10.37 am Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab) (Urgent
Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement
on the 2017-18 police pay settlement and police funding. The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department
(Sarah Newton) I am pleased to have the...Request free trial
10.37 am
-
(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will
make a statement on the 2017-18 police pay settlement and
police funding.
-
I am pleased to have the opportunity to answer the
question today.
The pay award for England and Wales for 2017-18 was
announced this Tuesday after the Government carefully
considered the recommendations of the independent Police
Remuneration Review Body and the Senior Salaries Review
Body. The Government accepted in full the recommendations
of the Senior Salaries Review Body. The decision to award
officers in the PRRB remit group a pay award worth a
total of 2% to each officer in 2017-18, consisting of a
1% consolidated pay increase in addition to a one-off 1%
non-consolidated payment to officers, represents a fair
deal to the taxpayer and to our hard-working police
officers.
Our public sector workers, including police officers, are
some of the most extraordinarily talented and
hard-working people in our society. I recognise the
extraordinary contribution made by police officers in
response to some of the most challenging situations that
our country has faced for a very long time. I also fully
respect the independent conclusions of the pay review
bodies.
At the same time, we have committed to taking the
difficult decisions to balance the books that have
enabled us to repair the damage to the economy while
keeping employment up and taxes down. This will help us
to strike the right balance between being fair to police
officers and to taxpayers. We believe that the award is
affordable within the current police funding settlement,
noting that the PRRB has highlighted in its report the
potential for further efficiencies.
Police reform is working. Crime, as traditionally
measured by the independent crime survey for England and
Wales, is down by a third since 2010. However, we know
that the nature of crime is changing, and we are engaging
with the police to better understand the changing demands
on the police and how these can best be managed. That
includes looking at what more can be done to improve
productivity and efficiency, and to make prudent use of
financial reserves.
-
Mr Speaker, I am grateful to you for granting this urgent
question.
As the Minister said, the review body this week
recommended a 2% consolidated pay rise for federate and
superintending ranks. The Prime Minister stated during
Prime Minister’s questions yesterday that the Government
had accepted that body’s recommendations in full. But, as
the Minister just confirmed, they have not. The
Government’s response to the recommendations was to offer
a 1% pay rise and a 1% one-off non-consolidated payment
that is non-pensionable. Will the Minister tell us why
those recommendations were not accepted in full?
The Prime Minister then went on to suggest that police
officers had received a real terms increase of 32%,
which, of course, the Police Federation called a
“downright lie”. I would suggest that it was a cynical
attempt to create a false impression, divorced from the
reality for officers on the ground. Does the Minister
think that the Police Federation was lying or that the
Prime Minister got it wrong?
The Prime Minister confirmed that the pay settlement
would be unfunded. The Metropolitan police estimate that
this will cost them £17.7 million this year. West
Yorkshire police and West Midlands police both estimate
that it will cost them around 80 frontline officers this
year. Does the Minister accept what chief constables are
telling her—that this will cost us more frontline
officers? If she does not, how will she advise forces to
pay for this unbudgeted increase?
The Government announcement mentioned police reserves,
which they claim to have increased to £1.6 billion in
2016. Will the Minister confirm, however, that the vast
majority of these reserves are earmarked for projected
spending and that only £363 million remain in general
reserves? As she knows, police and crime commissioners
are under a legal duty to hold adequate reserves. The
Audit Commission suggests that this level would be
between 3% and 5%, yet some police forces have reserves
at levels beneath 1%. Will the Minister therefore confirm
whether the Government are actually requiring police
forces to run down their general reserves to fund
staffing costs? Does she consider that fiscally
responsible? From my private sector experience, I gently
advise her that it is not.
The Government have repeatedly claimed that they have
protected police funding since 2015. We know this is not
the case because crime has risen in recent years, despite
what the Minister says. This week’s announcement entails
a further cut to forces’ budgets. The Government have
been on warning for some time that the police are near
breaking point. This move may finally break them.
-
I am grateful for the opportunity actually to set out
some facts before the House, which is hardly what we have
heard from the hon. Lady. Before I address the
substantive points she raised, I want to say that it
really does our hard-working police officers the most
horrendous disservice to portray them constantly at
breaking point, as if they cannot serve communities.
Confidence in the police has been rising and is much
higher now than it was in 2010. Those hard-working police
officers are doing an extremely good job—day in, day
out—for the communities they serve.
