Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Steve McCabe and Richard Burden

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe]

I concede the danger that if I ask the Minister to report on the operation of the powers, we will only find out after the event what has happened if agencies have got into difficulty. Obviously, I would much prefer the Minister to come forward today with clearer proposals for the steps he will take to protect those agencies, but without some reporting mechanism, how will Parliament hold the Executive to account?

We heard from witnesses during the evidence session that there is concern about the way that contracts can be drawn up by larger local authorities, as that can have an adverse impact on smaller, voluntary organisations. The British Association for Adoption and Fostering had been going for more than 70 years, but it collapsed during the parliamentary recess with the loss of about 50 jobs—a whole area of expertise wiped out because of the financial climate in some parts of the voluntary sector. The uncertainty created by these proposals is adding to that pressure, so it would be helpful if the Minister demonstrated that he recognised the dire circumstances that much of the voluntary sector is facing.

We must know in an annual report that if the Secretary of State exercises these powers, the expertise of voluntary agencies will not be lost for vulnerable children, that contract arrangements are fair and do not favour larger local authorities, and that they are subject to proper monitoring and inspection. Parliament has a right to such information.

One concern about the Bill is the focus on adoption to the exclusion of all other forms of childcare. In Committee, several Members mentioned special guardianship orders, long-term fostering and kinship care. Many people who work in childcare believe that the Government need to focus more on permanent arrangements, rather than appearing to favour one model of childcare over another.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentioned special guardianship orders. I have written to the Minister about the case of Tracy Phillips in my constituency as that highlights the ambiguity in the way that SGOs are treated, affecting things such as child maintenance and so on, and how they fit into the child maintenance system. Could the report cover that, or is there some other way for the Minister and Government to tackle some of the ambiguities between SGOs and other adoption arrangements?

[Steve McCabe]

The Department published a report in August entitled “Impact of the Family Justice Reforms on Front-line Practice Phase Two: Special Guardianship Orders”. I also believe the Minister is planning a more extensive review of SGOs.

West Midlands Police (Funding)

Debate between Steve McCabe and Richard Burden

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden]

My right hon. Friend is quite right about that. I will mention some of the specific demands on West Midlands police in a little while, but he is absolutely right to draw attention to counter-terrorism work.

In addition to the issue of council tax, the west midlands is also hit doubly hard by how formula damping works. In brutal terms, such damping prevents the region from receiving the funding allocation that the national formula says we need. This year, West Midlands police will receive £43 million less than the Government’s own formula says is required.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend says, under the existing system we are being robbed of £43 million that we should receive. In the past, the Minister has recognised that that is wrong. The Minister will not want to comment too much on his future plans today because of the ongoing consultation, but does my hon. Friend agree that at the very least we need an assurance that we will not lose, as has been speculated, a further £20 million under the plans that the Minister is going to put into action?

[Richard Burden]

My hon. Friend is right on both points. First, the impact of formula damping is a problem. Everyone seems to recognise that, but then nothing is done about it, so I hope that the Minister will reassure us on that. Secondly—I hope that the Minister will say something about this as well—the current consultation is also important, because some of the scenarios could hit the west midlands very hard indeed. I will say something about that in a little while. Suffice it to say that, if the funding was increased by just £10 million to compensate for the formula damping problem, that would still leave West Midlands police hit three times as hard as any other force, but we could recruit 450 additional police officers. Instead, £43 million is given to other forces. I understand the problems when formulae change and the effects have to be smoothed, but the reality is that other forces will get more funding than the Government’s formula says they need and West Midlands police will get less.

At this point, I want to note that in the individual force assessments for handling austerity, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary rated West Midlands police as outstanding. Credit for that is due first, and most importantly, to the officers and staff of West Midlands police. It is also important to mention the contributions of the late Bob Jones, the former police and crime commissioner, and David Jamieson, the current PCC, as well as that of Chief Constable Chris Sims, who will soon be retiring—we should thank him for his work during his time in the west midlands.

It is important that policy makers listen to people such as those I have just mentioned, because they are not crying wolf; they are raising legitimate concerns about the sustainability of the police service in the west midlands. Were the existing formula regime to continue, the force would expect to lose a further £100 million over the coming years. That would mean that a further 2,500 officers, police community support officers and staff would be set to go. At the end of the decade, West Midlands police would be expected to be smaller than when it was established back in 1974. In a moment, I will give more detail about the demands facing the force, which were mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar), but for now I will simply say that crime is often more complex and sophisticated now than it was in the ’70s. Will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to ensure that West Midlands police gets a fair deal to halt the huge drop in officer numbers that it is facing?

