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9 Jun 2009 : Column 193WH—continued
11.30 am
Mr. Humfrey Malins (Woking) (Con): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Fraser, and I offer my very sincere congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) on securing this debate. I thank him and my hon. Friends the Members for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) and for Guildford (Anne Milton) for laying out the arguments. It bears repeating to the Minister that the fact that all available Surrey MPs are here today proves that we all feel very strongly about the matter before us.
In this brief speech, I shall not deal with some of the arguments made already—they were well made and stand up—but focus only on terrorism as it affects Surrey. It is a real problem for Surrey police and their funding. As has been said, Heathrow and Gatwick, the two principal airports in this country, are on our borders. I am old enough—I do not suspect that you are, Mr. Fraser—to remember the days when a separate police force for our airports was in existence. It might have been 30 years ago—I cannot remember—but it was a very long time ago when the British Airports Authority police, which was an entirely separate force, looked after policing issues at Gatwick and Heathrow.
In those days, many of today’s problems did not exist, and it was right that there came a time when the terrorism situation—an incident at Heathrow perhaps—resulted in the abolition, in due course, of those police forces specifically covering Gatwick and Heathrow. It meant that the threat of terrorism associated with our airports had been recognised. Surrey police—I know this because I have spoken to the chief constable and many others—have had to invest much time and money in protecting the county and its surrounding areas from terrorist threats. This is a very serious issue.
A few months ago, I visited the noble Lord West, the security Minister, to discuss terrorism, especially in relation to Surrey, and the question of funding. I and the noble Lord Trefgarne, who was also at the meeting—he is a Woking resident and takes a great interest in these matters—made Lord West well aware of the real-term cuts and the awful way in which we think that Surrey police have been treated financially over the years. We also made a very strong statement to him about terrorist and other such threats in our county, and went into confidential matters that I cannot repeat today—they followed detailed briefings that we had received. We also put to him very clearly the argument about the funding basis.
I expect the Minister to tell me that he has met with Lord West to discuss what I and Lord Trefgarne said to him. I expect that the Minister knows the date of the meeting and has been briefed about it and our position. What was the result of our meeting? Were our fears and concerns taken on board? It seems to me and Lord Trefgarne that our concerns, emanating from the very top of Surrey police force, about this huge issue of terrorism, have not been recognised and taken into account.
That is the only issue that I want to raise today, because I take a particular interest in it. My constituents agree with the powerful arguments made by my hon. Friends today. Their concerns are felt deeply throughout Surrey, not only by residents themselves—they, after all, are the most important people—but by the Members of Parliament who represent them. That is why we are here today laying out our compelling arguments, one of which is about funding in relation to terrorist threats. I hope that the Minister will deal with that specifically when he replies.
11.35 am
Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne) (Con): It is a pleasure to be down here, for a change, rather than where you are, Mr. Fraser, and able to make a speech in Westminster Hall.
Until the Government set up the Greater London authority, the whole of my constituency was part of the Metropolitan police district. The Government argued that my constituents would get better policing and feel more comfortable with a county constabulary than by being policed by London. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins), I believed and supported them. Years later, I find myself having to say that what is being delivered, through no fault of Surrey police, is not what we would have expected had we remained within the Metropolitan police district. Do not get me wrong—I do not want to return to it—but we were told that the service would improve, but the reality is as has been depicted today.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who introduced this debate, I have long experience of local government and have watched successive Governments introduce formulas, add to them, simplify them, abolish them and reintroduce them, in the fond belief that they can find one that will get everything right, everywhere. But they cannot! There have to be special cases. The worst possible sort of formula is an inflexible one, which is what we are dealing with this morning. My hon. Friend was worried about mentioning common sense. I do not apologise for mentioning it, because I was brought up by a headmaster who would not have more than 12 rules in his school. He insisted that the 12th was that the above 11 were no substitute for common sense. That is the issue today.
