Police

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) for 2011-12 (House of Commons Paper No. 771), which was laid before this House on 31 January, be approved.

As well as seeking the House’s approval for the grant, I want to explain why this settlement for the police is necessary, challenging but manageable, and how the Government are helping the service to meet the challenge.

On 13 December, I laid before the House the Government’s proposed allocations of grants to police authorities in England and Wales. Following that, the Government held a six-week consultation on the proposed allocation of funding, during which 34 representations were received from across 20 force areas. I would like to thank hon. Members, members of police forces, police authorities and other policing organisations across the country for taking the time to share their views on the provisional settlement. Their comments have been considered carefully and fully.

Having inherited the largest peacetime deficit in Britain’s history, the Government had no option but to reduce public spending, and a police service that spends more than £13 billion a year cannot be exempt from a requirement to save public money. The October spending review set the overall cut in funding at 20% in real terms over four years, and it set the profile of the reduction. I accept that the settlement is challenging, but the Government believe that it is manageable, and that if savings are made in the right areas the service to the public can be maintained and, indeed, improved.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister says that the settlement is challenging. Does he accept that it is more challenging for some forces than for others, and that a force in Merseyside depends far more on central Government grant than a force in Surrey, which raises half its funds locally? Will he consider, for the purpose of future years, looking again at an issue that is causing great concern in my constituency?

[Nick Herbert]

I absolutely understand the hon. Gentleman’s observation that different forces raise different amounts from local taxpayers, and I shall deal with it shortly. I remain open-minded about the issue, given that the report relates to allocations for the next two years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

There are two answers to that. First, forces on average receive a quarter of their funding from local taxpayers, so it does not make sense to consider only the amount that they receive from central Government. What matters to a force is its total spending power, and it is hardly disreputable to take that into account. Secondly, although I do not disagree with the conclusions of the important report of the inspectorate of constabulary—with which I will deal shortly—I think it possible, as I will explain, to make savings that were beyond the remit of its report.

I am pleased that Opposition Members apparently agree with the policy of the inspectorate of constabulary that forces can save more than £1 billion a year without affecting the front line and while protecting visibility, because that is very important.

[Stephen Twigg]

I understand the Minister’s explanation, which, in a sense, constitutes a fuller response to my earlier point, but may I urge him to reconsider in future years? The main reason for the contrast between the sources of funding for forces in, say, Merseyside and Surrey is the fact that Merseyside has a higher level of social and economic deprivation. In recent years, council tax payers in my constituency have paid more for the police and have not experienced a freeze, but in practice they will experience a much bigger cut than those in Surrey.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his rather predictable intervention, but immediately before it I was explaining—he clearly was not listening—why the Government are having to take these decisions. He and the former Ministers on the Opposition Front Bench must accept responsibility for that.

I listened carefully to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), because we expect the Opposition to come forward with some solutions, but during her speech I detected only one sentence in which she referred to the £1 billion of cuts that they would make and said that they would do something about back-office functions and procurement. So that is the Opposition’s solution. That is the one sentence that the Opposition’s spokesperson provided, stating how they, if in government, would have resolved the problems that we face.

[Stephen Twigg]

Will the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that, in that one sentence—I think it was more than one sentence—of my right hon. Friend’s speech, she referred specifically to the report of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary? The figure is not one that we have plucked off the top of our heads; it is based on the HMIC’s view of the savings that can be made without damaging front-line services.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Of course he is right, and the Government have based their measures on the HMIC report as well, but people who read and listen to this debate will want to hear exactly what impact HMIC’s recommendations, if implemented, will have on, for example, staff numbers, a point to which the official Opposition’s spokesperson did not respond. She ducked and dived on that point.

The Opposition can pretend that the £40 billion of cuts that they intended making, including 20% cuts throughout Departments, would have gone unnoticed, would have had no impact on front-line services and would have left police forces throughout the country unscathed, but we know, they know and people outside know that that is completely untrue.

There is no point disguising the fact that the settlement is tough. That is true, and it impacts on police budgets. As the Minister said, in 2011-12 there is a 4% reduction in cash terms. In 2012-13, there is a 5% reduction, but, thanks to the HMIC report and the measures that police forces are already taking throughout the country, much of the reduction can be made through greater efficiency.

