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What are the new issues that affect policing? The Association of Police Authorities observed that the next four years will be very difficult. It gave several reasons for that, one of which was the tight funding regime in place between now and 2011, which we knew about from the start of the three-year settlement last year.
There may also be cuts after that; we cannot know for certain, but it certainly looks increasingly likely. We are told that many authorities and chief constables face stark choices over the next four years, including inevitable reductions in police officer numbers. We have seen that happen in some authorities already last year and this year.
At the same time, however, with tighter, sometimes decreasing, budgets and a reduction in police officer numbers, there is a constant expansion in local demand and in the expectations of what the police can deliver. Some of that is a result of modern society. Today, almost universally, people have mobile phones, and they are much quicker to ring the police—or their councillor or MP—to make a complaint. They are much more likely, especially at odd hours of the day, to get on the internet and send an e-mail to all and sundry, including the police, councillors and the local MP, demanding action. In the past, they would have had to use a land-line to ring an office hoping to get someone on the other end, and a lot of people did not do that. The 24-hour media that we have these days constantly hype up crime issues, which creates a lot more pressure and expectation from below about what the police can do. Those rising expectations will only increase.
The Government have the best intentions, which we support, but they too are increasing that pressure. For example, a welcome policy is the idea that everybody in a police beat area, usually corresponding to a council ward, should have access to a mobile phone number that should in theory be answered fairly promptly by the beat officer or PCSO who has that equipment. As that service becomes more publicised and available, it will inevitably mean far more calls from members of the public, putting more demands on the police. If the police cannot meet those demands, it will create a vicious circle of frustration, with the public saying, “There’s no point. The police aren’t doing anything. They never answer.” At a time when budgets are tighter, and when budgets and police numbers might fall over the next few years, there will be more and more pressure from the public for more action.
Another matter that we discussed in Committee yesterday was the community call for action, which was provided for in the Police Act 2006 and is about to be implemented. When members of the public know about that, they will beat a path to the door of their local councillor, whether for their parish, town, district, borough, city or unitary area—the public do not draw such distinctions—and say, “I have heard that under the law, you have to take action if I raise an issue with you about vandalism, burglary, nuisance, speeding traffic” or whatever. All those councillors will rush off to the appropriate bodies—crime and disorder reduction partnerships, police authorities and so on—saying that they want action. Many of them already do that. With tightening budgets and falling police officer numbers, what will often be the answer over the next few years? “We haven’t got the resources to deal with that.” On top of that, we have increasing Government direction of national priorities and roles, which could clash with the requirement for police authorities to have regard to the views of the local community.
Simon Hughes:
It strikes me that given the pressures that my hon. Friend has outlined, and the fact that a lot of people will, sadly, lose their jobs in the coming year,
there may be people who are confident, able and willing to be employed by police authorities as civilians, but who would not be willing to become police officers. They could help to do a lot of jobs, provided that the budgets were available.
Paul Holmes: Indeed, and over recent years a lot of authorities have brought more civilians in to release police officers from desk work and get them out on the beat. The more the budget tightens, however, the less possible that becomes.
As we have heard, another factor to consider is population shifts, which may well worsen, especially those that arise from waves of migrant workers. When the EU enlarged recently the Government predicted how many people would come from Poland and various eastern European states, but their predictions were well under the number who came in reality. The Government said that they expected a lot of those migrant workers to come over here and work for two, three or four years to raise money, then go back to start their own businesses, or to return when the economy changed, as in the case of the recession that is building up.
The speed of those population fluctuations caused major problems for councils, the health service, schools and the police. The then police Minister, the right hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), said in last year’s debate, “Yes, that is a very good point, and we should look at it.” The present Minister said the same this afternoon, so when will the action come? What reassurance can the Minister give that there will be fairly prompt action on a matter that has never been dealt with—getting resources quickly to the police, councils, education authorities and others to deal with rapid population fluctuations? Those fluctuations often involve people who have English as a second language, which is another issue entirely. The police in Lincolnshire, for example, have been caused major problems by the soaring cost of their interpretation budget because of the eastern European groups who are working there in agriculture. There are also many such examples in urban areas, and various problems are developing.
Simon Hughes: That is a really big issue for boroughs such as mine as well as for rural areas, as my hon. Friend said. It would be really helpful if Ministers from the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government said that they would take the new information from the Office for National Statistics and put a new, up-to-date system in place by the time of the next three-year grant allocation at the latest. We have not yet heard that, and it must be a minimum demand and expectation.
Paul Holmes: I give way to the Minister.
Mr. Coaker: May I just say that we will do that?
Paul Holmes:
That is a very welcome commitment, but it is difficult to see how the Government can react quickly enough to deal with certain population flows. I have spoken to the staff of schools in inner-city areas of
Birmingham and London that have had problems. With rapidly fluctuating pupil numbers, it is difficult to get the money flowing fast enough to make a difference rather than provide it two years later. However, I hope that the Government will be able to take action on that.
