argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Today we will be voting against a completely inappropriate police funding settlement that leaves our communities exposed and the public at risk On top of all the demand I have listed, there is the unprecedented terrorist threat our country now faces. It is frankly unbelievable that, as the National Police Chiefs’ Council has recognised, the report before us fails to meet those growing needs and exposes gaps in the protection of the public So we have no choice but to vote against the motion tonight. We do so for three key reasons. First, the report prescribes an eighth consecutive year of real-terms cuts in Home Office funding. Secondly, it pushes the burden on to hard-pressed local taxpayers, and the very areas that have seen the most substantial cuts will get the least, inevitably creating a lottery of winners and losers that has no place for public safety. Thirdly, it fails to meet the needs identified by police chiefs, first and foremost in the area of counter-terrorism but also in local policing.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): As the hon. Gentleman will know, our manifesto spelled out very clearly that we would dedicate 10,000 additional neighbourhood policing officers. The settlement before us today does not dedicate any additional funding to local policing and in fact, as I will come on to, would be swallowed up almost completely by inflationary and cost pressures One of the chief jobs of Parliament is to hold the Government accountable for the promises they make to the public and for their record of action in office, so I want to briefly focus on the context for this year’s police settlement. In 2015, the current Prime Minister promised the public that after a period in which £2.3 billion had been taken from police budgets, the Conservatives would now "protect police funding". On many occasions that promise has been repeated to the public and to this House. Indeed, it was repeated by the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions just today. In fact, the House of Commons Library has shown that real-terms central Government funding to local forces has fallen by £400 million since 2015—the equivalent of more than 7,000 officers.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Alexander Gordon Martin (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that when the Conservatives say we are inventing the cuts, they are not taking into account the cuts to police officer numbers? Between 2010 and 2017, Suffolk has seen 150 fewer officers, 100 fewer specials, 86 fewer PCSOs—50% of the group—and 200 fewer support staff. That represents a 25% cut in personnel across the board, so it is not surprising that we have seen a concomitant increase in crime.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Despite what the Government like to say, every single Member of this House will have seen frontline cuts to police forces. Two weeks ago, the Leader of the House insisted in this Chamber that "frontline policing throughout the country as a whole has not changed—it has, in fact, slightly increased since 2010."—[Official Report, 25 January 2018; Vol. 635, c. 421.] This has been a familiar refrain throughout the Government’s time in office: "Yes, we are making cuts, but they are having no real impact."
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The number of abandoned calls has increased as the number of calls to 101 and 999 has increased. We now have 21,000 fewer police officers on our streets than there were when Labour left office in 2010, 17,000 fewer police staff, who perform vital functions in investigations, and 6,000 fewer PCSOs. Neighbourhood policing—the absolute bedrock of our model of policing—has been decimated, which is an appalling legacy of this Government. Neighbourhood policing is not just a "nice to have"; it is vital to our policing system and underpins the police’s ability to police by consent. It is almost wholly responsible for building and maintaining relationships with communities, and if we reduce our police to nothing more than a blue light that arrives only when the absolute worst has happened, we risk rolling back all the progress that has been made in police accountability and trust over the last generation.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Paula Michelle Sherriff (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a compelling speech. Does she agree that the cuts to police numbers in areas such as mine mean that there simply are not enough police officers to attend crimes as they happen, such as burglaries that are in progress? Vans are continually broken into and people have their tools stolen time and again, but the resources to help those people simply are not there.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Minister has heard time and again from Opposition Members that the police do not have the resources to respond to serious crimes, with burglaries being a particular problem, but the Government seem happy to sit back and allow that to happen. They are the only Executive in modern times to have presided over consecutive falls in police numbers in every single year of their time in office.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): If that is the case, I am delighted for Sussex police that it is recruiting additional officers, but that comes in the context of severe cuts and a fall in police officer numbers over the past seven years.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Neil Coyle (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that any current recruiting follows year-on-year consecutive cuts to police numbers? Southwark has lost 200 police officers and PCSOs despite having the highest volume of 999 calls in London, experiencing a terror attack last year, and seeing high rates of moped and knife crime.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Neil Coyle (Labour, Centre-left): On terrorism and the threat that we face, does the hon. Gentleman know why the Government have not yet taken up the opportunity to close the loophole on terrorism insurance? That would help the police to do their job and to protect businesses from terror attacks. While I am on my feet, may I suggest that, whatever he believes the shadow Home Secretary to have done, it is deeply offensive to suggest that she has ever revelled in IRA attacks on this country?
