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Police Grant Report

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I have heard her talk in many forums, not least fairly recently on Radio 4, about her constituency and the problems that she outlines. She is a doughty and persistent debater on that point, drawing to the attention of Ministers what needs to be done for her constituency—and there are others in the same position. The second point that the hon. Lady raises is also tremendously important. I pay tribute to the Minister, because this time last week, in a debate held in Westminster Hall on the Thames Valley police force area, he said something interesting in response to a question from the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter). It was along the lines—we have new information from the Minister—that the PNB could be talked to by the Minister. I paraphrase his words. He undertook to have a word about what the PNB was doing in relation to the south-east allowance. Like the hon. Lady, I wonder whether the Minister could give us an update on any discussions that he or his officials have had since last Wednesday in relation to the PNB and the south-east allowance. That is hugely important for all Members in that region. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for reminding me of that point, so that I can remind the Minister of what he said last Wednesday. According to ACPO, police forces in Kent, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire have suffered particularly from underfunding. By ““particularly”” I mean that they have gone out of their way to send briefing to me on these issues, which other police force areas also face. The problem that they have is the gap between predicted and real population figures. Their concerns were drawn together in a presentation given by Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell to the Home Office migration impacts forum on 16 July 2008. There was also a report in The Sunday Times on 27 January last year, in which Kent police observed that the total additional cost caused by immigration at that time stood at £34 million over the three years to that date. The extra costs of immigration have not been fully recognised in the funding settlement. The chief constable of Cambridgeshire famously gave oral evidence to the Home Affairs Committee. It strikes me that that Committee teases out some interesting evidence and findings, which provide those who scrutinise Ministers with a great deal of ammunition. Chief Constable Spence said:"““We have had only a 0.3 per cent. increase in the way the formula operated this year””—" it was 2007 when she gave evidence. She went on:"““There is nothing within government to be able to respond to the rapid changes that have happened. That was where the problems arose. The funding formulas are not rapid and flexible enough to deal with change.””" Even the former Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing, the right hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty) said in oral evidence to the Home Affairs Committee at the end of 2007 that"““the Government collectively is very slow in responding to large growths of population over a particular short period of time””." That was refreshing candour from the Minister's predecessor, but we need to hear from the Minister today what has been done. He made that statement at the end of 2007, and there is something on the record about technical changes. We need to know whether it is just down to the Home Office or to the Home Office together with other Departments to get this sorted. The costs to police forces caused by migration, and the translation costs flowing from that, are an extra specific cost of policing. Under a freedom of information request that I issued to forces in United Kingdom, among the 44 forces that responded, there had been a 63 per cent. increase in the cost to those forces of providing interpretation and translation services. In Kent, there had been a 30 per cent. increase, from about £320,000 in 2003-04 to more than £422,000 in 2007-08. In Thames Valley, there has been a whacking 127 per cent. increase in that period. In my constituency in Suffolk, there has been an 86 per cent. increase in translation and interpretation costs in that period—from £113,000 to £210,000. A report by KPMG in 2007 concluded that Cambridgeshire required an additional 100 police officers to cover the additional work load generated by policing foreign nationals—that was their definition, not ours. The report, ““The changing demography of Cambridgeshire””, September 2007, is published by Cambridgeshire constabulary. The methodology behind the funding formula will mean that an additional work load is not being taken into account when these grant moneys are calculated. On 11 June 2008, the Department for Communities and Local Government published a cross-departmental migration impacts plan that sets up a transitional impacts migration fund from 2009-10. Although the report acknowledged the cost to policing, it was not clear to me whether police authorities could apply for money from the new fund to mitigate the cost of immigration. That was until I heard the Minister's remarks earlier in today's debate. For the sake of clarity, can he explain how police authorities can apply for that money? Is there any limit on the amount they can apply for? When can they apply for it? What criteria need to be met? Above all, we need a clear statement of what the review status of the funding formula will be before the next comprehensive spending review starts its progress inside government. Will a new, more dynamic projected population methodology be utilised—yes, no or maybe? The Flanagan report said:"““The ability of the Funding Formula to predict aspects of complex protective services, such as serious and organised crime, needs to be considered more closely and I would urge the Funding Formula Working Group to review this further.””" That is my real concern, as that is not always flagged up in debates such as this. We have heard about neighbourhood policing, which is hugely important for level 1, but let us not forget level 2 and level 3 resourcing, as Sir Ronnie Flanagan urges. The Bill that the Minister and I are spending many enjoyable mornings and afternoons this month debating in Committee Room 11 refers to mandation powers relating to collaboration arrangements between forces in England and Wales. Part of the debate tomorrow relates to the level 2 gap in protective services, which is acknowledged by the Government, Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary, the Opposition and everyone else, but it is not clear to me how the funding formula and the statement from the Minister take account of the resource implications that specific forces mention when they are trying to improve their policy and operational response to serious and organised crime across county and national borders. In his final report, Sir Ronnie stated in paragraph 2.61 that"““the Funding Formula will need to ensure that the capacity to deal effectively with protective services in terms of deterrence, intelligence-gathering and specialist, proactive capability is built into funding arrangements.””" Will the Minister comment on that? Will his funding review, not just the statement in the House today, say something on Sir Ronnie's point about protective services? I know that other hon. Members wish to make a contribution, so I shall draw my remarks to a conclusion. There is the added cost of dealing with alcohol-related crime. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) on the Front Bench has done much valuable work in drawing attention to the huge policing cost of alcohol-related crime, as has the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, in the report to which I referred earlier. The most recent British crime survey, from July last year, stated that 45 per cent. of all victims of violence described their assailant as being under the influence of alcohol at the time. There is a wealth of evidence from chief constables as well. Chief Constable Stephen Otter of Cornwall and Devon Constabulary, said that since 2004-05 there has been a"““fairly significant increase in the proportion of violent crime where we can be absolutely sure there is an alcohol-related aspect””." Indeed, a Cabinet Office review as far back as 2003 said that, on average, it costs £59 more to process an arrestee who has committed an alcohol-related offence than a comparable arrestee whose offence is not alcohol-related. I am sure that the figure is a lot higher if the figures that we have all seen on the costs of bureaucracy and process are anything to go by. There is a problem with the 24-hour licensing laws. Is the Minister considering Her Majesty's Opposition's innovative, radical and much-needed call for discretion to be given to local authorities in new legislation so that they can decide how the 24-hour licensing rules are applied in their areas? The policing formula does not take into account the extra cost of officers trained by forces around London who move to work in the Met; that was the subject of our debate last week, and we have heard about the allowance for the south-east. In conclusion, in its own right the grant settlement is tight, and we understand why. Given the additional pressures from the economic collapse that this country is experiencing, police authorities face and will face severe financial pressures if they just maintain the current levels of service to local people. We have to make sure that the current structure for distributing the police grant is robust and fair. As I hope I have made clear, there are serious concerns about how the funding formula operates. The review of the police funding arrangements in advance of the next comprehensive spending review provides an excellent opportunity to address the deficiencies, to which I and other hon. Members have drawn attention, in the current distribution process. I look forward to the Minister's response to our challenge to him—that is to explain his current thinking.