Hate Crime Against the LGBT+ Community

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I commend Black Pride and many of the other organisations that do incredible work in this area. The intersectionality of hate crime statistics should be deeply shocking to us all.

We heard about North Wales police. My force, South Wales police, provided me with its latest statistics. Just in the period from October last year to September this year, the force recorded 645 hate crimes related to sexual orientation, resulting in 33 charges, and 170 reports of transgender-related hate crimes, resulting in five charges. I am reassured by how seriously my local force takes these issues—I have had many conversations with it—and I have heard other positive examples while preparing for the debate, from Avon and Somerset to Lancashire to Norfolk, but there are significant challenges in some places. In London, the Casey report showed that trust in the Metropolitan police has fallen faster among LGBT+ Londoners than among non-LGBT+ Londoners. Leadership and action are far too patchy across England; in the absence of a central hate crime strategy, they depend too often on individual police and crime commissioners and forces.

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. It comes at a time of a significant rise in hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community. I stood with the trans community in Merthyr Tydfil with Merthyr Pride last week at a rally. My hon. Friend mentioned the figures supplied by his police force, which is the same as mine. Does he agree that the particularly venomous comments from the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and other senior Tories do nothing to support those figures and will increase the problem further?

[Stephen Doughty]

I greatly endorse what my hon. Friend said, and I welcome the work of Merthyr Pride. I think that was the first such event to take place in Merthyr, and the organisation does amazing work. I will come on to some of the context driving this.

We have colleagues here from across the United Kingdom. The Police Service of Northern Ireland records transphobic incidents and crimes motivated by transphobia, but unfortunately there is no enhanced sentencing for that motivation or hostility. We see a more positive picture in Wales, despite the statistics. The Welsh Labour Government’s LGBTQ+ action plan specifically covers safety, online hate, improving reporting and investing in local hate crime prevention programmes. In Scotland, there is a hate crime strategy focused on data, tackling crime online and on public transport, and supporting organisations working on these issues.

The effects of hate crime are deep and pernicious. They can unravel the lives of those who are among the most vulnerable in our society, and in the worst cases lives are lost and serious injury occurs. I pay tribute to all those who have been affected in that way, to their families and to all victims. But for many other victims of less violent offences, the crime itself is only the beginning. Some 42% of victims of hate crime felt a loss of confidence or felt vulnerable following the crime, compared with 19% for all other crimes; 29% of hate crime victims had difficulty sleeping, in comparison with 13% for all crimes; and 34% of hate crime victims suffered from anxiety or panic attacks compared with 14% for others.

HM Passport Office Backlog

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

I rise to support today’s motion on the Order Paper. As we have heard, the delays at the Passport Office have caused huge anxiety and stress for many of my constituents and many others around the country. There is no doubt that the Home Office under this Government is, or at least it should be, in special measures. The shambolic way in which the Government have handled the situation is symbolic of their messy approach and sums up what my hon. Friend the shadow Minister rightly calls “backlog Britain”.

It is appalling that at a time when the cost of living crisis is hitting the country hard, Home Office incompetence is forcing British families to pay for fast-track passport services or face losing hundreds of pounds due to cancelled holidays. The Home Office was warned that a surge in passport applications was likely as early as November last year, but it completely failed to do the forward planning needed to prevent the chaos that we have seen over the past few months. Now the Home Office is paying millions of pounds for failing outsourced contracts across the Passport Office, including a courier service that loses hundreds of passports every year. The Government also estimated that 1,700 staff would be needed, but is it not the case that only 1,000 new recruits have been confirmed?

The Home Office’s incompetence is preventing families from going on long-awaited holidays and hard-earned breaks, preventing loved ones from being reunited, and preventing people from attending weddings and funerals. British families deserve so much better.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Over the past six weeks 26 families have contacted my office, in various states of stress and utter frustration with the Home Office. One family have been waiting 14 weeks for a passport for a family member to visit a terminally ill relative. To me, that sums up the problem. As my hon. Friend is explaining so perfectly, it is the result of a lack of planning and strategy at the Home Office. They really need to apply themselves.

[Gerald Jones]

I completely agree, and I will shortly illustrate my hon. Friend’s point with cases from my own constituency.

As we know, the target for passport processing has been increased to 10 weeks, up from three weeks pre-pandemic. However, even this increased target has repeatedly been missed. In the first three months of this year alone, over 35,000 people had to wait longer than 10 weeks for their passport to be issued, despite the Prime Minister’s claim that everybody is getting their passport within six weeks.

The number of monthly fast-track applications has more than doubled since December 2021. In April 2022, British families spent at least £5.4 million on fast-track services. The Passport Office’s own forecasts show that it expects to receive over 240,000 fast-track applications between May and October this year, amounting to up to £34 million. Is this a cash cow for the Home Office?

