Police Employer Pension Contributions

Debate between Pat McFadden and Anneliese Dodds

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

My hon. Friend has made an important point about reserves. One thing is clear in any budgeting exercise: the same money cannot be spent twice.

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend is making a very persuasive case. The police and crime commissioner for my region, Thames Valley, is a member of the governing party rather than my party, but he wrote to me saying:

“During the debate the Minister may say that Police service can afford to meet this additional pension cost from our reserves, but this is simply not true and should be refuted. We already have plans to use these, and cannot afford a further withdrawal to fund these police officer pension costs.”

Is that not exactly my right hon. Friend’s point?

[Mr McFadden]

It is exactly the same point. The Government cannot expect reserves which—as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham)—are there to cover one-off costs, and which, in most cases, are already committed, to be used also to fund ongoing pension liabilities that will grow year on year.

Policing faces a desperately difficult situation.  Violent crime is rising, and a national crisis of knife crime is unfolding.  That has to be a top priority for the Government.  We have police forces saying that they cannot do what would have been routinely expected of them a few years ago, and we have some forces saying that they cannot respond in person to certain types of crime.  All the while, as funds from central Government funds are cut, the public are being asked to pay more and more for all this through rising precept levels.  In other words, the public are paying more and getting less from their police service. That cannot be right, given that it is the Government’s duty to protect the public. It is bad for police morale, because the police want to do a good job, and it is not a good deal for the public.

No wonder confidence in the police’s ability is being hit.  I believe that we need a change of direction, a halt to the cuts in police numbers, and an acceptance that it is a right of citizenship, wherever people live, to be protected by an adequate level of policing. My contention throughout the debate has been that this is not just a matter of public protection, but a matter of equality as well.

The pension changes that have been announced, should they all be loaded on to existing force budgets, will exacerbate the problems that we now face, and will make adequate levels of policing even harder to achieve. We cannot allow further cuts in police numbers to happen.  The Minister and his Department must work with the Treasury to make sure that the changes are fully funded, so that the police can get on with the job we want them to do, which is protecting the public and ensuring that our constituents can live their lives and go about their business free from the fear of crime.