Police Pension Liabilities

Dan Carden Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will share the determination of the Government to do the right thing by public pensions and to make sure that they are properly funded. What the Treasury is doing is as a result of independent advice, and its approach is the right one, but there is a recognition of the difficulty that this causes the police at a time when things are already difficult and demanding. I made some comments earlier about possible exaggeration on their part of the problem. I should be more cautious, because there is a very real issue of stretch on police; I just do not happen to believe that there is the loss of officer numbers that they have indicated, not least because I am working very closely to find a solution to that. My hon. Friend can be assured that we at the Home Office, working closely with the Treasury, are determined to find a solution to this and to come to the House in early December with a police funding settlement that allows us to continue on the track of making sure that our police have the resources that they need in Essex and elsewhere.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I am quite frankly amazed by the language that the Minister is using and by the fact that he told my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) to be careful about what she says. No one in my constituency is telling me to be careful about what I say about knife, gun and gang crime being on the rise. Will he accept that with Liverpool and Merseyside police there are special cases with problems of organised and gang crime, and agree that they will not lose any more money through this Government’s incompetence?

[Mr Hurd]

I absolutely recognise the spike in serious violence that we are dealing with; it is an unbelievably serious problem that applies not just to London but nationally, and the Government are responding to it. I have one note of caution. It is not my business to give lectures to the Opposition, but the reality is that I have sat here with Labour MPs who, session after session, pop up and down demanding more and more money for policing, but actually, in the Labour manifesto, the shadow Front-Bench team committed £300 million additional funding to the police, which has been increased by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley to £780 million over this Parliament, whereas this Government have taken steps to put £460 million into the system in this year alone.