16:11 - The House divided: - Ayes: 288 / Noes: 212 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)
I beg to move,
That the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) for 2013-14 (HC 876), which was laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.
I am very grateful to those hon. Members who have joined me in the Chamber to take part in this debate on the 2013-14 police funding settlement. In addition to seeking their approval of the police grant report (England and Wales) 2013-14, I also want to focus on how we are reforming the police to make them more effective, more efficient and more responsive to local needs.
On 19 December, the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice laid before the House a written ministerial statement and a provisional police grant report that set out the Government’s proposed allocations to police and crime commissioners in England and Wales. We have decided that force level allocations will remain as announced on 19 December.
Before I go into the details of that announcement, it is important to set this debate in context. When our coalition Government came to office in May 2010, Britain had the largest peacetime deficit in our history. For every £3 the Labour Government raised in tax, they spent £4. The gap was being plugged by the Treasury borrowing almost £500 million every single day. It was the economics of the madhouse. Labour has had two periods in office during my lifetime, and on both occasions it presided over a budgetary catastrophe.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
I have in my hand a copy of the Liberal Democrat 2010 manifesto published in, I think, April 2010. I presume the hon. Gentleman knew what his party was saying at the time. The manifesto says that the Liberal Democrats would pay
“for 3,000 more police on the beat, affordable because we are cutting other spending”.
What happened in those few weeks before the hon. Gentleman became a Minister?
Mr Browne
I would be the first to acknowledge that we should have said in our manifesto, “Vote Liberal Democrat and crime will be at the lowest level in recorded history”, but we were insufficiently bold. We were too modest, actually, about the contribution that we would make to the well-being of our country.
The only two conclusions that can reasonably be drawn from Labour’s two catastrophic periods in office in the past 40 years are that we here in Britain have been particularly unlucky to have had especially inept Labour politicians, in which case it seems strange indeed to be enlisting the most culpable Cabinet Ministers from the previous regime to run the show for Labour today, or, more fundamentally, that socialism is completely incompatible with competent economic management. Either way, when we came into office in 2010 there was, in the immortal and shameless words of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), “no money left.”
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that we should not have a debate about Government competence, because we would be here all day. Perhaps I could bring him back to the police grant. West Midlands police force is going to suffer another £25 million cut, which is a huge amount to take out of its budget. We have lost more than 900 police officers since the general election. Will he agree to look at the implications for big police forces such as those in the west midlands, where there are high policing demands and needs, of the application of the floors and ceilings on their budgets?
Mr Browne
I am grateful for this early opportunity to tell the House what has happened to crime in the west midlands since this coalition was formed and my party came into government: it has fallen. As I have said in the House before, the two things that seem to make Labour MPs look most glum are finding out that their constituents are more likely to get a job or that they are less likely to be victims of crime. In the past two years, crime in the west midlands has fallen by 13%, which is an extraordinary achievement. If I represented a west midlands constituency, I would be pleased that my constituents were less likely to be victims of crime than they were in 2010. I find it extraordinary that Labour MPs do not seem to take that view.
Jack Dromey
I bow to no one in my admiration for our excellent West Midlands police service under the leadership of our police and crime commissioner, Bob Jones, and our chief constable, Chris Sims. Can the hon. Gentleman even begin to explain the unfairness of an approach that has led to 814 police officers going in Birmingham but to an additional 257 police officers in Surrey?
Mr Browne
As I have already explained, crime has fallen by 13% in the west midlands. The purpose of the police is not to employ as many people as possible but to try to make the public as safe as possible and reduce the amount of crime, and that is what is happening. Since the crime survey in England and Wales began in 1981—I know it seems hard to believe, Mr Speaker, but I was at primary school then—crime has never been lower in England and Wales than it is today. That is an extraordinary achievement.
Mr Browne
I will not give way. Why does the hon. Gentleman not reflect on that achievement? Why do Labour Members all look so sour and unhappy about the fact that their constituents are less likely to be victims of crime under this Government than they were under the previous Labour Government?
Mr Browne
I will in a bit, but the hon. Gentleman has had a go already.
