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infringed that stipulation by Lord Edmund- Davies and have abrogated the spirit of the arrangement that has commanded the respect of the police for the past 11 or 12 years. What is the matter of grave national importance that requires the Government to act less honourably today than they did in 1984, when the same issue was referred to arbitration and the Government were then able to accept the tribunal's decision?It is important that we remember that it is as part of police pay and conditions that police officers, where they cannot be provided with police accommodation, have been granted a rent allowance. Although that rent allowance may be a separate payment calculated through an independent process, none the less it is an integral part of the totality of police remuneration, and was recognised as such by Lord Edmund-Davies. At a time when our police forces have to endure increasing pressures, in terms of public scrutiny and through the advent of more sophisticated and better organised violence, is it not ironic that this Government--the so-called Government of law and order--should unilaterally undermine the confidence of those who serve the community at the coal face?
I cannot help but reflect on the flattering words that are used by the Prime Minister and her Ministers to describe the job that policemen and policewomen do, often under the most trying conditions, but it seems that talk is always cheap. When the community needs protection for whatever reason and whenever Government policies have brought angry, unruly and often violent mobs on to our streets, it is not the Secretaries of State who bear the brunt of that disorder. Are memories so short that the Government cannot remember the poll tax riots, the tragedy of Broadwater Farm or the ongoing courage of the Royal Ulster Constabulary over the past 20 years?
When Earl Ferrers, the Minister of State, Home Office, wrote in The House Magazine on 12 February, he admitted that there was absolutely no precedent for the Minister to reject the findings of an arbitration tribunal. He then asserted that this did not signal a change in negotiating arrangements or in the access to arbitration which is provided for in those arrangements. Does he expect a single officer to believe such illogical nonsense? Does he expect hon. Members to do so?
The noble Lord then asserts that there is no question of anyone having money taken out of his present earnings as a result of the decision of the Home Secretary. What is the guarantee for the future? Can we have a similar assurance on that point? The Government have advanced a series of arguments as to why awards should not be agreed in full, and why the Home Secretary should select what someone called the plums within the arbitration award and leave the police with the duff. They have sought to confuse the issue by relating rent allowance to police pay.
We have heard quoted how much better the police have done vis-a -vis the average worker in terms of increases. We all thought that that was because the Government recognise that the police do not do a normal job but a special one and that they are conscious of the danger to life and limb that the police encounter every day. We thought that they appreciated that the police do not enjoy the protection of the health and safety agencies and we are denied the right of industrial action to defend conditions of service or to pursue legitimate grievances. That is obviously not the case. The Government of law and order clearly show that they value saving to the public exchequer more than they
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value the good will of the police service. They are callously prepared to sacrifice the basis of trust and faith that has been built up over the past 11 years.To the shame of the Government, I shall quote from the last paragraph of the final report of the tribunal in November 1989 : "We have felt it necessary to set out these principles at some length for two reasons. There is a natural tendency for each side to cling to familiar aspects of the older arrangements that they feel advantageous, without weighing the compensatory gains. But most important is the fact that any inclination to pick and choose"-- as the Home Secretary has done--
"between the individual changes that we have suggested is likely to destroy, to the advantage of one side or the other, the fairness of the solution we have proposed, which we believe takes account of the need not to add to the expense of the police service and is based on clear and sensible principles."
Both sides of the police negotiating board have accepted and adhered to those principles. But the Government, who were represented on the official side, have chosen to ignore sound advice and the principles that are involved.
If the House is to be the final arbiter and the protector of rights and principles it must vote against any revocation of the criteria laid down by Lord Edmund-Davies for resolving matters pertaining to police pay and allowances. Anything less is a betrayal and must inevitably have the direst short, medium and long-term consequences for policing in the United Kingdom.
11.59 pm
Sir John Wheeler (Westminster, North) : I could scarcely believe my ears as I listened to the speech made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), which must count as one of the most cynical and outrageous pieces of opportunism to have been heard in the House for many a long year. Members of the British police service who are well accustomed to dealing with the overwhelming amount of crime that is opportunistic will fully understand what I mean when I refer to the right hon. Gentleman's speech in that way.
