Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Thirty years ago, as secretary of the Brent Trades Council and the Brent Federation of Tenants and Residents Associations, I brought together, with progressive lawyers, the group that formed the second community law centre in Britain. It is still going strong to this day. For three decades, the centre has been a lifeline for those in need of legal advice and representation, challenging public authorities as we did when we won the battle to change housing regulations following the tragic death of a young husband on a high-rise block on the Stonebridge estate; he had been trapped because there was no way out of his burning flat.

Three decades on, as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham, Erdington, I was alongside four brave families who, funded by legal aid, won a landmark case against Birmingham city council, which had cut care to 4,100 elderly and disabled residents in Birmingham. Without legal aid, justice for the vulnerable would have been denied and a heartless council would have ploughed on regardless.

The hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) spoke on behalf of many on both sides of the House when she summed up the nature of the dilemma. Hundreds come to my surgery, as they do to hers, every month. Many face urgent and serious problems relating to everyday issues such as debt, employment, benefits, care services and family matters. I often refer them to specialists such as those at the Birmingham Law Centre, Citizens Advice or other legal aid solicitors.

Without that help, the people I see would not be able to stay in their homes, in work or in education. The vital advice provided by the specialists in social welfare law has helped many families and individuals whom I see to avoid costly litigation and prevent or mitigate the effects of marital and family breakdown.

Now, under these proposals, 650,000 at recent estimates—and half a million, according to the Ministry of Justice’s own impact assessment—will lose out on that vital help through changes to legal aid alone, when other funding streams for free advice have already been cut or are under threat. In Birmingham, about 6,500 cases will no longer be funded as a consequence. Each represents a loss of specialist help when it is most needed.

Legal aid funding is being withdrawn from all employment advice, welfare benefits advice, virtually all debt advice, nearly half of housing advice and nearly all education advice. There can be only one outcome: avoidable poverty and distress for many thousands of people. Not only will people be less likely to receive advice, but advice will be harder to find as agencies currently funded through legal aid find it more difficult to carry on. For example, the average impact of the cuts on individual not-for-profit providers will be a 92% drop in legal aid. That makes no sense, given that we know that the right advice early on can save the public purse up to £10 for every £1 invested.

It is absolutely wrong that in a civilised society, when things go wrong, we deny the people affected access to the specialist help that they need to put things right. As the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) said, we need to tackle the root of the problem—poor decision making by the various state bodies involved—as well as continuing to invest in the existing value-for-money front-line advice services such as the five tremendous citizens advice bureaux and the 13 advice centres in Birmingham.

In conclusion, the Government said that they made their legal aid proposals following consultation. It is clear that these are friendless proposals. It is clear that there has been a dialogue with with the deaf because the Government simply have not listened. They have not listened to people such as Gillian Gray from Citizens Advice, who says that civil legal aid keeps people in their houses, in jobs and out of debt. Hundreds of thousands of people will now have nowhere to turn. Serious cases of family breakdown, unfair dismissal and refusal of benefits will simply get nowhere.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), I was present to hear Supreme Court Justice Baroness Hale earlier this week as she forensically dissected the Government’s proposals, arguing that access to the courts without representation is a denial of justice. In her words:

“There is a well-known ironic saying, usually attributed to Lord Justice Mathew, that in England justice is open to all—like the Ritz.”

Justice for the well-off only is no justice at all.

Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

We are abolishing the Legal Services Commission. One of the most frequent complaints that I get about the system is the sheer bureaucracy, and it has had serious problems in the past. The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), tells me that we will save £8 million a year simply by bringing this in-house, as we are doing, but we intend to save quite a lot more on the administration of the system than that. It is hopeless, given our prime duty of protecting the public, if we waste money in that area and make it one of the most expensive and fast-growing areas of Government expenditure. We hope to make the system effective and targeted, and for it to do what we should be doing, which is protecting the public from crime and giving access to justice to the vulnerable.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Legal aid is a lifeline to those in need, often at a time of crisis in their lives. This Bill, and Government cuts to local government expenditure, will cut that lifeline to tens of thousands of citizens in Birmingham and threaten the future of our citizens advice bureaux and advice centres. Does the Secretary of State not accept that justice for the better-off alone is no justice at all?

