Christine Jardine: We should be building trust between the public and public services, not fear

Taking a holistic approach to knife crime worked in Glasgow; heavy-handed policing isnt the answer. Picture: David Parry/PA

The issue was the same: she is one of the three million women across the UK who were born in the 1950s and have been left high and dry by the mismanagement of the change to the age at which they could receive their state pensions.

She, like all the other affected women, is currently awaiting the outcome of a Judicial Review. But other than that, nothing has changed.

More than two years later despite petitioning the commons, a private member’s bill that I co-signed and numerous debates, nothing has been done. By either government.

Of course, action would demand a government that would actually take the time and isn’t obsessed with a single issue like Brexit or independence.

Until this week I had responsibility for Liberal Democrat welfare policy at Westminster. Pensions were front and centre of the issues I had to raise, along with the vast problems with universal credit and the attitude of a government whose radar does not seem to pick up on social issues.

I shall not be turning my back on that. But there are also other challenges which the country has to face and which we can no longer afford to put to one side to await a Brexit solution.

I am honoured to have been made Shadow Home Secretary in the new Liberal Democrat line up by Jo Swinson. I’ll also have responsibility for women and equalities and justice. A unique opportunity to hold the new hard-right Brexiteer-led government to account, in a way the official opposition has so far failed to do.

These new portfolios cover some key liberal touchstone issues, including immigration, equalities, cannabis regulation and offender rehabilitation.

Every week I meet people who are being placed under horrific stress as a direct result of the Home Office’s continuing hostile environment.

Couples being torn apart because of complicated administrative requirements and arbitrary income thresholds. EU citizens terrified about their future in a country they’ve called home since before some Brexiteer MPs were born.

And that government position towards migration is hardening further, at a time when our we are crying out for support from our friends from abroad, to keep our NHS running, to prevent our hospitality sector from total collapse, and to teach our children.

We need an immigration system that will not just encourage people to come, but those who are already here to stay. To do that we will also have to create a society they want to live in. Not one where they are afraid for their children’s safety or lie awake listening for the key in door that tells them that their loved ones have made it home from a night out.

Since taking office the new Home Secretary has used language that makes it clear her approach will be a hard one, but I can’t agree that is the best way to tackle the issues we face or create a better future for our children.

We cannot deal with society’s problems by waving a big stick at them. Anyone who has lived or worked in Glasgow, or even heard of that city’s problems, knows that taking a holistic approach to knife crime there, looking at the social, economic and health influences, worked.

London, indeed many English cities, are currently in the grip of what could be described as a knife crime epidemic. There are many lessons from Glasgow that this government could employ.

Of course we all want to see investment in public services. The importance of the jobs that our police and other emergency services do can never be underestimated, but there is more to it than numbers, boots on the street. Yes numbers are important but it’s how you deploy them.

If the new Home Secretary believes that making people feel terrified of their police service is appropriate for the 21st century never mind actually work, I would urge her to take a look at her history books.

It doesn’t help police officers or the public. Police need the support and trust of the pubic, not to have them ‘terrified’ in the way she has described. Our police officers also deserve the protection and security of knowing that the public do not regard them as enemies. This week we have all seen the heart-breaking price that police officers may pay if it goes wrong.

We should be building the trust between public and public services, not using inflammatory language. Neither should we be making sections of society feel targeted because of some perception of their ethnic background or social economic status. That doesn’t help in any sphere of public life. Building bridges, creating a more equal, trusting society does.

In my lifetime I have witnessed dramatic changes in public attitudes and improvements in our inclusiveness, but at the moment I find myself worrying that we may be about to lose some of what we have achieved.

I will also have responsibility for speaking up on women and equalities at Westminster. Issues which underpin everything I believe and which should be sewn into the fabric of every section of society, every government policy and every decision that politicians make.

Somehow when the decision to equalise men and women’s state pensionable ages was being made the intention got lost in inefficient management and muddled communications.

I don’t believe anyone intended that it should bring hardship to those three million women but that was the result. It’s time those in power acknowledged their responsibility to put it right. And I don’t want to see that same woman in another two years.