Surrey faces special problems that the Government refuse to recognise. I shall briefly mention three of them. The first, which has been mentioned already, is Heathrow, parts of which are in my constituency, although the airfield itself is not. Of the 30-odd sites that are checked regularly as possible places from which terrorists could attack the airport, a goodly number are in my constituency. Already, due to the pressures, Surrey police has to get the Met to help it do the job that the
Government expect it to do but will not fund it properly to do. The Government are introducing measures to force BAA to pay the full cost to the Met of policing the airfield, but to the best of my knowledge—perhaps the Minister will correct me—no attempt has been made to allow the knock-on costs to Surrey to be charged to BAA as well. Our constituents have to pay for that, and if ever there were a special case, that is it. Some concession must be made for the Government’s ever-growing demands for security measures at Heathrow. I am sure that my hon. Friends who know more about Gatwick than I do would advance the same case. However, Heathrow is on my doorstep, so I make that case myself.
Mr. Peter Ainsworth: As a Member whose constituency borders Gatwick, I confirm that my hon. Friend is right. May I add another thing that has not been mentioned? One of the biggest crime hotspots in my constituency is Clacket Lane service station on the M25, which is a hotbed of vice of all kinds and a real problem for those policing the eastern part of Surrey. Let us not forget the problems created there as well.
Mr. Wilshire: I have been a customer of my hon. Friend’s service station—I hope that I did not add to the crime while I was there—which gives me the opportunity to mention my concern about motorway issues. In places, the constituency boundary goes down the middle of the carriageway. My constituency includes the busiest part of the M25, which is the busiest motorway in the United Kingdom. There has been no recognition of that or the fact that the Staines junction, junction 13, has the highest accident record of any junction on the whole of the M25—that was true the last time that I checked. The formula does not take into account the special case that arises there. The county force is expected to deliver the quality of service that everyone has a right to expect, when those involved in accidents on the M25 are often not residents of Surrey. It is very rare for a Surrey resident to be involved in such an accident, so our constituents have to pay the cost of other people’s accidents, which is unreasonable.
Let me pick up the point about cross-border crime. My hon. Friends have mentioned London. My constituency is caught in a pincer movement. I can tell when places such as Hounslow and Hammersmith and Fulham are having a purge on crime, because the M4 gets busy and crime rates go up in my constituency. People rush out of London, down the M4 and turn into my constituency and cause trouble. When we have dealt with that, the next thing we find is that Thames Valley police is having a purge in Slough, so the people of Slough get on the M4 and come rushing down to my constituency and cause mayhem from the other direction. Yet a rural county force is expected to deal with that without any special recognition, which is wrong.
Plenty of people, including the Audit Commission, the inspectorate and my residents, say that Surrey has an excellent police force. Our constituents probably pay the greatest amount of tax of any county in England into the central Exchequer. We do not mind doing that, because it is only fair that wealthier areas should make a greater contribution. We understand that, but is it unreasonable to say that we should get a fair return
from Government grant for our needs rather than just being used to provide money that is sent somewhere else?
11.42 am
Mr. Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con): I was not intending to speak in this debate, but, as my hon. Friends have been admirably succinct, we have a little time left, so I should like to take the opportunity to make a short contribution. Unfortunately, I have to leave at 12 o’clock, and I apologise in advance for any discourtesy.
My hon. Friends have set out very clearly the underlying pressures facing Surrey police. Surrey is a target-rich environment; there are many temptations for criminals and we have proximity to a pool of crime, which is both organised and opportunistic, in the London conurbation. Surrey police have a small level of reserves, and I hope that the Minister will not suggest that the reserves should be raided to meet some of the pressures that the force is facing. We need those reserves to deal with unexpected events. My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) referred to the Milly Dowler case, which involved an extraordinary police operation costing millions of pounds. In my own constituency a few years earlier, we were unwilling hosts to an unwilling guest—the former President of the Chilean Republic, General Pinochet. That operation cost Surrey police well in excess of £1 million. At the time, we were promised categorically that there would be no net cost to Surrey taxpayers, but the reimbursement from central Government never came close to meeting the full cost of that policing operation. It is for such reasons that forces have to maintain appropriate reserves.
