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Mr. Truswell: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Paice: I will give way in a minute. I have not really got started yet; the Minister took nearly 40 minutes.
It is interesting that the Prime Minister apparently has no reverse gear, yet we have reversed from a 3,000 reduction to a 12,000 increase. We have made it clear that we believe that another 40,000 police are needed. We will provide resources for those officers, so that we can have the policing that we believe is necessary for the country. It is interesting that the Government clearly do not share that objective.
One of the omissions—there were a few—from the Minister's speech is that she talked about the crime fighting fund, but she did not remind the House that she is abandoning the crime fighting fund for any further officers this year. She looks askance, but that is in her statement. There will be no more crime fighting fund money, other than that for the existing increase in officers. Clearly, the Government do not intend to make the significant increase in the number of officers that we believe is necessary.
Mr. Truswell: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He talks about police numbers being slashed, but was that not partly the result of the Government perhaps unwisely keeping to Conservative Government spending figures for the first two years?
Mr. Paice: A Government in office have to take responsibility for their own decisions. The Government were not required to stick to any figure. I have no idea whether they stuck to previous figures. I cannot believe that that is the case. It is also very interesting to consider—dare I say it?—the totality of the Government's activities in the first Parliament. Where it suited them to blame the previous Government's spending plans, they blamed them; where it suited them to take credit for what was done, they took the credit. They cannot have it both ways.
After paying tribute to the police forces, I want to pay tribute to the Minister. Frankly, for a Minister who shows the marks of the Chancellor's hobnail boots all over her in terms of the settlement, she presented an incredibly rosy picture of police funding—if it can be said that giving a little more than half what police authorities need represents a rosy picture. I remind her
that the No. 10 strategy unit has said that crime figures in this country are among the worst in the developed world.Let us look back at the past three years, since the welcome 12,000 increase in police numbers. In those same three years, the council tax precept for police authorities has gone up by no less than 87 per cent. We have to ask why that is so. Police authority expenditure has gone up by £1.8 billion—a 22 per cent. increase—but that is almost entirely driven by central costs: centrally determined pay, pensions, national insurance hikes and the increased number of civilians. The Minister boasted about that increase, but most of those civilians are needed to fulfil bureaucratic functions required by the Government: filling in forms, meeting targets, and carrying out 34 Government initiatives, which they have imposed on police authorities regardless of local needs and priorities.
Mr. Dhanda: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me time, by giving way. He says that part of the problem has been increased bureaucracy. Is he aware that, over the past 10 years, we have seen something like a doubling—certainly in my area—in the number of civilian support staff? He may view that as added bureaucracy, but a lot of those people are retired police officers who are now civilian note takers, for example. Is he pledging to reduce the number of civilian support staff to boost the number of police officers; or would he increase the burden of taxation?
Mr. Paice: The hon. Gentleman entirely misses the point. My point is not that we do not want to see an increase in the use of civilians for jobs that do not require police officers, but that the huge increase in expenditure by police authorities has been caused by central Government decision making. Police authorities do not have the discretion that they used to have to control their expenditure.
Of the £1.8 billion increase in expenditure, total central Government contributions have increased by just £881 million. The Minister obfuscated over the past half an hour or so, with all sorts of lists of different funds—£10 million here, £50 million or £60 million there. The reality—the totality—is an increase in Government spending of £881 million in the past three years. So to meet those centrally determined costs, police authorities have had no option but to increase their precepts, because the Government have added expense burdens yet have not provided the resources to match them.
Whereas in the base year of 2000–01—the year in which police numbers started to rise—the council tax raised just 13 per cent. of police authority expenditure, it is raising more than 20 per cent. in the current year. That represents a dramatic shift in funding responsibility. If we look behind the national figures to determine what they actually mean for police numbers, we find out that although the Government boast about the extra 12,000 officers, the rise in council tax paid for by council tax payers throughout the country would have paid for more than 19,000 extra officers if it had not
had to be used to make up for the Government's shortfall in funding. In London, that would have meant another 500 officers. South Yorkshire has seen a tax increase of 63 per cent. That would have paid for 269 extra officers in the Home Secretary's force, but it has received just 47. The tax in my area of Cambridgeshire has gone up by 90 per cent. That would have paid for 267 extra officers, but we have got just 174. In Hampshire, which is the area of the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham)—the previous Minister with responsibility for the police, who was in office for most of the three years about which I am talking—the tax has gone up by 80 per cent. That would have paid for 561 extra officers, but the area received only 274.The list goes on. Only eight out of 43 police authorities have experienced an increase in officers greater than that which would have been paid for by the tax increase. My accusation against the Government is not that we have got extra police officers over the past few years, but that, contrary to ministerial hype, not only have they been paid for by the council tax payer, but the council tax payer has been short-changed by some 7,000 officers.
