fingerprint or DNA technology accounts for the detection of 50 per cent. of all the detected crimes in Northamptonshire. One of my real concerns is that as the Government try to create the super-forces, the forensics skills base will be broken up. Once it is broken up, it will be very difficult to re-establish. The second technology-related issue is automated number plate recognition—ANPR—and the Bill contains proposals to reorganise the computer department of the Home Office. The technology already exists and is deployed in Northamptonshire to read number plates automatically. The system is so fast that when a suspect car drives past an ANPR camera, that fact is flashed up in the control room and the reasons why the car is suspicious are also listed. Officers are deployed to apprehend the vehicle. The police know who the criminals are, which cars they drive and where the cars are. Unfortunately, not enough resources are being put into ANPR technology, and my worry is that the skills base in the Northamptonshire force will be eroded. The technology offers huge opportunities across the country. Why do we not have ANPR technology employed on all the major motorways up and down the country? The technology is there and we could cut the motorway network off for all the known criminals in the country. That would have a dramatic effect on reducing crime. In Northamptonshire there are now four basic command units. As of 1 April, there will be two. At the moment, Kettering and Corby form one BCU; next door, Wellingborough and East Northants form another. As of 1 April, they will become one BCU. Despite all the talk about BCUs being coterminous with borough-level local authorities, that will simply not be the case in Northamptonshire. In north Northamptonshire there will be four district authorities to one basic command unit. I am afraid that policing is about to become more remote, rather than more local. Finally, I want to reiterate a point that is often missed. The criminal justice system should be known as the victims justice system. We know who the criminals are, we know where they live, and we know what cars they drive. The skills base and the technology to deal with them already exist; we just need to make better use of them, rather than bringing in new legislation.