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Police Funding, Crime and Community Safety

I will accept that there have been significant changes in the Metropolitan police—that is absolutely right—but I think it is universally accepted that, when we got into office in 2008, under the then commissioner the force had lost focus. The point I am making is that it was not delivering while at the same time it was receiving significant budget increases. It was literally awash with cash. That position had to be corrected. That has to happen across the whole country.

In my entire time in the policing community, I never came across a police force that had adopted what are in many ways the four pillars needed for modern policing. The first of them is investment in intelligence. About 80% of the time the police know just about where, when and by whom a crime is going to be committed, yet they never invest as much as they should in intelligence. Technology is changing the face of crime fighting. Automatic number plate recognition, data analysis, facial recognition, advanced forensics: no police force in the UK invests enough in them.

I have yet to find a police force that measures the efficiency of investigation. Murder in London fell from a high of 211 back in 2005 to just 101 in my final year. Should we still be investing the same number of police officers in murder? Of course not. There has to be some kind of peace dividend and efficiency saving.

There is also innovation. If police forces are really going to grasp the challenge of the future, they have to invest in innovation. There is not a single police force in the country that has an innovation officer spreading new methods and techniques across the force.

Finally, I want to say a word on cybercrime. The right hon. Member for Leigh made much of that. It is a prime example of where technology is going to solve the problem. When I was a kid, anyone could open my grandad’s Mk2 Escort by thumping the door with their thigh. Now car crime is negligible in police terms because of changes in technology. Cars got better. The truth is that banks and financial services organisations invest in technology to prevent and detect crime, and the police have to do the same. One programmer—one smart programme—will solve more cybercrime than 1,000 police officers ever could; that is what I call efficiency.

6.6 pm