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Police Grant

I am delighted, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), who spoke a great deal of sense, drawing on the experience of Cheshire. She anticipated some of my remarks. I note that in a recent MORI opinion poll conducted in that county, 87 per cent. of people said that they were willing to pay more for the police. However, there are substantial difficulties in doing that, given the nature of the settlement and the capping of the council tax. If we consider the difficulties that the police in Cheshire have faced in several high-profile recent cases, such as that of the terrible murder of Garry Newlove, we can sympathise with the hon. Lady's remarks. I agree with the attack that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) made on the Government. Clearly, there is serious concern among the public about crime. There is excessive violent crime, which has doubled since the Government came to power. The deterrent effect is, crucially, composed of not merely the severity of the penalty but the likelihood of detection. That is why the police service is so crucial in the fight against crime, and why the dangers of demoralising it seem considerable in the wake of the decision to phase the police pay settlement. Several observers have pointed out that we are considering the tightest police grant settlement for a decade, at 2.7 per cent. As the Association of Police Authorities and the Association of Chief Police Officers pointed out in their joint budget exercise, even if full use is made of the leeway allowed on council tax, there is a danger of a shortfall of £1 billion by 2011. The stress points are already clear. They appear, first, in the Government's announcement. The flatness of the settlements to so many police authorities tells us that the sum that the Government can use to make genuine progress in closing the gap for individual police authorities with their needs-based formula is limited. Several hon. Members have outlined the problems that are likely to arise from that. Nearly half the police authorities will effectively get the floor increase, which is evidence that there is not enough money in the settlement to make genuine progress towards closing the gap in authorities such as Avon and Somerset, and Cheshire.