The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook made several significant spending commitments for the Opposition. All Conservative Members look forward to seeing those spending commitments set out clearly with sums attached so that we may gain a greater understanding of what the tax burden would be were the Labour party, in the unlikely event, to form the Government after the next general election. During his speech to the Police Federation's conference a short while ago, the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook appeared to make yet another spending commitment. If I understood him correctly, he undertook to establish a third police force that would be responsible for investigating complaints. Complaints investigations would no longer be supervised by the independent Police Complaints Authority. According to my reckoning, that would cost between £10 million and £15 million. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman has had an opportunity to confer with his colleagues responsible for the Labour party's financial policies, to put figures to those commitments.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir John Wheeler : No, I have only just started. I hope that the hon. Lady will allow me to proceed.
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I want now to consider the Government's record as that is more relevant to the regulations that we are discussing. Under this Government the police service, as every officer knows, has received steady and what I believe the vast majority of British people would agree are fair increases in pay. Within a week of coming to office in 1979, the Government implemented the Edmund-Davies pay formula in full. Since then the Government have stuck to that pay formula. Since May 1979, basic pay has increased by more than 41 per cent. in real terms. I am delighted that the Government have reaffirmed their steadfast commitment to that pay formula and I contrast that with the condition that the police service was in when we came to office in 1979.It might be helpful if I were to give some figures to show the pay with which we have rewarded our police officers. The figures to which I shall refer to Metropolitan police officers, as that is the force with which I am principally concerned as the Member for Westminster, North.
A police constable in the Met with 15 years' service or more enjoys a maximum salary of £16,521 to which there is added London weighting of £1,089 and a special London allowance of £1,011, making a total of £18,621. A constable--a new recruit--aged 22 years or over will enjoy £14,562 while a sergeant with four years' service and on top scale will receive £20,229. An inspector with four years' service, on the top scale, will receive £23,850. A married constable--as of April 1989--could receive a rent allowance amounting to £7,329, while an unmarried constable under 30 could receive a maximum of £3,665. That will give the House an idea of the extent of the pay and rent allowances that the police will receive from the Government.
Mr. Rupert Allason (Torbay) : Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Marlow : Will my hon. Friend give way?
Sir John Wheeler : I am being assailed by more than one hon. Member, but I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow).
Mr. Marlow : As my hon. Friend rightly says, the Government's treatment of the police force has been generous, and I am sure that that is recognised ; but will he deal with a question to which I have yet to receive an answer? I live in Warwickshire, but my constituency is in Northamptonshire. Housing costs in Warwickshire are lower than those in Northamptonshire, yet the police rent allowance in Warwickshire is higher than that in Northamptonshire. Why?
Sir John Wheeler : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking such an interesting question. Were we to have the luxury of sitting late into the night, I am sure that we could contemplate the possible answers in great detail. However, I propose to allow that interesting point to lie "upon the Table" for my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to pick up.
Mr. Waddington : Does my hon. Friend agree that one thing is certain --that the difference referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) results not from any assessment made by the Home Office, but from an assessment made by the local
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district valuer? There is no Machiavelli behind the decision ; it just happens that the valuation of a typical police house in one area is not the same as the valuation of a typical police house in another area.Sir John Wheeler : My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. The way in which the rent allowance formula is applied varies from constabulary to constabulary. After all, we have 52 of them--and, as some hon. Members may know, if the matter were left to me, the arrangements would be considerably rationalised. I hope and pray that we shall work towards that in the near future, when our problems may well be resolved through the process of negotiation.
Mrs. Dunwoody : Is the hon. Gentleman thinking of bringing to the police service the expertise that has been demonstrated by the prison service? Police officers are now having to look after many people in the cells.
Sir John Wheeler : Surely the hon. Lady knows the answer to that question.
The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook seemed to forget the extent of Government funding during the past 11 years--not only of police pay, although I welcome that, but of the service as a whole. Since 1979, there has been an increase of nearly 59 per cent. in total expenditure on the police service. As my right hon. and learned Friend said, the average increase in allowances last year topped 42 per cent., while the allowance to the Metropolitan police rose by more than 57 per cent. The allowance in Warwickshire rose by 67 per cent. Those rises bear no relation to the true rise in living costs. Generous as the Government rightly are to the police, the Police Federation and police officers--men and women of common sense-- will understand that there are limits to the amount of money that can be put into rent allowances, which my right hon. and learned Friend has a duty to consider and make a judgment upon, as he is doing tonight.
