Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Lady has made a very serious point about what is, as she says, a terrible case. I have not yet seen the letter that she sent to me, but I will look at it extremely carefully. We are providing extra resources for the IPCC to try to ensure that it can do its job effectively in looking into the way in which complaints about the police have been dealt with.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

T7. What improvements are planned to exit and entry checks at ports of entry on the Irish sea which form part of the common border area with the Irish Republic?

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman is a long-standing Member of the House, so he knows that that is not a matter relevant to the remit of the Home Office.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

T8. I will make an effort to ask a better question than the last one. Ministers will be aware that alcohol-fuelled crime and antisocial behaviour have damaging consequences in seaside resorts such as Blackpool. Given that we are not proceeding with minimum unit pricing for alcohol, what additional measures, not in the Government alcohol strategy, will they now consider to tackle this social scourge?

[James Brokenshire]

The Government have already strengthened powers for local authorities in Blackpool and elsewhere; for example, to introduce early-morning restriction orders to control the hours when licensed outlets are able to trade. Indeed, we have given councils extra flexibility to act. As I have already indicated, the Government are reflecting on the representations made on the pricing of alcohol and we will come back to the House with our confirmed position in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

2. What steps she is taking to promote better recording of hate crimes against disabled, homosexual and transgender people.

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

Tackling hate crime is an issue that the Government take very seriously, and we are committed to improving the recording of such crimes. Last month the Home Office published the first set of official statistics on hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales, which will help police forces and police and crime commissioners focus resources on where they are most needed.

[Paul Maynard]

Will the Minister join me in grimly welcoming the increase in reported disability hate crime, which is due not least to the efforts of the Government and individual Ministers to encourage an environment in which people feel able to report such crimes? That includes local initiatives such as the third-party reporting centre that we have opened in Blackpool.

[Mr Browne]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. One of the difficulties is giving people the confidence and the practical means to report hate crimes in the first place, but we are keen to encourage and facilitate that process. Of course, the level of recorded crime is sometimes higher although the baseline is the same or even falling because people are being encouraged to come forward, but we want them to come forward, and we are making it easier for them to do so.

Domestic Violence

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate on an important issue. I am pleased that the Conservative Members in the Chamber are all male, which shows that domestic violence is no longer seen as just a women’s issue. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) on his speech. He talked a lot about the case of Jane Clough, who met her death in a hospital car park in my constituency. I watched my hon. Friend’s campaign, and saw what he achieved for Jane’s parents, with admiration.

I want to try to keep my remarks brief. I have been heartened, in a way, by much of what has been said in the debate, because I want to focus on children, and perhaps to question the terminology of domestic violence. I think it is true to say that the law, the statutory authorities, the third sector and charities, the media and even many politicians are still liable to fall into the trap of seeing domestic violence as violence between two adults who are intimate, and nothing else. That does a grave disservice to the problem. That said, there is a policy dilemma: whatever issue we want to deal with, the moment we try to broaden the scope we reduce the impact of what we are doing. I do not feel that domestic violence in which husbands attack wives, or partners attack partners, has been adequately tackled yet. So it is with a degree of trepidation that I suggest that we need to expand our remit to the wider issue of family violence.

Why do I say that? I was struck by a phrase in the NSPCC report that was mentioned earlier: the impact of domestic violence on children had been looked at, but solely in terms of the impact on the non-aggressor parent, and not in terms of the child as a victim. I thought that omission was curious. It might not have been intentional. I am sure that elsewhere in NSPCC documentation there is a ream of information about children as victims of domestic violence, but I thought that, in that one instance, there was a lack of insight into the nature of domestic violence for children.

There is always a danger that Westminster Hall debates become a recycling of statistics, and I try to avoid that; but a report that came out in March from the charity 4Children caught my eye. It cited the figure of 1 million children affected by domestic violence. That eye-catching figure got 4Children the front page of The Independent, but the charity drilled down slightly deeper into what needed to be done. I listened carefully to the points made by the hon. Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) about local authority cuts and their impact. What 4Children had to say, and what the Government are doing, provide a useful insight into that. I strongly welcome the fact that the Prime Minister himself has made a commitment to greater intervention in the 120,000 so-called troubled families, not least because 80% of them have at some point contacted the police or the NHS about domestic violence. In relation to my earlier comments about problems of definition, it is interesting to note that, in a quarter of those 80% of families, the domestic violence was not between two adults in an intimate relationship. I think that that is proof that when we discuss domestic violence we are really discussing family violence—violence within the home.

