Solihull Police Station: Proposed Closure

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

Before I begin, may I offer my condolences to the family of Jack Dromey? I did not know him well, but in all our dealings, he was always polite and respectful. He was a party man to the last. I saw him last just before Christmas in Westminster Hall where he had sponsored a debate, seeking, with his Labour party colleagues, to defend the decision of the police and crime commissioner in the west midlands to raise the precept by the full £10. I am sure that he will be missed by many, including me.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) for securing this debate and allowing me to address what is obviously an extremely important issue across the west midlands that has excited so many colleagues to come along and defend the interests of their constituents.

I should start by saying from the outset that I hope the Government have demonstrated their commitment to supporting the police in the past couple of years. They perform a unique role in our society. They are on the frontline of the fight against crime and absolutely critical to the foremost duty of any Government of keeping the public safe. This is a mission of the utmost importance to us and one that we are embarking on with tenacity and relentless determination that the law-abiding majority would expect. I hope that our actions bear this out.

For 2022-23, we are proposing funding for the policing system of up to £16.9 billion, equating to an increase of up to £1.1 billion when compared with last year. For the west midlands, this means that funding will be up to £694.9 million in 2022-23, an increase of up to £39.4 million on the 2021-22 police funding settlement, and, as my hon. Friend pointed out, a significant increase over the past four years.

At the spending review last year, it was announced that the three-year settlement had secured an additional £540 million for the police uplift programme by 2024-25, enabling forces to recruit and maintain the full 20,000 police officer uplift provided for by our recruitment campaign emanating from our manifesto. I am confident that, in the future, with this funding settlement and the funding announced at the spending review in October, police forces will have the necessary resources and capabilities to perform their vital function and keep our citizens safe from harm.

Strengthening police numbers is a key priority, and I am pleased to say that we are halfway to meeting our 20,000-officer target. As of 30 September, forces had recruited 11,053 additional officers. Of this figure, as my hon. Friend said, west midlands police had recruited 867 additional officers, a significant uplift in resources. We expect this outstanding progress to continue into the third year of the programme.

Although we will always play an active role in public protection and crime fighting, it is important that we always remember that local accountability is vital. That is why all operational decisions, including those on the number of police stations and their locations, are for chief constables and for the directly elected police and crime commissioners, and Mayors where they have PCC functions. They are, we hope, best placed to make such decisions based on their local knowledge and experience.

My hon. Friend, along with his colleagues, is obviously expressing significant dissatisfaction about the decisions of the police and crime commissioner. In his speech, he raised three substantive points that I want to address. First, he raised the issue of funding. I have addressed that in correspondence with the police and crime commissioner and, indeed, in the Westminster Hall debate that was called by the Labour party just before Christmas. He is right to point out that there has been a significant uplift in funding for the west midlands police, which will result in a significant number of police officers being recruited. They do need somewhere to operate from. He is quite right in his assertion that whatever plans may have been laid as a property strategy for the west midlands, it would seem sensible to me—and I am sure to him—to at the very least review them in the light of the expansion of police resources and to be sure that every part of the west midlands receives an adequate service, and, critically, that police response times from those bases are acceptable. In some parts of the country, we have seen police officers operating from patrol bases or stations, where they naturally keep their kit, that are some distance from where they need to get to operationally. That wasted time is inefficient. As the money we are giving for the uplift includes resources for things like buildings, equipment, cars and all the ancillary support mechanisms, I hope that all police and crime commissioners, including the west midlands PCC, will review that issue.

The second issue is that I hear repeatedly from the police and crime commissioner in the west midlands that his financial situation is down to the actions of the Conservative Government and that somehow austerity was uniquely targeted at West Midlands police, which was somehow singled out—unlike other police forces, from which I do not hear the same issues. That is patently untrue, not least because police funding is distributed by a legally enforceable formula that does not discriminate by area: there is no discretion as to distribution. The formula may well be elderly, and we have given a commitment to review it—I hope to be able to run the new formula before the next election—but to say that somehow the financial problems of West Midlands police are down to the Government, when other police forces are faring much better, is economical with the actualité, shall we say.

In truth, the situation in the west midlands is the product of decisions made by the police and crime commissioner’s predecessor. In the Westminster Hall debate, I challenged the Opposition about why other forces were in a different position. What different decisions have they made during the past decade that have put them at an advantage over West Midlands police and meant that they have not had to take such steps?

I am perfectly happy to take the consequences of and shoulder the responsibility for austerity. I was not in this House at the time, but I recognise that the country had to do something about its finances, and thank God we did—if we had not, what state would we have been in now and during the pandemic? There were consequences to that, but it cannot be a sustainable argument to say that all West Midlands police’s successes are down to the Labour party and that all the problems are down to the Conservative Government. Labour has to take responsibility for the decisions that it took on police stations, the balance between officers and staff, or the deployment of resources generally. What is the point of someone standing for election if they do not feel that they will make a difference?

The third point, which was raised powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), is about the police and crime commissioner listening to local people. I was technically the first police and crime commissioner in the country: back in January 2012, London went ahead of everywhere else by five months, and for that small period I was in the unique position of being the only PCC. I believe in that position, because the replacement of the old police authorities, which were faceless, nameless, known to nobody and had very little accountability to the public, was critical. We wanted to replace them with a named individual, elected by mandate. Once the election had been fought on party lines, that individual could then do what we all do: seek to serve all our constituents equally, irrespective of how they might have voted or of who their councillors, MPs or other representatives might be.

Given the anger that has been expressed today and in the Westminster Hall debate, in which my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) complained that promises to him about a police station had been broken, it feels as if the consultation may have gone awry. If I were the police and crime commissioner in any area, I would do as I did in London: seek to build a coalition of support politically for what we were trying to do. The work of the police is difficult, challenging and often confrontational, so ensuring that coalition of support is critical. When we hear that party interests are possibly being put ahead of building that coalition, and when those loyalties are not laid aside, it can be concerning. I am alarmed to hear that in Sutton Coldfield there is dissent—albeit small in number—on the council about the protection of people in the area, and that consensus cannot be built in the area about the disposition of resources.

[Mr Mitchell]

The Minister is responding brilliantly to the debate, but can I just be quite clear that everyone in Sutton Coldfield is against these monstrous proposals? The only people I can find in the entire town who are in favour are the two Labour Birmingham city councillors.

[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. As I have said, my view is that once elections are done, all of us in elected office must seek to build consensus about what we are doing. We cannot expect always to agree with everybody, but we must do our best to ensure, first, that we are listening; secondly, that we are being fair in communicating our decisions; and thirdly, that we are fulfilling the promises we made to the electorate.

I will be in the west midlands on Thursday to review preparations for the Commonwealth games, which hopefully will be a cause for great celebrations across the whole of the west midlands, and indeed across the whole of the Commonwealth. I will be having conversations with the police and crime commissioner about this and other matters, not least violent crime in Birmingham. We have put in significant funding through our grip programme and the violence reduction unit to try to get on top of that problem in the west midlands. When I see him, I will express my surprise that, at a moment of really unprecedented expansion in British policing, when UK policing is stepping forward much more confidently than it has in the past, I have heard such a chorus of distress from elected representatives from across the region. I hope that will give him cause to reflect on his role.

Question put and agreed to.