17:03 - The House divided: - Ayes: 286 / Noes: 202 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
I beg to move,
That the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) for 2014-15 (HC 1043), which was laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.
In addition to seeking approval of the police grant report, I also intend to outline the ways in which we are reforming policing. We are fundamentally rethinking how policing is configured so that it is efficient and effective for years to come. This settlement reflects the need for responsibility in public spending, but it is part of a successful reform programme that is making our streets safer and our policing more modern.
On 18 December, I laid before the House the provisional police grant report for 2014-15, along with a written ministerial statement that set out the Government’s proposed allocations to local policing bodies in England and Wales. After careful consideration of the consultation responses, we have decided that force level allocations will remain as announced in December.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way so early on in his speech. He said that the grant has to be seen in the context of the new landscape of policing. Is he telling the House that that landscape is now settled—for example, that all the functions of the National Policing Improvement Agency have been transferred to other bodies such as the College of Policing or the National Crime Agency—and that that is the end of the matter and we can now move on to the next stage?
Damian Green
I can certainly tell the right hon. Gentleman that this is not the end of police reform. I will set out the reasons for and some of the effects of the reforms that we have made so far. It is a very radical programme of reform and there is more to do.
Before I go further in, I hope, enlightening the House about that wider point, it is important to recognise the achievements of our police officers. The unacceptable actions of a very small minority of officers have recently challenged the reputation of the police, but I hope the House will agree that this is not representative of the outstanding day-to-day work that the vast majority of our officers carry out in fighting crime and protecting the public. Indeed, we need look no further than the incredible job that police officers and other emergency responders are currently undertaking to support the families and businesses that have been so badly affected by the flooding.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
May I take the Minister back to his point about allocations? Also in December, a protest started against exploration for shale gas in my constituency, which is now tying down 150 Greater Manchester police officers, with the cost being met out of Greater Manchester police budgets. That amounts to £40,000 a day for the 150 officers who are being deployed, and the cost could mount to £4 million, as it did in Balcombe when there was a protest there. Does the Minister agree that there should be some support for that? Why should Greater Manchester’s population suffer a much greater thinning out of our police force, especially given that we have already lost 1,000 officers? There is no consideration of this when a controversial issue like shale gas is dumped down somewhere—the Government are keen on shale gas exploration; I am not—and the local police force and taxpayers have to support the whole deployment.
Damian Green
If there are special individual circumstances that affect a particular force, that force has the opportunity to apply for a special grant.
Damian Green
Before the hon. Lady rises to her feet again, let me deal specifically with fracking. She and I clearly disagree about the benefits of shale gas, but that is a debate for another time. The first anti-shale gas protests in Balcombe obviously affected the Sussex police, and they have applied for a special grant. I have to take evidence from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary before I decide whether the full grant or part of it should be given—that is the correct way to deal with taxpayers’ money—but that procedure is there for precisely this sort of event.
Barbara Keeley
I raised this issue in the very first week and I have also raised it with the Home Secretary. This deployment is an enormous distraction from policing in Greater Manchester, and at great cost, and there is no help in the short term. I have been told by the gold commander responsible for the force that only if the costs go over 10% of the police budget, which would be £5 million in the case of Greater Manchester, would we get any support at all, and the Minister is saying that it would come at the end of the process. The local police force in Balcombe took the whole hit of the £4 million costs. This is of great concern to us in Salford, as I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who is here, would agree. The force’s deployment is detracting from our day-to-day policing.
Damian Green
This is precisely why successive Governments have had the special grant arrangement to deal with unexpected events that may have a particular effect on a particular force. Since the hon. Lady clearly supports the protesters and I clearly do not, I gently suggest to her that the reason there has to be all this police activity is that if people are demonstrating in a way that requires a huge police presence, as peaceful protests need not—
Damian Green
May I finish my sentence before I give way to the hon. Lady for the third time? I urge her to urge those of her friends who are so against shale gas in the area to make sure that they are conducting their protest in a way that does not put unnecessary pressure on police resources.
Barbara Keeley
I have to say that I feel the Minister goes too far in what he says. He has no idea what my views are. I am supporting the local population, our local police force and our police and crime commissioner. This is a very unsatisfactory situation. The Minister’s comments about me are incorrect. I am supporting my constituents, who want our police force to be used for policing in our community.