My constituency team are currently dealing with around 70 cases, and the chaos is causing them undue anxiety. Many applications are outstanding for more than the 10-week period. My constituents are unable to speak to a decision maker, and when they contact the helpline the information is often wrong or out of date. There is a general lack of communication regarding applications, and often the online tracker is not updated. Hard copies of documents routinely go missing from passport offices and constituents are asked to send documents to various passport centres. Applications have been cancelled, supposedly for lack of documents, despite evidence that documents have been lost at passport offices.

There are reports that applicants are being asked to pay for an upgrade, despite now being eligible for one after their application has been logged for six weeks. MP account managers are unable to make decisions on cases; they can only view information on a screen. Requests for call-backs from decision makers are hardly ever followed up. Constituents have been told to collect their passport at offices many hundreds of miles away from south Wales—I know of similar situations elsewhere across the country. Passports could be printed at any passport office, regardless of where the application was initially dealt with, so that needs to be followed up by Ministers.

All of this is having an impact on constituents and creating huge anxiety and stress. I will give a few local examples. A family were forced to cancel their holiday to Disneyland Paris, losing several hundred pounds and devastating their seven-year-old daughter. It is not just holidays that are affected, important as they are for wellbeing after the difficult past two years. Another constituent is travelling for work at the end of the month but also requires a passport as proof of identity. They do not hold any other photo ID and need the document in order to pay a tax bill to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Every day’s delay adds interest to their bill.

Another constituent wanted to update her passport after marriage. She posted her old passport and marriage certificate to the Passport Office. The passport was scanned but the certificate was lost. She has proof of postage and receipt of delivery. The Passport Office has now cancelled her application but wants to charge her a further £75 application fee.

As part of one constituent’s first passport application, a copy of her mother’s birth certificate was requested. This was posted but not matched to her application in time, so the application was cancelled. My constituent has been told to make a new application, with another fee. We have written to UKVI to complain and ask for the original application to be reinstated.

I know that these examples are repeated across the country, which is why the Government must accept full responsibility for this shambles and commit to come to the House as soon as possible to provide answers on what exactly they are going to do to end the misery that many of my constituents, and thousands more across the country, are experiencing. If they cannot sort it out, they should get out of the way and let a Labour Government work to sort out not just this mess, but the many others that they have created.

Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

I will focus on a few key areas. The Queen’s Speech is arguably more notable for what it does not include than for what it does. The biggest issue facing our country and most, if not all, of our constituents is the cost of living crisis that is causing great hardship in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney and beyond. What we needed more than anything yesterday was a Queen’s Speech that included measures to tackle the cost of living crisis, with at the very least an emergency Budget and a windfall tax to get money off people’s bills now.

The Prime Minister hinted yesterday that help will be announced in the coming days, only for the Treasury to announce in the following hours that that is not the case. That would be both shocking and unbelievable in normal times but, as we know, we are a long way from normal times.

A recent discussion with my local citizens advice bureau highlighted the growing hardship in my constituency. Overall client numbers have doubled, and queries on energy have increased by 250%. This is evident in the current fuel poverty crisis, which is now mainly about support to pay fuel bills. The number of debt queries has increased by 200%, and council tax debt is now the biggest issue, with a 200% increase on last year. This is incredibly worrying as these are household debts.

Probably most worrying is the massive increase—over 500%—in requests for food bank vouchers and other charitable support, yet there was nothing in the Gracious Speech to tackle this growing crisis. The Government are either not listening or, if they are listening, are failing to act. The lack of compassion and action is shameful.

It is also offensive that the energy giants are announcing their highest ever profits—Shell announced profits last week of more than £7 billion for the first quarter of the year—yet the Government refuse to consider a windfall tax when, as we have heard over and again today, people are struggling to choose between heating and eating. That is truly shameful.

I am pleased to see legislation on access to cash, after years of delay. We eagerly await the details, given that the Government have allowed 6,000 local bank branches to close on their watch since 2015, leaving many geographically isolated communities without access to cash. In some areas, including Treharris in my constituency, post offices too have walked away and left communities without access to cash.

I am pleased to see that the ban on conversion therapy is in the Queen’s Speech, because it is long overdue. However, it should be a complete ban, with no fudging and no vague approach that will leave loopholes, which will no doubt be exploited.

[Jamie Stone]

On access to cash, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government should take proper, firm action to make the banks work together to produce some sort of common access—some sort of real face behind the counter?

[Gerald Jones]

I absolutely agree with that point, because we have seen too many examples, particularly in rural and isolated areas, where communities are left without any access to cash. The opportunity for banks and other financial institutions to work together is long overdue.

As we know, the Tory record on crime is shocking. We have heard again today that crime is up, charges are down, criminals are getting off and victims are being let down by the Conservatives not taking crime seriously. We have seen an 18% rise in total crime over the past two years. Quarterly recorded crimes are now at their highest point on record, at 1.6 million. As the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), told us earlier, the overall charge rate has fallen from 15.5% in 2015 to just 5.8% in 2021, meaning thousands more criminals getting off and more than 1 million theft cases being closed without a suspect being identified—and there is no sign of things improving.

