66/07

19 June 2007

Speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, to the Association of Chief Police Officers, Manchester

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I am here today to pay tribute to you, to the forces you lead, to the local police authorities you work with, and above all, the 140,000 police officers and police staff who each day take responsibility for the protection of all our citizens.

Over the last year I have seen, close at hand in all areas of the country and in the last few days meeting police in Liverpool, in Birmingham, and the Met in London - your great achievements:

your day-to-day work combating crime and ensuring safe communities;
your one-to-one work with young people at risk of wasting their lives in crime; and
your achievements from the local to the global, uncovering and thwarting terrorist conspiracies, bringing major national and international crimes to justice.

We place in your hands our homes and our safety and security. We expect you to risk danger and sometimes your lives on our behalf - with the recent tragic deaths of PC Ricky Gray and PC Jon Henry reminding us again of the bravery and the sacrifice that is required in the line of duty.

There is no more fundamental right than the right of a citizen to be safe and secure.

So there is no greater responsibility than that which you as police officers accept.

And there is no greater obligation for us in Government than to support you in discharging that duty.

So it is clear why we as a Government have a duty to provide you with the support and protection, the resources and the powers you need, to back you in what you have to do and be there for you - because you are always there for us.

The reason I want to take on the new responsibilities of a new office is because, like you, I want to do more to protect and enhance our British way of life:

to support the freedom of the individual under the rule of law;
to support the family, the DNA of society, the key mechanism through which values and norms are transmitted from one generation to the next;
to support a strong vibrant civic society - an idea invented in Britain which is at the root of a modern citizenship of responsibilities as well as rights;
and fairness to all who play by the rules - a Britain in which you work hard, you try hard, you use your talents, you make your contribution and you put something back.

This is the kind of Britain we, all of us, believe in.

And like you, I believe in these values: not the shallow rhetorical values of political correctness, but these enduring British values that unite all of us together.

And today as we face all the challenges that globalisation brings with families insecure and often anxious and worried because they see their communities changing fast around them, the task ahead is to uphold standards and set clear boundaries on what is acceptable and unacceptable and thus protect and enhance the best of the British way of life.

And in doing so I believe we must be far clearer in speaking up for the common ground on which we stand: that as individual citizens of Britain no matter your class, colour or creed, the right to rise as far as your talents take you. But in return for opportunity for all we expect and demand responsibility from all; not just the hard working majority that plays by the rules, but everyone.

We should be strict about our test for citizenship, that you should learn our language, understand our history tradition and undertake to contribute as well as receive. And as we value and encourage responsibility we must also bear down on irresponsibility.

And our starting point is to support and strengthen all those at the frontline in our society parents, teachers, and police.

And I know your view is that the best policing is visible, flexible and responsive and that is why, with your support from next year, every community in the country will have neighbourhood policing units patrolling the streets.

Small teams of police officers, community support officers, wardens, support staff, dedicated to a local area so people know who they are and how to reach them.

A police presence that gains its strength and maintains its trust through relationships, through shared experiences, through mutual recognition, and familiar faces.

I have long been a supporter of neighbourhood policing - in last year's Budget I earmarked an extra £100 million to back up the extra police by speeding up the recruitment of 16,000 community support officers.

And to build on this, to devolve accountability down to local 'basic command unit' and neighbourhood level.

And having talked to Sir Ronnie Flanagan this week about his review I believe that the answer lies in more devolved budgets, backed up by real time local data and third sector support giving local people more up to date information about crime and policing in their area, whatever is necessary so that people can see you are dealing with the problems which matter to them.

And involving people not just in policing but in justice encouraging thousands of volunteers to join youth offender panels. Two weeks ago I saw in north Liverpool how bringing together police, local people, the courts, probation and other agencies like the NHS and skills can cut crime and break the cycle of re-offending. But just as importantly they can restore people's faith in the system and build their confidence and their sense of security - and their sense of fairness - by recovering more assets from criminals and gangs and investing them in fighting crime, but also returning them to the community from which they were taken.

