Police Funding

Richard Drax Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

May I say what a privilege it is to follow the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), a distinguished Member of the House? I must say that I agreed with much of what he said. I also thank the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for his eloquent opening of the debate. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) made the point that law and order is a top priority, and that is a view with which I, and all hon. Members, concur.

We will hear shortly how much our police forces will get. The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, who is on the Front Bench, has received a letter from me, listing a lot of ideas, following a long meeting I had with my chief constable, on how to save on procurement, duplication of effort and needless bureaucracy. Although I will speak in the main from the perspective of my constituency, Dorset is a very large area with a number of MPs, but it has a small police force and low funding. Consequently, we are probably braced more than most for the cuts announcement.

Over the past decade, Dorset police authority has received chronically low levels of Government funding. To make up the funding, it has had to rely increasingly on the council tax precept. In addition, perhaps the Minister would note that our budget for police community support officers is ring-fenced at £3.2 million, which the police feel is unnecessarily restrictive. If they cannot change their financial organisation to meet the cuts and future requirements, they have much less flexibility.

According to benchmarking studies, Dorset police have been praised for cuts in back-office services such as finance and personnel, and their costs are way below the national average. My concern is that, following the announcement, Dorset police will experience further cuts, following year-on-year cuts over the past 10 years, despite being told that they are doing an excellent job—every time they were told that they were doing an excellent job, the chief constable had less money with which to do it.

If police officers on the beat in Dorset are to be reduced, we will have problems. In my constituency, the island of Portland is a case in point. Portland has a population of about 15,000 people, but some years ago it had a population of 8,000 or 9,000. In those days, it had 13 police officers based in a police station. It now has two mobile police officers, with two PCSOs backing them up. Those officers are based near the island—they share the office that the police are using to organise for the Olympic games. Let me give all credit to those two brave officers and the two PCSOs—I have been out with them on patrol on two occasions, and they do a remarkable job. However, the people on the island of Portland are not convinced that the police have a high enough profile. If cuts come, I am concerned that places such as Portland will be affected.

As Portland and Weymouth will host the Olympic sailing events in 2012, let me touch on Dorset’s projected budget of just under £64.5 million in that year. In an Olympic year, therefore, Dorset police will face a £6.4 million shortfall in their budget. We know that there is a budget for the Olympics, and we are assured that the money is there. However, there is no definitive funding amount. Manpower costs for the Olympics are difficult to estimate, and Dorset police suggest that they will need 600 additional officers to provide security for the games. Will Dorset police meet all the costs of those extra officers, or just their overtime? The costs are not negligible. The police presence will be needed for 64 days, from pre-Olympic training, throughout the games, until the Paralympics afterwards. The Olympic policing budgets are centralised, in 16 different silos, which makes planning and preparation difficult and drawn out. For example, deciding whether to place a man or a camera on a strategic corner can take weeks, wasting a lot of money.

Finally, I agree with the coalition Government’s stance—I believe that the stance is shared across parties—of wanting more neighbourhood policing. When I ask my constituents whether they have seen their neighbourhood sergeant or constable, they say, “Yes, he was here last week, but for the last two months he’s been taken off on other duties.” No doubt there is a shortage of officers on the ground, but may I suggest to the Minister, who will probably pale at the additional cost, that we turn back the clock, in a positive fashion, and have police officers based in local communities? I am talking about reopening police stations, which will allow police officers to get to know—and literally smell—their community. They will know when young Jimmy or Jack is about to commit an offence at six or eight years of age, and prevent him from becoming a hardened criminal when he is 18. We must get officers back into our local communities. At the right moment, a firm word and gentle guidance can head off a life behind bars. In the long run, the cost of reopening local stations would be offset against reductions in crime and imprisonment, and would allow police to reconnect with the communities they serve.

CCTV has its place. I am an ex-soldier, and have experience of using technology to get intelligence and so forth. However, CCTV cannot tell us the demeanour of a young man or woman intent on committing crime. A police officer on the beat is able not only to deter such a person from committing crime, but if the crime is committed the police officer can respond immediately. That boosts confidence in the community and helps a raft of other things, not least tourism, which brings in much-needed cash to South Dorset.

As the Minister will announce the figures imminently—I believe at the end of this week—may I ask him, most humbly, and with the Olympics in mind, please to consider Dorset police—[Interruption.] And other constituencies, as many Members are also concerned about their police. To get police back into the local community, let us reinvest in police stations, to save in the longer term and fight crime.