Antisocial behaviour continues to blight our communities. I have spoken in previous debates about the difference under the last Labour Government, when all local wards—I was a county councillor at that time—had a police officer and one or sometimes two police community support officers. We do not have to hark back to “Dixon of Dock Green” to find a time when people knew their community bobbies, as we had that in the period of the last Labour Government up to 2010. At that time, the neighbourhood policing teams provided meaningful engagement and deterrence in communities before issues got out of hand. We now have the same-sized teams covering five or six wards, and the sheer lack of people on the ground makes it impossible for them to tackle issues effectively, despite their best efforts. Labour would strengthen legal protections for victims of antisocial behaviour to give victims of persistent, unresolved antisocial behaviour new rights, and we would give the police and local authorities stronger powers to shut down premises being used for drug dealing or consumption. Although we have seen more police officers recruited, we still have thousands fewer than we had before the Tories started cutting them in 2010. I am grateful that in Wales we have the support of the Welsh Labour Government on this. Although they do not have responsibility for policing, as it is not devolved, they have provided funding for 500 PCSOs—that has increased to 600 in this Senedd term.

Before I leave the topic of policing, I would like to put on record again the issue of the apprenticeship levy paid by Welsh police forces. In England, funding for the police education qualifications framework, which includes apprenticeships for uniformed police officers, is provided through the national apprenticeship levy. In short, English police forces are fully reimbursed by the Government for the cost of training police officers. In Wales, the Home Office has reimbursed only half that cost, leaving Welsh police forces with a shortfall of more than £2 million.

[Kit Malthouse]

I acknowledge the issue that the hon. Gentleman is raising. However, I am sure he would want to acknowledge that although the UK Government do collect the apprenticeship levy, as he rightly points out, the money is passed to the Welsh Government, who then have declined so far to pass it on to the police forces affected. He is right to say that the Home Office has stepped in to fund it this year and in the past, but I urge him to speak to his Labour colleagues in Wales to get them to pass on the money, which has been given to them, after being taken from the police forces in the form of the levy.

[Gerald Jones]

The Minister really should go away and do his homework. This issue was taken up by his colleagues in the Wales Office team and correspondence has been exchanged. I appreciate that this is a long and complicated issue, but the Home Office is responsible for it, and it should take up its responsibilities and fund the four police forces in Wales in the same way as other police forces are being funded. Welsh police forces are being short-changed, and the responsibility lies with the Government.

Let me return to the cost of living crisis. I urge the Government to listen to the concerns that we have heard over and over again today. There is an urgent need for the Government to listen and to take action on things such as cutting the VAT costs on energy bills and introducing a windfall tax. Those practical steps have been offered to the Government and they really need to take them on board and take action now, for the sake of families right across the United Kingdom.

HM Passport Office Backlogs

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Advising people to apply strikes me as good advice if people are planning a holiday. I am pleased to note that since that advice was given we have seen more applications coming in this week. In terms of being low on delivery, we delivered more than 1 million passport decisions last month—a record number. There is a significant amount of work being done by dedicated teams. We are bringing in more staff to be able to do more. We have even expanded our delivery network to cope with the output that we now have, as touched on in an answer to a previous question. We recognise those pressures and those issues, but that is why we have advised for some time to allow 10 weeks. If people are looking to go on holiday this summer, our advice is firmly, “Get your application in now.”

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

Delays with processing passports are causing huge delays to my constituents and those across the country, as we have heard. The lack of planning by the Government, not to mention not providing enough staff to manage what everyone could see would be a huge demand, smacks of incompetence. We have an MPs hotline that cannot provide information to help constituents and that is currently not fit for purpose. In addition, I have constituents who paid a fast-track fee only for my staff to be told—after waiting for three hours yesterday—that paying the fee does not guarantee fast track. The Government have caused this mess and the undue pressure on staff in the passport offices, so when will they get a grip and sort the problem out?

UK Border: Covid Protections

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her question, and she is absolutely right of course. The role of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for Transport throughout this pandemic has been very clear in terms of advice, and that will continue.

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab) [V]]

Will the Home Secretary indicate whether she thinks it is appropriate that the isolation assurance service has been checking just three out of 100 people on quarantine compliance? Surely she realises that that is totally unsatisfactory and falls far short of what is required to keep our country safe.

[Priti Patel]

First, I pay tribute to our colleagues who are working on checks. The isolation assurance service has, throughout, increased its checks, and those numbers are wrong. It is right and vital to point out that the collaboration that takes place with not only the IAS and Border Force, but the police and others is right and vital—and it is working. As an organisation, the IAS has been stepping up the checks it has been undertaking.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

What steps she is taking to allocate adequate funding to police forces.

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

What steps she is taking to allocate adequate funding to police forces.

