Policing

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes with concern the loss of 17,000 police officers in the last five years; further notes the most recent Police Recorded Crime statistics, which show sharp rises in some of the more serious crimes including knife crime and sexual assault and that, alongside evidence that some crime is rising, there is evidence that crime is changing and moving away from traditional forms such as burglary and car theft and is being increasingly replaced by cybercrime; is concerned by reports that the police budget could face between 25 and 40 per cent spending reductions in the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review; notes warnings from senior police figures that this could result in over 20,000 further reductions in frontline staff, the effective end of neighbourhood policing and much of the public being exposed to much greater risk; accepts that further efficiencies can be made in the police budget for England and Wales but believes that budget reductions over 10 per cent would be dangerous; further notes the ongoing concern surrounding the Scottish Government’s oversight of Police Scotland and the findings of the recent staff survey which found only 30 per cent of staff thought they had the resources necessary to do their job properly; and calls on the Government to secure a funding settlement for the police that maintains frontline services and does not compromise public safety.

I rise to speak to the motion in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. At the start, I should thank the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who is about to leave the Chamber. Old alliances forged over the cause of water fluoridation do, in the end, stand one in good stead. I am grateful to him.

We have just been discussing the powers that the police and security services need to keep us safe in the 21st century. I would be the first to argue that the House has a duty to provide those powers, alongside strong safeguards, but that is of course only half the story. Alongside the powers, we need the people to put them into practice. That bit was missing from the Home Secretary’s statement. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Britain led the world in policing, because our policing by consent model was based on investment in good people with a strong sense of public vocation. In the 21st century, crime is changing—it is moving online and becoming more complex—but what will never change is the simple principle that the foundation stone of good policing is that presence in every community and the building of those strong relationships at local level.

It therefore feels right to pay tribute at the start of this debate to police officers and police civilian staff. What unites this House is a deep sense of gratitude to the men and women who work every day to keep our constituents safe and put themselves in harm’s way to do it.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that among the police whom the public are most supportive of are our safer neighbourhood teams They have been so severely undermined by spending cuts in the past few years. In Westminster, we saw a 30% fall in police between 2011 and this spring, and many constituents are saying to me that they no longer see any evidence of safer neighbourhood teams on the beat. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is a cause of great sadness?

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend anticipates me, because that is going to be at the heart of what I say today. I am sure that she, like me, feels great pride in what the last Labour Government did to invest in neighbourhood and community policing. Those changes have been noticed by the public and have built confidence locally in policing, and that is now at risk.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

Let me make a point that I made during last week’s business questions. In Enfield, 152 uniformed officers have been lost from our streets since 2010, yet there has been a 22% increase in violent crime in the past year alone. There has been an increase in all categories of violent crime, and I think there is a connection between those two things. I wonder what my right hon. Friend thinks, because the reply I received from the Leader of the House was less than satisfactory.

[Andy Burnham]

My right hon. Friend rightly says that there is evidence that violent crime—knife crime and sexual assault–is on the increase and that the Metropolitan police have seen some reductions in numbers, particularly in her community. The big worry is that if the Government proceed with the spending plans they set out at the Budget, thousands of police officers could be taken off the streets of this country, particularly in London, where the change would be most keenly felt. That should concern Members on both sides of the House.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

I will make a little more progress and give way later on.

Last week, the shadow Policing Minister and I joined the Home Secretary and the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice at the police bravery awards. As I am sure we would all agree, it was a humbling evening. It was particularly poignant this year, with PC David Phillips in the minds of many. We think of David’s family today, and we hope that they take some comfort from the huge public response and outpouring of feeling that we have seen.

As I said when I started this job, when the Home Secretary gets it right, she will have my support—I have just offered that to her on the investigatory powers Bill—but where she and the Government get it wrong, I am not going to hold back from saying so, particularly where public and community safety is at risk. That brings me to my central point: this Government are about to cause serious damage to our police service and if they do not change course, they are about to put public safety at risk.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that all one needs to know about the Government’s policy is that four Conservative police and crime commissioners and the Mayor of London are preparing a judicial review, in the Met’s case because, in addition to a 43% cut in its budget—achieved and proposed—the Government are proposing another £184 million-worth of cuts as a result of the resourcing budget changes?

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[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend tempts me on to important ground: we are considering today not only the overall size of the cake for the police—how much money the police budget gets from the spending review—but how that cake is then divvied up. This week, PCCs of all political colours, have come together to say that the rushed changes to the police funding formula could seriously destabilise our police services. I would be interested to know what response the Government will make to the letter they have received.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I spoke to my local PCC yesterday and he confirmed to me that

“we are in a strong position to face future financial challenges”

while maintaining front-line services. Does the right hon. Gentleman therefore agree that many factors influence performance, of which finance is just one?

[Andy Burnham]

That may well be the case—I do not know, as I have not seen the details. May I gently point out to the hon. and learned Lady, however, that that is not the position everywhere? I refer her to the comments that the chief constable of Lancashire made yesterday before the Home Affairs Committee. He said that if these cuts go through,

“people in Lancashire will not be as safe as they are now”.

The chief constable of Cumbria has said that that force may not be viable, and we face the closure of police stations across the country. Complacency will not serve Conservative Members well in this debate.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

South Wales police force has had a reduction of 600 police officers in the past three years. I have had the privilege of working closely with community teams in my constituency in crucial areas such as counter-terrorism and dealing with extremism. Mark Rowley has made it very clear that uniformed officers on the beat also play a crucial role in that work. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such work is put at risk when cuts are made in police forces across the country?