Given the categorical unfairness of the existing regime, I think that many colleagues present, from both the Government and the Opposition, were encouraged when the Government finally announced a review of the current formula. That should have been good news. The problem is that the Home Office has refused to publish any detailed exemplifications or impact assessments using its proposed models. We are already seeing the Government’s attempt to have an open discussion, which they say they wanted, starting to unravel. How can anybody offer an informed judgment to the consultation without the full information? As was reported in The Guardian at the weekend, even attempts to get figures via a freedom of information request have been rejected.

Thanks to the revelations published by the same newspaper, forces may still have time to review the implications of the new formula just before the consultation closes next Wednesday. Early analysis of the modelling suggests that there are several serious concerns about the Home Office’s approach that are likely to disadvantage our region even more. Based on modelling of the new funding formula by the Police and Crime Commissioners Treasurers’ Society, West Midlands police could lose more than 25% of its current funding. That is on top of the existing 40% cut, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) alluded. Before the end of the decade, that could leave the force with a budget smaller than the fixed costs for the officers it already has.

[Richard Burden]

I will say two things in response to the right hon. Gentleman. First, tackling the question of the precept and the relative level of the council tax base is a long-term issue. It raises fundamental questions about how much it is legitimate to raise locally, as opposed to being dependent on central Government grants, when funding local government and other local services. That brings with it issues of how to compensate for particular levels of deprivation and so on, but he is right that it is a vital discussion, which goes beyond police funding.

In relation to this debate, however, we are where we are. We have a lower council tax base and are disproportionately dependent on central Government grants. Unless central Government formulae recognise that and respond to it, we will not be able to move forward.

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. It does not really matter whether someone thinks that the precept should rise or not; the reality is that the Government have locked in a system that requires a referendum before it can rise, which is part of their intention to limit the rise. This is surely a spurious argument.

[Richard Burden]

That is saying perhaps a little more bluntly what I meant when I said that we are where we are. The Government must listen to the implications of their own policies.

My hon. Friend mentioned referendums. Let us say that we in the west midlands decided that, as the Government will not change their mind, despite our low council tax precept and so on, we should have a referendum. Where would that funding come from? It would come from the police budget, and we would lose even more as a consequence.

Policing (West Midlands)

Debate between Steve McCabe and Richard Burden

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

I will make three brief points before the winding-up speeches.

First, it is easy in debates in the main Chamber, and sometimes in Westminster Hall, to get into political knockabout, where the role of the Opposition is to attack and the role of the Government is to defend, but at the end of which, nothing comes out. It is fair to say that Opposition Members have made political points in this debate—that is unsurprising, given that we are politicians. However, a serious question has been put to the Minister and I do not want to get to the end of the debate without hearing an answer. This question is vital to the service that our constituents receive. Several of my hon. Friends have posed the question, but allow me to pose it again, Mr Brady.

The west midlands is a high-crime area and a deprived area. Because of the structure of police funding, it relies on Government grant to make ends meet to a greater extent than many other parts of the country. It receives £579 million a year from the Treasury. Although we agree with inter-agency working and that policing is about more than numbers, 20% cannot be taken out of the budget without having a serious effect on deprived communities in the west midlands. Does the Minister recognise that problem? Does he think that a 20% cut is the same for Surrey and the west midlands? If so, he needs to say that and the public need to hear him, because they know that it is different. If he recognises that there is a disproportionate effect and that the reality on the ground will be different in the west midlands, we need to know what the Government will do about that. It is not unknown that when budgets are restructured, one should consider using mechanisms such as floors and ceilings in local government spending to ensure that the effects are dampened in certain areas. Will the Government do anything to recognise the specific problems in the west midlands, or will they just say, “It’s 20%, that’s it. It’s up to you to sort it out in your region”? We need to know the answer to those questions at the end of the debate and I hope that the Minister will give it.