Mr. Wells : Was not it entirely predictable, given the formula that we agreed under Edmund-Davies, that such increases would take place, bearing in mind property prices, particularly in the home counties and in London? Therefore, if we want to change the arrangements, surely the Home Office should have approached the police and the Police Federation in 1986, 1987 or 1988. It is no good complaining that rent allowances have increased in accordance with the formula subsequent to those events. Surely it is no justification to object to the increases in those years and then to refuse to pay them in the next year and thus disadvantage many police forces.
Sir John Wheeler : I agree with my hon. Friend that this is an immensely complicated subject. I agree also that it is not possible to find an easy solution. However, I remind my hon. Friend that negotiations commenced in 1988 and have been going on for quite some time. It is a matter of regret, but my right hon. and learned Friend and his colleagues in the Government have had to reject the recommendation of the police negotiating board.
My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) referred to the additional funding that my right hon. and learned Friend had obtained-- about £26 million--to try to ease the path of this arrangement. I for one was greatly struck by his remarks in the journal Police , the magazine of the Police Federation, a few weeks ago. He wrote that one of the most difficult tasks that he had to
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perform on behalf of the Police Federation was to participate in the discussions that he honourably carried out with my right hon. and learned Friend on the issue. In the magazine he referred to "the new Provided Accommodation Allowance' of £300 a year for three years and to an uprating by the movement in the retail price index (RPI) between 1988 and 1990 for the 29 Forces concerned. This is worth 13.7 per cent. While these decisions are very welcome and helpful they obviously do not meet the full expectations of officers throughout the country who had expected the agreement reached by the PNB to be endorsed and implemented."My hon. Friend implied that he had found a fair balance between the interests of the federation and the Government's position.
Mr. Allason : Does my hon. Friend agree that, although the arithmetic behind the issue may be complex, the principle behind it is terribly simple? In a nutshell, it is that an arrangement that has worked very well for 10 years is now being unilaterally abandoned because it appears to be working to the disadvantage of the Government.
Sir John Wheeler : That is the difficulty of being the Government. [Interruption.] There is mirth on the Opposition Benches, for the quite obvious reason that the Opposition will never be in government. They will never need to make difficult decisions about the use of taxpayers' money. That is what my right hon. and learned Friend has had to do. Of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason) was right to say that there is a problem, but that is why the Government must form a view and suggest what decision should be taken by the House.
The figures that I have given tonight and the costs that have arisen in some parts of the country have been so high that the Government have a duty to consider where the emphasis should be placed in public expenditure. It is for that reason that I shall support my right hon. and learned Friend in the Lobby tonight. 12.15 am
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : The Home Secretary is good at correcting his parliamentary colleagues if they fall into error. I hope that he will interrupt and correct me if I am wrong when I ask him three questions. How much money will the Government save by the set-aside of the arbitration award? More precisely, what would have been the total cost of the scheme if they had gone along with the arbitration award and what will the present scheme cost?
I realise that there may be difficulties with the notional valuation of housing. If I asserted that the savings will be between £80 million and £100 million, would I be wrong? The Home Secretary and his advisers must have some sort of figure.
Mr. Waddington : I think that it is less than that for the first year, but that is not the point. I cannot begin to calculate what the additional cost would be, year on year on year, if we were to go down the path recommended by the police negotiating board. I believe that the initial saving will be more like £50 million than £80 million or £100 million, but it is still quite a lot of money. It is £50 million that comes out of total police provision, and therefore means less money to be spent on equipment and so on.
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Mr. Dalyell : Many policemen will think that they are being done out of £50 million-plus-- [Interruption.] Perhaps the Home Secretary will tell us what he really thinks about it.
Mr. Waddington : I made a long speech saying what I thought about it. I said that there had been enormous increases in rent allowances. I quoted the two instances of a 59 per cent. increase in the Metropolitan police rent allowances last year and a 67 per cent. increase in the Warwickshire police rent allowance. I do not think that it is unfair to red -circle officers so that those serving before 31 March lose nothing in cash, but we end the system of bizarre increases that bear no relationship to the true increase in the cost of running a house.
