Alan Johnson: 'Labour would have protected police from Home Office cuts'

Shadow home secretary Alan Johnson today hit out at "extraordinary" impending Home Office budget cuts, insisting Labour would have protected frontline policing.

Mr Johnson said that under Labour, the department's budget would have been reduced by around 12% or £1.3 billion - but this would not have affected police numbers.

Opening an Opposition-led Commons debate, he told MPs: "So this is not an argument about whether there need to be cuts to the police budget over the next four years.

"It's an argument between a cut of 12% and, as the Chancellor (George Osborne) announced on June 22, 25% for the Home Office which he describes as an 'unprotected department'."

In the wide-ranging debate, Mr Johnson said the Conservatives could "no longer deny" that crime had fallen under Labour's 13 years in power.

He accused Home Secretary Theresa May of failing to stand up for the Home Office during the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review, which will be published next month.

"It is extraordinary that the Government refuses to add policing to health, education and international development as an area requiring special consideration and it says everything you need to know about their warped priorities," he said.

He warned that if the department's cuts reached 40% as some predicted, around 60,000 police officers could lose their jobs.

Intervening, Mrs May said: "You know full well that your government had pledged to make 20% of cuts in public sector spending. If it wasn't going to come in the Home Office, where was it going to come?"

Mr Johnson said crime and policing was a "priority" to constituents across the country but was not being treated as such by the Government.

The 16,000 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) were "bound to go" if budgets were cut by 25%, he said.

"Have no doubt, cuts of this magnitude will also put national security at risk as the UK's most senior counter terrorism officer has made clear," he added.

"Insufficient resources will inevitably lead to the closure of regional counter terrorism units and fewer surveillance teams to monitor suspects, as well as a reduction in the police officers who work full time on counter terrorism."

Mr Johnson accused Mrs May of restricting the ability of the police to use DNA and CCTV to deter and catch offenders.

He also pointed to the "dogmatic pursuit" of the abolition of Police Authorities and their replacement with a single elected commissioner.

Mr Johnson said the Government's plans for the DNA database had "no evidential support" and would have "probably left 26 murderers and rapists unconvicted" if it had been in force last year.

Mrs May wants to keep the DNA profiles of those innocent of serious crimes, rather than both serious and non-serious - so DNA could not be taken or compared from anyone until they were convicted, he said.

He told MPs: "There is no evidence whatsoever that those arrested but not convicted of a non-serious offence have any lower propensity to be re-arrested than those arrested but not convicted of serious offences."

Turning to CCTV, Mr Johnson rejected the argument that it "offends civil liberties", and seized the chance to joke about David Cameron's head of communications.

"If this Government wants to strike a blow against the surveillance state, it should sack Andy Coulson, not remove CCTV cameras."

And he attacked the Government's planned "imposition" of elected police commissioners to replace councillors, magistrates and other citizens who sit on Police Authorities.

"This model is opposed by the police, by local councillors of all political persuasions, by ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers), by the APA (Association of Police Authorities) and by practically everyone who knows anything about policing," he said.

Mr Johnson said the Government was being "extremely foolish" with plans for elected police commissioners, warning that it would not be possible to reverse the system once it was brought in.

He attacked the coalition's plans to reform the DNA database rules along the lines of the Scottish model, arguing it would be better to wait until more evidence was available.

"As this Government's honeymoon period draws to a close they are vulnerable on many issues but none more so than crime and security, where the issue isn't about their political vulnerability but the vulnerability of our citizens as they seek to go about their daily lives," Mr Johnson said.

"The battle against crime and disorder has to be stepped up, not scaled back.

"I warn this House and Members on the Government benches that they are taking the wrong approach, and by refusing to listen and consult, they demonstrate not their commitment to civil liberties but their failure to protect the most important civil liberty of all - the right to be safe from crime and disorder."

But Mrs May hit back at Mr Johnson's claims, saying Labour was in an "utter state of denial".

"The Opposition have fallen into the trap, and the shadow home secretary has fallen into the trap, of thinking they need to oppose everything the Government does just for the sake of it," the Home Secretary said.

"They are denying the legacy of the debt that they have left to this Government.

"They oppose the budget cuts they themselves planned to make, and in denying their record they oppose the police reforms they once proposed."

She went on: "Let me try to shake you out of your state of denial.

Police officers that are available on the streets for just 11% of the time, 900,000 violent crimes a year, 26,000 victims of crime every single day - that's the legacy of the party opposite. It will be up to this coalition Government to put it right."

Policing reforms would reduce bureaucracy and return officers to the streets, Mrs May said, making them "crime-fighters not form-writers".

"We remain a high-crime country and we need to do something about it, and the complacency on the other benches is frankly breathtaking on this issue," Mrs May said.

"None of us can be complacent about levels of crime in this country. What we need to be doing is finding the ways in which we can reduce crime and in which we can help the police to do their jobs, and that's why we want to restore that connection between the police and the people that we believe has been bogged down by bureaucracy and has been damaged over the years."

Mrs May also set out plans to reform the Asbo system, pledging "simpler, smarter sanctions, faster to obtain, easier to enforce and providing a strong deterrent and a real punishment".

The "unmitigated disaster" of Labour's licensing changes would also be overhauled, she said.

"We were promised, when this legislation was introduced, a cafe-style culture. But five years on the police are still fighting an ongoing battle against booze-fuelled crime and disorder."

A ban on below-cost alcohol sales and higher fines for selling to children would form part of the new regime, she said.