Policing (England and Wales)

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service (Kit Malthouse)]

I beg to move,

That the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) for 2020–21 (HC 51), which was laid before this House on 22 January, be approved.

I am proud to be part of a new Government who are delivering on the people’s priorities. The public have demanded an end to the horrific crime and violence that has recently blighted our streets once again. They deserve no less, and it is our duty to deliver the safer towns, villages, cities and country that they want. That means enthusiastically supporting our outstanding police to cut crime. They are our first and finest line of defence against murderous terrorists and ruthless drug gangs and our protection against burglars, robbers and rapists. All hon. Members will join me in paying tribute to their world-renowned courage, sacrifice and professionalism.

As the natural party of law and order, the Conservatives owe the police the resources they need to get their immensely important job done. One of the first acts of this Government was to start recruiting 20,000 new police officers, giving them the strength in numbers they now need, supporting and equipping them with the powers and kit to keep us safe, including lifting restrictions on emergency stop-and-search powers for all forces across England and Wales and, crucially, giving them new and immediate funding to keep our streets safe.

Nothing is more important than protecting the British people, and the settlement will do just that. Our generous offer also recognises the immense challenges that policing faces today. Crime is becoming increasingly complex, serious violence is threatening ever more people, and ruthless thugs are finding new ways to exploit the vulnerable. The scale, range and brutality of the new criminality we face is daunting, but we are rising to the challenge by empowering our police to fight back. This deal will give them the power to take down the criminals and bring those threatening our people and communities to justice.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Cleveland currently receives no serious violence funding, despite having the third highest level of violent crime in the country. The hon. Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) appealed to the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions last week for more resources, but he was fobbed off. Will the Home Secretary now review it and give Cleveland the funding it needs to tackle serious violence in our area?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise the issue of serious violence, which is blighting not only Cleveland but other parts of the country, too. It is obviously a huge focus of my work.

We are giving Cleveland police an extra £10 million this year, which I hope it will use to tackle some of the serious problems there. I have met the chief constable of Cleveland police, who is doing sterling work to move the force from one that has sadly been underperforming to one that can hopefully satisfy the needs and desires of the people of Cleveland.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Has the Minister had discussions with chief constables, and has it emerged from those discussions what priorities they have for the new police officers? I can think of plenty in the Thames valley, but has he had the experience of the chief constables on how they can make things much better with these extra police?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am pleased that my right hon. Friend’s police force, in particular, will receive a very large settlement of just under £32 million. We are having an ongoing conversation with the wider policing family about how and where our priority activity should take place. That discussion is being held under the auspices of the new National Policing Board, on which all arms of policing are represented. The board will settle the priority action that will be taken forward.

We have had discussions, particularly at the board’s last meeting, on prioritising violence. At the top of the list, murder is the tip of the iceberg of violence, which features many types of crime. I hope we will move to a 360° approach to fighting crime over the next few months and years, and I hope that chief constables will support us in doing so.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Minister mentions the priorities set by the National Policing Board. One thing that I and chief constables across Wales and England have been raising for a number of years is economic crime and scamming. There is a constant pressure from new scams, so will he talk to chief constables on the National Policing Board about setting economic crime as a priority so that increasing numbers of vulnerable people are not attacked by scammers, who are becoming increasingly clever in taking people’s money?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. As I have said, the technical complexity of crime has changed significantly over the past few years. One question we have to ask ourselves, both in the Home Office and in the UK policing family, is whether we have the skills and capability to deal with some of those issues.

I will come on to the settlement later, but it is partly about investing in some of those capabilities, not least in tackling online economic crime, which we are sadly seeing become increasingly prevalent as the internet penetrates even more of our lives.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Does not the very generosity of this settlement remove from some forces the excuse that they do not investigate fraud but, rather, palm it off on Action Fraud, which has proved to be totally useless?

[Kit Malthouse]

I would expect a no less challenging question from my county colleague, and he is right that the fight against fraud has perhaps not been as effective as it could have been over the past few months and years.

