Police

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The Minister said that we have the greatest police force in the world, but the coalition has had a funny way of showing it, given the cuts made to the police up and down this land in the past five years.

In a spirit of even-handedness, I also criticise my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), who said that spending levels would be going back to those of the 1930s. I remind him of the famous Mancunian Robert Peel and the fact that there was no police force before the Metropolitan Police Act 1829—those are the levels we will be going back to. Our chief constable, Peter Fahy, and our police and crime commissioner, Tony Lloyd, have said that if policing cuts continue beyond 2017, Greater Manchester police will not be able to maintain its service to the public. That is a very serious accusation from two very senior people in the police force of this land.

Cuts to GMP’s front-line services have been ongoing since the coalition Government came to power. GMP has lost 1,151 officers, with a further 226 expected to go this year alone. The service has already made considerable savings as it strives to deal with the £134 million hole in its budget this financial year, resulting in 1,000 fewer police staff posts and the loss of 1,138 police officers from our streets in Greater Manchester. Since 2010, the Government have slashed Greater Manchester’s police budget by a quarter, with an estimated £114 million of cuts still to come. This does not take into account the community fund, which in 2013 saw a further £6 million of cuts to GMP’s funding, to be redirected to London. In 2013, GMP had a further £6.4 million slashed from its budget to fund the Government’s own projects. That money, which could have paid for 145 police officers or 210 PCSOs, was clawed back by the Government to fund unpopular schemes such as the proposal to allow people to join the police service at a senior rank without ever having to walk the beat, and giving additional funding to the Independent Police Complaints Commission and to City of London police.

At the beginning of 2014, the Chancellor announced that the Home Office budget, which includes policing, would be cut by another 6% in 2015-16. A 6% cut would see Greater Manchester police lose another £26.8 million—the equivalent of 1,200 student police officers. Most recently, the police and crime commissioner was asked to find £19 million to cut from GMP’s budget. This is on top of the £134 million that has already been taken from policing in the region, resulting, as I said, in the loss of 1,138 police officers. So much for the northern powerhouse and devolution in our great cities!

Between 2010 and 2013, the service was losing on average 350 police officers each year as GMP struggled to cope with the ongoing programme of austerity. In order to meet the cuts required by central Government, GMP has undertaken a series of changes, including using office space that accommodates 1,100 admin and support staff in a building with space for just 500 desks. All employees can now work from home or in other GMP buildings. The closure and disposal of surplus estates has thus reduced operating costs by £3 million, with further year-on-year savings to come through associated reductions in business rates, energy and maintenance. GMP is playing its part.

GMP and Manchester city council are sharing vehicle servicing with each other. The force has developed a simulation model to help it understand the effects of changes to demand and resources. It researched the length of time taken by officers to deal with certain types of crimes and then used this understanding to anticipate demand and allocate resources more efficiently. Through partnership working, GMP has taken part in a variety of schemes, including a pilot scheme in Oldham providing officers with access to mental health professionals, linking with Stockport’s psychiatric department to train response officers and concluding agreements with care homes on how they and the force can work together. GMP is clearing up more and more of the other problems that are being caused by this Government’s austerity programme.

Much has been made of the need to preserve the numbers of PCSOs within GMP, in accordance with the neighbourhood policing strategy. Despite the best efforts of the police commissioner to preserve PSCO numbers, since 2010 there has been a reduction of just over 50. However, the service expects its numbers to be back up to full strength by next March. These reductions have been mitigated slightly by an increase in operational front-line staff, with an increase of 200 over the same period.

Early in 2014, the commissioner outlined plans to raise the police precept element of council tax by 5%, which would have raised £3.3 million. The plan was to help to mitigate some of the cuts being made by central Government. It would have added £5 to the average annual council tax bill—about 10p a week. This money would have been invested in shoring up neighbourhood policing teams, including the recruitment of 50 new police officers to mitigate the annual loss of about 350 officers. Unfortunately, the referendum that would have been triggered as a result of the Government’s introduction of compulsory referendums on tax increases over 5% would have cost more money to implement than it would have raised. As a result, the commissioner was able to raise only £2 million towards the cost of GMP’s policing budget, and that has been used to support front-line policing.

