argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Keith Anthony Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right, and not just from the point of view of what happens in Harrow, which is very different from what happens in Wandsworth, for example. The issue of serious and organised crime has grown in the past 10 years. He is right that that needs to be properly represented as part of the review At this time, the Home Office has two realistic options for moving forward: it can spend the next two years on a very long consultative detailed review, run accurate data against the formula, and implement the formula changes it proposed last year after a further period of consultation; or it can go out to an independent method of checking on what is in the best interests of local police forces. Of course, there will always be winners and losers from this process, and there will be police constables and police and crime commissioners with different voices, but to leave the situation in limbo, as it is at the moment, is, in the view of the Committee, unacceptable. Doing nothing is not really an option and this is not an issue that can be parked until, say, 2019. Unfortunately, those are some of the rumours emerging in the press, whether from the Foreign Office or elsewhere This time, I hope the Minister will have all the information before we proceed. I hope he will have to hand the capabilities report that is being prepared by the police chiefs. Their involvement is absolutely critical. I would not like the review to start and then have to stop because there has to be another review, but we do want the process to start as soon as possible. From our point of view, the sooner the better. We want to ensure that everybody in the policing family is properly consulted, so we have no repetition of what has happened in the past.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Gareth Thomas (Labour, Centre-left): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax). I have always enjoyed campaigning for the Labour party in his constituency. I strongly support the idea that the next police funding formula should be based partly on the number of bars and clubs in an area, because I think that, on that basis, London would see a substantial increase in its funding Perhaps, as I have started off in a consensual spirit, I might invite the hon. Gentleman to agree that the number of major events taking place in a police force’s area should be taken into account as well. Wembley stadium is very close to my constituency, and requires a substantial police presence to ensure that it is policed properly and effectively I very much enjoyed hearing from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee, about the work that the Committee had done. If he will forgive me for saying so, I thought the most worrying part of his speech was his suggestion that, according to some reports, police forces will have no detailed or clear information about the funding formula until 2019. I hope that the Minister will be able to set the Select Committee’s concerns at rest. At the moment, the Metropolitan police has no sense of clarity about its funding for the rest of this Parliament from 2017 onwards. As I said in my intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East, there is huge concern about this in London, given the role of the Metropolitan police in tackling serious and organised crime, and its importance in the fight against cybercrime, the increasing importance of which the whole House acknowledges. There is a sense that rising crime in London is putting substantial pressure on the available police resources Two weeks ago, Europol published a major report on the scale of the illegal activity of people trafficking by organised criminal gangs across Europe and beyond. London was identified as one of the centres for trafficking people into this country and in which the criminal gangs manage their operations. This re-emphasises the point that London, through the Metropolitan police, needs as much resource as possible to tackle and bear down on serious and organised crime, particularly if we want to tackle illegal immigration and other forms of organised crime. Hon. Members will be only too aware of the terrorism threat that we face, and I gently suggest that London faces a particular challenge to be tackled through counter-terrorism measures. I hope the Minister will ensure that the funding formula takes account of the particular threat that London faces.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Gareth Thomas (Labour, Centre-left): May I encourage the hon. Gentleman to oppose the merger of borough command units as well? If they succeed with Harrow, Brent and Barnet, I would have thought that a Kingston-Sutton merger might be next. Does he agree with me that that is a step too far and that the Policing Minister might usefully intervene with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to that effect?