Damian Green
The hon. Lady did say that she supported the views of protesters, but if she is saying that she does not support how they are protesting, then good, we are on the same side of that debate. That is sensible, because people obviously have the right to protest peacefully, but they should do so peacefully, not in a way that puts unnecessary pressure on both police resources and local communities. I have every sympathy for local communities in those conditions and, as I have said, the special grant procedure has been there for a long time for precisely such types of event.
To return to the subject of the wider grant, the achievements of police forces in this time of austerity and funding cuts are evident. Overall crime has fallen by more than 10% since this Government came into office. England and Wales are now safer than they have been for decades, with crime now at its lowest level since the independent crime survey began in 1981.
It is important to set the funding debate in the wider context. When this Government came into office in May 2010, we inherited the largest peacetime deficit in history. Borrowing increased to unprecedented levels under the previous Government, without due consideration for the long-term economic health of the nation. We are proud of the progress that we have made in addressing this most fundamental of issues. Borrowing as a percentage of GDP is down by a third, and our economy is growing. On 22 January, it was announced that unemployment had fallen by 167,000, representing the largest ever quarterly increase in the number of people in work in our country. However, we cannot rest there. Although the Government have made strong inroads into addressing the deficit, more needs to be done. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced last month that further cuts will be required into the next Parliament. That means that difficult decisions need to be made, which we must not and will not shy away from.
Despite that overall context, we have pushed to secure the best possible deal for the police, and have again protected them in 2014-15, this time from the further cuts announced to departmental budgets in December’s autumn statement.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Minister is setting out a fairly gloomy scenario for support for our police service in the years to come. I am at loss to know why, if the Government are really intent on trying to do more for less, there has not been more integration, joint budgets and collaboration at national Government level. I am amazed that we are having two separate debates today, on the police settlement and then on the local government settlement. Surely this is a time for creative thinking, when we could come together, maximise our resources and make the real reforms that the Government are refusing to make.
Damian Green
I rather agree with the right hon. Lady’s underlying point. Indeed, I will speak later about precisely such ideas for collaboration not only between police forces—I will shortly come on to the many good examples of that—but between the police and other blue light services and between the police and local government.
I assure the right hon. Lady, who used to stand at this Dispatch Box doing my very job, that one of the more enjoyable parts of the role is visiting. For example, I recently went to Thrapston in Northamptonshire to visit a joint police and fire station: one building provides two emergency blue light services, which means not only that a better service is provided to the people in and around Thrapston, but that the two emergency services, as they have told me, work better together than they did before. She is absolutely right to say that this is a time for creative thinking, and I hope to reveal during my speech some of the creative activity that is happening in police forces in this country.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
The Minister has just said that the police service has been protected by this settlement. It is certainly true that the service has been protected from the additional budget reductions scheduled for 2014-15. Is it not also true, however, that the Home Office has indicated that money will be taken from forces to fund a range of new initiatives—we strongly support some of them, such as the College of Policing—with the consequence that forces will face a 4.8% cut, rather than the 3.3% grant reduction originally anticipated? Those top-slices will therefore reduce the amount of grant funds available to individual forces to use at their discretion.
Damian Green
One of the top-slices was, for example, for the police innovation fund, which is available to all forces. I am happy to say that all forces applied in the first round—off the top of my head, I think that there were 115 applications altogether—and every force will get some benefit from that.
Furthermore, the point of the innovation fund is precisely to encourage the kind of collaboration mentioned by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). That is precisely the sort of creative use of the inevitably constrained pot of taxpayers’ money for spending on the police—let us not forget that it is still £8.5 billion—in the most effective way possible, aiding collaboration and enabling the police to carry on with the successful policies they have pursued during the past few years, which have continued to cut crime.
Central Government funding for the police will be reduced by 3.3% in cash terms in 2014-15, while overall funding will be reduced by even less, when the future police precept is factored in. We have also protected funding for counter-terrorism policing, due to the continuing threat posed to the UK by terrorism. To give the House a comparison, the remaining Home Office budget will be cut by 7% in cash terms in 2014-15.
This funding settlement is therefore challenging, but it is manageable. HMIC, the inspectorate, has made it clear that the proportion of officers working on the front line is increasing, and we are supporting the police through a range of activities to help them respond to the challenge and ultimately to emerge stronger. As I said at the outset, we are also changing the policing landscape in a way that represents the biggest set of reforms for a generation.
Jack Dromey
The Minister has just referred to front-line police officers. Will he confirm that in excess of 10,000 police officers have gone from the front line since 2010?