[Julie Hilling]

One of the things that the hon. Gentleman’s argument misses is the fact that domestic violence is not class-based at all. It happens in all classes. It does not matter whether someone is rich or poor. A perpetrator can be a millionaire or a pauper. Just focusing on troubled families means missing all the other people, of whatever class, gender or ethnicity, who do not feature in that group. Not long ago there was a murder in my area where the victim was from an affluent background, and had not come to anyone’s attention, because what was happening was hidden within four walls.

[Paul Maynard]

I might just about accept what the hon. Lady says, but I regret the overtone of class rhetoric that she allowed to creep into her comment. Blackpool North and Cleveleys is an area with a high degree of social deprivation, and the vast bulk of the issues that I encounter on the doorstep are a function of poverty. I accept that domestic violence happens across the classes, and across all divides; but where, in my constituency, it is really a problem that holds back children’s achievement in school, it is a function of poverty. That is why the Prime Minister’s attempts to deal with the troubled families issue should be welcomed and not dismissed as an exercise in class politics.

Perhaps I may explain a little more clearly why the issue is of interest. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston made the point about refuges having to retender; however, I suggest that local authorities should take a broader view and consider the outputs of refuge centres and, as 4Children suggests adopt a payment-by-results approach to reducing family violence. That is in its policy document.

[Kate Green]

One of the problems for refuges, in achieving that, is that often they work with women for very short periods. Women may spend only days in the refuge. It is important that we should not rush down the route of a payment-by-results model, which might put the emergence of provision under even further financial pressure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

I hope that the hon. Lady will forgive me for not making myself clear. I suggest that the payment-by-results model is perhaps more appropriate for reducing violence in troubled families. As to refuges in general, she made the point about the high quality of certain independent refuges, and the experience they bring. I have seen that myself at the refuge in Blackpool. That can be demonstrated through outcomes and outputs, rather than just inputs.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not want to misrepresent the hon. Gentleman, will he say more about the metrics he would use to judge a payment-by-results culture for reducing family violence? Would it be fewer punches or black eyes? Will he be clearer about what he means? It is worrying to some of us, who might misinterpret him. What does he suggest would be an acceptable way of dealing with domestic violence?

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving me an opportunity to make my thinking clear. Going by what I see of troubled families, including in constituency surgeries, and what I learn from talking to police, what I am thinking about relates to a reduction in—or the absence of—reports of family violence passed up through the network of social workers, police and schools, or whatever, about the families they work with. I think that that is a perfectly valid metric to apply in that situation. It can be measured, and I see no reason why one would not want to do it. It does not necessarily guarantee that everything will be rosy for ever and a day, but it is intended to show whether interventions are successful. We must take a broader view.

[Julie Hilling]

rose—

[Paul Maynard]

If the hon. Lady does not mind, I have given way a few times now, and want to conclude. I am sure she will be able to make her points at another time.

A report has been published today, for example, from the Children’s Commissioner for England, about the impact that exposure to problem drinking has on younger children. I have seen in my constituency that the educational achievement of young carers is held back, because they must deal with parents with addiction problems that may lead to some form of family violence. The problems are broad, widespread and complex in the way they interconnect. I accept the point that it is not easy to come up with a metric that will reflect the reality, but, equally, it is possible to measure what interventions achieve. It is possible to assess, on some level, what is being achieved.

I urge the Government to look again at the 2005 Home Office definition of domestic violence, which excludes so much of what happens in the family. In April, a case in my constituency received some media coverage. A mother and her partner were locking a 10-year-old boy in a coal bunker, for no reason than their own lust for cruelty. When he was finally released and they were charged, he said he was happy, if only because he was now able to own a toothbrush for the first time—at the age of 10.

There is a reality to what is occurring that means that we must take a more intelligent approach, which seeks to measure the impact of what we are doing to rectify the situation. The issue is not about the Government throwing yet more money at a problem they can identify, but about ensuring that the money we throw has an impact. It is not about sustaining services that are not achieving their goals, but about achieving change for the people whom we represent and the people who are suffering from these problems. Measures can be taken.

