Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Balls Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

We will hear more from the Home Secretary later this afternoon about the security threat to our country, but I am sure the whole House will want to join me in commending her on the very calm way in which she has handled events over the past few days. I also want to thank her for welcoming me to my shadow role and offering me a detailed security briefing.

On the spending review and its impact on police numbers in the west midlands, at the weekend the Home Secretary said that in the spending review it is important that the Home Office takes its share, and policing is taking its share in that, but given that the NHS budget is rising by 0.4% in real terms over four years and the Defence and Education budgets are falling by 7.5% and 11%, does the Home Secretary really think a real-terms cut in the Home Office budget of 25% and a 20% real-terms cut in the central resource budget for policing constitutes a fair share?

[Mrs May]

May I first welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his post as shadow Home Secretary? I was pleased to be able to welcome him to his new position with a telephone call and, indeed, to be able to update him over the weekend on the recent events that have taken place—they will be discussed in more detail later this afternoon, of course.

I simply say to the right hon. Gentleman that, yes, it is important for the Home Office to be willing to look at playing its part in dealing with the biggest deficit of any G20 nation, a deficit that was left as a legacy to this country by his Labour Government.

[Ed Balls]

Police leaders in the west midlands and across the country will have to decide for themselves whether that was an adequate answer. In the last week, the accountancy firm KPMG has estimated that 18,000 police officers will lose their jobs, and the Police Federation says 20,000, which would mean that 1,200 officers would be lost in the west midlands alone in the next four years. Given the impact these cuts will have in the west midlands and across the country, does the Home Secretary agree with these estimates of deep cuts to front-line policing, or does she think that KPMG and the Police Federation have got their sums wrong?

[Mrs May]

I repeat to the right hon. Gentleman what I said to the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth): the issue of policing and the effectiveness of policing is not just about numbers, which is what he and his colleagues seem to think; it is about how we deploy police staff and the job they are doing out on the streets. I have more confidence in the ability of our chief constables up and down the country, chief constables like Jon Stoddart in Durham, who says that

“our commitment to neighbourhood policing is undiminished”

and the deputy chief constable in Essex who said:

“We are…working on a…new Blueprint for policing…taking the opportunity fundamentally to re-design all aspects of how we deliver our services.”

We are clear that savings can be made without affecting front-line policing. We are doing our bit as a Government in reducing the heavy load of bureaucracy introduced by the right hon. Gentleman’s Government, which will result in police being out on the streets.