Police Funding

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

This side of the House voted for a funding settlement that will see additional investment of at least £450 million in our policing system; the other side of the House voted against it. Having looked at the motion and having listened to the shadow Minister’s speech, I recognise that the serious debate we need to have about how we police modern Britain will not happen today. In fact, the motion on the Order Paper contains the now predictable Labour cocktail of shroud waving, smokescreens, disregard for truth and complexity and, as we heard in the response to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), the complete evasion of any detail of its own policies, which is a complete abdication of responsible opposition.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Hurd]

I would be delighted to give way to a former police Minister.

[David Hanson]

Will the Minister confirm a few things for me? First, in May 2010, there were 21,000 more police officers on the beat than there are now. Secondly, the burden on the taxpayer was not as high. Thirdly, the level of crime was lower. Fourthly, during the five years of the coalition Government the Liberal Democrats—the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) just intervened—voted to cut police funding every time.

[Mr Hurd]

I am about to come on to the history before I get on to the future. Again, I find it disappointing that Labour’s approach to the complexity of modern policing and its highly complex challenges is, as usual, to look back. Labour Members want to take us back to 2010, as the right hon. Gentleman has just encouraged me to do. Yes, we have a smaller police system than we did in 2010. Why? Because the coalition Government had to take radical action to get on top of a reckless and unsustainable deficit. Against a background of falling crime and stable demand on the police, it was recognised, not least by the thoughtful former shadow Home Secretary, Andy Burnham, that there was considerable scope to improve the efficiency of the police.

In London—our biggest force—we have broadly the same number of police officers as we did in 2008, we have less recorded crime than in 2008, and the police operation is costing the taxpayer £700 million a year less than in 2008. In Labour language, that means savage Tory cuts. To the rest of the world, it is a more efficient police force. I believed the Metropolitan Police Commissioner—[Interruption.] Labour MPs do not like to hear this, but I believed the commissioner, the excellent Cressida Dick, when she said:

“I think we can make some further savings. I am confident that the Met at the end of my commissionership might be smaller but could be as effective, if not more effective, through amongst other things the use of technology and different ways of working.”

As we are encouraged to look back, rather than forward, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the police leadership and police and crime commissioners on their impressive work over the past seven years to deliver a more efficient service. I also recognise the contribution that frontline officers and staff have made to that process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hurd]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady about the importance of that agenda. We police by consent, on the basis of trust. That gets harder if the police are seen to be less and less representative of the communities that they serve. It is a long-standing challenge and I completely agree on that. In fairness to the police, the numbers are the best they have been for a very long time, although they are nowhere near where they need to be, not least in terms of leadership role models. It is an issue not just of retention but of how officers are retained and managed through the system. Where the police are taking positive action—I have sat with the Greater Manchester police sergeant who has led the work—they have really moved the needle. If people apply themselves to this issue, what can be done is really impressive, and it is really not rocket science. I have sat next to the Home Secretary at a roundtable on exactly this subject, and our message to police chiefs is that we need to see much more action. The Greater Manchester chief is bringing a plan to the chiefs on exactly that, to find a gear change on the need to improve the diversity of our police force. It is hugely important to us and, assuming the plan is sensible, we will get right behind it. I thank the hon. Lady for raising that important point.

I was talking about the decision of the current Prime Minister to protect police budgets in real terms from 2015. It means that, in 2017-18, we are spending £12.6 billion of public money on our police system compared with £11.9 billion in 2016—an increase of £700 million. As this shift in demand continues, we have recognised the need to go further. Having done our own demand review—a process in which I spoke to, or visited, every police force in England and Wales—we brought to this House what we believe to be a comprehensive funding settlement for 2018-19 and, for the first time, set a direction of travel for 2019-20. In the debate on the settlement back in December, I made it very clear that the settlement, as always, is a combined contribution from the central taxpayer and the local tax payer. I also made it clear that final numbers depended on how police and crime commissioners responded to their new flexibility in relation to precept.

Following the statistical release from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government this morning, I can now confirm what the funding settlement will deliver in 2018-19, and this is based on now hard information on what PCCs will do. I can confirm that we will see an increase of £282 million in council tax precept funding for police forces next year, and a £460 million increase in total funding. We will publish further information on these revised figures shortly.

I hope that the whole House will welcome confirmation of the increase in funding on the assumptions that we made when the settlement went through Parliament—opposed by Labour. All forces will see their direct resource funding protected in real terms in 2018-19, including council tax precept—opposed by Labour. The proportion of forces’ direct resource funding—grant plus money raised through the precept—will increase slightly in 2018-19, compared with 2017-18. It will increase from 30% to 32%.