[Mr Clarke]

That is just a very broad-brush defence of what the hon. Gentleman believes is the need to carry on paying £38 a head per taxpayer for the current legal aid system. Of course some legal aid is absolutely essential—crucial—to the liberties of our subjects and it is one of the standards of our society that we provide legal aid for people in extremis who would otherwise have no means of urging their cause. We have this grand, across-the-board system that finances what we can sometimes see is an inferior way of resolving disputes if we look for better methods of doing so. That will apply in Birmingham as elsewhere. The previous Government knew that the system had to be reformed; they simply could not make up their mind about what they were going to do to reform it. We are making some very well-considered proposals, which have been consulted on and thus modified to a certain extent, for getting the system back to a sensible size.

Police Funding

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

My right hon. Friend is extremely knowledgeable, as a former Police Minister. He will know that, depending on the police authority or station, 85 different functions could be performed every day in a police station by people from IT experts to those on the switchboard and reception. Of course, the temptation is to remove the back office, but if we do so, those in the front office—the visible police officers—will have to go there, because there will be nobody else to do that work. My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the problems caused by the suggested front-loaded reductions.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that West Midlands police assume in their planning that they will be unable to cope with cuts on the scale being forced on them by the Government without compulsorily retiring up to 400 of the longest-serving police officers under A19, and without a significant reduction in visible policing on the streets—fewer bobbies on the beat—in the west midlands generally and Birmingham in particular?

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is rightly concerned about that. I will be going to Birmingham in a week’s time at the invitation of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak to see how the CSR will affect visible policing.

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[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to speak after the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), who represents an area that I know very well. For many years I led all the unions at the Portland naval base, and I know that it is a fine community and a fine town.

The hon. Gentleman spoke with passion and conviction about the importance of police officers on the beat to both detection and deterrence. My experience of them, in the west midlands, is very similar to his. I have seen at first hand the outstanding work done by the police service there, and, while I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) that the police do not always get it right, I know that the community in the west midlands value their police service. There have been real improvements in recent years, and I have seen the consequences at first hand. Let me give three brief examples.

The first example is this. Nine months ago, in Stockland Green in my constituency, there was a serious increase in crime, including robberies and violent crime. The police mounted a major operation involving not only police officers on the beat, but the highly effective intelligence work behind the scenes that was described by the hon. Member for South Dorset. As a consequence, a number of arrests were made and the problem was dealt with very efficiently.

Secondly, I have seen at first hand how quickly the police respond to serious crimes in my constituency. I say with some sadness that there have been three knife murders in Erdington over the past nine months. It would not be appropriate to comment on the outcome of legal processes that are yet to be concluded, but I will say that the sheer scale of the operation that was mounted, quickly and effectively, in all three cases was hugely reassuring to a community who were rightly concerned about what were very serious offences.

Thirdly, I have seen at first hand the work of the local tasking groups. In Castle Vale, a very fine community in my constituency, the police sit down together with representatives of the local community, and they work together in a highly effective way to target issues of real concern such as antisocial behaviour.

I pay tribute to the work done by police community support officers, whom I have seen on the beat in the Erdington high street area. They are an immensely reassuring presence and they do a very good job, not least in freeing police officers to concentrate on what police officers are best at. I also pay tribute to our chief constable, Chris Sims. Chris is an able leader of the West Midlands police service, although he has had to deal with some problems in it. He is also the national champion of the Association of Chief Police Officers on the issue of bureaucracy—it is common ground that we can reduce back-office costs, for instance—and gives a national lead in the vital areas of forensic science and detection.