I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Bolton West. I am quite ashamed to live in a country where we have more refuges for pets than for victims of domestic violence. Until that is changed, I want our focus to be on expanding provision for adults first.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am very well aware that injunctions are often used effectively by social landlords to deal quickly with ASB. We want to build on their success in our new proposals so that they can be available to other organisations. We recognise the vital role that landlords play in tackling antisocial behaviour and are committed to strengthening their ability to deal with it.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

14. What steps she is taking to reduce levels of domestic violence.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Government’s updated action plan for our strategy to end violence against women and girls was published on 8 March. We have ring-fenced nearly £40 million of stable funding for specialist local domestic and sexual violence support services until 2015. The plan also includes new actions to help to reduce domestic violence, including a one-year pilot to test a domestic violence disclosure scheme from the summer of 2012.

[Paul Maynard]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. On a recent visit to the Awaken team in Blackpool, I was told that there is a clear correlation between domestic violence against young girls in the home and future exposure to child sexual exploitation. As the Home Secretary builds her policy, will she bear in mind the importance of that correlation and ensure that she works on that with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has responsibility for children?

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

4. What steps she is taking to reduce alcohol-related crime.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

8. What steps she is taking to reduce alcohol-related crime.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

10. What steps she is taking to reduce alcohol-related crime.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

I congratulate local initiatives and partnerships that make a significant difference in their communities. I remember travelling to Newquay to see a very effective partnership scheme addressing these problems in the south-west. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman’s community on taking the step he mentions, and I am certainly willing to consider a request to meet representatives of the scheme to hear more about it.

[Paul Maynard]

I welcome the launch of the public consultation on the regulation of late-night drinking venues. What powers does the Minister intend to place in the hands of my constituents so that they can minimise the disruption and harm caused by so much late-night drinking in town centres such as Blackpool’s?

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend highlights a problem that we have identified: we must ensure that local communities have a proper say on licensing matters. That is why we have legislated to strengthen the powers of councils to clamp down on late-night drinking and sales after midnight, if they so choose. That is also why we are introducing the late-night levy to provide some element of cost reimbursement for dealing with the problems associated with late-night drinking. Equally importantly, on an individual basis we must ensure that people can make representations on licensing. These matters must not be subject to the over-restrictive requirements adopted by the previous Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have announced a number of measures that we will take that will have a significant impact on metal theft. We are looking at further measures that might be needed. The most immediate impact will come not only from the increased fines, but from the removal of the ability to make cash payments for scrap metal.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

T5. Will my hon. Friend tell me how much will be saved by freezing police pay and whether the Opposition support those savings?

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

I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that £350 million a year will be saved through the freeze on police pay. I am also happy to confirm that the shadow Home Secretary endorsed that policy 10 days ago. The Opposition are therefore effectively committed to the same savings programme as the Government.

Parliamentary Representation

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), and to the Speaker’s Panel as a whole, for putting the report together. I also note, as have others, that we have had a general election since it was published, and that that has given rise to a more diverse Parliament.

I have listened carefully to the concerns about what might happen in 2015, but I have to say that I do not share them. I have tremendous respect for the Labour party as an institution, but I have never attended a Labour party meeting. I pray to God that I never will! Culturally, Labour has a very different attitude to the Conservative party, and I think it is fair to say that what works for Labour would probably not work for us. I love the Conservative party dearly, but I sometimes think that, in regard to candidate selection, there is a bit of push-me, pull-you involved. The more people try to tell us what to do, the more we rebel against them. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) made it clear that there was a sea change on this side of the House at the 2010 election, and I do not think that we will go backwards from that point. We are an evolutionary party. Changes occur gradually and then suddenly, whoosh, they start to occur very rapidly. I therefore have much more confidence than some hon. Members.

I am reluctant to serve up cold maiden speeches from two years ago, so I will not do so, but I made the point that, although I did not want to dwell on my physical disability, my cerebral palsy or my epilepsy, I was likely to end up as a role model, whether I liked it or not. That has certainly been the case.

Many people come to me saying that they want to get more involved in public life generally. I think this is a fundamental issue that has been missed in the debate so far, as it is not just about getting more diverse Members of this House. I was at a RADAR—Royal Association for Disability Rights—reception at Downing street, and I pay tribute to the work it does in this field. It told me that it wanted more leaders in public life as a whole, not just in this Chamber. It is vital that more diverse people act as counsellors, as these are the people who will be acting on selection panels to select our successors and our candidates. By broadening the political base, we are contributing to broadening the membership here.

I echo what the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) said about section 141 of the Mental Health Act. People might think that it is a rather abstruse measure or small print in legislation that needs to be tidied up at some point. However, I think it is fundamental, and the longer I think about it, the more strongly I become convinced of that viewpoint.