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

What steps she is taking to allocate adequate funding to police forces.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady is quite right to draw the connections between policing and other services in the public sector. I cannot speak for the resilience or otherwise of the finances of her particular local authority. I can say, however, that the Prime Minister has tasked me and the Home Secretary with the job of driving cross-Government working to deal with some of the causal factors in crime, beyond enforcement, and we will be talking to local authorities across this country about the part that they can play.

[Gerald Jones]

Money for additional police officers is welcomed across the board, even though it does not take police numbers back to pre-2010 levels. Surely the Minister would acknowledge, though, that baseline budgets in police forces are being cut again this year, and capital funding is almost non-existent, so unless the Secretary of State is able to win more money for policing generally, forces will be unable to keep the officers they have got.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is obviously a cup-half-empty person rather than a cup-nearly-three-quarters-full person. The biggest settlement for policing in a decade should be welcomed by everybody across this House, as it has been across the whole of the policing family. But that is not to say that policing is not without challenges and that it cannot be more efficient. While we do want to see more police officers and a better response to crime, there is always the challenge in public services to do things better for less.

Policing and Crime

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

I welcome any increase in police funding, of course, but we have to look at the reality: since 2010, we have lost 20,000 police officers, as well as PCSOs and support staff, which has had a huge impact on communities across the country and in my area. My area is quite unique, certainly in Wales, in that it spans two police authorities: the Merthyr Tydfil County Borough, under South Wales police, in the upper Rhymney Valley part of my constituency, and Gwent police. We have those two perspectives, therefore, and over the past few years we have seen a negative impact on policing across the area.

Even after the first year of the new recruitment, South Wales police will still be down 161 officers and Gwent police will be down 129 officers compared with 2010. Even when we reach the full recruitment the Government are planning, they will still have fewer officers than they inherited in 2010 from the last Labour Government. It is hugely disappointing, when we look at things in the round. Funding for youth services across the country has fallen by 70% since 2010. Together with the reduction in police numbers and the cuts to other areas of community safety, this has had a negative impact on our communities.

Local authorities have been forced to make these cuts because of Tory austerity. As we have heard a number of times this afternoon, cuts have consequences. Let us be absolutely clear: austerity was always a political choice. Other factors include a reduction of almost half —from £145 million to £72 million—in the funding for youth offending teams since 2010, and a 68% increase in the number of knife offences in England and Wales. Taken together, those issues paint a depressing picture of what we have seen under this Tory Government since 2010.

It is good to hear, at last, an admission from Ministers that allowing the police grant to be cut by a third in recent years was a big mistake on the Government’s part, but they must fill that funding gap as well as providing additional officers. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) about the need for the Home Office to consider providing specific funding for Cardiff as the capital city. Although my constituency is some miles from Cardiff, the fact that South Wales Police has to spend some £4 million on its responsibilities to Cardiff as the capital has a knock-on impact on it, and on other constituencies throughout the South Wales Police area.

The question of the apprenticeship levy is also a cause for ongoing concern. I should be grateful if the Minister confirmed that she will provide money for police officer graduate apprenticeship training for the four Welsh forces, because the uncertainty has gone on for far too long.

Despite the big financial and other challenges, as a result of the hard work of local officers we have some positive news. We still have a commitment to neighbourhood policing in Wales, which—as was mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and for Newport East (Jessica Morden)—is largely due to the Labour Welsh Government’s commitment to continue to fund 500 PCSOs across Wales, although their own budget has been cut by some £4 billion a year since 2010.

South Wales Police in particular has been doing excellent work in tackling domestic violence, and I hope that the Minister will join me in congratulating the South Wales police and crime commissioner on his foresight in promoting the DRIVE programme to tackle the perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse. Research published by Bristol University last week demonstrates the value of that approach in reducing violent incidents, and the team in Merthyr Tydfil is a particular success story. The commissioner, Alun Michael, has told me that he is so pleased with the work of Safer Merthyr Tydfil, and similar work in Cardiff, that he and the chief constable, Matt Jukes, are determined to roll it out to every part of the South Wales Police area. Intervening with perpetrators as well as supporting victims helps to prevent misery for women and children, while also reducing demand on the NHS, courts and councils as well as the police. That positive approach is having good results for the people I represent.

I urge the Minister to consider the shortfall in the pension fund, which equates to some 5,000 police officers, and could therefore have a really positive impact in increasing the number of officers across the country.

Other Members have paid tribute to their local police authorities. I want to pay tribute to both of mine, South Wales and Gwent, and to thank them for all the work they do in communities throughout my constituency. I particularly thank them for their support for me and my staff in recent months. Most other Members have experienced similar support.

Let me now return to the issue of frontline policing, and urge the Government to recruit an additional 2,000 frontline officers to enhance the approach to community policing across the country. It is important to stress the effectiveness of community and neighbourhood policing in tackling the causes of crime and antisocial behaviour. Tackling what is sometimes perceived as low-level crime is effective in stopping the escalation of crime and disorder.

I urge the Government—and all Members—to support the motion.