Not only is the West Midlands police service of great importance in the west midlands, but it performs those major national functions, as well as supporting other police services. It will play an important role in the run-up to and during the Olympics, and—as the Minister knows—it also plays an important role next door in Warwickshire when big problems arise. Time and again, the Warwickshire police service can count on the tried and tested West Midlands service.

I welcomed this morning’s meeting with the Minister. I hope that, for all the reasons that I have given, he will accept the real concern that is being expressed in the west midlands about the potentially serious consequences of a reduction of up to 2,500—including 1,200 police officers—in the West Midlands police service over the next four years, and of a potential reduction of 400 police officers before 1 April next year.

At the heart of the dilemma facing the police service in the west midlands is the fact that the financial structure in an area of high demand and high need is very different from that in Surrey. More than 80% of the funding of the West Midlands service comes from central Government, as opposed to 50% in Surrey. I hope the Minister will accept that if the Government apply quick and deep cuts indiscriminately to all police services, there will be particularly serious consequences in the west midlands.

The police service in my constituency, in Birmingham and in the west midlands, is already having to plan for the consequences of what it faces—including the compulsory retirement, under regulation A19 of the Police Pensions Regulations 1987, of some of the best long-serving police officers, several hundred of whom may have to go before April next year unless the Government change their mind. It is also planning for a significant reduction in the visibility of policing on the streets in the west midlands more generally and in Birmingham in particular, because it believes that it has no alternative. All that is a result of the scale and speed of what is being expected of the police service in the west midlands.

I know of no police service that is incapable of improvement. Yes, there is a debate to be had about how to reduce back-office costs. When our party was in government, it made clear that it considered that to be necessary. However, I ask the Government to accept a simple reality. Unless they change course, and if in 2011 we see a toxic combination of rising unemployment and falling police numbers in Birmingham, crime will inevitably increase. The first duty of any Government is to ensure the safety and security of our communities, in the midlands and throughout the country. Even at this late stage, I urge the Minister, the Home Secretary and the Government to hear the strong concerns expressed by the people of Erdington, Birmingham and the west midlands.

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[Guy Opperman]

That is an interesting observation, but when the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) was Home Secretary he famously said there would not be enough money to pay for various things, and the home affairs budget would clearly have gone down. It is not in dispute that that will present the Department with a significant problem. Efforts are being made, but a choice had to be made, and I applaud the Government on the choice they made and for going ahead with it.

I asked the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) whether he supported the police and crime commissioner changes. We find from talking to our constituents that the centralisation of control under Labour over the past 13 years is a significant problem. The legislation that the Labour Government brought in put ever more work under Whitehall control. The Home Secretary was given ever stronger powers to intervene and to direct police authorities. Labour’s approach failed to recognise the fundamental problem of policing, which is that those who should be in the driving seat, and those who suffer when things do not work, are the public, not the Government.

In the last year prior to the change in Government there were 52 documents of central policy guidance, and a further 60 on planning. The average length of the manuals was just under 100 pages, and they included 4,000 new promises. The principle is very simple: the police are there to serve the local community, not Whitehall, but for too long they have been serving Whitehall.

[Jack Dromey]

The hon. Gentleman’s esoteric dissertation on central Government diktats is all very interesting, but does he not accept this simple reality: as a consequence of what Whitehall is now doing in front-loading major cuts to the police service—7% and 6% in the first two years—local police services generally are faced with a nigh-on impossible problem and the West Midlands police service in particular will lose 400 police officers by 1 April next year?

[Guy Opperman]

I make this simple point: what would Labour have cut? All parties would now be facing this difficulty and, frankly, it is fanciful to argue there would not have been any cuts whatever to, say, the Birmingham or Northumberland police forces.

I want to turn now to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill. When under the leadership of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), Labour planned for elected representatives. In the 2008 draft legislative programme it announced that its Policing and Crime Bill would include proposals to provide

“a clear and powerful public voice in decision making through directly elected representatives”.

