Crispin Blunt

Conservative Party | Reigate

Reigate Labour Candidate ill-informed on Surrey Police

Crispin Blunt is today releasing an exchange of correspondence between Samuel Townend, Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for Reigate and himself.

Samuel Townend wrote to Crispin Blunt on 7th March inviting him to congratulate the Labour Government on the satisfactory state of local policing following Mr. Townend being stopped for a minor traffic offence.  The letter revealed a regrettable lack of knowledge about the collapse of funds for the Police in Surrey since 1997.  Crispin Blunt has replied in detail to Mr. Townend pointing out that police numbers have fallen by over 10% per head of population and that the position would be much worse if the County Council hadn’t increased its support for Surrey Police by nearly 400% since 1997 (£15 million up to £74 million).

Crispin Blunt commented:

“Samuel Townend has a great deal to learn about the Police and the financial disaster inflicted upon them by the Labour Government in Surrey.  I hope this rather politically unwise sally on his behalf will leave him a little better informed.   He now knows that if a Conservative Government is returned there will be 100 more Police in Surrey each year for eight years.  I look forward to continuing the debate with him up until the Election”. 

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Below are the letters from Samuel Townend to Crispin Blunt MP, and the reply.

Dear Mr Blunt

I am writing to tell you about a recent personal experience I have had with our excellent local police force and how it has confirmed my view of them and the general picture of improved numbers of police and increased effectiveness. On returning home from campaigning work in the constituency I was pulled over by a police car, interviewed and informed that I had my fog lights on inappropriately. This is, of course, a traffic offence. Wrongly I had inadvertently switched the fog lights on when putting on my side lights and this was picked up by the local police within 10 minutes of me having done so. I hope that you will agree with me that it is terrific that Surrey Police have sufficient resources that they are able to deal with even minor traffic offences such as the one that I freely admit I committed, albeit entirely by accident.

You will also I hope agree with me that the service provided by our local police continues to improve, both directly in terms of crime prevention, but also in terms of numbers and police presence. As you should know the Surrey Police force now has 293 more police officers than in 1997 when your leader, Michael Howard, was Home Secretary, bringing the total up to 1,913 in Surrey. In this coming year there are proposed to be an additional 31 officers for the County. In total this will make an increase in police numbers of 20% in the 8 years that Labour has been in government equating to about an extra 30 full-time officers for the Borough of Reigate and Banstead. In addition, of course, Labour has introduced police Community Support Officers of which there will be over 100 in Surrey by the end of the year. The PCSOs are a visible and reassuring presence in Redhill and Reigate town centres (and other places), freeing up police officers to carry out community policing, detection and other core police activities. The additional police numbers (taken with Labour’s action on unemployment – the number of people on jobseekers’ allowance in Reigate and Banstead over the same period has halved) are paying real dividends with the biggest concern in the County (as the Surrey Police Authority’s recent public consultation (at the Belfry among other places)) confirmed. It was only the Labour Party who recognised this was a problem and who are leading the way in tackling anti social behaviour by providing powers such as Anti Social Behaviour Orders that belatedly the local authorities are now using with some good effect to deal with the continuing problems. On this issue in particular a lot more remains to be done, but the Police Authority fully recognise this.

What I want to know is why, in these circumstances, do you want to abolish the Surrey Police Authority with its effective independent chair, Liz Cambell, and replace it with some sort of elected sheriff as in the United States. Not only does this idea have shades of the ‘Wild West’ about it, but also in all the time I have been working in Reigate I have never experienced a single suggestion from any member of the public that there should be additional direct elections of the Police Authority. With Surrey Police and the Police Authority currently being successful I cannot understand why you want to make structural changes which will merely take up time and cost (including the cost of the elections, campaigning etc.) without any direct benefit to the battle against crime. Instead the money that you propose to spend on this costly bureaucratic meddling ought simply to be put in the police budget so that they can continue their excellent work. Your party’s idea would even seem to be against conservative principles: - why throw something away that is not broken?

Mr Blunt why don’t you support the Surrey Police Authority and all the effective work they do and come out against this potty policy and celebrate the palpable achievements in police presence on the streets and in combating crime and anti social behaviour made in the last few years?

Yours sincerely

Samuel Townend
Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for Reigate and Banstead.

cc Surrey Mirror

 

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Dear Samuel

Thank you for your letter of 7th March about the police which you copied to the Surrey Mirror.

I regret to say you are under one or two misapprehensions about the manning and funding of Surrey police. I am afraid the facts do not bear out the rosy picture you acquired when being stopped for a minor inadvertent traffic offence.

When Michael Howard was Home Secretary there were 2.1. police officers for each 1000 of population in the Surrey police area. Today that figure has fallen to 1.8. What these figures also disguise is the collapse in experience levels as Surrey has had to replace more experienced officers with new recruits to help deal with the catastrophe that has overtaken its budget since 1997.

There are 293 more police officers than in 1997 but you appear not to have been aware that the Surrey police are now responsible for policing nearly 300,000 more people than in 1997 and these include some relatively high crime areas on the boundary of Greater London that used to be the responsibility of the Metropolitan police.

Surrey has gone from having one of the best funded police forces in the country in 1997 to now having one of the worst. The position would be even worse if the Surrey Council taxpayer had not ridden to the rescue. In 1997 84% of funding came from the then Conservative central government; today that figure is 54%. The balance has been found from the Council Tax as local conservatives have been determined to protect the police from the worst ravages of the blatantly discriminatory funding formula twisting that has done so much to damage public service provision in Surrey and the South East since 1997. To be precise in 1997 the council taxpayer provided £15,133,000 p.a. From 1st April this figure will become £73,932,128. A 400% increase. If that isn’t a stealth tax I don’t know what is. I hope you now understand why the Council tax has risen so much under a Labour Government despite Surrey County Council being one of the best run local authorities in the country.

Conservative priorities in practice for the police locally are replicated in policy at the national level. The next Conservative government will add 5,000 police officers each year for 8 years to provide 40,000 extra police. About 800 of these will come to Surrey and then we will have begun to put right the disaster that has overtaken central government provision for the police in Surrey since 1997.

I spent a week with the police as recently as October. They are working very hard in difficult circumstances, but I am afraid they would not recognise the picture you try to paint. I came face to face with examples of anti social behaviour and the
consequences of late night binge drinking and current policies are far from the finished article to address this. Further work will always remain to be done and to say that ‘it was only the Labour party who recognised this problem’ is just plain silly.

One of the consequences of overstretch is that it is almost certain you were stopped by a police car manned by only one fully trained officer and probably in an area that does not have a dedicated neighbourhood community officer. It is this kind of operational handicap that our police currently have to labour under, that Conservative policy will address.

Finally, I am not remotely surprised no one has made a suggestion to you that there should be direct elections to the Police Authority as I would hazard a guess that rather fewer than 5% of the constituents of Reigate have ever heard of it, far less have a clear idea of its powers and responsibilities. However an elected head would bring it to public attention and give people a local focus for seeking to influence local police policies which are currently utterly remote from them. Operational control will remain with the Chief Constable but the very important police authority functions will at last become visible. I am surprised you do not welcome these proposals.

Yours sincerely,

Crispin Blunt MP