Retail Crime Prevention

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) on securing this important debate, and on all the work that he has done on this issue. I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests regarding previous support from the trade union GMB. As we are in the run-up to Christmas—as well as something else that is on the horizon—I pay tribute to all those who work in retail, not just at this time of year but all year round, for the important work that they do. I also pay tribute to police officers and community support officers across the country for all that they do in the fight against retail crime to keep our communities and shops safe.

As we have heard, retail crime is becoming increasingly serious and frequent in today’s society. As my right hon. Friend said, the British Retail Consortium’s 2019 retail crime survey reported that last year the total cost to retailers of crime and crime prevention was a staggering £1.9 billion, up 12% from the year before. Customer theft was also up 31% on the previous year. A survey of more than 3,000 retail workers by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, responding to the Government’s call to evidence on retail crime earlier this summer, showed that 62% of respondents had been subjected to verbal or physical abuse, and 80% believed that violence and abuse towards staff have increased in recent years.

Many thousands of retail workers are dedicated, longstanding employees who work in stores that are important assets to their communities, be they small or large. In many areas, such stores are the only place to buy essentials such as milk and bread, to withdraw cash or to send and receive post. The services that many retail workers provide and facilitate are invaluable to local communities, and they should not have to deal with retail crime of any kind, be it verbal abuse, assault or theft. Nobody deserves to go about their job in fear: fear of who may come into the store that day and what may happen; fear that they may be fired from a cruel so-called flexible or zero-hours contract for being the member of staff on the shop floor when cash or stock was lost through theft; or, worst of all, fear of what happens if the police are unable to respond to the incident.

The Government can and must do more, and commit to providing greater protection for retail workers. Constant cuts to police numbers and resources over the past decade—21,000 police officers lost since 2010—with police officer numbers at their lowest levels since the 1980s, have stretched our local police beyond measure and forced such immense pressure on them that they simply cannot attend to incidents being reported. They cannot always maintain visibility in the community, with a presence in town centres or high streets, to protect and reassure retail workers and to deter potential criminals from committing an offence in the first place. Cuts to our local councils have meant that there is now even less funding for them to work with the police and other partners to manage antisocial behaviour and reduce crime, and there are fewer youth workers, social workers and education welfare officers to work with people to ensure that they never turn to crimes such as shoplifting and vandalism.

Retail crime is a serious issue across the country. According to new national crime statistics, in my constituency of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney 567 incidents of shoplifting were reported over the past year. Tory cuts to my local police forces, South Wales Police and Gwent Police, have had a devastating impact on the ability of officers to prevent incidents of retail crime, as they are already stretched in so many other areas. A good number of local schemes are in operation in our communities to prevent and tackle retail crime, such as Shopwatch, but that responsibility should not be solely with the communities or retail workers themselves.

The responsibility is on the Government to introduce legislation for greater legal protection for retail workers, and to give our local police forces the support that they so desperately need to respond to, and prevent, incidents of retail crime, and to reverse the appalling record on it. Today’s debate shows much cross-party support for a solution. The Government can and must do more. Hopefully we will hear some positive news from the Minister about what he plans to do to address this important issue.

Police Grant Report

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Later in my remarks, I will come to how the Home Office manages resources in general.

Ministers seem to remain in denial about the consequences of their actions. At least the Home Secretary was able to admit on the BBC that the Government have cut 21,000 police officers, but, as my hon. Friends have elicited in questioning, Ministers continue to insist, almost alone in the country, that lower police numbers have had no negative effect in the fight against crime. That is an absurd idea.

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend recognise that, apart from Leicestershire, where there has been a very small increase in the number of police community support officers, the only part of the country where there has been such a rise is Wales, where there has been an increase of 217 PCSOs since 2010? Will she join me in praising the Welsh Labour Government for funding 500 PCSOs across Wales and standing up for the people of Wales when this Government are failing them?

[Ms Abbott]

I certainly join my hon. Friend in congratulating the Government of Wales, particularly on their emphasis on community policing.

The real record of the UK Government is this: police officer numbers have not been this low in decades, chief constables up and down the country are warning about the consequences of the cuts in their areas and in their forces, and police-recorded violent crime is now at its highest level on record. Earlier, the Home Secretary tried to ascribe that increase to better recording of crime, but he is not supported on that by the Office for National Statistics, which says:

“Over the last year we’ve seen rises in vehicle offences, robbery, and some lower-volume but higher-harm types of violence.”

Recorded knife crime offences are at their highest level since records began. We know that the effectiveness of the police has been compromised, as arrests have halved in a decade and the sanction detection rate of charges and cautions has plummeted. Tory cuts have consequences.

Public Service Pensions: Government Contributions

Gerald Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the reduction in Government contributions to public service pensions.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. This debate is important to highlight the impact, across the public sector, of the reduction in Government pension contributions.

The Government are implementing a further reduction in the discount rate for public service pension schemes from 2.8% to 2.4%, which will take effect in 2019-20. Clearly, the reduction in Government contributions to public sector pensions is going to increase the strain across the public sector. Although the changes will have an impact across public services, for the purpose of the debate I will focus mainly on the police and fire services.

