Police Funding

Ben Lake Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry]

The hon. Gentleman tries bravely but daftly to contradict the experiences of the Scottish people. I have just given the statistics from the survey conducted, which showed that people felt safer than ever before in Scotland. That is a fairly desperate attempt.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Many of my constituents feel that rural police forces have added challenges, as the population is spread across a large area. Does he agree that in reviewing the central grant and how it is allocated, the Government should strengthen the criteria used to determine the specific needs of rural areas?

[Drew Hendry]

That is an excellent suggestion for the communities the hon. Gentleman represents.

As I have said, it is because of the value of local policing that the public continue to have confidence in our police forces in Scotland. However, sustaining healthy police numbers is not an end goal in itself, as we want more police on the beat to create safer communities. It is no coincidence that, as has been mentioned, recorded crime in Scotland has fallen by about 40% in the past decade. It is important to stress that that is down to the hard work of police officers across Scotland in doing their job. Although I am not for one minute saying that everything is perfect in Scotland, the UK Government could follow in the footsteps of the Scottish Government and work with our police forces, instead of against them.

Police Grant Report

Ben Lake Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak. The debate has already touched on several very wide-ranging challenges that our police forces must face, but I will confine my remarks to three main issues. First, I wish to speak about how the settlement does little to address the struggles faced by the already underfunded and stretched police forces in Wales. I will then briefly reiterate the case for devolving policing to the Welsh Parliament in Cardiff. Finally, I want to raise an issue of which the Minister is, I hope, already aware: the complications that the apprenticeship levy is causing for Welsh police forces.

Members of the Government seem to have a problem with figures, whether that is £350 million for the NHS or £440 million extra for our police forces. Neither figure quite adds up, as the irrepressible North Wales police and crime commissioner, Arfon Jones, has made quite clear. This has already been discussed this afternoon, but it is worth reiterating that around £270 million of the £450 million supposed increase is accounted for by the Government allowing forces to levy higher precepts on council tax payers. The remaining £180 million is accounted for by the Home Office increasing central allocations. For North Wales police, the settlement means a real-terms cut of about £2 million. The police now face hard decisions on whether to implement further—and perhaps dangerous—budget reductions, or to increase the council tax precept, which hits constituents who are already feeling the pressure on their finances.

The police and crime commissioner for Dyfed-Powys police, Dafydd Llywelyn, has done an excellent job of retaining the number of police officers in his force in recent years, despite budgetary pressures and the growing demands that the police now face. We have already heard a lot about the new and changing challenges that our police forces must address, and he has employed an innovative approach in an attempt to cater for those new challenges. He has invested in such things as body cameras and better mobile technology, and established one of the best cyber-crime teams in the United Kingdom. However, I am told that keeping his budget in the black and maintaining the number of officers on the beat is becoming an impossible task.

The settlement subtly shifts the burden of funding from central Government to the local taxpayer, forcing PCCs to make an unenviable choice of cutting police numbers and putting their constituents at risk, or increasing council tax in already hard-pressed communities. It is patently clear that this is not a sustainable or fair settlement.

Of course, the police forces of Wales have been underfunded for years. There are now 750 fewer police officers in Wales than there were in 2010, which represents a drop of about 10% since the Conservatives took office. I would be hard pressed to find residents or communities across Wales, particularly in rural Wales, who have not witnessed the closure of either a local police station or the station desk. Central Wales, and particularly my area of Ceredigion, suffers the unique challenges of rural policing.

Responsibility for our policing policy is still retained here in Westminster, hundreds of miles away from the police forces that are carrying out their duties. Unlike in Scotland or Northern Ireland, our underpowered Welsh Parliament does not even have a semblance of the control required to deliver the policing that our communities need. It is not just those powers that would be boosted by the devolution of policing. Figures provided by Welsh police forces indicate that if policing was devolved and funded on a population basis, as is the case for other services, police forces in Wales would be better off to the tune of around £25 million a year.

The failure to comprehend the current devolution settlement is exemplified by my final point. My hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) has exposed a potentially devastating funding dispute that is born of confusion surrounding Welsh devolution and the apprenticeship levy. The apprenticeship levy, which Welsh police forces are of course subject to, is one of the main sources of funding to train the next generation of police officers, but despite having to pay millions into the levy, Welsh police forces are yet to receive a penny from it. This is down to a dispute between the Welsh and UK Governments. The Government at this end of the M4 claim that as training is devolved, the Welsh Government are responsible for the funding of training and apprenticeships. The Welsh Government, on the other hand, claim that the funding of officers’ training and apprenticeships is a matter for Westminster because policing is a reserved matter.

