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Policing in London

Ironically, I have never heard of any such candidate doing so. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) was right: counter-proposals to the Mayor’s budget have typically included more money for policing. Such counter-proposals are usually the result of the two Opposition parties’ joining forces on a single budget: that is the way that the GLA works. In this instance there would have been an extra £20 million for policing, much of it provided through the transport budget. That was one charge against the Liberal Democrats. There are many others, and Members are well used to hearing them. There is a theory that if a statement is made often enough, no matter how untrue it is, it will eventually stick, and that is one of the statements that falls into the bucket. Policing on public transport is crucial in London. The British Transport police has been mentioned, and I appreciate what it does, particularly at overground stations and on the overground routes that go through my constituency. However, it should be recognised—here I again give credit to the Mayor—that Transport for London was willing to invest in a transport operational command unit so that more policing resources could be devoted to public transport of every kind, including the underground and buses. I have seen members of the unit working in my constituency when there have been crises. However, there are a number of problems. TOCU tends to work according to a ““hot-spotting map”” that depends on the reporting of crime and is frequently inaccurate because events are not anticipated. We need to think about where resources are allocated, and the unit’s operation and manning should also be improved. In October 2006 the Mayor proposed a ““transport safer neighbourhood”” team, or series of teams. More detail was to follow, but not enough has appeared. Presumably, the aim was to provide a more co-ordinated and coherent safer neighbourhood scheme through intervention in the transport system, but issues have arisen in connection with the scheme’s structure. London has always had a problem because of an inadequate number of sergeants. That was one of the problems with the safer neighbourhood teams, but in the case of the transport teams there is one sergeant to a team of 18. There are problems with the ““on the ground”” command structure, and there seems to have been no discussion about how the transport teams will integrate with the safer neighbourhood teams or anyone else. Much conflict and confusion surrounds what seems fundamentally to be a good idea. As with all policing, implementation matters. The idea matters too, of course, but if the implementation is not right, the idea is discredited. One of the various roles of the transport police is to focus on school letting-out times, which in my community, at any rate, are among the tensest times of the day. There has been much discussion of youth-on-youth crime, and these are the times when it is at its most prevalent. They are also the times when the community feels most under pressure. A group of youngsters who emerge from school, released for the day, may allow their behaviour to become completely out of hand. The teams have done well, but we have not gone far enough in coping with behaviour of that kind. As others have said, it cannot always be dealt with in the context of policing, and indeed it cannot always be dealt with in the context of schools. On key bus routes there should always be a second person whose primary job is to ensure that there is security on the route. On some bus routes there is a high probability of antisocial behaviour, perhaps on the part of youngsters or perhaps on the part of late-night drunks. Bendy buses are almost an invitation to fare evasion.