Article For Folkestone Herald and Kentish Express

17 February 2005

Last week Kent police introduced a new requirement imposed on them by the Government.

As a result every time a police officer stops someone in the street he or she will have to fill in a form and offer a copy of it to the person they stop. I am not talking about stop and search. That is an intrusive process and it is right that records should be kept of searches. But I believe this new requirement is absurd. It typifies the way in which the police, in common with so many other professions, are having their hands tied behind their backs by paperwork, political correctness and bureaucracy.

In other parts of the country the new rule has already been introduced. The form contains 40 questions. It has been estimated that it takes 7 minutes to fill in. Think what this means to a police officer who wants to stop a group of six unruly people in a high street on a Saturday night. It would involve nearly three quarters of an hour spent filling in forms! Is this how we want our police to be spending their time? Will it make them more or less likely to stop people – an essential element in community policing? Will it help to make our streets safer?

A Conservative Government will scrap this form together with much of the rest of the paperwork and political correctness which handcuff them as they try to protect us.

We do, of course, need more police officers and we shall provide them – 1,061 more police officers for Kent, over a period of time. But I want those officers out on the streets, keeping us safe, not filling in forms.

We will also introduce elected police commissioners instead of the current police authorities. Members of these police authorities do their best but they are little known. An elected police commissioner would use the influence of their position to persuade the Chief Constable to reflect local priorities in the way Kent and other areas are policed. This change would give local people a much bigger say in the way in which their communities are policed.

We are all worried by crime. Kent police have done well over the years but many of you will have been the victims of crime. We need more police, fewer forms and more say for local communities.

That is what the next Conservative Government will provide.