Police Employer Pension Contributions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Let me begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) on securing this important Adjournment debate. Let me also express my view, which I think is widely held—certainly among Labour Members—on how outrageous it is that while the Cabinet is making a decision that has the potential to affect this country for generations to come, it is the reported intention of the Prime Minister to make a statement to the press immediately after—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. This is a debate about pension contributions. I have allowed the scope to be widened, but we cannot take it this far. Are we going to stick to the debate? Brilliant.

[Wes Streeting]

Forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker; I just wanted to make the point at the outset that my constituents will be appalled that this House is adjourning about three hours early.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I am being very good, and I am going to keep this debate going, but these are the rules of the House. They are not my rules; they are rules that we have all agreed to, and the fact is that those are the rules. We have to work within the rules, and as much as everybody is disappointed, the rules are there; they are made by Members, so please do not complain about the rules that have been introduced.

[Wes Streeting]

I accept that, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I am certainly not criticising the Chair for enforcing the rules.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I want you to criticise yourself; that is the problem.

[Wes Streeting]

I would never knowingly criticise myself, Mr Deputy Speaker, and you will be pleased to know that my constituents care about and raise with me far more than Brexit the issue of policing and in particular the consequences of Government changes to employer national insurance contributions and what that will mean for the funding of policing in my constituency and every other community up and down the country, because, as was stated in the excellent opening speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East, the consequence of increasing employer contributions will be a cost on police forces of an entirely unexpected and unplanned £165 million for 2019-20, and, as has been stated, that employer pension contribution liability will rise over time, so by the time that we get to 2020-21 the liability will be more like £420 million.

Money, as we know, does not grow on trees, and those responsible for managing police budgets and resources and making sure the budget is properly deployed to keep our constituents and country safe will be faced with an invidious choice. Of course they will want to make the right contributions to people’s pensions, but, as the National Police Chiefs Council has warned, the reality is that this could amount to the loss of a further 10,000 police officers right across the country, with every police force in this land being affected.

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[Wes Streeting]

As my hon. Friend says, it is not just policing. Before I was elected to this place, I was deputy leader of the London Borough of Redbridge. I had the enormous privilege of representing my home community on Redbridge Borough Council for eight years, and what I consistently saw across local government services was exactly the same pattern of behaviour: decisions taken in the Treasury brutalised the budgets of Government Departments, and then the Government Departments devolved the cuts, and the responsibility for those cuts, to local authorities. That is absolutely outrageous.

When the austerity agenda first began, I think everyone would acknowledge that some cuts were made to services that, frankly, some people did not really notice. What has changed over the past eight years is that the Government started by clamping down on some of the inevitable inefficiencies and waste that exist in any organisation with big infrastructure, then they began to impact on services—particularly specialist services that do not necessarily benefit the largest number of people but that have a substantial impact on particular service users—and now we are in a position where these cuts and the austerity agenda are not just widely felt, but deeply felt. That is why the Government have felt compelled to change their narrative on austerity.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is doing very well, and I know he wants to keep it going, but he has to try to stick to the subject. By talking about austerity, he will widen the debate completely out of where we are meant to be. This is about police pension cuts. I do not mind a debate around policing, but we cannot go over everything. There are a lot of other speakers, so he does not need to filibuster.

[Wes Streeting]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will take your advice.

In London we have already lost 3,000 police officers, which is having a serious impact on community policing. In fact, my constituents are now under no illusion. Community policing only really exists in speeches by Ministers at the Dispatch Box; it certainly does not exist in reality on the ground. The few stretched resources that we have left on the ground are really struggling.

The changes to police employer pension contributions are one of the most egregious changes that the Government have made to policing, and no doubt we will hear the same rhetoric as they try to make the contribution changes sound as technocratic and as irrelevant to people’s everyday experiences as possible. The reality is that people have really noticed the police cuts. This invidious language, saying, “Don’t worry, because we have cut out all the back office,” is not only disrespectful to public servants who did an excellent job, and who have now lost their job. I can tell the Minister that what police officers in my constituency tell me is that they are now spending more time processing criminals than catching them. That is not an acceptable state of play, and I fear that things will become far worse as a result of these changes to police employer pension contributions.

