Police Grant Report

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

On a point of clarification—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Is the Minister taking the intervention or not?

[Sarah Jones]

indicated dissent.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Well, continue, Minister.

[Sarah Jones]

I suggest that we carry on that conversation over a cup of coffee another time.

We are also investing £1.4 billion in the wider policing system to continue our progress on adopting modern, cutting-edge technologies that will better enable the police to perform their most critical function of keeping the public safe. The Government are supporting the police in their ongoing fight against knife crime by maintaining funding for serious violence reduction activity in every force area. Alongside that, there is £28 million, through our county lines programme, to disrupt organised crime and protect vulnerable and exploited children. A total of £119 million will go towards our ambitious programme of police reform, in which we will establish a new national centre to support the use of artificial intelligence across policing, enable the national roll-out of live facial recognition and strengthen the way that data is used to support operational policing.

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[Sarah Jones]

Significant investment is going into probation alongside those reforms. As the right hon. Lady would expect, colleagues in the Home Office and I are working closely with the Ministry of Justice to ensure we are equipped to respond to any changes. It is absolutely true that it is often right for people to have non-prison sentences, whether that is tagging or other punishments. We can do some innovative work on that going forward, but we are having regular meetings with our police colleagues to make sure we are ready for the changes.

Equally, we cannot forget the staff essential to our policing system, such as the PCSOs working with vulnerable individuals, victim support staff helping people through the aftermath of crimes, or tech experts working in police headquarters to track stolen phones. This settlement recognises that and puts power back in the hands of local forces, allowing them to prioritise the right mix of skills for a modern workforce. We are giving the police the resources—up to £18.4 billion—to invest in this workforce and to supply them with the tools and powers they need to do their jobs.

We know that to people across England and Wales, what matters most is not what we say but what we do. We are backing up our words with action—restoring neighbourhood policing, driving down harmful threats and equipping forces for the challenges of modern crime fighting—but we will not stop there. We will maintain momentum this year and beyond, reforming policing and striving to give law-abiding citizens the safety and security they deserve. This settlement will aid us in delivering those aims, and I commend it to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

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[Graham Stuart]

I am extremely grateful. My right hon. Friend is being most generous, and he has barely begun his speech.

I must have misheard, because I have listened to so many speeches about law and order from Labour Members, and my right hon. Friend must have misspoken. He has suggested that not only did the last Conservative Government leave a record number of police officers, but overall crime fell by 50%. Have those words ever been issued by the Ministers, or do they try to mislead the public at every opportunity?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Does the right hon. Gentleman want to stand up and correct the record? Go ahead.

[Graham Stuart]

I mentioned no individual, Madam Deputy Speaker, but “inadvertently”, of course, in any Minister’s case.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Let us mind our language.

[Chris Philp]

It is true that Labour Members forget to mention the record police numbers in March 2024 or the reduction in crime—which was, in fact, more than 50% over the period.

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[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.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. The Minister is making an intervention on Mr Wilkinson, not continuing the debate. Please make the intervention, so the hon. Member can respond.

[Sarah Jones]

To be clear, PCSOs are police officers. They are not warranted, but they are police. We will have 13,000 extra police in our neighbourhoods. I would have to do the maths to divide that number between each ward, but there will be a named, contactable officer in each ward.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Before I call Max Wilkinson, I note that the Front Benchers will have an opportunity to respond at the end of debate.

[Max Wilkinson]

I thank the Minister for intervening.

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[Graham Stuart]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. She is making a powerful speech. As she says, there will be a regressive impact from this police grant settlement, which is going to see higher and higher council tax on low-earning residents in her area, and because of rising costs, reduced policing. That is obviously concerning. I wonder how she is going to take that up with Ministers to try to effect change.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I remind Members that it is completely up to them whether they wish to take an intervention.

[Mary Kelly Foy]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I was happy to take that intervention. To the right hon. Member’s point—[Interruption.] If he cares to listen to my response, what he said is exactly what I am doing now: I am urging the Government to look again at the council tax precept. We are playing catch-up for the years of mismanagement and austerity when his party was in government.

Safer communities enable growth. The settlement should reflect that principle fairly and consistently across the country if we are ever to repair the damage caused by the Conservative Government’s period in office.

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[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I want to follow on from the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) in asking the Policing Minister again: would you agree that it is about time we got—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I do not agree, I do agree—I am pretty neutral. The hon. Lady should ask the Member to agree and not use the term “you”.

[Vikki Slade]

I can only apologise, Madam Chair. Would my hon. Friend agree that the Policing Minister is long overdue in replying to the calls from Dorset MPs and the police and crime commissioner in November last year to look at the seasonality issue, because we simply cannot go on?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. To help other Members in case they should make the same error: I am not “Madam Chair”; I am Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Edward Morello]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Of course, I agree with my Dorset neighbour. All the Dorset MPs have written repeatedly to Ministers to ask for a fairer funding settlement, and I shall speak to some of those issues.

None of the additional demand caused by our population increases during the summer months is properly funded. Dorset police faced a £3.6 million funding deficit in 2024, rising to £7.3 million last year. Despite submitting evidence-backed requests for additional funding of £12.2 million annually to recruit around 250 extra officers and staff, that support has not been provided. Instead, the police force has been forced to cut community support officers by 43%, freeze recruitment, sell vehicles and buildings, restrict overtime and halt non-essential spending.

If the Government are serious about fair policing and neighbourhood visibility, two immediate steps are needed, alongside the restructuring and long-term reforms our rural police service is calling for. The first is greater precept flexibility for forces such as Dorset that are already asking far more of local taxpayers than others. Secondly, as a stopgap, forces holding reserves above 5% should contribute back to a central redistribution pot, particularly when recommended reserve levels are closer to 3%. The proposed reforms come too late to make the difference on the ground that people want to see from their police force. This police grant report delivers more cash, but no structural fixes, and it comes before the police reforms that the Home Secretary laid before the House a few weeks ago have even been implemented.

As part of the reforms, we must reassess how we properly fund rural police forces to allow for proper neighbourhood policing. For rural forces like Dorset, the grant in its current form is closer to standstill funding than a genuine uplift once inflation, demand, population increases and geography are factored in. If we want safer rural communities, visible neighbourhood policing and public confidence in fairness, the funding formula must finally reflect what rural constituencies experience day to day.

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[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) said earlier, Liberal Democrats have long called for a return to proper community policing. After years of Conservative chaos and mismanagement, it is clear in Wokingham and across the country that there are not enough police officers. Residents in Wokingham are always telling me that they want to see more bobbies on the beat and a visible and trusted police presence in our communities, focusing on preventing and solving crimes.

That community presence is important, but it is not the only reason why we need greater police numbers; many in Wokingham tell me that they need to see better police responses to crime as well. Shop managers do not want to feel that shoplifting is not important when they contact the police. Early last year, I visited several stores in Wokingham, Emmbrook and Arborfield to speak with managers about shoplifting. Stores were seeing increasingly frequent and targeted incidents of shoplifting, which was impacting their businesses and customers. It was clear that store managers need better responses from the police when it comes to tackle shoplifting as the incident is happening. Needless to say, better police responses on tackling crimes as they happen also help prevent future crimes. If the Government really want to restore neighbourhood policing and rebuild public trust in policing, they need to ensure that reforms are done properly, and that more police officers are put on our streets and in our communities.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.