I am one of two MPs who have announced in the Chamber that they have epilepsy. This is the first Parliament to include MPs who have been open about that. In the past, for reasons I have never quite understood, people were concerned not to talk about it. Because my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) and I have been able to talk about it, we have seen a more rapid change in Government attitudes towards epilepsy. When I spoke about my own personal experiences in a Westminster Hall debate—not just about my epilepsy, but about speech therapy, cerebral palsy and all sorts of other issues on which my life gives me a unique perspective—I was surprised when other Members came up to me afterwards to say, “That’s a really useful contribution you made.” It struck me that what I said was utterly unexceptional and that I was just filling time in the parliamentary schedule, as it were, yet others were saying, “That was fantastic; that was wonderful.” It really makes a difference. If more people are able to talk about their experiences, it will improve policy. I think that echoes a point made by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears).

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman raised an important point about the contribution of diverse communities to public life as a whole. I was involved in running a cross-government diversity programme aimed at increasing the contributions from all communities to our public boards. Does he agree, however, that the focus has to stay on increasing diversity in Parliament? According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, our Parliament ranks joint 49th in the world when it comes to the number of women in Parliament. Should not all parties try to maintain our goal of making our Parliament more representative of Britain as a whole?

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Lady for that thoughtful contribution. It brings me back to what I said earlier—that it is for each party to find its own path towards the greater diversity that we all wish to see. Conservative Members will have their path; the hon. Lady and her party will no doubt have their path—but we all want to get to the same destination.

My bigger concern is that in 10 years’ time, a Speaker’s Panel will be aiming not for a more representative Parliament, but for a Parliament of people who are not independently wealthy. My big fear is that what is really happening in politics at the moment is that people from ordinary backgrounds, like me, who have struggled to fund their own campaigns and to make ends meet are going to be excluded. I am not trying to say that I am poor by any means, in view of my salary, but I was a candidate who lost his job before the election and was not quite sure what to do. It was a genuine struggle to make ends meet. Thank God I had a credit card!

We have a problem. There will increasingly come a time when unless candidates are of independent means, having made their money before they chose to enter politics, politics will not be a practical option for them—no matter what their family circumstances, no matter what their skills and no matter what minority or political party they seek to represent. We will have a much narrower democracy. That is why I welcome the internship scheme that the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles mentioned. That is why, in Blackpool, I am trying desperately to explain to people why Parliament is relevant to them. It is also why I want more schools to come here. I am delighted that next week the first primary school from my constituency will be coming. It has been a battle, but at last the schools are starting to come down to Westminster. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), I go around schools trying to explain what I do, and I get more pleasure out of my politics every time someone comes up to me and says “I would never dream of voting for you—I cannot stand your party—but I like what you are doing as a human being.”

I want the general public to see in their MPs people who they feel are just like them. That, to me, is the most crucial thing of all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. We have been concerned about the rate at which payments have been made, and last week I convened a meeting with representatives of the insurance industry to discuss the matter. They assured me that, according to their latest assessment, some two thirds of businesses have received a partial or full payment. However, there ought to be processes to ensure that people are paid more swiftly, and such processes need to be sorted out by police authorities and the industry.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Many of the people who have made claims under the 1886 Act have done so because of damage to their motor vehicles, but in 1886 the car had only been invented for a year. Can the Minister assure me that his review takes into account all the possible forms of damage so that no one will be excluded?

[Nick Herbert]

It is true that uninsured vehicles are not covered by the Act, as no one envisaged the need for them to be. They would be covered if they were on private property, but not if they were in a public place. Of course, if vehicles are insured, a claim can be made against the insurers. This is one of the issues that we shall have to consider in the review.

Gangs and Youth Violence

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

One of the points that the hon. Lady is missing is that, sadly, over the years, significant sums have been spent on projects that are not as effective as they should be. There are families out there on whom hundreds of thousands of pounds are being spent by various Government agencies, often not working together, and this is not effective. The problems still persist. The work that has been done in Waltham Forest, however, shows that if we bring together agencies such as the police, the local authority and others to tackle gang violence, yes, we spend money on those individuals, but we end up saving money by turning their lives around. Often, the effective intervention is not the expensive intervention.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, but a short prison sentence of two months for youths convicted of knife crime does not offer the opportunity for complete rehabilitation. Does she agree, however, that it might offer a vital opportunity to diagnose previously hidden conditions such as communication delay, which could be a key factor in people entering pathways to crime?