To my untutored mind, having done nearly 20 years at the Bar, that sounds remarkably similar to what we are introducing now. Labour referred to elected representatives in a policing Green Paper published in July 2008. I accept that I was in another place.

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[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I should first declare an interest: I am a member of the Kent police authority.

It is a pleasure to follow my hon.—and perhaps learned—Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), and I particularly welcome the emphasis he placed on the need for the localisation of policing decisions, as opposed to the centralisation that went on before. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), who I have not previously had the pleasure of hearing make a speech. There has been strong representation from the west midlands in today’s debate, and Members representing constituencies in that area have put their case well. The Conservative party was welcomed by chief constable Chris Sims in October when he organised the security for our conference, and we were very impressed with the service we received.

May I first tackle two propositions put forward by Labour Members? The first is that morale in the police is plummeting and that this settlement will lead to a worse service being provided by them. That is not my experience; I am consistently struck by the professionalism of officers in Kent and elsewhere in the country where I meet police officers. In Kent, we have been planning for many months for these grant reductions. The work that has been done and the engagement of every different area of Kent police in finding substantial savings has been extraordinarily impressive. I have not detected any reduction in morale. Officers and staff appreciate that there has been a very serious recession across the country and in the private sector, where many people have lost their jobs, had pay freezes or had severe pay cuts, and that the police family have come through that period very well. In addition, this Government kept to the third year of the pay review that had been agreed, and I know that that was greatly appreciated in many quarters.

The second proposition relates to the debate about police numbers and the level of crime. I heard the interview that the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice gave on Radio 4, in which he made perfectly sensible remarks, and I do not understand the excitement of Labour Members about this issue. The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) said that the number of West Midlands police officers had increased from 7,135 in 1996 to 8,536 this year. The level of crime did decrease over that period, certainly according to the British crime survey, which Labour Members particularly like to cite. What the hon. Gentleman did not say is that nationally quite a reduction in police numbers took place during part of that period—until about 2002-03—and thereafter those numbers rose. According to the British crime survey, there was a consistent reduction in the level of crime throughout the period—that started in 1994, as we heard from Labour Members yesterday. That does not correlate with the trend in police numbers over that period, so there is no simple link and it is very difficult to show such a correlation statistically.

What I know from my constituency is that police officers, effectively placed and doing the right thing, can make an enormous difference. For example, we introduced neighbourhood task teams to support neighbourhood policing. Medway has had two teams, comprising a sergeant and five or six constables, which support the neighbourhood policing teams, concentrating on particularly difficult high-crime areas. One huge success has been that, through working with other agencies, they have almost eradicated street prostitution in Chatham, which has been a problem for centuries. This is about working with other agencies. A particular team has helped bring about that success, but overall it is not possible to demonstrate a direct or simple relationship between police numbers and crime, and we need to recognise that.

Decisions on police numbers should be taken by local communities. The single most important change that we are about to see in policing is that, for the first time, this will not be about the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) suggesting that the Home Office commission research to decide what to do, or even about this House debating what we want police numbers to be and where we want them to be; this will be a decision for each local community to take, through the commissioner who they elect to oversee and organise their police force locally. That will be a hugely healthy change from the current situation.

I have always found, both as a councillor and as a member of a police authority—and in this House, to an extent—that democratic oversight is one of the key drivers of value for money in public services. This is about scrutinising what the employees, the officers and the people delivering the service are doing and ensuring that they are delivering value for money for the taxpayer. I am not convinced that the same savings have been made in national Government as have been made in areas where there is more direct democratic oversight: in local government and, to an extent, in police authorities. If each Department were to report to the relevant Select Committee and the permanent secretary were to put his budget before that Committee for approval and discussion, item by item, that would help us to find savings.

