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Police Grant Report

In the middle of the 19th century, Lord Palmerston said:""Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it."" One could say almost the same thing about the police formula grant. Yesterday was Groundhog Day, and that is what it feels like today for me, because for the past three years I have come to put to Ministers, either in the Chamber or in Westminster Hall, the sui generis situation in Cambridgeshire of consistent underfunding of its constabulary. I begin by paying warm tribute to all the staff, police officers and police community support officers in Cambridgeshire, especially to the leadership of the chief constable, Julie Spence, who has made a coherent, cogent and strong case for increased funding on the basis of a perfect storm of issues that have affected the Peterborough constituency in Cambridgeshire, alluded to earlier by the Minister and, generously, by the right hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), the former Minister. I speak as someone whose father served in the Metropolitan police for 25 years and whose younger brother is a serving Metropolitan police officer. I thought that the Minister showed a strange mixture earlier of cocky complacency and rather pugilistic arrogance, which is unusual for him—he is normally pretty emollient and amenable to arguments. We do not see policing in Peterborough through his rose-tinted glasses, and it ill-behoves him to lecture and challenge us on our fiscal policies given that his Government have presided over an appalling deterioration of public finances and have been unwilling, or unable, to come forward with a comprehensive spending review for the next period. All the Government's prognostications, pledges and promises are therefore worthless. They certainly care, but they cannot possibly know what situation will prevail beyond 2011. That pertinent and apposite point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) from the Front Bench. As I made clear earlier, prior to the May 2005 election generous promises were made on the then vogue of having more police community support officers, and a promise was given to deliver 24,000 over the next period of the Labour Government. They were re-elected, but failed, by 8,000 officers, to deliver on that manifesto pledge. So hon. Members will understand if I consider that the Minister might have gilded the lily somewhat in his self-congratulatory speech. I shall return to the situation in Cambridgeshire. The Minister will know that I secured a debate in Westminster Hall in February 2008 on funding in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire, in which I was supported by hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth). We made the case that, in our opinion, Cambridgeshire was a special case. The floors and ceilings system must be looked at again, because although we received a slightly more than average increase this year, cumulatively under the damping mechanism we have lost £2.7 million. Since the mechanism was put in place in the 2004-05 fiscal year, we have cumulatively lost £16.5 million, which equates to about 80 additional police officers who could have been recruited to tackle crime in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire. The Minister will know that Cambridgeshire has one of the fastest-growing populations in England and faces specific issues with large-scale EU migration. Close on 20,000 EU migrants—mainly Lithuanians, but also Latvians and Poles—have come to Peterborough in the past six years, and inevitably that has demonstrably put a strain not only on primary education, primary care and housing, but on crime and policing. That is the reasonable and fair point that Mrs. Spence, the chief constable, has consistently put to Ministers over a significant period—but to no end, apparently. If one takes the census figures as read, including the 2006 mid-year estimates, we remain the sixth lowest funded force per thousand head of population for police officers and the fourth lowest overall for all staff in the whole of England and Wales. Unfortunately, despite the lobbying and myself and others imploring the Government to consider our specific issues, we compare very unfavourably with comparator forces such as Essex, Gloucestershire, Avon and Somerset and Warwickshire. I want to return to the stresses and strains caused by the ramifications of the free movement directive, which was enacted in May 2004 for EU migrants. I have never said that those people—many of them good, decent, hard-working people—are particularly responsible for any more or less crime than anyone else. That is not the point. The issue is the large numbers. The right hon. Member for Harrow, East made the point that things have moved so quickly that the Office for National Statistics, the Home Office and the Migration Impacts Forum have failed to keep track of the numbers and the pressures that have arisen so quickly, changing the character of whole neighbourhoods and making the challenges so significant for senior and beat police officers.