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11.11 pm
Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale): I am rather flattered that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth(Mr. Michael) should remember so vividly the discussion that took place during last year's debate on these issues. I had not expected that. However, I shall draw the attention of the House to the accuracy of what I said on that occasion. In effect, my comment was a two-edged sword.
Without question, the provisions of the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994 give chief constables far greater discretion about how to use their resources. Like my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton(Sir I. Lawrence), I have discussed with David Burke, the chief constable of the force in the area that I represent--North Yorkshire--how the force is managing to exist under the new policy, which we were told when considering the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill in Committee would be an unmitigated disaster for the police, resulting in huge cuts in police numbers and the police budget. That has not happened.
Having spoken to the chief constable, I find--I shall not suggest that all is rosy, because it is not--that now there is greater discretion when it comes to spending money, and more cash has been found as a result of efficiency. That means that the force will be able to employ more civilians and put more officers back on the beat.
It will also be possible to recruit more officers. I am reasonably optimistic--I wish that I was as informed about the exact figures as I was when I was the vice-chairman of the police authority--that we shall have about 40 extra officers in North Yorkshire in the year ahead as a result of the grant settlement that we are discussing and the greater flexibility that will be given to police authorities and chief constables as a result of the 1994 Act and the changes in the structure of police funding overall.
It is worth remembering not that North Yorkshire county council has had severe problems balancing its budget--I am on record as having said that--but that, in the final year in which it was responsible for setting the police budget, the budget that it set was £2 million less than the standard spending assessment recommended by the Home Office. That has been put right as a consequence of the new legislation.
I agree entirely with the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith)--we desire a long-term solution to the funding of police pensions. Even so, the change in the formula for police pensions in the year ahead is very welcome. North Yorkshire suffered under the cosh of huge police pension costs that were totally disproportionate to what was in the previous formula.I am told that, now the formula has changed, it is neutral.
Oddly enough, if we had left the formula alone, we would have received the same amount of money, but that is life and I am sure that some police force somewhere is benefiting. It is important that what a police force has to pay in police pensions--lump sums for retiring officers, especially those of senior rank, which can be tidy sums--is more reasonably reflected in the formula.
We still need a much longer-term solution to the problem. It cannot be right that some 12 per cent. of police revenue budgets is spent not on officers who are actively in service but on officers who have hung up their truncheons, whistles and radios and gone to a pasture which, perhaps, is more profitable. It was a long time ago that I did that. As the House knows, my eldest son who, I hope, will be married later this year--[Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."]--is keeping up the tradition of the Greenway involvement in the police service, and he enjoys his career very much.
I wish to make two important points. First, the Government rightly claim some of the credit for the fact that, throughout the country, crime is falling, but as my
hon. Friend the Minister knows--I have said this before in the House--the situation in rural areas is less attractive, not least because rural crime is growing. More rural properties are being targeted by criminals from the major cities. It is clear that local police resources are not adequate to deal with the problem.
Secondly, there is a growth in what I call crimes of rural terrorism, such as lampers--people who come on to property in four-wheel drive vehicles, causing mayhem, shooting and killing wildlife with total abandon and disregard for morality. Police resources are not adequate to deal with that problem.
Although I welcome the change in the formula, which has given greater weight to the needs of rural areas, it is not enough. We need to go further. I hope that myhon. Friend will take this on board. He represents a constituency that is much like mine. He knows of the problems that I have mentioned and which are a great worry to rural communities that do not have regular patrols of officers such as we see in urban areas.
I hope that, when we discuss the police grant settlement in a year's time in this Parliament, as this is not the pre-election police grant settlement that the righthon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed suggested--there will be another one; I am convinced of that--perhaps it will be even better and will bring in the second stage of the extra 5,000 officers.
I want to return to something that I suggested on Second Reading of the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill. The new structure created a mechanism whereby the public could pay more for their police if they wanted to. We should compare what people are spending on insurance premiums, burglar alarms and other security arrangements with what an extra £10 or £20 per annum on the police precept per house would provide by way of additional officers. I rather think that the latter might prove more attractive and sensible.
The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed mentioned North Yorkshire, which has a population of 726,000 and, I suspect, some 400,000 council tax paying households. The sum of £10 per property would produce £4 million more for the police. Let us split the difference between the figures suggested by the righthon. Gentleman: let us say not £20,000 or £40,000, but £30,000. We are talking about well in excess of 100 more officers in North Yorkshire for an extra £10 per dwelling on the police precept. I believe that, if that stark choice were put to the voters as clearly as I have put it here, they would opt to pay the £10 and have more police officers.
Mr. Bill Olner (Nuneaton):
Before I comment on the figures, let me pay tribute to the chief constable, all his police officers and the police committee in Warwickshire. I refer not only to the implications of the grant for the coming year, but to the preceding 12 months. The police authority and its officers have put up with a budget£6 million lower than it should have been because of the new formula.
I welcome the fact that the chief constable and the police committee have more freedom to examine their budgets and decide where they want their money to be spent, but the Minister will doubtless recall visits by the police committee and the chief constable--not this year, but last year--when the £6 million shortfall was discussed. I suspect that the Treasury and the Home Office had made their calculations, and Warwickshire police force did not expect the Minister to make too many changes last year to the figures that he had already announced; what they did expect was that the Minister would give serious consideration to the logical representations made to him by the police authority and its chief constable, and would remedy a number of the difficulties in this year's grant.
We had a very good meeting with the Minister some months ago. He said, "We are looking after you very well in Warwickshire." I did not accept that, but the Minister made a cogent argument and said that the Government were looking after Warwickshire well. In response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), he said that Warwickshire's grant had been increased by 3.5 per cent. and that, with wage levels forming the majority of the constabulary's costs, Warwickshire should be able to look favourably towards expanding its services.
It was only during this debate that I learnt that colleagues were complaining that North Wales had had only a 5.1 per cent. increase, that Buckinghamshirehad had only a 4.9 per cent. increase, that Derbyshire had had only a 4 per cent. increase and that Staffordshire had had only a 7.5 per cent. increase. In this year's grant settlement, Warwickshire has had an increase only of3.5 per cent, but even a 7 per cent. increase would not have matched the £6 million shortfall that Warwickshire constabulary faces in 1995-96.
Warwickshire constabulary is losing 61 personnel. That does not square with the Prime Minister's much-vaunted announcement of 5,000 additional police officers. There may be extra officers in some police authorities that have had these marvellous increases, but not in Warwickshire. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire said, the public, the media, the chief constable, the police authority and, more important, police officers know that they have had a raw deal from this Government, not only on last year's settlement but on this year's too.
I remind the Minister that, in our discussions, he said that, when setting its budget, the police authority had to consider not only the money that it receives from the Home Office in the form of grant, but its income generation. I agreed with him--we must consider income generation. I do not know whether we will push every council tax payer into paying additional money to assist the police authority, but I know that Warwickshire police authority considered offering businesses a key holder scheme.
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