Police: Funding

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I acknowledge the noble Lord’s great expertise in this area. The current Commissioner of the Met, while warning about cuts, also said that cuts without reform would not work. I think that everyone is signed up to the fact that there needs to be reform. What that reform should be is where the debate lies. Our argument is that perhaps there is greater room for the reform of policing—for example, doing away with targets and making just one target of cutting crime, and being better co-ordinated in terms of procurement between forces. Those are arguments that can be had. I also recognise the importance of local policing, which the noble Lord referred to as well.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is aware that cuts upon cuts to police budgets mean that more functions are now being carried out by the private security industry—even custody suites in police stations. The role of private security is increasing dramatically and it is interacting with the public daily, so why have the Government failed to regulate private security firms? The consultation on this issue had one of the largest responses ever and it was almost unanimous in its support for regulation. The industry itself—that is, the organisations representing those businesses—is calling for regulation urgently, so why will the Government not act in the interests of the public and of the industry?

[Lord Bates]

Of course the private security industry is the subject of regulation, and I will come to that. The reality is that in the past, in 2010, there were 5,000 police officers who were dealing with back-office and administrative functions. We said that, given the need to reduce overall budgets, the essential thing was to protect front-line policing, and therefore that we needed to move those people out of administrative tasks and on to the front line to actually fight against crime. That is what they have done, heroically, and that has led to a reduction in overall crime.