I give fair notice via the Treasury Bench that, when the Chancellor next comes before the Treasury Committee, he can be assured of a rough ride on the decisions he is taking and their impact on Home Office budgets, and therefore on police budgets. What he and his predecessor have done is absolutely outrageous, and I note the irony of editorials in the Evening Standard railing against police cuts and rising crime in London, and trying to pin responsibility on the Mayor of London. The editor of my local newspaper might like to look in the mirror before dishing out blame to others.

How the Government are proceeding is a terrible mistake, and we must not countenance it. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East for securing this Adjournment debate, and I am grateful to the Government, because their shambolic handling of the business of the House means that we now have so many hours to debate this subject before the House adjourns.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Only if you let somebody else get in.

[Wes Streeting]

We have so long, but I will draw my remarks to a conclusion. [Hon. Members: “More!”] This is a novelty I am not used to. We know why we are here—obviously, we are trying to draw out the business—but this is a serious issue. We would not have stuck around for any old Adjournment debate on an obscure issue; this is so important to us in our constituencies. Whatever is going on in the wider world around Brexit, I cannot emphasise strongly enough that no issue is more important to my constituents than policing, police numbers, police budgets, crime and community safety, and therefore no issue is more important to me.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the excellent speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) about the real issue of policing here in the capital, but I want to reflect on North Yorkshire. Everybody says what a wonderful city York is, and I agree with that, but it is really challenged, too. Crime is an issue that has been brought to my attention by so many of my constituents, and we have challenges and pressures on our police service.

I want to raise a number of points associated with that. Antisocial behaviour has provided our city with a poor label at night and we do not have the policing available to bring that under control. As is the case for other hon. Members, county lines has also had a real impact on our city. Individuals are preying on the most vulnerable people in our city. I spent an evening with the police recently, and I was devastated to hear how the county lines special operations unit was being cut. These are vital prevention services being cut, and it is because the money clearly is not in the budgets to be able to provide security and safety to the most vulnerable children in our communities and the most vulnerable people in our cities.

The police also pick up capacity where other services fail. We cannot dismiss the 50% cut in local authority funding and of course the cuts to safer neighbourhoods partnerships, which are formed with the police. The police are ever more having to subsidise for those serious cuts in our communities. I must also raise the issue of the serious impact on mental health and the fact that our police officers are often at the frontline of providing mental health services to some of the most vulnerable people we know in our communities. Of course, where there are pressures on the mental health service—despite the warm words from the Prime Minister—the money is not reaching the frontline. Services are seriously at risk and stretched, and this is putting people in my constituency at risk. If the cuts we are hearing about to our police service are added to that, it will put a real pressure on those services.

Again, I want to reflect on an evening I spent with the police. I was meant to be looking at some of the work they were doing to tackle county lines, but instead I was diverted to spend five hours with a woman with dementia, whose partner had tried to take his life. Fourteen professionals were involved in that case, which diverted resources. Five police officers were involved in trying to provide safety for that individual because of the failed mental health services. The police are having to pick up the price of other services which are not able to fill those spaces, an issue I am sure the Minister will wish to respond to because it has an overall impact on the budgets available to policing. That is what we are discussing tonight: the impact that this is having on our communities, and on their security and safety. Crime in York has now become an issue that is frequently not only in the headlines of our newspapers, but on the lips of my constituents, as I speak to them day by day. They are increasingly concerned about what is happening in our community. We have many pressures in our city, but crime has shot up the agenda—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Sorry, but this debate is about contributions to pensions. We have to very careful here, because otherwise we could open up all areas. As much as I love York and know how important it is, and as much as you may be right and I understand all the aspects you have raised, I must ask you to include pension contributions as well, in order to help me.

[Rachael Maskell]

I am grateful for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was about to turn to the pension changes. Police and crime commissioner Julia Mulligan wrote to me just yesterday about the pressures. This issue applies not only to North Yorkshire police; as the Minister will know, as of tomorrow it will affect the North Yorkshire fire and rescue service because the services are to be amalgamated. We are therefore not only putting community safety at risk but risking safety with regard to the fire service—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Sorry, but as much as the hon. Lady wants to spread the debate, it is not a debate about the fire service and it is not about dementia. It is about police pension contributions. I am trying to be as helpful as I can be; if Members can ensure that the debate is about pension contributions, the lack of police numbers and the fact that they may have to be cut, that will help me a lot. Bringing in the fire authority does not help me in the slightest.