[Andy Burnham]

That is the point: we are already hearing that police services in England and Wales are overstretched and struggling to cover all their functions. That is because in the past five years 12,000 full-time officers have been lost—the total was about 17,000 police staff overall. Three weeks from now, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be standing at that Dispatch Box announcing his spending review. If he follows through on what he said at the Budget, the country will soon have a very different police force, providing a much-reduced service than the one that has just been described. As it stands, the Home Office, like other unprotected Departments, is in line for a cut over the next five years of between 25% and 40%. If we assume that the Government are working to keep it to the lower end of that spectrum, it still represents a massive hit on resources. It will mean 22,000 fewer police officers than we have today. That is a massive number and the Government need to provide justification for cuts on that scale.

[Dr Murrison]

If things are as dire as the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting, why is it that crime across the country is falling? In addition, why is a 10% cut in police funding, which he said was doable at his party conference, apparently now “dangerous”, as his motion puts it?

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[Andy Burnham]

I will come on to deal with that, explaining clearly what we think could be done and what takes us into the realms of dangerous cuts. The hon. Gentleman glibly says that crime is coming down, but he just heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) had to say a moment ago. We know that crime has moved online and that the crime figures have not yet been updated to include those cybercrime figures—5 million crimes. I do not believe it will serve the Government well if they continue to exhibit complacency on these matters. There is good evidence to show that crime is not falling, but is in fact rising.

[Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

As a member of the Home Affairs Committee, I had the opportunity to question the chief constables that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. Is it not true that efficiency has to be part of the settlement and that some forces spend over £75 more per capita than others? That surely is where savings can be made.

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point, and I will come back to it later. I am not standing here today saying, “No cuts. Things have to stay exactly as they are. There is no room for efficiency in the police service.” Of course there is room for efficiency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) commissioned a report from the former Met commissioner Sir John Stevens in the last Parliament. He identified scope for savings of the kind that the hon. Gentleman just described. I am not saying that there is no room for cuts. The core of my argument is this: yes, make those efficiencies, but there comes a point beyond which the Government will be beginning to unpick the fabric of our police service and to put local communities at risk, and I am not prepared to see that.

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Lancashire has one of the best performing police authorities in the country, but owing to a flawed formula, about which a cross-party representation was made to the Minister, Lancashire is set to lose £25 million. People talk about crime reduction, but does anyone recognise that early intervention by the police in Lancashire working with communities and residents—

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I have a word of advice for the hon. Lady. Interventions must be short, because there are a great many people wishing to speak this afternoon. For future reference, during an intervention it is not acceptable to take another intervention from someone from a sedentary position however amusing it might be to the House. I am sure that the hon. Lady will now conclude her intervention and hand back to the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andy Burnham]

I am glad that my hon. Friend made that intervention, because it was a really important one and those on the Government Front Bench needed to hear it. They all shook their heads when she gave that figure of £25 million. Lancashire is not making that up. People are not speaking out for the sake of it. Doubtless the Government will want to accuse them of scaremongering, but this is nothing of the sort. Senior police are speaking out about what is happening. They can see that the proposed budget cuts, combined with the new funding formula, could seriously destabilise community and neighbourhood policing.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Andy Burnham]

I will give way in a moment.

That brings me to my first question for the Home Secretary today. I have just described how we saw cuts to frontline services in the previous Parliament. I have also said that we are looking at cuts of possibly up to 25%. What evidence can she point the House to today that says that the Government can safely shrink the police by a quarter from its current overstretched position and not put public safety at risk? In fact, what evidence is there that she can safely cut the police by 20%, 15% or even 10%? We would love to see it, but I do not think that we will. I do not think that that evidence even exists. This is what is happening: we are being asked to accept major changes to the police without the evidence to justify it.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I commend my right hon. Friend on his excellent speech. He will be aware that the commissioner of the Metropolitan police has warned that he is concerned about the safety of London if the scale of planned cuts and changes to the police funding formula go ahead. In an interview, he said:

“We think we can expect to lose somewhere between 5,000 to 8,000 police officers.”

He said that responding to a “marauding terrorist attack” or 2011 riot scenario would be harder. How much weight does he think that the Home Secretary and Chancellor should pay to the most senior police officer in the country?

[Andy Burnham]

The Home Secretary should give those comments her full attention. The figure that my right hon. Friend has just quoted is backed up by independent research that I have commissioned. It suggests that if the cuts go ahead—cuts of around 25%—London could see 5,000 or 6,000 police officers lost from the frontline. I know that he will do what he can to oppose those cuts and the funding formula in the coming months. I look forward to seeing others on the Government Benches doing the same, and standing up for the people of London as I know that he will.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

May I take my right hon. Friend from London and bring him closer to home? He might be from Leigh, but he knows Merseyside like the back of his hand. Does he agree that the level of cuts that are about to be imposed on Merseyside do more than just take away a service? They risk undermining the foundation of trust between us and our police.

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend puts it very well. Let us look at what Merseyside has said about what the proposed cuts would do. It has said that they would mean scaling down teams dealing with sexual assault and hate crime. Those are very serious implications. Where is the evidence to justify cutting the police on that scale? I have not seen it. I hope we hear it today, because this House cannot give permission to the Government to proceed with these cuts until they have made the case for what they are trying to do.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend as surprised as me to hear that there are Members who do not understand that, in certain parts of the country, crime is rising, not falling. Crime in Greater Manchester rose by 14% in the 12 months up to June 2015 compared with the previous 12 months. Recorded violent crime rose by 39% over the same period. Members must take account of the fact that some parts of the country are different. We have guns and gang violence in Salford, and it is a very serious issue.