Damian Green
There are certainly fewer front-line officers, but that is because of the situation. However, one of the very good responses made by the police—in conjunction with the Government policy of reducing the amount of time-wasting form-filling that they had to do under the previous Government—has been to put a higher proportion of their officers on the front line. Indeed, the projections for the police officer work force suggest that front-line roles will increase from 89% in March 2010 to 93% by March 2015. That seems to me to be a very good use of front-line policing.
I gently point out to the shadow police Minister that the shadow Chancellor, in a burst of honesty last June, said:
“The next Labour government will have to plan on the basis of falling departmental spending.”
I hope, this afternoon, we will not hear a series of Labour Members or even Front Benchers claiming that they would shower more money on the police or that more money would be available for more police officers, because the shadow Chancellor has already said that that will not happen.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
On the number of front-line police officers, will the Minister join me in congratulating Cambridgeshire constabulary and particularly its chief constable, who has managed to maintain the number of police constables in the force throughout this period and is now recruiting more? Does that not show what can be done if budgets are used carefully?
Damian Green
I happily join my hon. Friend in congratulating not only Cambridgeshire police and the chief constable, but the PCC, Sir Graham Bright. Between them, they have done an excellent job, as is borne out by the fact that crime in Cambridgeshire is down 24% since June 2010, so its streets are safer than ever before.
I have already mentioned the police innovation fund, which will be worth up to £50 million a year from next year. It represents a new step to incentivise innovation, collaboration and digitisation, to drive efficiencies and improve policing for not just one year, but the longer term. We have established a £20 million precursor fund in this financial year and it has received a good response. As I said, there have been 115 bids, totalling £50 million. The bids cover a wide range of activities, including the development of mobile technology and greater collaboration across the emergency services.
A key area in which we are providing innovation funding and encouraging greater collaboration is the use of body-worn video equipment. Investment in camera technology will enhance police protection and support officers in discharging their duties.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
I say kindly to the Minister that the collaboration between the police and local government, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) referred, is becoming increasingly difficult because of the financial constraints on local government. To give an example from my constituency, in 2004, Greater Manchester police and Tameside metropolitan borough council came together and rehoused Denton police station in Denton town hall, creating a one-stop shop for those services. Greater Manchester police has withdrawn from that because of the funding constraints on it, which means that nobody in Tameside’s second largest town has direct, face-to-face access to the police. That police station was their front line.
Damian Green
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s underlying point. I am surprised to hear anyone say that financial pressures make it more difficult to collaborate. The reaction that I have observed around the country, both in police forces and local government, is that financial pressures make better collaboration essential.
Damian Green
I will just answer this intervention before I take another one from my hon. Friend.
I have mentioned the joint police and fire station that I visited recently in Northamptonshire. Fairly recently, I also visited a joint police station and local government office in Chippenham in Wiltshire. Again, that is very creative. Each of those public bodies has to have buildings and each faces the same pressures that are faced by the whole public sector, for the reasons that I have rehearsed. They are using that as an opportunity. Instead of the police being based in the old Victorian police station on the edge of town, they are now in a more modern building that is in the centre of town. That makes the police more accessible. There are opportunities for the police and local authorities to collaborate. In this case, their physical collaboration has brought the police closer to the public.
Andrew Gwynne
I do not think that the Minister truly understands the scale of the local government reductions in areas such as Tameside. Since 2010, including inflation, Tameside metropolitan borough council has lost the equivalent of 50% of its budget. The council is therefore in retrenchment mode, as are the police. Communities such as Denton are losing out as both those public services retrench back to their own silos.
Damian Green
I know Greater Manchester police better than I know the local council, but it would seem logical for them not to retrench into their silos, as the hon. Gentleman puts it, but to seek out collaboration.
I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who has been very patient.
Andrew Percy
I apologise for my eagerness to row in behind my right hon. Friend on this point. May I give an example of what is happening in my area? North Lincolnshire council, which already had much lower funding than other authorities, has lost about 20% of its funding. It has entered into collaborative arrangements with the police, which have seen it paying for police community support officers itself and having a sharing arrangement on fuel. It is about to go into a sharing arrangement on buildings. It can do all that at a time of reducing budgets, as well as reversing many other things, such as cuts to youth services. Services must work together. In my area, doing that is having a positive impact on policing on the front line.
