Police Funding Formula — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): I have not suggested that. I have said time and again at this Dispatch Box and to the PCC and the chief constable that Bedfordshire does need help. That is why I put the deep dive into Bedfordshire, as well as into Lincolnshire, to see exactly what was going on. Fantastic work has been done in collaboration with the other local forces. The capabilities review, which I will come on to, is crucial in ensuring that many of the forces get the sort of help they need Every time I stand at this Dispatch Box, I say how proud I am to be the Policing Minister for England and Wales, but I have never been prouder than I was yesterday at Didcot. We have all seen Didcot on our TV screens, but only when I went there did I understand the scale of the industrial accident—I use that word advisedly, because a police and Health and Safety Executive inquiry is still going on. Half the building has collapsed. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who are injured and the families of those who died. One family have had their loved one given back to them, but three of the bodies—I have to use that word, because we are in the recovery phase at the moment—are still underneath all the rubble. It will be some considerable time before it is safe to reclaim them so that their families can bury them and, understandably, grieve When I was at Didcot yesterday, I met some very young officers who arrived at the scene first. I can only imagine, even with the experiences I had in my different roles before I came to this House, what went through their minds. They went in one direction when lots of people were going in the other direction. There was a dust cloud, so at one stage they were not even sure where the incident was. There were lots of injured people and lots of people who needed help. The work that took place and the unbelievable teamwork that went on across the blue line during the incident was reported to me yesterday On behalf of the House and the country, I said thank you to every one of the emergency workers and personnel who were there, even down to the volunteer groups that came with tea and coffee. That happened literally within minutes because of the agreements that they had with the local police under the gold command. I said two things to them. I said that I was enormously proud, as Minister with responsibility for policing and fire issues, to be with them—there were also members of lots of other agencies—because they had done fantastically well. I also told them that what they saw on that afternoon would live with them for the rest of their lives. It was not physical injuries that I was talking about, but mental injuries We have touched on mental health today. The emergency services tend to be very macho, as do our armed forces, but post-traumatic stress can touch everybody—sometimes a couple of days later, sometimes a couple of years later and sometimes many years later. I have friends who served in the Falklands who have only started to suffer in the last couple of years. Our thoughts must be with those people A key thing that happened at Didcot—this is mentioned in the report—is that capabilities from other forces came to help. It was not just the traditional mutual aid that we saw in London a couple of weeks ago for the Syria conference, when armed response units came from all around the country, including from Northern Ireland—I was very proud to see the men and women in the green uniform on the streets of London. We must ask what we can learn from that. Are there lessons to be learned for our control rooms? There were lots of 999 calls. The police got the initial call, but there were also calls to the fire service, and there was a slight difference in terminology That shows why it is crucial in the funding review that we get the chiefs to tell us where their capabilities will sit. It looks quite simple initially: will they be in the force, whether it be Merseyside, Hertfordshire or the Met, in the regional organised crime units or at the National Crime Agency? Actually, it is much more complicated than that. As we touched on earlier, the forces have been doing work on joint capabilities for some considerable time. When we look at the new formula and at where the capabilities will be delivered from, it is crucial that we do not damage the work that has been done. We must not tell the forces to tear up the very close work that they have done and say, "You can’t do it there. It has to be done under the ROCU." It is not for the Policing Minister to do that Alongside the funding review, the chief constables are coming forward with their own capabilities review. I cannot today give the House and the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee a timescale and date for the start of the new consultation, because I need that review to have reported to me. It would be ludicrous if I announced a new review and people said to me, "We will structure it this way" but then came back with another formula. I am not willing to do that.