Policing (England and Wales)

The funding I have set out represents an unprecedented scale of investment in our police forces, but we must not lose sight of the fact that this is public money that we are spending, and the public expect to see a return on that investment. This Government are clear that the police must continue to focus on improving efficiency and productivity to deliver value for money for the people they serve. Members should be in no doubt: I will be holding the police to account for their spending and performance, because we are a Government driven by the people’s priorities. The demand of these hard-working, honest, law-abiding people is simple: they want to see more police on our streets and less crime, and they expect us, as public servants, to deliver. So, today we have provided the funding needed to do just that.

I have to tell the House that this pledge was never met, even though it was signed by the current Prime Minister himself, so I do not think that his record on policing provides much confidence that he will meet his manifesto commitment to recruit 20,000 extra police.

Secondly, I want to turn to an issue with the funding settlement, which is inadequate even in its own terms. When the Minister announced the funding settlement, the Home Office claimed that it was the biggest for a decade, but that was a decade of cuts in police funding—cuts made by Ministers now on the Government Front Bench. It is not much of a boast when the settlement represents an uplift only when compared with the cuts made in previous years.

We can add to that the closure of courts. Since 2010, 162 courts have closed, and 50% of the courts estate has been axed. In my area, we used to have magistrates courts in Consett, Chester-le-Street and Durham. There is now one, in Peterlee, in the east of the county—not the easiest place to get to for those in my constituency and that of the hon. Member for North West Durham. That is a capacity problem, and it has also broken the key link between magistrates and their local area. I am not criticising them in any way, but those on the magistrates bench in Peterlee are not connected to many local communities. That makes a fundamental difference to their being able to understand the nature of the people who come before them.

The big debate is partly about extra police numbers—yes, we do need extra police numbers: we need to restore the 20,000, and I look forward to the campaign by the hon. Member for North West Durham for the extra 154 police officers who are needed even to get back to where we were in 2010—but if we do not have a big debate about how our police are funded, then we will continue with this process that means that poor areas will get poorer, and the blame game that this Government want to play on the level of policing will continue. That will do nothing at all to help the professional people we rely on for our public safety at local level or to protect the communities that we all represent.

It is a beautiful part of the world. If you go up to the Berkshire downs in Lambourn to see the racehorses training at dawn, you will find country that is as wild as Dorset, but if you plunge down the pathways that link the villages of Bucklebury, Stanford Dingley and Frilsham in the east, you will find woodlands that are as mythic as anything in English folklore. It has context in the story of this nation. During the civil war, there were about 48 hours when the history of England was determined on the battlefields of Newbury. It has felt the smack of resistance during the Greenham peace camp and the pulse of insurgency during the protests over the Newbury bypass. And it has experienced catastrophic human tragedy—the Hungerford massacre, the dark day in 1987 when that little town endured the mass shooting of 17 people.

Those last incidents took place during my childhood and are scored deeply on my memory, because at the time it was my father who was the MP. He served the seat for 18 years until 1992, and he was the MP when I was born. The way that he supported, defended and championed that community, particularly through its darkest hour, shaped my entire view of public service. I am not the first daughter to take her father’s seat—it has happened once before: on the Labour Benches, in the seat of North West Durham—but it is the first time that it has happened in my party. Nearly 30 years have passed since my father died, and I was young when he did, but he sparked a passion for politics, and he always taught me to think freely and to keep testing my ideas. I think of him every day that I walk through these corridors and I am proud to follow in his footsteps.

This debate concerns the new funding settlement for the police. My constituency welcomes the £33 million for the Thames Valley police, from which we will benefit and which will lead to 50 new police officers. Before I entered the House, I worked as a barrister with a specialism in employment law, and I bring that interest to Parliament. I saw that, as with so many sectors of work, the primary challenge in employment is not always recruitment but the retention and development of staff in a modern society.

One of the great challenges we face is the age of our workforce. In the last 20 years, the number of people working beyond their 60s has quadrupled and, with an ageing population, that trend is likely to continue. I noticed in the cases I worked on that there was a fundamental divide between those who felt that, by their late 60s, they had earned the right to retire, and those who found the suggestion of retirement an absolute insult and felt that there was still a place for their skills and experience in the workplace. While we must, of course, respect personal choices, the fact remains that those who wish to continue working into their old age are sometimes treated as an eccentricity or an indulgence, rather than people of vigour and capability. There is an imperative for us to recalibrate our attitude to the potential and prospects of older people in the workforce.

