Police Grant Report

Chris Vince Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)]

I beg to move,

That the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2025-26 (HC 621), which was laid before this House on 30 January, be approved.

With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to express my condolences to the family and friends—and to the wider school community at All Saints Catholic high school—of Harvey Willgoose, who was the victim of a stabbing in Sheffield earlier this week and sadly died. I echo the comments made by the Prime Minister that schools must be places of safety and learning, not violence and fear.

It is a privilege to present to the House the final police funding settlement for 2025-26. This is the first opportunity that the Labour Government have had to set out our commitment to and support for funding the police of England and Wales. In year one of this Government, we are starting the hard work of rebuilding neighbourhood policing and giving the police the tools to do the job. In contrast, year one of the previous Tory Government, in 2010, saw the start of massive cuts to frontline policing that cut over 20,000 police officers, baked in the unfairness in funding that many now complain about, and weakened powers to deal with antisocial behaviour and neighbourhood crime, the consequences of which we now see around the country.

I will commence my remarks by expressing my heartfelt thanks to the thousands of dedicated officers and staff, up and down the country, for their unwavering commitment and bravery. In the months since I was appointed to this post, I have met many frontline officers from around the country—from Bedfordshire, Cleveland, the Met, West Midlands, Suffolk, Merseyside and Humberside. I have seen and heard about countless examples of outstanding police work.

In the summer, the police demonstrated exceptional bravery and compassion in the face of unimaginably distressing scenes in Southport. The following day, those same police officers faced the most disgraceful violent attacks from criminals and thugs, with 302 officers injured while working to keep the public safe. We are incredibly fortunate to have so many courageous men and women devoted to keeping us all safe and pursuing criminals without fear or favour. This Government will never take their service and sacrifice for granted. The police deserve our respect and support, and the investment we are making through the settlement underlines our commitment to working with the police to deliver the safer streets all our constituents deserve.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I join the Minister in thanking the hard-working police officers and police community support officers in Essex. Last week, the Conservative police, fire and crime commissioner threatened to get rid of all 99 Essex PCSOs, who do incredibly hard work supporting my community of Harlow. Does the Minister welcome the fact that the PFCC has U-turned on that, and will she recognise the £27 million in extra funding for Essex police?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the issue of Essex. I will come on to talk more about the funding that is going into all police forces, including Essex. I am delighted that the threats that were being made about the reduction in the number of PCSOs will not come to pass. All police forces will benefit from the settlement, as I will go on to talk about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Vickers]

Last year there was funding of £900 million-plus; this year it is only £660 million. The hon. Gentleman is completely overstating what the Government are giving police officers. [Interruption.] He is wrong. We managed the finances to put the largest ever number of police officers on the streets of the UK. The Minister has given no guarantees that she will maintain that.

[Chris Vince]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Matt Vickers]

I will carry on; I am sure that there will be plenty of opportunities for everybody to contribute to the debate.

Thanks to measures introduced by the then Conservative Government, the total number of officers stood at 149,769 in March 2024—the highest headcount since comparable records began.

[Chris Vince]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Matt Vickers]

The hon. Gentleman will have plenty of opportunities to contribute.

I know that Labour Members do not like this fact, but the Conservatives left office with record numbers of police and thousands more officers on our streets than ever before. All we are doing is calling on the Government to try at the very least to maintain that number, not reduce it. In reality, the Government are placing police forces in an impossible position. How do they expect forces to meet their financial obligations without cutting officer numbers?

The Government will point to their intention to recruit new neighbourhood officers, but we all know that includes only a relatively small number of new officers—just 3,000. Most of the claimed 13,000 officers are either being reassigned, are part time, are volunteers or are PCSOs with no power of arrest. Given the existing budget shortfalls, I am concerned that that level of recruitment will not be enough. The £200 million allocated in that inadequate settlement appears insufficient to meet the Government’s stated objectives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I welcome the Government’s increased funding for the Metropolitan police, but this commitment does not go anywhere near far enough to deliver what is required for safe policing on the streets of London. The Labour party was elected into office on the mandate to restore community policing, which was gutted by the last Conservative Government. The shadow Policing Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers), may profess his own interest in police funding, but a more eloquent story is told by the empty Benches behind him when it comes to their commitment on this issue, which was demonstrated throughout their Administration.

We need to see real action and a real commitment to neighbourhood policing in order to address the ongoing issues of crime and antisocial behaviour that we are seeing across London, and to give the police the tools that they need to restore trust and confidence in our police service. I am concerned that this grant is not enough to protect current services provided by the Metropolitan police from further cuts, let alone enough to restore policing numbers and infrastructure to their previous levels. The force is experiencing real challenges in the recruitment and retention of police officers, which is affecting its ability to fill vacancies.

I receive regular correspondence from my constituents, who have passed on their experiences of being victims of burglaries and other criminal activities. The recurring theme in this correspondence is the difficulty that victims experience in ensuring that their cases are investigated in detail and at length by the Met. That is a direct consequence of cuts to our forces because our neighbourhood teams are severely stretched, meaning that the time they can spend on each case is limited.

My constituency of Richmond Park used to be home to three police stations, but after years of cuts they have all been closed. Richmond police station acted as a hub for our community, and provided reassurance to residents that they could quickly report a crime or a development in a case to an officer in person. The lack of these police stations in my constituency is causing that connection between the public and the police to be lost, due to the reduced visibility of police officers on our streets.

[Chris Vince]

Does the hon. Lady recognise, as I do, that the previous Government’s cuts to policing have led to a void of experience in community policing? We need to get that experience back, but that, sadly, will take time.

[Sarah Olney]

The hon. Gentleman is precisely right. Having had conversations with local police teams, what I find frequently is that there is a large turnover of police officers in neighbourhood policing, which really affects the ability of police officers to develop a relationship with their local communities. That lack of experience can be so telling when it comes to responding to issues such as antisocial behaviour.