We must do everything to give you the resources, especially the new technology you need to fight crime: technology to protect officers - including tazers; mobile data devices which cut down the need for officers to return to the station to fill out paperwork; and technology which does both - helps fight crime and reduce paperwork - like number plate recognition and head cameras.

And let me issue this invitation: I want forces and individual officers to put forward their suggestions - original ideas or experience of local initiatives which they believe should be expanded. I have asked Sir Ronnie this week to work with you to identify those innovations that will really make a difference, both in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency and while always ensuring safeguards to build people's trust and confidence in new technology get them into use quickly.

As I said to Sir Ronnie, all of us have a shared interest in cutting down unnecessary red tape, to free you and your officers' to spend more time on front line work.

The question is how we complement the setting of national objectives with other drivers of change including local accountability and professional autonomy.

I share Sir Ronnie's early view that we must do more than a one-off exercise to cut forms, and as he suggests, we should support you in the shift in culture you want to see whether through new technology or working with the CPS on streamlining case preparation.

We need to review the focus on 'offences brought to justice', to make sure we have the right balance: maintaining the downward pressure on 'volume crimes' like criminal damage or burglary, while also making sure we are putting our maximum effort into the areas people are most concerned about, like drugs and violent crime and rape and domestic violence - as well as new crimes like honour killings which require us to adapt the way we work.

We need to review the use of fixed penalties which I know have proved a valuable tool for you, but we need to make sure they are being used in line with intentions and with common sense and not simply to meet targets or generate revenue.

More fundamentally, I believe that in return for forces showing good results in fighting crime and in building confidence at local level, Government should support you by giving you more flexibility, more freedom to use your experience and knowledge to set your own priorities especially down at local and neighbourhood level.

So I want to hear your views on how we can move forward, how we can link the setting of national objectives to our common desire to give you the best and most flexible framework in which to work, and to improve the public's understanding of the work you do.

We will not shirk from giving you the powers you need to do your job.

The clear message needs to go out to young people: carrying weapons will not be tolerated. No matter the circumstances, no matter the peer pressure, no matter what anyone else is carrying.

Five years for carrying a gun, two years for a knife - there will be no let up in our efforts to bear own on these crimes.

We need to support you in working with communities, naming and shaming and driving out the gangs that deprive our children of their aspiration and too often their lives.

And as I go round the country, I have heard time and again the fears of ordinary people about travelling on buses, tubes, trains and station platforms, and faced with the sudden and random threat of violence or aggression. I have agreed to consider whether - when a serious offence is committed on public transport - it will be an aggravating factor in sentencing. And I am convinced of the need to toughen the laws against child pornography, not just photographs, but all images on computers.

We will ensure we have the additional prison places that are necessary now and in the future. Last year we announced 8,000 new places, part of 1.5 billion in new investment, over 2,000 delivered by end of this year. There will be announcements made by the Ministry of Justice later today. But I can tell you now the Treasury is making available additional money for further new places, including extra fast build units.

At the same time, we will not hesitate to give you the necessary powers to focus on the national and international challenges of terrorism and organised crime.

We cannot succeed in freeing communities from gangs, guns or drugs without tackling the networks who supply them into our communities.

The new Serious Organised Crime Agency has been up and running for a year, bringing police and other agencies including border enforcement together in a national effort with new powers and a new focus on targeting criminal networks. But there is more to do - in particular on targeting criminal assets and in building stronger links abroad to improve our ability to protect our citizens at home.

I know you are discussing this later today and I look forward to hearing about your conclusions.

When it comes to terrorism we all accept that here the challenge is greater still.

September 11 2001
July 7 2005
The August 2006 alleged plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic

It is now clearer than ever that we face a threat which is new and unprecedented: global networks, based not on formal chains of command, but on loose affiliation and imitation, even harder to crack than previous terrorist groups; exploiting a world of mass travel and mass communications; terrorists recruited in one country, trained in a second, funded from a third and launching attacks in a fourth; recognising no boundaries whether laws or borders or morality, intent on causing mass casualties with no warning; driven by a global ideology opposed not - as sometimes said - to our policies but to our values and our way of life.

I believe it has fallen to our generation to address this new threat.