I hope that the House will welcome the plans put forward by most PCCs to use the additional precept income to protect or improve frontline policing. For example, we have heard about Essex and about Sussex, but in Kent, the PCC, Matt Scott, has empowered the chief constable to recruit around 200 new officers—the largest recruitment drive in the force for several years. In Nottinghamshire, the PCC aims to increase police officer numbers from 1,840 to around 2,000 over the next two years. In Avon and Somerset, the PCC will recruit 300 new police officers and strengthen neighbourhood policing.

Looking ahead to 2019-20, I indicated our willingness to allow PCCs to increase the precept by a similar amount, subject to progress on some efficiency and productivity milestones that we are agreeing with the police and the PCCs. Let me be clear about the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), because we never hear anything about productivity or efficiency from Labour—[Interruption.] No, we do not. We do not ever hear anything. After all these years of belt tightening and austerity, it is still agreed with the police chiefs that there is still at least an additional £100 million a year of inefficiencies on the table which could be saved through more intelligent procurement. After all this time, there are still those savings on the table, and we will continue to pursue them.

The motion mentions concerns about counter-terrorism funding, and we take those very seriously. The Minister for Security and Economic Crime will directly address them in his wind-up, but we are well aware that the threat that we face from terrorism is becoming more complex and more hidden. Funding for counter-terrorism policing has grown steadily since 2010, and the 2015 spending review and strategic defence and security review protected funding for CT policing until 2020-21.

This year, we have provided £28 million of new money to CT policing, going to forces across the country to meet costs relating to those attacks. Separately, we have also provided £9.8 million in special grant funding to cover the cost of the police response to the Manchester arena attack, and a further £7.6 million in special grant funding to London.

I can also confirm—I hope that the House will welcome it—that we have agreed £1.6 million in special grant funding for Wiltshire police this financial year, and further funding as its investigation continues. It is, of course, critical that we ensure that counter-terrorism policing has the resources needed to deal with the threat that we face. That is why, in 2018-19, the counter-terrorism policing budget will go up by 7%, increasing by £50 million of entirely new money to at least £757 million.

[David Hanson]

The Minister will recognise that armed police response units are critical. He will know that there were 6,906 armed police officers in 2010 and that, as of last March, there are now 6,278—a reduction of 628 or 9% overall. Will the Minister tell us whether that figure changed or moved in the past 12 months, and where does he see the restoration of armed policing?

[Mr Hurd]

Allow me to correct a misunderstanding. There is a separate additional funding commitment of £144 million to uplift our armed police capability. We are significantly increasing the number of specialist firearms officers. Once the uplift programme is complete, there will be around 7,000 armed officers—exceeding the number in 2010—in England and Wales who will be better trained and better equipped than ever before.

It is important that we talk about cyber-crime, not least because Labour Members do not, which is surprising because it is the fastest growing source of crime. It is quite clear that our constituents—the public—are increasingly much more likely to be exposed to crime through their computers than they are on the high street. It is a relatively new type of crime. Forces are learning how to better investigate these crimes and support the victims. There are lots of challenges, not least in aligning our local, regional and national capability, and that is why the national cyber-security strategy for 2016 to 2021 is supported by £1.9 billion of transformational investment. I could not begin to tell the House what Labour’s plans are to protect people from cyber-crime; I doubt Labour Members know.

We are living in a period of rapid change. Crime is changing, demand on police is changing, the police are changing and technology is changing everything very fast. But one thing is constant: the unconditional commitment of a Conservative Government to public safety, and upholding law and order. Labour voted against a police settlement that will see an additional £460 million of public investment in our police system next year, including a significant uplift in the counter-terrorism budget. It will mean that this country will be investing £13 billion of public money in our police system next year, which is an increase of over £1 billion on 2015-16. That is a big number. Here is an even bigger number: £55 billion. That is what the Office for Budget Responsibility predicts the country will spend on paying interest on our national debt—debt that was racked up by Labour.

Despite the constraints, we continue to invest to support the police and to work closely with them, including on the serious violence strategy, and on the development of mobile working to transform the productivity of police officers and give them more time on the frontline. We are developing a national wellbeing programme to support frontline officers, and working with the police to develop a long-term vision of what digital technology can do for British policing. All this is to ensure that we do everything we can so that Britain continues to have a modern police force that is on top of change, not chasing it, and that is fit for the challenges of the 21st century.