Police Funding Formula

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I thank all those who have spoken in the debate. My hon. Friends have detailed the impact of cuts to police funding on their constituents and their police forces. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) for reminding us that the police are trying to do an incredibly difficult job despite the cuts and pressures that they face. The whole House thanks them for that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) was extremely helpful in setting the broader context for the debate, which could not take place at a more important time. Any debate about police funding must be put in the context of the crucial role that the police play, protecting children and vulnerable groups, getting justice for victims and keeping communities safe. As the Home Affairs Committee report says,

“The demands on the police are many and various”.

To give just one example, through my own campaigning work I have found out more and more about the scale of child abuse in the UK. It is truly shocking. The most recent data from the NSPCC estimate that half a million children are being abused. Reports of domestic and sexual violence are increasing across the country.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I commend my hon. Friend for her work in that area. Does she agree that that puts pressure on regional forces such as Durham’s, which is involved in Operation Seabrook, investigating abuse at the Medomsley detention centre—an operation that has cost more than £2 million?

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that issue, which I have tried to raise in this Chamber. Such cases are incredibly expensive and incredibly important, and that work needs to be done, but there is no additional money, so the money is coming from the existing pot. The Government really need to look seriously at funding those cases.

The numbers of serious and violent crimes are soaring. In the last year alone there has been a major increase in knife crime, which is up 9%, and a 27% rise in violent crime, including a 14% rise in murder. Devastatingly, 50% of those cases close without a single suspect ever being identified.

Central Government funding for police forces was cut by a quarter in the last Parliament, resulting in the loss of 18,000 police officers—12,000 of them operational front-line officers. Thousands of PCSOs and civilian staff have also been cut. We have ever fewer police officers trying to do ever more.

The value of local neighbourhood policing, with officers working in partnership with local authorities and other agencies to tackle the challenges we face, cannot be overestimated. However, neighbourhood policing teams—a proud legacy of the Labour Government—are being eroded. Serious crimes are up, but victims are being let down.

Despite all that, and after cutting the police by 25% in the last Parliament, the Government were threatening to cut at least a further 22% right up until the night before the comprehensive spending review. We were on the brink of catastrophe, but the Chancellor U-turned under pressure from Labour, the public and the police [Interruption.] And London MPs.

The Chancellor then made a promise:

“I am today announcing that there will be no cuts in the police budget at all. There will be real-terms protection for police funding. The police protect us, and we are going to protect the police.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1373.]

That promise to the public and the police has been broken. The Chancellor said he would protect the police, but police budgets are still being cut. Police force funding for 2016-17 has not been protected in real terms. Budgets are being cut again—for the sixth year in a row—at a time when the country faces increased risks.

Figures from the House of Commons Library show that the overall Home Office grant to the police next year will not be protected in real terms or even in cash terms. The Library’s analysis shows that forces in England and Wales will receive £30 million less in cash—a cut worth £160 million in real terms. Even the extra council tax that Tories expect local people to pay to make up for the cuts will not compensate for that.

[Richard Drax]

I want to make a small point, which I hope the hon. Lady will be coming to. What would the Labour party do were it in government? We can all criticise various aspects of this issue, but what is the Labour party’s position on the formula? How would the Labour party help a constituency such as mine get a fairer amount of money?

[Sarah Champion]

I wait for that day four years from now. If the hon. Gentleman gives us four years to plan for it, we will come back to him with a proper answer.

[Mr Shuker]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sarah Champion]

Yes, she will—while she finds her place.

[Mr Shuker]

I can assure my hon. Friend that that was not at the forefront of my mind. She talked about the need for fair funding from the Government and at a local level. One issue I am aware of in Bedfordshire is that when people seek to introduce a referendum to make sure we have better funding locally, the police and crime commissioner must apparently be completely neutral. We could compare and contrast that with the situation in the European referendum, where the Government certainly are not neutral.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend makes a very fair point. I am not going to get involved in the EU debate at this point, but parity across all our systems is something we should be trying for.

The police and crime commissioner for my force, South Yorkshire, has said:

“The Government recently announced that there would be no cuts to police funding next year. This was a little misleading. What has now become clear is that the police grant will be reduced by £1 million and there will be no provision for inflation—such as increases in salaries and additional demand on police services, which comes to about £7-8 million.”

The Tory police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall said:

“policing still faces considerable challenges and some tough decisions as we move forward. We estimate that, to break even, we will need to save £13million over the next four years; only then with further savings can we plan to invest in transformation to address the emerging threats with less resources.”

These cuts mean that thousands more officers, PCSOs and police staff will still go. The more serious and complex crimes seen in the 21st century are expensive and time-consuming to investigate, prosecute and prevent, such as child sexual exploitation, terrorism and cyber-crime. These 21st-century challenges demand a modernised, more responsive and better equipped police service, not a smaller one.

Equally crucial is co-operation with other agencies, yet as they too come under strain, the police yet again pick up the pieces. The Home Affairs Committee’s report emphasises that

“demands on the police were increasing due to cuts to other public services.”

As local authorities deal with relentless Government cuts, they are struggling to provide specialist support to victims, to engage in preventive work with communities, and to protect vulnerable groups, particularly out of hours. Sara Thornton of the NSPCC told the Committee that the police were being used

“more and more as society’s safety net”

and that

“after 4 o’clock on a Friday the police are around, but nobody is ever very clear about who else is around”.

