Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Arkless (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am delighted to see you in your place, Mr Speaker. May I assure you that this has been a very, very long afternoon? Since I was elected nine months ago, I seem to have come to debates with time limits of three, four or five minutes, and it was always my ambition to take part in an open and wide debate, but that opinion was unfortunately formed before my experience this afternoon Let me start by echoing the comments of the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) I too want to mention something that has been missed in many of the submissions across the House today. Our police, on both sides of the border, in every borough, county and region, do the most incredible job. We owe our safety and the fact that we can walk out of our front door and feel safe to the men and women in our police services, as well as other staff. Politics aside, we should all recognise that Mr Speaker, you will no doubt be aware that policing in Scotland is devolved, so many of the substantive arguments that have been heard across the Chamber during this very long afternoon have not had direct application to Scotland. I do not want to ponder many of them, but Scotland is affected by the level of Westminster spending and therefore the potential Barnett consequentials that Scotland will receive, or otherwise, to run the police force we want to run. It is remarkable, given the cuts that Scotland has faced, that we have given and maintained a commitment to 1,000 extra police officers on our streets since 2007, in stark contrast to the almost 20,000 police officers that have been lost across the UK. If I have one message to those on both sides of the House, it is that whatever funding formula they come up with and whatever departmental spending they agree over the next four years, the focus should be on increasing and maintaining the number of frontline police officers, which would obviously allow us to continue to do the work that we are doing Despite my cynicism about what went on in the past three hours, there have been some memorable speeches, none more so than that from the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, who gave a succinct, detailed and clear summary of the police funding position. I was very grateful for the clarity with which he delivered that speech I share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) for Hansard. I do not think that they will have their work cut out for them this evening finalising the draft of today’s proceedings. I was also very interested to hear him tell his Government and the House that the police funding formula as constituted does not seem to be working for the people of Dorset or the officers who work there The atmosphere in the Chamber was lifted briefly by my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson). I invite interventions and corroborate her comments on the VAT position in Scotland. It seems to me, and it will seem to the Scottish people, that Scotland being treated fairly gets this Chamber greatly exercised. That will not be lost on the people of Scotland The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) did the strangest thing. He made an intervention, which was answered, and then raised a point of order, so the Government could intervene on my hon. Friend.