I was talking about the budgetary context and the hon. Gentleman’s west midlands colleague, the glibly shameless right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, who said that there was “no money left.” I note that he did not say, “There’s just a little bit of money left” or “There’s a little bit of money; I wish there were a bit more but there isn’t.” There was, in his words, “no money left.” That was the reality of our inheritance, and our coalition Government, working in the national interest, is turning the oil tanker around. The deficit has been cut by a quarter over two years, and about 1 million private sector jobs have been created.
However, tidying up Labour’s mess is a difficult and painstaking process that cannot be achieved overnight. In order to deal with the deficit, tough decisions have to be made. I know that Labour Members, who have never made a tough decision in their lives, find that traumatic, but it has to be done. There is therefore less money for the Home Office and less money for the police. As a service that was spending, in total, in excess of £14 billion per year, the police can and must take their fair share of the reductions in funding. As set out in the policing Minister’s written ministerial statement, central Government funding to the police will be £8.7 billion in 2013-14, which is only 1.9% less than in 2012-13. It is important to remember that the police do not receive all their funding from central Government. In fact, the police receive about a quarter of their funding from the police precept component of council tax, which is of course determined locally.
We have sought to protect the police as far as possible. The autumn statement in December included further cuts of 1% to most departmental budgets. However, the Home Secretary decided to protect the police from these additional reductions in 2013-14. She also decided not to pass on reductions relating to the November 2011 announcement on pay restraint in 2013-14, which could have resulted in a further reduction of £66 million in police funding in 2013-14. All this means that in 2013-14 the police will receive the same amount of funding as was agreed in the October 2010 spending review.
Naturally, police and crime commissioners are keen to know what their funding allocations will be for 2014-15, and particularly whether the departmental reductions announced in the autumn statement and the impact of pay restraint will be passed on to the police in that year. We will announce our decision with regard to 2014-15 as soon as we are in a position to do so. The reduction in the police budget has coincided with a small reduction in the number of officers, but ultimately decisions on the size and composition of the work force are for individual chief officers and police and crime commissioners.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Dorset police authority has the lowest level of funding from formula grant per resident of any police force in England and Wales. Given the particular characteristics of Dorset, which is a mix of rural and urban with a night-time economy and many tourists, the police commissioner is very anxious to participate in future changes to the funding formula. What advice can my hon. Friend give me on securing greater involvement for Dorset?
Mr Browne
I heard Labour Members sniggering during my hon. Friend’s intervention. Dorset is a county where all the Members of Parliament are from the Government side of the House, but, interestingly, we are not showering money on one area of the country over another because of the political colour of its MPs and councils—something that Labour Members may wish to reflect on. We are keen that the funding allocations are fair, and I will speak about that in more detail later. It is worth also bringing to the House’s attention the fact that in the past year alone crime in Dorset has fallen by 10%. That is another significant achievement, and it means that people in Dorset are safer than they were when Labour was last in government.
Jack Dromey
Despite the valiant efforts of West Midlands police service, figures for last year demonstrate that 3,684 fewer crimes were solved. I will repeat my question, although it might be a vain attempt to get an answer from the hon. Gentleman as he is speaking from his pre-prepared script. How can he begin to justify 814 fewer police officers in Birmingham but 257 extra police officers in Surrey?
Mr Browne
Let me say two things. Fewer crimes are being solved because there are fewer crimes. I will say this again, because the hon. Gentleman obviously missed it the first time. Let me tell him how much progress has been made in the past year alone. I recognise that every crime has a victim and I want to see crime go even lower. I am genuinely pleased that crime is lower now than it was at the last general election, when his party got the second worst result in its history and did well to do as well as that. Crime in the west midlands has fallen in the past year not by 5%, 10%, 11% or even 12%, but by 13%. Surely we can agree, if we cannot agree on anything else, that our constituents being less likely to be victims of crime is a good thing. However partisan Labour MPs are, surely they do not want their constituents to be more likely to be victims of crime just so they can try to score more cheap points across the Chamber.
Mr Browne
I want to make a bit of progress and will give way later. I have given way several times to Labour MPs, who all seem to want to make the same point, which is that they are upset that crime is falling in their—[Interruption.] If any Labour MP wants to intervene because crime has risen in their area since the general election, they can get up. Anyone? Go on.