We also need to think about the way we work. I am delighted that my party’s manifesto raised the possibility of making flexible working the default for all jobs. For too long, flexible working has been confined to women, usually linked to motherhood and—tacitly, perhaps—to an inferior participation in the workplace. But all the research shows that, regardless of gender, the benefit that employees most value after their pay is the ability to work flexibly, whether in terms of location or hours. We know that flexibility has a crucial role to play in the retention of women, the reduction of the gender pay gap and the equitable distribution of home and childcare responsibilities, all of which I know to be core objectives of this Government’s one nation agenda.

I conclude by saying that, in the cases I worked on, I saw that, for so many people, their job—or, their loss usually lost by the time they reached me of it,—was about so much more than pay. It was fundamental to their sense of self, in terms of what it said about their talent, their dignity and their place in the world. So I will always fight for the jobs and security of my constituents, and it will be their opportunities and their aspirations that will guide my work in this House.

I want to raise two areas of particular concern: fraud and retail crime. Only last April, HMICFRS reported concerns about the lack of a national fraud strategy, which I am sure the Minister is aware of. It said that the disjointed approach to fraud was leaving

“fraudsters feeling they can act with impunity”.

Last week, I was alerted to a fraud affecting a 68-year-old retired teacher who has been robbed of £157,000—money he built up in his pension pot—in a scam where the fraudster hacks and mimics the email of solicitors engaged in house conveyancing. The response he received from the City of London fraud review team seems to be more concerned with how quickly they can close the case than tracking the fraudster and recovering this poor gentleman’s hard-earned cash. That is not right, Minister—something has to be done.

With retail crime, we see a problem that is reaching epidemic proportions. Traders have lost faith in the police. The value of goods stolen must exceed £200 before most forces will take the matter to court. Meanwhile, more than 100 shop workers are being attacked daily while simply trying to do their job. Retail crime is costing us around £2 billion per year. It is serious, and it ought to be policed.

I welcome any extra resources, but the problem of relying so heavily on the council tax precept to increase police resources is that it results in areas such as the West Midlands, which has the second largest force in the country and a complex range of crime, only being able to raise an extra £8.2 million through the precept because of the council tax base. I urge the Minister to review the demands made of forces such as the West Midlands and to help us find a better way of funding some of that demand. I hope he will be willing to meet a cross-party delegation from the West Midlands to consider some of the pressures the force faces. As I pointed out to the shadow Home Secretary, even after an increase in funding, the West Midlands will still experience a funding gap of £9.8 million this year, so further savings—further cuts—will be required. As the Minister knows, there will be significant pressures in the coming year in terms of pay and price inflation, and the force is wondering how that will be managed.

I genuinely welcome the Minister’s efforts, and I hope he is right that this is a down payment. I hope we are about to embark on a sustained period of increasing police resources, as well as a constructive review of how policing needs to change. I hope the Minister will consider how we fund the extra demands being made of forces such as the West Midlands. I hope he will take on board the impact that the decline in neighbourhood policing is having on the public. I hope he will look again at neglected areas—what Chief Constable Thompson of the West Midlands calls “the routine stuff”—and respond to the growing problems of fraud and retail crime.

Over the summer months, North Devon and the south-west see a swell in population. While our economy depends in large part on tourism, which I am only too glad to see continue, that does present challenges when it comes to policing. During the summer, the police see an 11% increase in the number of crimes committed, a 14% increase in the number of incidents and an 18% increase in the number of high-risk missing people. However, funding for our force remains considerably below the per person, per day average across the rest of England and Wales, and that is before we take the higher summer population into account.

North Devon has historically received less money than I believe it should, and this is a broader issue that affects a number of policy areas, whether it is schools, health or policing. I am glad that this Government are committed to levelling up every region of the UK, and we have made much progress towards a fairer funding settlement, but in my mind there is still some way to go. Our police force has shown itself to be innovative and determined, but there are some pressures that cannot be mitigated through innovation and determination alone.

I would like to end by reiterating my welcome for the additional funding. Despite the challenges that North Devon faces, the police grant report will represent a significant improvement in support for the police. I know Ministers are conscious of the issues we face, but I would love to extend an invitation to the Minister to come to North Devon to see for himself the triple impact of tourism, isolation and rurality.