Mr. Dalyell : Many of our police constituents will say that that is all very well, but in scarcely any other job, in anything like the same way, are people ordered to change house at short notice. That point was made by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby). I want a detailed reply to be made to the Police Federation grievance. You asked for short speeches, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wish to raise a Scottish point--the question of community police officers in rural areas. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland--the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) knows the problem in many parts of Scotland. People must live in police houses, to which are attached police officers, so that they can do their job. They will not receive the allowance. They have a much more limited temporary arrangement. By accepting the requirement and living in tied accommodation, they put themselves at a disadvantage anyway because they are not acquiring capital in a house of their own. They are to be subject to a further disadvantage in that they will have no rate allowance now that the poll tax has replaced the rates. Those officers are almost invariably married because it is normally regarded as essential to have a married man in such a post. That is a genuine problem in many parts of Scotland. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State will agree that as we Scots are a year more advanced with the poll tax than people in England, extra urgency is added to the problem.
Finally, the Scottish Office brief states that the Secretary of State
"noted that as a direct result of the draft regulations, over 80 per cent. of Scottish Police officers receiving rent allowance would now receive lump -sum back-dated payments to reflect the outcome of the reviews which his decision would make possible. He further noted that these lump-sum back- dated payments would be in addition to the back-dated payments Scottish officers had received a month or so ago when the rates element of rent allowance had been restored to Scottish officers."
What advice has the Home Secretary received from his Scottish Office colleagues on the adequacy or otherwise of the lump-sum payments, because there have been some pretty bitter complaints about their size?
Other hon. Members wish to speak, so I shall leave it at that. 12.21 am
Sir Bernard Braine (Castle Point) : Like my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), I must declare an interest. For the past quarter of a century, I have advised the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales. If I have not spoken in recent years in the House on police matters, that has been largely because, since the
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advent of the present Government and the Edmund-Davies award, the police have been treated fairly. That was their view and the view of the Police Superintendents Association until my right hon. and learned Friend's decision to set aside the recommendation of the police negotiating board on housing rent allowance. I am saddened by that and must report that I have received more angry letters from police officers since that decision was made public than in all my 40 years in the House. I know that I share that experience with many right hon. and hon. Members.In defence of all this, my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) says that the police are well paid. The view of the Police Superintendents Association, the rank and file of the police service and, I should have thought, most people in this country is that the police deserve to be well paid. After all, they are paid what Edmund-Davies recommended. Broadly speaking, they have preserved what they gained then, but we should not underestimate their feeling that they have now been sadly let down.
It is true that before 1979 police morale was very low, but that has not been so in recent years. However, since 1979 crime has increased by more than one third ; the police work load has increased substantially and its scope has been widened by legislation passed by the House. Every aspect of police work has increased during that time. We have seen the emergence of lager louts, acid house parties, public order problems and racial tensions. The number of people arrested and prosecuted has substantially increased. In addition, the police have been expecred to safeguard public services in disputes. I refer to what happened in the miners' strike and in the ambulance and fire brigade disputes. Huge new burdens have been placed on the police in recent years.
A price must be paid for these extra burdens and risks. The reports of the police convalescent homes in Goring and Harrogate reveal the increased risk. Goring is new but needs to be extended, and Harrogate was extended but needs to be extended further to cope with the increasing flow of officers injured while protecting the public. Last year, sickness caused by violent assaults on officers outside the London area alone equalled about 190 years. The biggest factors are stress and incidents leading to injuries, all of which can have a lasting effect on officers and their families. None of that has yet been properly assessed.
Today the police service faces increasing criticism, yet never have the education and professionalism of officers been higher. They are necessary because the nature of society is changing, in some respects for the worse. Assaults on children and young people, domestic violence, football violence and racial tension have increased in the past 10 years, involving the police in an increasingly complex world of multi-agency approaches, case conferences, studies and detailed specialism.