Mr Browne
No, it has not risen in the hon. Gentleman’s area. It has not risen in either of those areas. While there has been much debate about the number of police officers—a point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey)—surely the most salient fact is this: crime is falling. While total officer numbers fell by 2.9% between September 2011 and 2012, most recent statistics show a 7% reduction in police recorded crime in the same period and an even bigger reduction in the independent crime survey figures for crime in England and Wales.
Mr Browne
I will give way right now to anybody who has seen an increase in crime. To be honest, I think there has been an increase in crime in Devon and Cornwall—I cannot see any Members from Devon and Cornwall here—but that is not true for anywhere else in the country. Every single Labour MP here today has reason to be grateful to the police and to this Government for overseeing the lowest period of crime since the survey began 32 years ago.
Mr Browne
I will get to the details, because some Members are actually genuinely interested in police funding, rather than in trying to score party political points. I owe it to them to treat them seriously, so let me turn to the funding settlement details.
In the past 12 months we have heard from policing partners on a number of funding issues, including the police allocation formula, as raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), the process of damping and the community safety fund. There is a widely held view that the police allocation formula should be subject to a full review before any changes are made to the current damping policy. We will commence a review later this year. In the meantime, the current damping arrangements will remain, but a review will be undertaken on whether we can improve the allocation of central police funding.
Linked to the issue of allocation is the precept—the police element of council tax. Of course, I recognise that there is considerable disparity between force areas in the proportion of overall funding that comes from council tax, but we have to ensure that funding allocations to the police are as equitable as they can be. This is why all forces have received an equal percentage of the reduction in core Government funding.
On community safety funding, in 2013-14 police and crime commissioners will receive funding from a new and un-ring fenced transitional community safety fund, which they can use to invest in tackling drugs and crime or in community safety activities. In 2013-14, that funding will total £90 million. PCCs will have discretion to invest funding from the CSF in their own locally determined community safety priorities, including in existing programmes. This fund provides PCCs with the full flexibility to invest in their own priorities. To ensure that PCCs are able to make an informed decision about how to use their CSF allocations, we will publish details on the Home Office website of the existing drugs, crime and community safety funding streams that are ending. From 2014-15, the CSF will be rolled into the police main grant to give PCCs even greater freedom and flexibility over how they use their resources.
In summary, we cannot afford to continue the borrowing-fuelled levels of spending under the previous Government. The fact that crime continues to fall shows that the quality of policing cannot, and should not, be measured purely in terms of the level of resources put into it.
Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)
In Northumbria, the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable are proposing to increase the precept on average by less than 5p per household to recruit 50 additional officers. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with that?
Mr Browne
That is their decision. That is what they were elected in Northumbria to decide. There seems to be a lot of good news in Northumbria. Let me see, the hon. Gentleman is one of the best parts of the whole country—no wonder he did not intervene earlier. In the two years since his party was chucked out of office with one of its lowest shares of the vote ever and our coalition came in, crime has fallen by 18% in Northumbria. People in Northumbria are safer now than they were before. They are less likely to be victims of crime, and I very much welcome that.
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Minister seems to have had a memory lapse. Every year that Labour was in government, crime fell. We are all overjoyed that it continues to fall, but he must realise that it is the foundation that we laid, and that he now jeopardises, that is the point. In London, his Government are imposing 20% cuts on the Met. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said that anything more than 12% would impact on front-line services. Can he tell me that he is confident that progress will continue to be made?
Mr Browne
If the right hon. Lady is accusing me of being too party political, it is worth saying that crime started to fall when John Major was Prime Minister. What is notable is that Labour MPs, when they were in government, used to say that crime was falling because they were spending more money on the police. Now, however, because of their complete fiscal incontinence, we are having to spend marginally less money on the police. We have lower crime than when Labour was in office, and the lowest level of independently recorded crime in the survey since it began more than 30 years ago. Surely that is good news. Let us try to establish that point, and let us see whether the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) agrees.
Andrew Gwynne
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I am also grateful for the fact that I think he acknowledges the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock), which is that the crime rate has fallen consistently every year since 1995, including in every year under the previous Labour Government. That fall was not necessarily about police numbers. Does he not recognise that we started to see the biggest fundamental drop in crime under the previous Government when we shifted police resources into neighbourhood policing teams?