It is a fact that the South Wales police grant has actually been cut by a third since 2011, which is the highest cash reduction in Wales when we compare it with other centrally funded public services. We have not seen the covering of other costs in this settlement today—I am thinking, for example, of the end of the police transformation fund and the fact that we used to get £3 million a year for capital costs, which are of course significant in a city location, and which this year is down to just £0.26 million. The capital city underfunding sees us short-changed by about £4 million. I urge Ministers to look at that and to look at the context of the particular challenges that we face.

I want to come on to just three areas in particular, which have wider ramifications, and not just for my own area. First, I welcome today’s decision by the Home Office to proscribe two serious extreme-right organisations, Sonnenkrieg Division and System Resistance Network. That is something that I and others have been campaigning on in both public and private for some time given the risk that these neo-Nazi, sick, twisted organisations pose to citizens up and down the country—I have also had activities locally in my own patch. I welcome what the Minister had to say about extra resources for counter-terrorism, but we must see this in the round. We need to have the dedicated officers on the ground to provide that crucial intelligence and those crucial community relations, which are needed to ensure that these groups do not have an impact, but that if events do happen—as they did, regrettably, in Grangetown in my constituency where some sick, neo-Nazi, racist graffiti poured all around the south of Cardiff—the police are able to get out there and reassure communities. So we must look at this as requiring both specialist officers—I have worked closely with and am full of praise for them—and the wider policing family that sits around them. It also needs the Home Office backing them up. When concerns are being raised within the police, and by myself, others and external organisations, the Home Office needs to act quickly on these organisations; they must not linger, allowing them time to potentially commit further offences.

My second point is on serious violence and knife crime, which I have spoken about many times not only in the Chamber but also in Westminster Hall and the Home Affairs Committee. We have seen some very tragic events in south Wales recently—not on the scale that we have seen in London and elsewhere, but certainly not of a character that we would have seen in our communities some years ago. We have all united as a community to speak out against those who would carry knives or other weapons and engage in serious violence locally, but again that requires a holistic approach. It requires not just those crucial police officers on the ground, which we want the Home Office to be funding, but that wraparound, too. When the funding to Wales has been cut, resulting in cuts to, for example, our youth services, that has an impact. I am full of praise for what Cardiff Council has done, particularly on this front and also the fact that we have taken a public health approach locally and are working to develop a violence reduction unit locally with the Home Office. Those are important steps forward, but we cannot just look at these things in isolation. They require interventions across a wide range of services to ensure that we are not only dealing with the consequences when they happen, but also getting upstream and preventing young people from being caught up in drug dealing and serious violence.

Related to that, I have a particular concern regarding the online, or digital, world. The Minister made some light-hearted remarks earlier about the internet, but there is a very serious side to this. He will no doubt be aware that there have been some disgusting videos glamorising knife violence and drug dealing and the disposal of evidence by young people, filmed in my own constituency, which organisations such as YouTube have refused to remove, instead justifying it on the basis of artistic expression. I am sorry to say that I have found yet more of those videos in recent weeks, which I have raised with both the local police and YouTube, but I have yet to see them taken down. I would like to see both the action taken as recommended in the “Online harms” White Paper and resourcing and training made available for police to enable them to deal with the increasing challenge that is posed by this material online, which is radicalising and grooming our young people in the same way that we have seen some of the extremist organisations doing so tragically in the past. Unfortunately, this is only going to become a larger area of work, and we need to ensure that both police and the wider judicial system are informed and trained and able to respond to that type of incident, because that is dragging our young people into some pretty horrific circumstances and glamorising that type of lifestyle.

The Minister for crime, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle, is in the Chamber and she will know that we have spoken about this issue both in the Chamber and outside it, but I want to highlight the particular challenges around hate crime. She knows that I have raised particular concerns about hate crime directed at the LGBT+ community. There have been some pretty shocking increases in that. It is not just due to an increase in reporting; it is a real rise in those crimes. What steps are Ministers going to take to ensure that the police not only have the resources but the training and the back-up to be able to ensure that there are successful prosecutions. Sometimes we are seeing things being reported and not followed through to the conclusion, whether that is crime directed against the LGBT community or against other protected characteristics? These things can often have life-changing consequences for individuals and in the very worst cases lead to very serious incidents of violence.