The reduction in Government contributions to public sector pensions will clearly add further strain to our frontline services, which have faced huge financial challenges, following eight years of Tory austerity. By 2021, police services will be expected to find around £420 million in order to set a balanced budget—that could mean losing a further 10,000 police officers. The change is also estimated to cost fire services £150 million by 2023, which is roughly equivalent to the cost of running 150 fire stations for a year.

To provide a bit of background, in the 2016 Budget the Chancellor announced a discount rate reduction from 3% to 2.8%, with effect from April next year. The Treasury decided more recently, however, that a further reduction—to 2.4%—was required. In September 2018, the Government said that the Departments and devolved Administrations would need to meet, in full, the increase in costs in the 2016 Budget announcement. The Treasury has advised that public bodies will be supported in meeting unforeseen costs in the 2019-20 financial year, when the changes first take effect, but compensation beyond the first year cannot be guaranteed.

Public service providers would have to increase employer contributions to the Treasury with no guarantee that additional moneys would be compensated beyond 2019-20. If public bodies were not compensated for the increased contributions beyond the first year, that would mean an indirect spending cut. Affected employers will therefore be forced to make costly changes without any certainty that Government funding for frontline services will be proportionately increased in years to come.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for securing this important debate. Does he agree that although it is right and proper that NHS funding is ring-fenced until 2023-24, other frontline services, such as firefighters and the police, must also have the same protection as a matter of right, in recognition of the type of work that we call on them to carry out—to protect and serve?

[Gerald Jones]

I agree. All our emergency services do important work on our behalf, and that work needs investment. They cannot do that important work while worrying about how they are going to fund it.

There are significant concerns that the Treasury has introduced the changes as back-door spending cuts for already tightly squeezed public bodies and those delivering public services. In 2016, the trade union for senior civil servants, the FDA, said:

“It’s only three months since departmental budgets were set and yet departments are now expected to deliver an additional £3.5bn of savings in 2019/20 through another efficiency review…By announcing a change to the discount rate on public sector pensions—without any consultation—they are effectively removing a further £2 billion from public services and transferring it to the Treasury to give the illusion of a surplus”.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. On the cuts that he refers to, the South Yorkshire fire and rescue authority concluded in its financial plan that combined with the cuts and the 10 years of austerity, the pension contribution hikes will leave it no choice but to reduce fire services, with an increased risk to people and property as a result. Does he agree that the pension changes pose a clear and direct risk to the safety of our constituents?

[Gerald Jones]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Emergency services, such as firefighters and the police, are highly regarded and do important work on behalf of all our constituents. Safety will be an issue if the finances are not put in order to ensure that the accounts allow firefighters to continue their important work.

Earlier this year, the trade union Prospect said:

“Public sector employers will have to find additional resources to reflect these changes…However there is a real danger that Treasury will not recycle this money back to public service providers; that this process will, in effect, be a hidden cut to public services.”

As I said earlier, the discount rate change is estimated to cost firefighters £150 million by 2023, based on figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility. That is the equivalent of running 150 fire stations for a year. In 2017-18, employer pension contributions accounted for 7% of the total net expenditure among fire and rescue services in England, and for 7.6% of it in Wales. In England, local government settlement funding for the fire authorities is forecast to decrease by 15% between 2016-17 and 2019-20.

The impact on police is equally stark. By 2020-21, the police will face a financial black hole as their pension liability rises by around £420 million. The chair of the National Police Chiefs Council has warned that it could amount to a loss of a further 10,000 police officers, because the police are legally obliged to set a balanced budget. The recently announced settlement offers no certainty on the issue.

The National Police Chiefs Council is reported to have sent a formal letter to the Treasury saying that it will seek a judicial review of the Government’s proposals, and it is protesting against the fact that forces will have to find an extra £417 million in just two years’ time to pay for an increased minimum contribution to officers’ pension pots. That figure is set to rise from 2% to 3% by 2019 and, as I said, equates to the funding of around 10,000 officers a year. In response to an urgent question on 6 November about liabilities for the police pension schemes, the Minister said that funding arrangements for 2020-21 onwards would be discussed as part of the spending review.

I have covered the national picture, but I will highlight the local impact on my constituency. Two-thirds of my constituency is covered by South Wales police. The gap in that force for 2020-21, and for every year after, is likely to be around £7 million. If that burden is dumped on police forces, it will effectively be another massive cut to police budgets and lead to a further cut in police numbers. Those changes come on top of the additional £20 million that South Wales police have to find for local policing, having lost about a third of the police grant since 2011. In south Wales, the changes would be the equivalent of 130 fewer police officers on the streets, on top of the 444 officers who have already been lost since 2010.