The Government have set out a strong savings programme, but what I see when I participate in the budget review group and the audit and finance committee of our police authority in Kent is that members of the authority, a majority of whom are elected—it is the elected members who must pass the police precept every year—subject the police officers to an enormous degree of scrutiny. Through that process we have made much more substantial savings than we have been ordered to find by the centre. When we examine the reductions in police grant that are coming, the decision will be taken locally as to what the level of precept will be.

Kent’s new chief constable, whom we brought in from Norfolk, where he had been deputy chief constable and had done fantastic work in improving public confidence, making significant savings and restructuring the force, said that he sees these grant reductions as an opportunity to deliver a more efficient and effective force. [Interruption.] Some hon. Members say that he has no choice, but very often when the money is increased by year and there is not the great pressure to find savings and be efficient, it is human nature for people occasionally not to act as efficiently as they might. Perhaps more people are employed in a particular area or perhaps the focus is on something that needed to be done some years ago when things have moved on and it is not necessarily the priority it once was. It is by finding such savings and having proper democratic oversight of that process that we should be able to make our policing more efficient and effective.

[Jack Dromey]

The constant quest for efficiency and effectiveness is common ground between us, but what has the hon. Gentleman got to say to the people of the west midlands who are led by a chief constable who is the national champion on bureaucracy and they have a police service that has already made very significant changes to promote efficiency and effectiveness, but it now says that because of the scale and speed of what it is being asked to do, there will be significant cuts to front-line policing and some of the best, long-serving officers in the police service will be compulsorily retired?

[Mark Reckless]

Having a national champion on bureaucracy in the way that it has been organised by the Association of Chief Police Officers, which is an organisation that does not entirely respond to this House and has little if any statutory basis, is not the way to tackle bureaucracy. We have had far more success in finding savings in Kent by having a majority of elected members who sit down with the officers who spend the money.

Policing (West Midlands)

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I am proud to represent Erdington. It is a community that is rich in people, even if it one of the 10 poorest in Britain. It includes the great communities of Kingstanding, Tyburn, Castle Vale, Pype Hayes, Stockland Green—including Slade road—and Erdington itself. The area has seen huge investment under a Labour Government with more police officers on the beat being supported by more police community support officers in the streets of Erdington. It is a community that, like the rest of the west midlands, has seen a 35% fall in recorded crime. Over the past 15 years, it has seen an immensely welcome development—community policing. I remember attending the Castle Vale tasking group and seeing excellent engagement between the police service and the local community on how they would deal with problems together, including that of antisocial behaviour.

However, if the community is safer, there are serious residual problems. The police are a friend of Erdington, but they are also firm on crime and antisocial behaviour. Earlier this year, there was an upsurge in crime in Stockland Green. I met with the chief superintendent, the admirable Jim Andronov. He deployed an immense effort, including the use of intelligence, and as a consequence a number of charges were brought. Although there are still problems, it was a model of the police responding to the concerns of the community.

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. That was intelligence-led policing; it was not about flooding the area with a large number of police. Labour Members are making a direct correlation between numbers of police and falling crime, but the two do not necessarily match up. Many countries have larger police numbers but higher rates of crime. It is more important to use the number of police officers efficiently. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the situation in 1997. In 1997, I was a serving police officer in Lothian and Borders police, so I come with a certain amount of experience. The level of patronising talk directed at new Members by those in the Labour party who say that we are just parroting phrases that we are given is poor.

[Jack Dromey]

With the greatest of respect, the hon. Gentleman may once have been a police officer, but he is clearly not in contact with the modern police service. Locally, the police told me that they had the time and resources, including front-line officers backed by support and intelligence, to tackle quickly and effectively a problem that was giving rise to serious concern in the Stockland Green area. Precisely because the community welcomed such an initiative by the police, real anger is now being expressed about what is happening.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

On the point raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart), I do not think we are being patronising; we are passing on experience. More importantly, the hon. Gentleman may have been a serving police officer, but he was not the chief constable. The chief constable has the total overview and knows the picture. It is easy for someone lower down the ranks to have a perception about something.