Mr Browne
I am delighted that we have made some progress. The hon. Gentleman says that reducing crime is not necessarily to do with police numbers. We agree with that. However, we have to spend the money that is allocated to the police as well as we possibly can. Let me introduce another brand new concept to Labour Members: value for money in the public sector and spending taxpayers’ money as if it were one’s own—try that. I know that that is an amazing, novel concept, but that is what we are trying to do.
Mr Browne
I have given way before, twice. When budgets are tight, it puts an even greater onus on Government to achieve greater efficiencies and value for money—an even greater onus. We recognise the importance of the police.
Although funding reductions are unavoidable, the Government have substantially reformed the police over the last few years, and that reform is working. We have fundamentally changed the accountability framework for policing, introducing direct democratic accountability. Police and crime commissioners were elected in November and are now actively consulting on their police and crime plans and budgets for 2013-14. Those plans will set the scale of their ambition for the future, but already they have begun to demonstrate that they are driving forward innovative and flexible use of their budgets and taking bold decisions.
We have already seen evidence of that bold leadership, with forces looking seriously at how they manage their estate, including the future of New Scotland Yard here in London. We have seen the determination of other PCCs to put more police officers on the street through raising the precept, in some cases; others are restructuring their budgets to secure the future of police community safety officers; and others are looking to push collaboration to new areas to secure value for money for their electorate. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but innovative policy making is taking place to achieve greater community safety and value for money. In the knowledge that they will be held to account directly by the public, PCCs are seeking to take measures to maintain and improve the service to the public within what is, as I have already admitted, a very tight financial climate.
PCCs, their chief constables and the officers and staff they lead are now supported by the new College of Policing. The college will support the fight against crime by equipping the police with the skills and knowledge they need to provide the very best service to their communities. Headed by an outstanding chief constable, Alex Marshall, and with Professor Shirley Pearce as its chair, the college will work in the public interest, supporting the police in their critical mission to cut crime by driving professionalism and integrity in policing.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
As the Minister probably knows, the chief executive of the college gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee yesterday. Will he help me with the budgets of the new landscape? As he knows, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the National Policing Improvement Agency have been abolished and will now form part of the National Crime Agency. The total budget of SOCA and the NPIA was £865 million, but the NCA’s budget will be £400 million and the college’s budget will be £50 million. What has happened to the rest of the £865 million?
Mr Browne
The right hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, which we considered at length during the Committee stage of the Crime and Courts Bill. The crucial point is that only a small proportion of the NPIA’s budget is being transferred to the NCA. From memory—I do not have the paper to hand—I think the figure is £12 million or £13 million. The functions covered by the vast majority of the NPIA’s budget will not be transferred to the NCA. It is not accurate, therefore, to conflate SOCA’s budget and the NPIA’s budget and say that between them their budgets were bigger than the NCA’s budget, because quite a lot of the NPIA features will not be transferring to the NCA.
Few things could be more directly relevant to public confidence and the British model of policing by consent than the integrity of our police officers. Police officers are citizens in uniform and their fellow citizens must be able to have confidence that they exercise their powers without fear or favour. That is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced a range of measures to enhance police integrity in the House yesterday. Greater independent investigation of the most serious and sensitive complaints against the police will be made possible by rebalancing resource between the Independent Police Complaints Commission and force professional standards directorates. A publicly available list of struck-off officers will ensure that those who are dismissed for misconduct cannot re-enter the police by the back door. We will significantly strengthen vetting of all officers, particularly the most senior officers, and we will introduce national registers of pay and perks, gifts and hospitality, contact with the media and outside interests.
All that will be underpinned by a code of ethics for the police—a single set of ethical standards by which officers and staff will work. The college will own and develop this and PCCs and chief officers will ensure that it runs right through policing and the careers of police officers and police staff. Accountability, professionalism and integrity—these are the areas where our reforms are focused and on which we are making a substantial difference.
