Police Grant Report

Richard Drax Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this interesting debate. I want to heap praise on my hon. Friend the Minister, with whom I have had many dealings and who has been simply fantastic at talking to us in Dorset. We look forward to him visiting us as soon as possible. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), who is right here beside me and who spoke on Dorset’s behalf. I shall be brief, although I suspect I may repeat some of his facts and figures, but they are worth repeating.

I also thank the new chief constable, Scott Chilton, and our new PCC, David Sidwick. I am glad to say that they are joined at the hip and want to tackle crime—that is refreshing—and protect us on the streets. They are doing a wonderful job, and my hon. Friend and I, and the other Dorset MPs, are right behind them both.

In 2006, when I was selected to be the candidate in Dorset, I remember waving my placard saying, “More money for the police.” I regret to say that we were bottom of the funding formula, but we still are, and the Minister knows that. Out of the 41 forces, we are the 40th, excluding the council tax precept, which many hon. Members have mentioned, including the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones)—we do not always agree politically, but I will call him my friend and we sit together on the Defence Committee. I agree to a certain extent that this is a vulnerability, but council tax is high in Dorset and paying any more would affect my constituents, many of whom are struggling to pay this dreadful tax. I know my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), a Government Whip, is equally passionate about the police in Dorset.

I now have a few statistics—forgive me, but the Minister will understand. Under the national funding formula, Dorset receives £91.79 a head. The range is from £188 to, say, £90. The median is £109.28. To reach it, Dorset would need another £13.5 million in funding. On net revenue expenditure, Dorset is 28th out of 41 forces—I think my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset mentioned that. The median is £189 a head, and Dorset would need an extra £5.4 million to reach the median.

Dorset is so beautiful that millions of people visit it, and we welcome them. However, the population trebles in the summer, and there is no extra funding or resources for that. There is no extra grant funding to tackle drugs and violence, despite the 10-year drugs strategy. Yet Bournemouth, which is not in my seat but clearly part of Dorset, is ninth in the country for heroin and crack cocaine use. This is a worrying trend, and Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch—town or city; call it what you will—have a growing problem and need the resources to tackle it. We also have no violence reduction unit or Project ADDER funding—the Minister will understand what those are.

I have had briefings from Dorset police that county lines is a real problem for us in Dorset. I worked with my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset on this, and the railway police came down to Weymouth to brief me on the issue of 14, 15 or 16-year-old youngsters travelling by train, sent by drug dealers—now, more often than not, armed with knives, which is extremely worrying, or with cash—and getting into Dorset to ply this ghastly and evil trade.

Dorset is 40th out of 41 on the national funding for violence prevention and safe spaces. Our request to join the electronic monitoring of offenders pilot was sadly rejected. The crime pattern between ’17 and ’21 is well understood and follows an established pattern, but it remains high. We receive more 999 calls than most similar group forces, despite a similar volume of crime. That is mainly due to the peak in the summer and all the millions of people who come to our beautiful county. We are the sixth-highest area for visitor trips, but that is not considered in the national funding formula.

My hon. Friend mentioned the crime pressure estimate, which measures severity of crime using the Home Office tool against the number of officers in the force. Dorset crime pressure in 2020 is more than three times the national average—the highest of any force. Organised crime groups such as county lines disrupt Dorset police disproportionately compared with larger forces. We are a rural area, but the volume of crime we are getting is disproportionate to our ability to deal with it in such an area.

Finally, and extraordinarily, we are just outside the top 10 for armed deployments per 100,000 head of population. That is extraordinary, when we live in what my hon. Friend described as a “chocolate box” area. That is clearly what so many people think we are, but we have our issues, and I know the Minister is aware of that. We look forward very much to him coming down to visit us; I hope that when he meets the new and excellent PCC and our chief constable, we can discuss how to resolve at least some of those issues.

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[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

This has been a good debate; if only it was a good settlement. A wasted decade of low growth under the Conservatives is holding back Britain; it has left our economy weakened, with inflation, national insurance and energy prices all putting pressure on the police. Inflation is predicted to rise still, which will put more pressure on our services. The Government have wasted public money through crony contracts, covid fraud and PPE waste, so there is less funding for policing.

To make up for the lack of central Government police funding, the Minister is burdening local taxpayers. Total crime is rising, prosecution rates are at an all-time low, and criminals are getting away with it. The police do not feel supported; pay is still lower in real terms than it was in 2010. The settlement will not go far enough. There is no leadership from Government on the challenges facing the service and no plan to cut crime.

This was an interesting debate that touched on all the major issues that we have debated on many occasions.

[Richard Drax]

The hon. Lady accuses the Government of not cutting crime, but I remind her that it is the chief constable and their officers—they do such a valuable job—who tackle criminals, not the politicians.

[Sarah Jones]

I was not aware of that. I thought the Government had some role in tackling crime, but clearly the Conservative Government think not.