I want to see action in a whole series of areas from this Government, and no doubt we on the Home Affairs Committee and others will continue to hold them to account. This does require that core resourcing, however. The Welsh Labour Government invested in PCSOs, whose numbers have been cut elsewhere in the country, including in England. There is close partnership-working between the commissioner, the Welsh Government, our local councils, our health boards and others to ensure that we are all working together to tackle these challenges, but that needs to be backed up with resources from the UK Government and from the Home Office, because without that, we will, particularly as a capital city, lag behind and struggle to meet some of the challenges we face.

Finally, I would not normally bring up this sort of thing, but it has concerned me. I am fully respectful of the right of the royal couple, Harry and Meghan, to choose a different path for themselves, but I understand that there are some quite serious concerns being raised about the costs of policing and protection for them, which could apparently be spiralling to tens or hundreds of millions of pounds. I find that deeply concerning, because when we look at some of the challenges facing our own communities people will rightly ask, “Where’s the money for our police officers? Should we be funding that security overseas?” I think that is a very reasonable question to be asking.

This responsibility I undertake proudly and with a certain sense of wonderment, because my family has made a journey from workhouse to this place. My great-grandmother was born in a workhouse. My grandad was a docker in the east end of London. My dad was a policeman. I went to a grammar school and became the first member of my family to go to university when I won a place to read history at Cambridge. My parents are my inspiration. I know they are proud of me, but I do not know if they know how proud I am of them and how very grateful. If you will indulge me, Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to say thank you Ivan Ford and thank you Mary Ford. Now you are in Hansard forever and that is my tribute to you. I would also like to thank, from the bottom of my heart, my lovely husband Chris and my wonderful son Matthew, because without their love and support I could not do any of this.

I am the proud daughter of a policeman who was on duty during the coronation procession, who was outside the Iranian embassy when the SAS burst in, and who has his own bravery award, so it is a particular pleasure to speak in this debate. It will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that I greatly welcome the Government’s commitments to police numbers and funding, in particular the £15.9 million additional funding for Hertfordshire police. I know from experience that our police officers face challenges and dangers that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and they need and deserve our support. One of my first priorities as a Member of Parliament was the restoration of a police station in Ware and I am delighted that that is going to happen. It is great news for our wonderful local police and for our local residents.

After a 17-year career in finance and business, I took a career break to look after my son. During that time, I served as a magistrate. On my very first day, a boy walked in making his first ever appearance in an adult court. He was 18 but he was tiny, as he had been malnourished since he was a baby. He was grey and haggard, as he had regularly been given heroin by his parents to keep him quiet at night. By then, of course, he was himself a drug addict. He changed me and he inspired me. I am here to make a difference to people like him: the boy whose name I do not remember, but whose face I cannot forget. I want to be a champion for social impact bonds. I have seen them in action and I know that they can change lives: getting young people into work and education, getting people off the streets and improving children’s social care.

In Hertford and Stortford, we have a strong Quaker history, with a traditional of philanthropy and belief in our communities. Social impact bonds honour that tradition. I believe capitalism is a force for good and that businesses across our nation want to and do contribute to the communities of which they are a part. We can harness that force, while at the same time empowering the families, communities, charities and social networks that make up civil society, what Edmund Burke called the “little platoons”, to enable them to help themselves and to help each other. This is just one of many things I would like to do while I am here, and I have things to say about a lot of other things, but if I can make even a small contribution to my wonderful constituency and our great country, my time in this place will be well spent.

I say to the Policing Minister that one would have hoped for some recognition of what 10 years has meant to communities such as Erdington, but there is not an ounce of contrition. Instead, the Policing Minister says, “Rejoice!” I invite him to come to tell the people of Erdington, who are facing that wave of rising crime, to rejoice. They would ask, “What planet does he live on?” Neither is it true that somehow the wrongs of the last 10 years are about to be put right. An announcement has been made about putting in excess of 2,000 police officers back into the service and on the beat in the West Midlands. If we look at the statistics, however, it is not 2,000 or 2,100. We will be 900 police officers short. The simple reality is that even at the end of this three-year period, we will be 900 police officers down on where we were back in 2010.