Damian Green
My hon. Friend gives an example from another part of the country, which is similar to the examples I have seen in the past few months. He illustrates my point that collaboration is necessary at a time when public finances are under stringent control and that it can lead to better services than we had when the public spending tap was turned on more fully. That led to inefficiencies and a lack of collaboration.
Damian Green
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman just one more time, because he will have his own turn to speak in a minute.
Jack Dromey
To speak in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), I sat in on a meeting of the Tameside community safety partnership before Christmas. On the one hand, I saw inspiring innovation and effective collaboration. On the other hand, I heard an unmistakable message from the police service, the local authority and the other agencies that such was the scale of the cuts hitting Greater Manchester councils that not only was the thin blue line being stretched ever thinner, but the fabric of partnership working was being stretched ever further, putting at risk their ability to fight crime effectively in the area.
Damian Green
I can only repeat what I said earlier to the shadow policing Minister. Given that the shadow Chancellor has said,
“The next Labour government will have to plan on the basis of falling departmental spending”,
the shadow Minister is facing the very problem that he seeks to point out. I therefore hope that he will not give false messages to the people of Tameside and elsewhere that, in the unlikely event that the British people hand the car keys back to those who crashed the car in the first place, he will have a new pot of taxpayers’ money. According to the shadow Chancellor, he will not.
Hazel Blears
The Minister is being tremendously generous in giving way. I think that it improves the debate if we ask these questions. He is right that hard decisions will have to be taken on all public services, including the police. Greater Manchester has just seen a £6.4 million cut in policing. Apparently, £100,000 of the money that is being taken off us is going directly to the City of London police, who are said to need
“more money to deal with events of ‘major national interest’ in the capital’s financial district”.
I think that the people of Salford and Eccles would far rather that money was spent on tackling antisocial behaviour and burglary than on protecting the financial district and the banks. Does he think that that is the right priority?
Damian Green
Given that the right hon. Lady has presided over this budget in her time, she knows perfectly well that money is not taken from one budget and given to another. One of the big things that the City of London police do is to fight cybercrime and fraud. People in Salford, like those in my constituency and in every other constituency, want the police to be as effective as possible in fighting fraud and cybercrime. That is why that money needs to be spent.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will have looked at the Opposition’s commitments on funding, so will he help me? Will they match our spending totals for policing and the police grant settlement or will they do something different? I am completely in the dark.
Damian Green
My hon. Friend, as ever, puts his finger on the right point. The shadow Chancellor is saying that an incoming Labour Government would cut departmental spending, but all the mood music from those on the Opposition Front Bench is that they would increase public spending. That is a central incoherence at the heart of Labour policy. I hope that in his response, the shadow policing Minister will clear that up and answer my hon. Friend’s very good question.
Despite having been in post for just over a year, police and crime commissioners have contributed to the transformation of policing. The recent National Audit Office report confirmed that PCCs are driving improvements and value for money in a way that unelected police authorities could not. Their engagement with the public is much greater than that of the old police authorities. For example, one PCC has seen an 800% increase in the volume of correspondence compared with what the police authority received. PCCs have also been at the heart of reform and have embraced new technology. For example, my local force in Kent is using predictive policing, which combines historical data with predictive algorithms to identify the areas that are most likely to be affected by crime, thereby helping it better to allocate resources and target the deployment of officers.
As the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee pointed out, we have set up the College of Policing to increase the professionalism of the police. I am grateful for the support of the Home Affairs Committee for the College of Policing. I want policing to be regarded as one of the great professions, alongside the law and medicine. The college will produce an evidence base on what works and lead a transformation in how police officers and staff do their jobs. The college will soon publish the first ever code of ethics in the history of British policing. Given that we have just been discussing the ongoing Hillsborough process, I am sure that the House will recognise the importance of that code of ethics. It will be a clear declaration of the principles and values that are expected of all police officers. It will ensure that officers act with high ethical standards in all their conduct.
Keith Vaz
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time, and I fully endorse the vision he has set out. I am a little concerned, however, about an issue that has been raised by a number of Members across the House, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), which is that the cost of the certificate of policing is put at £1,000. Does the Minister have any information that will help reassure those new recruits that either the Government are prepared to consider reducing the cost, or that it is money well spent for their future?
