Probationary Police Officers: Cost of Living

Chris Philp Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

Let me start by thanking the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) for securing this evening’s debate and for setting out the issues with such care, thoughtfulness and compassion, clearly based on personal experience of talking to police officers in his constituency and in Northern Ireland more generally.

As a Home Office Minister I have responsibility, primarily, for policing in England and Wales. I will make some remarks about policing more generally and about police officers’ salaries, which broadly speaking are the same in Northern Ireland as in England and Wales. I will then touch on some issues more specific to Northern Ireland although, being a devolved matter, they fall more properly within the responsibilities of my colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office, one of whom, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), is with us in the Chamber.

Starting with policing more widely, in England and Wales we are well on track to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers by the end of March 2023. Once we have done that, we will have a record number of police officers. Never in the history of England and Wales will we have had more police officers than we will have by the end of March. That goes to show that the package offered has some attractions and merits.

In the most recent pay awards, police in England and Wales received a flat, consolidated increase for this financial year effective from 1 September of £1,900, as the hon. Member for North Antrim said. I believe that in the last day or two it has been confirmed that that will apply to police in Northern Ireland as well, and will be backdated, so officers such as the one he described should get all that money in their March pay packets. For officers with children to look after such as the one he mentioned, that will be a welcome payment.

That £1,900 equates to an average of 5%, but for officers on lower salaries it represents a lot more. For entry-level officers such as those the hon. Gentleman described, it equates to 8.8%, because it is a fixed proportion of a smaller number. The view was taken that it was important to try to direct the increase disproportionately towards officers on entry point wages, for all the reasons that he set out with great eloquence. That means that since 1 September last year, officers have had a basic starting salary of between roughly £23,500 and £26,500. That is typically an 8.8% increase.

A median police constable will receive £41,000. The hon. Gentleman mentioned comparisons with other occupations; the police salary review body stated that median full-time gross annual earnings—not officers starting out at the beginning of their career—are 33% higher than the whole economy, 26% higher than so-called associate professional and technical occupations, and about the same as professional occupations. I am speaking about median earnings across the whole police force, not entry-level salaries, which are lower.

In addition to the 8.8% annual pay increase for people on starting salaries, there is incremental annual pay progression as officers get more experience. Those increases are at least 2%, and can be between 4% and 6%, on top of the regular annual increase. As an officer—like the young officer he mentioned—stays in the force, they will get not just the regular increase but the progression as well, so they will not have to stick with it for too long before they start seeing some meaningful increases coming through. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can pass on that message to officers in their first couple of years.

[Ian Paisley]

I thank the Minister for setting that out. That is helpful, and the timing could not be better because of the award that was made at the weekend. I also thank the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for being here. The fact that he is here says a lot, and officers will be grateful that he has turned up for this debate. He did not have to, and I know that he is very busy with other responsibilities.

On the point that the Minister has made, keeping pay parity with the rest of the UK should be a principle, and making the award to PSNI officers on 1 September each year is also critical. We are now at the beginning of February and the award has just been made in Northern Ireland. That has not really helped, and I hope that that lesson can be learned by the civil servants who help the Minister with this.

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. Salaries are not exactly the same but they are pretty much the same in Northern Ireland as they are in England and Wales, and the settlement that has just been announced is exactly the same. That is an important principle in relation to Northern Ireland in particular.

I emphasise again that this is a matter for my colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office. As the hon. Gentleman has said, policing is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, and it is not in my area of ministerial responsibility as the Policing Minister for England and Wales. A functioning Executive would give more flexibility and freedom to Northern Ireland to determine its own path and how it chooses to allocate money between different budgets. I understand that the Secretary of State, in setting the budget for Northern Ireland’s Department of Justice this year, has given a 3.1% increase—a total allocation of about £1.2 billion—but as the hon. Member knows, the freedoms available to Northern Irish civil servants are limited in the absence of an Executive, so the sooner we can get an Executive up and running, the more flexibility and autonomy the people in Northern Ireland and the elected representatives of the people in Northern Ireland will have.

The hon. Member made some comments regarding security, and he is quite right to draw attention to that. The UK Government provide the PSNI with additional security funding to tackle the obvious threat from terrorism in Northern Ireland, and the amount of money being paid over for that purpose in the current financial year, 2022-23, is £32 million, which is the same as it was in the previous year. In addition to that, there is a security funding payment of £8 million a year towards the tackling paramilitaries programme, which is designed to match the funding that comes from the Northern Ireland Executive. That money designed specifically to tackle terrorism, which has a unique Northern Ireland element, is continuing.

[Gavin Robinson]

I hope that the Minister will able to go back after this debate and ensure that tat frequency of funding for the tackling paramilitarism and crime taskforce will remain, because as I understand it, the Northern Ireland Office is tapering that money off, which would have an impact on the delivery of service.

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I am assured by my colleague, the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe, that he and his NIO colleagues will write to confirm the position on that in the very near future.

I think we are coming to the end of our allotted time, so I want to thank the hon. Member for North Antrim once again for raising this important issue. All of us obviously back our police forces and want to ensure that they have the funding, the salary and the resources to do their job. It is probably appropriate to close by extending, I hope on behalf of the whole House, our thanks to officers the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, but in this evening’s context, particularly in Northern Ireland, for the work they do in keeping us, our constituencies, our constituents and their families safe.

Question put and agreed to.