I also hope that the Government recognise that what took years to build will take years to rebuild. Neighbourhood policing in our country was the creation of the police service and—forgive me for saying—of a then Labour Government. The notion of neighbourhood policing involves police officers rooted in their community, not just tackling crime, but diverting people from it and gathering intelligence, including on serious wrongdoing. That has been done terrible damage by the sheer scale of the cuts that have been imposed on the police service.

Beaconsfield has been home to influential thinkers, artists and entrepreneurs of the day, from William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania—I thought we would do an American theme today; why not?—whose estate sits within picturesque Stoke Poges; to Barry Gibb, lead singer of the Bee Gees; to Pinewood Studios, a global leader in the creative arts.

I should mention that Beaconsfield has always voted to elect a Conservative Member of Parliament. Not only are the people of Beaconsfield incredibly sound in their voting choices, but some of the greatest Conservative minds have lived there, from Edmund Burke to Benjamin Disraeli. It is because of the way that a one nation Conservative party is constantly embracing the future that an immigrant working mum with a foreign, strange accent has now been given the glorious opportunity of representing the best constituency in the country.

We need clarity about the training for new officers and how it will be funded after the first year, and answers on the apprenticeship levy for Welsh forces. Gwent police and other Welsh police forces have paid in excess of £2 million towards the apprenticeship levy each year since it was introduced in 2017. After pressure from the police and crime commissioners in Wales, including our local PCC, Jeff Cuthbert, the Home Office advised it would provide Welsh forces directly with their share of the levy from 2019, but Welsh forces have yet to see any of that money. I ask again: please will Ministers look into this and tell us what is going on?

I would also like the Government to provide more detail on the funding for police community support officers, who play such a vital and often unsung role. Across England and Wales, the number of PCSOs fell by almost 7,000 between 2010 and 2018. In Wales, their numbers would have been even harder hit, had not the Welsh Labour Government, who have no responsibility for policing, stepped in to fund 500 PCSOs. This is most welcome but it is yet another case of others having to step in to plug the gap left by the Home Office.

The Government still need to address the pensions issue, which others have raised. John Apter, the national chair of the Police Federation, has highlighted that the police funding formula needs to be revisited for future years to ensure a fairer allocation of officers across all forces. The underlying issue is that behind the headline announcements, the Government still have not produced a long-term plan for funding our police. Yes, we need more officers on the beat, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham pointed out, we also need investment in police control rooms and custody suites, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts, victims services and, crucially, the diversionary activities and targeted intervention to prevent people from committing crime in the first place. We also need to acknowledge the increasingly complex nature of policing, given the scale and complexity of new criminality, a lot of work on which goes unseen.

In the recent Opposition day debate on police, I cited the example of Gwent’s early action together team, which has transformed the way the force responds to children and vulnerable people. It has trained more than 1,300 officers to deal with complex vulnerability issues and offer families help and support at the earliest opportunity. It is the sort of scheme I am sure the Home Office would want to get behind, yet the police transformation fund, which has paid for that work, is to be cut. I urge Ministers to reconsider this decision for the sake of the vulnerable people whom this fund is potentially helping to turn away from crime and antisocial behaviour. This focused early potential should be funded at a national level.

Any increase in funding for our police forces is welcome—of course I welcome any increase in police resources—but this settlement does not go far enough and is defined by short-termism. The Government now need to concentrate their efforts on devising a long-term strategy for police funding. Like other hon. Members, I pay tribute to Gwent’s officers and admin staff, as well as Chief Constable Pam Kelly and PCC Jeff Cuthbert, both of whom were in Newport East on Friday, for the amazing, often unseen work they do, day in, day out and under great pressure, in order to keep us safe. I spoke at much greater length in a debate a few weeks ago about their work on serious and organised crime in Newport East. Let us never forget, though, the impact of the Government’s cuts over the last decade on the stress levels and workload of existing police staff. That should never be underestimated.

I am determined to make life better for young people and for working people trying to do their best for their families, and I want to work together with the police on the island and beyond to help protect our young people and our communities. I am delighted to support this motion, which will have a positive impact on frontline policing on Ynys Môn and across north Wales.

In West Yorkshire, we also face challenges relating to firearms and serious and organised crime. Policing priorities have rightly changed to reflect increased awareness of exploitation in all its ugly forms, from child sexual exploitation—of which nearly 6,500 instances were recorded last year—to human trafficking and child criminal exploitation, but although the resources allocated to such exploitation have also increased, they have not yet increased sufficiently to meet the demand.