We are giving a lot of thought in the Home Office to how policing should structure itself for a crime type that has become increasingly complex. A fraud might be perpetrated in one geography—perhaps in the New Forest, sadly—by a perpetrator in another geography who transits money through another country and draws that money in a fourth place. These are complex and technical difficulties that we will have to address in the years to come.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

Due to the huge cuts in policing budgets and youth services, knife crime is now at epidemic proportions. We have had another fatality in Slough in recent weeks. The Minister has mentioned the extra resources for the Thames valley but, given that Slough is affected by a disproportionately large amount of knife crime and violent crime, will he ensure that the lion’s share of that funding is catered towards Slough, rather than areas that are not as affected by crime?

[Kit Malthouse]

I think I am right in saying that recorded crime in the Thames valley is lower than in 2010, but that is not a cause for complacency. I recognise some of the problems that towns around London like Slough and, indeed, Andover in my constituency have experienced, much of it driven by the drugs trade. The hon. Gentleman will know that we have done a huge amount of work, and will be doing more, on the county lines problem that drives a significant amount of violence in towns like his. He will be hearing more from me on that in the future.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Gloucestershire constabulary has one of the lowest settlements of all police forces. Will my hon. Friend explain to my constituents how these figures are made up so they can see why they have such a low increase?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I am sure my hon. Friend knows, money for policing is shared out on the basis of a funding formula. I have studied the formula in some depth, and it is incredibly complicated and hard to understand. He is therefore right to raise the issue of confusion in the public’s mind about how money is allocated.

We have already said publicly that we believe the funding formula is outdated, and I hope and believe that, in the years to come, we can work to find a more equitable division of the spoils for policing and, critically, one that the people we serve understand.

This settlement sets out the biggest increase in police funding in a decade. This £700 million will pay for the recruitment of the first 6,000 of the 20,000 additional police officers, an increase of almost 10% of the core grant funding provided last year. Overall funding for police and crime commissioners will increase by £915 million to £13.1 billion if they make full use of the council tax flexibility available to them. Total police funding will increase by £1.1 billion to £15.2 billion.

Every single force in England and Wales will see a substantial increase next year. If their police and crime commissioner decides to maximise precept flexibility, Durham will receive an extra £9.7 million, Lancashire will receive an extra £22.6 million and the west midlands will receive almost £50 million more. These are serious increases, representing, on average, a 7.5% rise.

[Mrs Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend come to visit Derbyshire and meet Angelique Foster, our PCC candidate, who is putting together a superb plan for what Derbyshire policing ought to look like with this extra new money?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

I would, of course, be delighted to visit Derbyshire once again. I was there only a few months ago to visit the chief constable and the current police and crime commissioner.

I have already agreed to attend a crime summit in Derby, and hopefully other Derbyshire MPs will be involved. In fact, I was there to see the striking “knife angel” sculpture, which was standing outside the city’s cathedral. I am more than happy to visit once again.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

In Lincolnshire we are fortunate to live in one of the safest areas of the country, but my constituents write to me regularly about antisocial behaviour, burglary, lead theft and fly-tipping. I am delighted that we will get 120 more police officers in Lincolnshire, an increase of 11%. What can my hon. Friend do to support those new police officers in tackling the crimes that worry my constituents so much?

[Kit Malthouse]

The best thing I can do is encourage them, once again, to elect a Conservative police and crime commissioner in May who will be focused on their priorities. I am pleased to note that, in the past couple of weeks, Lincolnshire police’s inspection report has significantly improved, which I gather was the cause of some celebration in the Lincolnshire media. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), was trumpeting the triumph of her local police force.

We will be supporting Lincolnshire police in all its work, and it has made a special grant application that we will be considering in due course. I recognise that a county like Lincolnshire, which is very large and sparsely populated, faces particular challenges that we will want to address.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, with this extra funding for the Metropolitan police, it is time that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan—who is responsible for policing in London—revisited his list of police station closures, including the important Belgravia police station in the Westminster part of my constituency?