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Adrian Edward Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): I have difficulty in following the logic of the hon. Gentleman’s argument. Having praised his local police authority and said that police authorities should be spending their reserves, can he explain how his authority is keeping 10%, which is double what the National Audit Office says is the appropriate recommended level?
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Adrian Edward Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): Well, in common with other Members on both sides of the House, I have taken part in the police service parliamentary scheme, and, having done that, I would have thought that we would all be united in our admiration for the sheer professionalism, dedication, commitment, skill and expertise of our police forces Having started on that consensual note, I will move on. I make no apologies whatsoever for standing up, in line with other west midlands Members of Parliament, to criticise this settlement in the context of what West Midlands police are going to get and what their needs are going to be. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) outlined some of the key statistics, and I will not repeat them. What it amounts to is that, following this cash-plus precept settlement, there will be a £12.5 million gap in what is needed to sustain the current level of service. It could lead to the closure of 18 police stations. West Midlands police force has lost over 2,000 officers, and it is difficult to see how it could go on without losing more The key issue is the funding model that the Government are developing for the police in areas such as the west midlands. If there is an annual flat grant, which effectively means that we lose the real value of that grant by a certain percentage every year, allied with a maximum on the precept, then the areas with the lowest-value property profiles—nearly always urban areas with lower-income people and often higher crime rates—will become disproportionately disadvantaged year on year. That is the situation that is developing in the west midlands. A rise in council tax in the west midlands will raise £3.35 per person. In Surrey, it raises £6.42 per person. That is why we see other anomalies such as Hampshire, which, with almost 1 million fewer residents, has a larger increase in its settlement arising from the precept than areas such as the west midlands.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that a reserve can be spent only once. More importantly, all the West Midlands police divisions have gone now, including in Coventry, so nobody really knows who to point the finger at. I have had meetings with the police on this. The public in Coventry, and in the rest of the west midlands, are becoming very concerned about the fact that there is a lack of policemen, but, more importantly, that the funding formula is grossly unfair to the west midlands.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Adrian Edward Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with everything that my hon. Friend says. Indeed, he leads me on to my next point. We can bandy statistics around, but what matters in the end is the perception of the people who work in the police force and the perception of the public who experience the service it provides. Find me an area in the west midlands policing zone where local people will not complain of a reduction in the frontline neighbourhood policing in their area. Find me an area in the west midlands that has not seen an increase in crime rates and a lowering in satisfaction with the service For me, that was reinforced when, six months ago, a middle-ranking policeman asked to come and see me. He explained that he had joined the force over 10 years ago, risen in the ranks, and found it incredibly satisfying, but was going to have to leave. The strains on him, the public expectations of what he could deliver, and how demoralised he was feeling because he knew that he could not deliver were such that he could face it no more. That may be a one-off, but I am worried by the fact that the chief constable and the police commissioner reiterate to me everything that officer cited as his reasons for leaving when they describe the overall funding statistics for their service.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
David Drew (Labour, Centre-left): If the West Midlands force is like Gloucestershire’s, at weekends it is almost held together with specials. Without those specials, the police could not do nearly as much as they try to do on a normal weekend. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Adrian Edward Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): Yes. My hon. Friend raises an important point. Increasingly, the police are becoming dependent on the activities of specials and others. Again, I pay enormous tribute to them, but obviously there comes a critical balance when one thinks, "Is this the correct way forward?" Another aspect of the West Midlands police budget is funding for counter-terrorism. The force has been particularly hard hit over the past year. It had to freeze neighbourhood policing during that time, for the very good reason that it has had to devote resources to counter-terrorism. With depleted numbers of officers and huge additional burdens being placed on the service, for very good and strategic reasons—the protection of the public—something has to give. That is worrying, because there should not be a choice between counter-terrorism