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend puts her case very well. Crime may indeed be changing, and moving away from volume crime, such as car crime and burglary, but that is not to say that crime is falling. As I have said before, online crime is not adequately reflected in the crime figures. She rightly says that there are worrying increases in the most serious crimes in a number of areas, including in our part of the world, in Greater Manchester.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

I will make a little progress if I may, and take some further interventions later.

I was just saying that I do not see the evidence to shrink our police force back to the levels of the 1970s, leaving us with fewer police officers per head of population than other comparable countries. That brings me to my second question, which is not for the Home Secretary, but for the whole House. If there is no authoritative evidence that cuts on this scale will not put our constituents at risk, how on earth can we allow them through? We have called this debate today for the following reasons: to challenge the Government on what we feel is a reckless gamble with public safety; to give voice to the deep disquiet felt by thousands of police officers across all 43 forces in England and Wales about the future of policing and community safety; to initiate a proper debate about the future of policing and the needs of our communities, in advance of the spending review; and to alert the public to the enormity of what is at stake by launching a national campaign today to protect our police. Just as with tax credits, I cannot remember the public being told about these plans to decimate neighbourhood policing before they went to vote.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

What a lot of people outside this place will try to square is the right hon. Gentleman’s speech to the Labour party conference in which he said that he would cut these budgets by 5% to 10%. Rather than a thoughtful critique of what the Government are actually doing, what we have today is a cut out and paste standard attack on the Conservative Government for acting in a fiscally responsible way, which he suggested that they should do just a few weeks ago.

[Andy Burnham]

If the hon. Gentleman is going to intervene in the debate, he should at least listen to it. A moment ago, I said that we put forward plans for efficiencies before the election, so it would not be a sustainable position for me to say, “No cuts at all”, and I am not saying that today. What our motion says is that cutting the police by more than 10% would put public safety at risk. If he thinks that it is fiscally prudent to do that and damage public safety, then I beg to differ with him. I would love to see how he can justify cuts of more than 10% in his community.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there has been a 23% reduction in the force establishment in Merseyside since 2010? By 2019, that will have gone up to 41% of the workforce. Does he think that those on the Government Benches have any idea about the impact that that will have on the community, safe policing and the safety of police officers?

[Andy Burnham]

I do not think that they do. Cuts on the scale proposed would mean the effective end of neighbourhood policing as we have seen it in recent years, particularly in rural areas and areas of lower risk. We would see thousands of bobbies taken off the beat. It would take us back to the bad old days of reactive and remote policing, with officers retreating to cars and to the station. They will not be out on the streets or visible in their communities.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

The safer neighbourhood teams were started in Stonebridge in my constituency of Brent. They helped to build trust in the police and to lower crimes. We have had a 62% cut in our neighbourhood teams. Again, that is a false economy by the Government. There will be more crimes and fewer police to deal with them.

[Andy Burnham]

False economy is absolutely the point, is it not? The Government do not seem to equate the reduction in crime we had in the last decade, which began under our Government, with the investment in those community safety teams. That brings me to the role of police community support officers, one of the innovations of the Labour Government of which I, for one, am very proud indeed. Under the Government’s plans, they will become an endangered species. We know that they do not enjoy the same employment protection as warranted officers, so no doubt they are worried that they will be the first to go.

One of the gains brought about by PCSOs was that they substituted for warranted officers on lower level duties, such as managing the Remembrance Sunday parades we will see in our constituencies this weekend. Around the country, some of those parades are beginning to be scaled back and even cancelled because there is not sufficient police cover. Is it not a sure sign to the Conservatives that if the police can no longer cover events of such importance to our local communities their cuts have already gone too far?

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Aintree ratepayers association and neighbourhood watch is a non-party political organisation and wrote to me to say:

“It is, in our view, ‘criminal’ that such significant deep-rooted budget reductions are being considered, it demonstrates what value the Government places upon community safety and cohesion and totally sends out the ‘wrong message’ to those who do not want to abide by the mores of civilised society.”

I could not have put it better myself.

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[Andy Burnham]

Civilised society; that is what matters here. If people want a glimpse of what the future might look like, they should have a look at Tiptree in Essex, where residents already have to club together to fund their own private security guards. Is that the kind of society we want, with private security guards roaming the streets in areas where the police have withdrawn? The Government deny it, but that is what is happening on the ground.

This is not just about the loss of capability in community and neighbourhood policing. Forces are talking about disbanding mounted sections and dog sections. The cuts could have serious implications for the police estate, with police station closures all over the country and the police becoming a blue light only service, responding to emergencies and not dealing with crime at a local level.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

Today’s motion refers to Scotland, where we have 1,027 more serving police officers on the street than we had in 2007. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree, however, that it is iniquitous and unfair that Police Scotland should be the only force in the United Kingdom to be required to pay VAT on its operations, taking £23 million out of operational expenditure?

[Andy Burnham]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that should be considered, but I am afraid that I am not going to let him or the Scottish National party off the hook. The survey referred to in our motion says that only 30% of officers in Scotland feel that they have sufficient resources to do the job. I accept that that might partly be the responsibility of the Westminster Government, but I am not sure that the changes to the police in Scotland and the move to Police Scotland have resulted in the improvements that we were told would happen.

