Police

David Ruffley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

May I begin by associating myself with the remarks of the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) about Paul McKeever? I had the pleasure—and it was a pleasure—of working with him when I was the shadow policing Minister, and he was a very effective representative of the federated ranks, and one of nature’s gentlemen. He represented many brave police officers—men and women—and we should never forget that in the context of funding settlements and reforms to pay and conditions. We honour and respect what police officers do each day on our behalf.

It is worth saying something about the headline figures for the police settlement that we are considering today. The Home Affairs Committee calculated that there was a real-terms increase of 20% in police funding in the decade up to 2008. That was something that the Conservative Opposition supported and voted for, and it had the result of making the British police force one of the best resourced in the western world. So when we look at reductions in spending—which we are doing in this settlement, as no one doubts—we have to see it in that context. It is coming off a very high base.

The figures for 2013-14 represent, in total central Government funding—that is specific Home Office grants, the police core settlement grant, the Department for Communities and Local Government revenue support grant and other bits of money—£7.8 billion, which is only a 1.9% reduction. These are not staggering figures, and I repeat that the reduction is against a backdrop of very high increases, which we supported, in the decade to 2008.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I pay tribute to Dorset police in my constituency for the wonderful work that they do. My hon. Friend was talking about the relatively small reduction, but Dorset is at the bottom of the heap and that small reduction over many years will actually be a massive reduction. If we had even the national police funding average per capita in Dorset, we would have an extra £16 million, which would mean an extra 50 officers on the beat. For us, even a small reduction has an enormous effect.

[Mr Ruffley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. My local constabulary area of Suffolk is not dissimilar to Dorset. People who were on the police authority and senior serving officers have made exactly the point that he has just made, which is why I am delighted to draw attention to the fact that the Home Secretary has announced a clear intention to review the formula that churns out the grants for each authority. However, she wants to do that once police and crime commissioners are bedded in, so that they can be consulted on how the formula can be tweaked. I would certainly hope—like my hon. Friend—that rural forces such as Dorset and Suffolk will get a better deal and a greater acknowledgement of the particular challenges of a police service that covers very strung out areas. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) is in her place, and I know that she endorses that point too.

[Mr Ainsworth]

Should I presume from what the hon. Gentleman is saying that he has an expectation that the review to be undertaken by the Home Secretary will lead to a further shift in resources from high-crime areas, which have already been hit the hardest, to low-crime areas? I am a great fan of Dorset, which is a wonderful part of the world, but it is not exactly the crime capital of England, is it?

[Mr Ruffley]

I am not suggesting that we do anything quite as crude as that: I am suggesting that those of us who represent rural seats think that sparsity factors are not being taken into account sufficiently. Clearly, the process must not direct resources willy-nilly. The needs of high-crime areas must be reflected in the formula, but the formula does need to be looked at, as the right hon. Gentleman will know as a senior Minister in the last Government. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Delyn will also know how incredibly difficult it is to strike the balance. Damping was a very controversial policy, but it was the best that one could do in the circumstances. We can have a serious debate about a review of the formula, but I—and other rural Members—will put our case for better and more equitable shares for rural areas.

We also need to thank the Home Secretary—at least those of us on the Government Benches who take an interest in law and order—for the doughty way in which she has fought the police service’s corner. She has been able—in a committed and forceful way—to ensure that the further 1% of departmental reductions that the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in his December autumn statement do not apply to the police budget for 2013-14. She has also commuted the reductions that would have flowed from the Chancellor’s statement in November 2011 on public sector pay restraint, and she has protected the police budget from those strictures.

We are not saying that this settlement is the one that we would have liked: of course we would all like more money for the services that serve our constituents. But we cannot let this debate pass without saying once again that there is a national economic crisis—I shall not be party political about how it arose—and whoever was in government now, Labour, Conservative or any possible combination of parties in coalition, would have to make reductions. It is undeniable that in the modern age Governments need to do more with less. They need to get better results with constraints on public service budgets. That means not just worrying primarily or solely about the amount of money put into a service, but about how that service is organised. That is why the Home Secretary should be thanked, again, for the shot of adrenaline she has given to radical police reform—getting more for less.