But events like last summer's foiled plot, or last week's sentencing of 7 members of a cell linked to Al Qaeda for their part in a foiled dirty bomb plot three years ago, remind us of the many achievements you and others have made in confronting this threat.

And this is where the national and the local come together: when I visit forces around the country you tell me that as you build relationships and trust with the local community, people are more likely to come forward - on gangs or drugs but even in a big international terrorist case where a breakthrough can come from a community where trust has been built up by neighbourhood police teams at a local level.

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As many of you know, I believe that in the long term we will only defeat this terrorist threat if we win the battle for hearts and minds.

Just as the cold war was fought not only with weapons and secret intelligence but with open engagement through newspapers, journals, culture, the arts, literature - not just through Governments but through foundations, trusts, churches, civil society - where argument and moderation eventually prevailed - so too in the face of this new threat we must work across society to isolate extremists from the moderate majority.

Along with the security services you are again in the lead and we will support this effort across Government and across services with resources and powers, and above all with shared commitment and clarity of purpose.

When I talk of protecting and advancing the British way of life, I mean tackling the roots of crime supporting standards of behaviour and discipline that are acceptable and penalising irresponsibility.

You and your officers face the realities of drug abuse every day - the lives spoiled by the degradation of addiction; the families shattered by crime; the decent communities crippled by fear of the dealers and gangs.

Together we have put huge efforts into disrupting and reducing the supply of illegal drugs - but drug trafficking into and across Britain is still big business.

Drawing on your advice and your help if we are to succeed, it is now time, I believe, for a radical review of our anti-drugs strategy. We will need to work with you in building the confidence of communities to name, shame and push out the dealers and the gangs.

At the same time a new strategy needs to reach addicts earlier to get them into treatment, and we need to find what works best in getting them to stay the course. And drugs education needs to reach children at an earlier age in primary, as well as secondary schools, and to help families and communities protect them from the dealers and the gangs.

But a new anti-drugs strategy will need to involve every section of our community - and we will need to involve role models from all walks of life, including sport, music, business, faith groups, to help persuade young people that drugs are the problem, not the answer.

I spoke last month about how we have to help teachers in dealing with indiscipline. We must always remember we are talking about a minority of the young. But from that minority come bullying, vandalism and aggressive and antisocial offending that cross boundaries of acceptable behaviour and cannot and will not be tolerated.

So I will ensure teachers have the resources to use tough new powers, including powers to confiscate weapons.

And I want to bring neighbourhood police teams into schools so you can work together with staff and pupils to tackle bullying and indiscipline both inside and outside the school gates; use extended schools and the support of voluntary organisations and faith groups but also sports, arts and musical activities and the growth of cadets to work with young people who have discipline problems; and at the same time, extend the use of referral units to make sure excluded pupils aren't left unsupervised and thus free to drift deeper into trouble.

But as your new youth crime strategy proposes, I am convinced that we also need to intervene earlier when children show the first signs of behaviour problems, challenge absent fathers to play their part, and offer more support to parents through help lines, parenting classes parenting orders and parenting contracts signed by parents themselves.

And when I visited the West Midlands force recently I saw how working in one-to-one mentoring of young gang members and working also with their absent fathers, pressing them to reconnect with their sons, teenagers are breaking with gangs.

We need a clearer and stronger system for triggering help, taking into account:

where a child is excluded from school;
where there is truancy;
where children are out late at night;
where there are problems with drugs or alcohol;
where there is anti-social behaviour or youth crime; and
where parents are involved in drugs or crime

And for the 30,000 parents who need in depth parenting advice and support, we will build on existing family intervention projects like in Dundee, where parents sign a contract agreeing changes in behaviour in return for one to one support.

I know this is controversial, being a parent is the most difficult job in the world, but where there are parents unable or unwilling to do their job, it would be irresponsible to do nothing.

Let me conclude by recognising the leadership, enthusiasm, tremendous energy and new thinking you bring to what you do, to build a police service that is visible, flexible, responsive - in tune with people's needs and concerns.

I want to thank Ken and Bob for inviting me here today and thank you for listening to me.

But now and for the next few years, it is my turn to listen to you, and I promise to work in partnership with you to make our nation stronger and safer.