Police: Working Conditions

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, as I made clear the other day, security is ultimately a matter for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. However, in the event of there being a major incident, it will obviously be the police who will take charge of operational matters at that stage.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, the Government’s approach to millionaires, which is a tax cut of 5p in the pound, is in stark contrast to their approach to the working conditions of our police, on whom we all depend and whose morale is at a low ebb, despite what the Minister said. Do the Government still intend to introduce the controversial Winsor recommendations on regional pay and cut starting salaries for the police? Will the Minister give an undertaking that, for the rest of this Parliament, the Government will not preside over compulsory redundancies among front-line police officers?

[Lord Henley]

I am not sure what the point behind the noble Lord’s first remark was, but I remind him that millionaires are probably paying higher rates of tax than at any point in the past 13 years—during a large number of which the party opposite was in government. On the second part of the noble Lord’s question, it would have helped if he had listened to my earlier answers, when I made it quite clear that the Winsor report was a very good basis for discussion. That is what we intend to do, because these matters have not been looked at for 30 years.