Police Funding

Jo Platt Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jo Platt (Leigh) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to speak in this vital debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq).

Police forces across the country have borne the brunt of this Government’s austerity cuts over the past eight years, and my constituency is no stranger to the shrinking blue line. Since 2010, Greater Manchester has seen 2,000 fewer police officers on the streets. The Government do not need to hear that from me; they can just look at our local crime statistics or listen to the people whose lives have been affected by the ever increasing cuts to our police force.

Despite promises of protection for our police budgets, the police grant has been reduced by £8 million. When I confronted the Home Secretary with those uncomfortable truths a few weeks ago, she insisted that the real problem was the amount of reserves that our Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, was sitting on. I would like to take this opportunity to confront that point head on.

The level of general reserves in Greater Manchester stands well within the advised range, with the rest earmarked for important projects to reduce demand on police services, such as mental health triage, crime prevention and victim support. There is no magic money pot that our Mayor is sitting on. Instead, we are seeing the same story here as we did in the local government debate earlier, of blaming the police service for the Government’s failure to resource vital public services that our communities rely on.

Reserves have also been used effectively to roll out innovative ways of working, and one such approach has been rolled out in my area. Greater Manchester police has launched a place-based working scheme that has proved to have enormous potential. However, the scale of the cutbacks on police community support officers and neighbourhood beat officers is so crippling that the scheme is struggling to remain operational. In places with high levels of antisocial behaviour, drug and alcohol use and other social problems, associated issues have been successfully reduced, but time and again I hear stories of officers who are designated to that scheme then moved to fill operational gaps across the police force. If our police forces were given investment in those schemes in the form of neighbourhood policing, we may not only see long-term crime reduction but would increase confidence in our police forces and communities while reducing the strain on other public services.

After years of crippling cuts, our police forces are crying out for the funding that they need to keep our communities safe. Labour’s message is clear: we cannot protect our communities on the cheap. Now is the time to invest in our local forces, end the pay cap and give our brave police officers the pay rise they deserve.