As we have heard from Members on both sides of the House this evening, a great many of the challenges facing the police relate directly to the pressures caused by cuts in other services. For example, West Yorkshire police responded to more than 20,000 cases of missing people in 2017, which is staggering and completely unsustainable. We have had a self-funded safeguarding uplift to meet that demand, but those officers have come from neighbourhood policing, so the numbers are down in all the vital neighbourhood policing teams with which I work so closely in my role as an MP—as we all do.

Like my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), I have been taking part in the police service parliamentary scheme, which is an incredibly insightful experience—especially as we look forward to debating, I hope imminently. the police powers and protection Bill—and I urge all MPs to do the same. During the recess last week I participated in two night shifts, one with PC Andy Barron, who deals with road policing in West Yorkshire, and one with Inspector Katie Woodmason, when I saw how people on a night out in Leeds city centre are kept safe.

I am sorry to say that the rhetoric in the Minister’s statements seems a world away from the reality of the conversations and experiences that I have had on the frontline. When I shadowed out-of-hours mental health service workers, I spent all night with two police officers who were unable to leave someone who had been detained under the Mental Health Act 1983. They could not leave a young nurse on her own with a gentleman who did not agree that he should have been detained, and who was becoming increasingly aggressive. West Yorkshire police saw a 33% increase in the number of mental health-related incidents in 2018, which meant that they were required to respond to an additional 5,000 incidents.

Having started the Protect the Protectors campaign after shadowing single-crew police officers, I know that reduced numbers mean that officers themselves are particularly vulnerable to assaults when they are out on their own. I hope that the Minister is revisiting some of the resulting legislation, and will consider using any or all measures in the police powers and protections Bill to ensure that officers are kept safe. I also hope that the Minister who sums up the debate will tell us when we can expect the introduction of that Bill.

I know that the Government are looking into a number of complicated police pension issues that have been mentioned this evening. Perversely, owing to the changes in the thresholds at which public sector workers start to pay tax on their pension contributions, some senior officers are beginning to receive annual tax bills that are greater than their annual salaries. Unlike doctors, police officers cannot reduce their hours or withdraw their service to mitigate the impact of such bills. I understand that the Treasury is conducting a review of the issue with a view to shaping the next Budget. I ask the Policing Minister to look specifically at how those perverse tax disincentives can be reformed, not least because it seems that police forces themselves are paying tax bills for individuals, who are reimbursed by the Home Office, which is reimbursed by the Treasury, to square off contributions to HMRC. In order to pay back the money in the long term, officers are realistically having to hand significant chunks of their pensions back on retirement in order to settle all the accumulated annual allowance taxes. There must be a better way of structuring police pensions to avoid that financial merry-go-round.

Police pension arrangements need to be much clearer, both for officers themselves and for the public purse. More importantly, we need to ensure that we do not haemorrhage experience and leadership in policing at a time when we can least afford it if we are to reach anything like the recruitment targets set by the Government.

The uplift in numbers reflected in this grant is incredibly welcome, but the settlement is for just one year, and does not reflect the increased complexity of crime in areas such as West Yorkshire. The grant provides for no inflationary increases, and core funding has increased only by the uplift funding. Therefore, all pay rises and non-pay inflation must be met by existing budgets. With that in mind, I hope very much that we will see the review of the police funding formula sooner rather and later, so that our police officers can do what they do best—keeping us and our communities safe.

I know the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) well, having visited it on several occasions to see the impact of the loss of policing and to meet some of his excellent local police officers, as well as former officers who have been forced out by the Government’s changes in the past 10 years. He talked powerfully about the increased demand and the heavy toll that it takes, not just on the police and their ability to respond but on sickness rates and the mental health of the officers involved. He asked, very fairly, what planet the Minister must be on in asking us to be grateful for today’s announcement. This is something that has been raised constantly: the idea that we should be pleased that the Government are rolling back even some of the cuts that have been made over the past 10 years, and the ridiculous claim that this is the largest investment made in a decade.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) paid tribute to the work of the Welsh Labour Government and their investment in PCSOs. She made an important point, which I do not think the Minister has addressed in previous debates, about the lack of clarity on funding for equipment such as cars, body armour and—the Policing Minister will appreciate this—lockers. She said that the settlement was defined by short-termism, and she is absolutely right. Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) spoke about the pressures of complex crime, from missing persons to child sexual exploitation. Like many Members in the debate today, she made the case powerfully for the reform of the funding formula.

