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9.20 pm
Mr. Barry Jones (Alyn and Deeside): I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd). I was also pleased to hear the cogent and well-informed speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael).
The not inconsiderable sum of £35,695,797 has been granted to the North Wales police authority. The formula used by the Government to calculate that sum is quite algebraic. Some of the headings include residents in lone parent families, total unemployment figures, long-term unemployment figures and young male unemployment figures, as well as a reference to sparsity. All those factors are good reasons why the North Wales police authority should have a substantial Government grant.
I should like to emphasise strongly that the North Wales police authority has a particular problem currently--the public inquiry on child abuse in north Wales being chaired by Judge Ronald Waterhouse QC. The inquiry is due to continue for more than a year. It is putting serious pressure on the North Wales police authority--so much so that I fear that, if the authority
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I pay my own tribute to the police authority. It is a good authority--its leadership is good and its officers are good. From my experience as a constituency member, there is no doubt in my mind that the force wishes to help the people whom it has the duty to serve. I shall be the first to say that, as a Member of Parliament, I get a good service from it.
North Wales is a far-flung area, stretching from Aberdovey in the south-west to Prestatyn in the north-east, and from Holyhead to Saltney in my constituency. That is a large tract of land. In it there is mountainous and estuarial terrain. There are deeply rural as well as urban areas, and a bilingual police force is required. There are great pressures on budgets, and chief constables and other senior police officers are examining extremely carefully how they might continue the services that they provide--they cannot increase them--given the proposed grant and the fact that the child abuse inquiry will continue for longer than a year.
There have recently been closures of police stations in my constituency, such as those in the villages of Broughton, Sandycroft and Caergwrle. Those communities have been deprived of the direct assistance of their police station. As a consequence, I have received representations from town and community councils as well as from voluntary organisations and pensioner associations on Deeside.
It would be churlish, however, not to say that the recently formed community police stations are making a good stab at providing a comprehensive service to my constituents on Deeside and in Buckley, but there is anxiety, and some resentment, in the villages that have been deprived of police stations. I have not been able to assuage those responses to the closures.
My constituents believe that there should be more uniformed officers--more than now appear--who should be seen more regularly. We are, however, grateful in my constituency for what we have in the urban area of Deeside and the township of Buckley. We want to see more uniformed officers in the housing estates and in shopping areas. Without doubt, there is growing anxiety among the communities that I represent. That anxiety reflects the crimes that are committed. There are worries especially among young mothers and those who would describe themselves as retired and drawing pensions.
There is an increasing and comprehensive problem. No village is unaffected by drug and substance abuse. That is a worrying development, and it is arguably a problem throughout the nation. There is much anti-social behaviour in my constituency, involving neighbours on most of the estates. There is increasing vandalism, break-ins are regular and youngsters are often more than disrespectful to pensioners. Pensioners complain to me of foul-mouthed abuse from youths and even from young children. Burglaries are increasing and there is a fair incidence of violent crime. Only last year, in the township of Shotton, there was an armed bank robbery. There was a successful outcome to the case, but I wish to respond to the anxiety in my communities and in others.
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If there is to be less anxiety and more successful crime protection, I urge the Government further to consider their employment policies. If more real jobs were available to school leavers--if young people had the guarantee of access to real jobs that would pay a living wage rather than temporary jobs--I have no doubt that there would be less crime. The Government should tackle the problems of long-term and youth unemployment with more determination. They need more realistic policies on training and should provide better investment for education, which would lead to less crime by young people.
Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed):
The settlement will not meet the known needs of the police service. The increase in the total standard spending assessment is £220 million, but the local authority associations estimate that the inescapable costs of the continuing employment of existing police officers and staff mean that the increase needed is higher--at least £250 million. That would not allow for the pressures on the police that require additional expenditure, including the cost of the DNA database, the increased workload and the demand for more closed circuit television, which can be a valuable crime-fighting resource.
We have recently heard absurd reports that tens of thousands of speeding motorists are escaping prosecution because the police cannot afford to put film in roadside cameras. The Association of Chief Police Officers has also made that point--and the cost of pursuing the cases presents a further deterrent. Some £40 million of the grant is the next instalment of the extra money that is supposed to provide an extra 5,000 police officers. In many forces, no extra officers will be provided because of the other pressures on police budgets.
As has been said, the effect of the settlement will be a shift in the source of the money to fund the police from the Government to council tax payers. The Government's funding increase averages just over 2 per cent., which is well below the 3.2 per cent. maximum increase in police authority budgets permitted under the capping rules. The intention is to make the Government look good at the expense of local authorities. That is demonstrated by the way in which the Government gloss over the point in their press releases. For example, Dorset police intend to spend at capping level in the coming year, and expenditure will therefore rise by about 3.2 per cent. The result for the council tax payer will be an increase of around 10 per cent. in what they paid towards the police last year. Each council tax payer will pay £63--an increase of more than £5.50 on last year--and the Government should make that clear. Government statements about finances should be explicit and honest, but perhaps that is asking too much.
There is a further reason why the additional funding will not result in the total number of extra officers that the Government have promised. They estimate that every extra police officer costs £20,000: the cost is nearer £23,000. Even if all the additional grant could be used for extra officers, it would provide only an extra 2,600 police officers. In Warwickshire, the cuts of £6 million for the
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Hampshire police are determined to recruit more police officers. Last year that meant that they more than reached the Government's target for extra police officers. This year, however, medium-term financial insecurity means that they will be unable to recruit extra officers. Some £2.8 million of Hampshire's money will be spent on pensions, and the authority will also be seriously affected by the cuts in capital expenditure. Nationally, pensions now amount to an eighth of police spending. The grant, which will have an uneven impact, will present severe budget problems for many police authorities. I am glad that the Minister recognised that, and I hope that she will continue to work on that troublesome aspect of budgeting in the police service.
Capital grants and credit approvals will be cut by £20 million, which represents a 10.4 per cent. decrease--following the 11 per cent. reduction in the current year. That can have a serious effect on revenue budgets because it prevents beneficial efficiency savings and the police authorities' maintaining their capital infrastructure to improve efficiency and enable police officers to deliver an effective service to the public.
In this year's formula, we have not only rule 1 but rule 3--a new feature of the funding formula. The additional rules work against the claim that the settlement takes full account of objectively assessed needs in each police area. Rule 3 has a quite different effect. Northumbria police lose £3 million as a result of the application of rules 1 and 3. That represents a lot of police officers, equipment and crime fighting. If the Home Secretary believes that there is a problem with the formula, he should alter it on an objective basis, not fiddle around with it or manipulate it at will. The formula will have a very significant effect on council tax. It looks as if the Home Secretary can devise additional rules so as to smile on one police authority and frown on another.
The outlook for police funding is very bleak because the drift of Government policy is to shift expenditure on to prisons. Not only does overcrowding call for the building of a series of new prisons, which the Government have accepted, but the Crime (Sentences) Bill will require a further 12 prisons. All such expenditure is likely to be at the expense of other Home Office services, including the police. Although it is very unlikely indeed that present Ministers will be in power in years to come, we are contemplating a rapid decline in police funding.
Ministers make much of the possibilities of using private finance. We may use the private finance initiative for police stations or have sponsored police cars with the sponsor's logo on the side. All that is of course beneath the dignity of the Queen's yacht, but it is not supposed to be beneath the dignity of the keeper of the Queen's peace. The Government have yet to develop a consistent attitude to what areas of public service are appropriate either for the PFI or, even more important, for sponsorship, which they regard as acceptable in the police service. Sponsorship especially presents potential dangers.
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