As I said only a moment ago, the police have spoken about becoming a blue light only service in places. In their briefing for this debate, Lancashire police state:

“We will attend fewer crimes.”

That prompts the question of which crimes. Where is the national public guidance on the crimes that can now safely be de-prioritised? Again, there is none, because the Government would rather pass the cuts and pass the buck down to a local level, leaving the public facing a confusing postcode lottery in policing.

If anyone believes that referring to a postcode lottery is an exaggeration, may I refer the House to the pilot scheme in Leicestershire, where the police attended burglaries only at houses with even numbers, a scheme that the Government claimed worked and that could now be expanded? At what point have we as a society or this Parliament accepted the principle that the police will no longer attend someone’s home if they have been burgled? At what point have we accepted the principle that some victims of crime can be abandoned in this random fashion? We have not, and I do not believe that this House should concede that principle. Policing practice should not be changed in such a way until the Government have provided sound justification for the change.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that cuts to the neighbourhood policing budget will undermine the follow-up work after serious crime, such as the gun crime that happened recently in Wood Green, in all our inner-city areas? Does he agree that for criminals this proposal is Christmas day 365 days a year?

[Andy Burnham]

I can do no better than refer my hon. Friend to the words of Peter Clarke, former deputy assistant commissioner of the Met’s specialist operations directorate, whom the House will know. Talking about what is in the offing, he said:

“We risk breaking the ‘golden thread’ that runs through the police effort all the way from local communities to the farthest part of the world where, in an era of global terrorism, defence of the UK begins”.

That is the point: that pyramid of policing that begins at a very local level and feeds intelligence into the system is not an either/or idea. We cannot just say that we will have officers dealing with online crime and withdraw people from the streets. We have to maintain a police presence in every community, which is a point that the Government seem not to understand.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

However, I believe that the former Policing Minister does understand that.

[Nick Herbert]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and he has been very generous. As I understand it, he is saying that cuts of up to 10% could safely be made now because, as he accepts in the motion, further efficiencies could be made in the police budget. Therefore, by definition, he has accepted that the efficiencies that have been made so far have not damaged policing. He shakes his head, but it is fairly obvious that if further cuts of up to 10% could be made safely he accepts that the reductions that have been made to date have not damaged policing. Is it therefore not extraordinary that Labour Members opposed those reductions in spending and said that policing would be damaged? Why should we believe them now?

[Andy Burnham]

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman intervened, because I am not saying anything of the kind. I am not saying that the cuts that the Government have managed to date have been without consequence. I have just described how functions as important as managing Remembrance Sunday parades have been cancelled. I have also pointed out that crime is rising and I, for one, do not say that there is no link between police numbers and rising crime. We looked at a plan to protect the frontline by merging police forces. I note that the Government have turned their face against that. It is all about how they do it. The frontline can be protected if the Government are prepared to manage the cuts in a way that takes resource out of the back office. They are not prepared to do that, either, so consequently we are seeing unacceptable cuts in police forces up and down the country.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

I am very interested in the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making about the frontline. Perhaps he would like to add in to his speech the fact that the proportion of officers on the frontline has increased over the past five years.

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[Andy Burnham]

“Proportion”—people will hear how the Home Secretary is trying to spin it. Let us deal in people, shall we, rather than proportions. Between 12,000 and 13,000 officers lost, police community support officers lost, and all at a time when crime is beginning to go up. She wants to take away 22,000 more. I say in all sincerity to the Home Secretary that with crime on the rise this is no time to cut the police.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

May I bring to the attention of my right hon. Friend another example of Tory promises? Croydon was hit very hard by the riots in 2011 and the Prime Minister came down days afterwards and promised to keep the area safe. Since then, the Government have allowed every single police station in Croydon North to close down and as of today we still have fewer police on the streets than in 2010, when these people came into government. Is that not yet more Tory broken promises?

[Andy Burnham]

Everybody will remember very well the terrible fire and the consequences of the riots on the streets of Croydon. People would expect promises like that to be kept, would they not? But with this Prime Minister and this Government, they are rapidly learning that such things are said in the moment to look good but are not followed through. Sadly, that is the hallmark of this Government.

The Government are sending the police on a dangerous journey without a route map. Where is the White Paper that sets out the case for these drastic changes to the police and the vision for the police service of the future? Where is the expert analysis of the changing nature of crime and society and therefore of the resource needs of the police? In the absence of all that, the only justification put forward by the Government, as we have heard today, is that despite reductions crime has continued to fall. I have dealt with that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I believe that in the last decade the reduction we saw was linked to the investment in neighbourhood policing and we are now beginning to see signs that crime is on the rise again.

The truth is that this whole process is not being driven by our future needs as a society, or by the changing nature of crime; it is a crude, Treasury-driven process that owes more to an ideological drive to shrink the state than to the good governance of the police and our public services. What we will soon be left with is the police service of the Treasury’s dreams but the public’s worst nightmares.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Does the shadow Home Secretary recognise the concern expressed by Sara Thornton, head of the National Police Chiefs Council, when she recently appeared before the Home Affairs Committee? She adopted the words of the chief constable of Merseyside police, who said that there is a political obsession with police visibility, irrespective of actual neighbourhood demand. Is not the shadow Home Secretary guilty, along with the shadow Ministers quoted in The Times today, of that political obsession, and of seeking to weaponise police numbers?

