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Police Grant Report

Sorry. The right hon. Member for Harrow, East said that it was a very good point and that we should look into it. When the same issue was raised last year, the then Policing Minister—now the Minister for Schools and Learners, the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker)—said exactly the same thing. I wonder whether the current Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson), will now, three years on, not only say that that is a good point and that we should look at it, but exactly what concrete action is being taken to address the matter. Police authorities cannot wait for five or 10 years for Government statistics to catch up. Education and health authorities have the same problem when there are rapid influxes and sometimes egresses of population, particularly of migrant workers, as with the large number of Poles. Let me ask a specific question. Appendix A of the report says that the population figures used to calculate police grants are""those available to the Secretary of State on 1 October 2007"." It talks about calculating the projected population for 2010 by using figures from the Registrar General that were published on 27 September 2007, whereas for Welsh authority areas, the projected total resident population has been estimated using Welsh figures. A big argument regarding local authorities and funding is the fact that projections are often based on figures from the previous census, the last of which was nine years ago in 2001. Is appendix A suggesting that the calculations for police grants are made using more up-to-date estimates, calculations or projections? How exactly are those figures arrived at, and are they more up to date than the projections used generally for local authority formulae calculations? If they are better and more up to date, that would be of great interest to old colleagues of mine who get involved in local government funding issues, which tend to be based on census figures. Let me discuss what is a slightly more parochial issue for me as a Derbyshire MP. We have already had one example about the east midlands receiving, because of formula funding, caps, floors and ceilings, the fourth-lowest level of Government funding for policing out of nine English regions. That is happened because of relatively low Government grants and the below-average base of council tax in relation to income. For example, there is a greater proportion of properties in the lower council tax band in the east midlands, so any council tax precept increase brings in much less than a similar increase in more affluent areas. In 2006, the Government said yes to the full implementation of the police grant formula in the east midlands. The figures were wrong and the F40 campaign was right after all those years. The formula was reworked, and the new formula, from 2006, said that the east midlands should have had an extra £19 million. Given that the east midlands police authorities collectively say that to meet the policing needs that they and the Government assess are required now, this year, they need an extra £22 million, that £19 million virtually closes the gap. There is a huge gap between what the police authorities say is required to meet policing needs in relation to risk, what the Government say that they should have in funding and what the Government will give them. In that regard, the Derbyshire force is losing £5 million a year, so, for the Government to say, "Yes, you need this money, but, no, you can't have it," seems outrageous. We have heard some eloquent comments on that issue from a former policing Minister, the right hon. Member for Harrow, East, but it is a shame that he could not implement those ideas two years ago, when he was in office. Derbyshire's underfunding of £5 million a year is equivalent to 160 officers and more than 200 PCSOs. Derbyshire has the lowest level of PCSO funding per head of population of all forces in the country. Earlier, the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber), who is not in her place any more, said that Derbyshire's police numbers had risen considerably in the time that she had been a Member of Parliament. However, in the five years between September 2004 and September 2009, in an area with one of the lowest numbers of police officers per head of population in the country, the rise in police numbers was exactly 29. That is not a great tribute to the Government's actions in redressing the unfair funding given to Derbyshire compared to similar police authorities.