Police Grant Report

Steve Double Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to contribute to this debate. In the interests of transparency, let me first make the House aware that an immediate member of my family is a serving police officer with Devon and Cornwall Police—and very proud of them we are. I also put on the record my huge thanks and appreciation to all police officers across Devon and Cornwall, particularly those who work out of St Austell and Newquay police stations. I have seen at first hand their dedication and they have helped me a number of times when I have needed it. They do an incredible job and I am very grateful to them.

I very much welcome the uplift in funding that has been made available to police across England and Wales today, and I am particularly grateful that the funding made available for Devon and Cornwall Police is being increased by 7.1%, which is higher than the national average and goes some way to closing the historical funding gap for our police. We are using that money incredibly well in Devon and Cornwall, particularly in recruiting more police officers.

The number of police officers in Devon and Cornwall is now at an all-time record of 3,610, an uplift of 470 above the 2019 figure. I have also been made aware that, as opposed to some other parts of the country, we have done so well in recruitment that more funding has been made available to enable us to recruit an additional 71 officers, so the number is only going to get higher. That is hugely welcome, and I pay tribute to the hard work of our police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez, for the leadership and work that she has put in to get us to such healthy police numbers.

However, one thing that continually concerns me whenever I go out on patrol and observe the police on the frontline is the amount of time they spend dealing with issues that are not policing matters. Far too often they have to pick up the slack for other parts of the public sector that are not stepping up and fulfilling their roles, be that mental health support, other parts of the NHS or social services.

One thing the Minister could do to support our frontline police officers across the country is to work with other parts of the public sector and other Government Departments to ensure that they are doing everything they can to fulfil their duties, and not just taking the default position of falling back on the police to pick up the slack every time. That is one thing that I know is putting huge pressure on frontline policing, taking officers away from the job that the public actually want and expect them to be doing: keeping us safe.

Devon and Cornwall Police actually polices the largest force area, in terms of land mass, of any force in England. We also have the longest coast and the longest road network, at 13,000 miles, of any police force in England. For all those reasons, Devon and Cornwall Police faces a hugely challenging job policing two of the most rural counties in the country. In Cornwall, over 40% of people live in communities of fewer than 3,000 people, and we have no towns with populations above 25,000 people, which demonstrates just how rural and sparsely population our force area is. That has an impact on the police’s ability to deliver the service that we expect of them.

Tourism has an additional impact on Cornwall and Devon. Our average population in the tourist season increases by 7%, although that rise is concentrated in a relatively small number of areas. Towns such as Newquay see their populations go up by six or seven times the resident population in peak tourism season, so the number of incidents to which the police are expected to respond inevitably goes up significantly.

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

The situation in Devon and Cornwall is similar to that in Sussex, where an influx of people to Camber Sands can mean that there are 25,000 people on the beach. That obviously makes police resourcing difficult. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when it comes to police funding, we need to consider the geography of the area and the specific and absolute need, not the relative need?

[Steve Double]

My hon. Friend makes precisely the point that I was about to make. In Devon and Cornwall, our geography and the number of tourists we welcome every year mean that our police force faces a unique challenge in delivering the service that we require of them.

Another point that I continually make is that in Cornwall, a narrow peninsula with only one neighbouring mainland county, we have to build in our own resilience as we cannot rely on other areas to turn up quickly to help us out. That needs to be reflected in the funding formula. I am greatly encouraged that the Government have recognised that and have committed to reviewing the funding formula by taking into consideration geography, sparseness, rurality and the impact of tourism. I urge the Minister to do all he can to get the review carried out and in place in order to adjust the funding.

We will certainly take no lessons from Labour about funding police in rural areas. It was under the last Labour Government that rural areas were virtually abandoned by the funding formula. The formula was tweaked so that all that money would go towards densely populated urban areas, even though delivering services in rural areas costs far more, so we will take no lessons from Labour on that.

I urge the Minister to do all he can to ensure that the police funding review is carried out and implemented as quickly as possible so that the funding gap with which we have had to deal for so long is narrowed, and rural areas such as Devon and Cornwall get the police funding that they rightly deserve.

[Several hon. Members rose—]