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Gavin Shuker (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate and it is not lost on me that quite a self-selecting group of MPs has turned out today, all of whom will probably try to follow a similar formula of saying that the funding formula does not respond well to the challenges of their communities. The cumulative nature of the speeches, however, should not necessarily detract from the veracity of their argument. Clearly, across this House, many of us have deep concerns about our police forces and about how they are treated under the current regime. There are winners and losers and, dare I say it, in the Chamber today there are more losers than usual. I am no different from other Members. For me, the acid test of whether a funding formula is truly fair is Bedfordshire. We have lost 171 officers since 2010, and the number of police community support officers has halved from 108 to 53 in that period. In my community in Luton, where we face all sorts of challenges, the effect of those cuts is that neighbourhood policing is practically non-existent. In 2012 we had PCs working alongside PCSOs in Luton. In other words, we had proper neighbourhood policing. That was true of many other parts of the county too The old police authority, looking at the scale of cuts coming through, proposed to remove those officers and to cut PCSOs. When the police and crime commissioner was elected in 2012 he put a halt to that process and protected numbers, but, with £20 million of cuts defined, they had to go. The police and crime commissioner in Bedfordshire has said: "The impact in Luton is no different from the rest of the county. We’ve had no choice other than to strip away preventative, problem-solving neighbourhood policing everywhere to the barest minimum because the alternative is even worse. But current projections mean we need to find £11 million savings and this may mean reducing the establishment by 44" in the next three years The chief constable, Jon Boutcher, estimates that Bedfordshire needs another 300 officers even to reach the average number in police forces in the country. Why? We are the county with the fourth highest gun crime, the fifth highest serious acquisitive crime and the seventh highest knife crime figures in the country, but we get by on just 169 officers per 100,000 population. To put that in context, the average is 232 across all forces, rural and urban, and the Metropolitan police, about which we have already heard, has 388 officers per 100,000. In simple terms—it is easy to get lost in the numbers—the residents in Luton whom I represent, if treated as though they were, say, 20 minutes down the train line in north London, could expect an additional 482 officers protecting them. That is the scale of the gap.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Gavin Shuker (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely. There is far greater space for collaboration. Equally, however, there are challenges for a force such as Bedfordshire, and I have not painted a particularly rosy picture of our finances and the challenges we face. There needs to be Government influence over these measures—these things cannot just be left at local level. Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire have had two good police and crime commissioners who have been keen to work with Bedfordshire and have made really decent strides in doing so. Ultimately, however, they are accountable to their own residents for making sure that they get the best deal possible I want to signal not only the innovation that has gone on in Bedfordshire but my own willingness to explore innovation on, dare I say it, a statesmanlike basis rather than merely withdrawing into oppositional politics. It is important that through this process we get the funding of Bedfordshire right, first and foremost, and then we can look at further collaboration down the line. The police and crime commissioner in this area has the third cheapest operation in the country. In his first three years in office, he saved more than £200,000 in comparison with the old police authority. This is not a case of a profligate police and crime commissioner trying to make a particular case to Government This issue has spanned the terms of Labour and Conservative Governments. Like the Home Affairs Committee, we welcome the Minister’s willingness to engage to get the funding formula right. We are doing all the things that we are being asked to do, and doing the right thing by our residents. Everything that would be expected of Bedfordshire is being done. The acid test of this police formula is whether Bedfordshire and other significantly disadvantaged forces are properly funded, alongside other police forces. It is now time for the formula, the Minister and the Government to do right by us.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): It is certainly true that the Minister gave me a glimpse of some of the figures and I am extremely grateful to him for that, but let me reiterate my point: the Conservative PCC said that he had been tipped off that there would be a transfer of funds from urban to rural forces. My constituents want to know why more money is needed to police Surrey and Northamptonshire than to police the west midlands. Why do we get less while they get more?
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Government Operations
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): We could ask the same question about the local government formula, which gives more money to Surrey than to deprived areas such as Durham and my hon. Friend’s area. The suspicion is that this funding formula will also be used to divert money away from Labour areas to Conservative areas.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): If we look at past form, we will see that that is certainly the implication. I was interested to hear the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) implore the Minister to think again about fair funding, on the basis that a fairer funding arrangement would give the force in Dorset an extra £1.9 million a year. I remind the Minister that, under the same fairer funding formula, the west midlands would get an extra £40 million year. When it comes to the transfer of resources, I hope he will bear that in mind The reality is that, far from getting extra funding, over the past five years our force has had to contend with £180 million of cuts—the highest in the country. The workforce has been reduced by 3,000 and the incoming chief constable has been clear that the force will need to reorganise to "cope with the gaps"—those are his words—that it now has to carry. The mistakes in the formula mean that forces are now planning against a one-year rather than four-year profile, which will be a much more difficult challenge. I would like to hear the Minister explain how he thinks the chief constable of West Midlands police is meant to plug those gaps I want to be clear that I do not deride the Home Secretary for saying that volunteers with specialist skills in IT or accountancy might be useful in helping to tackle cybercrime. I am curious to know why it is necessary to create a new position of police support volunteer, rather than simply recruiting more special constables with particular skills and expertise. Is that part of a wider volunteer plan?
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister for that response, and perhaps he will show us the consultation that took place to show the support that exists for the new role of police support volunteer. I would welcome the opportunity to have a look at that. To go back to funding for a second, does the Minister really consider it a triumph for his colleagues the hon. Members for Solihull (Julian Knight) and for Dudley South (Mike Wood) to claim credit for a 4.6% rise in the police precept paid by the taxpayers of the west midlands to make up for the money being given to places such as Surrey and Northamptonshire? Is that how we will be forced to plug the gap—by paying more pounds for fewer police in our area We are repeatedly advised that crime has fallen and therefore, by implication, the Government’s cuts are justified. I assume that the Minister does not dispute the claims of the Office for National Statistics that crime rose by 6% nationally for the year ending September 2015, and that violence against the person rose by 13%. I do not dispute that some types of crime have fallen, but I am not interested in trying to manipulate the figures to mislead anyone. Is it not important that the Government give a full picture and come clean on what the figures actually mean?