With 17,000 fewer people working in the police force now than in 2010, it is also harder for the police to do the job that we expect them all to do. I was glad to hear about the new train leaving the station on the funding formula, and I was pleased to see Bedfordshire Members in the Chamber—if they were not here making the argument, on either side of the House, I would worry that something was amiss. I am glad that they have an answer on a timescale, but the formula was first promised in 2015 so we are already seven years down the line. I look forward to seeing that.

There was much debate about the council tax precept and the fact that a third of the increased funding must now come from council tax. It is not possible to level up by using the precept to pay for policing. Inequality is bedded in to the formula. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said eloquently that it is the sting in the tail, and the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) agreed with that. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said that no one likes paying council tax; everybody is being forced to put council tax up to its highest level. The Cambridgeshire Conservative PCC, who has asked for a £9.99 tax increase on band D properties, stated that

“if I thought for one minute that we were likely to get substantial financial increases from government then I would’ve happily used reserves to plug the gap and not ask to raise the precept.”

The Conservative PCC for Bedfordshire said that rising costs due to inflation means taxes will need to rise to avoid cuts in police services. He said:

“We are facing rising costs across the public sector because of inflation. This means that next year an increase in the precept will be needed just for Bedfordshire Police to maintain its current position and meet the costs of pay and price increases.”

We heard about police numbers and the lack of policing in our neighbourhoods. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) talked about the 500 additional PCSOs that the Welsh Government are providing, which will make a difference. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham talked about the lack of police officers—the 325 they have lost and how, even with the increasing numbers, they will still be 153 officers short. The alternative universe that the Government try to peddle—that somehow they did not cut tens of thousands of police before they started to recruit a few—will not wash. There are 17,000 fewer people working in police services than there were in 2010.

Crime affects everywhere. The hon. Member for West Dorset talked about the delightful area he represents, but also about the violent criminal drug gangs and county lines that are there. This is an issue that every single one of our constituents cares about. Criminals are getting away with it. Charge rates are at a record low. Victims have lost faith in the criminal justice system. The Government are not showing any real grip on tackling crime. They do not have any ambition to get prosecution rates up. They cannot level up without cutting crime. I hope the Government will go away and think again.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

I am grateful to all Members who have contributed to this debate. It has been useful and I know that police officers up and down the land will have particularly welcomed at this difficult time the tributes to their bravery and commitment to the work they do to keep us all safe. I add my gratitude to them.

There were two key themes coming out of the debate. As the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) said, the Bedfordshire “massive” are, as usual, present for these debates, as they have been every year for the last few years, and the Dorset posse have been pushing me hard on the funding formula. I am pleased to confirm that work is under way. The technical oversight group has been appointed and has a chair. We expect to go to consultation this summer and I will begin my parliamentary engagement, shall we say, in late spring, so Members should look out for an invitation to a meeting winging their way quite soon. I explained what might happen with the formula.

I would just caution those calling for a funding formula review. This is a very complex process, as those who have been involved in funding formula reviews in the past will know. There are two things to bear in mind. First, all cannot have prizes. There will undoubtedly, proportionately or otherwise, be a redistribution from one to another in a funding formula. Secondly, when particular indicators are pushed, such as tourism, there may be unintended consequences. For example, I get a strong lobby on tourism and visitor numbers from south-west Members, but if that were to be part of the funding formula what would that say about funding for London? How much of the overall cake would then be absorbed from forces across the land to deal with visitor numbers in London? We deal with that in London through a capital city grant and obviously there would be a consequence to that being part of the funding formula. I do not necessarily want to dwell on that point, but I ask Members to think carefully about unintended consequences before they make a contribution towards the consultation.

[Richard Drax]

London is a metropolitan area and far easier to police. Dorset is a massive rural area with fewer police. The point is that rurality is not taken into account in the funding formula.

[Kit Malthouse]

There is, actually, in the current funding formula a sparsity indicator, but nevertheless these are exactly the sorts of issues we will have to deal with in future and they are certainly something I want to focus on.

The other broad issue which a number of Members mentioned was dealing with a specific problem in a specific geography that may emanate from elsewhere. A number of Members, particularly those from Bedfordshire and Dorset, mentioned county lines. It is worth remembering that we are spending significant amounts of money on dealing with county lines in London, west midlands and Merseyside, where the vast bulk of the exporting drugs gangs come from. Money spent in London on intercepting and dealing with those gangs will pay benefits in Shaftesbury, Luton and other parts of the country. We make that investment in those forces, but on behalf of the whole country. That is a part of our having to see the whole of policing expenditure as a system, whether that is the National Crime Agency—which is no doubt doing work on the Dorset coast—the Metropolitan police doing work on county lines, or indeed the British Transport police, with whom I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) met. We are funding its taskforce on county lines, which is doing extraordinary work intercepting young people with knives, drugs and cash on the rail network, gripping it in a way that it has not been gripped before.