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Policing in London

It is a pleasure to be able to participate in the debate. As I said in an earlier intervention on the Minister, it is good that we are having a debate on policing in London, and I only hope that we can have more regular debates on London, perhaps on an annual basis, to discuss all the issues affecting it—good and bad. So far, this has been a high calibre debate, and one of thing that has emerged from it is that it is also our job to highlight the good things. Indeed, the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) said that we should not always talk about the bad things, and that we should go on about the good things as well. We will have the opportunity to do that if we hold general debates about London issues, and I urge the Minister to put pressure on the Leader of the House to arrange for us to have regular debates on London every year, as we used to do. If those debates are of as high a quality as this one, we will be able to get across the message about the good things that are happening in London—in policing or whatever else—as well as all the other issues that must be discussed. I listened to the Minister with great interest and I agreed with many of his points. There has been an increase in resources and in police numbers, both of which are to be warmly welcomed. There has also been an increase in the number of police community support officers—they are doing a very good job—and recorded crime is down. But a problem in my area—and in other areas of London where friends and relatives live—is that, regrettably, people do not believe the figures. The general public think that the figures are manipulated, with the result that, even where it is obvious that things have improved, they do not believe it because they do not feel it. Their quality of life has not been enhanced because they do not feel it, and because they hear stories about crime. I shall talk in a moment about the press, which the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey also mentioned. People matter, and we must not forget that we are talking about people today, not figures. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) on his excellent speech, in which he put forward many arguments and some statistics—not too many—and highlighted the value-for-money issue, which my constituents are very concerned about. There have been falls in some serious crime, and we applaud that. We applaud the Government, the police, who have done such tremendous work, the councils and the local community groups. All have played a part in the reduction of serious crime. However, we have not heard so much today about the other side of the argument. Certain problems have got worse, including antisocial behaviour, binge drinking, drug crime, problems on public transport, vandalism, graffiti, and the fear of crime. Those are the real issues that my constituents and others across London are concerned about. Serious crime levels may have reduced, but the lower-grade crime that impinges on people’s quality of life has not gone down. In many ways, it has increased the pressures on constituents and families, to the detriment of their quality of life.