The Home Office appears to have accepted that the police budgets are under severe constraints and, in the absence of central Government money, flexibility is being granted to raise local police precept to help to offset an enormous sustained challenge to police funding from seven years of cuts. Raising ever-increasing amounts from council tax payers, however, is not sustainable. Will the Minister fight to restore police funding to sustainable levels in the planned comprehensive spending review? Will he promise that the gap in funding for police pensions will be paid in full by the Government, having accepted that the police pensions costs increases cannot be funded from existing police budgets for 2019-20? I ask the Minister to note that the Home Affairs Committee said that the police funding formula must be addressed urgently. Can he assure us that that will also be tackled in the comprehensive spending review in 2019?

The other third of my constituency falls within the area of Gwent police. In cash terms, the changes add £2 million of extra costs to its budget in 2019-20—although some of that will be offset by the Home Office—and a further £3 million of extra costs in 2020-21. That totals around £5 million, recurrently. A recurrent pension pressure of £5 million for the Gwent force equates to 100 police officers in Gwent communities. It would be necessary to increase the local precept in Gwent disproportionately, by about 8% by 2021. Such figures are not sustainable and would transfer ever more pressure to local council tax payers.

As I said at the start of my contribution, the changes will impact across the public sector. I have focused on police and fire, but I will highlight briefly the effect of the recent changes to the teachers’ pension scheme on universities throughout the UK. The Treasury appears to have shown little awareness of the significant impact that those changes would have on universities and students, and has failed to commit any additional support for the institutions affected. I accept that the Minister will respond on behalf of the Home Office, but I hope that he will convey our concerns to his colleagues. I understand that the Government themselves estimate that the changes will mean additional pension costs of £142 million, shared across only 70 of the modern, or post-1992, universities. That will clearly place huge strain on budgets that are already under significant pressure.

Today, I hope that the Minister will be able to offer some good news to our overstretched public services. We all acknowledge, I know, that public services—our public servants—and our emergency services in particular, work incredibly hard on our behalf and deserve our thanks and appreciation. However, public services cannot survive on thanks and appreciation.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not share my concern about the lack of consultation with the devolved Administrations? He might have seen correspondence about that, because the lack of consultation is actually against the UK Government’s statement of funding policy.

[Gerald Jones]

I very much agree with the point made by the hon. Gentleman. We are talking about significant amounts of money, and maximum consultation should be required, at the very least. As I have said throughout my contribution, such figures are too unsustainable to be transferred to local budgets anyway.

As I said, our public services cannot survive on thanks and appreciation. Investment is required to sustain the services that we already have. The Government need to come to the table and outline what support they will offer to address the problem. Our public services—our emergency services—have suffered enough.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. As a humble foot-soldier in the Government, it is not for me to reason why I drew the straw for this debate. I assume it is because I am the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, and I understood that the primary concern of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), as was reflected in the debate, was the impact on emergency frontline services. It is a great pleasure to respond to the debate, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing it. It is an important debate, because it throws a spotlight on two important issues.

The first is how we ensure that public pensions are funded in a sustainable way to protect the value of the pensions of those of our constituents who work in the public services; I know the Labour party cares about that and I would not want to give the impression that it does not. It is entirely legitimate to probe and ask questions about the impact, particularly on emergency frontline services, which we recognise on a cross-party basis are stretched and under pressure. This is an entirely legitimate debate and I welcome it.

The hon. Gentleman rightly asserted that our emergency services deserve our thanks and respect—particularly at this time of year but, frankly, every week and every month of every year—but they also deserve a decent pension, and our constituents as taxpayers deserve full debate and reassurance on how those pensions will be funded in a fair, sustainable way that strikes the right balance between the contributions of the central taxpayer and the local employer. That is what underlies the Treasury position, as I will explain. I hope to reassure the hon. Gentleman and others that the Treasury, which is not here to explain itself today, and the rest of the Government are doing everything we can to help our emergency services in particular, but also other Departments, to manage any uncertainties in terms of unexpected costs in 2019-20. I will go into some detail on that.

Quite rightly, the hon. Gentleman and others voiced concerns about what happens after 2020-21, but they will know that the fundamental truth is that at that point we will be into a new comprehensive spending review period. That is an extremely important moment in setting the framework for longer-term funding, not just for our emergency services, but for other Government Departments. I can give the hon. Gentleman my absolute assurance, if I continue to be Minister at that point—we live in uncertain times—that I am determined, as I have said publicly and as my boss the Home Secretary has said publicly, to ensure that the emergency services are properly resourced against demand and risk. That includes a need to ensure that they have the resources necessary to meet their obligations to public pensions.

The hon. Gentleman will understand that at this moment in time, no Government could give absolute reassurances about what the next CSR period will bring, but we have signalled clearly that increased employer contributions to public pensions from 2020-21 will be taken care of in the CSR. In the meantime, the Treasury has set aside £4.7 billion, which I think would seem to all our constituents to be an extremely large number, to help Departments cover unforeseen additional costs in 2019-20. I will go into some detail on the areas of my direct responsibility, police and fire, because concerns have been expressed about people in those services from both sides of the Chamber.

