Policing (North Wales)

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) on securing the debate. She referred to the fact that she asked me a number of questions on the Floor of the House about police funding. On the most recent occasion, she referred to me as the Prime Minister. That is the only nice thing that has been said to me since I became the Police Minister. I was grateful to her for the brief compliment that she paid me, even though it was done in error. That said, I regret the way in which she chose to introduce the debate. She kicked off with a partisan attack on the Conservative party.

[Chris Ruane]

And the Liberals.

[Nick Herbert]

No, the hon. Lady kicked off with an attack on the Conservative party and she made it clear that that was to be the tenor of her speech.

I would like to deal with a few factual matters. The hon. Lady kept talking about 20% cuts. She said that there would be 20% less money; she talked about 20% budget cuts. That is, of course, the persistent implication of those on the Opposition Benches. It is correct that in the spending review there has been a 20% reduction in central Government funding, but all the Opposition Members know perfectly well that police forces are not funded just by central Government and therefore it is simply not the case that there are 20% budget cuts in the North Wales force or any other force in the country. It is important that I make that clear, because the difference is very substantial.

I wonder how many hon. Members think that there will be no precept rise in north Wales in the next three years. I ask them to intervene on me if they think that there will be no precept rises. There is no intervention. Clearly, none of the Opposition Members thinks that there will be no rises.

[Chris Ruane]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

Oh, I have an intervention from the hon. Gentleman.

[Chris Ruane]

Can the Minister answer the intervention that I made on my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn? How is it a saving if an officer who has been employed for 30 years is forced out of his job and paid a pension that is two thirds of his pay to sit at home doing nothing? For an extra third, he could have been kept in his job.

[Nick Herbert]

That is a completely different point, but the hon. Gentleman should ask himself why chief constables are taking decisions about the early retirement of a minority of officers if they think that that will not save them money.

Let me return to the point that I was making, because it was important. I was asking hon. Members whether they thought that in north Wales there would be no precept rises in the next three years. No hon. Member appears to think that there will be no precept rises. Clearly, they all think that there will be precept rises. Even if there are no precept rises in the next three years, the real-terms reduction in funding is just over 15%—not 20%, but just over 15%. That is a cash reduction of 7%.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nick Herbert]

Let me complete the point and then I will give way to the hon. Lady. Let us say that there are precept rises in line with the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast. That is entirely a matter for the police authorities, so we do not know, but if there is a precept increase along those lines in the next three years, the real-terms reduction in funding in that period will be just over 10%. Translated into cash terms, that means that the force will have 1.2% less cash at the end of that period than it does now. That is the devastating impact that hon. Members are claiming for force funding.

[Susan Elan Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman is right: I once made a slip of the tongue and referred to him as the Prime Minister. I think that that is probably because I confused his complacency and arrogance with that of the current incumbent. Will the Minister please answer the point that I raised and the point that Chief Constable Mark Polin raised—that people had no choice whatever in the decisions that were made? Can I bring the Minister back to some of the real questions that people have asked, rather than the Tory partisan sophistry that he is giving us today?

[Nick Herbert]

I withdraw my kind remarks to the hon. Lady. She dished it up and she should expect to get it back. I can assure her, if she wants a serious debate about police funding, police organisation and how police forces can rise to the challenge, that no one is more anxious to engage in that serious, measured debate than I am. Indeed, I think that it is too absent from the House of Commons. It is, however, going on in policing in the real world, because out there, people are having to deal with that challenge. She, however, chose to introduce this debate in an entirely different manner—in a partisan, often cheap manner. She started off in those terms, and I will therefore give her back what she dished up to Government Members, without apology.

I was, however, making a serious point. I was making the point that the spending reduction—

[Albert Owen]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mark Tami]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Herbert]

Hang on a minute. The spending reduction that this force confronts ranges in the field of a real-terms reduction of 10% to 15%, or a cash reduction of 1.2% to 7%.

[Mark Tami]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman of course.

[Mark Tami]

The Minister keeps bringing down the size of the cut that there actually is. I do not believe that he is right, but if he is, why does he think that North Wales police and, indeed, all police forces are cutting and feel that they have to cut front-line policing?

[Nick Herbert]

I will come to the issue of—[Interruption.] I will come directly to that issue. We have always said that the reductions in spending will mean that there will be a smaller work force. No one has ever disputed that. The issue is how those reductions are managed and what the impact then is on policing. I completely reject, and have consistently rejected, the binary link that hon. Members make that suggests that any reduction in public spending will mean a reduction in the quality of the service or that any reduction in headcount will mean a reduction in the quality of the service. That is the fundamental difference between Government Members and Opposition Members. We do not make that binary link. We are interested in the quality of the service and how well resources are deployed. Until Opposition Members understand that point and start talking about value for money and wise spending rather than big spending, they will continue to be in the position that they are in.

[Albert Owen]

The Minister is generous about giving way. He talked about the precept and council tax. Does he think it fair that the people of north Wales, through their council taxes, have paid extra into other forces but are getting the same level of cuts from central Government? Does he want to balance the situation? If north Wales taxpayers paid less through their council tax, would he increase the central Government allocation to them in the interest of fairness?

[Nick Herbert]

The hon. Gentleman makes a serious point. We can discuss it further in the forthcoming funding debate. I am happy to answer it. In taking decisions about damping, we had to consider whether to make an adjustment for those forces that raise more from council tax. I considered that matter very carefully and it was a difficult decision, but in the end we decided that it was not fair to penalise those local populations that are already raising more from local taxpayers by saying that they would receive even less central grant than would otherwise be the case. The expectation of all chief constables and police authorities at the time was that there would be an even reduction in funding. We decided to apply an even cut as a consequence. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand—he may shake his head in disagreement—that that was a proper justification for that decision. It would have been unfair to penalise local taxpayers even more for the fact that they were contributing higher amounts than was the case in many other areas.

I want to make another point to the hon. Member for Clwyd South, in the short time left to me, on the facts of what is happening. There was a reduction in police officers in north Wales of 3.4%, according to the latest figures, in the year to September 2011. That is slightly lower than the national reduction. The reduction in staff is greater than that; staff are often overlooked in relation to these decisions. The hon. Lady’s case is that any reduction in funding is bound to produce an increase in crime, but of course the facts have not been going with her. The facts would not support the case that she makes even if it were intellectually a consistent case. On the latest figures, total recorded offences in north Wales in exactly the same period—to September 2011—were down 1%. There are, of course, particular crime categories within that where that is not the case, but equally there are other categories where crime levels have gone down by bigger margins than that.

It is very important that the force keeps on top of crime. I spoke to the chief constable this morning, and he reassured me. I will quote him. He believes that the force is

“on track to hit a three-year reduction target of 6.3%.”

That is the right ambition. The simple point is this: there is no simple link between spending levels, officer numbers and our ability to fight crime. It depends on effective organisation, good management and effective deployment of resources. It is about—

[Mr Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. We now move to the next debate.