[Andy Burnham]

I think that the hon. Gentleman will regret those remarks. Listen to what senior police officers are saying. Is he accusing them of scaremongering? Is he saying that Peter Clarke, whom I quoted a moment ago, is wrong? Has he talked to his own constituents recently and heard their views about visible neighbourhood policing? I suggest that he speaks to them, because this is not about what politicians want. His constituents want to see a strong uniformed presence on their streets, keeping them safe.

As I have said, it is not just about the overall size of the cuts, because the Home Office, in characteristic fashion, is taking a bad situation and making it worse. The changes to the police funding formula—[Interruption.] The Policing Minister should not dismiss this, because the letter he received this week was a pretty difficult and sobering one for him. It talked about a process that is

“unfair, unjustified and deeply flawed”.

That is how his own Conservative colleagues describe it. It is highly critical of Ministers’ handling of the whole process, which they say was

“entirely avoidable and wholly unacceptable”.

They are now looking at a judicial review. Those are strong words, and is not the fact that it is Conservative voices saying them a clear indication that the Government are no longer carrying their own side, and that they are losing the confidence of the police as a whole?

Where do we go from here? A good start would be to put implementation of the formula on hold. Let me get to the heart of what we are calling for today. As our motion makes clear, we have not turned our face away from the idea of savings in the police budget, because there are changes to back-office structures and procurement that could protect the frontline. If one speaks to senior police officers, one realises that most accept that further savings of up to 5% are difficult but doable. Cutting between 5% and 10% gets more dangerous, and the cuts would be harder to make, but neighbourhood policing would have a chance in that scenario. My message to the Government is that if they cut the police by 10% or more, they will put the public at risk.

I hope that I can take it as read that the Home Secretary is fighting for the best deal she can get from the Treasury. Will she share with the House this afternoon what figures she thinks are acceptable without compromising public safety? If she can set out those figures, can she tell us where she thinks those savings can be made from within the police without compromising public safety? That is important, because her vision for the police needs to fit with the Government’s other plans for public services; they cannot be seen in isolation from the rest of the spending review.

Policing is the last safety net, and it will be forced to deal with the consequences of failure in other services. For instance, if the Government fail to tackle the crisis in mental health services in the spending review, that will only add to the pressure on the police and on police cells. If they force councils to close youth clubs, leisure centres and playing fields, the chances are that antisocial behaviour will be on the rise again. If they fail to invest in social care, they will leave our hospitals in crisis, ambulances trapped in queues outside and police cars having to fill the gaps. If they fail to sort out the mess in probation, caused by underfunding and part-privatisation, there will be a direct impact on re-offending and, ultimately, public safety.

Ultimately, that is the problem. What we are facing in this spending review is a drive to shrink back the state and then privatise it. In the response to this debate, we expect to hear plenty of talk about the deficit. Yes, the deficit is important, but there is not just one way to close it, and it is not more important than the safety of the public and of the country.

This is a milestone moment for the police service in Britain. The decisions that the Government make on funding over the next few months will determine the mission and the manner of policing and community safety in this country for a generation. That was the warning given by the Conservative police and crime commissioners in their letter to the Government this week. This is an issue that they now have to explain and answer. It is simply not safe to cut the police in the drastic way they plan, and they have failed to set out a case that it is.

Our motion makes a reasonable demand: put simply, it is to secure a funding settlement for the police that maintains front-line services and does not compromise public safety. Is there any Conservative Member who cannot vote for such a demand, or are they saying that they are ready to sacrifice public safety in the name of deficit reduction? It is not acceptable, and it will not be acceptable to their constituents, as it is not to ours.

Opposition Members understand the value of public service and public services. We have shown in the past that we can fight for our NHS, so we give notice to the Government today that we are ready to do the same for our police and for the safety of our communities. I call on Members on both sides of the House to think about what cuts on this scale will mean for their constituencies, put public safety before party politics and support the motion before the House tonight.

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[Mrs May]

Earlier the right hon. Lady intervened on her right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and referred to the issues around knife crime. May I take this opportunity to commend her predecessor in her constituency, Nick de Bois, who did a great deal in relation to knife crime and ensured that further legislation was passed in this House in that regard? On the issue of police community support officers, of course we value them, but the decision is an operational one for chief constables as to how they balance their budgets and ensure the differentiation. The sort of comments that we are hearing now about PCSOs have been heard before. For example, in 2010 the chief constable of Lancashire, Chief Constable Finnigan, said that with huge regret he had told all 427 PCSOs in the force that they might lose their jobs as a result of budget cuts. Did they? No, they did not.

Police reform is working, and crime is falling. This Government have achieved something that no other Government have achieved: we have proved that it is possible to improve services, and maintain public trust and confidence, while saving money for the taxpayer. We must not forget why those savings are necessary. The right hon. Member for Leigh mentioned the deficit and yes, we did inherit a structural deficit, high taxes, record debt and unreformed public services. I hope I do not have to remind the right hon. Gentleman, who was Chief Secretary to the Treasury when the 2007 spending review was decided—a document that continued this country’s course down that fateful path of profligacy.

[Andy Burnham]

If I may correct the Home Secretary, I conducted the 2007 spending review as Chief Secretary and a decision was taken to grow public spending at a lower rate than overall growth in the economy—a decision that the current Prime Minister and the current Chancellor described at the time as tough. The right hon. Lady needs to correct the record.

