Jack Dromey
Main Page: Jack Dromey (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)Department Debates - View all Jack Dromey's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mike Penning
I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his comments. We had a good meeting and I promised to listen, and I hope that the response I am giving today shows that we have listened. The funding formula for 2016-17 will be based on the existing formula and the announcement, as normal, will be made in December, but there will be a lot of work, a lot of listening and a lot of understanding of what the demands are, within the difficult financial situation that we are in. Not everybody will think it is fair, but we will think it is fair and we will not be in the opaque position of the existing formula.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
The first thing the Policing Minister should do is apologise to the police service for an omnishambles process—replacing one opaque and unfair formula with another; withholding vital financial information; publishing that information only under threat of legal action; and then publishing the wrong information.
The Policing Minister was right to apologise to Parliament, but I ask him to go one step further. Last Wednesday he dismissed all concerns about his new funding formula. Forty-eight hours later, it was revealed that he had got it wrong and had published the wrong data. Funding allocations varied by up to £181 million and there were 31 losers. When did he know that? What did he know, and when did he know it?
Tony Hogg, the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall has summed it up on behalf of the police service:
“We have now lost all trust in the process.”
The Policing Minister should abandon the discredited process, as he has agreed to do; he should start afresh, as proposed by the police and crime commissioners, which I hope he has agreed to do; and acting in an open, transparent and honest way, he should publish all financial data, which should be concluded as soon as possible and be overseen by an independent third party—perhaps the National Audit Office, because there is no longer confidence in the Home Office.
The third and final apology that the Policing Minister should give is to the public. The first duty of any Government is the safety and security of their citizens. People expect their Government to act responsibly when it comes to the policing of their communities and the country. This would be laughable if it were not so serious. I say in all sincerity to the Policing Minister and to the Home Secretary: get a grip, and get it right.
Mike Penning
The House will be disappointed in the shadow Minister’s tone. I was informed on Friday, and this is the first opportunity I have had to inform the House about the situation—[Interruption.] I hear shouts from the Labour Benches, “You should’ve known.” At the end of the day, I was not told, and the first I knew about this was when I was in the House on Friday. We will make sure that we have a fair process in place as we go forward. That is only fair. I have apologised and I will do so again if necessary, but I am not apologising when it comes to the hon. Gentleman’s tone, because he has got it wrong as usual.