Before I address those concerns, I acknowledge an important point made both by the hon. Gentleman and by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) about concerns within the community of universities. That is not my area of direct responsibility or expertise, but I undertake to write to the new Universities Minister on their behalf to highlight the concerns expressed in the debate and to ask him to respond to the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney in the light of those concerns.

To give a bit of context, the Government—I am sure with cross-party support—want to make sure that public sector pensions remain among the best pensions available, especially for police officers and firefighters, in recognition of their role. We are determined, as any Government would be, to make sure that the cost of providing pensions is fair to the scheme’s members, the employers and taxpayers. I think any Government would take the same approach. We want to be sure that they remain affordable and sustainable for generations to come. That is the context of the changes announced to the discount rate at the Budgets in 2016 and 2018. As the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee) said, they were based on the latest independent Office for Budget Responsibility projections of GDP growth.

The changes to the discount rate have resulted in an increase to public sector employers’ contributions to their pension schemes, including the police and firefighters’ schemes. The hon. Lady was quite right that the intention was not to increase the members’ contribution rate. I confirm that that is not being contemplated. It is an increase in employers’ contributions. Critically to the point of this debate, the Government have provided financial support for additional pension costs that could be reasonably expected to be unexpected. The extra funding is £98 million for fire in 2019-20 and £153 million for the police. As I have said before, funding levels for future years will be considered as part of the spending review. That is inevitable, given where we are in the funding cycle for Departments.

A lot of concern was expressed on behalf of both the services. I know the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney is aware of the police funding settlement that I proposed last week, although obviously it has not been passed by Parliament. That recognised the additional pension costs to the police. He mentioned a number of more than £400 million. Actually, in 2019-20, the additional costs to the police system would be approximately £330 million. He will be aware that the overall police funding settlement enables up to £970 million of additional investment in our police, although that depends very much on what individual police and crime commissioners do on the precept.

The hon. Gentleman will also know that this funding settlement sees the first increase in the Home Office grant since 2010. The proposed funding for South Wales police, for example, which faces the pressure of additional pension costs of £6.8 million next year, is an additional £3.3 million in Government grant and £3.1 million in specific pension grant, while the police and crime commissioner, Alun Michael, will have the flexibility to increase the precept up to £12.7 million, making a total of £19.1 million. I hope he will welcome that.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about Gwent police, which I know partly covers his constituency. The funding settlement enables additional public investment of up to £8.5 million in Gwent police, which faces pensions pressures of £2.9 million. He will be aware, because he will have heard me bang on about it, that Gwent police is an outlier, with £56 million in reserves—more than 45.3% of its total funding. Those reserves have increased since 2011.

I hope the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that the provisional police funding settlement, which is yet to be ratified by Parliament—I hope he will support it—goes well beyond meeting the specific additional pension costs and tries to support police forces both with their cost pressures and in their ambitions to increase capacity. That is part of a broader funding settlement that proposes a substantial increase of up to £970 million in the police system, compared with additional pension costs of £330 million.

I should also note that the police funding settlement talks about a word that never comes up in these conversations, but that is important for all our constituents, who ultimately pay for all this through their taxes: efficiency. The shadow Minister views austerity as ideological but, after eight years of austerity, that we can still sit down with our police leaders and agree £120 million of further cost savings through smarter procurement—they are spending our constituents’ money—tells us that we are still not at the end of the journey of making sure that our public services are efficient. Where the police lead, the fire service will undoubtedly follow, not least as they are both under the guidance of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services.

[Gerald Jones]

We have had eight years of austerity. I come from a local authority background myself, and identifying efficiencies at first is relatively straightforward, but it gets more difficult over time. The Minister mentions reserves, and I know that some areas have reserves. However, there is a big difference between reserves earmarked for certain projects, which all local authorities, police authorities and others have, and undisclosed reserves, which are much lower for many organisations. The point about reserves is that, once they are spent, they are gone. They are there for a rainy day; they cannot be used as part of a recurring budget. It is unfair for recurring expenditure to fall on council tax payers to an even greater level than it does already.

[Mr Hurd]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point and I absolutely respect his local authority experience. I am certainly not in denial about the financial pressures, particularly on our police system but also on certain fire services as well. He is right that, in the early years of needing to get back to living within our means and controlling public expenditure, some fruit was easier to pick than others, and it gets harder. However, I was making the point that we are talking about £120 million of savings agreed by the police—this is not a Home Office number—over the next two years through collective procurement. That is just smart buying.

The hon. Gentleman will know very well, and it is the same for the fire service, that a fragmented system of more than 40 different forces each doing their own thing —buying helmets, uniforms and equipment independently—is not necessarily the most efficient route to getting the best value for our constituents. All I am saying is that, even after eight years of tightening and reducing budgets, we can still find £120 million left on the table because of inefficient procurement practices. I hope he welcomes that. That money was effectively being wasted and can be better used for frontline service delivery. I hope he agrees.