[Kit Malthouse]

I know Belgravia police station very well indeed—[Laughter.] It was not through having spent any overnight stays there. During my time in policing in London, I visited it on a couple of occasions. The Met will be in receipt of a further 1,369 police officers, who will need to be accommodated somewhere. As I have said in the media in the past, perhaps to some hilarity, their lockers will need to go somewhere, and an expansion of the size that London will see over the next few years means that a general review of the property strategy is sensible.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

In Clacton, we led a campaign to increase the precept for policing, it spread across Essex, and I am very glad that we have more police officers in Clacton and we have town centre teams. However, like many parts of the rest of the country, we have a lot of knife crime and it needs to be dealt with. What is my hon. Friend thinking of doing to stop young people getting drawn into that sort of crime in the first place?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend, in his typically astute way, raises an extremely important point. Although we talk a lot in this House, and certainly in my job, about the enforcement aspect of crime, one key area—one of the twin pillars of success—is investment in young people, particularly in diverting those on the margins of criminality away from it and showing them that there is a better life. Obviously, the Government have committed significant funding to that, not least in the Home Office, where we have a couple of hundred million pounds to spend on it. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has £500 million to spend over the next few years on youth intervention and youth projects, and we will be focusing, certainly in the Cabinet Committee that the Prime Minister is chairing, on that aspect of crime, alongside enforcement at the same time.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Kit Malthouse]

If Members do not mind, I would like to make a bit of progress. I will allow others come in a little later.

This settlement will turbocharge the unprecedented recruitment of 20,000 police officers over the next three years. All forces will have the resources they need to meet rising demand. The impact of the extra officers should not be underestimated, with the recruitment targets showing how each area will benefit. By March 2021, West Yorkshire police aims to recruit some 256 extra officers, and the figure for Greater Manchester is almost 350. As I said, the Met, a force I know well, will soon be able to deploy an extra 1,369 officers on the streets of our capital. The spending round, which concluded in September, confirmed that an additional £750 million would be made available next year to deliver this uplift. This settlement confirms that £700 million of that will go directly to PCCs to support the first wave of recruitment, and £168 million will be ringfenced to help pay for recruiting and employing additional officers. Forces will be awarded a portion of that in line with their funding formula allocation. It will be linked to results, with the money paid out as they make progress against their recruitment targets. That will ensure that forces make full use of this investment, delivering good value for money for taxpayers and the results they expect to see. In addition, £50 million of the settlement will deliver national elements of the police uplift programme to ensure that it is a success. That will include central co-ordination, national recruitment campaigns, Police Now training and College of Policing support.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The Minister mentioned Durham, which has lost 380 officers since 2010. Even with these replacement officers—they are not new ones—there will still be a shortfall of 154 officers for County Durham. Can he tell me when County Durham will get back to the level of police officers it had in 2010?

[Kit Malthouse]

Obviously, these 6,000 officers are a down payment on a three-year protection plan, under which we will be recruiting 20,000 police officers. Just for clarity, I should point out that these are extra police officers—

[Mr Jones]

They are not. They are replacements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

This is on top of the numbers we need to recruit because of those who retire—we see 6,000 to 8,000 retire. At the end of March, or possibly April, we will be publishing details of our recruitment performance and the baseline figure where we believe we have started, agreed with forces, so that Members across the House and the public will be able to see how we are performing. We hope that by the end of the three-year recruitment process we will have a greater number of police officers than we did in 2010.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Unfortunately, the South Wales force faces a similar situation; since 2011, the number of police officers has been brought down from 3,400 to 2,800. The figures announced by the Government in October showed that there would be an uplift of just 136 officers in this new recruitment scheme. Obviously, those 136 will be very welcome—I wonder how much progress we are making on that—but they represent a substantially smaller number than the amount cut since 2011.

[Kit Malthouse]

To repeat what I said in my earlier answer, those 136 are the first instalment of a three-year programme. We are recruiting 6,000 and there are a further 14,000 to go. Although we have yet to decide completely how the remaining 14,000 will be allocated, it is not hard to surmise that all forces will receive more than in this year. I ask hon. Members to hold fire and rejoice in the fact that these first 6,000 will be recruited—we hope—in 12 months’ time. That is on top of the number of police officers baked into the very large financial settlement last year. It means that by the end of three years the number of police officers in this country should be higher than it was in 2010.

