Police

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I am glad that the Minister mentioned some of the collaboration taking place between the Sussex and Surrey forces, and the better working with local authorities, which relates to an earlier point. He will know that from 1 April West Sussex is to have one division, which is a way for police administration to be more efficient, and it also leads to better front-line services.

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. I also gave the example of Surrey, where co-location has proved possible despite the funding reductions that have taken place. It shows that with innovation it is possible to think afresh about how these services are delivered to the public.

The key to the changes that I have outlined is service improvement from the same or less resource. As Derbyshire’s chief constable said last month:

“People won’t really see much difference in terms of neighbourhood policing, emergency response and uniformed patrols—we’ll still have a huge amount of people in the front line.”

We must also tackle the bureaucracy, which has tied up police time. It is no use focusing only on police numbers if too much police time is spent on inefficient or unnecessary tasks. Every hour of police time we save by cutting red tape is an hour’s more potential time spent on front-line duties. Scrapping the stop form and reducing the stop- and-search form, which officers have to complete, could save up to 800,000 hours of officer time.

I recognise the challenge facing policing. I also appreciate that many in the police work force are worried about their remuneration and indeed their jobs. I certainly do not belittle that concern, but my first priority must be to ensure that the best service is provided to the public within the financial constraints that we all face. Every chief constable I have met has impressed upon me his or her determination to do everything possible to protect front-line services while dealing with the reduction in funding. The Government are determined to work with the police service to ensure that that is the case.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Today the House is being asked to approve a 20% cut in Government funding for the police force in England and Wales. The deputy chief constable of Devon and Somerset, Shaun Sawyer, has said that these are

“the biggest…cuts for a generation”.

The deputy chief constable of Cambridgeshire has said that the cuts are “unprecedented” and will have a

“real impact on people's lives and families.”

The House is being asked to vote for 20% cuts, a reduction of more than 10,000 police officers, and substantial cuts to police community support officers and critical support staff. The choice for MPs today is whether to back those cuts to the police in their own constituencies or to stand up, defend their communities and tell the Government to think again.

[Henry Smith]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he will tell me whether he is prepared to support the cuts to the police in his constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Henry Smith]

May I ask the right hon. Lady whether she supports the Darling deficit reduction plan, which I understand the new shadow Chancellor also supports and which would have seen £9 of every £10 of the Government’s proposed cuts to the police service going ahead?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong, and I just say to him that he will be voting today to support 500 police officers being cut from the Sussex police force. I wonder whether he will put that on his leaflet when he campaigns at the next election—it will certainly be on ours.

Chief constables across the country are being put in an impossible position. Of course they are working hard to reassure the public, to do everything they can to improve policing, to manage with the budgets that the Minister has given them, and to deliver the best possible service and keep reducing the level of crime, but they are having the rug pulled from beneath them by the crazy scale and pace of these cuts. He can try all the smoke and mirrors he wants—he talks about cash cuts and hypothetical council tax increases—but the facts are very clear: there are to be more than 7% of real cuts in the police grant for next year and more than 8% the following year. The total cut is more than 20% in real terms, which is more than £2 billion, as the Minister has admitted.

What are the consequence of that? They are: 100 fewer police officers in Cumbria; 258 fewer police officers in Cheshire; 256 fewer police officers in South Wales; 114 fewer police officers in the Thames Valley; more than 1,000 fewer officers in the West Midlands; and more than 1,000 fewer police officers in London. The result is more than 10,000 fewer police officers in England and Wales. They are not our figures, but the figures from the chief constables and police authorities across the country. This means 10,000 police officers gone, which is the equivalent of every police officer in Hampshire, Kent and Sussex put together, or every police officer in the entire east midlands. That is the reduction that these areas are having to face and that is just the start.