My right hon. Friend is in the fortunate position of being able to do this at a time of falls in crime—it was declining under Labour and continues to decline under us, notwithstanding the tight budget settlements to which the police have been subject.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

In Hull, we will lose 220 police officers off the beat. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that that will mean criminality on the street? Is not this debate about priorities?

[Mr Ruffley]

I do not accept that simple, direct correlation, as I shall explain.

In the 12 months to September 2012—the latest period for which crime survey figures are reported—we have seen an 8% decrease in overall crime against adults in England and Wales. We also have figures in that survey that show that since 1981 the lowest chance of being a victim of crime was in the 12 months up to that date. It should be a truth universally acknowledged that the effectiveness of a police force does not directly depend on the number of staff, but rather the way in which they are deployed.

We have already heard that the Home Secretary has scrapped central targets and energised the drive by chief constables to reduce unnecessary process—not just fewer forms, but a change in the way officers do things. There have been some encouraging examples of what the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz)— I see him in his place—and I looked at: the so-called four-force pilot of a much quicker and sharper incident reporting regime by officers on the beat. We have seen a rolling back of statutory charging in respect of more triable either-way offences, giving more discretion to the charging sergeant in the station so that he or she does not have to hang around on the telephone or wait for a Crown Prosecution Service solicitor to fetch up to give the charging authorisation. There are other examples, but we know that as a result of this crackdown on bureaucracy, memorably reported on by Sir Ronnie Flanagan in the second half of the last Parliament, progress is being made. The results are already there for us to see.

The number of police officers in front-line roles is projected to increase by 2% between March 2012 and March 2013. The proportion of officers in front-line roles is expected to increase from the 83% we inherited in 2010 to 89% in 2015. I found another statistic through research. According to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary—fairly objective data there, I feel—in March 2010, 17% of officers were in non-front-line roles, while the Government are forecasting that their announced policy measures could bring this down to 10% by March 2015.

[Richard Drax]

From my experience in the armed services, I know that the so-called backroom boys and girls who were members of the armed services in my day were very useful to call upon in times of trouble. While I quite accept that backroom boys and girls should be reduced to a certain degree, getting rid of all serving officers in those roles would mean that there is no reserve when, dare I say it, the proverbial hits the fan.

[Mr Ruffley]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, but we should resist the temptation to believe that a Home Secretary or a policing Minister in Whitehall can make decisions about the mix between uniformed back staff, who would be able to perform at short notice the kind of reserve and back-up on the front line that my hon. Friend describes, and pure civilians. This has been a long-running debate in the world of police reform, but we know that it is for the chief constable to decide and to make dispositions accordingly. Whether or not my hon. Friend accepts that, any Government would have to have in mind reducing the number of the uniformed work force in non-front-line activity.

Let me repeat the statistic. According to HMIC, in March 2010 17% of uniformed officers were in non-front-line roles. It is our intention that measures put in place to reduce that will mean that only one in 10 of uniformed officers are in non-front-line roles. I would have thought that the Opposition spokesman, the right hon. Member for Delyn, who I thought was a worthy and dedicated policing Minister in the last Parliament, acknowledged that that should be a policy objective of Governments, chief constables and police commissioners.

I want to talk not just about reducing bureaucracy as part of police reform, but about getting more bang for our buck by doing more with less. That relates to what are undoubtedly difficult and controversial reforms to pay and conditions—the Winsor reforms. I remind the House that when we talk about funding settlements for the whole of the police service, a massive 80% of expenditure for most police forces in England and Wales goes on pay. Yes, we can mandate collaboration, which this Government are in the process of doing to make efficiencies in procurement, information technology, uniform, traffic and so on. But those and other heads of spending amount only to 20% of what a police force spends; 80% is spent on people. It therefore seems to me that it is incumbent on any Home Secretary, whether Labour or Conservative, to look afresh at how we can get a modernised pay system, crucially linking pay progression—the former Government indicated that they supported this concept—with higher levels of skills and with those who have undertaken higher professional training. This is not performance by results, but linking pay to the skills that officers have, paying less attention to progress up the pay ladder simply as a result of age.

