Police: Emergency Calls

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I first join the noble Lord in remembering today the sacrifice that Keith Palmer made to protect people in the Palace of Westminster. There will be a memorial in, I think, about 20 minutes’ time in Westminster Hall to remember the attack a year ago. The MPCC and the APCC called for £440 million of extra funding in 2018-19, with additional counterterrorism funding and increases in council tax precepts on top. They wanted this funding for an extra 5,000 front-line officers for proactive policing by 2020. The funding increase for next year is made up of main government grant, protected at flat cash; up to £270 million from increase in council tax precept income; a £15 million increase in counterterrorism police funding; and a £130 million increase in national priorities, mostly special grant, for exceptional costs and technology. On the point about domestic violence, I totally agree with the noble Lord. We have provided £11 million through the police transformation fund to support new police interventions to tackle domestic abuse, with a focus on early intervention and prevention.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I join the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in paying tribute to PC Keith Palmer. The crisis in police response times has been made in Downing Street and the Home Office and is putting people’s safety at risk. Does the Minister accept that the Government have, in real terms, cut the funding to police? When she responds, I am sure that she will have in mind the comments of the UK Statistics Authority chair, Sir David Norgrove, who criticised the Government and the Home Office for incorrectly leading the public to assume that the Government were increasing police funding.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, every time I have stood at this Dispatch Box I have tried to explain what the increase will look like. I hope that I have made it quite clear. I have just explained to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the breakdown of the funding. Almost all PCCs in England intend to increase the precept by £12, or very close to that. We expect the funding increase for local force budgets to be very close to the £270 million figure that I have just outlined. Most PCCs have set out plans to use this additional funding to protect or improve front-line policing. As I have said before at this Dispatch Box, if all forces delivered the level of productivity benefits of mobile working of the best forces, the average officer could spend an hour a day extra on the front line. This has the potential to free up the equivalent of 11,000 extra officers across England and Wales.