In the face of these massive and growing challenges, not only are police budgets being cut, but cuts are being made with characteristic unfairness to less affluent regions. High-need, high-crime areas are shouldering the burden of cuts. West Midlands and Northumbria police forces, for example, have been hit twice as hard by cuts as Surrey. The current complex formula for funding the 42 police forces in England and Wales has been called

“unclear, unfair and out of date”

by Ministers. We therefore welcomed it when last year, under pressure from the police and from Labour, the Policing Minister finally agreed to change the formula. However, instead of improving the situation, what followed was a chaotic, opaque, unfair and ultimately completely discredited review of the existing formula. In the words of the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, as quoted in the report,

“given the fundamental importance of this policy to the safety and security of communities across the country we do not feel that consultation has been carried out in a proper manner”.

The review faced two unprecedented threats of legal action by forces. It was roundly criticised by police and crime commissioners from across the political spectrum. Unbelievably, the shambolic review ultimately had to be totally abandoned because the Home Office miscalculated funding for forces, using the wrong figures. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East for giving examples. The data error meant that funding for forces had been miscalculated by as much as £180 million for some areas. As the report says, the omnishambles

“would be amusing if it were not so serious”.

It goes on:

“It is deplorable that Home Office officials made errors in calculating the funding allocations for police force areas…As a result of the Home Office’s error, confidence in the process has been lost; time, effort, resources and energy have been wasted; and the reputation of the Home Office has been damaged with its principal stakeholders.”

The mistake meant not only that forces made budgets for the next financial year based on incorrect funding figures, but that they now only know their funding for just one year, unlike local government, which got a four-year settlement. As even Tory PCCs have pointed out, this makes it extremely difficult for forces to make long-term financial plans and innovate on the basis of an unusual single-year settlement, particularly in the context of further budget cuts. As the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee said, to call it a shambles would be charitable.

What have the Government done to rectify the situation? They have secretly consulted their own Tory PCCs, promising to channel funding to those PCCs, who get disproportionately more. Conservative police and crime commissioner Adam Simmons writes in his budget:

“The new funding formula proposals have been deferred to 2017-18…it is not clear at this stage how this will affect the government funding. However, it is expected that this will transfer funding from the urban areas to the more rural, and Northamptonshire may benefit”.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) for pointing that out. Will the Policing Minister confirm whether this will be the case? In addition, what commitments will he give to this House, and to the police, that they will never again be insulted with a sham consultation like that seen last year on something so important and so crucial to the safety of communities as police funding? Our police service needs a fair funding formula and a fair funding settlement. This Government have offered them nothing of the sort.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

Durham has done more with less, and it has done so excellently. I agree with the hon. Gentleman completely, as I have said at the Dispatch Box on more than one occasion, that we need a way of funding our police that is fairer than the existing formula. He has said on more than one occasion today how difficult things have been for Durham. He is quite right to say so, and things have been difficult for other forces as well. I believe in giving praise where praise is due, and Durham has done fantastically well. It has reduced crime with fewer police but a higher percentage of officers on the front line than in 2010, and that is great.

[Sarah Champion]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mike Penning]

I will not give way now, but I will do so in a minute. Most of the debate was not about the future funding formula; it was about the previous funding formula and previous austerity measures. There was a degree of concern—from, I accept, Members on both sides of the House—about how that was done and about how we should go forward.

Hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), have asked about the uplift in firearms capability. We have put £36 million out there, and there will be more to come. It is separately funded. Hon. Members have raised the issue of counter-terrorism, which is also funded separately from the formula.

I accept that in Bedfordshire, as the hon. Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker) said, there are some real issues with the funding formula, and I have met him and other Bedfordshire Members to talk about that. There is more that could be done. Bedfordshire was given counter-terrorism money but did not manage to spend all of it. That is really interesting, in view of the fact that it was given the funding for that specific use. The percentage of warranted officers who are off duty because they are not fit for operational duties is 10%. That percentage is high for such a small force, and it is, understandably, a concern. I accept that there is work that we can do together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

No Minister would stand and give such categorical responses—I cannot, because that would be wrong. We are determined to ensure—the Met is crucial to this—that we have an understanding from the chiefs and the PCCs about where they are asking the capabilities to be delivered from, whether ROCUs, local collaboration or the NCA. Then we can come forward and get it right.

I have a great deal of time for the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and her response was very measured, but when in government the Labour party said that it would implement this measure but it did not, and that is part of the discussion that we are having. Crime has massively changed since then.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister is right to say that crime has massively changed. Does he share my concern that when we get data for online crime—fraud, grooming or abuse—the crime figures will spike?

[Mike Penning]

The National Audit Office suggested that that would be the case, and we have to accept that. That does not mean tomorrow morning, next week or next month when those figures are produced, that suddenly from that night on there is a 5 million or 6 million increase, or whatever the figure is, because it is happening to us all in our constituencies now. The difference is that we are going to publish it—the only way we can do this is to be honest about it and publish it. I do not know why previous Ministers did not publish that information in previous Administrations—believe it or not, I am not allowed to see those figures, because we are not allowed to do due diligence on what went on in previous Governments, and we are not allowed to see that guidance. I think it is because initially this issue was not taken seriously enough, and then people started to realise that it is actually a very difficult figure to pull together.