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Policing (Croydon)

Mr. Benton, this is my first time that I have served under your chairmanship, and a great pleasure it is, too. I thank the Speaker for selecting this subject for debate and the Minister, who has a busy diary, for spending time to come to answer to this Adjournment debate. I intend to draw attention to the need for a fairer share of London's policing resources to be allocated to the London borough command, ahead of the upcoming discussion on the resource allocation formula. It is of the gravest concern to me, and has been for quite a while, that young men have been killed through knife crime on our streets in Croydon. It is incumbent on me to speak up on that issue. I appreciate that these issues are devolved matters and that there is a great responsibility on the Greater London authority, the Mayor of London, the Metropolitan Police Authority, its finance committee and the chair of that committee, Councillor O'Connell, to secure the appropriate resources in respect of the resource allocation formula, which can be difficult. When I was a London assembly member, a great deal of progress was made via thorough consultation on the operation of the resource allocation formula, and it looked as though there would be an appropriate allocation. However, following the introduction of significant discretion for the commissioner, it is fair to say that the resource allocation formula could not come into effect. In a way, I am appealing to the Minister for advice as to how best Croydon's politicians can go about their business in terms of lobbying effectively on resource allocation. Perhaps politicians in the city of Westminster and the London borough of Wandsworth are more effective in terms of lobbying for resources. There is certainly no discrimination of any kind against Croydon—not in any organised way. However, we see a trend in terms of the funding provided for the council through Government grants. A London government quite reasonably puts an emphasis on resourcing for east London in the context of the Olympics and social deprivation issues. It quite reasonably puts an emphasis on the requirements of central London through the discretionary business rate that will resource Crossrail. In Croydon, our hospital is going through a proposed downgrading, with the acute stroke provision being transferred elsewhere, so it is important for us to be able to lobby effectively for resources in Croydon. It is important to recognise that, since 1997, and particularly since the introduction of the GLA, there has been a significant investment of resources in policing in London, with a transformation in the number of police officers in the Metropolitan Police Service and on our streets—I am thinking of the organisation of policing and the operation of police community support officers. In Croydon, we are fortunate to operate under an acting borough commander, Adrian Roberts, who is committed to Croydon as part of his job. He operates in such a way as to make the best use of resources. We also benefit from the fact that the borough commander works well with Croydon council and the three safer transport scheme teams that are now in place. Croydon is one of the first boroughs to roll out diamond districts. However, there are real difficulties in Croydon. Sometimes, it is important for me as a representative of Croydon to emphasise how much it has changed. I illustrate that change by mentioning the fact that we used to have two very safe Conservative seats in the north of the borough, where Jack Weatherill and the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) were Members. We now have a situation where the right hon. Member for Croydon, North (Malcolm Wicks) sits in the safest Labour seat in London. Although I am sure that a great deal of that is down to the excellence of the Member of Parliament for Croydon, North, it is also down, to a certain extent, to demographic change. There is dynamic demographic change in Croydon and there are real issues as to whether the formulae, with regard both to policing and to Croydon council's financing, take full account of our actual population. Doctors' registrations suggest that our population is 40,000 higher than that recognised within normal granting of moneys to Croydon. Therefore, real stress falls on public services and policing is no exception. There are also issues to do with the challenge that the police service faces in policing our borough. Peter Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said of Fairfield, the ward which contains Croydon town centre:""If you look at the information, Fairfield sounds to me that it's not the sort of ward where officers should go out on their own. If I were a local police superintendent I would say that officers should go out in pairs."" He added:""It's the bloke out there on his own going through a rough part of town that is most vulnerable."" Croydon, most definitely, has significant challenges. During this Parliament, there have been 10 knife killings in Croydon. I have certainly found it very sad to visit mothers of sons who have died. There was a great deal of publicity about the very sad case of Mr. Abbey, who was knifed to death at a bus stop on the way to Mayday university hospital to see his newborn child for the first time. There was also the very sad case of the son of a Kurdish family, who was murdered over a chocolate wrapper being thrown into a car. Those are all very sad and tragic cases. That there is a challenge for Croydon policing can