**CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY**
Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, will address the Police Federation conference today. On Hillsborough, Police culture and leadership, Andy Burnham will say:
“There can be no doubt that the Hillsborough families’ 27-year fight for justice, and the revelations about policing practice along way, has shaken the faith of many in policing. It needs a proper and considered response - not just from politicians, but from the police too.
“Of course, the police force of today is not the police force of the 1980s and 1990s. I do draw the distinction between officers serving then and now. But it’s too easy to say draw a line under it because it’s all in the past. It’s not. Old habits persist – as I saw for myself to some disbelief at the recent Inquest. The cover-up continued right up until a few weeks ago – and because of it, so did the pain of the families. I don’t think anyone should minimise that.
“Hillsborough must mark a watershed moment for our policing and criminal justice system. A moment when we come together to create a more open and accountable police service, that does not tolerate a closed-shop culture. If we can achieve that, it will in the end will be better for public and police officers alike.
“If we are to learn from the past, we must first be open about it. That is why I repeat my call for the Government to institute a public inquiry on what is known as the Battle of Orgreave and the policing of the miners’ strike. Though this was 30 years ago, deep scars remain in mining communities about this period. If we want a police service for this century, then we first need the truth about how we were governed and policed in the last. I am disappointed that the Home Secretary failed to address this issue today.
“After truth and justice comes accountability. I am proposing a package of changes to the Policing and Crime Bill to strengthen victims’ rights and police accountability. One of the crucial reforms we need to make is to the treatment of bereaved families at inquests. It cannot be right that police forces are able to spend unlimited sums of public money on lawyers when families, often raw with grief, are thrown into a court room with no ability to match it.
“This is why I am pushing an amendment that will put an obligation on a PCC to fund the legal representation of a bereaved family, or families, at the same level as that police force where both sets of parties are interested parties in an inquest. The public interest should lie in finding the truth. It follows that public money should be spent on that aim rather than on protecting vested interests in public bodies.
“The second amendment I have proposed seeks to remove the time limit on the period after leaving a force that a retired officer can be investigated for misconduct. My intention is that this power would apply retrospectively. I don’t think there should be any limit. If gross misconduct is proved which would at the time have led to someone losing their job, and therefore wages and pension contributions, then surely it is right and proper that pensions should be able to be deducted to reflect that. The idea that retirement can be used as an escape route to escape misconduct is something that damages the standing of the police service in the eyes of the public.”
On Police funding, he will say:
“The risks that you and your colleagues run every day set policing apart from other professions and is why politicians owe you a particular duty of care and support. The best way we can express that is not through warm words but funding.
“When I took on this job, the police service in England and Wales was staring down the barrel of 20 per cent plus cuts in the Spending Review. I immediately threw everything I had at the campaign to oppose them as cuts on this scale, on top of the cuts in the last Parliament, would have been disastrous for the Police. It would have sounded the death knell for neighbourhood policing.
“I am proud to say that, working in partnership with police colleagues, Labour forced a last-minute U-turn. The Chancellor’s exact words were this: ‘there will be no cuts in the police budget at all. There will be real-terms protection for police funding.’ I have had to refer Mr Osborne and the Government to the UK Statistics Authority. They have confirmed that all forces have seen real-terms cuts in Government grant this year and those cuts have not been filled by the local precept.
“Let’s just be clear about this – this Government made a promise to you in the House of Commons and they have broken it. As a result, the police service in England and Wales is on course for a decade of cuts. I believe that is both irresponsible and dangerous. Ministers are crossing their fingers and putting an ideological commitment to austerity before public safety.
“The justification for these further cuts is that crime is falling. But is that true? When online fraud and cybercrime are added to the crime survey of England and Wales later this year, it will show a very different picture. The Government’s alibi for its cuts will be gone.
“So I have got a simple message for Theresa May - the cuts cannot just keep on coming. They have got to stop. You made a promise to the Police and you should honour it.”