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Police

I want to make some progress, as I am at only the very early stages of my contribution. Such a situation is unacceptable, but it is sadly not uncommon. The Hampshire force, as we have already heard from the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), will have to cut 10 per cent. of services in the next financial year and predicts that unless funding increases significantly, it will be looking at a 20 per cent. cut in the following year. The North Yorkshire police force predicts that even with a 5 per cent. increase in funding it will still have a £3 million deficit next year, and the Derbyshire police authority faces a £14.6 million funding deficit over the five-year period to 2010-11. The Government need to do more to sustain the work that local police authorities are doing. A joint report by the APA and ACPO in November last year called for"““Government to provide realistic levels of funding to ensure continued improvements in policing for communities across England and Wales.””" By not meeting their responsibilities, the Government have left local council tax payers to foot the bill for the increase in police numbers that Labour promised. The amount of police expenditure financed through council tax has almost doubled, in real terms, between 2001-02 and 2006-07. Council tax now accounts for more than 21 per cent. of police force expenditure finance, compared to only 12 per cent. in 2001-02. With high levels of council tax everywhere, and the Government threatening to take capping action to stop the average council tax increasing by more than 5 per cent., the police are entering a funding crisis that can be fixed only by significant increases in funding from central Government—3.6 per cent. is not enough. To add insult to injury, residents paying council tax are actually being double charged to cover the cost of community support officers. Due to the cuts in Government grants, police authorities increasingly have to go back to local councils to ask for more funding to make up the deficit. That is over and above the police authority precepts that residents are already paying. That effectively means that some residents are paying for CSOs twice, once through their precept and once when police authorities are forced to return to local councils with a begging bowl. That situation places too much of the burden on local council tax payers.