[Rachael Maskell]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The motion refers to changes to police employer pension contributions. As I was just explaining to the House, in North Yorkshire, as of tomorrow, the fire and rescue authority and the police will be amalgamated, so the fire and rescue service is absolutely pertinent to the debate. I shall therefore continue as I was, Mr Deputy Speaker.

As I have already highlighted, the cost to North Yorkshire police will be £1.6 million in 2019-20 and £4 million in 2020-21. That is on top of the £10 million that is already having to be saved. The police authority was seeking to recruit another 70 police officers but is now having to put that opportunity on hold.

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[Rachael Maskell]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. We all know that Vera Baird, a police and crime commissioner, commands so much respect across the whole community of police and crime commissioners. She does not mince her words in highlighting the real pressures that are now bearing down on her budgets in Northumbria. It is clear that, across the country, police and crime commissioners are being put under undue stress in trying to balance sheets that cannot be balanced.

Let me return, if I may, Mr Deputy Speaker, to the situation in North Yorkshire. I am not sure whether you heard my response to the point that you made to me about the fire and rescue service.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Just to help: I recognise that you are bringing the subjects together. It is about trying to save money and being forced to do so, but what I want you to do is to link that up to pensions. As long as you link the subject to pensions, I am comfortable, I can assure you.

[Rachael Maskell]

I am really grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for providing that clarity. This absolutely does link into the pensions, as the police and crime commissioner has set out for me. There is a perception that there is a large financial reserve within the budgets to absorb costs such as pensions but, clearly, that is not the case, and it is certainly not the case in North Yorkshire. Home Office figures of 6 November 2018 showed that the financial reserves of the North Yorkshire fire and rescue service, as a share of core spending power, were the third lowest in the country, at just over 20%, which equates to £6.6 million. The amalgamation of the fire service and the police will, therefore, bear down on the police pension. The same is happening in the areas represented by my colleagues. In fact, it is estimated that the fire and rescue service will have to lose 37 firefighters, which is 12% of the overall total number of firefighters in my constituency. Again, that will have a real negative impact on safety. That is a direct result of the cuts that we are debating this evening.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I must say to the hon. Lady that we are not debating cuts; we are debating the pension contributions to the police. I am trying really hard to allow you to raise cuts in other areas, but I would be much happier if you could please keep pension contributions in part of your speech.

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[Rachael Maskell]

I thank my hon. Friend for providing that clarity. Yet again, we are talking about services that are having to be reduced as a result of resources being diverted into pension pots. These services have clearly not been receiving the revenue to properly substantiate their current pensions. For our police and crime commissioners, this means that £1.5 million will have to be diverted just to address the fire service alone. I have mentioned the loss of firefighters as a result, but there is also a lack of resource to deliver the replacement of five fire engines because of the budget being diverted. When it comes to crewing, over a third of the day’s shifts at fire stations are affected as the budget is diverted into the pension contributions that will have to be made. This is happening as a result of the new pressures and demands on the service. The police and crime commissioner also highlights the cost of crewing three quarters of the 24 retained fire stations.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I really am sorry; I am trying very hard to be helpful. It is no use the hon. Lady shaking her head at me. I did not pick the title of the debate. The title is very clear: police pension contributions. As much as fire crew numbers, fire stations and fire engines are important—and I am 100% in agreement on those points—unfortunately the debate is not about the fire service.

[Rachael Maskell]

Yes, it is.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker]

No, it is not. I am sorry, but the title is on the annunciator: police. It does not mention fire services. I am going to have to give a ruling, which I did not want to do. The debate is about the police, not fire services. I understand that there is a consequence, but let us stick to the effect of police pension contributions.