policing and neighbourhood policing; the one is complementary to the other I would like to give a very good example of that in the west midlands that is of particular significance to me. Only a few years ago, the Ukrainian terrorist Pavlo Lapshyn was arrested and tried after he had killed Mohammed Saleem in Walsall. That same terrorist placed a nail bomb outside a mosque in my constituency. It went off, and had it not been for the fact that the worshippers at the mosque had changed the time of their service, the casualty numbers could have been enormous. That case highlights the significance of neighbourhood policing, because it was the information provided to local police forces by local people that enabled the man to be arrested and brought to justice. One wonders whether that would happen today, given the current level of neighbourhood policing. In any case, it underlines the point that without frontline neighbourhood policing—people engaging every day with the communities in their local areas—the efforts of the counter-terrorist police will be blunted. They need the work of neighbourhood police I conclude by emphasising that I am sticking up for the West Midlands police. They do a fantastic job in a multicultural area with a lot of low-income people and great challenges. The people of the west midlands and the police that look after them deserve a funding formula that will give them the resources necessary to adequately meet the expectations of local people, so that they can live in the security that they are entitled to expect.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
John Eugene Joseph Dromey (Labour, Centre-left): I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who in her magnificent speech spoke up for our police service, spoke up for our country, and spoke up for the safety and security of our citizens. She was absolutely right to do that, because the first duty of any Government is the safety and security of their citizens. That was a responsibility we took deadly seriously when we were in government. The development, with the police, of the British model of policing—neighbourhood policing, 17,000 extra police officers and 16,000 police community support officers—saw crime fall by 43%. That progress has now been slammed into reverse, with 21,000 gone nationally and 2,000 in the west midlands. If we look at the most recent statistics in the west midlands, we see that there has been a 14% overall increase in crime, with increases of 15% in gun crime, 17% in knife crime, 31% in serious acquisitive crime and 8% in domestic violence What planet do Conservative Members live on? Do they not hear from their communities the concerns that we hear? I remember a packed public meeting I called on 24 November, with our admirable police and crime commissioner David Jamieson, together with the leadership of our police service. There was complete dismay among local people about rising crime. There had been eight serious incidents in a matter of months involving knife crime, gun crime and machetes, and there were concerns that we never see our police any longer. One after the other, people said, "We are frightened," and older people in particular said, "We are frightened to go out after night falls."
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I will give my hon. Friend an example. Last week there was a public meeting in the Willenhall area of Coventry, and the police more or less said that there was a shortage of policemen in that area. That is a typical example. The public are seriously concerned about rising crime in that area and other parts of my constituency, and they want something done. They want more policemen and no more alibis from the Government.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Can we be clear what is being done with this settlement this afternoon? We are seeing a fundamental change in the way our police in this country are funded—moving funding from central Government to local taxpayers. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) quite rightly said that what the Government have announced today is a cut in central Government funding. It is a flat cash settlement, if we look at and take into account inflation and other things This is the first time I have ever seen such a parade of Conservative MPs with the duo from Dorset—the hon. Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and for North Dorset (Simon Hoare)—saying how they welcomed the settlement, and with the remarkable statement from the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) that she will say on a leaflet to her constituents that she is voting to put up their taxes. It is the first time I have ever heard a Conservative MP say they were going to put up taxes, but that is what we are actually doing My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) is correct that this is not just about what is happening now; it is about what has been happening over the past seven years. The Prime Minister’s crime sheet, when she was Home Secretary, speaks for itself: a 5% reduction in the central Government grant for policing every single year, aided and abetted by the Liberal Democrats. In Durham, that has meant 350 fewer officers and 150 fewer support officers.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Robert Hill (Labour, Centre-left): Cleveland police, who share many services with the neighbouring Durham constabulary, have also seen such cuts. Does my hon. Friend agree that 500 fewer police officers—the boots on the ground—over the past seven years is intolerable?
