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Neighbourhood Policing

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood, not least because you and I have adjoining offices in the narrowest corridor in the Palace—appropriately known as the yellow submarine. Whichever Whip decided that you and I should have offices next door to each other in the narrowest corridor in the Palace clearly had their own particular sense of humour. The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) has done the House a service by initiating this debate on neighbourhood policing, and I endorse everything that my colleague, constituency neighbour and friend, the right hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) said about the achievements of Thames Valley police. We usually have debates in Westminster Hall because there is a problem, but I do not think that there is a problem with neighbourhood policing—an issue to which I shall return. There are, however, a couple of problems with policing, and I should like to mention them briefly. First, the Minister must recognise that there is still considerable upset, dissatisfaction and frustration at the fact that the police pay award was not fully honoured this year, and that will rankle for a long time. If an independent police arbitration system says that a fair pay settlement is 2.5 per cent. and the figures are then massaged so that officers do not receive that settlement, it is simply unfair, bad personnel management and unjust for those people who provide an excellent public service.