It follows that in a period of increasing work, public pressure and risk, the police are entitled to ask to be fairly treated. After all, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said, they are forbidden by law on pain of imprisonment from taking industrial action. After the bitter disputes of the 1970s, the
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Edmund-Davies inquiry set up the police negotiating board as a means of providing a fair way to resolve pay and allowances. It is true that Edmund-Davies's awards are not set in tablets of stone for ever, but the police are entitled to ask that those who seek to make material changes in police remuneration should place their arguments before independent arbitration and, subject to national emergencies, accept the result of that arbitration. In this instance, the arbitration award, made by responsible and credible people, did not wholly favour the police. They set out the position clearly in their report :"We have felt it necessary to set out these principles at some length for two reasons. There is a tendency for each side to cling to familiar aspects of the older arrangements that they feel advantageous without weighing the compensatory gains. But most important is the fact that any inclination to pick and choose between the individual changes that we have suggested is likely to destroy, to the advantage of one side or the other, the fairness of the solution which we believe takes account of the need not to add to the expense of the police service and is based on clear and sensible principles."
The arbitration award in itself and the police negotiating board agreement which followed made substantial savings in the police budget. The Home Office was not satisfied with that, so went much further and set aside many important provisions in the agreement which, I am advised, detracted from the fairness of the award. The police budget had been reduced by several millions, but as a result the excellent relationship built up between the staff association and the Home Office since the Edmund-Davies inquiry was undermined. The real issue that we are debating, however, is not one of saving money, but the unfair way in which the Home Secretary's discretion has been used to overturn an agreement of the PNB, ignoring the special machinery set up precisely because the police are debarred from taking industrial action. I am worried at the way in which this decision ignores the implications for the future. I refer specifically to the police superintendents, who are the senior officers in the field responsible for the discipline and morale of other ranks. They are filled with concern that there are now fewer superintendents, who are the salt of the earth, confronted by increasing problems and a much higher work load.
Before Edmund-Davies, the police service as a whole, was unhappy. I have a vivid recollection of that unhappiness. Since Edmund-Davies, police superintendents have been busy seeking to improve service to the public and standards of education and professionalism. They are not primarily concerned with money, and acknowledge that the Home Office has, in the short term, preserved the remuneration of long-serving officers approaching retirement. They are concerned not about themselves but about the future of the service and the confidence that it has in its negotiating machinery.
That is why police superintendents are unhappy at the way in which arbitration has been treated. They fully accept that in times of grave national importance the service must take second place. But the public, and bodies such as the Association of County Councils and the police negotiating board have the right to ask what reasons of "grave national importance" arise in this case. If none exists and the Home Office is simply unhappy about part of an uprating system, in my view and that of police
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superintendents it should have dealt with the matter fairly and constitutionally, by referring it back to the police negotiating board.I do not deny that concessions were made as a consequence of the approach by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and the Police Federation, but I am unhappy at the way that the issue has been handled since. I am uneasy therefore about the future of the police service in the present social climate, and suggest that the House should be, too. It is a serious matter to overturn an arbitration award, and I do not think that in this case it was justified. Therefore, I am in full sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and find that I cannot go into the Lobby in support of the Government.
12.32 am
Mrs. Margaret Ewing (Moray) : In the few moments left before the closing speeches from both Front Benches, I will not rehearse the technical arguments that have been made in this interesting debate. I speak on behalf not only of the Scottish National party but also of Plaid Cymru, which are united on this issue and speak with one voice in expressing a view that they share. A matter of principle is at stake, and Conservative Members have clearly expressed their dissent, as have right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House. When the Home Secretary addressed the Police Federation conference in Scarborough and made it clear that he did not intend to change the regulations, he expressed his hope that, after this debate, "we'll draw a line under it and move on to other things." The Home Secretary cannot dismiss so easily the events of the past months. A line cannot be drawn under such a major issue. It is not a matter of wiping the slate clean just like that. The Home Office handling of the matter has done great damage to the morale, commitment and confidence of police forces the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.
The police representatives negotiated in good faith for many months, believing that the principles enshrined in the Edmund-Davies package would be upheld and honoured. What has been appalling is that Ministers, who asked that trade unionists observe democratically agreed procedures in negotiations and arbitration, throw those procedures out of the window when it suits them. It was clear from the speech of the hon. Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) that he did not think that this issue involves principle. I believe that he demonstrated the Government's lack of principle on the issue and he showed that the dead hand of the Treasury is steering through these regulations.