Damian Green
I am sure that it is money well spent because getting the best people into the police for the future is one of the principal points of our reforms. As I said, I hope that policing will become one of the great professions that people look to, and that therefore—even more importantly—it will provide a better service to the public. I know that the Metropolitan police commissioner is looking at providing soft loans or some other form of bursary, and it is for individual forces to decide whether or not to ask for the certificate and how best to attract people. I know that at the moment the Metropolitan police is looking at that.
Apart from the College of Policing, we are also expanding the Independent Police Complaints Commission to ensure that a greater number of cases involving the police will be considered independently. Given the current atmosphere surrounding various complaints about the police, I am sure that will be welcomed by the whole House.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way because it gives me the chance for a small plug. Has he had the chance to look through a copy of the report that I wrote for the Council of Europe on eradicating racism in police forces across Europe? If not, would he welcome a copy?
Damian Green
I confess that I have not yet read my hon. Friend’s report, and I would, of course, very much welcome a copy. I am glad that he got his plug on the record.
We have also launched the National Crime Agency, which is leading the UK’s fight to cut serious and organised crime. The priority for the NCA is to identify and disrupt serious and organised crime, and I am glad to report to the House that it is already achieving successes. In a recent operation in the Philippines, the NCA worked alongside US and Australian authorities to dismantle an international child abuse ring, leading to 17 arrests in this country. That is an excellent example of the partnership approach that the NCA was set up to develop.
While mentioning partnership, let me move on to collaboration. Police and crime commissioners and chief constables are working to drive efficiency and improve policing through greater collaboration. We know—we have already had an exchange on this—that collaboration initiatives can be challenging to set up, but there is no reason why forces should be planning to deliver less than 10% of their savings from collaboration. If they are doing that, opportunities are being missed.
Let me give some examples. Recently, the independent inspectorate praised the Warwickshire and West Mercia strategic alliance as one of the most ambitious and extensive collaborations in the country. In 2014-15, West Mercia expects 70% of its total expenditure to be spent collaboratively, generating 94% of the force’s savings requirement. Similarly, Warwickshire expects 75% of its total expenditure to be spent on collaboration, generating 75% of the force’s whole savings requirement. That shows what can be achieved.
It is important to recognise that collaboration is not just about sharing with other forces. Mental health, for example, has a big impact on crime and policing, and nine forces are now participating in street triage pilots that involve mental health professionals and paramedics working closely with police officers. They aim to improve the experience of, and access to, the health service for individuals at the point of mental health crisis. The initial feedback from those pilots is very positive, with good partnership working and a reduction in the number of police detentions under the Mental Health Act 2007. That is better for the police and, even more importantly, better for patients.
A further area where reform can both save money and deliver a better service is greater collaboration between the blue-light emergency services. Innovative work is already taking place between PCCs, fire authorities and ambulance trusts, and the Government are already supporting proposals for emergency services sharing properties, services, training and communications, through £3.8 million of funding from the police innovation fund.
Andrew Percy
I am interested in what the Minister has to say. I agree that there has been a lot of collaboration, but there still seems to be a bit of silo mentality in some of the services. Have the Government considered combining the PCC role to become also a fire commissioner and replace fire authorities, and to try to bring the two services together? There is a lot of synergy between them.
Damian Green
Obviously there are a number of such proposals, and the most sensible thing I can say at this point is that the Government will soon publish their response to the Knight review on fire services. That will, I hope, put all this in perspective.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I am fascinated to hear the Minister mention the Knight review because we thought it had been quietly shelved. Given that it has taken months and that the Minister seems to know more about it than we do, will he enlighten the House on when the Government might consider thinking about publishing their response to the Knight review?
Damian Green
I assure the hon. Lady that the response will be published shortly and I hope that that satisfies her.
Our vision is for policing to be digital by 2016 because technology has the potential to transform policing the way it has transformed many other areas of life. Hampshire police already use mobile data on a variety of devices to give officers a full digital experience through their work, and it found that it could demonstrate a 26% reduction in the time spent by officers in stations, and a 20% reduction in mileage covered by patrol vehicles. Again, we are using the police innovation fund to support mobile working and invest in mobile devices, data storage and transmission. Indeed, we found that digital working can increase efficiency, even in forces that are not geographically next to each other. For example, Northamptonshire and Cheshire have united to create a joint shared service, providing 24-hour human resources advice, uniform ordering, and admin functions. I am delighted that 32 forces have now agreed to become digital pathfinders, because the thought that we can transform policing through the use of technology is spreading throughout the police service.