We have accepted the independent recommendations. Police
officers will receive a 2% pay increase. The hon. Lady’s
key point was about affordability. Let me address this
head-on. On the latest audited figures, every single
police force in this country has reserves of at least 6%
of its general budget. The costs of delivering on the
extra 1% are a very small fraction of all the police
funding this year—less than 0.5%. This is absolutely
affordable for forces. They were planning on a 1%
increase; the extra 1% they are going to be finding—let
me be absolutely clear—is less than 0.5% of the budget.
Their reserves are increasing; they are running up to
£1.8 billion.
If we look at the latest inspections by Her Majesty’s
inspectorate of constabulary, we see that Sir Tom Winsor
has made it absolutely clear that there is room for more
efficiencies in police services. The Government are
supporting police officers on the frontline, as well as
their leaders, to make those changes and to invest in
technology, so that we can have the most efficient police
force, which we can all be proud of.
To summarise, I believe that this proposal is affordable
and that the money is there for the chief constables and
the police and crime commissioners to fund it, and the
Home Office is working with the leadership of the police
to make sure that they can continue their really good
progress on innovation, while keeping the nation safe.
-
Ever since I arrived in this House in 2001, it has been
clear that the national funding formula does not treat
Bedfordshire police fairly, and I have lost count of the
number of Policing Ministers to whom I have made that
point. My request to the Minister, whom I regard very
highly, is that she go back to the Home Office and ask
the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister to emulate
what our colleagues have done in education, by providing
a fair level of funding to every police force, so that we
bring those at the bottom up to nearer the average.
-
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words and his very
good question. He is a marvellous champion for his
constituency and his local police force. Like many
colleagues, he has in the past made the case for changes
to the funding formula, and the Policing Minister and the
Home Secretary have that information and that
consideration carefully under review.
-
Notwithstanding the unrecognisable response of Labour
Front Bench, the SNP welcomes the UK Government following
the lead of the Scottish Government in lifting the pay
cap for public services—recognising that pay is behind
inflation and that pressure is increasing on household
budgets. Given that Steve White, the chair of the Police
Federation of England and Wales, has said that many of
his members would be “angry and deflated” at their pay
award, does the Minister recognise that the police force
at the frontline of our services must be supported? Does
she also agree with the First Minister of Scotland, who
said that it is not just police officers but nurses,
teachers, firefighters and workers right across the
public service who deserve a fairer deal for the future?
-
I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the Government’s
decision. It is a pity, as he says, that the Labour party
is not supporting the fact that the Government are
recognising the extraordinary contribution that our
police officers make every single day, in facing up to
the even greater pressures they have been put under in
the last 12 months as they have responded so
magnificently to the terrorist threats we have faced as a
country. The Prime Minister has made it absolutely clear
that the views of the independent pay review bodies for
all parts of the public sector will be carefully
considered and carefully listened to, and the Chancellor
will respond to those at the appropriate time, which will
be when those bodies report later this year.
-
The first duty of the Government is to protect the
public, but I have to say to the Minister that there is a
very real and very worrying spike in crime right across
my constituency, which the police are trying valiantly to
deal with. West Yorkshire police are increasing police
numbers, and that is very welcome, but what can she do to
make sure they can increase them much further and much
faster, to help them reassure the public in my
constituency, clear up these crimes, and do what we want
to do, which is to protect the public and reassure them?
-
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. I
can absolutely assure him that everyone in the Home
Office wakes up every morning thinking, “What more can we
do to keep our nation safe?” That is our absolute first
duty. In terms of the crime statistics, it is not fair to
say that all crime is rising. There has been a worrying
increase in violent crime, and we have been acting on
that at pace, with determination, supporting frontline
police officers. There are whole series of action plans
related to knife crime, to acid attacks, and to the spate
of activity we have seen in London around moped-enabled
crime. There is very strong partnership working across
the criminal justice system to make sure that it has the
powers and the resources it needs to go and prosecute
these crimes as swiftly as possible so that my hon.
Friend’s community and every community across our country
feels safe.
-
The Government clearly inhabit another planet. After a
generation of progress on crime, 20,000 police officers
have gone—2,000 in the west midlands—and crime is once
again rising. Knife crime is up, gun crime is up, violent
crime is up, crime across the board is up, and the public
are increasingly at risk. Does the Minister not accept
that she is now confronting the police service with a
double whammy: on the one hand, for our brave police
officers, a pay rise that is in real terms a pay cut; and
on the other hand, asking beleaguered police forces to
fund that pay rise? If the Government do not act, does
the Minister not accept that they are betraying the first
duty of any Government, which is the safety and security
of the British public?