Police forces are already delivering many examples of such efficiency. In one local example, Sutton and Merton police forces are looking at sharing a custody suite, and if successful in those two force areas, the idea might be rolled out across the whole Met police force area and in others further afield. That is exactly the sort of measure that police forces and police authorities should pursue.

The Minister quite rightly identified what is possible through IT systems savings and, as I said in an intervention, we can derive not only cash savings from that source, but great improvements in efficiency and the likelihood of resolving cases, as the communications problems between different systems are addressed.

One issue that I raised in the previous debate, and on which I hope the Minister has had time to do some work, is training for senior officers. The HMIC report identifies that there was no commonly held belief that those officers needed a detailed understanding of how to ensure that the efficiency savings—the mergers—took place effectively. The Government, HMIC or others might be able to assist with training to ensure that officers are equipped to take such tough decisions, because there are real differences between forces’ proposals.

Some forces are coming forward with a headline figure for the number of officers they are going to cut, while others are coming forward with a range of options—particularly on back-office and procurement—that could identify significant savings without the need to cut staff numbers, which some forces seem to have gone for as the first rather than the last resort.

I want to raise some specific Met issues. The Minister will be aware that the force has not yet taken a decision to cut sergeant numbers by 300; it is considering the idea, but it says it

“will be directed by final analysis and must reflect operational delivery.”

I urge the Met to maintain those officer numbers, but if that is not possible, to look at some of the proposals that I mentioned, particularly on sharing back-office functions, joint custody suites and the like to ensure that the number of police officers in the safer neighbourhood teams is maintained at the level at which it is currently set.

Equally, as I said earlier, safer neighbourhood teams may be undertaking tasks that are not their responsibility. I mentioned the example of drive-outs from petrol stations, which are taking up an inordinate amount of time in the case of at least one of my safer neighbourhood teams. After I raised that case, the local force have asked to meet me to discuss it as a wider issue, so it clearly affects not just one safer neighbourhood team but several in the borough. If a large proportion of their time is spent trying to deal with a problem that the petrol companies should be able to resolve technologically, we should look at the issue carefully to try to free up officer time to concentrate on things that really do need police intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate.

No Labour Member would argue with the contention that there is always scope for efficiency in public services, including the police service. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) spoke about the HMIC report, as did the Minister. Our opposition to what the Government are planning is based on the sheer scale of the cuts to the police service that are set out. My additional argument, on which I will elaborate and on which I intervened on the Minister, is that there is unfairness in the allocation of those cuts as between different police forces around the country.

I should like to comment on the work that Merseyside police are doing. As in the case, I imagine, of most, if not all hon. Members on both sides of the House, crime and antisocial behaviour are consistently the biggest issues that my constituents raise with me on the doorstep, in surveys, in correspondence and at surgeries. In recent years, Merseyside police have faced some very serious challenges. Merseyside is No. 1 of any police force in the country in terms of the number of drug offences. I am therefore very concerned about the impact of cuts that are being made to the UK Border Agency, as well as cuts to local government and voluntary sector services for those with drug addiction.

In other areas, Merseyside has made truly remarkable progress in recent years. In 2005-06, it was the third highest police force in the country for violent crime, with a rate of 25.6 offences per 1,000 population. Thanks to the hard work of the police, including their work with the local community, that rate has halved over the past five years to 13 per 1,000, putting us 22nd in England, which puts it in the lower half of police forces. That is truly remarkable progress. Every indication that I have is that Merseyside police are determined to continue that progress, even in the context of the cuts that we are discussing.

Almost four years ago in what is now my constituency, there was the tragic murder of Rhys Jones. His death provided the context for a greater focus on crime, including violent crime, in Liverpool and across Merseyside. In considering the way forward for Merseyside and the fairness, or rather unfairness, of the proposed cuts, everyone in my constituency is concerned to ensure that never again do we see the tragedy of what happened to young Rhys. The police responded brilliantly and with great professionalism in that case, which resulted in serious convictions by the courts for those who murdered Rhys Jones.

Already in 2010-11, 200 police officer jobs and 80 police staff jobs are being lost in Merseyside. There is a moratorium on further recruitment, which will continue into next year. The police have estimated that by March 2012—in just over a year’s time—we will have lost almost 10% of police officer posts in Merseyside. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) talked about chief constables making every effort to ensure that losing police officer posts is a last resort. I think I wrote down correctly that he said that some chief constables were treating it as their first resort. I very much doubt that that is the case in any authority. I can say with certainty that it is not the case in Merseyside, where the chief constable, whom I and other Liverpool MPs met in the House a couple of weeks ago, has made every effort to maximise efficiencies and minimise the direct impact on local people through the loss of police officers.