I will come back to the funding formula later in my remarks, but it was telling to note the comments of the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), who has repeatedly spoken out on behalf of his Suffolk force and described the unfair consequences of the funding formula. That also applies to Devon and Cornwall, and I have visited the local police force of the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) myself. I have heard about the digital dogs, and when I talk about them to other police forces they are really jealous about the innovation that has been made in Devon and Cornwall. However, it is quite clear that the funding formula needs to recognise the particular pressures of tourism on forces such as Devon and Cornwall, just as it needs to recognise the demand presented by serious organised criminality that is often masked by supposedly sleepy communities in areas such as Suffolk. In short, the funding formula must follow demand and not the complicated, obscure factors that currently play into it. As has already been said, the Opposition welcome the resources that have been announced today. The Minister knows that, although we have our concerns, which I will touch on shortly, will not be opposing today’s police grant proposals.

I want to start by talking about two opportunities that this announcement presents. The recruitment drive is a generational opportunity to change the make-up and composition of policing. We meet on the 21st anniversary of the publication of the Macpherson report, which was a searing account of how institutions had become divorced from the communities they served. Its publication served as a watershed moment in British policing. The report set targets for the police to reach 7% of the workforce being from the BME community within a decade, but 11 years on from that timeline, we still have not reached that target. Today the BME population in this country is almost 15% and the so-called race gap is now more pronounced than it was when Macpherson was first published. There is not a single chief constable in the country from a BME community, and at this rate of change it will take the Met 100 years to become truly representative. During the last major recruitment drive under the Labour Government, diversity increased, but not fast enough, and the fear is that that will happen again. We cannot wait a century for our police to reflect our society, so I urge the Home Office to use this opportunity of police recruitment to ensure that we see the necessary dramatic change within the next three years. That will happen only if the law is changed and targets are set.

As I have said, this is the fourth police grant debate that I have responded to, and over the past decade too much needless damage has been done. Political choices have led to police-recorded violent crime more than doubling in recent years, and to the loss of 21,000 police officers—far more than under any other Government since the war. Those choices have also led to the loss of 16,000 police staff—the people who keep the police service functioning, who go to the scene to help with investigations and who help to put evidence into a fit state for trial—and of nearly 7,000 PCSOs. The PCSOs are the eyes and ears of community policing, and they are integral to the voluntary intelligence at the core of UK policing. Economic crime is allowed to flourish unchecked.

The recent conversion of the Government to the recruitment of officers has come far too late, and it is pathetic to talk about this being the largest increase in 10 years. The needless damage simply cannot be reversed, and the experience of lost officers is gone for good. Analysis carried out by Labour shows that even if all 20,000 officers announced as part of this settlement were allocated, more than half of police forces—22 out of the 43 police forces in England and Wales—would still have a net loss of officers compared with 2010. In the far more likely scenario that around 13,000 officers will be allocated to the frontline, 60% of our forces would still be down on 2010, with large urban forces such as Manchester, Merseyside and the West Midlands losing out substantially.

That will be exacerbated by the funding formula used to allocate that funding. Everyone knows that the formula is unfair, including the Minister, who set that out again today. It will create the perverse outcome that the forces struggling with the most serious violent crime will see the least recruitment. Greater Manchester is down 1,000 since 2010, Hampshire is down 700, Merseyside 600, Staffordshire 400, and the West Midlands 1,100. Surrey, by contrast, will see an increase of more than 240 on 2010 levels. That cannot be right. Again, today’s announcement should have presented an opportunity for the Home Office to revise the funding formula to ensure that it led to an equitable settlement.

What is more, Ministers have decided to stump up just £153 million of the £360 million police pension costs for 2020-21. This black hole is the equivalent of more than 3,000 officers, and if action is not taken, it is almost certain that police recruitment plans will suffer or that cutbacks will have to be made elsewhere, to police staff and capital. Will the Minister provide certainty to forces today, address the pensions black hole and ensure that the costs are not imposed on police forces?

