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Council Tax Capping (Surrey)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Fraser, and I offer my very sincere congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) on securing this debate. I thank him and my hon. Friends the Members for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) and for Guildford (Anne Milton) for laying out the arguments. It bears repeating to the Minister that the fact that all available Surrey MPs are here today proves that we all feel very strongly about the matter before us. In this brief speech, I shall not deal with some of the arguments made already—they were well made and stand up—but focus only on terrorism as it affects Surrey. It is a real problem for Surrey police and their funding. As has been said, Heathrow and Gatwick, the two principal airports in this country, are on our borders. I am old enough—I do not suspect that you are, Mr. Fraser—to remember the days when a separate police force for our airports was in existence. It might have been 30 years ago—I cannot remember—but it was a very long time ago when the British Airports Authority police, which was an entirely separate force, looked after policing issues at Gatwick and Heathrow. In those days, many of today's problems did not exist, and it was right that there came a time when the terrorism situation—an incident at Heathrow perhaps—resulted in the abolition, in due course, of those police forces specifically covering Gatwick and Heathrow. It meant that the threat of terrorism associated with our airports had been recognised. Surrey police—I know this because I have spoken to the chief constable and many others—have had to invest much time and money in protecting the county and its surrounding areas from terrorist threats. This is a very serious issue. A few months ago, I visited the noble Lord West, the security Minister, to discuss terrorism, especially in relation to Surrey, and the question of funding. I and the noble Lord Trefgarne, who was also at the meeting—he is a Woking resident and takes a great interest in these matters—made Lord West well aware of the real-term cuts and the awful way in which we think that Surrey police have been treated financially over the years. We also made a very strong statement to him about terrorist and other such threats in our county, and went into confidential matters that I cannot repeat today—they followed detailed briefings that we had received. We also put to him very clearly the argument about the funding basis. I expect the Minister to tell me that he has met with Lord West to discuss what I and Lord Trefgarne said to him. I expect that the Minister knows the date of the meeting and has been briefed about it and our position. What was the result of our meeting? Were our fears and concerns taken on board? It seems to me and Lord Trefgarne that our concerns, emanating from the very top of Surrey police force, about this huge issue of terrorism, have not been recognised and taken into account. That is the only issue that I want to raise today, because I take a particular interest in it. My constituents agree with the powerful arguments made by my hon. Friends today. Their concerns are felt deeply throughout Surrey, not only by residents themselves—they, after all, are the most important people—but by the Members of Parliament who represent them. That is why we are here today laying out our compelling arguments, one of which is about funding in relation to terrorist threats. I hope that the Minister will deal with that specifically when he replies.