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Police Grant Report

Indeed, and over recent years a lot of authorities have brought more civilians in to release police officers from desk work and get them out on the beat. The more the budget tightens, however, the less possible that becomes. As we have heard, another factor to consider is population shifts, which may well worsen, especially those that arise from waves of migrant workers. When the EU enlarged recently the Government predicted how many people would come from Poland and various eastern European states, but their predictions were well under the number who came in reality. The Government said that they expected a lot of those migrant workers to come over here and work for two, three or four years to raise money, then go back to start their own businesses or when the economy changed, as in the case of the recession that is building up. The speed of those population fluctuations caused major problems for councils, the health service, schools and the police. The then Police Minister, the right hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), said in last year's debate, ““Yes, that is a very good point, and we should look at it.”” The present Minister said the same this afternoon, so when will the action come? What reassurance can the Minister give that there will be fairly prompt action on a matter that has never been dealt with—getting resources quickly to the police, councils, education authorities and others to deal with rapid population fluctuations? Those fluctuations often involve people who have English as a second language, which is another issue entirely. The police in Lincolnshire, for example, have been caused major problems by the soaring cost of their interpretation budget because of the eastern European groups who are working there in agriculture. There are also many such examples in urban areas, and various problems are developing.