Another major issue is the levelling off of police authorities’ potential to make cash efficiencies. The Home Office document “Efficiency and Productivity Strategy for the Police Service 2008-11” states:
“The financial climate of the next three years will be tougher and achieving significant cashable improvements in efficiency and productivity over 2008-11 will therefore be central to delivering the Police Service’s mission of delivering community safety.”
However, the APA points out that in the past 10 years more than £2 billion of efficiency savings have been made, most of which have been recycled into meeting new police demands and supporting the delivery of the service. However, it observes that that has become increasingly difficult in the past year or two, and that in the next few years it will become almost impossible for efficiency savings to be addressed directly to dealing with budget shortfalls. It states that
“the longer term prospects worsen considerably”
because, added to the factors that I have listed, the recession means that there will be a loss of interest income from investments, reduced proceeds from property sales and increased costs of imported goods. It gives the specific example that uniforms, which are generally imported, and some specialist equipment that is imported have already increased in cost by 30 per cent. in the past few months, due to exchange rate changes. The council tax base is nearly static due to continued capping, and the recession is creating more low-level crimes such as burglary, shoplifting, robbery and shed breaking. All those things cause increased demands on the police.
The most recent quarterly crime statistics, and figures released following a freedom of information request by The Independent, show increasing crime—a widely predicted result of the recession. On 17 January, The Independent gave the example of forces such as Greater Manchester, Suffolk, Gloucestershire and Cumbria, all of which had seen
“increases of between 25 and 50 per cent. Lincolnshire police saw the biggest rise, a 97 per cent. increase in robbery between September and November—the most recent three-month period collated by the force—compared with the same three-month period the previous year.”
Those figures were more up to date than those that the Home Office released a month later, which raises the point that we have often made about the need for believable independent statistics. If the Government were to pass the responsibility for the figures entirely to the Office for National Statistics, that would remove all the questions about their validity and their early or late issue for political reasons. The statistics that were produced, partly through a freedom of information request, showed a clear increase in crime at the lower level of burglary, shed breaking, robbery and so on, co-ordinating with the start of the recession. That was exactly what history told us was likely.
A rise in crime produces more work for the police and puts more strain on them. It means that they need more manpower and potentially more overtime, yet all that comes at a time of tightening and eventually decreasing budgets and falling police numbers. Police authorities need some specific answers. First, will the specific central
Government funding for PCSOs, and for the substantial number of police who are funded by direct special grants rather than the general grant, remain in place after 2011, to which date it is guaranteed?
Secondly, the Government brought forward £3 billion of capital spending to assist in economic recovery, but none of it went towards improvements in the police estate. We are told that the Government are preparing a further tranche of that funding as part of the forthcoming Budget. Do the Government have any further plans to release capital investment in the police estate? That would boost the construction industry, create jobs and, above all, take pressure off local police authority budgets where there are dilapidated police stations that need replacing and other facilities that need improvement.
The issues that we have considered so far apply generally to all 43 police authorities in England and Wales. However, some issues apply more to specific police authorities. For example, 15 police authorities—just under 30 per cent.—were affected by the Icelandic banking crisis. The outcome of the crisis, and, therefore, its full impact, remain unclear and will be for some time. The increasing uncertainty and risk for the affected authorities is a cause of great concern, and the Government have provided support so far. Continuing Government support for repaying the loans involved is required, especially if repayment is delayed or money has to be written off as a result of what happened in Iceland.
Another much bigger and longer-running issue affects some but by no means all police authorities, and several hon. Members referred to it earlier. It is the formula for funding police authorities. To the Government’s credit, after saying that they would tackle the matter in 1997 when they came to power, they eventually introduced a fairer funding formula nearly 10 years later. However, they told the worst-hit authorities that it would be years before the underfunding was made up. Telling police authorities that they were underfunded by specific amounts but that they could not have the money caused consternation. As yet, no date has been set for ending the floors and ceilings mechanisms and the underfunding of so many authorities.
The Minister has already referred to the fact that all the police authorities in the east midlands, parts of which we both represent—in Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, the Minister’s area of Nottinghamshire and my area of Derbyshire—are affected, as are many others throughout the country. He said this afternoon that the formula is being reviewed again for 2011 onwards. However, let us remember the history.
Before 1997, the shire counties that lost out worst from the funding formula had a long-running campaign—the F40 campaign. In 1997, the Government said that they would review the position. In 2006-07, nine years later, they introduced the new formula but said that they could not provide the money that they admitted authorities needed.