No two areas of this great country face the same challenges. This Government want to level up our communities, but to do that we must tackle regional issues head on, including crime. PCCs have continued to ask for more flexibility and funds to respond to local priorities. We have listened to their pleas and empowered them to target the criminals plaguing their towns and communities. This settlement allows all PCCs to raise council tax contributions for local policing; it is less than 20p per week for a typical household—just £10 per year. If all PCCs decide to maximise their flexibility, the result will be £248 million of additional funding for local policing. Locally elected PCCs will decide how to use that flexibility, and will be accountable to their electorate for using it to cut crime and deliver real results in their areas.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I have been contacted by some shooting organisations so that I can put this on the Minister’s plate. The Countryside Alliance and the British Association for Shooting and Conservation have expressed concern about firearm certificate renewals and new applications across the whole of mainland England and Wales. They have indicated to me that there is not a uniform system of renewing firearm certificates. We must remember that those who have such certificates are the most law-abiding people in the whole of the UK. Will he assure us today that firearms licensing will be delivered equally across all counties and police forces in England and Wales?

[Kit Malthouse]

Obviously, it is a responsibility of the local PCC and the chief constable to make sure that they deliver the services they are mandated to deliver in an effective way. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that I held a meeting two weeks ago with the British Shooting Sports Council, and one or two of its constituent members, to discuss exactly some of the difficulties he raises. This is on my list; alongside being Policing and Crime Minister, I am the firearms Minister. The hon. Gentleman should be assured that I will be paying attention to that issue in the months to come.

The horrific attack in Streatham just weeks ago showed that the threat of terrorism in this country remains all too real. I know that all our thoughts are with the victims and all those affected, and I would like to pay tribute to the remarkably brave police officers who stopped the attacker before more harm was done. To keep people safe, we must also invest in our homeland security, which is why this settlement increases funding for counter-terrorism policing by £90 million to more than £900 million. That includes a continuation of the £24 million uplift in armed policing.

We are also tackling high-harm crimes that devastate families, towns and communities. Serious and organised crime exploits the vulnerable and fuels much of the horrific violence on our streets, so we will allocate £155 million next year to help the police fight back—this includes funding new capabilities for tackling illicit finance. We are also investing in national policing priorities that benefit all forces across the country. That includes making sure we keep up with the criminals we are pursuing. Our systems simply must be up to scratch to help us stay one step ahead as crime evolves. We will invest £516 million to improve police technology in 2020-21, which will upgrade critical infrastructure such as replacing the Airwave communication system with the 4G emergency services network. It will also fund the development of the law enforcement data service, replacing the existing police national computer and police national database.

The funding I have set out represents an unprecedented scale of investment in our police forces, but we must not lose sight of the fact that this is public money that we are spending, and the public expect to see a return on that investment. This Government are clear that the police must continue to focus on improving efficiency and productivity to deliver value for money for the people they serve. Members should be in no doubt: I will be holding the police to account for their spending and performance, because we are a Government driven by the people’s priorities. The demand of these hard-working, honest, law-abiding people is simple: they want to see more police on our streets and less crime, and they expect us, as public servants, to deliver. So, today we have provided the funding needed to do just that.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not accept that increasing the precepts at a local level means that too much of the burden is borne by our constituents in their council tax total? It may be described as another pound a week or whatever, but that is on top of all the other council tax increases that they face. It is just £1 too many for them.

[Kit Malthouse]

That is obviously a judgment for the local police and crime commissioner to make. We chose to limit the uplift in cash terms so that even those forces that raise a relatively small proportion of their funding from council tax could benefit as well, but in the end it is something that, as I say, police and crime commissioners will have to decide for themselves and take their chances in May. I hope and believe that the British people are willing to pay an extra 20p a week to improve their security, but I should say that it is £248 million alongside a huge investment from the Government. In the end, it is all the public’s money. Our money is not magicked from anywhere; the public pay it. Whether they pay through council tax or other means, their priority is that we should invest in our police officers. The recruitment of 20,000 new police officers is wildly popular.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

What particular provision is being made to address the problems of rural policing, especially in rural Wales?

