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Police Grant

I should like to begin by offering the House an apology, because what I am going to say will be of particular interest to the people of Lincolnshire and of perhaps rather less interest to other right hon. and hon. Members. In that respect, I shall be following the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). An excuse—if we need one—is that this is one of the few occasions on which we can articulate on the Floor of the House the problems that face our own police forces. So I apologise to the House, but I am going to speak primarily about the difficulties being faced in Lincolnshire. I acknowledge that the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing has been good enough to see me on at least one occasion to discuss the problems of Lincolnshire. I also know that he is seeing the chairman of the Lincolnshire police authority on 7 February, and I think that the chief constable is going to be there at the same time. He has also seen members of the police authority on previous occasions, as have his officials. He will be aware that the Lincolnshire police have produced a financial recovery report, which they submitted to the Home Office last year, and I am sure that it has been the subject of considerable study in his Department. I therefore acknowledge that he has considered—although perhaps not addressed—the problems that Lincolnshire faces. I should like briefly to summarise the issues that the Lincolnshire force is facing. First, it has the lowest funding of any force in England and Wales. The next lowest funded force gets £11 million more. Secondly, as I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley), the police authorities are under a statutory duty to produce a balanced budget. They do not have the legal right to operate at a deficit. That is important, because, unlike most authorities, they have to adjust their spending to reflect their revenue stream. They cannot resort to borrowing; they have to bring about economies. In the absence of additional funding for the Lincolnshire force, there will be a deficit of £7 million in 2008, of £12 million in 2009 and of £14 million in 2010. Such figures would not be huge in the context of the metropolitan forces, but they are very considerable in the context of the Lincolnshire force. The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) fairly pointed out that about 80 per cent. of the costs incurred by police authorities were staffing costs. In the case of Lincolnshire, the figure is nearer to 85 per cent., and if we want to bring about a reduction in costs, we inevitably have to look at staffing levels. There are only two groups of people in a police force: the police officers and the civilian staff. Police officers are Crown servants, and cannot be made redundant. The force can be reduced through wastage or by voluntary resignation, but not by sacking. Consequently, if staffing levels are to be reduced, the non-police-officer content has to be considered. That has at least two consequences. First, there will be heavy redundancy costs which will have to be incorporated into the spending plan in any budget. Secondly, any cuts in the civilian staff will result in many of those posts being filled by police officers who could otherwise be out on duty. I am not for a moment saying that we cannot bring about efficiencies through a reduction in staff. That might be possible, and the use of information technology is a way forward. We must bear in mind, however, that there are immediate and serious funding problems associated with such decisions and that, in any event, many of the holes would have to be plugged by serving officers.