My second point follows on from those of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham). Actual crime gets to communities, but the fear of crime can sap their confidence and eat away at them. We all know the paradox that the higher one’s fear of being a victim of crime, the more chance one stands of being a victim of crime. As I said earlier, we need to give the chief constable space to recognise the difficult position he is in and to do what he has to do. He will do everything he can to ensure that communities are not scared or worried by what is going on. He is doing everything he can to keep service levels up, but the fear of crime will rise.

One reason for the rise in the fear of crime will be visibility. A great thing about police community support officers is that the police are seen to be on the high streets and in communities talking to people. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) spoke of the importance of intelligence-led policing, but where does the intelligence come from? The best intelligence often comes from informal, chance conversations, which tell the police that so-and-so lives in such a place and that they talk to someone else. That is an important reason to have visibility in service terms, but it also reassures local communities just to see the bobby or the PCSO on the beat.

The dilemma for the police, when faced with such cuts, is whether to maintain that visibility and reassurance or whether to ensure that they are available to respond to incidents that occur. That would probably be done by car because that is the quickest way to get to incidents. That might be the realistic response, but the result would be the loss of local contact on the street and the reassurance that that brings. That worries me. Again, I ask the Minister whether I am right. If I am wrong, he should tell me, but if I am right, what will he do about the situation through the funding for West Midlands police?

My final point is about community engagement, which hon. Members from all parts of the Chamber have said is important. It is important in my area of Northfield, where there is a local strategic partnership. Such partnerships exist across Birmingham with greater or lesser degrees of success. One of the strong elements of our constituency strategic partnership is that we decided at the start that it would be chaired not by a local councillor or politician, as many are, but by the local senior police officer. There have been a number of chairs over the years, and their role has been incredibly positive. They have sometimes brought a reality check to the debate and to discussions on inter-agency working. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) has spoken about local tasking meetings, which have been important in his area. Such local engagement is important.

Although I know the police will do all they can to continue with local engagement, I fear that it will suffer in the face of the coming pressures. When it starts to suffer, we should remember that the cuts in policing do not exist in isolation; they exist at the same time as other agencies that are part of the inter-agency working that Government Members have mentioned also face cuts. For example, Birmingham city council has rightly been criticised over the issue of child protection and safeguarding. Big changes are happening in Birmingham as a result—whether fast or effective enough is another matter. The pressures on the local authority to act are real.

Some of what is being done makes sense. Procedures are being built on procedures, to ensure that some of the real tragedies we have seen in Birmingham do not happen again. However, my worry about that—the relevance to policing will be seen in a minute—is that, in the process, something will be lost when we are only focusing on the crisis: when we are just stopping crisis after crisis. With so much emphasis on putting in place procedures to stop the crises, we will start to lose the low-level stuff, the real preventive stuff.

[Steve McCabe]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend about the dangers for child protection work. Is it not also the case that Birmingham has a low-funded youth service, one of the poorest in the country? Exactly his argument about engagement and child protection and safety is our argument for engaging young people and diverting them from crime.

[Richard Burden]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Such issues interrelate. If we have the children’s services department chasing and trying to prevent the crises—rightly, in many ways—we lose the low-level stuff. If, simultaneously, we are cutting back on the youth service, we will be causing problems. If the local police are under pressure as well, the inter-agency work that all those agencies want to do will start to suffer.

Ultimately, what will suffer is not this or that committee or tasking meeting and whether or not it happens, but the reality of service to our constituents and the people we represent. If we are to do something about that, if we expect Birmingham city council, the police service and others to respond properly, they must be given the chance. I conclude where I started: if they are to be given the chance, we must recognise the specifics of the problems. It does not mean denying the fact that economies must be made, or arguing that somehow, the problems the country faces will just go away; but it does mean recognising that areas such as Birmingham, Coventry and other parts of the west midlands have specific and extreme problems. Those problems, such as getting the youth service properly staffed or the children’s and police services working properly, are interrelated. The idea that, in the middle of that, taking 20% out of the Home Office grant of £579 million will not have a grave impact is simply a cloud cuckoo land idea.

I accept that, when the Minister responds, he will doubtless make his riposte to the political points and say, “The Labour Government did this, and we are going to do that.” However, before he gets to the end of his speech, will he please answer this question: do the Government recognise that there will be a disproportionate effect on the west midlands, yes or no? If the answer is no, is he prepared to say that to the people we represent, as well as to those in the Chamber? If the answer is yes, what will he do about it?