Branch secretary welcomes constructive meeting with local MP

8 September 2025

The police pay review process, a potential campaign for industrial rights for police officers and the need to tackle the criminal and anti-social use of off-ride bikes were among the topics discussed by Tipton and Wednesbury Labour MP Antonia Bance when she met with West Midlands Police Federation secretary Tim Rogers.

Ms Bance became an MP at last year’s General Election and previously worked as the head of campaigns and communications for the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

“We had a very constructive and insightful meeting,” said Tim. “It was useful to meet with Ms Bance since her background in the trade union movement obviously gave her a clear insight into some of the issues that are of the biggest concerns to our membership – the inadequacies of our current pay review process for a start off.

“Ms Bance’s background in campaigning and communications added to the conversation and I am looking forward to learning from her experiences in terms of looking at how we approach our own campaigns going forward.

Tipton and Wednesbury Labour MP Antonia Bance.

“I believe this could be the start of an effective working relationship with one of our local MPs and I hope that we can build on the positive conversations we had in this first meeting.”

In addition to his role as branch secretary, Tim is the national Federation lead for response driving and driver training and this led into a conversation around police tactics to deal with those who use off-road bikes to cause a nuisance and carry out crimes.

“Fifteen to twenty years ago, I think each area of the Force had an off-road capability but now we have only about eight of these vehicles and these are shared Force-wide so this can limit their effectiveness,” Tim explained.

Policing model

“If, for example, you plan an initiative to use one of the vehicles in Coventry it can be 10.30am on the given day before it arrives on patch and then it may be driven by someone without the local knowledge and intelligence needed for it to be deployed to full effect as would have been the case under the old local policing model.”

Under the provisions of the Road Safety Bill, forces will be given greater powers to access people’s homes to seize off-ride bikes used anti-socially or criminally, and Ms Bance wants to see this extended to them being crushed immediately rather than sold at auctions.

The bill will also potentially include a new power for police officers to require drivers to get out of their vehicles if they are stopped under Section 163 of the Road Traffic Act.

Tim has been campaigning for this new power in response to the number of officers injured by drivers speeding off after initially bringing their vehicles to a halt when stopped by the police.