Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend that this Government, unlike the previous one, would introduce transitional arrangements for any new country entering the EU, so we would have much greater control over the numbers than the previous Government did when the EU expanded with the accession of the A8 countries four or five years ago. In fact, over time migration within the EU evens out, and even now the vast majority of immigration to this country comes from outside the EU. That is the area on which the Government will concentrate to ensure that we have sustainable numbers coming to this country.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

9. How much central funding for police forces she plans to provide in 2011-12.

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

Future funding for the police service will be announced in the spending review, which reports on 20 October. I cannot speculate on the outcome of this review, but the Government’s priority is to cut the deficit, and the police must play their part in achieving this.

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply. He has already cut the police budget in year by £125 million, the equivalent of approximately 4,000 police jobs. If he is to make a 25% cut as the comprehensive spending review requires, it will be a cut of some £1.1 billion, the equivalent of some 40,000 police jobs. Can he confirm that that is the order of magnitude of the cuts that he is looking at? A simple yes or no will do.

[Nick Herbert]

The hon. Lady is just speculating. In relation to the in-year cut to which she objects, it is important to understand that it represents less than 1% of what the police will spend this year, and our view is that the police can find those efficiencies and make the savings. In relation to further cuts, there will have to be savings, but the independent inspectorate of constabulary said a few weeks ago that police forces could save more than £1 billion a year—equivalent to 12% of spending—without having an impact on the front line.