-
I yet again reiterate that, within the current budget,
these pay increases are affordable. Of course it is our
first duty to keep people safe. Again, the hon.
Gentleman, like other Opposition Members, is talking down
the police force and the huge strides they have made with
falling crime. I have absolutely accepted in this House,
not just today but in the past, that there has been, and
there is, a rise in violent crime. We are acting with
determination, at pace, to make sure that police officers
in every community have the resources and the powers that
they need to tackle that crime.
-
I never cease to be amazed by the dedication and bravery
of Cleveland police officers, who do a fantastic job
protecting our community. Does my hon. Friend agree that
this award is all about being fair to those officers for
their dedicated record of service but also fair to the
taxpayer and to the wider public services at a time when
we are running a deficit of £52 billion this year, posing
a real threat to the sustainability of public services?
-
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, those
brave police officers are also taxpayers, and they will
absolutely understand that we have to strike the right
balance, because without the strong and growing economy
that this Government are delivering, we will not raise
the taxes so that we can have the world-class public
services that we all want to see.
-
-
Order. I have been a bit worried about the hon. Member
for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) because she has been
jumping up and down quite a bit and has not been heard
yet—so she must be heard.
-
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Figures obtained from West Yorkshire police show that
they have dealt with 33,000 more 999 calls this year than
last—an increase of nearly 10%—yet officer numbers are
down by nearly a fifth due to Government cuts. It would
cost the equivalent of another 80 officers to fully fund
the Government pay settlement. Like my hon. Friend the
Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), I too used
to work in the police, and I know that frontline staff
feel that this Government treat them not as public
servants but as public enemies. Can the Minister
guarantee that we will not face any further cuts to
police numbers?
-
That is a totally unacceptable thing to say. My sister
was a police officer. My nephew, I am very proud to say,
has just joined our local police force. I do not see
members of my family—members of the community—as enemies,
and neither does anybody in the Home Office or any Member
on any one of these Benches. Unlike Opposition Members,
we have to inhabit the real world and we have to make the
tough choices of having a strong and growing economy so
that we can fund the first-class public services that we
want to see.
-
-
What a delicious choice. I call Mr Philip Hollobone.
-
I am sure that residents in Kettering will welcome this
pay rise for the police, not least because every single
police officer I have ever met always works more hours
than their shift requires. But may I join calls for
changes to the national police funding formula? Counties
such as Northamptonshire are clearly underfunded relative
to their peers.
-
I thank my hon. Friend for standing up passionately, over
a long period of time, for his local police officers and
insisting that they receive a fair allocation of
resources. I am sure that when the Home Secretary is
looking at police allocations, she will bear that very
much in mind. I want to take the opportunity to say that
the Policing Minister is engaging with chief constables
and police and crime commissioners all over the country
to understand the nature of policing and the way in which
it is changing so that remuneration can properly reflect
modern policing in the 21st century.
-
A police community support officer in my constituency
would face a cut of more than £1,000 if they started as a
police constable just up the road in West Yorkshire. Does
the Minister accept the impact that that has on police
recruitment, and what will she do to tackle it?
-
I am pleased to let the hon. Lady know that police forces
across the country, including Devon and Cornwall
constabulary, are recruiting, and there are many more
people wanting to join the police force than there are
opportunities available. Clearly, pay and remuneration
are not deterring people from coming forward and taking
up the marvellous careers that being in the police force
offers them.
-
I warmly welcome the decision to double the amount that
was expected to be given to our brave police officers on
the front line. However, the Labour Mayor of London is
consulting on widespread police station closures, the
amalgamation of boroughs and a reduction in the number of
police officers. Is any extra money going to be allocated
to London to cover the costs of this pay increase, which
I warmly welcome, or is it expected that there will have
to be further closures of police stations and a further
loss of police officers?
-
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important matter.
Local police forces—the Metropolitan police is no
exception—have funding from the taxpayer via the
Government, but they also have the ability to raise
precepts in the local community. All police forces that
use their precepting powers are seeing an increase in the
amount of money that they have to spend. I strongly
encourage all London Members of this House, across the
political divide, to ask the Mayor to use his precepting
powers so that cuts do not have to be made to services.
-
I have met both the police and crime commissioner and the
chief constable of Gloucestershire over the last couple
of weeks. They already faced a very difficult funding
situation, but this announcement will only make it worse.