[Kit Malthouse]

As a Member of Parliament who also represents a rural community—220 square miles of glorious Hampshire countryside—rural crime is at the top of my list, too. The hon. Gentleman will know that across the police and crime commissioners community significant effort has been put into a rural crime network, and I will be keen to sit down with them in the months to come to see what more can be done. It is worth pointing out that although specific aspects of rural crime—whether that is poaching, machinery theft or whatever—are perhaps different, too many of our rural communities are now plagued by the sort of crime that we became used to seeing only in metropolitan areas. One of my key priorities is that forces that have large rural communities recognise that dealing with serious violence has to be top of their list, just as it is in London, Manchester or Liverpool.

The police must now play their part. To ensure that they deliver, we have attached a number of expectations to the settlement: first, we expect to see continued efficiency savings by the use of collaborative procurement through a new commercial operating model, BlueLight Commercial; secondly, we expect forces to work with us to develop an approach to drive maximum value from the funding spent on police technology; thirdly, we expect forces to use the uplift in their core grant funding to cover the wider costs and infrastructure improvements needed to accommodate and deploy the additional officers effectively; and finally, we expect forces to improve productivity through digital, data and technology solutions, including mobile working. Through the National Policing Board, the Home Secretary and I will personally hold the sector to account for the delivery of improvements.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I realise that the Minister will naturally focus his resources on uniformed officers—we understand that—but I wish to ask about technical capability, particularly in relation to revenge porn. I introduced a private Member’s Bill that would have made it a criminal offence to distribute people’s private explicit sexual images without their consent. That is now illegal, but it is not clear that the police have the resources or capability to deliver on the law, because thousands of cases are reported and only a handful go to court. There are also legal issues relating to the showing of malicious intent and not having anonymity of victims. Will the Minister ensure that the capabilities are there and work with other Ministers to ensure that the new online harms Bill enables more prosecutions of these hideous crimes?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

The growth of online criminality in all its forms is alarming to us all, and not least to those of us who have teenagers or young people who are uniquely exposed to it in a way that perhaps we were not in the formative stages of our lives. The hon. Gentleman is quite right that the online harms White Paper will look at some of this stuff. There is no doubt about it: the police do not necessarily have all the capabilities that they need in what is a fast-evolving area of crime. We are having that conversation on an ongoing basis with the National Crime Agency and with policing more widely. There is, however, a wider sense that the platforms that enable these kinds of communications need to step forward, as everybody else in this country is going to step forward to tackle crime, and shoulder their share of the responsibility for making sure that our young people in particular but frankly everybody can live a life unmolested and untroubled by crime. It is certainly an aspiration of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport that that should be the case. Crime cannot be solved by the police alone; it takes us all, in a sensible and civilised society, to stand shoulder to shoulder with them, whether in a commercial guise or a personal guise, to help them in the mission of driving down crime and making sure that we live in a safe country.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

The 347 extra officers in Greater Manchester will be welcomed, particularly by my residents in Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme who have been really suffering and are very worried about the rates of acquisitive crime and burglary, sometimes accompanied by violence. I met the Greater Manchester Mayor and police and crime commissioner to ask him to submit a safer streets fund bid on my behalf, and I hope it will be successful. I am concerned that since July the police data for crime in our area has not been available because of a failure of the computerised system. Does the Minister agree that we need the reassurance of knowing the crime rates in our local areas before we can tackle them?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The police cannot fly blind; data is critical to their job. I well know the problems of Manchester and asked the chief inspector of constabulary to go and have a look at some of the issues there. I am pleased that my hon. Friend is encouraging the Mayor to make a bid to the safer streets fund. We know that relatively simple modifications to architecture or the built environment can significantly reduce some acquisitive crimes. I gather that, as long as residents use them, the fitting of gates to alleys can reduce burglary by around 40-odd per cent., and we know that better street lighting can reduce acquisitive crime by around 17%. There are simple things that can be done, and we have £25 million to show what can be done in the hope that Treasury colleagues will then see it as an investable proposition for the future that if we make small adjustments to the way that we live, we can “design out” crime.

The settlement demonstrates the strength of the Government’s support for our outstanding police. We are backing them to build a more secure Britain and empowering them to deliver safer streets for the people we all serve. Members should have no doubt that the settlement represents a new golden age for policing in this country and a dark day for criminality. I commend the motion to the House.