[Mrs May]

I commend my hon. Friend’s work on this issue. I know that he takes it very seriously, and that he has looked into the impact of communication delay on young people. In relation to sentencing, it is important to send a clear message about the importance that we attach to doing something to reduce and stop knife crime. We also need to look at the interventions that take place when young people are undertaking custodial sentences, to ensure that we can rehabilitate them and take the opportunity to turn their lives around.

Policing and Crime

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

When the shadow Home Secretary was in Blackpool, did she join in welcoming the decision by the Lancashire constabulary to increase community policing in Blackpool, as it recently announced?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman knows that while every chief constable across the country is trying to do everything they can to get as many police as possible out into neighbourhoods, the Lancashire constabulary is already being hit by cuts to front-line policing. The chief constable has raised his concerns about the cuts to front-line policing, including hundreds of officers and staff in his area.

[Paul Maynard]

rose—

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

One of my regular Sunday penances, more fool me, is to read The Observer. I do that neither for the quality of its journalism nor for the need to read Will Hutton’s economic “wisdom”, but because I am keen to get my head around what the Opposition are thinking so that I can better understand why they say the crazy things they say. This weekend’s edition was particularly interesting: it printed a column in which it bemoaned the death of political discourse because of the quality of the Opposition’s response to what happened last week over the Justice Secretary’s comments. Nothing that I have heard today in the two debates I have sat through has given me any cause to decide that the quality of political discourse in the Chamber is improving. With a few honourable exceptions on both sides of the House it has been profoundly dispiriting.

Far more spiriting was my experience of attending the civic Sunday service yesterday in Poulton-le-Fylde for the new mayor of Wyre. Next to me on the pew sat the divisional commander of the northern section of Lancashire constabulary, whom I see occasionally at the odd event and who has also been a senior policeman in the adjacent Blackpool area. We had a fascinating discussion about some of the policing challenges he faces such as the role of domestic violence, with some 36% of violent crime within the northern division occurring within a family dwelling. We had a good-natured debate about the need for, or his arguments in favour of, minimum pricing for alcohol. Our discussion brought home to me a point that the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) was trying to make earlier—that partnership working is a good thing. We have very senior policemen who have a very good understanding of the social problems in the communities they seek to serve.

I have had another spiriting encounter recently—at one of my street surgeries on the day before that service. As I stood on the street corner under my Conservative umbrella in the pouring rain on the Fylde coast, a local resident and I discussed long-term antisocial behaviour. I tried to persuade that house owner, who was an elderly gentleman, that it was worth reporting a crime to the police, that he should not just assume that he would be ignored and that he needed to have a bit more confidence in the police. That encounter brought home to me once again the fact that there is a fundamental disconnect. We can have as many PACT—police and community together—meetings as we like, but they do not achieve much if they are not attended. We can have as many well-paid members of police authorities as we like—promoting themselves all of a sudden to make sure they have a future—but if people do not know who they are and do not see the role they play, as people have not recently, then they are not the ones to reconnect with ordinary people. That is why I strongly support the decision to introduce police commissioners.

I speak as a Member of Parliament who is fortunate, as I mentioned to the shadow Home Secretary earlier. I know that the chief constable of Lancashire has an awful lot to say for himself but he has some excellent divisional commanders who have been working on trying to accommodate the budgetary changes in Lancashire. In Blackpool, the police have been able to increase the number of neighbourhood policemen on the beat or, to use that wonderful phrase that the Opposition love so much, on the front line. My constituents will benefit from that and I welcome it. More importantly, I welcome the shadow Home Secretary’s pledge, if I heard her correctly, to maintain police numbers as they are. I am so grateful to her for writing all of my election leaflets between now and the general election. When I get my Hansard tomorrow I will be able to say quite confidently that Labour would cut policing in Blackpool because they would take it back to where it was before we had the improvements in neighbourhood policing.

My main concern, which I would like to raise in the final minute, is that last year Lancashire police’s total external income was £310 million, less than for 2010-11, but still £2 million more than for 2009-10. However, more than 30% of the increase in the police authority’s council tax precept has gone not on front-line policing, but rather on plugging the growing gap in police pensions. I know that there is much concern in all parts of the House about changes to police terms and conditions, but it is important to look at the matter, as the Home Secretary has said, from the point of view of fairness to taxpayers as well.

By 2011 the subsidy from the taxpayer to plug the gap in Lancashire police authority’s pension scheme had risen to £23 million, up from £13 million just three years ago. I firmly believe that the police should get a fair pension and a fair deal, but taxpayers also deserve a degree of fairness. The systemic underperformance of police pension funds must be resolved because the burden falls, in the end, on all of us.