We also rely, however, on being able to continue to attract the very best people into policing. For the avoidance of doubt, outstanding people are already attracted to some of the most difficult and demanding jobs available in our police forces. We need to ensure that we continue to attract the people with the right skills and expertise to forge a force fit for the 21st century. That means opening up policing. We are consulting on three direct entry schemes that will open up the police to a wider pool of talent, so that forces will be able to bring in people with diverse backgrounds and new perspectives. Combined with the strong leaders already working in forces and the improved nurturing of internal talent through the College of Policing, we will have a police force that is even better equipped to fight crime.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
There is huge talent in our armed forces, at non-commissioned officer, young officer and senior officer level. Some of these people will be leaving the armed forces, but at the moment it is extremely difficult for non-commissioned officers and junior officers to join the police—in fact, there seems to be a bar. Is there any possibility of encouraging more transfers from our military forces to our police forces?
Mr Browne
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I would imagine that many people with military backgrounds would be ideally suited to pursuing this career option. In my constituency the week before last, I was talking to a police officer who had previously served with 40 Commando Royal Marines, also based in my constituency, and he appeared to be doing an extremely good job on behalf of the people of Somerset.
We are unambiguous—as are the public whom the police serve—that fighting crime should be the clear focus of our police, and that is why we are working so hard to free up police time to achieve that focus. We have already removed much of the centrally imposed bureaucracy on police forces, such as top-down targets, performance management structures, excessive regulation and inspection, but police officers still spend too much time on unnecessary bureaucracy and not enough time on their core mission of fighting crime. We will deliver transformational change to free up front-line officers’ time and will be focusing on ensuring that police forces understand and implement existing best practice, introducing transformational change for front-line officers and speeding up the criminal justice process. By 2015, owing to all the measures I have described, the police will be recognisably more modern, offering a more accessible service to the public.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
The Minister says that he will free up front-line officers’ time from back-office responsibility, but at the same time huge cuts are being made to back-office support services. How does he square those two things? Do they not run against each other? Has he not contradicted himself in that one sentence?
Mr Browne
Shall we try again? I attend lots of debates in the House. I attend debates about education, and Labour wants to spend more money. I attend debates about health, and Labour wants to spend more money. I attend debates about whether multi-millionaires should receive child benefit, and Labour wants to give more child benefit to multi-millionaires. So far as I can work out, there is no area where Labour does not want to spend more money, which would be great if it had left us a massive budget surplus, but as the hon. Gentleman might not have heard me say at the beginning of my speech, for every £3 Labour raised in tax, it was spending £4. It was borrowing about £20 million an hour by the time the electorate called time on it. It was completely unaffordable—the economics of the madhouse—and we are now having to cut our cloth to fit. Nevertheless, he will be pleased that there is no precise correlation between spending more money and having better service outcomes. In fact, crime has fallen in his area.
Mr Browne
The hon. Gentleman has not seen such an increase. It has fallen by 13%. It is down in all their forces.
Let us move on. I have reached the final part of my speech. In the first two years of this Government, recorded crime fell by 10% and public confidence in the police is rising. This clearly indicates that our police reforms are working. The crime survey for England and Wales also shows big falls, with figures now at their lowest level since records began in 1981. Our remorseless focus on the front line, on value for money and on serving the public provides our motivation for slashing back the red tape that has kept police officers behind desks instead of on the streets. By scrapping targets, cutting paperwork and returning discretion to officers, we have saved 4.5 million officer hours.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Will the Minister give way?
Mr Browne
I will not.
This Government inherited the largest peacetime deficit in Britain’s history. We are now making the necessary positive reforms. However, the Government can only do so much, and the necessary change will also have to come from the forces themselves. I commend those in the police who have risen to the challenge and shown leadership in transforming the way in which they deliver services and protection for the public. There is more to do, but I am confident that, with our ambitious reform programme alongside transformational change, we will build police forces that are modern, flexible and responsive, fighting crime while delivering value for money for the taxpayer and reducing crime, as this Government have done since we came to office in May 2010. I commend the motion to the House.
Mr Jeremy Browne
What I should have said is, “Vote for me in Taunton Deane and crime will fall by 11% in two years”, but I was too modest to do so. I said in my speech today that the budget for policing was falling by 1.9% for 2013-14, compared with 2012-13, and that the central grant would be £8.7 billion. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) has asked a straightforward question: what would the central grant figure be if Labour were in government today?
