---

Police Restructuring

We in Swindon do not talk about the Wiltshire police; we talk about the Swindon police. That is because we have a good, well run local force that people identify with. They certainly do not identify with Wiltshire constabulary. It is very rare to find a Swindonian who says that they are Wiltshire first and Swindon second, so discussions about Wiltshire constabulary losing its identity do not trouble my constituents. What they want is what they already have: a Swindon police force that responds to Swindon’s needs, delivering the low-crime town that we already have. However, my constituents also want the reassurance that, should a threatening incident occur over and above the usual crimes that our force is good at dealing with, an organisation is in place that is able to respond immediately and with sufficient dedicated resources. Therein lies the rub. We are pleased with our force’s performance on level 1 crimes, but level 2 crimes and major incidents are currently excluded from such measurement. It is unlikely that Wiltshire will do well in this area. With a force of some 1,000 constables, it does not have the capacity to respond to exceptional major incidents, but unfortunately there is little evidence that the police authority accepts that. It is overly concerned with the identity of Wiltshire, to the detriment of pressing national policing needs. As Members have alluded to today, such attitudes are bound up with the possible local government review and the precarious position of the county councils. Any suggestion that county identities should go is fought tooth and nail. Sadly, Wiltshire police authority is unlikely to make a recommendation to the Secretary of State, other than to recommend the loose federation of police authorities that it proposed in its last letter to the Home Secretary. Of course, such a structure is largely the same as the existing one; if it were adequate, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary would have said so in its report. A federation would be little more than a talking shop, with all the associated inherent problems. Would it have to convene a meeting to decide how to respond to a terrorist attack? If that is the plan, my constituents will not be very impressed. Federations are likely to be dominated by larger forces, and such an arrangement would be much worse than the current one for small forces such as Wiltshire. However, Wiltshire police authority has made it clear that it will sit on the fence and make the Home Secretary take the decision. That will not meet the needs of my constituents, either, and I cannot support the police authority if it decides to follow that course. We are not living in the time when the police boundaries were first drawn, and nor are we living in the first Elizabethan age—we are living in the second Elizabethan age. International terrorism and serious and organised crime do not respect historical boundaries. Indeed, they are likely to thrive on them, as they do not reflect current crime patterns. I do not want to have to explain to my constituents that our police force could not respond adequately to a major incident because the police authority’s elected members were more concerned with protecting the identity of Wiltshire than with protecting the safety of the people living in it. I have not heard from Opposition parties any proposals that offer a serious and realistic alternative to the Government’s proposals for fighting the serious and organised crime that HMIC has identified that we need to fight. As I have made clear, the removal of the Wiltshire constabulary is unlikely to trouble the people of Swindon. What my constituents want is good local policing, backed up by the reassurance of strategic policing for major incidents. It may be one of the smallest forces, but Wiltshire consistently outperforms most of the other constabularies in its group, thanks in part to its neighbourhood policing policy. I was pleased to note the reassurances given about that aspect of police work. Indeed, Ministers have gone to great lengths to make it clear that neighbourhood policing can co-exist quite happily within larger strategic forces. They are right to say that neighbourhood teams will be protected if dedicated teams for major incidents are created; that means that individual officers will not be taken away from their local duties. That is what we want in Swindon. Our local police commanders have made excellent contributions to neighbourhood teams in Swindon—they have led the way. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will visit us in Swindon to see what we have done with the local authority, housing, health and education, as well as the police authority. I commend my right hon. and hon. Friends the Home Secretary and Ministers on the rapidity of their response to the O’Connor report—[Laughter.] Unlike Opposition Members, I do not find it amusing that we face serious policing difficulties. We do not have the luxury of delaying reform—the last restructuring took 10 years—as they suggest and I am glad that my constituents have the backing of the Government for that restructuring.