Police Grant Report

Debate between Lord Beamish and Mike Hill

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Can we be clear what is being done with this settlement this afternoon? We are seeing a fundamental change in the way our police in this country are funded—moving funding from central Government to local taxpayers. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) quite rightly said that what the Government have announced today is a cut in central Government funding. It is a flat cash settlement, if we look at and take into account inflation and other things.

This is the first time I have ever seen such a parade of Conservative MPs with the duo from Dorset—the hon. Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and for North Dorset (Simon Hoare)—saying how they welcomed the settlement, and with the remarkable statement from the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) that she will say on a leaflet to her constituents that she is voting to put up their taxes. It is the first time I have ever heard a Conservative MP say they were going to put up taxes, but that is what we are actually doing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) is correct that this is not just about what is happening now; it is about what has been happening over the past seven years. The Prime Minister’s crime sheet, when she was Home Secretary, speaks for itself: a 5% reduction in the central Government grant for policing every single year, aided and abetted by the Liberal Democrats. In Durham, that has meant 350 fewer officers and 150 fewer support officers.

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Cleveland police, who share many services with the neighbouring Durham constabulary, have also seen such cuts. Does my hon. Friend agree that 500 fewer police officers—the boots on the ground—over the past seven years is intolerable?

[Mr Jones]

Yes, but that is what is happening on the ground. We hear all this guff and rhetoric from the Government about how they are somehow protecting frontline policing, but it is frontline officers who we are losing, and it is frontline officers who my constituents want to see on the streets.

We are told that local people will be quite happy to have their council tax increased. The proposal is for a flat increase in the precept of £12 a year across band D properties. The Government argue that that is fair, but for Durham it is completely unfair. Durham relies on central Government grant for 75% of its funding, so because of the makeup of council tax bands for properties in Durham, a £1 increase would increase expenditure by £46 per head of population. In Thames Valley, the figure would be £60, and in Surrey, it would be nearly £90. If the system is reliant on local council tax bands, the local precept that the police and crime commissioner can raise in some areas is severely limited. The Minister said that police and crime commissioners are welcoming this. Well, they have to be, because it is the only way they will plug the funding gap that is being created by the Government.

The other thing that is unfair is how this actually falls. In Durham, for example, 55% of properties are in band A, so if the police and crime commissioner increases the precept by the maximum, which he will have to do, that will raise £2 million, £800,000 of which will come from band A properties, and just £62,000 of which will come from band H properties. That is fundamentally unfair. The system means that those who are least able to pay will end up paying more. It is no good the Minister saying that he is protecting funding, because he is pushing that on to local taxpayers and in some cases on to the poorest in our society, who cannot afford to pay.

We have been promised a review of police funding, which clearly has been kicked well into the long grass. What we have tonight is a start, because no doubt next year we will have the same: flat cash again and more being pushed on to local taxpayers, and no doubt we will be told that the police budget is increasing.

A lot of nonsense has been talked about reserves. I thought that this crime had been ditched when George Osborne left this place, because he often criticised local councils for having reserves. He made the fundamental mistake—I learnt this many years ago in local government—of mixing capital and revenue, as this lot on the Government Benches seem to do willy-nilly. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) used a biblical reference, but I did not quite understand what he was talking about. Let me put the record straight on Durham. Durham has £5.7 million in general reserves, which is about 5% of the budget, so exactly what it should have.

We also have to consider earmarked reserves, which are for things that will increase efficiency. For example, Durham has another £5.6 million that it will be investing in modernising the force. In the recent period, the force has spent £10 million of its reserve paying off its pension liability, saving it some £850,000 a year. It has also had to use some reserves for the £4 million cost of the Medomsley inquiry, which is a very serious investigation that the force is undertaking. If reserves are used, they should be used cleverly and to make efficiencies. As hon. Members have said, when they are gone, they are gone. They cannot just be reinvented. What we are seeing today is a fundamental change. No doubt, the same situation will come back next year.

Let me come to counter-terrorism. It is right to put more money into counter-terrorism, but as hon. Members said, if we cut back on neighbourhood policing, that will have a direct effect on the police’s ability to counter the radicalisation that is taking place in some communities. I welcome the £50 million that is being brought forward, but I hasten to add that the request was for double that—£104 million—and I am interested to know why the Government are not meeting that requirement. I would like to know how the money is being used for regional forces. Durham, for example, has had to use some of its budget to fill the gap on the demand for counter-terrorism work. It would be interesting to hear how the £50 million will be spread across forces.

Although this is a terrible settlement, I think that my Front Benchers have given the Conservative party a great weapon to beat us with by deciding to vote against the entire settlement. The only thing that Conservative Members will use is that we voted against the £50 million for counter-terrorism. A lot of things in the settlement are fundamentally wrong for our communities. Forces such as Durham—one of the few forces that is not only outstanding, but outstanding in terms of efficiencies—have made the efficiencies that they can make and cannot cut back any more. If the settlement process continues, as I suspect it will, and each year the central Government grant is cut and more is put on local forces, places such as Durham will be completely disadvantaged. Promises have been made about reviewing the funding formula, but we are yet to see that. Without it, places such as Durham will find it more difficult to put in place not the policing that someone has arbitrarily decided is needed, but the policing that local people demand of their local police.

I pay tribute to the men and women of our police force. They do an extraordinary job and do things that many of us would not even dream of doing. In Durham, I congratulate the police and crime commissioner Ron Hogg on his leadership, as well as the chief constable, the men and women of the force on their work that they do, and the support staff behind them.

Let us be clear about what is being done: local people are being asked to pay for this increase. The Minister says that we have an increase in police funding. Yes, we have, but people will pay more tax locally. The Conservatives will vote later to increase the taxes of many poor people across the country to pay for policing. That is a fundamental change, and it is about time that the Government were honest about what they have been doing with policing and the cuts—[Interruption.] Does the Minister want to intervene?