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Policing and Crime

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and the sadness of the Opposition's position is that they would not be making such very important decisions that can lead to a better and improved service to the public. I commend my hon. Friend's local force for being willing to make such decisions. I said that I would respond to the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on the difference between the 12% cuts, which HMIC suggested could be made, and the Government's cuts. He and other Opposition Members who have raised the point in the past, including the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, have obviously neither read nor understood the HMIC report, so let me tell them what it said. HMIC found that more than £1.15 billion per year—12% of national police funding—could be saved if only the least efficient police forces brought themselves up to the average level of efficiency. Well, the state of the public finances that Labour left us is such that all forces must raise themselves up to the level not of the average but of the most efficient forces. That could add another £350 million of savings to those calculated in HMIC's report. But HMIC did not consider all areas of police spending. It did not consider IT or procurement, for example, and it makes absolutely no sense for the police to procure things in 43 different ways, and it makes absolutely no sense to have 2,000 different IT systems throughout the 43 forces, as they currently do. With a national joined-up approach, better contracts, more joint purchasing, a smaller number of different IT systems and greater private sector involvement, we can save hundreds of millions of pounds—over and above the savings identified by HMIC. Likewise, HMIC did not consider pay, because that was outside its remit, but in an organisation such as the police, where £11 billion—80% of total revenue spending—goes on pay, there is no question but that pay restraint and pay reform must form part of the package. That is why we believe, subject to any recommendations from the Police Negotiating Board, that there should be a two-year pay freeze in policing, just as there has been across the public sector. That would save at least £350 million—again, on top of HMIC's savings.