[Jack Dromey]

I am guided by what serving police officers tell me about their concerns, including what they predict will happen over the next stages. I will come to that in a moment.

There is real anger because of a 20% cut to the police service and the consequences of that cut. Is it true that 2,500 jobs will go in the West Midlands police service over the next four years? Is it true that 1,200 police officers will go? Is it true that there will be 40 fewer police officers in each of the 10 constituencies in Birmingham? Are numbers of police community support officers already being cut back? An excellent PCSO came up to me on Saturday in Erdington high street and said, “Jack, there used to be six of us. Are they now going to cut it down to three?” Will the Minister confirm those facts? They are undeniable truths.

[James Morris]

Is it not also an undeniable truth that even if there had been a Labour Government, there would still have been 20% cuts in policing? Will the hon. Gentleman enlighten us as to how he would have gone about implementing the cuts that would have been introduced anyway?

[Jack Dromey]

I will come to the contrast between the pledges made at the general election in a moment—they are revealing. During the general election, the Liberal Democrats said that there would be 3,000 more police officers. They did not add, “On the dole.” The Conservative party said that there would be less paperwork. The reality is that if numbers of police officers and PCSOs are reduced, they will have less time on the beat and less of the support they need to do their job, and therefore more time will be spent doing paperwork. That in turn will lead to less detection, as I am sure the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) knows from his own experience. It will affect the work that goes on in the back room by way of intelligence gathering and sifting. There will certainly be more paperwork, including more P45s for police officers and PCSOs.

The impact on the west midlands, as highlighted by my hon. Friends, will be disproportionately harsh. Whereas 51% of Surrey’s police service comes from the central Government grant, the figure for the midlands is 83%. Will the Minister acknowledge that there is a major problem for the midlands, and that the consequences of a 20% cut across the board nationwide will hit the midlands disproportionately hard?

I am proud of my local association with the police service, and I know that it will do its best. Chris Sims is an admirable chief constable. However, serving officers and PCSOs have said to me in no uncertain terms that simple realities will flow from what the Government are proposing. That is not least because, as one police officer said to me, history tells us that the combination of soaring unemployment—it is estimated that up to 400,000 people will lose their jobs in the midlands—and falling police numbers will lead to more crime, less-safe communities and criminals who are more likely to get away with it.

In conclusion, the first duty of any Government is the safety and security of our people and our communities. It is absolutely wrong for the Government to put at risk the safety of the people of Erdington. There is real fear about what will flow from the cuts unless the Government change course. Will the Minister be prepared to change course?

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[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point.

Turning to some general comments on the cuts, chief constables and police authorities in the 43 police forces around the country will be facing tough choices from this winter, following the announcement in the comprehensive spending review last month. It is quite clear from the 20% cut over four years that the Home Secretary has totally failed to stand up for policing in the Home Office budget. When compared with other public services and the money that has been provided for them, it is clear that the police are losing out disproportionately.

I believe that the coalition Government are taking huge risks with that approach. The cuts are too hard, too fast and reckless. The Opposition have made it clear that we would protect front-line policing, but it is clear that, under the approach taken by the coalition Government, it will be impossible for front-line policing to be protected with cuts at such a level. Safety on the streets should be a top priority for any responsible Government, and police funding should reflect that, as it did under the Labour Government. Proper support for our police is vital, which is why Labour believes that we need to keep every police officer we can equipped to do the job.

As we heard, crime fell by 43% under Labour, even through the strains of the recession, because of our three-pronged approach. One part of that approach was having more police, and I take issue with the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart), who implied that this is not about numbers, because it clearly is. It is wrong to say that having fewer police officers on the street will somehow not have an impact on the levels of crime. The other parts of that three-pronged approach were having more powers to detect crime and antisocial behaviour and sending more criminals to prison. That was our approach, but I worry that the coalition is putting all three elements into reverse with its cuts.