Most of the increases in crime rates from 2013 onwards are in what could loosely be defined as economic-type crimes such as theft, burglary, vehicle offences and shoplifting. This has come at the same time as the slashing of police numbers that we have seen in Greater Manchester. Let me make this very clear: the Government say that crime is going down, but crime in Greater Manchester is going up.

[Mike Penning]

No, it is not.

[Mike Kane]

The combination of all these measures is threatening the great work that has been done by Greater Manchester police, partner agencies and local communities to build safer neighbourhoods across our region. That work is being endangered.

The Minister said from a sedentary position that crime in Greater Manchester is not going up. I suggest that he talk to the Manchester Evening News, which has proved—

[Mike Penning]

Crime in the Greater Manchester area since 2010 is down by 21%. The hon. Gentleman should not believe everything he reads in the local newspaper. I used to write for one, so I know just how they work. However, we have had an increase in reported crime in some areas, which I am really pleased about, particularly rape and serious assaults, which have seen a 3% increase this year. Three per cent. off 21%—there has been a 18% decrease since the election.

[Mike Kane]

When Robert Peel graced the Minister’s position, he introduced the police force and Catholic emancipation and got rid of the corn laws, and now we are arguing about whether crime is up or down. The position is clear. Statistics released this year show that crime in Greater Manchester is on the rise for the first time in 20 years. The areas that have seen the biggest increase are theft offences, including burglary, mobile phone theft and shoplifting. Detection rates across Greater Manchester are also falling, which could indicate the effect of the massive reduction in the number of police officers as a result of the cuts.

Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has echoed the concerns of GMP and the commissioner that the ongoing programme of cuts could start to hit front-line services. An HMIC report “Policing in Austerity: Meeting the Challenge” has tracked how police have responded to budget cuts since summer 2011, using force data and inspections to analyse how they are making savings and how this is affecting the way they work and the service they provide to their communities. GMP is one of the forces to have received a “good” rating for the way it has managed the budget cuts so far, but HMIC also recognised that budget cuts disproportionately affect Greater Manchester.

The chief constable has told me, “We are now standing at the edge of a cliff.” He says that if this programme of cuts goes beyond 2017, he cannot provide the levels of policing that Greater Manchester people expect and deserve, because there is simply not enough money in the pot. If policing cuts continue beyond 2017, GMP will not be able to maintain its service to the public. The police and crime commissioner, Tony Lloyd, has warned since before he was elected that the Government’s reckless programme of cuts is endangering community safety and threatening the work done by GMP over the past 20 years to reduce crime rates and restore Manchester’s reputation in the light of the “Gunchester” years. That is in addition to our counter-terrorism work.

After I entered public life in the early 1990s, our city experienced two terrorist attacks by the IRA. In 1992, 65 people were injured, and in 1996 the biggest bomb in peacetime devastated our city. In 2003, PC Oake was murdered by fundamentalist Islamists when he visited a scene to arrest somebody. There are currently all sorts of pressures on how Greater Manchester deals with counter-terrorism.

[Sarah Newton]

I know the hon. Gentleman’s constituency very well because my in-laws are from that part of the world and I recognise the challenges he is describing, but has he actually costed his proposals and have they been cleared by the shadow Chancellor?

[Mike Kane]

Dear oh dear. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington has clearly explained how we can mitigate some of the cuts. I say to the hon. Lady: how can we not do this when crime is going up in my community and where I live?

[Jack Dromey]

I am glad that point has been made, because all the costings for proposals by Opposition Front Benchers have been checked, including with the House of Commons Library. The simple reality is that the difference between the Government and the Opposition is that, in circumstances where sensible savings can be made which would save the 1,000 police officers under threat in 2015-16, the Government are choosing to go ahead with their proposals, irrespective of what has been said by the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) and for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane).

[Mike Kane]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Savings of £136.8 million are forecast to be required by my force alone by March 2018. Savings of £71.3 million have already been identified, with the majority coming from a net reduction in police numbers by 1,054 over that period. There is a choice at this general election: people can choose that type of austerity and see crime rise on their patch or they can choose a better way.

In conclusion, I thank my police and crime commissioner, Tony Lloyd, for his hard work; the chief constable, Peter Fahy; my local officers in Wythenshawe and Sale East, and the fine network of home watch associations that I support, particularly Sale Homewatch, and Graham Roe, who helped me prepare this speech.