At a time when public spending has been under severe pressure, this adds up to the most significant reform of the police in a generation. It has already led to more effective and efficient policing, which delivers value for money for the taxpayer and ensures that significant falls in overall crime continue year on year.
Of course the challenge does not end there. We need to make further cuts to public spending and the police must play their part, despite the protections that we have been able to provide. Importantly, we are taking a long-term view on police funding. Last year, we announced that the Government would undertake a fundamental review of the formula used to allocate funding between police force areas. That complex process will take time, but the first phase of the work—an internal analytical review—is already under way, and we will consult a full range of partners, both inside the police and the PCCs, at the appropriate point as the work develops.
I recognise that the funding settlement will create further challenges for PCCs and forces, but it will also bring opportunities, particularly for those prepared to innovate, collaborate and transform, drive efficiencies and deliver even better policing across England and Wales. I commend the motion to the House.
Jack Dromey
Of course that is right. I made reference in passing to an example in my constituency. An armed robber on the run hijacked a car, pushing aside a terrified mother of two young children, who were still in the backseat, and drove off. The speed with which the armed response unit responded and apprehended that thug was outstanding. The thug is now where he richly deserves to be: behind bars serving a very long sentence. Hon. Members will excuse me if I try to move on from the paragraph of my speech that I have been on for the past five to 10 minutes, but I will be glad to take further interventions as appropriate.
Our central concern is that, as the thin blue line gets ever thinner, the Government’s 11th hour police grant report does nothing to stop the remorseless hollowing out of our police service, with more than 10,000 police officers already gone from the front line. The delay and infighting within the Government over the threshold by which a referendum would be required for an increase to the police element of council tax bills, has put police and crime commissioners and local authorities in an impossible position with only a month left to set their budget.
Damian Green
Before the hon. Gentleman skates over what is the heart of his argument and when he talks about the thinning out of the thin blue line and so on, is he committing a future Labour Government to spending more on the police?
Jack Dromey
Let me answer that straight up front. The Minister referred earlier to “Labour’s legacy”. If we look at what we achieved between 1997 and 2007, we reduced the debt to GDP ratio from 40.9%, which we inherited from the previous Government, to 36.4% and, in addition to all the other achievements that I see in my constituency—the health centres, the schools and the children centres—we put 17,000 police officers on the beat and 16,000 PCSOs with them. Then, after the 2007 crash, we faced up to the difficult circumstances confronting the country, and that is why the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), when he was Police Minister, said that economies were necessary. He embraced the proposal that a 12% cut could be achieved without affecting the frontline. Instead, the Government went too far, too fast, driving through a 20% cut with all the consequences that have flowed for the front line.
It is precisely because of the concern that has been widely expressed about the consequences for the police service generally, and for neighbourhood policing in particular, that we commissioned the Stevens report, which has proposed a progressive agenda and the rebuilding of neighbourhood policing. In the next Parliament, that will be one of our priorities.
Keith Vaz
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I went to Belfast on his invitation, where I met Matt Baggott, to whom I pay tribute as I understand that he has just announced that he will leave the police after many years of service. It is right that the NCA should cover the whole of the United Kingdom and we should not have a situation in which a separate deal must be made with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and the Chairman of the Committee for Justice in his Assembly will persist in their efforts to ensure that the NCA covers the whole of Northern Ireland.
I say to the Minister—I know that he is deep in conversation with the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose)—
The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (John Penrose)
We are listening.
Keith Vaz
It is not possible to listen and talk at the same time, distinguished though the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare is. Perhaps they are talking about his promotion, and I congratulate him on his re-promotion to the Front Bench. We will miss him on the Administration Committee and in all the important work we have to do there.
Let me give a couple of quotes. Tony Lloyd, a police and crime commissioner, has said that the police are
“on the edge of a cliff”
after £100 million of cuts. Sir Peter Fahy, a distinguished chief constable, who is not elected, has said that 700 police posts will go, reducing his force to 6,400 officers. I have a rather remarkable quote from the chief constable of South Yorkshire, David Crompton, who said:
“Contrary to popular opinion the force doesn’t deal with crime for the majority of time—less than a quarter of what we deal with is crime…while we are spending time on these things we can’t spend as much time as we might want to on crime.”
What do the officers of South Yorkshire spend 75% of their time on? We need to know that. Chief constables are concerned about these reductions and we need to listen to what they say.
