Police Grant Report (England and Wales)

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

Let me make a couple of points about that. The right hon. Gentleman, with his experience in the Home Office, was absolutely right when he said that there used to be more warranted police officers than there are today. However, actually in percentage terms there are more warranted police officers on the streets of this country today doing the work we need them to do than when he was the Minister.

It worries me that more than 10% of some forces’ warranted officers are still not out on the streets doing the job that we would expect them to do. That is one of the reforms with which we must persevere. We must ensure that officers with the skills and the equipment that they need are out on the streets.

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Penning]

Not for the moment. I will give way to the shadow Home Secretary when I have given way to colleagues who have already tried to intervene.

As for the point raised by the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), he should have asked those on his own Front Bench why they had said publicly, “Let us cut the police grant by another 10%”—something that we have not done.

[Mike Penning]

I met a delegation of Lancashire Members from all parts of the House, and indeed I met everyone who had asked to see me, including the police and crime commissioners and the chief constables. What really shocks me now is that not only has the Lancashire police and crime commissioner failed to welcome the budget, but he has been out there whingeing that he will be short of money again. What I would say to him is that he needs to take a very close look at his reserves. He has been moaning about a sum of £1 million, but if he looks at his reserves, he will find that it is minuscule compared with them.

[Andy Burnham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mike Penning]

Before I give way to the shadow Home Secretary, let me make a point about precepts. All Governments look at precepts. Some PCCs have said that they will not increase theirs, some are increasing theirs by the 2% limit, and others will take the £5 option. That is the arrangement to which we agreed. However, I was lobbied extensively by PCCs throughout the country who wanted the precept to go up by much, much more than 2%. Now I will give way to the shadow Home Secretary.

[Andy Burnham]

I am grateful to the Minister, but let us get something straight. When I became shadow Home Secretary, he and his Government colleagues were proposing to cut police funding by between 25% and 40%. It was pressure from Labour Members, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) in a full Opposition day debate, that forced them into a humiliating U-turn. Let us just get our facts right.

Anyway, is this promise what it seems to be? The Minister seems to be suggesting that there will be no cuts, but can he guarantee that there will be no real-terms cut for any police force in the next few years?

[Mike Penning]

I am so pleased that I gave way to the right hon. Gentleman. I should have given way earlier—I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry).

I find this absolutely fascinating. Any other Opposition would have considered modelling to establish what a force could or could not do, which is exactly what the Government did. We asked the forces whether or not they could absorb—in modelling terms—cuts of 25% or 40%. What we did not do, after that modelling process, was say, completely arbitrarily, “Well, we will make it 10%, then. You will be able to swallow 10% between now and 2020.” Some forces would have really struggled to do that under the present funding formula.

[Andy Burnham]

Answer the question.

[Mike Penning]

I am always straight. The right hon. Gentleman can sit there and waffle away from a sedentary position, but actually the 10% was waffle as well. There was no fact behind it, and most of the forces came out against it. Given the precept limits, none of the 43 forces was subjected to a real-terms cash cut.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

My hon. Friend has just touched on a point that I was going to make about collaboration. None of the 43 police forces around the country—not even London’s, with all its size and capabilities—can police alone. They need help across the board. The East Midlands regional organised crime unit is doing fantastic work, for example. And in my own region—the Eastern region—capabilities that were always exercised, with difficulty, in separate local forces are now being spread across the region. [Interruption.]

[Andy Burnham]

rose—

[Mike Penning]

I have been called many things since I have been in this House, and before I came here, but “frit” is not one of them. I give way to the shadow Home Secretary.

[Andy Burnham]

I am glad to hear it, because I never did think that the Minister was in that category. He is saying a few things that are worrying me. He stood there a few moments ago and said that there were to be no real-terms cuts to the police. That is simply untrue and I hope that he will correct the record before this debate ends. The other thing he just said was that there were more officers in front-line positions. A workforce survey that came out last week showed that his Government cut police officers by 18,000 in the last Parliament. Is he seriously standing there today and saying that, despite that cut of 18,000, there are more police officers on our streets?

[Mike Penning]

I know the Labour party are desperately trying to find a reason to vote against our very generous funding settlement, even though they would have liked to make it a really difficult settlement by cutting it by 10%. What I actually said was that there are more operational police officers on duty now on the frontline than there were in the past. That is what I have said at this Dispatch Box time and time again. Perhaps, when we hear the shadow Minister’s arguments as to why there should have been greater cuts—I should say cuts, because we are not going to cut at all—he will tell us what front-line services we would have lost. We need to ask that, because the money would have had to come from somewhere.