---

Neighbourhood Policing

There is no doubt that there was some hostility, not least from the Police Federation, which no doubt lobbied Labour Members as much as they did Opposition Members when the PCSO initiative began. In fairness, at the outset my party might have been slightly hostile to the idea of PCSOs, for public relations reasons as much as anything else, but we have now moved away from that hostility. I shall not take words out of the mouth of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley), but I am sure that he will comment on that. However, where special constables, PCSOs and the police work together, they work extremely well. If there is a residual problem, it is with the Police Federation in certain parts of the country, which obviously is worried about terms and numbers. However, it has worked well and I am certainly a believer in neighbourhood policing and similar initiatives. PCSOs clearly have an extremely important day-to-day role in ensuring that that works. I appreciate that many other hon. Members wish to contribute, so I shall end on one brief point. Without getting over-bureaucratic, the example of Westminster works extremely well. It has a three-tiered approach towards running the CivicWatch programme: local briefings and meetings occurring on a weekly basis in each CivicWatch area to enable local teams to share information and direct problem-solving activity on the ground; fortnightly meetings chaired by a chief inspector and a CivicWatch manager, which looks at best practice within the 26 areas; and an accountability meeting every six weeks, which is open to the public as well as the leader of the council and the police borough commander. These are exciting times in policing. My main point is that, historically and rightly, policing in this country has been very much citizen-led, of which we should be very proud, instead of the police being a class apart, as they are in many countries in Europe and across the world. Some of the initiatives being discussed are very important as we look forward to 21st-century policing, because there was a sense among the public that the police had lost their way in relation to their neighbourhood responsibilities. I look forward to the Minister's response.