Police Employer Pension Contributions

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Nick Hurd

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)]

I am delighted to provide an update and to say how much I have enjoyed this important debate, although it is slightly longer than I anticipated when I woke up this morning.

I am authorised to give an update to the House in response to the many points of order raised by Members on the clear sensitivity around due process in relation to the hugely important issue of any Brexit deal. I am authorised to inform the House that there will be no press statement this evening. There was considerable concern in the House about that happening before the Prime Minister came to Parliament. I can also confirm to the House that the Cabinet meeting is still ongoing. I am sure the House will therefore appreciate that the Prime Minister is not in a position to come to the House. I hope that gives some reassurance to Members who are concerned about due courtesy and respect being shown to Parliament.

I will now respond to the substantive issue raised in the debate. I thank the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) for securing this long debate, which has had many contributions. In doing so, he has done me a favour by sending another signal to the Treasury about the importance of resolving this issue. I do not want to sound facetious, because we are talking about an extremely important issue that affects one of the most important public services in the country and a service, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) rightly said, that is the envy of most countries around the world. Let me be clear, not least to my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), that I am extremely aware, not least as a constituency MP, of the public’s rising anxiety about crime and the police. The Government absolutely understand that this is a system under pressure. I will come on to say more about that, but let me try to address the issues raised by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East and, with his permission, some of the issues raised by other Members who contributed to the debate.

It may surprise the right hon. Gentleman to hear that he and I are in agreement. Neither he, nor I, nor the Home Secretary wants to see any further reduction in police numbers. The right hon. Gentleman will know, because I am sure that he will have done his research, that police officer numbers have been stable over the past year. However, let me make it clear to him, as I have to police audiences, that one of the priorities for the Home Secretary and me is to increase the capacity of the police, because we have to increase their capacity to help them to respond to demand, which has risen and become increasingly complex. Therefore, without getting too technocratic, resource-weighted demand is the concern. They are getting drawn into more complex activity, which requires more time, more resource and longer, more complex investigations.

Underlying this—we have seen this shift since around 2014-15—are three elements. One is definitely the very unwelcome increase in certain categories of crime, and of course, the most alarming and most unacceptable is the violent crime—the knife crime—that the right hon. Gentleman rightly emphasised. Whatever the politics, I sense that there is absolutely cross-party support in the House to bear down on this, which is arguably one of the biggest challenges that we face as a society, given the complexity of the issues. We are definitely seeing some increase in crime—that is genuine and very unwelcome.

We are also seeing—I hope that the House sees this as something we can welcome—an increasing demand as a result of the police becoming much better at recording crime. We have to remember that it is not that long ago—2014—that the independent Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary was telling us that in its estimation the police were failing to record one in five crimes registered with them. That is absolutely unacceptable, and to the great credit of the police, they have responded to that criticism, but that generates additional demand.

I hope that the House would also welcome the third dimension of this increased demand, as made clear by the Office for National Statistics, which is an increased willingness of victims of so-called hidden crime to come forward to the police. I think that this represents very welcome, significant progress in society. If the victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and modern slavery feel increasingly confident about coming forward to the police, that is a sign of progress in the messages we send about the seriousness that we attach to investigating those crimes. I am prepared, as I hope that others are—whatever our politics—to show some respect to the current Prime Minister and previous Home Secretary for her leadership on this issue, including not least on modern slavery. This combination of factors has undeniably increased demand on the police, and the complexity of that demand makes their task even more difficult.

[Gareth Thomas]

Does the Minister accept, though, that those who see gang-related violence will not be encouraged to come forward and report what they have seen if they do not see the police securing convictions? I am worried that that is beginning to happen in my constituency.

[Mr Hurd]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern because I recognise the underlying concern, which has been expressed by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick and the Mayor, about encouraging people to come forward. There are issues around trust and confidence. That requires a robust police system to be there for people. We are increasingly seeing that in London, but we are also all aware of some of the underlying challenges with regard to trust in the police in certain communities, on which, to their great credit, the Metropolitan police have done a lot of work over many years to try to improve. This is not straightforward, but it is a real issue.

When I said that our priority is to increase the capacity of the police, that was not just rhetoric. Last year, as part of the police funding settlement, I stood at this Dispatch Box and took the first step on that journey—a step welcomed by David Thompson in the west midlands. It was not enough in his opinion, but he saw it for what it was: a first step in the right direction towards increasing the capacity of our police system with a police and funding settlement that has resulted in an additional £460 million of public money in our police system.