What has happened is wrong in principle and outrageous in practice. We have still not heard a clear answer about the grave national importance that has led the Government to alter their view of the arbitration tribunal.
We seem to expect our police officers to observe matters of national importance in the course of their lives. The men and women of the Scottish police force trawled the hills and fields around Lockerbie after the air disaster. They are the men and women who have to deal with drug addicts and criminals in our society. We expect them to turn out on matters of national importance. No doubt many of them are working tonight, not far from here, on the explosion in London. If they observe national importance,
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surely they deserve respect and honour from the Government, who should observe the regulations as they were first agreed. These events have ridiculed the staff side negotiations, have treated the negotiation machinery with contempt, have ignored Lord Edmund- Davies and Professor Sir John Wood, and have demoralised police forces. That is a terrible indictment of the Government's attitude to men and women who deserve our respect.12.36 am
Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale) : Rather uniquely, I have experienced police matters at first hand at three different levels. As the House knows, I served as a police officer in the west end of London. I have also served as a police authority vice-chairman and here in Parliament as a member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, when there is an opportunity to study policing matters in considerable detail.
I am sure that the House will accept that that allows me to consider the issue that we are debating tonight from three distinctive perspectives. How do the police see the new regulations? Understandably, they are upset and deeply angry at the Home Secretary's decision. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) articulated that anger in his speech. However, I ask police officers to accept that many Conservative Members supported the representations that my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge made to the Home Secretary, and that we were glad about the improvements that my right hon. and learned Friend made. I take the view that he has gone as far as he can to satisfy policemen and women on the matter. The five years that I served as a policeman in London coincided with the Labour Government of 1964-70. Morale was not good. I was partly attracted by pay levels into the police force in 1965, and it seemed to me that those levels had been eroded by the time I left in 1970. My most vivid recollection was the lack of support that we police officers felt we had in the aftermath of the two Grosvenor square riots, outside the American embassy, in 1967 and 1968. That is all history, but it provides an insight into how police officers feel when there is a Grunwick, a miner's strike, a Wapping, or a Trafalgar square. I think that all serving policemen know that the Government have sincerely supported their efforts in the public disturbances that have taken place in recent years.
Happily, my experience as vice-chairman of the North Yorkshire police authority is much more recent, and I have discussed the issue at length with my chief constable and my chairman. They expressed three major concerns : morale, mobility and finance. Morale was boosted recently by the decision of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd) when he was Home Secretary to appoint an extra 40 police officers over two years. We asked for 50 in North Yorkshire. We did very well to get an additional 40. It boosted morale.
Morale has been adversely affected by the decision on housing allowance. It would be wrong to suggest otherwise. We must be careful to stress the clear Government commitment to honour Edmund-Davies on pay. The Government's support for the police speaks for itself.
Mr. Allason : When my hon. Friend met the chief constable, did the chief constable reflect the views of Mr.
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James Anderton, who pointed out that the tribunal reached its conclusions on 18 December 1989, that the Home Office received the recommendations on 21 December 1989 and that the Home Office managed, in record time, by 4 January 1990, to produce 20 pages of draft regulations? The view of many chief police officers is that, far from honouring the Edmund-Davies formula, the Home Office set out from the beginning deliberately to delay implementation of the arbitration recommendation and had no intention of agreeing to it.Mr. Greenway : I congratulate my hon. Friend on his intervention. I cannot answer the point. The chief constable did not articulate that to me, but he did articulate other matters that I am about to address.
I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to recognise the problem of mobility in rural police forces. In North Yorkshire we require all new recruits to serve for the first seven years in a rural beat house. That is why my right hon. and learned Friend is right to reject the payment of an allowance and the payment of rent. It would lead to all sorts of difficulties. However, in due course we should like those officers to move out of that accommodation and to buy their own home. Thereafter, the housing allowance must be adequate to allow recruits to do that. I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to keep an open mind as to future needs.
