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Police Grant Report

I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the debate on the police funding settlement this year. I shall focus my brief remarks on my police force area of Dyfed-Powys. Last week, in Westminster Hall, the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) initiated a short debate on the subject, and I am grateful for some of the assurances that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell) gave in response to it. I am also grateful for the Minister's comments today; I appreciate the steps that are being taken to ensure parity between English and Welsh forces, and the 2.5 per cent. grant floor. I want to impress on Ministers the deep concern among members of the Dyfed-Powys police authority and officers at various levels in the organisation. In last Wednesday's debate in Westminster Hall, the Under-Secretary said that he had received no representations from the authority this year on the settlement. However, I assure him that Members who represent constituencies in the area have received strong representations. That is shown not only by the fact that I am raising the matter, but by the presence of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) and the intervention by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik). Let me reinforce some of the points that we have been trying to convey to Ministers in recent weeks. The starting point is the enormous area that the Dyfed- Powys police force covers—the largest in England and Wales, taking in the counties of Powys, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and my county of Pembrokeshire, and comprising hundreds of disparate small villages and small town communities. Hon. Members who go on holiday to mid and west Wales will be familiar with the long, slow roads in the area. That poses significant challenges to policing. Given the size of the police authority area, it is worth pointing out that Dyfed-Powys has the third smallest police force. That immediately poses a challenge to the chief constable of how to deploy personnel across such a vast area. Last week, in the Westminster Hall debate, the Under-Secretary described Dyfed-Powys police authority as well resourced. Like many hon. Members, I have a six-monthly night out with my local police. On a Saturday night, the police authority does not feel especially well resourced. All it takes in my police division of Pembrokeshire is one road traffic accident, a fight outside a local nightclub and one domestic violence incident for the force to start to feel stretched. I want to put on record the important role that volunteers play in the police force. On my most recent Saturday night with my local police, I witnessed the important role that not only special constables, who give up their time, but volunteers in the CCTV control centre, play. We want to encourage such volunteering. There are all sorts of benefits from engaging more civilian volunteers in police operations, but the police should never have to perceive volunteers as an absolute necessity for delivering policing at busy times such as a Saturday night. Other factors in the Dyfed-Powys area are relevant to the discussion—tourism, for example. In the summer the population swells considerably. The pressure on public services arising from a significant increase in the local population in the summer months is never fully taken into account. We also have an enormous coastline, which includes two major ferry ports, connecting west Wales with Ireland, at Pembroke Dock and Fishguard. We have the growing energy hub at the port of Milford Haven, with two of the UK's major oil refineries, the UK's largest fuel storage depot and the two major liquefied natural gas terminals, which will come on stream shortly. I shall say more about the LNG terminals shortly. Dyfed-Powys police do a remarkably good job, given their resources and the challenges they face, in holding down crime rates and reassuring the public. They have achieved some excellent scores in crime detection and bringing rates down across the full range of crimes. However, a member of the police authority told me that some of the statistics, which on the fact of it are good news stories, are"““somewhat fragile and patchy in some areas of activity.””" The force admits that some of the confidence and public satisfaction scores that it gets are not quite as good as they should be. I share the concerns that have been communicated to me by the police authority, not only about the tight settlement for this year, but about the uncertainties surrounding funding in future years and about what might happen to the rural police grant. Those concerns mean that the authority has serious questions about its ability to improve on its current scores. Dyfed-Powys police force has made great progress in the past few years on achieving efficiency gains. Between 2005-06 and 2007-08, it achieved efficiency savings of £9.8 million, well above its target of £7.3 million. The theory is that the force should be using those efficiencies to invest in, for example, protective services and other Government priorities. However, the force tells me that it has to use those efficiency savings just to maintain baseline services, and there is very little capacity to make improvements. The force has particular concerns about the expectations in the policing pledge—about its ability, for example, to respond to emergency and non-emergency calls within 20 minutes on all occasions, and about the timescales in which victims of crime need to be informed. Being able to meet those expectations is challenging. Several hon. Members have already mentioned the rural police grant. I would like to reiterate the points that have been raised. There is concern in Dyfed-Powys police force authority about the future of the rural police grant. I am not, perhaps, expecting the Minister to say any more about that than his colleague has already said in this debate, but I would like to impress upon him the needs of rural areas and the challenges that rurality throws up. If he cannot say what the future holds for the rural police grant, I would be grateful if he could give an indication of what his thinking is on how different aspects of rurality will be taken into account in the discussions and considerations about the future of the rural police grant. Let me return to my point about the liquefied natural gas terminals. There is significant concern about how well protected those facilities are. Just to remind hon. Members, in the years ahead the two LNG terminals will have the capacity to import 30 per cent.—almost a third—of the UK's entire natural gas requirement. They are clearly a significant piece of national infrastructure. I do not expect the Minister to comment on that in great detail, but concern has been communicated to me about a proposed reduction in the funding for officers engaged in security work at the port of Milford Haven. I do not want to speculate about why that might be so or about where else resources might deployed. However, if the Minister receives an application from the police force in Dyfed-Powys for additional resources to support the policing of the LNG terminals, I would ask him to look favourably on that request.