[Rachael Maskell]

With respect, Mr Deputy Speaker, I can see that the title on the annunciator is actually different from that on the Order Paper. I am speaking to the title on the Order Paper, which is “Changes to police employer pension contributions.” North Yorkshire police will tomorrow incorporate the North Yorkshire fire and rescue service, so these points are directly related to the title on the Order Paper, as opposed to the title on the annunciator.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Unfortunately, I think you have answered your own question—tomorrow, not today. Let me help the House. There are other Members who wish to speak. The 5 o’clock deadline has passed, so there is going to be no statement from the Government tonight. By all means, let us hear speeches, but if this is about keeping the House going, there is no purpose at this stage.

[Rachael Maskell]

Thank you for that clarity, Mr Deputy Speaker. As I was saying, we are talking about future contributions to the pensions scheme across the board. Therefore, whether the changes to the police are happening tomorrow or into the future beyond that, clearly there will be a devastating impact across North Yorkshire, as I have highlighted in my contribution. I will leave it there because I know that other hon. Members wish to speak.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

What a great choice.

[Jack Dromey]

rose—

[Gareth Thomas]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

We started off with the midlands; let’s go with the midlands again and then we will come back to London. I call Jack Dromey.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am going to bring in the police Minister. Maybe he could give me a little update, if there is any news, to help the House at this stage.

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[Mike Gapes]

The hon. Member—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Mr Gapes has only just come into the Chamber. He wants to hear a bit more of the debate before he intervenes so quickly. Come on! He should know better.

[Mr Hurd]

Thank you for correcting me, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

This man has been here throughout the debate!

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way so that the voice of Ilford can be heard.

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[Gareth Thomas]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would not normally intervene on a speech by a Minister replying to a debate, but I am seeing on social media that, despite the Minister saying there will be no statement about the Cabinet’s discussions on Brexit, there is now due to be a statement by the Prime Minister to the press afterwards. I wonder if there is any way in which we can clarify the situation.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is not a matter for me, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. I am sure if somebody wishes to come forward, they can do so, but the Minister did give a very honest, open statement. I have no more to add other than what has been said. I suggest that the Minister continues with the debate unless he has an answer to the question.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Let the Minister at least answer the point of order first.

[Mr Hurd]

I am grateful to Mr Deputy Speaker. What I said at the Dispatch Box is what I was authorised to say. I have no further updates.

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[David Linden]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister is of course correct that there will be no press conference, but there is still a microphone outside No. 10 Downing Street and it is being briefed that the Prime Minister will come to that microphone and give a statement. Why is she not coming to the microphone at the Dispatch Box?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

That is not a matter for me, as the hon. Gentleman well knows, but at least, if nothing else, Members have put a lot on the record tonight.

[Mr Hurd]

To continue with the Adjournment debate, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East understands the context of the pensions issue. There was a Treasury decision, on independent advice, to revalue the public pension. I say to the hon. Member for Ilford North that this is not a technocratic issue. Only the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) referred to this issue in human terms; it is about safeguarding the affordability, sustainability and value of the pensions of the public sector workers in our constituencies. So it is an important issue, and there is no other motivation behind it. In the 2016 Budget the Treasury indicated its intention to change the discount rate that applies from 3% to 2.8%. In the 2018 Budget, again on independent advice, it indicated that it intends to make a further change to 2.4% and, as a result of that, increased contributions are required from public sector employers.

The net impact on the police in 2019-20 would be an additional cost of £417 million. The Treasury clearly indicated very early that it would meet most of that, but its position has been to ask the police to find £165 million, which is broadly equivalent to what it felt it had indicated at the 2016 Budget. However, as hon. Members know, police and crime commissioners did not budget for it and they are therefore quite understandably concerned about the impact of this. The Government recognise their concern and, as the Chancellor said in his Budget statement, he recognises the pressure on the police and it is his intention to work with Home Office Ministers and the Home Secretary to find a resolution to this in the 2019-20 funding settlement. That is exactly what we intend to do.

I repeat my message of what I hope is reassurance to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) about our intention to build on the work that I did last year and to take the steps that are required to increase the capacity of the police, to help them to meet the demand on them, because public security is the No. 1 priority of this Government. We are determined to do what we can within the resources we have to ensure that the police have the resources they need.

Question put and agreed to.