Police Grant Report

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Andy McDonald

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald]

The difference between me and the right hon. Gentleman is that I am capable of being objective when facts are put in front of me, whereas he appears to be completely myopic and in total denial about his own Government’s record of decimating our police forces and the consequences of that. I am perfectly content with making proper representations to the Government on the settlements that have been devolved. That is a perfectly reasonable proposition, and it is a shame that he could not participate in a more sensible discussion.

With almost a third of our neighbourhoods in the top 10% of the most deprived nationally, local residents cannot shoulder a £90 increase on band D properties to restore staffing to safe levels. The police and crime commissioner has written three times to the Minister seeking urgent clarity about how the settlement was calculated. Each time, he has not had a response, and I ask the Minister to reflect on that and come back to me. Our communities and their elected PCC deserve answers. It is not just a matter of fairness; it is a matter of public safety. Without adequate funding, Cleveland police cannot meet the Government’s own objectives of reducing knife crime, tackling violence against women and girls, and maintaining effective neighbourhood policing.

The people of Cleveland, their PCC and officers on the frontline have done everything asked of them—exceeding recruitment targets, investing in neighbourhood policing and achieving crime reductions above the national average—and of course they made incredible efforts in response to the riot on 4 August 2024. It was the most remarkable response by the police and the community, banding together in the wake of the most violent attack on our community. I must pay tribute to the incredible work the police did, because they have never had to deal with anything like that. They did it with such incredible dedication and professionalism, and we cannot ever be thankful enough to them for their efforts. Again, I just ask the Minister to reconsider this settlement, because I am not convinced that it reflects their efforts, and it redistributes scarce resources to other forces with less need.

I therefore urge the Government to revisit the settlement urgently; to properly resource Cleveland police based on need, deprivation and demand, not on population alone; and to provide the answers that the PCC and our communities deserve. Our officers deserve the support they have earned, and our residents deserve the safety and security that only properly funded policing can provide.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Andy McDonald

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 19th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to tell us where he thinks the dividends go when they ship out of the system. The Conservative party was quite content to see massive dividends paid out to Abellio, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Deutsche Bahn, and every other nation state on the planet that could subsidise its own transport system because of the ridiculous system imposed on this country’s railways by the Conservative party. Rather than serving passengers and performance, what we got was money shipping out of our system for decades, subsidising other nation states’ transport systems—if that is not a good example of barmy ideology, I do not know what is. We are correcting that, and rightly so.

The Minister in the Lords, my noble Friend Lord Hendy, said that

“the Government do not believe that we should either pay compensation for termination or keep paying fees to owning groups of train operating companies when we do not need to.”

He also clarified that some contracts may end early if their performance requires it:

“if we have the opportunity to put passengers out of their misery by ending a failing operator’s contract early and bringing their services into public ownership, we will do just that.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 November 2024; Vol. 840, c. 1519.]

The Government are clear that they are moving ahead with restoring passenger rail to public ownership. They have a clear plan to do so, but Lords amendment 2 creates obstacles to doing that. It is not in the interests of passengers, and I hope the House will throw it out when we vote later.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.