Mr Hanson
We gave a clear indication—[Interruption.] The Minister can say what he likes, but when we were in government, we gave a clear figure of a 12% reduction. We are now two years away from a general election, and we will have to look at these matters again at that stage. I made it clear when I was sitting where the Minister is now sitting that there would be a 12% reduction. Having pledged to introduce 3,000 more police officers, he is now proposing a budget cut of 20% on behalf of the Tory-Liberal Democrat Government. That is the clear difference between us, and I suspect that my right hon. and hon. Friends will recognise that.
If we were talking only about police numbers, perhaps we could have an honest debate, but this Government also are making it harder to get CCTV, reducing the use of DNA evidence to catch criminals and cutting crime prevention budgets. They also spent £100 million of taxpayers’ money on the elections for police and crime commissioners, which attracted a 13% turnout. They are weakening counter-terror powers, with the result that people such as Ibrahim Magag can drive away in a taxi while under a terrorism prevention and investigation measure—[Interruption.] The Minister accuses me of being right wing. If it is right wing to want to ensure that my constituents are safe on the streets, I plead guilty. If it is right wing to want those who commit offences to be put into jail or on community sentences to prevent reoffending, I plead guilty.
Mr Hanson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue. His police force in Lancashire lost 413 officers over that period. [Interruption.] The Minister keeps chuntering from a sedentary position, saying, “What’s the impact of that?” I have told him that I welcome the fall in crime, but the key question that he needs to answer is whether that fall is sustainable and whether it was the result of previous investment. I simply say to him that the trends for acquisitive crime, violent crime, detection rates, recording of crime and maintaining a visible presence are going in a different direction, and he knows it. I genuinely hope that crime continues to fall, but we will have to make that assessment. Our concern is that it will be more difficult with £1 billion taken out of the budget over three years than it would be otherwise.
Mr Jeremy Browne
Given everything the right hon. Gentleman says, I just want to check that he is now committing to taking £1 billion out of other areas of Government spending—say, schools or hospitals—to fund this area. Surely he is not just making a completely empty speech to get a few cheers from his Back Benchers, but has the figures to back up his argument. We are spending £8.7 billion in 2013-14. If he were in government, what would he be spending? Just a number.
Mr Hanson
The hon. Gentleman must be—as well as many other things—not listening to what I am saying. This is the third year of a three-year budget proposal. We proposed 12% cuts; he is proposing 20% cuts. Next year and the year after, we will have a further debate—when a Labour Government are returned in two years’ time, we will have a further debate—but at the moment we are talking about a figure for the third year. I have given him a figure—a 12% reduction versus the 20% reduction. He needs to listen and to recognise that.
Gloria De Piero
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend’s comments.
The line now taken by the Government seems to be that it does not matter how many police officers there are. As some Members have noted, that is a far cry from the general election campaign, when Liberal Democrats were promising to recruit 3,000 extra police officers. We might be getting a little immune to the Liberal Democrats breaking election promises, but this one, like so many others, was not worth the ink on the “Focus” leaflet it was printed on. I will be interested to see the “Focus” leaflet in Eastleigh, where I am sure they will be explaining why there will be 295 fewer police officers on the streets in Hampshire.
We have heard from a lot of Members today, but it is also worth reflecting on the views of those we have been sent here to represent. Last month, ComRes conducted polling for ITV news that shows why there can be no room for the complacency that I fear we are seeing on the Government Benches. In the poll, 38% thought that crime had got worse in their area in the past three months and just 6% thought that it had got better. On antisocial behaviour, 22% thought it had got worse in the past three months, while just 8% thought that it had got better. We should all be concerned when more than one in five believe antisocial behaviour has got worse and more than one in three believe that crime has got worse in their neighbourhood. If the public express their concerns and believe that crime and antisocial behaviour are rising, we have a duty to reflect those concerns.
Last week, I spoke to a senior police officer who told me that the thing the public tell all of us that they value most—the bobby on the beat in our communities—is becoming harder and harder to provide. He said:
“The policing pledge forced us to up our game. Things like the requirement to spend at least 80% of time on the beat”—
I still have not been given an answer to why that pledge was scrapped—
“and responding to non urgent messages to the neighbourhood team within 24 hours—when we did that our satisfaction rates went through the roof. That customer focus has now gone.”