The change in the Government’s approach today is undoubtedly welcome. Although they are not prepared to accept responsibility for the damage they have done, perhaps they can help address some of the consequences for police officers. Over the past 10 years, and in some of the most unimaginably difficult circumstances, our officers have fought hard to keep our communities safe, but it has taken its toll. In 2019, 2,175 officers voluntarily resigned from the police—the highest number since comparable records began in 1998—hampering police efforts to strengthen forces after nine years of austerity.

Last year, the police cancelled over a quarter of a million rest days, fuelling concerns of a mental health crisis in the police. The Police Federation’s most recent survey found that almost 80% of officers have experienced stress in the past 12 months, with almost half viewing their job as extremely stressful. A recent study found that one in five officers suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder—equivalent to 24,000 officers in England and Wales. For many, policing is coming at the expense of their mental wellbeing, safety and quality of life, and that cannot be right. I ask the Minister to commit to using the forthcoming police powers and protections Bill to tackle the mental health and wellbeing crisis in our police.

This has been among the most difficult decades for policing since the modern police force was founded. We can assure the Government that in the coming years we will be mindful of the promises they have made and determined to see that they are held to them.

As a female Minister responding to my opposite number who also happens to be a woman—with a female shadow Home Secretary, I am afraid the Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), is the odd one out—I am delighted that we have all had the chance to speak in this great Chamber on the centenary of the first speech by the first woman to take her seat in this place. We have had the benefit of two female Deputy Speakers during this debate, too.

I am also delighted that, in marking that important moment in this place’s history, we have heard three new female colleagues give their maiden speech. I look forward to them making their mark in this century. We heard delightful tributes to their immediate predecessors, Richard Benyon, Mark Prisk and the right hon. and learned Dominic Grieve, who are remembered fondly and with respect on both sides of the House.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), however, went one better and paid an even more personal tribute to a certain predecessor: her own father. It was very moving to listen to the example he set her, and I have no doubt that she will burnish her family’s proud record in this place and do him proud. She also raised the topic of flexible working, which the Metropolitan police are piloting to encourage a more diverse workforce and to recruit the best talent. This is an interesting challenge not just to those with childcare responsibilities but to the wider policing family, including those who have finished their 30 years’ service. I welcome the contribution she will inevitably make on this important topic.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson) mentioned the famous toothbrush collection in her constituency and the enormous bed of Ware, which can apparently accommodate four couples at one time—there is a joke there somewhere, but I will not tread there.

My hon. Friend talked very movingly of her family’s journey from the workhouse to this House, and she put her parents and her husband on the record. It was an incredibly moving speech. She also told us of her experience as a magistrate and, in particular, of a poor young, emaciated, grey boy who had been injected with heroin by those who were supposed to love and care for him and whom she met as he appeared in the adult magistrates court for the first time. She made the point that such cases haunt those of us who have worked in the criminal justice system, so I very much look forward to working with her on this Government’s exciting journey of creating opportunity for all.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) said it has taken a mere 100 years for a “moderately acceptable” American accent to be heard in the Chamber—I think it is much more acceptable than that. Her message of unifying our country draws not just on the present day but on the great history of her constituency. It is a great history not simply because the good people of Beaconsfield have only ever voted for a Conservative Member of Parliament but because of her more distant predecessors, Edmund Burke and Benjamin Disraeli.

That ties in neatly with the fact that this one nation Government are working for the whole country, as demonstrated by this very good funding settlement. This is the second year that the Government have issued a record-breaking increase to police funding levels through a police settlement that shows our commitment to giving the police the resources they need to fight crime and keep the public safe.

The total funding being made available to the policing system next year will increase by more than £1.1 billion, with the help of police and crime commissioners using council tax. This increase will enable the police to bear down on criminals who are terrorising our towns and to reduce the number of victims of crime. It will provide £150 million in funding to fight organised crime and to continue cracking down on online child abuse. Tackling serious violence will be backed with £39 million, including £20 million for tackling county lines drug dealing. My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) spoke so eloquently about that and about the charity in her constituency, Prison! Me! No Way!, which does so much to tackle it.

In conclusion, I thank Members again for their contributions to the debate. This settlement shows our comprehensive commitment to all areas of policing. Every police force in England and Wales will see a significant increase in funding. We are tackling serious violence, fighting serious and organised crime and delivering the largest expansion in police numbers in a generation. There can be no doubt that this settlement represents the start of a golden era for policing and a dark day for crime.

That the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) for 2020–21 (HC 51), which was laid before this House on 22 January, be approved.