Angela Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): Does my hon. Friend agree that if one considers the widely varying policing needs of the Metropolitan police area, especially because of demands on inner London owing to terrorist threats, outer London boroughs such as Havering are getting the smallest slice of the Metropolitan cake? Whatever the additional resources poured into the Metropolitan area, the outer London boroughs are still starved of resources.
Mr. Paice: My hon. Friend stands second to no one in supporting her force, and she is perfectly correct to question the allocation of resources in a force. My only caution in response is that forces should have such discretion, and my contention is that so much of it has been taken from them by the Government.
Let me turn to next year's funding. The settlement smacks of panic. What happened to education last year is happening to the police this year. Why else have the Government had to suspend the funding formula that they brought in only a year ago? They have suspended it regardless of need, growth or specific circumstances in localities. The Minister boasted of half a dozen police authorities that will gain from the settlement, but she did not list the losers. If she had stuck to the formula, at least it would have been clear to everyone why they got what they got. Instead, there is a blanket 3.25 per cent. for all authorities, although as was said earlier, it is about 3.15 per cent. after one allows for the Airwave debacle.
In many cases, specific grants were already committed. That was not only true of Airwave, for which £37.5 million was originally taken out of budgets—it is nothing short of a shambles that the Home Office took out that money. The Minister tried to lead the House into believing that because she has put some of the money back, there has somehow been an overall increase in spending on Airwave. There is still a £7.5 million shortfall, and authorities are contractually committed to pay much of that money, including, I dare say, that of the Surrey police force, which she suggested had received an especially good settlement.
Last autumn, the Association of Police Authorities told the Home Secretary that a 6 per cent. increase was needed to meet budget obligations. It told him why: all the increased pay required by central pay negotiations; pension demands; the new statutory duties in the Police Reform Act 2002; the running costs of the new information technology systems; anti-terrorist work; DNA support; and even—God help us—centrally determined uniform requirements, which will add 1 per cent. to my force's council tax precept. Instead of receiving 6 per cent., it is receiving 3.25 per cent. In fact, to underline the panic clearly faced by the Government, figures show that the Home Office police grant went up by only 2.1 per cent. Rather like Corporal Jones, I imagine that the Minister was flying round the Home Office shouting, "Don't panic—where can we find some more money?"
The Minister told the House that she had found a little more money. She found £140 million from somewhere else in the Home Office, which only goes to show where waste must already exist. She found £100 million from specific and capital grants, so the Government are using capital grant money to support revenue spending. The result is that the Association of Police Authorities expects an average 15 per cent. rise to the precept this year. Just 11 out of the 43 police authorities expect single-figure rises, and only three expect a rise below 9 per cent.
That brings me on to capping. The Deputy Prime Minister said that he expects council tax rises to be in low single figures. The Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire told many authorities that he will step in if they levy an increase of more than 5 per cent. The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety told the police authorities about capping:
- "We hope that it will not be necessary for any police authority and look to continued improvement in policing services without excessive burdens being placed on local taxpayers"—
What does the Minister propose? How are police authorities to reduce expenditure by £250 million, which is the gap between what she has provided and what they need? Most police authorities cannot reduce their numbers of police officers because of the crime fighting fund criteria—any reductions would be taken off the crime fighting fund figures first—so they will have no option but to reduce civilian staff. Reducing civilian staff inevitably means taking police officers off the streets and putting them back behind desks. What is the Minister doing to cut all the centrally imposed costs?
If the Minister is determined, as she appears to be, to impose only a 3.25 per cent. increase, police authorities must be told now. We are into February, so it is no use saying that she will hold discussions with police authorities over the coming weeks and months. They are setting their budgets now, and they must tell the preceptor authorities how much they need in the next few weeks. When will she tell them her expectations on capping? When will she tell them what she expects their budgets to be and what she expects them to cut so that they may meet those budgets? She cannot shuffle off responsibility on to the Deputy Prime Minister. She needs to tell the authorities now exactly what she expects of them. If she tells them that they must not increase their precept by more than 6 or 7 per cent.—whatever
figure she decides—yes, they will have to make cuts, but at least they will know what they are doing. They currently face setting an average increase of 15 per cent.Far from providing the improvement in policing that the Minister wants from the settlement, it will almost certainly lead to a worsening. The beleaguered council tax payer will continue to pay more and to be short-changed by the Government.
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