[Jack Dromey]

We have all waited patiently for the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart), who is a former police officer, to answer the point that several Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), have raised. Perhaps he has taken a monastic vow of silence. Why is it that his party committed to having 3,000 more police officers on the beat, but now supports removing 40 police officers from each of the 10 constituencies in Birmingham?

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend raises an important question, and the Minister might be able to respond shortly.

Let me make one final point about policing in general. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak mentioned the politicisation of the police through the madcap scheme of establishing police and crime commissioners in each police force area. That will be done at an estimated cost of at least £50 million, at a time of savage cuts to front-line policing. I ask the Minister to think again, because the scheme seems to enjoy little support.

We heard that the number of police officers in the west midlands has increased from 7,113 to 8,536 since 1997.

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[Jack Dromey]

Is not there a contrast between the Liberal Democrat pledge of 3,000 more police officers, the pledge made by my party to protect front-line policing, and what the Minister said to his constituents at the time of his election? Did he tell them that there would be cuts to front-line policing?

[Nick Herbert]

Let me try to explain to the hon. Gentleman that it is our ambition, too, to protect front-line policing. We want policing to be maintained in neighbourhoods, in the form of neighbourhood policing and response policing, so that when people dial 999 they can be certain that officers will arrive. Of course we want that, and so does the chief constable of the West Midlands police—as do all chief constables. We believe that it will be possible to protect that front-line policing in spite of the cuts to the police budget that we have announced. I shall explain why, but first I wanted to get out of the way the point that we had to deal with the deficit; it is our responsibility to do so in the national interest. We have now had an admission from the Opposition that they would have cut spending as well. Of course they will not say how they would have allocated £40 billion of spending cuts, but there is no doubt—because they have admitted it before and repeated it today—that some of those cuts would have fallen on police budgets. Let us have less high moral outrage from Labour Members. Let us accept that, whoever was elected, policing budgets would have to be dealt with because of the deficit bequeathed to the country by Labour’s fiscal mismanagement.

The second issue that hon. Members raised was police numbers. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North said that “sadly,” there was “no sign” of additional police numbers in the coalition agreement. Do I take it from that criticism that she would have liked a commitment to an increase in police numbers, or that that is the Opposition’s new commitment? Apparently not. She was apparently saying that it was sad that there was no sign of additional police numbers—she is nodding at that. Can I have from her an assurance that she would like an increase in police numbers?

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[Nick Herbert]

Of course these things are taken into account. I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that if he does not want to play silly political games, he and his hon. Friends should not have started in that vein. Now that he is making a serious point, however, I remind him that we are going through the formal process of allocating grant. Need, of course, is a crucial factor, but that is already reflected in the way in which grant is allocated, particularly for urban areas.

The particular point that I am making to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and to the right hon. Gentleman is this. If it is argued that a disproportionate share of the savings should fall to the West Midlands police—in other words, that its share of the savings should be lower because the local precept contributes less—the question to be answered, not by the right hon. Gentleman and Opposition Back Benchers, because it is outside their remit, but by Opposition Front Benchers and others is: which forces will therefore have to pay more? As the right hon. Gentleman knows, that is a perfectly fair point.

[Jack Dromey]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Will he confirm that the consequence of the disproportionate impact on the West Midlands police service will be that 2,500 jobs are to go over the next four years, including 1,200 police officers? Will he confirm that that is a fact?

[Nick Herbert]

No, I cannot confirm that that is a fact. The hon. Gentleman seems to misunderstand the position. First, the grant settlement has not been announced. Secondly, these decisions are not announced by the Government. It is not for me to say; I therefore cannot confirm that what he describes as a fact is indeed a fact. These are decisions for the chief constable and the police authority.

It is clearly unrealistic to suggest that the Government can guarantee the number of police officers, and nor can the Opposition. The question is what the Government can do to ensure that police forces are in the best possible position to make savings and to protect the front line. We believe that it is possible, including in the west midlands, to make significant back and middle office savings so as to ensure that resources go where the public want them.