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

The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) spoke about inconvenient facts. Last year, the Liberal Democrats in Greater Manchester, and no doubt in Merseyside, went into the election knowing about the deficit and promising more, not fewer, police. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Liberal Democrats have a duty to apologise to our constituents for giving a false impression of what they would do in office?

[Stephen Twigg]

Absolutely; I concur with my hon. Friend. Of course, that is not the only promise that the Liberal Democrats made to the British people last May that they have broken. They made that promise knowing, as my hon. Friend said, what the Budget position was. It was a deeply irresponsible pledge to make.

[Tom Brake]

Does the hon. Gentleman not also agree that it would have been appropriate for the Labour Government to announce that the structural deficit was £12 billion higher than they led the public to believe?

[Stephen Twigg]

The figures were very much in the public domain. To be fair to the Conservative party, it did say that it would prioritise cuts. There is a specific issue about the Liberal Democrats having said one thing in opposition and saying the complete opposite now that they are part of the coalition Government.

[Mark Tami]

With the Liberal Democrats, the issue is not just about the police. I remember many Opposition days on which the Liberal Democrats argued that we were not spending enough money in a host of areas.

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend makes his point powerfully. I will not focus the rest of my speech on Liberal Democrat broken promises, but the case has been very well made.

I intervened on the Minister to raise the question of the fairness of the distribution of the cuts. He set out the consultation process in some detail, and entirely understandably set out that the forces and authorities that would lose out if there were some attempt to protect those that were more reliant on central Government funding had lobbied against that. I appreciate what he said about the nature of the formula and the difficulty of changing it, and clearly the cuts relate to the original formula. Unfortunately, I am not suggesting that that can be changed quickly, but I repeat what I said in my intervention: I hope that the Government will consider the matter as we move forward.

Looking at the estimated police budget figures that the Library has produced, we see that in the forthcoming financial year, 2011-12, Merseyside’s estimated police budget, taking into account local revenue raising as well as central Government funding, will be cut by 5.8% whereas Surrey’s cut will be 3.7%. There is every indication that that gap will apply again in the following year and therefore have a cumulative effect.

In Merseyside, there have consistently been increases in the police authority precept over recent years. The local police authority has not thought, “We’re getting all this money from central Government, so we can let our council tax payers off and freeze the precept or have only a modest increase.” There have been significant increases in the amount contributed by council tax payers in Merseyside to the funding of the police. The basic reality is that on average, people in Merseyside are poorer than people in Surrey. The reason why Merseyside’s local police depend more on central Government funding than others is primarily to do with deprivation. That point applies also to other authorities, and when there are cuts on the scale that we are seeing, it is a cause for great concern. To his credit, the Minister undertook earlier to consider the matter again in future. Perhaps I might ask that he meet Merseyside MPs at his early convenience to discuss those concerns.

[Nick Herbert]

indicated assent.

[Stephen Twigg]

The Minister nods, so I am delighted to accept that we can have that meeting.

Clearly, the cuts will have an impact on forces right across the country, but that impact will differ. When there are spending cuts on such a scale, it is incumbent on the Government to consider the unfairness of those different impacts. There is clearly a need for savings in public expenditure on the police, and HMIC has considered the matter in great detail and come up with the quoted figure of 12%. My contention today is, first, that by going so significantly above that figure, the Government will inevitably damage the police service across the country; secondly, that the effects are not fair or consistent but differ for the reasons that I have given; and thirdly, that those effects are compounded by the impact of other cuts in public spending, particularly local government cuts.

Merseyside police receives direct funding from Liverpool and other local authorities for aspects of its work on antisocial behaviour. I hope that the councils will be able to protect that funding, but I am not confident that they will be fully able to do so. On top of the cuts that we are discussing today, Liverpool’s police force and others around the country will therefore lose further funding for some of the important partnership work that they do on tackling antisocial behaviour.

I urge the Government to think again, and I urge Home Office Ministers to press the Treasury to give policing and law and order the priority that the Government have given schools and the national health service. Voters—our constituents—would expect us to give the police service that priority, and I hope that in the light of today’s debate, the Government will do so.