Last Tuesday in the House of Commons, there were questions on the theme of the Criminal Justice System directed to Rory Stewart who up until now has given the impression of having a fresh and honest approach to his new Ministerial role. Two came from Laura Smith, shadow Cabinet Office Minister and Liz Saville-Roberts, Plaid Cymru leader in Parliament. Although the questions came at different times and were not linked they did together raise a matter which is vital to the way in which policing is organised and should lead to a response from our Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner. Liz stated her PCC “has made it clear that a new prison in his area is putting increased demand on policing. The cost of that is wholly borne by residents through the police precept. Can the Minister explain why his Department does not provide additional policing resources but instead expects local police services to find this from already desperately constrained budgets?” and Laura asked “What conclusions did the Minister draw from any recent discussions with police and crime commissioners about their future role in our probation service?” The two answers were both inadequate but did at least expose that our Police and Crime Commissioners need to deal with matters other than just how police services are organised because the Police are heavily impacted by the Criminal Justice System.

Regarding Probation Rory stated “PCCs play a central role in the system, so we are consulting and redesigning it to make that role more influential. It will not be possible to devolve fully to the PCCs, but we will design the system so that the National Probation Service chief in each region works closely with the PCC to ensure that their views determine how the system is run.” Of course it would be entirely possible to devolve more in probation to PCCs as this was in the proposals from Nick Herbert (MP for Arundel) who designed the role but doing so demands changes Rory’s department in Whitehall. Sadly the answer regarding prisons was worse “It is the responsibility of the police primarily to work on supporting the Prison Service. Our responsibility at the Ministry of Justice extends to what happens within the prison walls. It is true that with prisons there is additional work, particularly on prosecution, but we do not feel that prisons lead to the kind of financial pressures that requires a new settlement.” Here in Sussex it is vital that the work of Lewes and Ford is accountable to the PCC as well as to Whitehall. An escape from Ford or a disturbance in Lewes clearly adds to the pressure on Sussex Police.

On another theme Rory Stewart was recently interviewed on Radio 5 about Brexit which also raises questions about his credibility when he claimed that 80% of us want to leave the EU. When he was challenged on this he backtracked and admitted he had no idea of how many people want to leave. Of course he was not alone in being part of the intense melt down in the Tory party with MPs such as Henry Smith (Crawley), Maria Caulfield (Lewes) and Jacob Rees Mogg writing letters calling for Theresa May to be sacked. These problems all followed a decision that their party handled very badly in preparation for the 2015 General Election. In foolishly promising the nation a referendum and then not setting out credible criteria for the campaigning on either side of the question, and even more concerning not setting out preparation for the outcome of the vote within their Government, the previous leader of the party deserves a response from our nation. The national vote to Leave led to David Cameron’s resignation, because he had failed to prepare his Government for that result. While his successor has been dealing with numerous resignations, many letters calling for her to go, yet another Cabinet reshuffle and potentially prepare for her own departure from No 10 Downing Street, the previous leader has been out of the country according to a National Newspapers. Apparently last week Dave was in Florida, being well paid to speak about his views on Brexit to a company called CME Group at an event called the CME Global Financial Leadership Conference. The Company which is American based but has offices all around the world including a major one in London claim on their website to be “the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group is where the world comes to manage risk” Let us hope that in due course for the sake of their investors, that they work out what Dave’s risk management capabilities are and apply this understanding to their own activities!