They have made all the back-office savings that they can
possibly make, and their worry is that restructuring is
again on the Government’s agenda. Will the Minister at
least rule that out today, so that I can go back to them
and give them the assurance that they are not expected to
waste yet more time and money on a useless restructuring
exercise?
-
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me this opportunity
to say that it is plain scaremongering to suggest that
there is some hidden agenda of reorganisation.
Operational decisions are made by police officers.
-
-
As a Cornish MP, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that Devon
and Cornwall police leaders have decided for themselves
to work in partnership with Dorset. That has been a very
successful partnership, which is saving back-office
expenditure and enabling the force to be more efficient
and keep our communities in Devon, Cornwall and Dorset
safer. These are independent operational decisions made
by the police themselves.
To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question directly, the
police in his constabulary area have reserves of more
than 6% of their annual budget that they could prudently
use—they would have to use only a very small
percentage—to reward extremely brave and hard-working
frontline officers. I am sure all his constituents would
want them to do that.
-
Just last week, the chief constable of Northumbria said
that his force was getting “very, very close” to not
being able to deliver a professional service because of
budget cuts. Does the Minister think that burdening him
with extra expenditure without giving him any extra
budget is going to make that situation better or worse?
-
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question, but I
do not consider that paying our brave and hard-working
frontline officers, who have faced the most extraordinary
year, extra pay is a burden. It is absolutely right that
their extraordinary public service should be rewarded
with this richly deserved extra 1%; that is absolutely
the correct thing to do. Police forces will be sitting on
reserves, and reserves are there for a reason: they are
there, in part, for extraordinary circumstances. The
police have faced extraordinary circumstances this year,
and they richly deserve this pay rise.
-
On Wednesday, the National Police Chiefs Council said
that
“without better real terms funding protection from
government, an award above one per cent will inevitably
impact on our ability to deliver policing services and
maintain staffing levels.”
Does the Minister think that the unfunded pay deal will
lead to a reduction in the number of officers, or is she
suggesting that the council is making this up?
-
I say to the hon. Gentleman, as I have said to a number
of his colleagues, that if we take the police budget as a
whole, the extra 1% is less than—I repeat, less than—0.5%
of the budget. All police forces are sitting on reserves
of at least 6% of their annual funding, so these pay
rises are affordable. I think they are richly deserved by
frontline officers, and I thoroughly support the
independent pay review bodies that made these
recommendations.
-
I hate to burst the Minister’s bubble, but PC Joseph
Torkington has just resigned from Greater Manchester
police, citing, in addition to the pay freeze, cuts to
frontline resources and attacks on terms and conditions.
In his words:
“To the government I have nothing good to say whatsoever,
they should hang their heads in shame.”
What effect does the Minister think that this
below-inflation pay award, which is unfunded, will have
on already plummeting staff morale?
-
We only have to look at the evidence for the fact that
people want to join the police force, and more and more
people are coming forward to do so. Police pay is not
just made up of this annual increase; they have
incremental increases, good terms and conditions, and
pensions that they absolutely richly deserve. I think the
police force today offers a great career for men and
women across our country, and, by the way, the public are
really delighted with the work that is being done in the
hon. Lady’s community and across the country. Confidence
in the police and in their ability to keep us safe is
rising, and it is much higher than the level we inherited
from the Labour Government back in 2010.
-
The Minister says that we should look at the evidence.
The evidence is that Greater Manchester police has lost
2,000 staff—officers—since 2010 as a result of Government
cuts, and the strain is showing right across south
Manchester. How can she claim that these unfunded rises
are affordable for police forces such as Greater
Manchester police when they are already desperately short
of funds?
-
I will not repeat myself again, but I will say that I
think the police have risen magnificently to the
challenge of having to deal with the reductions in their
funding. We only have to look at this in terms of the
reduction in crime and the rising public confidence in
the police. The nature of policing is changing, and the
nature of policing needs to change because the nature of
crime is changing. The Government are supporting the
police in that transformational work. In addition to the
annual budgets given to police forces, we also give
significant funding for transformation—up to £175
million—and we are doing a huge amount of work on
innovation to support crime prevention and crime
reduction. The Government are standing four-square behind
the excellent and determined work that our police
officers are doing all across our country in facing up to
and dealing with the new crimes and emerging threats.
-
Is not making half the pay award non-consolidated a
sleight of hand, which officers will see right through?
