Police Grant Report

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I appreciate the sentiments of my colleagues on the Back Benches.

I was talking about the additional investment that we are making from the centre. So far I have talked about what we are doing to enable PCCs to increase their investment as a result of increases in the local precepts, but we are also providing an extra £130 million for additional investment in national priorities such as digital technology and the police special grant. This is not somehow disconnected from the earlier conversation; it is about how we invest, as a country, in the police system.

The police special grant is an essential tool to help forces who face exceptional events, and it is right for us to do that. This year we are using it to help Greater Manchester and the Metropolitan police respond to the horrific terrorist attacks, as well as helping forces such as South Yorkshire to pay for very large investigations of child sexual exploitation. We are increasing special grant funding by more than £40 million next year to ensure that, for example, we can support the Met in providing security for the commonwealth summit in April.

We are also increasing our crucial investment in police technology. If we are to fully realise the potential benefits of mobile technology and ensure that officers spend as much time as possible on the frontline to protect the public, we must deliver modern 4G communications for the police service and key databases that can be accessed on the move, and must give the police the tools that they need to track down suspects as quickly as possible. That requires investment from the centre. We are, for example, creating a single national automatic number plate recognition system with a greatly enhanced ability to track vehicles and link different vehicles, locations and crimes in order to detect and prevent crime and safeguard vulnerable people.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hurd]

I have already taken a great many interventions from Labour Members, and I need to make some progress to allow the debate to flow.

Of course, the No. 1 responsibility of Governments is the safety of our citizens. The tragedy of five terrorist attacks in London and Manchester in 2017 has sadly reinforced the threat that we face from terrorism. It is therefore right that we are increasing funding for counter-terrorism policing both this year and next¸ and it is disappointing that Labour Members will vote against that tonight. In September we announced £24 million of new money this year, which would go to forces throughout the country to meet the costs relating to the tragic terror attacks. I am also pleased to confirm that the Government have agreed to provide a further £4 million this year to meet the costs arising from the attack at Parsons Green. We are significantly increasing the counter-terrorism policing budget for 2018-19 to £757 million. That is £70 million more than was scheduled, and reflects the priority that we attach to the incredibly important task of protecting the public.

As well as increasing funding by around £450 million in 2018-19, we have signalled—and I think this is the first time we have done so in the context of police grants—that we are prepared to protect Government grant and repeat the additional precept flexibility in 2019-20. That is a response to the calls from many PCCs and budget-holders for more forward visibility to help them to plan more effectively. We have made it clear that the 2019-20 local police settlement will depend on progress made by forces this year in three critical areas: productivity, financial efficiency and transparency about financial reserves, which we discussed earlier. All those need to be improved.

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[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

As MPs, we are all aware of the importance of effective policing in our constituencies. We have a duty to speak out when we believe that there is a problem, and we have a serious problem at the moment, which is a direct result of funding cuts. Since 2010, we have lost 21,000 police officers nationally and more than 6,000 police community support officers. In fact, police numbers are at their lowest in three decades, which is having a real impact on policing. Last March, HMIC’s annual report highlighted a shortage of detectives and suggested that serious crimes were being investigated by junior staff. Other concerns included a downgrading of emergency calls to justify slower response times.

We know that police work can be demanding and dangerous at times. I pay tribute to the hard work of Merseyside’s police officers and PCSOs, its police and crime commissioner, its chief constable and all the support staff for their dedication and sheer hard work. We owe them a debt of gratitude. However, they are being let down by this Government, as they were by the previous coalition Government.

Merseyside police’s budget has been cut by £82 million since 2011-12, and the force must make a further £18 million in savings between now and 2021-22. There has been a net reduction of 1,726 staff, including the loss of over 1,000 police officers—that is a 22% reduction in police officers alone. It is impossible for the public not to feel the effects of cuts on that scale, and police officers are feeling the effects, too, given the increased stress that comes from working in an under-resourced service when demand—in other words, crime—is on the rise. People have the right to feel safe in their communities, but this Government are sadly letting them down. Crime increased in Merseyside by 15% between 2016 and 2017. Emergency calls increased by 9.5%. Burglaries went up by 22% and robbery was up by 31%. The number of domestic violence cases increased by 18.5% and rape cases increased by 33%. That last figure is alarming, but it reflects changes in how things are recorded and victims’ increased willingness to come forward. It also includes a number of historical offences, but the police must still address such crimes.

Other issues include the serious problem of scrambler bikes, which are a scourge on our communities, and antisocial behaviour, which causes anxiety and instability. In Wirral West, I am hearing reports of such activity in areas that have never had any problems before. Such is the Government’s failure to protect them, some residents who have lived in an area for 10 years say that they want to move house. The first responsibility of any Government is to keep their citizens safe, but this Government are failing. It is both reckless and irresponsible that the Government know the impact that cuts in police funding are having on victims and communities, yet they continue to make them, so I ask them to pause and reconsider their approach. Austerity is not working, and when it is applied to policing, it is a high-risk strategy that puts our communities, police officers and PCSOs at risk. I ask the Government to think carefully about the impact of their actions on victims of crime and about the profound trauma that people often experience.

There is no doubt that some of the increase in crime is a result of other austerity measures being pursued by this Government. Cuts to local authorities are leading to the closure of the very services that should be there to support communities, such as the youth services that have such an important role to play in providing young people with constructive ways of being actively involved in their communities. Those services do invaluable work by drawing young people away from getting involved in low-level crime purely because of boredom and a lack of anything else to do. Almost 40% of calls to Merseyside police are connected to mental health issues. The Government are clearly failing to fulfil the commitment made in 2013 to achieve a parity of esteem between physical and mental health in the NHS, and they are failing to provide the services that are so desperately needed.

An analysis by the King’s Fund that was published in January showed that, between 2012-13 and 2016-17, the funding gap between NHS mental health and acute providers actually widened. It revealed a 13% reduction in full-time equivalent mental health nurses between September 2009 and August 2017. The number of nurses providing in-patient care declined by almost 25%, and the total number of nursing support staff in the community fell by 18% over almost exactly the same period. The report also found high sickness rates. Trusts are finding it extremely difficult to recruit, so staff turnover is currently leaving 4% fewer mental health nurses employed each year.

The Government’s obsession with austerity is creating real problems for our overstretched police services, and officers are having to respond to that failure. We are also seeing reports of private police forces appearing in our country. The chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation has warned of the creation of a two-tier system, highlighting the need for public scrutiny of private forces. That is an extremely worrying development, and it suggests that communities buying such services have lost faith in the Government’s ability to provide an effective police force altogether. I do not believe that to be the case, but I do think that there is an urgent need for increased funding.

None of us wants to live in a country in which some areas hire private police forces because of a lack of policing, while other areas are left with an under-resourced service. That is an extremely dangerous route to go down. The Government need to take stock, rethink and give police forces across the country the funding they need. The public expect nothing less.