I want to ask the Home Secretary a direct question, and she cannot leave the debate today before she answers it. If she is saying that everything is fine, she now needs to tell the House at what level she thinks it is safe to cut the police before public safety is compromised. What is the percentage cut that she is prepared to make without compromising the safety of our constituents?

[Mrs May]

It sounded as though the right hon. Gentleman was about to get his handcuffs out and stop me. [Interruption.] Perhaps I won’t go there.

The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that the discussions around the spending review are currently taking place. The spending review will be reported to this House by the Chancellor on 25 November. We are still consulting on the police funding formula, and in due course, after the spending review has been announced, the funding formula will be announced.

Since 2010, we have cut the budget deficit by more than half, we have lowered the tax burden for people up and down the country, and we have set about reforming public services to better serve citizens and communities. It is therefore with some dismay that I see the Opposition making exactly the same mistakes they made in 2010—misusing statistics, worrying decent members of the public, and wilfully ignoring the experience of the past five years. The similarities are uncanny.

The weekend before last, the right hon. Member for Leigh told the Sunday Express that

“the Home Secretary is gambling with public safety”,

just as five years ago his predecessor told The Daily Telegraph that police savings were “an irresponsible gamble with crime and public safety”. Indeed, in 2011 the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) even called an Opposition day debate on police funding, with a motion that bore more than a striking resemblance to the one we are discussing today.

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[Mrs May]

Top-down restructures of police forces do not deliver the benefits they supposedly promise. We as a party here have said that if forces wish to come to us and say that they have a business case and local support for a merger, we will look at it. On top-down restructuring, however, the economies of scale invariably do not appear. The complexity of bringing together distinct organisations can distract from the day-to-day business of fighting crime, and the most precious element of policing by consent—local accountability—can be lost. We must go further to drive deeper collaboration, better sharing of back-office services and a more intelligent approach to where police capabilities sit, to generate savings without the loss of local accountability and identity.

[Andy Burnham]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way one last time. We agree that savings can be made, but what we disagree on is the extent to which they can be made safely. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) said that the Home Secretary is painting a rosy picture, and I think that police officers watching this debate will conclude that she is not living in the same world as them. This is not about what we on the Labour Benches are saying; chief constables from London to Lancashire are saying that the safety of their public will be compromised if the cuts go ahead. Does the Home Secretary think that those chief constables are scaremongering?

[Mrs May]

I will repeat the point that I have already made: if the right hon. Gentleman would care to look back to 2010, he will see that chief constables were making very similar points then and they have dealt with the savings. As he himself accepts in the motion, policing has not been damaged by the budget savings made over the past five years. Otherwise, he would not be able to stand up and say that further savings could be made.

Over the past five years, officers and staff have worked day in and day out to cut crime. Chief constables and police and crime commissioners have demonstrated true innovation and creativity in meeting the challenge of lower budgets, and in doing so they have shown that that greater efficiency, improved effectiveness and strengthened legitimacy are possible, all at the same time.

For the Government, the job is not yet done. We are currently consulting on a new funding formula so that the police grant is allocated fairly and in a transparent way between police forces. We have made proposals to allow much deeper collaboration with fire and rescue services and ambulance services—to save money and improve the operational response—and later in this Session, the Police and Criminal Justice Bill will give police officers much greater professional discretion to allow them to make savings, cut crime and improve services for the public.

Police reform has worked. That is the lesson that the Labour party has not yet learned, but in this Parliament—under this Government—police reform will continue.

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[Damian Green]

I am interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say. We can all make eloquent pitches about how any formula is unfair to our own areas. I would happily talk to him about education funding in Kent, but perhaps not in this debate. As I say, all debates of this kind come down to losers always caring more than winners.

Whatever the final results of both the spending review and the funding formula distribution, there are serious underlying issues for police leaders and Ministers to address about the long-term viability of the way we do policing in this country. Assuming we do not return to irresponsible levels of public spending, settlements will continue to be tight, so if we want a serious debate, we need to address those underlying issues.

Let me make a few suggestions. First, we have only scratched the surface of the benefits of new technology—for making policing more effective and for making it more cost-effective. I have mentioned body-worn cameras and the information available on smartphones. Both can save time and therefore money. There are huge savings in police time to be made from the better use of technology throughout the criminal justice system, especially with regard to police attendance at court.

The days when a police officer wasted a day at a court waiting to give routine evidence for five minutes should already be over. Evidence can be given by video link, or recorded on video at the time of arrest and charge. Faxes and photocopying should be things of the past in a digital age. The piece of paper in a bundle of evidence that goes missing or has not been sent to the defence, causing trials to be postponed and further days wasted, should be playing no part in a modern criminal justice system.

[Andy Burnham]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Green]

It will come off my time now, so I am afraid I cannot. I can count as well.

The next main point is that we have reaped nothing like the full benefits of collaboration between forces, about which we have heard some examples. Economic necessity has forced some useful collaboration between neighbouring forces, providing more effective policing at less cost. Specialist units such as firearms, mounted police or dog handlers can well be shared. We need more of that, but we also need a radical change in procurement policies—perhaps with national contracts for repairing police cars, and indeed buying them. Clearly, too, computer systems should be able to talk to each other in a way that they cannot now. There is great scope for better and more collaboration between the different “blue light” services. This will be a huge area of useful co-operation in the future.