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): I concede that the report actually said that certain types of sexual offences were being reported differently, which accounted for the rise in that area. The report also clearly pointed out that violence against the person had risen by 13%, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that. As I said, we need clarity on the figures rather than using them to try to paint a picture that may be misleading There is one more point I would like to make. As I indicated earlier, the West Midlands force faces the most significant challenge of terrorism and extremism outside London, and we recently suffered a spate of gun crime in parts of Birmingham. The chief constable is set to increase the number of armed officers, and I understand that that is in line with Home Office advice. West Midlands police has about 260 armed officers, and an uplift in line with Home Office thinking would mean a further 130 officers. Where will the funding for those additional armed police officers come from, and where will the personnel come from? Will the force be expected to recruit additional officers, or will those engaged in neighbourhood policing or response policing be required to transfer to those new duties, further depleting those available for existing police tasks It is not bluff and bluster that we need today, but honest answers to legitimate questions and queries from people such as myself, who are genuinely worried that the formula, the funding and the rhetoric do not match the heroic efforts of West Midlands police to meet the demands of the community that it seeks to serve.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) prayed for your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker—but indulgence was not what I was praying for. What we have just seen is what we usually get from the SNP when they turn on something that they agreed to with the victim mentality that, as I have said on numerous occasions, it has raised to a new art form in this House. We end up with the idea that somehow this measure is everybody else’s fault, but the hon. Lady’s Government agreed to it so I do not think that she can try to delude electors in Scotland that it is somehow the fault of English Members and the Government at Westminster. Apart from the sense of grievance, which we have heard on many occasions from the Scottish National party in the House in recent weeks and months, the hon. Lady did not cover anything that was relevant to the debate I congratulate the Home Affairs Committee on its report on reform of the funding formula, and I pay tribute to its Chair for his opening speech. It has been said numerous times that this issue needs to be considered for years and in a logical way. I do not disagree with that, because we must consider in detail how we fund our police, as that is an important issue for our constituents. I do not believe that how the Government went about that had anything to do with having a serious hard look at putting forward a fair funding formula One of the Committee’s criticisms—it was made not only by chief constables but by many PCCs—was that the consultation was rushed. It started on 21 July 2015 and closed on 15 September, a period of eight weeks. The Minister then wrote to PCCs and chief constables on 8 October, three weeks after the consultation closed, providing detailed refinements, setting out for the first time indicative force levels and inviting further comment.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Government Operations
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman. That is exactly what was going on. We were to have the formula wrapped up going into the spending review, but what we are in store for is exactly what has happened in local government funding. We did not get a fair local government funding formula: we have a skewed formula that moves resources from the most deprived communities in this country to—lo and behold!—the more wealthy parts, which are represented by Conservatives In local government funding, just by chance—hon. Members should not ask me how this has happened— 85% of the gainers happened to be in Conservative seats. I suspect that that is what was going on with the police funding formula. The Government had not reckoned with the PCC for Devon and Cornwall, who questioned the process We must also put the formula against the other things that the Government and their previous incarnation, the coalition, have done to policing in this country.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): Like me, I am sure my hon. Friend recognises that the Minister is a pretty straightforward guy. Given that we have ended up in this situation and that we have been unable to resolve it—it will be four years before police forces can plan a long-term budget—would not the fair thing be to remove any doubt or suspicion and subject the formula to independent scrutiny? In that way, we could all be absolutely certain that it was fair.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Government Operations
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with my hon. Friend—I will come back to that in a minute—but the real issue is that what was envisaged is exactly what we have seen in local government. Under the new formula, the resources would not have been devolved to the areas that needed them, but the blame for the cuts would have been. The Government have used that formula for many years now.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) is not in the Chamber, which is regrettable. He complained about the formula and the distribution. In my local authority over the past five years, we have had five times the amount of cuts that South Dorset has had. I am fearful that the police funding formula will do the same to policing as the Government did to local government.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Jeffrey Smith (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that there is another issue that relates to vulnerable and deprived areas, which is the top-slicing of grants? Next year, there will be a 69% rise in the top-slicing of police grants. In my area of Greater Manchester, that means a reduction of £16.2 million. Does he agree that we need an assurance that top-slicing for national projects, such as the transformation fund, does not come from local police grants?
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Government Operations
Gerald Jones (Labour, Centre-left): That was not the situation that the shadow Home Secretary described, and I think the hon. Gentleman knows that. He is trying to misrepresent what was said. The Conservatives were talking about cuts of 20%-plus at that point, so let us get this into perspective.
Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Gerald Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I think we are seeing a lot of smoke and mirrors from the Conservative party. In closing, I urge the Government to address the concerns that I have outlined, and to provide the fair funding formula that the police need to do the job that we ask them to do.