Police Funding

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

It is appropriate in a debate on police funding that we reflect on the sacrifice made by officers such as PC Keith Palmer, on the bravery of Nick Bailey and on the work of other officers who daily serve to protect our freedoms in Scotland and elsewhere.

I am grateful to be able to take part in this debate on the Tory Government’s cuts to the police budget in England and Wales. As an SNP MP, I am thankful that Scotland has a separate legal system and that, as such, despite the real-terms cuts to the Scottish Government’s block grant, the SNP has chosen a different path since taking office. While police forces in England and Wales have lost over 13% of their officers since 2007 as a result of UK Government cuts, the Scottish force has grown by 1,000 officers in the same period. With recorded crime at a 43-year low, that is a good result. However, we can never be complacent and we will continue to keep identifying areas of concern to make sure that the public are served better.

The situation facing forces in England and Wales is reaching a critical point. The Tory Government’s failure to support the police adequately has forced local authorities in England to ask local taxpayers to pay more in council tax to fill the funding gap. This financial pressure has led to the Metropolitan police issuing a serious warning to the UK Government that officer numbers could fall by 27,500 by 2021, hindering their ability to tackle local crime and to engage in counter-terrorism measures.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the need to protect against Tory austerity and the cuts that that entails, but does he agree that today’s announcement by the Scottish Police Authority in its draft budget that 100 officers might be cut to save £2.7 million is an unfortunate and regrettable action?

[Drew Hendry]

There certainly should be more funding supplied to Scotland. It would have been good if the hon. Gentleman had got behind the call for Scotland to get the VAT that was paid backdated in order to support that, so that some £140 million could have gone into making sure that we could do an even better job.

As I said, this financial pressure has caused problems for the Metropolitan police. Indeed, former Met Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton has said:

“The Met has little choice but to re-organise. It has to do something to meet increased demand with a reduced workforce and fewer buildings after successive cuts to its budget.”

That is an important point. At a time when violent crime is rising in England, the UK Government’s response is to enforce cuts, reducing local police numbers and adding to officers’ already stretched workload.

--- Later in debate ---

[Drew Hendry]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point about the priorities for investment, and about policies being pursued that will actually put those priorities at serious risk, if not rule them out of being implemented at all. This is one area where the narrative should not be about a hard Brexit at all costs.

The challenges facing police budgets and counter-terrorism activities should concern us all. Our police officers protect us each and every day that they are on the beat. As many of us have experienced right here in Parliament, when trouble arises and we are told to run away from it, police officers run towards it, helping to keep us safe. The UK Government should finally do the right thing, and give the police the same level of support that those officers show us.

[Mr Sweeney]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your advice regarding the amendment and correction of the record. In the previous speech, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) claimed that Labour had not supported VAT refunds to the Scottish police service. In reality, Labour’s stated position at the autumn statement was that we called for a VAT exemption of £140 million to be refunded, with the money to be ring-fenced and earmarked for the emergency services in Scotland. Will you advise me on how the record might be amended?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I think the hon. Gentleman knows—he has not been here for very long, but he is a quick learner—that that is not a point of order for the Chair. It is a point of debate in the very debate in which we are engaging at the moment. The way in which he can put his point to the House is to speak in the debate, or to intervene on someone else in order to make it. However, he does not now need do so, having made his point very well—although not, I have to say, in the right way or at the right time.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)]

In the short time left to me, I shall try to answer many of the valid, important and heartfelt points that colleagues from across the House have made about police funding. This is an important debate. We all value our police and we all wish we had more money to spend on policing and the rest of public services across the United Kingdom, but of course we have to live in an economic climate in which we are paying off the debt and trying to live within our means. [Interruption.] Opposition Members might not like it, but we spend £87,000 a minute servicing the interest on our national debt. That is three police officers’ salaries every minute of the day, but for which we get nothing back.

That is the legacy of the Labour party, and that is why I was as angry as the shadow Home Secretary, because the impact of that type of debt always falls on the poorest in society. The debt that a Government rack up is always paid for by the vulnerable and the poor, whatever the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) says. Like the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), I have been in this House long enough to see different Governments tackle the problem of crime. As a Member of this House for 30 years, under Labour and Conservative Governments, the right hon. Lady will have seen crime go up and down and the police under pressure, no matter how much budgets are sometimes forced to change.

[Mr Sweeney]

rose—

[Mr Wallace]

I do not have time to give way.

We heard a number of contributions in the debate. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) gave the usual off-the-shelf SNP answer, which is that, despite all the powers that we have given the Scottish Parliament, including tax-raising powers, and the above-average spending, England should pay. Somehow that is the SNP’s solution to everything, rather than facing up to the issues.

My hon. Friends the Members for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) and for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) pointed out that part of this debate has to be about recognising whether PCCs are delivering on their freedoms to help to shape policing in their communities. Some are and some are not, irrespective of their parties. The best example that I can give of the power of good leadership is Durham constabulary, Chief Constable Mike Barton and a Labour PCC delivering a force graded as outstanding in England, despite pressure on their budgets and on policing. Their leadership—[Interruption.] “Government cuts”—I love it. It is the old mantra. Labour runs up the debt, we have to fix the economy—and unfortunately ordinary people pay.

The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) made an important point. I am sure he will be pleased to know that we have increased capital funding in south Wales to establish a joint counter-terrorism unit and the regional organised crime unit, as well as in Gwent, to make sure that we are attacking the threat collectively and strongly.

My hon. Friends the Members for Moray (Douglas Ross) and for Angus (Kirstene Hair) made a strong point about counter-terrorism policing, because Labour is incorrect, even at the heart of today’s motion, about the £54 million shortfall in funding for counter-terrorism. If the Opposition are going to put something like that at the heart of their motion, one might think they might get it right. All the money that the police asked for to respond to operational pressures from counter-terrorism was given. They did not ask for £54 million; they did not get. Before Labour Members put that in their motion, I would recommend they seek some accuracy.