My final suggestion is that some force mergers are inevitable, and should be made easier. I completely agree with the Home Secretary that a top-down blueprint of the type that previous Home Secretaries have proposed, which failed, is not the way to go. Many sensible people will argue, however, that in the case of some individual forces, there is a logic that says they should merge with their neighbours. I have heard that argument advanced by police and crime commissioners.

Policing is always difficult, and so is making policy for the police. I think the Home Secretary has a record that she can be proud of in this area, and I hope that she will build on this with further radical reform in the future, because the police need it.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The wisdom and strength of the Opposition resolution was proved by a novel decision by Leicestershire police, which recently decided to experiment by investigating only those burglaries that took place in houses with odd numbers. If the house had an even number, the burglary was not investigated. The news was welcomed with gratitude by the Leicestershire branch of the burglars and footpads trade union, but it was less popular with residents of Leicester who live in houses with even numbers.

I pay tribute to the late Michael Winner—it is rare that one has the opportunity to do that—and the matter of recalling and commemorating the deaths of policemen. Mr Winner, who was not admirable in every way, set up a charity to establish memorials on the sites where policemen had died in the cause of duty. We do not use such anniversaries to achieve political benefit for ourselves; we wear poppies because we want—genuinely—to mourn the deaths of those who have given their lives in warfare, and learn lessons accordingly. It is disappointing when a Prime Minister accuses us of using the Armistice ceremony for political purposes, when he started Prime Minister’s questions today by using the Armistice service to score a futile point against the leader of the Labour party.

My point is about Mr Daniel Morgan, and it is an issue of enormous importance that is endemic to the police force. Daniel Morgan lived in Llanfrechfa on the edge of my constituency. He was a 37-year-old private investigator who was working in London on a job to investigate police corruption. He was found dead 27 years ago in a pub car park in south London. His brother Alastair, who I spoke to yesterday, has carried out a campaign over all those years to expose what happened and discover the reason for the murder. He is still unhappy, and rightly so.

I am one of the few Back Benchers who have had the opportunity to read an amazing document called “Operation Tiberius”—I recommend that anyone who has the opportunity to read it should do so. Two members of the Home Affairs Committee were allowed to read it under strict conditions, with a policeman standing next to us making sure that we did not take notes. Our cameras and mobile phones were also taken away so that we could not copy it. People are not allowed to know what is in “Operation Tiberius”, and I am bound by the secrecy vow that I made at the time not to reveal what I read. I can, however, reveal what the Independent newspaper has said about “Operation Tiberius”, and it is terrifying. The document reveals that corruption in the Metropolitan police force is endemic and has been for many years. The scale is staggering.

[Andy Burnham]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend, because I recently had the privilege of meeting Daniel Morgan’s brother, who has campaigned with unbelievable courage over the years. My hon. Friend should be in no doubt that although I am calling today to protect our police and for more resources, that does not mean that we should not learn the lessons of what happened at Hillsborough, Orgreave, Shrewsbury and in the case of Daniel Morgan. We must hold that mirror up to the past if we are to build a police service that is ready for the 21st century.

[Paul Flynn]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I am far from being anti-police. I have known every police chief constable in my area since 1972—43 years—and they were all men and women of integrity who achieved great things in that police force. It is a fine force, and has been all that time. I was brought up to believe that all policemen were like “Dixon of Dock Green”, and that is why the contents of “Operation Tiberius” are so deeply shocking. It tells the story of crimes planned by little units of serving police officers of various ranks, and criminals. They met not in clubs or pubs where they would be observed, but in the branches of a secret fraternity. Jack Straw tried to persuade all police forces in the country to require a declaration of membership of that fraternity, but he was frustrated in that effort, because several of them refused to co-operate.

I believe that we must look at the “Operation Tiberius” report. I see no reason why it cannot be published with the names redacted. The names are all there—names of serving policemen and names of criminals—and the crimes are horrendous: they were plotting crimes, organising crimes, carrying out crimes, covering up crimes, and using people who were corrupted in all branches of Government. The report exists, and it is deeply serious.

I have already talked about Alastair Morgan. Another worrying example relates to the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and the way in which the police—certainly—tried to protect the perpetrators of that dreadful murder. We should recognise that a great problem existed then, and we should ask whether it still exists. When I raised it with Bernard Hogan-Howe in the Home Affairs Committee, he generously admitted that the issue was one of great seriousness, and that many people believed that the problem still existed.

The report, which was leaked to The Independent all those years ago, is also significant because, although it covers many parts of London, it does not cover south London, where Daniel Morgan was murdered. The suggestion is that there was some corruption in that leaking. I ask the Home Secretary and Ministers to examine the report and find out whether it is true that the contemporary situation in the Met is one in which endemic corruption still flourishes.

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[James Morris]

My view is that the police and crime commissioner is making some short-term decisions on the basis—[Interruption.]

[Andy Burnham]

rose—

[James Morris]

I will not give way, because I have done so twice already, and I have not even finished responding to the last intervention.

The West Midlands police and crime commissioner is making some short-term decisions in order to generate lurid, populist headlines about Government cuts, rather than taking the right decisions for the people of the west midlands and the broader black country.

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[Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to speak on this subject of such great importance, and to declare an interest in it. I had 32 very happy years in the Metropolitan police service as a detective serving in the counter-terrorist command and the national crime squad.