I shall now be slightly parochial. Last year, Derbyshire was the fourth worst-funded police authority in England and Wales. This year, it sank to third lowest, with only Suffolk and Essex in a worse position. Under the new, “fair” formula that was introduced in 2006-07, Derbyshire has lost £16 million so far. The Government say that Derbyshire needs that money to provide adequate policing, but that it cannot have it. This year, Derbyshire will lose another £5 million, and another £5 million in the subsequent
year. That is equal to 3 per cent. of the force’s entire budget every year and more than 160 police officers on the beat.
Derbyshire has had to plug the gaps in the underfunding by using its reserves, but they are coming to an end. In a year or two, there will be no more reserves to plug the gap in the funding that the Government say that Derbyshire needs, but that they will not provide. It is impossible to understand why the worst funded authorities in the country, some of which, like Derbyshire, have experienced the problem for more than 20 years, must bear the brunt of a tight police grant settlement.
Police officers and constituents in Chesterfield simply cannot understand that we are the third worst-funded police authority in the country yet we must continue to be underfunded because of overall problems with the police grant.
The Minister said that he had received only 15 representations this year—far fewer than last year. Perhaps police authorities have simply given up because they meet the same stonewalling every year. Will the Minister offer any genuine hope to the worst-funded authorities, such as Derbyshire, that all the unequal funding of recent years will end? After all, the councils and fire authorities that suffered from the funding formula have had their historic problem removed and levelled out much more quickly. Why are police authorities singled out to bear the brunt of what the Government admit was an unfair formula, saying that they should have more money, but that they cannot have it?
2.24 pm
Mr. Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con): I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the debate on the police funding settlement this year. I shall focus my brief remarks on my police force area of Dyfed-Powys. Last week, in Westminster Hall, the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) initiated a short debate on the subject, and I am grateful for some of the assurances that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell) gave in response to it. I am also grateful for the Minister’s comments today; I appreciate the steps that are being taken to ensure parity between English and Welsh forces, and the 2.5 per cent. grant floor.
I want to impress on Ministers the deep concern among members of the Dyfed-Powys police authority and officers at various levels in the organisation. In last Wednesday’s debate in Westminster Hall, the Under-Secretary said that he had received no representations from the authority this year on the settlement. However, I assure him that Members who represent constituencies in the area have received strong representations. That is shown not only by the fact that I am raising the matter, but by the presence of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) and the intervention by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik).
Let me reinforce some of the points that we have been trying to convey to Ministers in recent weeks. The starting point is the enormous area that the Dyfed- Powys police force covers—the largest in England and Wales, taking in the counties of Powys, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and my county of Pembrokeshire, and comprising hundreds of disparate small villages and small town communities. Hon. Members who go
on holiday to mid and west Wales will be familiar with the long, slow roads in the area. That poses significant challenges to policing. Given the size of the police authority area, it is worth pointing out that Dyfed-Powys has the third smallest police force. That immediately poses a challenge to the chief constable of how to deploy personnel across such a vast area.
Last week, in the Westminster Hall debate, the Under-Secretary described Dyfed-Powys police authority as well resourced. Like many hon. Members, I have a six-monthly night out with my local police. On a Saturday night, the police authority does not feel especially well resourced. All it takes in my police division of Pembrokeshire is one road traffic accident, a fight outside a local nightclub and one domestic violence incident for the force to start to feel stretched.
I want to put on record the important role that volunteers play in the police force. On my most recent Saturday night with my local police, I witnessed the important role that not only special constables, who give up their time, but volunteers in the CCTV control centre, play. We want to encourage such volunteering. There are all sorts of benefits from engaging more civilian volunteers in police operations, but the police should never have to perceive volunteers as an absolute necessity for delivering policing at busy times such as a Saturday night.
Other factors in the Dyfed-Powys area are relevant to the discussion—tourism, for example. In the summer the population swells considerably. The pressure on public services arising from a significant increase in the local population in the summer months is never fully taken into account.
We also have an enormous coastline, which includes two major ferry ports, connecting west Wales with Ireland, at Pembroke Dock and Fishguard. We have the growing energy hub at the port of Milford Haven, with two of the UK’s major oil refineries, the UK’s largest fuel storage depot and the two major liquefied natural gas terminals, which will come on stream shortly. I shall say more about the LNG terminals shortly.
Dyfed-Powys police do a remarkably good job, given their resources and the challenges they face, in holding down crime rates and reassuring the public. They have achieved some excellent scores in crime detection and bringing rates down across the full range of crimes. However, a member of the police authority told me that some of the statistics, which on the face of it are good news stories, are
“somewhat fragile and patchy in some areas of activity.”
The force admits that some of the confidence and public satisfaction scores that it gets are not quite as good as they should be. I share the concerns that have been communicated to me by the police authority, not only about the tight settlement for this year, but about the uncertainties surrounding funding in future years and about what might happen to the rural police grant. Those concerns mean that the authority has serious questions about its ability to improve on its current scores.
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