If they are worth a 2% pay increase, why can the Minister
not make it a genuine consolidated 2% increase?
-
I do not think we can be accused of sleight of hand when
we are standing here in Parliament being very clear about
what we have done and why we have done it. In addition to
all the support we are giving to frontline officers and
their leadership through the transformation funding, we
are doing a huge amount to enable police officers to be
supported by the wider public sector. Every day, police
officers have to deal with vulnerable people, who are
often suffering a mental health crisis. The Government
have supported the wonderful partnership work between the
NHS and police officers so people—and police officers—are
properly supported. This is about not just the amount of
money that is going into police funding, but the
transformation and partnership work, which is being
enabled far better than it was in 2010.
-
The Minister will know that the police force that covers
both our constituencies has lost 597 police officers
since 2010. What estimate has she made of how many
experienced police officers will leave Devon and Cornwall
police this year because they feel undervalued and
devalued by a below-inflation pay rise, which is a
real-terms pay cut?
-
I always welcome any opportunity to praise the work of
our excellent Devon and Cornwall police. When I go about
my business there, I see highly motivated police officers
and lots of people who want to join the Devon and
Cornwall constabulary. As we have discussed before, it is
doing very innovative work, not least with the police
force in Dorset. I do not accept the very negative
picture that the hon. Gentleman is trying to paint. I
encourage him to speak more positively and represent its
extremely good work in the House. Crime is falling and it
is keeping us safe in Devon and Cornwall.
-
The Minister ended her response to the urgent question by
talking about the prudent use of reserves, but why does
she think she knows better than the National Audit
Office, which demands that police forces keep adequate
reserves and says that taking staffing costs out of
reserves is financially irresponsible? My chief constable
in Humberside explained to me last week how important
reserves are when unexpected demands are made on the
police service, such as multiple murders that have to be
investigated. The money is not there to cover the
increased pay costs.
-
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I talked about
the prudent use of reserves, but it is important to note
that they have been growing year on year. They now stand
at £1.8 billion, so there is clearly an opportunity for
forces to use them to pay for the extra 1% pay rise. I
refer her to the work that Sir Tom Winsor does with Her
Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary reporting on
police forces. He has said clearly and consistently that
police officers can do much more to improve efficiency.
-
The Metropolitan police have warned of steep increases in
gun and knife crime in London over the past year: gun and
knife crime have risen 42% and 24% respectively, and
recorded crime is up across virtually every category,
which does not chime with what the Minister is saying.
Police numbers fell for the seventh consecutive year in
July, and many forces are at breaking point. I do not see
how asking the police to foot the £50 million bill for
the Government’s disingenuous pay deal will help to solve
the crisis. To talk about the Mayor’s precept in London
is simply trying to pass on to hard-pressed Londoners the
cost of the Government’s failed policies.
-
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, which gives me
the opportunity to thank the Metropolitan police for its
deep and consistent engagement with my colleagues in the
Home Office working on action plans to tackle the spike
in violent crime in London. We do a huge amount of
joined-up work supporting our colleagues in the police
force in London to tackle these issues. Taxpayers all
over the country pay for policing through a combination
of general taxation and local precepts. Given that the
Metropolitan police consumes about a third of the police
budget for England, I do not think it is too much to ask
Londoners to pay their fair share of the precept, just as
my constituents have to pay their fair share.
-
In Calderdale in the past 12 months, we have lost 50% of
our neighbourhood policing officers. The picture being
painted by the Minister could not be any further from the
reality on the streets of Halifax. The pay bonus would
cost West Yorkshire police an additional £4 million,
which is the equivalent of 83 police officers. How does
the Minister expect our forces to be able to deliver the
pay bonus without it impacting on frontline services? And
may I be very clear about this point, Mr Speaker? Those
of us on the Labour Benches are speaking up for our
police officers, not talking them down.
-
As I said, I believe the reserves held by police forces
should be used to cover the cost. I do not see that they
have to make frontline cuts to officer numbers.
Operational decisions are totally down to chief
constables and police and crime commissioners. I believe
the costs are affordable. I encourage the hon. Lady to go
back and speak to her police and crime commissioner about
her concerns about local operational decisions. The
decision that has been made will enable us to do the
right thing for our brave and hardworking police
officers, who have had the most extraordinary year facing
up to some of the greatest challenges that our country
has faced for a very long time. They richly deserve this
extra pay rise.
|