He went on to say:
“Our first job is to keep people safe so the police service has fallen back to its core service. Neighbourhood policing has fallen back. The 999 stuff is still okay. The neighbourhood stuff, the fact that the community know us and who the local bobby is—that’s gone. You deal with demand, withdraw to your statutory responsibilities, but issues like antisocial behaviour where you need to build trust and confidence, you need people to know you so you can nip things in the bud—that’s gone. At the moment we are just ending up with bigger and bigger control rooms. We’re not doing the bobby on the beat stuff and that is storing up problems for the future.”
Like many in this House, I hear horrific tales from my constituents. Last week I received a letter from a constituent who told me:
“we have suffered…with antisocial behaviour around the property we live which is causing great unease and discomfort. We understand that staffing levels are low and they have to prioritise the workload”—
but that by the time the police arrived
“all of the offenders had left the area so no action was taken”.
My constituent went on:
“we now feel totally alone in dealing with this situation and think this is totally unacceptable”.
Police solved 30,000 fewer crimes last year as the number of officers was slashed. Detection rates fell for the first time in more than a decade. Fewer crimes are being solved, fewer criminals are being caught and fewer victims are getting justice. The police are needed to provide a reassuring, visible presence in our neighbourhoods. Have any Members been approached by a constituent and heard the words, “Thank you for cutting the number of police officers on our streets”?
Mr Jeremy Browne
As the hon. Lady has mentioned it, I have had a number of people coming up to me in the past two and a half years saying, “Thank God we have a Government who are willing to get to grips with the appalling deficit left behind by the previous Labour Government.”
Gloria De Piero
This is a debate about the police, but I will say this: borrowing is up.
The question today is: do we want to vote for budget proposals from the Government parties that guarantee the lowest number of police officers in a decade, or do we want to listen to the public and the police and call on the Government to change course and rethink next year’s police budget cuts and stop letting communities down?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for participating in what has been a lively debate on the police funding settlement. I recognise a number of the points about reductions in funding, but we are confident that they are manageable. The police are making the necessary savings and have transformed how they deliver the service to the public. That has been achieved along with reductions in overall crime.
We inherited the toughest fiscal challenge in living memory and are having to take tough decisions, but I recognise, as do the Government, that the police do an incredibly important and challenging job. Our reforms recognise and build on that. As right hon. and hon. Members have highlighted, this year again we have seen many examples of professional, selfless and brave front-line policing to keep the public safe and to fight crime. As the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) highlighted, our thoughts are particularly with the families, friends and colleagues of Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes.
I would also like to recognise the work of the late Paul McKeever, with whom I had the pleasure of having a number of meetings and exchanges. He would have said—and I would agree—that we have the best police force in the world, and I pay tribute to the work they do, day in, day out, to keep us all safe. I also pay tribute to the work of our chief constables and senior officers in achieving savings, driving efficiencies and cutting crime.
Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has challenged forces to drive through efficiencies and has shown that about half of the savings required nationally can be achieved just by forces raising their performance to the average of their immediate peers. There are other areas, however, where the police can make, and are making, further savings, without affecting the level of service to the public—for instance, by adopting an increasingly national approach to buying equipment and services. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) made the point about how efficiencies can be secured through such routes.
Forces are rightly prioritising front-line delivery. The number of officers working in back-office roles fell by 20.3% between March 2010 and March 2012, and we are encouraging forces to consider options for reforming support services, including collaboration. HMIC has stated that forces have plans to deliver 87% of the required savings by March 2015, indicating that police forces are working well towards the savings that need to be made. Its report also stated that the proportion of officers in front-line roles is due to increase to 89% in March 2015. Furthermore, its report found that, as well as crime going down, victim satisfaction was up and response times to emergencies had largely been maintained.
We have also made changes to how the police procure their goods and services. We estimate that the police can save up to £200 million per year by 2014-15 on commonly purchased police goods and non-IT services. We have continued our reform of the police. PCCs have now been introduced and are holding the police to account, while ensuring that the public have a say in how policing is delivered in their community. As we have heard, the College of Policing has also been introduced and the package of measures announced by the Home Secretary yesterday will further enhance the integrity of the police.