Let me dwell for a moment on process. While the points about the underlying funding and underfunding of Surrey police force have been well made, my concern about this particular issue relates to process. Having read the facts, I have to say that Franz Kafka would have been impressed by the way in which the Government convey—or, rather, do not convey—detailed information to precepting authorities to enable them to set a precept that will not fall foul of rules that have not been made at the time the precept is set. I should also like to address the question of the proportionality of the response. I hope that the Minister has some good news for us today. There will not be anyone in this country in the current environment who thinks that spending £1.2 million of public money to return £1.6 million to Surrey council tax payers is a sensible way to proceed. I suggest to the Minister that he is in danger of appearing to be pursuing an agenda of petty political vindictiveness rather than an agenda of common sense.
Anne Milton: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is either incompetence or cock-up? Such a policy is either political vindictiveness or it is Government gone completely mad. It is exactly this sort of thing that is driving the public mad.
Mr. Hammond:
I agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that it is not petty political vindictiveness. Let us explore whether it is a kind of institutional vindictiveness. By that I mean a situation in which the centre cannot bear to be ignored or defied, even inadvertently, and has to slap back in a disproportionate response. I hope that the Minister—whether or not he is prepared to say so
today—will privately reflect on a situation in which such a disproportionate response is mandated by the system.
Mr. Peter Ainsworth: It is a ludicrous situation. My hon. Friend sets it out very clearly. I know that he personally keeps a very close eye on public spending and value for money. Does he have any thoughts about the additional cost to the taxpayer of the Government proceeding to fight a judicial review?
Mr. Hammond: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that such a review would pile insult on to injury. Instead of £1.2 million to deal with a £1.6 million over-billing, we may be talking about a situation in which the total bill has climbed beyond £1.6 million. Although I do not think that anyone on the Conservative Benches would argue that there does not need to be a solution to the over-billing that has taken place, there is an objection to a cap and re-bill proposal that will cost at least £1.2 million.
I suggest to the Minister that he should use two tests when deciding whether to proceed down this route. First, will it satisfy those who are supposed to be the beneficiaries—those who are supposed to be protected by it, and band D council tax payers who will receive a £3 reduction in their annual council tax bill and will have to use up a significant proportion of it setting up a new direct debit or standing order? I suggest to him that it will not.
Secondly, will it satisfy what has famously been described as the court of public opinion on the common sense test? Will the taxpayers of this country at large think that this was a sensible and proportionate intervention by the Government? Clearly they will not. I suggest to the Minister that he will greatly enhance his own reputation if he can intervene in this matter. He should act with common sense in the present case and discuss with his colleagues a way forward for the future—if there is a future for them—in which clear guidance is set out in a timely fashion. That would help to ensure that no other authority, police, local or otherwise, ever finds itself in a situation of over-billing as a consequence of not clearly understanding the baseline against which it should be working and the capping guidelines that the Government of the day wish to impose. In that way, we would have clear information and a pragmatic response when something goes wrong.
I hope that despite the Conservatives’ concerns, the Minister will engage in the debate in a spirit of common sense to find a solution that satisfies the needs to spend public money carefully and wisely and to protect the taxpayers of Surrey, and also protects the services that Surrey police wish to continue delivering to their citizens and our constituents. Those people certainly hope that the services continue to be provided for them.
Christopher Fraser (in the Chair): Unless any other Member wishes to make a contribution in the available time, I shall turn to the wind-ups.
11.51 am
Sarah Teather (Brent, East) (LD): I congratulate the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) on securing this important debate. I sincerely apologise for missing the first minute of his speech—I was held up on my way here.
Sir Paul Beresford: It was a good minute.
Sarah Teather: I am sure that it was a very important minute and I sincerely apologise.
The problems with capping have been characterised perfectly clearly in the debate. The hon. Gentleman spoke about the cost of police jobs and the impact on the local area, the potential impacts on the budget for many years to come, and the nonsense of the Government expecting a police authority to eat into its own reserves. A number of hon. Members explained that that is like using a hammer to crack a nut. It is a ridiculous situation: budgets are set on a notional basis and it is as if local authorities are working out what they are supposed to be doing entirely in shadow. We have notional budgets, caps and council tax levels, and nobody knows what they are supposed to be doing until well after they have set the budget.