The Winsor proposals are, of course, more complicated than that. Chief constables will have flexibility—and it is they, not Ministers in Whitehall, who will make these managerial decisions—and this will be done in conjunction with the locally elected police and crime commissioners. It will be for them to ensure they have the proper mix of ability within the uniformed ranks and they will also have to make decisions about civilianisation in regard to the allocations laid before the House today for each police force area, and make that money go further.

I close by saying something about accountability. This money will be voted for by Government Members, and I think the right hon. Member for Delyn suggested that the Opposition will vote against it. We must get away from the idea that Ministers will be held personally accountable. We vote for the money, and I want the message to go out that police and crime commissioners will have the prime job of driving through change to get more value for that money.

I know it is early days, but my experience so far of the elected commissioner in Suffolk, Councillor Tim Passmore, has been positive. He has put together a draft set of priorities; he has gone to the trouble of speaking to and meeting all the Suffolk MPs; and he has taken amendments to his first draft. My own view—I think most police and crime commissioners should look at this—is that a target should be set for the percentage of time that officers are visible to the Suffolk public. I think, too, that an objective should be set to move towards the 10% of uniformed officers—and it is only 10%—who should be on non-front-line activities, which as I outlined is the national objective, by March 2015. These commissioners should hold themselves to account by explaining—in my case, to the taxpayers of Suffolk, but to others in police force areas up and down the country—what they are doing to reduce bureaucracy, to get a higher percentage of officers on the front line and to ensure not only that there are more of them on the front line, but that during their shifts they spend a higher proportion of their time visibly out and about so that the public can see them.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend and Suffolk neighbour for allowing me to intervene. I, too, pay tribute to Tim Passmore. Not only is he already sticking to his mandate of no rise in the precept, but he is applying a different perspective by opening cupboards and managing to understand where the money is going. I note his praise for operational police officers, but I also note his recognition that some external professional discipline can produce more for less—especially from the huge property estate, which he is working closely with the county council to try to rationalise.

[Mr Ruffley]

I think my hon. Friend’s point applies to every one of us whose area has a police and crime commissioner. The essence of localism, which I think, in its broadest sense, is supported by both major political parties and by the Liberal Democrats, is that we cannot for ever say that it is the Minister’s fault. We cannot keep on saying that the man or woman in Whitehall knows best. Those on the ground, the elected police and crime commissioners, must explain what they are doing in their forces, with their chief constables, to bring about greater visibility of policing—with manifestly constrained resources—and, if they are not able to hit their objectives, they must explain why.

Some people may think that we are doing ourselves out of a job—that we are just voting for the money and telling people to get on with it. That would be a crude gloss on what I am saying, but I think that the thrust of it is absolutely correct. We need local people, whether in Humberside, Suffolk, Dorset or the west midlands, to stand up and be counted. We need people to know how many hours have been saved in cutting red tape, because more red tape can certainly be cut: it can be rooted out. Assets are underemployed—estates are badly managed, for instance—and we need to get more value from those assets.

We face reductions throughout the comprehensive spending review period during the current Parliament, but I repeat that we started from a high base—a 20% real-terms increase over the 10 years of the Labour Government up to 2008—and the cuts should be seen against that backdrop. We do not support the cuts because we want to be beastly to public services, or because we think that the police should become more efficient and should therefore be paid less. We should all like to be in a position to look again at what we spend on the police once the economy starts growing again at trend or above, but in the meantime we must press on with reform.

We have had more resources over the past 20 years, but we have not had the reform that should have gone hand in hand with those increased resources. Under the current Home Secretary, that area of policy will not be neglected, because she knows that it is not just more money but the way in which we use our police that will enable us to reduce crime levels and keep our constituents safe.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—