The Minister and the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds referred to the reduction in crime, which I welcome. It is a good thing when crime goes down, but I am worried about what has been unearthed by the Public Administration Committee, which is the concern expressed by a number of its witnesses that crime statistics are not as accurate as they should be. That is something that Ministers should look at.
Keith Vaz
That is a serious issue. People may feel that they cannot access police officers in the way they have done, so they do not report crime. We need to consider this issue when we look at the crime reduction figures. We should be encouraging our constituents to report those crimes, enabling the police to log them and explain what happens to them.
I hope that there is enough in the budget for new technology. I know that this is a feature of what the Minister is hoping to do: better collaboration, making sure that there are economies of scale. When the Select Committee considered procurement two years ago, it felt that the Home Office should produce a catalogue of best deals for local police forces. We named it after the previous permanent secretary and called it the Ghosh list, but she left shortly after, so we decided to name it the Sedwill list, after the current permanent secretary. There are no plans for him to leave. It is important that the Home Office looks at procurement issues. Only this week, the Select Committee visited the Metropolitan police firearms unit. We were all encouraged to take up firearms and shoot at targets to see how difficult it was for officers. I am afraid that it was more Austin Powers than James Bond for the Committee, but it gave us a flavour of what officers have to go through. One point made by the assistant commissioner, Mark Rowley, was his desire and that of the commissioner to have police officers wear cameras.
Keith Vaz
The Minister nods in agreement. That is a good idea, but that will cost more money, and I am not sure that the grant will cover the ambitions that the Minister and we all have to ensure that our police service is properly equipped.
The new landscape is welcome. The cuts have probably gone as far as they should have done. I want to see better engagement with the police service. We have a debate tomorrow on the Police Federation, but that is a separate issue. At the end of the day, policing is about what happens locally, and if local people and local police feel that they are not being well served, that is a problem for all of us.
Damian Green
With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will try to respond to some, although inevitably not all, of the points made in what has been a very lively and positive debate. I understand that there are concerns about reductions in funding but we are confident that they are challenging but manageable. What we see around the country in the constituencies of many hon. Members is that the police are not just making the necessary savings, but are transforming the way in which they provide the service to the public. In doing so, the measure is whether crime continues to fall—and crime does continue to fall.
Let me deal with one or two of the points made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) who speaks for the Labour party. Although he spoke for more than 30 minutes, essentially to attack Government cuts, he could not answer whether a Labour Government would reverse any of those cuts. Let me clarify for him that what the Home Secretary and I have said, along with everybody else, is that our only target for the police is to cut crime. We have removed the plethora of detailed targets that the previous Government set the police, which got in the way of cutting crime, and said that cutting crime is the only thing the police need to do.
The hon. Gentleman tried to separate that from crime prevention. Preventing crime contributes to cutting crime and of course that is the most desirable way of doing it. That brings me to neighbourhood policing, which he and the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) emphasised. One of the things about effective neighbourhood policing—to which I am as committed as anyone—is that it leads to a cut in crime. Effective policing on the ground means that things are spotted earlier. The net effect is that the crime figures continue to come down, so we urge all police forces to do that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley) was characteristically forensic and knowledgeable on this subject. He pointed out how money better spent can and does lead to better policing.
The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who chairs the Select Committee on Home Affairs, asked about recruitment and morale. I am happy to report that a number of forces are recruiting again—we have heard that Cambridgeshire now has more police. In all those areas, recruitment is extremely attractive. Forces that go out to find new police officers find people pouring in through the door wanting to do the job.
The point made about the formula by my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) is precisely why we are having the biggest review of the formula for more than a decade—so that we get it right and the current unfairnesses are removed.
A number of hon. Members talked about technology. I am glad that the House has welcomed our emphasis on innovation and technology. The whole point about technology is to release police officers to be on the beat and on the streets more often than they are now. That feeds into crime prevention, neighbourhood policing and all the other desirable things we want in policing. If we use modern, digital technology better, we will have more effective and visible police officers. That is at the heart of many of the innovations we are making, particularly those we are supporting through the police innovation fund.
People have asked how the technology will be paid for. The answer is that the first round of the police innovation fund was hugely successful and the second round will be two and a half times the size of the first. Police forces up and down the country, along with their police and crime commissioners, are using the fund to drive the use of technology, which will make policing even more effective in the future. I am confident that both the PCCs and the forces will be able to continue to deliver those efficiencies while providing the excellent service that the public deserve. I commend the motion to the House.
Question put.