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Doubled policing revenue—yes, he has, but not at central Government level. The Minister cannot get away from the fact that he is cutting the central Government grant and cutting numbers. I quite like him as an individual, but people are not stupid—they will see through this—and I look forward to him telling his local constituents and others that the Government are voting for a tax rise for them today, because that is exactly what he is doing In conclusion, this is a thoroughly bad settlement. We need a fundamental change in police funding, because if we do not have that, this system will lead to more and more cuts at local police level and a very unfair system.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): And how dare Ministers talk about Labour’s record on crime and counter-terrorism? Members should look at our record in government of funding the police adequately and then look at this shambles of a police grant, which provides barely 50% of what the Metropolitan police asked for to tackle terrorism. We are facing an unprecedented terror threat. We saw it last year with the attacks on this place, across London and in Greater Manchester, and we know that the nature of the terror threat evolves all the time. How on earth can the Minister stand at that Dispatch Box and defend a police grant that would fund barely half of what the Metropolitan police asked for The fact is that the Conservative Government are presenting a proposal that no one should support. We should send them back to the drawing board and tell them to come back with a proper plan to protect our communities with adequate funding that does not leave my constituents paying high levels of council tax for a service that is not as good as the one that they had before.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Government Operations
Neil Coyle (Labour, Centre-left): And I have said that I withdraw it Does my hon. Friend agree with me, with Sadiq Khan and with the Home Office’s expert panel that London should receive its full share of the national and international capital city grant, which would deliver an extra £280 million to the Met?
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. Conservative Members constantly attack the Mayor of London, but, as I have said, it is clear from the crime profile throughout the country that it is not individual police and crime commissioners who are responsible; it is the central Government cuts that are being heaped on them by the Home Office. It is a total disgrace People see through the spin, not because politicians like us have arguments in this place, but because they have listened to what the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has said. They have listened to what was said to the Home Affairs Committee by Mark Rowley, the outgoing head of UK counter-terrorism policing. They have heard what police constables have had to say. The Government can blame the Mayor of London as much as they like, but they know that their cuts are ultimately responsible for the rising crime across the country, and they need to redress the situation as a matter of urgency I have absolutely no intention of voting through a police grant proposal that will lead to real-terms cuts in policing, taxpayers paying higher taxes for a poorer service and a disgraceful position that leaves local government enforcement officers doing the job that the police ought to be doing. The fact that the Minister has come here today and quoted those statistics with a straight face reflects poorly on him, but it reflects even more poorly on a Government who should be cutting crime rather than cutting police.
Police Grant Report — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend anticipates my point. My PCC has no choice, and of course similar challenges are facing the local authority, so my constituents, if the increase goes ahead, will pay not just 2% for the police, but 4% for the local authority, so there will be a 6% increase in council tax. That is no criticism of either the police and crime commissioner or the local authority, because it is the only way in which they can get the money that they need for policing, social care and other crucial local services To return to a point that my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has raised, putting £12 on the council tax of band D properties raises more in some parts of the country than in others. The ability to raise more locally is regressive, as it compounds the existing inequality that I have described. Merseyside police has already had to make huge cuts, and that has undoubtedly affected its operational capability, as the chief constable has told us. I implore the Minister to work with Jane Kennedy and our chief constable to address this fundamental issue of social justice, because my constituents worry about crime and antisocial behaviour, especially when we are sadly seeing the return of significant levels of gun violence across Merseyside. The police desperately need additional resources, so I finish by echoing my hon. Friend the shadow Minister in urging the Minister to think again.
Local Government Finance — House of Commons, 2018-02-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Louise Joyce Ellman (Labour, Centre-left): After all the consultations and discussions that the Secretary of State has held, is he in a position to revise his view that Liverpool City Council should lose 68% of its budget and have to face a crisis in children’s social care as well as in adult social care?