be seen in the fact that, although crime is falling as a whole in the Metropolitan police area, in Croydon, crime has gone up. Overall, there were 18,000 fewer offences in London between 2007 and 2008. However, in Croydon there was a 7.4 per cent. increase in crimes committed, going up from 30,537 to 32,805. Burglary in particular in the last six months has had a sharp upturn, with more than 300 reported offences. Only in the last week, I have received correspondence from constituents. As an example of the types of stresses and strains that the police service has to deal with, one Croydon resident wrote to me saying:""I was attacked by 30 kids in a gang called the DSN on Saturday 4 April."" This was in Wandle park in Croydon, in broad daylight.""I was beaten severely and cut with knives across my arms and back and I have just had the stitches out of my head. Just because I refused to let them ride my bike…Today I thought I would be brave enough to go back there. Only to see a 14 year old getting held up and robbed for his phone by two teenagers again yielding knives."" That is a park that the Greater London authority intends to spend £400,000 upgrading. One of the difficulties—it is not just about policing by the Metropolitan Police Service; it is also about proper care and attention by Croydon council—is that over the years we have had far fewer park wardens. In fact, we only have 19 park wardens to police the 124 open spaces that we have. I am grateful to Aline Nassif of the Croydon Advertiser for revealing that through a freedom of information request with the Croydon Advertiser last week. I also have correspondence from a constituent, Joanne Bradley, who expressed concern about the amount of time it took for the police service to attend her home after a burglary took place. It essentially took 24 hours. Jenny Winstanley says:""Without fail every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night after the bars and clubs kick out there is constant shouting, screaming, last night there were three separate fights and then the inevitable making up afterwards!"" This happens in the centre of Croydon. She says that, when she has visitors to stay,""Once they have run the gauntlet of the…drug addicts"" sleeping in the streets near East Croydon station, it is difficult for them to get any sleep when there is so much antisocial behaviour. Obviously, these issues are not as important as the killings that have taken place. It is encouraging that, when extra police resources are provided, real progress is made. I am grateful for the way in which resources have been found corporately for Croydon borough command over the past few months in Operation Safe for All. That operation has had a real effect on the amount of crime, with 101 fewer victims of knife crime, 15 fewer victims of youth violence, 28 fewer victims of gun crime and 271 fewer victims of robbery. That is an impressive story of the effectiveness and impact of the police service. However, we have problems in the town that are having a real effect on the economic performance of Croydon. It is notable that many retailers report to me that the problems have a significant effect on their business. A major retailer tells me that people in the A and B classes—people with money—are reluctant to shop at our main department stores. I have heard a report that, after incidents in the centre of Croydon, typically occurring around 3.30 pm or 4 pm, when regular fights between teenagers take place, there is a significant downturn in business. Mr. Ford, who runs a shoe business, says:""Up until the fight on"" a particular day, he had""had a really good day"" and had""probably sold about six or seven pairs of shoes every hour"," but, he says,""After 3.30pm we sold just one pair."" That is a reflection of how the town has lost many of its shoppers because of the stresses and strains. We need to see in Croydon not only many more police officers, but many more uniformed people in the town centre. It is not good enough just to have CCTV cameras watching over those who come to enjoy the retail experience in Croydon; we must ensure that we have a mixture of police officers. More officers must be provided in the business improvement district to ensure that the whole of our town centre is within eyesight of officers of one sort or another. I am not saying that all those officers should necessarily be in a police-type uniform. The experience of business improvement districts, particularly in the United States, shows that a non-confrontational style of uniform is often positive in policing younger people. When I talk at schools, or when students come here to look around the Houses of Parliament and I meet them afterwards, I notice that young people sometimes feel unhappy about the nature of policing. Policing has to be consensual—there has to be support from young people—but sometimes they feel victimised and sometimes a good combination of police officers and other types of policing would be more appropriate. I therefore hope that there will be an emphasis on the local authority rebalancing its priorities to secure the resources needed for that type of policing. Only then will people have confidence to return to Croydon town centre. If that happens, we will see a return on the investment on extra policing through an improvement in business for our local retailers. Most important, I earnestly want to emphasise the importance of Croydon securing its fair share of resources. I will be interested to hear the Minister's advice on the best way to lobby for that change.