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Community Policing

The hon. Gentleman makes what is always an important point: no one wants to create bureaucracy. However, the chief constable tells me that he will have to let staff go because of the proposals and that is why I quoted him directly. Of course we want to create less bureaucracy—no one enjoys bureaucracy—but we need to take the professional opinions of chief officers seriously or we will threaten the way in which policing has developed so successfully. We do not want to undermine what is, essentially, a success story. What I would like from the Minister is an assurance that the Government believe in community policing. A statement to that effect, at the outset, would be useful. The budget reductions floated at the present time—whether 25% or 40%, or even if they are less than 25%—will clearly have a major impact. That chief constable's statistic about more than 80% of his budget being spent on staffing is very relevant. How does the Minister see the budget being reduced to the extent discussed by the Government without a reduction in the number of police officers? Also, what is the Government's view of the future of community support officers? Do the Government anticipate a reduction in the number of CSOs? If so, who will be responsible for dealing with them and who will make the decision to make them redundant, if that is to happen? We have heard that there has been major progress in policing in north Wales. Through the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and community safety partnerships, we have established effective structures that have led to a diminution and lessening of crime in the communities that we represent. A major impact has been not just on the commission of crime but on the social atmosphere in an area. One of the best ways of creating cost in the criminal justice system is to allow criminality to rise. A rise in crime means a strain on prison budgets, effectively increasing the cost of crime. More pressure will be put on Government budgets if the successful anti-crime strategy pursued in the past is jettisoned. I therefore appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, the Minister, who is a sensible man and who knows a good success story when he sees one, to fight his corner against the Treasury, and to say to them, "Let's look at the effective way of reducing cost in the criminal justice system." The most effective way, I venture, is to reduce crime in the first place—something achieved under the Labour Government since 1997. The reduction of crime has meant that fewer people are causing more cost to the system. Effectively, progress in the creation of community policing—one of the great success stories of the last Labour Government—should be continued, so that the people that I represent feel safe in their communities and so that we do not go back to the bad old days when no one knew who the local constable was and no one knew where to go when crime was committed.