Police Grant Report

Debate between Nick Hurd and Margaret Greenwood

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I appreciate the sentiments of my colleagues on the Back Benches.

I was talking about the additional investment that we are making from the centre. So far I have talked about what we are doing to enable PCCs to increase their investment as a result of increases in the local precepts, but we are also providing an extra £130 million for additional investment in national priorities such as digital technology and the police special grant. This is not somehow disconnected from the earlier conversation; it is about how we invest, as a country, in the police system.

The police special grant is an essential tool to help forces who face exceptional events, and it is right for us to do that. This year we are using it to help Greater Manchester and the Metropolitan police respond to the horrific terrorist attacks, as well as helping forces such as South Yorkshire to pay for very large investigations of child sexual exploitation. We are increasing special grant funding by more than £40 million next year to ensure that, for example, we can support the Met in providing security for the commonwealth summit in April.

We are also increasing our crucial investment in police technology. If we are to fully realise the potential benefits of mobile technology and ensure that officers spend as much time as possible on the frontline to protect the public, we must deliver modern 4G communications for the police service and key databases that can be accessed on the move, and must give the police the tools that they need to track down suspects as quickly as possible. That requires investment from the centre. We are, for example, creating a single national automatic number plate recognition system with a greatly enhanced ability to track vehicles and link different vehicles, locations and crimes in order to detect and prevent crime and safeguard vulnerable people.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hurd]

I have already taken a great many interventions from Labour Members, and I need to make some progress to allow the debate to flow.

Of course, the No. 1 responsibility of Governments is the safety of our citizens. The tragedy of five terrorist attacks in London and Manchester in 2017 has sadly reinforced the threat that we face from terrorism. It is therefore right that we are increasing funding for counter-terrorism policing both this year and next¸ and it is disappointing that Labour Members will vote against that tonight. In September we announced £24 million of new money this year, which would go to forces throughout the country to meet the costs relating to the tragic terror attacks. I am also pleased to confirm that the Government have agreed to provide a further £4 million this year to meet the costs arising from the attack at Parsons Green. We are significantly increasing the counter-terrorism policing budget for 2018-19 to £757 million. That is £70 million more than was scheduled, and reflects the priority that we attach to the incredibly important task of protecting the public.

As well as increasing funding by around £450 million in 2018-19, we have signalled—and I think this is the first time we have done so in the context of police grants—that we are prepared to protect Government grant and repeat the additional precept flexibility in 2019-20. That is a response to the calls from many PCCs and budget-holders for more forward visibility to help them to plan more effectively. We have made it clear that the 2019-20 local police settlement will depend on progress made by forces this year in three critical areas: productivity, financial efficiency and transparency about financial reserves, which we discussed earlier. All those need to be improved.

Green Investment Bank

Debate between Nick Hurd and Margaret Greenwood

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the increased attractiveness of investment in renewable energy and low-carbon infrastructure. Governments in the UK and around the world have helped to facilitate that investment over the years and have seen dramatic falls in the cost of those technologies and the cost of the capital attached to them, making them a more investable proposition. This helps to reinforce our argument that this is the right time to liberate the GIB from state control to enable it to play a bigger part in the market.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

The Aldersgate Group has highlighted the fact that the strength of the Green Investment Bank is that it has supported innovative projects throughout the UK that help us not only to tackle climate change but to drive down costs in the NHS and local government through energy efficiency. Will the Government heed the warning of the former Conservative Energy Minister, Lord Barker, that the bank is heading for break-up? Will they halt the sale to ensure that the bank remains a single public institution that is one step ahead of the market in the green projects that it backs?

[Mr Hurd]

Lord Barker is a good friend of mine for whom I have great respect. I would like to reassure him and, I hope, the House that the Government are not being naive. We are very clear about the criteria we have set, and we are in the process of a robust and rigorous evaluation of the proposals against those criteria.