I also signalled last year our intention to do something similar for 2019-20, subject to the police meeting certain conditions on efficiency and productivity, again sending a signal of our intention to support investment in, not cuts to, policing. As a result, almost every police force in the country is recruiting additional officers. The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) talked about the Met. As a fellow London MP, I share his concern, but I am sure he will also welcome the steps taken to recruit extra officers to the Met. I believe that 700 have been recruited through a combination of what was enabled under the funding settlement and the actions of the Mayor himself. As London MPs, we should recognise that the Met is recruiting additional officers at scale.

Alongside the funding settlement and the support for local forces is the additional investment that continues to be made from the centre, through the police transformation fund, in working with police to build their national capabilities. We know the importance of building those capabilities in a fragmented system. More money has gone in to uplift armed officer capability, to support the increasing number of detectives and to support important new facets of policing, such as the first national wellbeing programme for frontline officers, which I hope the Labour party will support, and the investment in helping the police to build something that is critical for their future: their digital capability. There is, then, additional investment in policing.

There are challenges though. I find myself in full agreement again with Labour MPs over the importance of neighbourhood policing, which has come under considerable pressure in recent years, as the independent inspectorate made clear. There has been an inconsistent picture in neighbourhood policing across the country. I hope the Labour party will support what the police are doing now to agree new guidelines on what represents best practice in neighbourhood policing. The majority of forces are now adopting that best practice, meaning we will be developing a much more consistent model of neighbourhood policing.

With that comes a growing emphasis on crime prevention. I agree absolutely with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East. We cannot afford a police force that is reactive, but the police are increasingly concerned about becoming reactive. We all surely understand the importance of crime prevention. It is always smarter to invest in the fence at the top of the cliff than in the ambulance at the bottom. With that additional capacity and rebuilding of the neighbourhood policing model, I hope and expect to see a reassertion of traditional police strengths in problem solving.

I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about knife crime. Of course, there is a need for a robust policing pillar for that. It needs to be a combination of robust policing and prevention work to tackle the root causes. He understands, as does everyone, all the lessons from places that have beaten down on this problem in the past. It is that combination that is important and which I see being put in place through the serious violence strategy. I thank him also for recognising the importance of the additional funding for counter-terrorism policing in the Budget. We all understand the importance of that, and I am delighted to hear that the Labour party supports it.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) is no longer in her place—[Interruption.] I am so sorry. She has moved, which is really unhelpful for Ministers at the Dispatch Box—[Laughter.]—but I am delighted she is still here. She rightly raised the very important issue of mental health. All MPs engaged closely with their forces will know the growing frustration and unease among our police offices at how long they spend supporting people with mental health issues in their communities, so I hope the Labour party will welcome the additional investment in mental health locally. I am clear in my mind that one of the dividends from that additional investment must be a reduction in demand on the police, and I have made that point directly to the Secretary of State for Health.

The point I am labouring is that, although there is a lot of talk about cuts, in fact the Government have recognised that the demands on policing have changed, and, bearing in mind the limited resources and our concern for how much tax our constituents are able and prepared to pay, we have taken steps to increase investment in policing. With the £460 million, we are investing £1 billion more in our police system than we were three years ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hurd]

What I can say to my hon. Friend is that I have absolutely no intention of coming to this House to propose a funding settlement that will result in fewer police officers. [Interruption.] No, last year I submitted a police funding settlement that resulted in—

[Gareth Thomas]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would not normally intervene on a speech by a Minister replying to a debate, but I am seeing on social media that, despite the Minister saying there will be no statement about the Cabinet’s discussions on Brexit, there is now due to be a statement by the Prime Minister to the press afterwards. I wonder if there is any way in which we can clarify the situation.

Police Pension Liabilities

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Nick Hurd

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Again, the hon. Gentleman talks about cuts when his force has received additional investment of £9.9 million in a settlement that he voted against. I repeat what I said. I am aware of the demand on the West Midlands police. I am aware that this is an unfunded cost. I am aware that we have to find a solution for it, and that is what I am doing, together with my colleagues at the Treasury.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister knows that violent crime is up in our borough and police numbers are substantially down. When does he expect those trends to reverse?

[Mr Hurd]

As I have already signalled, the battle against violent crime and the determination we have to bear down on it is long-term work. We were in a similar place 10 years ago, and it took time to bear down on it then, but we know what works, and that is what we are applying.

In relation to the Met police, there is, as I said, an additional £100 million going into the Met this year. They are recruiting hundreds more officers at the moment, and the Met has over one and a half times the national average in terms of police officers per head. It is a stretched force, and a force that we ask to do a great deal. But, again, I hope to come back to the House in early December with our plans for next year.