As I have noted, Welsh police forces are already under significant financial pressure. Whether this impasse is a product of incompetence or error, or a consequence of some political gamesmanship, it will mean fewer police officers on Welsh streets. We desperately need to overcome this impasse, so I would be most grateful if the Minister would update the House on the matter, particularly regarding what progress has been made to overcome this problem.

PCCs of all political colours have expressed their dismay with the police grant. Westminster’s apathy for Wales has never been more evident than when it comes to our police forces. My final request is that the Minister again considers the case for devolving policing to the Welsh Parliament and giving Wales the power to address its own policing needs. With our Welsh Parliament powerless to change things and central funding falling short of a level that could reasonably be considered fair, Welsh police forces face a difficult future indeed.

Online Hate Speech

Ben Lake Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I think that is slightly beyond my capacity today. My hon. Friend is right in so far as I think that many of us could benefit from a little more considered thought and pauseful contemplation before we press reply to Twitter attacks.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

It is important that the messages of hate spread by the President of the United States are condemned as the vile acts that they truly are. I speak on behalf of my party when I urge the Government to rescind their offer of a state visit to a President who has used his global platform to propagate intolerance. May I ask the Home Secretary to elaborate further on the pressure that will be exerted on social media platforms, such as Twitter, to prevent such untrue and poisonous content from permeating our society?

[Amber Rudd]

I repeat that the invitation to the President for a visit has been extended and accepted. We must remember that the United States has such an important relationship with this country in keeping us safe, and I urge all hon. Members to keep in mind the importance of that relationship before rushing to make such changes. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has heard from me this morning how seriously we take the need to make sure that all illegal content, including extreme content, is taken down from Twitter and other online platforms; and the importance of the platforms taking a more active role in ensuring that such material does not stay up.

Unaccompanied Child Refugees: Europe

Ben Lake Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Since my election to this place in June, the issue of unaccompanied child refugees has been a major topic in my postbag and inbox, so I am glad we are having this debate. I commend the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), who has already set the bleak scene in Calais, for securing it.

Before saying a little about the Dublin regulations, I want to touch briefly on the Dubs amendment.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Dubs amendment, far from being a pull factor, disrupts the traffickers who seek to profit from smuggling and the exploitation of vulnerable children by establishing a safe and legal route for those seeking asylum?

[David Linden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great misfortunes of this debate is that the Government talk a lot about a pull factor but have published absolutely no evidence; it is a case of putting up or shutting up.

I want to touch on the British Government’s woefully inadequate response to what is the worst humanitarian crisis since world war two. To be clear, we on the nationalist Benches would like to see the Dubs scheme continued to enable the UK to receive at least 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees from Europe. Moreover, we want the British Government to increase the total number of refugees they intend to settle under the Syrian vulnerable person resettlement programme.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting Sarah Kirby, from the International Rescue Committee, who shared with me some very harrowing statistics and data about the number of unaccompanied and separated children in Europe. Europol reports that there are almost 90,000 lone refugee children in Europe. Indeed, the UNHCR estimates that in 2016 about 33,800 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children arrived in Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Spain. The majority of those—some 26,000 children—arrived in Italy.

Earlier this year, it was announced that the UK Government had axed the Dubs amendment on refugee children and capped it at 480. The refugee crisis has not gone away and people are still fleeing the continuing violence in Syria and other countries, which creates a very serious risk that the numbers of unaccompanied children becoming prey to human traffickers will increase. Her Majesty’s Government need to do their part by continuing to provide places under the Dubs scheme when local authority capacity is available, as we know it is.

I commend many of the local authorities in Scotland that have embraced, with typically warm hospitality, many refugees from Syria. My own city of Glasgow has been outstanding when it comes to welcoming what are now affectionately known as “refuweegees”. In fact, Scotland has welcomed over a quarter of the total number of Syrian refugees in the UK.

I have some questions for the Minister. Will Her Majesty’s Government consider moving the date of entry to Europe to after 20 March 2016, if indeed there are still spaces available under the Dubs amendment? Given that there are currently 2,590 unaccompanied children in Greece and more than 13,000 in Italy, what assessment has been made of the UK’s ability to accept more than the already agreed 480 children? Sadly, it took a dead toddler to wash up on a beach and photos appearing on the front pages of our newspapers to make most of us sit up and take note of the stark horror of this humanitarian disaster.