Police Grant Report

Debate between Graham Stuart and Max Wilkinson

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Max Wilkinson]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an important point. When we call the police, we expect them to turn up. I do not blame the police officers for not showing up. If there are simply not enough of them to do the job, that problem is a hangover from the previous Government. This Government must go faster to solve that problem.

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman may have inadvertently suggested that there was a reduction in police numbers. There was a record number of police officers, the highest in this country’s history, when the Conservatives left power. That number has been reduced—frontline, back office and PCSOs; each and every one of them—by the Policing Minister and the Government opposite. I know that the hon. Gentleman, who is always an honest and straightforward Member of this House, would not want to suggest that the Conservatives left us with reduced numbers, when, in fact, they had increased.

[Max Wilkinson]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention—[Interruption.] I also thank Government Members for the many communications that are coming from the other side of the Chamber. When I hear the Labour party and the Conservative party arguing about police numbers, I just think it is an excellent advert for voting for one of the other parties.

If the Government are serious about restoring neighbourhood policing, they need to step up, get this reform right and get more officers back on to our streets. Ministers have suggested that the numbers will increase. We do not doubt their good intentions, but they will ultimately be judged on results.

We cautiously welcome the Government’s suggestion that they will assign a police team to every council ward, but the devil will be in the detail. So I ask the Minister—I am happy to take an intervention if she would like to put me straight, because we have asked a written question—will each council ward have its own policing team? Will it be unique to that ward, or will it be assigned en masse to several wards?

--- Later in debate ---

[Max Wilkinson]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. That is the point I am trying to draw out. The White Paper is somewhat non-specific on that point. It does say that there will be a named contact for each ward, but the suggestion is that that might be just one person—one police officer or PCSO per ward—and that that officer would have no other responsibilities. I do not believe that that will be the case given the numbers being presented, which means that the White Paper is perhaps somewhat misleading. I am not suggesting for a moment that Ministers would like to mislead the House, but the White Paper does need clarification.

If communities are to have confidence that stretched local police teams can deal with local issues, such as illegal e-scooters and e-bikes, they need certainty that police teams are available and accessible. Failure to do so will lead to more people feeling unsafe and, sadly, to more tragedies. In my Cheltenham constituency, we recently suffered the loss of an 18-year-old, who was riding an illegal e-scooter, in a road traffic collision. In my constituency, and in constituencies up and down the country, we frequently witness e-bikes travelling at speed, often on pavements and in pedestrian areas. An on-street police presence would surely deter such activities. That must be fully funded. Visible policing would also help to deter the onslaught of shoplifting that this nation is suffering. We must hope that the Government’s warm words on that will be backed by action.

We applaud the Government for announcing the impending abolition of police and crime commissioners. We Liberal Democrats have long opposed the politicisation of policing and we believe the money should be spent elsewhere. However, there is a risk that splitting the powers of police and crime commissioners between directly elected mayors and the Home Secretary will perpetuate the same problems with the politicisation of policing that we have experienced since 2012. The Government must ensure that in doing so, they allow crime and police boards, which will be made up of local councillors and representatives of relevant local groups, and will perhaps include mayors, to take over and ensure that police resources—the grant we are talking about today—are properly spent, so that we do not see money being wasted.

The Liberal Democrats are also calling for a police front desk in every community across the country. These would be in community hubs such as libraries, shopping centres and town halls. Such an approach would allow people to report crimes or share information with the police face to face in convenient and accessible locations.

[Graham Stuart]

When I met the chief constable of Humberside last week, he talked about Bobbi, an AI tool that is now able to meet 75%, and up to 90%, of queries. Does the hon. Gentleman envisage the desks always being manned, or would a computer or AI-based system be suitable in his view?

[Max Wilkinson]

We envisage them being staffed. Clearly, people want to see police face to face. AI can have a role, although we all know there was a cautionary tale from the west midlands recently that we would all like to put behind us. AI surely has a role, but in the proposals the Liberal Democrats are putting forward there would be staffed desks in convenient community hubs. I ask Ministers to consider that.

As Members will know, crime is not only concentrated in cities and towns. Many Members here in the Chamber represent rural constituencies. NFU Mutual estimated that the cost of rural crime in 2024 was as high as £44.1 million—a shocking cost to our countryside. We must consider the impact on those who live in rural areas, specifically farmers who are having a really difficult time. Their mental health and wellbeing can be badly harmed by crime. A survey of 115 NFU Mutual agents found that 92% believed rural crime was disrupting farming activities in their area and that 86% knew farmers who had been repeat victims of crime, leaving them feeling vulnerable in both their workplace and in their home. Rural communities have seen increasingly organised and damaging offences, yet only a small proportion of the police workforce is dedicated to tackling them. Rural crime is currently dealt with by just 0.4% of the overall police workforce.

Football Governance Bill [Lords]

Debate between Graham Stuart and Max Wilkinson

2nd reading
Monday 28th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Max Wilkinson]

Well, that person will be working within the boundaries of the regulator, and he is obviously very good at striking deals, is he not? If the hon. Gentleman’s contention is that he did a good job in his old job, we can be confident that he will do a good job in his new role.

The Liberal Democrats think that the redistributive mechanisms ought to go even further to promote financial sustainability, including by taking account of the restricted resources in the fifth tier, and redistribution beyond that level to cover more grassroots clubs in the national leagues north and south and beyond. Then, there is social responsibility. Football clubs are not just businesses; they are also civic institutions. They are often the most visible and well-loved organisations in any community.

Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords pushed for clubs to be mandated to report on their community work, so I welcome the new clause requiring clubs to do so. In my constituency, the Cheltenham Town Community Trust delivered £5.4 million-worth of social value work with young people and older people, and to reduce antisocial behaviour, in its last reporting year. What gets measured gets done. Clubs want to continue doing such work, but they cannot keep doing it if they cannot afford to because the Premier League is hoarding all the money. We need to go further to support clubs in that, particularly by providing help for smaller clubs that may struggle to fulfil reporting requirements. I agree with the Members who have made similar comments.

We believe that the Bill must go further on problem gambling. Nearly 30,000 gambling messages were posted across the premier league’s opening weekend this season. That represents a tripling of ads compared with the almost 11,000 recorded over the opening weekend of the season before. Such ads are normalising a dangerous relationship between football and gambling that is destroying lives. Football should not be a gateway drug to problem gambling. It cannot be right that, whether watching on television or in the stands, we are bombarded with gambling adverts to the extent that the enjoyment of the game is now, for so many people, culturally intertwined with placing bets. It cannot be right that broadcasters can launch their own gambling platforms, and use advert breaks to promote those platforms, using the pundits who describe the games as mouthpieces for gambling. That merger of journalism and advertising should give us all pause for thought.

[Graham Stuart]

To be clear, is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the regulator should intervene on the issue of gambling ads rather than this House taking responsibility for doing so? I worry about the regulator’s reach spreading and about it forcing small clubs to engage with their communities over ticket prices and so forth; if there has to be a regulator, we must keep it highly constrained.

[Max Wilkinson]

The football regulator would have a wider role than currently envisaged in the Bill if the Liberal Democrats were in charge.

When the Lords tried to tackle the proliferation of gambling ads, the Government committed a professional foul. As the Bill makes its way through this House, we hope that MPs will show gambling companies a yellow card—yellow cards on this matter are very Liberal—not a red card; we do not propose the banning of gambling, shadow Ministers will be pleased to hear.