Speeches

10 February 2005

Howard: More police and accountability in policing 

Respect for Others

"All my political life I have stood up for people who play by the rules and pay their dues. Respect for the law, respect for others and respect for property: these values are the bedrock of our society. They are my values. And they are the values of most Britons - people who have been forgotten and neglected by Mr Blair.

The forgotten majority realises that declining personal responsibility, the proliferation of so-called human rights and government's failure to draw a clear distinction between right and wrong have left communities across Britain paralysed - unable to get a grip on rising crime and disorder. 

It's hardly surprising the forgotten majority believe that Britain is heading in the wrong direction. If we are to make the most of our potential, Britain needs to change track. We need to restore order to our society. 

I am sure that Mr Blair will soon say that he has a new plan to deal with crime - just like he has on immigration. He'll talk tough. But after eight years in power, and just three months before an election, I suspect most people will think "here we go again".

Of course, some people might be thinking about the Liberal Democrats. Well there's only one fact you need to know about them. They don't believe burglars should go to prison. Enough said.

My approach is very different. It's tough and no nonsense: more police - less paperwork and political correctness; drug rehab for youngsters - and tougher sentences for career burglars and drug dealers; an end to early release from prison; and criminals to serve their sentences in full. 

Communities where children can walk to school; neighbourhoods where women feel safe after dark; homes where families sleep easy at night - that is the kind of society people yearn for. Some commentators claim it is just a pipe dream - that rising crime is inevitable in a modern society. 

But let's be quite clear - there is nothing inevitable about rising crime. As successful politicians and policemen like Rudi Giuliani, Bill Bratton and Ray Mallon have all shown - with determination and with leadership you can cut crime. 

Rising crime is like a disease. It eats away at the heart of communities. It debilitates neighbourhoods. It undermines the confidence of the police - and the confidence of law abiding citizens in the police. 

Confident Community Policing

Cutting crime is all a matter of confidence. It's about having the confidence to say enough is enough. The rights of our communities come before so-called human rights. If you cross the line between right and wrong there will be consequences.

We need a criminal justice system that gives police officers the confidence to tackle, confront and challenge every kind of crime and disorder, right down to graffiti and litter. 

More serious crime flourishes in neighbourhoods where "yobbery" and petty criminality go unchecked. Muggers and burglars thrive in communities where their potential victims are already intimidated by low level lawlessness.

The police cannot fight crime on their own. It is only by fighting violence together, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, road by road, that we will take back the street corners, the alleys, the bus stops and the car parks where thugs are still in control.

The tragedy today is that our police - brave, hard working men and women who take risks every day that most of us never take in a life time - are handcuffed by paperwork and political correctness. The police now spend more time behind their desks filling in forms to do with the latest ministerial gimmick than they do on our streets.

We are never going to tackle crime and disorder if we don't trust policemen and women to exercise their commonsense and their judgement. It's little wonder that in many places decent law abiding people worry that the police have become powerless - remote and distant, unable to deal with the issues that concern their neighbourhoods the most.

Conservative Action: More Police and Less Paperwork

Conservatives will give the police a simple, clear objective "… to prevent crime and disorder".

Conservatives will put more police officers on the beat - 5,000 more police every year, 40,000 after eight years. Put more police on the streets and they'll catch more criminals. It's not rocket science.

And Conservatives will cut away at the paperwork which keeps the police chained to their desks. That politically correct form the police have to fill in every time they stop someone will go in the appropriate filing tray - the bin. 

Police Commissioners

In one sense, the police today are more formally accountable than they have ever been. The trouble is they are accountable to the wrong people: quangos and bureaucrats - not to local communities. The public is becoming divided from the police by a wall of bureaucracy and political correctness. 

It's why people worry that the police are remote and out of touch with their priorities. Let's face it you are as likely to see a traffic warden as a police officer in many of Britain's towns and cities today.

So today I am putting forward a simple, straightforward policy that will reverse this tide: a policy that will help capture a new spirit of optimism in our cities and towns.

The clearest line of accountability in any organisation is to a single individual: a person who sits behind a desk with a sign that says "I'm responsible - the buck stops here". 

The current system does not work. Police authorities are remote and unaccountable. Stop anyone on the street and ask them to name one member of their police authority. I promise you'll be met with a blank stare. Few people even know they exist and even fewer know what they do. They have no clear mandate. 

So we will replace them with directly-elected police commissioners - directly accountable to local people. Imagine the galvanising effect of a contest between two or three candidates for the job, each of whom published a manifesto to which local people could then hold them. 

I can already hear the cries of horror from the criminal justice establishment: "You can't give ordinary people a say over law and order. What a terrible idea".

Well I trust people. I believe local people should have more power - after all they understand what is best for their local communities. I want them to have a say.

Police commissioners will reflect the concerns of the people who elect them. They will be able to put police muscle power behind the public's priorities - tackling crime and disorder: vandalism, rowdiness, thuggery. Those are their priorities - not more and more speed cameras to fill Treasury coffers.

The rights of the community need to be centre stage. And the way to do that is to make those rights central to the democratic mandate of an elected police commissioner.

That will restore confidence. It will give police officers the confidence to come down hard on every kind of crime and disorder. And it will restore confidence in the police. 
Some people will say that this cannot be done. You can't use the ballot box to beat crime. They are wrong.

When I was Home Secretary, I had a clear mandate to beat crime. When Rudy Giuliani was elected Mayor of New York, he had a clear mandate to beat crime. And here in Britain today, Ray Mallon was elected with a clear mandate to beat crime. Ray is not a police commissioner. He's an elected mayor. But he was elected on a crime-fighting platform.

I don't just want people to feel safe in their homes - I want them to feel safe everywhere. And if they don't I want them to exercise their dissatisfaction through the ballot box. 
I don't just want to catch more criminals. I want criminals to think twice before they take on the police and commit a crime in the first place.

Oh and by the way, if you are watching this on the news and you are a burglar, a mugger, a vandal, whatever think twice before you vote Conservative: because people have had enough, and we are coming to get you."

Rt Hon
Michael Howard QC MP