Not surprisingly, this motion has some fundamental flaws in the way that Labour frames its arguments about policing. It is far too simplistic to make a point about policing numbers when we are having a really serious debate about what sort of police service this country needs and wants. This is not, and should not be reduced to, simply a numbers game. If the Opposition were serious about discussing it, they would be asking questions about how they want the police services of this country to look, what their priorities are, and how they face the challenges of policing in the 21st century.

The system of policing in this country has had to evolve. We cannot think or accept that a system that was created and honed in the 1820s for a different time will be completely fit for purpose today. While many aspects of police work are excellent, we need to adapt, and the Government are doing just that. Technology has advanced at an incredible pace, and that has left previous models of policing in need of reform to meet today’s challenges. The Government continue to promote innovation and improved efficiency by allocating £70 million to the police innovation fund this year. That is key to my point about police numbers.

This is about efficiency, and about management effectively deploying the resources at their disposal. I have had numerous discussions with my former colleagues in the police about this issue, and I have found their views illuminating. It has made senior police officers think about how they manage and deploy their resources. It has required higher quality management, and, through that, the police service has reformed itself by having to prioritise what is important and re-evaluate how a modern police force needs to operate. That has rarely been done before, as Governments have never challenged how the police service works on a deep enough level. Under the previous Labour Government, there was too much bureaucracy and obsession with target-driven performance, as I well remember. While targets are vitally important, the Government have challenged the long-standing model of policing. Through that, police services have managed their priorities and resources more effectively, and policing has thereby become much more capable of meeting the challenges that it currently faces.

I commend the work of the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister in doing this. During such major reforms of such a vitally important part of British public life, I also commend the Government for providing the stability needed in the Home Office. We have had the same Home Secretary for over five years, and three Policing Ministers, including the current one. They have done an excellent job in providing the continuity and strong leadership required during this period. That is in stark contrast to the Labour Government, who, if I am correct, had six Home Secretaries and seven Policing Ministers. I well remember the days at Scotland Yard when most senior officers did not know who would be Home Secretary on any given day. The constant change of direction and personality in such a crucial role is not conducive to providing the confidence that the police need if they have to undertake major reforms.

The current situation has required courage and innovative thinking on the part of police forces. Given the many trials faced by policing, I am glad that the Government continue to invest heavily in the College of Policing, to ensure that the most talented individuals will lead our police forces in the future.

The Labour motion also mentions sharp rises in knife crime. Policing is complex and nuanced. It requires preventative and outreach work in communities, to try to change deep-rooted cultures that have built up over time. We must concentrate on how police tackle any rises in knife crime. I have read that some say that it is the fault of cuts in funding to police budgets, but that is a deeply misleading and dangerous statement to make about policing. The causes of knife crime are countless and diverse. Many are down to multifaceted and nuanced social reasons that have grown and transformed over decades. Crucial reasons for the recent rise in knife crime include the dark web being used to purchase weapons, a cultural change among young people, and improved recording of knife crime statistics.

[Andy Burnham]

I think the hon. Gentleman is saying—the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) and other hon. Members have also said this—that there is no connection at all between police numbers and levels of crime. Is that seriously the argument that Conservative Members are putting to the House?

[Byron Davies]

It is about how people are managed and deployed, and managers have to be trained to do that properly. That is the argument. The police are making serious efforts to tackle knife crime and they are making some important changes. The police are there to investigate, prosecute and tackle knife crime.

That brings me on to something that is missing from the Labour motion. It states that traditional forms of crime are being replaced by cybercrime. That is no doubt true, but my point about the dark web being used to purchase weapons is important. We must examine and tackle the link between cyber and more traditional crime.

Finally, I simply do not agree with the notion that this is the end of bobbies on the beat. I am sure that the Government would never compromise public safety. In fact, the proportion of front-line police officers has risen in the past five years. I implore the Police Federation to debate, discuss and engage in positive dialogue with the Government on reform, rather than continue to adopt its militant stance.

We must be serious about how we progress with policing. This is no time for political grandstanding. We must move on from the political obsession with police numbers. The public deserve a far more serious and forensic approach to policing services, and I am glad that the Home Secretary, the Policing Minister and the Government are undertaking the serious work required to do that, rather than engaging in political point scoring.

As a former police officer, I offer my full support to the Home Secretary on her and her team’s excellent work on falling crime figures and on ensuring that policing is able to meet the serious and perpetually changing challenges of the 21st century.

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[Seema Kennedy]

The word is “proposed”, but the problem is that a lot of what the police and crime commissioner says is based on figures that we know nothing about. There is a lot of speculation about what will come out in the autumn statement in three weeks’ time.

[Andy Burnham]

Osborne says 25%.

[Seema Kennedy]

I do not know whether I am allowed to respond when somebody speaks to me from a sedentary position and names a Member.

The Lancashire constabulary has made changes and will carry on making changes. Some of the talk about the changes has been speculative and unhelpful.

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Lady claims that the talk is speculative, but did she not read the Budget documents published after the election? The Home Office is unprotected, and unprotected Departments are looking at cuts of 25%. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and her chief constable say that her constituents will be less safe if that goes ahead. Is she happy to nod that through?

[Seema Kennedy]

First, I am not nodding it through. That is why I am speaking. The right hon. Gentleman mentions the figure of 25%, but the police and crime commissioner has spoken of a figure of 40%. They are both speculation about something else.

I would like to speak about the funding formula. We are talking about cuts and safety, but we can have a safe country only if we provide a strong economy so that, in future, our children are safe. It is all very well saying, “Safer now,” but if we destroy the economy in the longer term, it will not be safer now or later.