It is telling that so many of Surrey’s MPs are here to speak in favour of their police authority. My understanding is that local Liberal Democrats have been supporting the police authority in this action, so the Labour party is rather on its own.
The problem is that capping comes right at the end of the process—police and local authorities have already gone through the process of setting their budgets when a cap is imposed. They will have gone through the process of different departments deciding their spending priorities, and anyone who is on a fixed-term contract knows that they have a contract. Then, right at the end of the process, the Government threaten to slap a cap on the authority and expect it to somehow remove a large sum from its budget, which undermines the whole planning process.
It is as if we go through a macho charade once a year. The Government refuse to tell local authorities what the cap is and what they are expected to do, and the authorities are supposed somehow to work it out by some process of osmosis or telepathy. When they get it wrong, the Government take draconian action that inevitably results in council tax payers picking up the cost of re-billing, either in future budget cuts or directly. The long-term result is that the relationship between central and local government is utterly undermined.
Paul Holmes (Chesterfield) (LD): I congratulate the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) on introducing the debate. Derbyshire has been capped in exactly the same way as Surrey, except that we are not having to re-bill this year. We simply have to lose £1.6 million next year and 60 front-line officers in a force that already has 300 fewer police officers than most equivalent authorities.
Will my hon. Friend elaborate on the principle of rate capping and the devolution of power? We hear a lot from the Government about localism and allowing local authorities the freedom to operate, yet they take 90 per cent. of taxation to London before handing it out, with strings, to local authorities, saying, “Your localism and your freedom is to operate within these constraints.” That would not happen in France, Germany, Scandinavia or the United States. Local authorities in those places have responsibility: they raise the money and run their local police forces and schools.
Christopher Fraser (in the Chair): Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that this is a debate about Surrey. I have allowed the intervention but I am glad that he has sat down.
Sarah Teather: Thank you, Mr. Fraser. My hon. Friend demonstrates that the problem has affected not only Surrey, but other police authorities. The debate allows us to see the direct impact on local people and local views. The problem affects areas other than Surrey.
Sir Paul Beresford: The hon. Lady ought to be aware that although a number of authorities are capped, to the best of my knowledge, mine is the only one that looks as if it will be required to re-bill.
Sarah Teather: The hon. Gentleman is completely correct. Other authorities have been nominated but have not had to go through the process of re-billing, but as my hon. Friend said, no matter where authorities are on the scale, there is a devastating impact on their ability, and the ability of the police authority concerned, to plan for the future and on job security. Of course, the re-billing aspect about which hon. Members spoke seems particularly silly. To recover £1.6 million for a cost of £1.2 million is surely bonkers. I am amazed that the Government cannot see that. That is why I described it as a purposeless macho charade.
My hon. Friend spoke about localism and I spoke about the relationship between central and local government, but almost every hon. Member has spoken about the issue of the police authority in Surrey. The hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) spoke about her town and a number of hon. Members spoke about airports and the problem of the M25 going through Surrey. Normally, when Back Benchers speak about difficulties in their constituency, a Minister stands up and says, “Oh well. It is the duty of Back Benchers to whinge about their constituencies and to make special pleas,” but devolution is supposed to devolve power down to the local area because people there know best.
The average local MP, police authority and local authority will know a good deal more about the issues affecting their area than a Government Minister, who may have never been to see what is happening on the ground. That is the nonsense of capping. We are supposed to allow local authorities to set their budgets and priorities because they know best, but central Government come in and slap a cap on them and say, “Actually, you don’t know best and we’re going to undermine all the priorities that you have set.”
The hon. Member for Guildford said that the police authority asked the DCLG for guidance at the end of its budget-setting process, but the DCLG consistently said that it had no firm plans to set a cap. That is silly. I spoke about that following a ministerial statement a few months ago.
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