Police Grant Report

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend caught what Lord Patten said on the radio the other day. As the organiser of the Pope’s visit, he said that there will be a clear separation in that the costs of the state visit will be borne by the state and, where the visit is for Church-related purposes, the costs will be borne by the Church. Clearly, I do not know which category specific events will fall into when the Pope is in my hon. Friend’s constituency, but I recommend that he has words with Lord Patten to ensure that the appropriate funding is received from the appropriate body and that there is no additional strain on the public of his constituency in the west midlands.

[Steve McCabe]

I take my hon. Friend’s point. I simply say that it is customary to provide a special grant for such events. That is not what the West Midlands police authority has been promised at the moment. If the Minister wants to correct that, I am quite happy to give way to him. Not only are the Government not giving a special grant, but they will make the West Midlands police authority meet 20% of the cost of Operation Pelkin—to the rest of us, that is the Tory party conference in Birmingham in October. Some £800,000, which could be spent on supporting my constituents in their fight against crime, will be spent on supporting the Tory party conference in Birmingham. I am afraid that it is nonsense to say that this is a fair and reasonable settlement, and that the Government are doing what they have to do because of an economic necessity. This is the Tory party doing what the Tory party always does. It has a pretext for attacking the public sector and the police. It will waste money on political experiments and make my constituents pay the cost. The things that it promised before the election are as worthless as the policies that it is implementing now.