Cornerstone report demands referendums on police superforces
A group of socially conservative Tory MPs today urges David Cameron to step up his opposition to the Government’s controversial plans to merge Britain’s 43 locally-based police forces into 12 regional superforces.
In a paper published by the 25-strong Cornerstone Group, Owen Paterson MP condemns the proposals as unpopular with the police and public alike, anti- democratic and at odds with worldwide evidence that effective policing depends upon close links with local communities.
He urges the Conservative Party leadership to intensify its opposition to these “dangerous” Government plans by demanding local referendums on proposals to redraw police boundaries and create new giant police authorities stretching across many counties. Unless there is popular backing for the change, the public will view the new forces as “illegitimate”, he says.
He also accuses Ministers of having a “hidden agenda” of using the creation of regional police forces to whip up support for their moribund plans for elected regional assemblies and the destruction of the mainly Tory-run shire counties.
Mr Paterson cites independent expert opinion to accuse Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, of failing to come up with any credible evidence to justify his “fatuous” claim that a police force needs to have a minimum of 4,000 officers to be effective.
He rejects the Home Secretary’s argument that superforces are needed to fight terrorism and organised crime transcending existing police boundaries. He points out that the Government has already dealt with this threat by setting up a British version of the FBI - the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which is due to come into effect in April this year and which will have at least 5,000 police officers. It is “incomprehensible” that the regionalisation plan is being railroaded through before SOCA has had a chance to prove itself.
Mr Paterson warns that a shift to much bigger police forces, remote from local communities, will exacerbate the erosion of public trust in the forces of law and order and reinforce the growing belief that the police are targeting petty offences committed by the law-abiding while turning a blind eye to serious crime.
Mr Paterson says: “The Home Secretary’s plans…represent a giant step in the direction of central control. His regional superforces will inevitably become immeasurably more remote from the needs of the communities they are intended to serve.
“To anyone familiar with the realities of day-to-day policing, these proposals must inevitably seem a very dangerous step indeed.
“It is clear that the Home Secretary’s plans are arousing almost universal hostility. It is barely credible that a reform of this magnitude could be contemplated without proper parliamentary debate and legislation.
“No changes of this nature should be contemplated without direct reference to the wishes of those communities. Any fundamental changes to the policing of England and Wales should only take place following a series of local referendums.”
Ends:
Read the full report here.