My chief constable and chairman also discussed finance. It is a concern that manpower costs represent such a large slice of the police budget--at present 80 per cent. Community charge payers have to meet 30 per cent., whatever the police bill may be. Members of police authorities, who are also county councillors, have responsibility for other priorities : education, teachers' pay, and social services, which all place heavy demands on resources, too. The debate would not be about housing allowances if police authorities had the opportunity to choose the issue. Instead it might be about capital spending plans. We cannot ignore the urgent need to make a thorough reappraisal of police buildings and accommodation, including the fabric of many police houses, training facilities, the need for new computer technology and communications equipment.
That leads to my experience of the current work of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. All our inquiries point one way. For 11 years the Government have given top priority--rightly, in my view--to the recruitment and pay of our police officers. The priority now must be to give that manpower the tools with which to do the job. My right hon. and learned Friend supports that view. It was his recognition of the need to reorder priorities that led him to take this difficult decision. It is no more easy for Conservative Members who support the police to support that difficult decision, but I do so in recognition of three facts.
First, we have the best-paid police force in Europe. We now want to have the best-equipped police force in Europe. The Government have the responsibility for ensuring that proper priority is given to all the needs of the police service. This decision I take to be part of that process. Secondly, I invite the police to see the Opposition motions for what they are : cynical opportunism.
Thirdly, and above all, my right hon. and hon. Friends and I recognise that although a decision has been taken
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that has damaged the relationship between the Conservative party and the police service, the Conservative Government have given the police every support over the past 11 years. We now ask the police service to support us, to understand why the decision was taken, to understand what is being done, to understand that the Edmund-Davies pay commitment will continue to be honoured and to understand that a highly motivated, well-trained and properly equipped force must be, and will continue to be, a high priority for this and the next Conservative Government.12.45 am
Mr. Donald Dewar (Glasgow, Garscadden) : We have been dealing with what could fairly be described as a matter of byzantine detail. We have been faced with a complex mass of convention and precedent. We have a system which no one would have designed and which has grown over the years. It has had the great virtues of maintaining the confidence of the police force and offering stability. It is, above all, a system that has worked.
The system has been the subject of a major review. A series of difficulties have been compounded, as in so many other areas of our life, by the introduction of the poll tax. If there is one thing on which there is unanimity in the House, it is that the police are unhappy. There is common ground between those who are unfavourably disposed to the actions of the Home Secretary and those who are bravely supporting him because of party loyalty.
The House will not be surprised to know that in Scotland, as elsewhere, the unhappiness of the police is directly reflected. The reasons for the unhappiness have been made clear during the debate. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), who declared his special interest, carefully documented the reasons for the unhappiness. There were moments when perhaps he documented it too carefully, but I take the points he made and recognise their substance. Undoubtedly anomalies are appearing in the system as a result of the repudiation of the arbitration award, and these will cause much bitterness and unhappiness.
The Home Secretary sounded peculiarly unhappy and unconvincing when dealing with the problems of the Housing allowance and the anomalies between different forces. Comparisons have been made between those which uprated in 1988 and those which did so in 1989. The right hon. and learned Gentleman intervened more than once to tell us that inevitably there were differences, and that those differences have always existed because housing circumstances varied throughout the country. That is true, but differences are now being introduced that are the result of a different method of calculation. That will lead to great unhappiness and deep resentment.
That point was made by the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Ward) when he expressed his worry about the contrast between Dorset and Hampshire. The hon. Member for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones) talked about the impact on the force in the country of which he represents part and the number of police officers who are trying to transfer to other forces. Despite the interim or halfway stage that the Home Secretary produced under pressure, there remains a major anomaly. That is the difference between £26.5 million and £55 million, the first
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sum being the cost of the present scheme and protection and the second figure being the cost of eliminating all the anomalies that have been created.We must recognise the problem faced by police officers who are buying their own homes. We are told that the rent allowance will be uprated by 16 per cent. over two years, but there was plenty of testimony by Conservative Members to the unhappiness that exists and the substantial differentials that will continue to prevail. We have heard about the red-circling of rent allowances and mark-time protected incomes under the new system. These devices will not solve the problems or take the edge off the discontent. In a different context, and perhaps at a different financial level, I think of the last occasion when I, as a constituency Member, had to deal with a large number of people who had mark-time protected incomes. These people had been on supplementary benefit and they found themselves with a protected level of benefit as they faced transition to income support. In the first year of transition, many of them said that it was fine. They did not notice any difference. The noticed a difference in the next year and the following year when upratings were introduced and they realised that they would not get a penny piece. The new system bit, and it bit hard. That will be the impact and the effect on the police force in years ahead. I had the impression that even those Conservative Members who were trying to be loyal were distinctly nervous about the prospects. I respect the special authority of the speech by the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway). He was not representing a particular interest but has served as a police officer. He was particularly unhappy about what he recognised as the damage that was being done to the relationship between the Government of the day and the police force. I do not like that happening. I do not worry so much about relationships within the Tory party, but I accept that there is a problem when the police force loses confidence, in the government of the day, or that confidence is damaged. That is bad for morale, which should concern us all.
