Police Grant Report

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

What I am actually offering is £6.7 million of additional cash investment in South Wales policing next year. I have taken on board everything that the hon. Gentleman has said, and I congratulate the leadership of South Wales police on what it has done to improve efficiency. The level of the reserves is not extravagant. Where I take umbrage with the hon. Gentleman is on the amount of investment, which, as I have said, will rise by £6.7 million next year. I hope he will welcome that.

Improved productivity means making better use of the most important asset in the police system, which is police officers’ time. In 2018, in the modern age, that means making the most of the opportunity presented by digital and big data technology. For example, a growing number of forces—not least Lincolnshire, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh)—now embrace mobile working. If all forces took advantage of mobile working like the best forces, that would mean that the average officer could spend an hour a day extra on the frontline, where hard-working officers want to be. It has the potential to free up the equivalent of 11,000 extra officers in England and Wales. That is the implication if best practice is extrapolated across the system.

More mobile working, better use of data and better connected systems are all critical to modern policing. That is why the Home Office is working closely with PCCs, chiefs and experts to shape a credible roadmap that can properly harness the power of digital technology to promote more effective policing. To give further support to that process of reform, we have ensured that police forces will benefit from the £175 million police transformation fund in 2018-2019. The fund, led by police, is delivering real results and enabling forces to invest in transformation and digitisation for the future.

When budgets are tight, we have to keep challenging inefficiency, so the Home Office is also working with the police leadership to develop plans to unlock an estimated £120 million-worth of efficiency savings from more collaborative procurement and shared systems. Finally, on behalf of the taxpayer we are pressing PCCs to provide much better information on how they are using their £1.6 billion of financial reserves to improve services to the public. These reserves have risen by over £250 million since 2011. It is public money and the public deserve a proper explanation for how it is going to be used. That is why last week we published comparable national data on police reserves and new tougher guidance on the information PCCs must publish on their planned use of reserves. This is the shape of our proposed police funding settlement out to 2020.

What has been the reaction on the ground? Many PCCs have welcomed the funding settlement we set out in December. I am pleased to say that almost all PCCs in England have chosen to use this new council tax flexibility to determine how much local funding they can raise to deliver for their communities, and local people have shown their support. In Cumbria, 1,500 people responded to the consultation and over 70% of them indicated that they support the proposed precept increase. In Leicestershire, nearly three quarters of respondents voted for a £12 increase, and in Lancashire 78% supported increasing the police precept there by £12.

PCCs have been explaining to their communities why they have opted to make use of this ability to raise the extra funding. Most PCCs are intending to use this funding to protect or strengthen frontline policing in their force next year. For example, Matthew Scott, the PCC for Kent, announced that he will recruit up to 200 additional police officers next year, taking the total number of officers in Kent to its highest level since 2012. In Surrey, the PCC, David Munro, has proposed increasing the precept by £12 to protect local policing teams and respond to increasing threats such as cyber-crime and child abuse, while investing in efficiency programmes to give Surrey a police force fit for the future. In Humberside, PCC Keith Hunter has stated that by increasing the precept by £12 a month the force’s recruitment plans will take them from the planned 1,867 police officers next year up to 1,925 officers by 2020.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Hurd]

I am not going to take any more interventions.

In Nottinghamshire, PCC Paddy Tipping plans to increase police officer numbers up to 1,940, do more to tackle knife crime, and invest in a new custody facility capable of meeting current and future demands. These are just a few examples of how both Conservative and Labour PCCs are using this opportunity to improve the effectiveness of their service to the public.

We have listened to the police. We believe that, through the combination of the increased investment from this settlement, the scope for further efficiencies and productivity and the high level of reserves in the police system, the police have the resources they need to do the job. At the same time we are working with the police to lay the groundwork for the next spending review, which will include a final view on the fair funding formula. As I have said, we believe that the spending review is the right context for those decisions.

We are also supporting the police in other ways. We are ensuring that police have the full protection of the law when carrying out their duties. We are supporting the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill, which will increase the penalties available to those who attack emergency service workers. We are also helping frontline officers to tackle crime by making sure that officers feel able to pursue suspected criminals where it is appropriate to do so by reviewing the legislation, guidance and practice around police pursuits.

The safety of the public is of course our first priority and we will continue to ensure that the police have the resource they need to cut crime, protect the public, and help victims to get justice quickly. I believe that what I am presenting today is a fair and comprehensive settlement within the constraints of the fiscal position we are in. It will see us raise our investment in policing to over £13 billion next year in England and Wales, an increase of over £1 billion since 2015-16.

I wish to end where I began: by recognising once more the exceptional attitude, hard work and determination of our brave police forces. I commend this motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, our manifesto spelled out very clearly that we would dedicate 10,000 additional neighbourhood policing officers. The settlement before us today does not dedicate any additional funding to local policing and in fact, as I will come on to, would be swallowed up almost completely by inflationary and cost pressures.

One of the chief jobs of Parliament is to hold the Government accountable for the promises they make to the public and for their record of action in office, so I want to briefly focus on the context for this year’s police settlement. In 2015, the current Prime Minister promised the public that after a period in which £2.3 billion had been taken from police budgets, the Conservatives would now “protect police funding”. On many occasions that promise has been repeated to the public and to this House. Indeed, it was repeated by the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions just today. In fact, the House of Commons Library has shown that real-terms central Government funding to local forces has fallen by £400 million since 2015—the equivalent of more than 7,000 officers.

[Sandy Martin]

Does my hon. Friend agree that when the Conservatives say we are inventing the cuts, they are not taking into account the cuts to police officer numbers? Between 2010 and 2017, Suffolk has seen 150 fewer officers, 100 fewer specials, 86 fewer PCSOs—50% of the group—and 200 fewer support staff. That represents a 25% cut in personnel across the board, so it is not surprising that we have seen a concomitant increase in crime.

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Despite what the Government like to say, every single Member of this House will have seen frontline cuts to police forces. Two weeks ago, the Leader of the House insisted in this Chamber that

“frontline policing throughout the country as a whole has not changed—it has, in fact, slightly increased since 2010.”—[Official Report, 25 January 2018; Vol. 635, c. 421.]

This has been a familiar refrain throughout the Government’s time in office: “Yes, we are making cuts, but they are having no real impact.”