A number of important points have been made today, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley), to whom I pay tribute for the work he did in opposition. He continues to highlight the need to focus on freeing up police time. The Government are clear that the police should be focusing on fighting crime, not paperwork. The work we have done to reduce bureaucracy could result in up to 4.5 million hours of police time saved across all forces every year—the equivalent of more than 2,100 officers back on the beat.
Keith Vaz
I welcome the way in which the Minister is conducting the debate from the Dispatch Box. Will he clarify one point in respect of the Home Secretary’s very good statement yesterday? Will the register of second jobs that police officers are now going to have to declare be held by HMIC or by the College of Policing?
James Brokenshire
That is one of the details relating to the most effective way to deliver on the type of register that is being established. I am sure that, given the very good scrutiny that the Home Affairs Select Committee provides, the right hon. Gentleman and his Committee will follow through on the important issues that will follow from the well-received announcement by the Home Secretary yesterday.
I want to comment on some of the points that have been raised today on the arrangements for damping and on the police allocation formula. The Government will conduct a fundamental review of the formula, as the Minister of State, Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne) said earlier, and we will seek the views of police and crime commissioners across England and Wales. Determining how funding should be allocated to the police is a complex and important matter. It requires careful consideration and it will take time. In that context, it is important that that work is undertaken before we can consider the arrangements for damping.
The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) highlighted the question of the National Policing Improvement Agency budget. He focused on the funding for the College of Policing but, in addition, the Home Office will be engaged in funding relating to the provision of Airwave and to the Police ICT Company Ltd. The right hon. Gentleman was trying to connect one element of funding to another, but there are other elements involved. I hope that this is a helpful explanation.
A number of points have been raised about police pay and conditions. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds said that pay accounted for a large proportion of police spending, and that the police pay bill was a key issue. Our aim has been to have pay and conditions that support forces in driving out costs and making the best use of their resources. That is why we have asked the police, along with the rest of the public sector, to take a two-year pay freeze, and subject to any decisions by the Police Negotiating Board and an agreement on staff pay, we expect the Government’s policy for public sector pay restraint also to apply to the police. We have also taken forward proposals relating to the Winsor review. The reforms from part 1 will save about £150 million when fully implemented and will give chief officers greater flexibility in how they deploy their officers and shape their work forces.
I was interested to hear the assertion from the Opposition Front Bench that Labour would be looking for 12% savings. However, the Opposition apparently also support reforms to overtime and shift patterns, the pay freeze and the police arbitration tribunal’s decision on police pay. They must therefore be talking about 12% plus all those elements. When we analyse that, we find that they are in substantially the same position as the Government, although they did not accept that. If they are saying that they would implement 12% savings, which of those elements do they not accept? They will need to consider that question carefully, and it is interesting that they have not responded to that question today.
The right hon. Member for Leicester East asked me whether the counter-terrorism element should be part of the National Crime Agency. He and his Committee highlighted that point in their recent report. I can tell him that there will be no wholesale review of counter-terrorism policing arrangements in England and Wales until after the NCA is up and running. We judge that to be the right time to look at that issue, although we recognise that it needs to be examined in the context of the changed landscape for policing. On the point about rural policing, the formula distributes funding based on relative work loads in an area, and apportions according to population sparsity to address the specific needs of rural forces.
The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) highlighted regional organised crime units, and in many ways he touches on the important issue of collaboration. I had the pleasure of going to the east midlands special operations unit last year, and I saw how special operations come together and how collaboration can make an important difference. The Government strongly support that model of forces coming together in that way.
The hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) highlighted a point about partnerships, and I am sure that police and crime commissioners will focus on that when considering how they apply the community safety fund and budget. Yes, there is still more to do, but we are confident that with a clear focus on making the necessary changes, the police will continue to provide the service that the public deserve, alongside delivering value for money for the taxpayer. I pay tribute to the work of the police in doing that, and to their success in cutting crime and keeping our community safe, and I commend the motion to the House.
Question put,