The hon. Gentleman argued that police officers were angry, but he went on to say that the Government had done everything they reasonably could, leaving us with the implication that the anger was therefore unreasonable. I do not believe that, in his heart of hearts, the hon. Gentleman believes that, or that any of his former colleagues in the force would feel that they were being unreasonable, even after listening to his arguments.
The anger has been compounded by a sense of outrage over a breach of principle. The arbitration award has been overturned, according to the Secretary of State for Scotland's correspondence with me a month or two ago, "after careful consideration". He told us that it was not done lightly. That is a doubtful plea in mitigation. It suggests that the Secretary of State knew what he was about ; it was a premeditated act committed with malice aforethought.
Some of his arguments appear deplorably lightweight. His letter to me dated 12 February displays a curious air of unreality. For example, he made the point that those who live in police authority housing would have had to pay rent and that the rent might have been higher than the allowances. That may be so, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman went on to say, quaintly in view of all the Government's rhetoric over the past few years, that if they paid rent they would have a right to buy and that would
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be unthinkable because it would have adverse operational consequences for housing stock. Having been deaved by the Secretary of State for Scotland for some five years about the essential virtues of selling off every piece of public sector housing stock that could possibly be put on the market, that seems to me to be a perverse argument.The right hon. and learned Gentleman then discussed what index should be used to calculate the housing allowance. I understand that, if one uses capital values and the housing element in the retail prices index, one may end up with a significantly higher figure, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said, that was carefully considered by the arbitration machinery, which concluded that it was right to do so. I find it remarkable that the Secretary of State for Scotland should lecture me on the fact that the RPI includes mortgage costs and therefore is suitable. I hope that he will have a word with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and persuade him that mortgage costs should remain within the RPI.
However, my central objection concerns the nature of the arbitration. Arbitration is effective and carries long-term confidence only if it is binding on both sides. It does not need to be formally and legally binding, but it has to be an undertaking of honour and an agreement by which both sides will stand if it is to mean anything.
No doubt Mr. Justice Edmund-Davies produced a much-admired and extremely useful report, but in some ways he was lamentably naive. He said that there was no need to make it legally binding because the actions of the Secretary of State were accountable to Parliament, so no further control was necessary. I do not know whether he envisaged that we would be debating these matters at 1 o'clock in the morning with no chance to amend or debate them in any detail or principle. He went on to give that famous pledge that in his view arbitration should be overruled
"only for reasons of the utmost national importance".
The outstanding feature of the debate was that the Secretary of State argued good housekeeping, pleaded poverty and argued about the common sense and the nuts and bolts of a complicated system, but he made no attempt to argue that, in his decision, there were reasons of the utmost national importance. He might have said that he had to overrule arbitration because the general mismanagement of the economy made it impossible to afford the arbitration award, but for some reason he did not advance perhaps his most plausible argument. The truth is that he is embarked on a course of action that will damage police morale, at a time when we wish to improve and not to undermine it. Having failed to win the argument in the police negotiating board and having faild to carry the police arbitration tribunal, he has decided to take the law into his own hands. I am not trying to argue-- I repeat the distinction made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook--that what the right hon. and learned Gentleman is doing is illegal, but I repeat that it is an act of doubtful morality, given the expectation and relationship of trust that has marked the machinery set up by Mr. Justice Edmund-Davies over the past 11 years.
The Secretary of State said that that argument was the usual waffle and that it was complete balderdash. But then he rather betrayed himself, because he said that it was all a matter of honour. It is a matter of honour, nothing to do with waffle, balderdash or illegality. Against that test, the
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