Police

Debate between Andrew Percy and David Ruffley

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

Speaking as a former special adviser to the Home Secretary at the time of the Sheehy reforms in the 1990s and as a shadow police Minister in the previous Parliament, I think it is worth putting on record that policing is about leadership and that leadership from the top at the Home Office has indeed been supplied by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and her deputy, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice. They have shown a great deal of skill in negotiating a very difficult settlement for the police. The Winsor review has been an important contribution to getting more for less from the police budget. One does not have to talk up the Home Secretary’s book on this; the facts are quite clear. Part 1 of Winsor, which went to arbitration, has gone through with the support now of the Police Federation, and that is no mean feat.

I shall not spend too much time rebutting the number crunching of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). Even her own party accepts that there must be constraints on public spending, and that extends to the police force. Why? Because as a result of the economic crash in the previous Parliament, this country is now spending £120 million a day on debt interest alone. That cannot go on and public spending control is something that any responsible Government would have to put in place. The police force and the public understand that stark fact. I have yet to meet a police officer or a constituent who thinks the country can afford significant real-terms increases in police services.

On the total Government grants before us today, we see that the reduction in Government funding including specific grant allocations will be 4% in 2011-12 and 5% in 2012-13. They will be lower in 2013-14 at 2% and lower still in 2014-15 with a 1% reduction. Across local government there has been a reduction in the amount of funding allocated to specific grants, and some of the specific grants that police authorities have historically been used to receiving, such as the crime fighting fund and the basic command unit fund, have been absorbed into the police main grant.

Let us not forget that real-terms gross revenue had increased every year from 1996-97 to 2007-08. Those were very big sustained year-on-year increases. Sadly, they were spending increases that were allocated when we did not have the money on a sustainable basis. It was a boom time in the economy and the previous Government were spending money that they did not have.

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend refers to the increases in spending in central Government grant, but does he recognise that much of the increase in spending locally came directly from local taxpayers through massive increases in the police precept—in my area 500% over the course of the previous Government—and that, similarly, is not sustainable and fair on local people?

[Mr Ruffley]

Council tax as a proportion of the total police spend that all police authorities have will be about a quarter for 2011. It was half that—12%—in 2001-02, so the statistics bear out the experience that my hon. Friend has had in his police authority.

Returning to the historical increases, there was another interesting statistic that the Home Affairs Committee calculated. Between 2000 and 2008 the real-terms increase in total police spending was a whacking 20%, so I suggest, and I am sure Government Members would agree, that the police are looking at historically high real-terms spending figures over the past 10 years, compared with what they have ever had in the past. The shadow Policing Minister is chuntering from a sedentary position. Does he want to intervene?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy]

The shadow Home Secretary’s local chief constable at the time of the riots said that the issue was not about numbers, and he went on local TV to say that he had no issue with numbers and had, in fact, got enough numbers to “invade a small country”. Those were his exact words, on Yorkshire TV.

[Mr Ruffley]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.