Policing (England and Wales)

I beg to move,

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

I am proud to be part of a new Government who are delivering on the people’s priorities. The public have demanded an end to the horrific crime and violence that has recently blighted our streets once again. They deserve no less, and it is our duty to deliver the safer towns, villages, cities and country that they want. That means enthusiastically supporting our outstanding police to cut crime. They are our first and finest line of defence against murderous terrorists and ruthless drug gangs and our protection against burglars, robbers and rapists. All hon. Members will join me in paying tribute to their world-renowned courage, sacrifice and professionalism.

As the natural party of law and order, the Conservatives owe the police the resources they need to get their immensely important job done. One of the first acts of this Government was to start recruiting 20,000 new police officers, giving them the strength in numbers they now need, supporting and equipping them with the powers and kit to keep us safe, including lifting restrictions on emergency stop-and-search powers for all forces across England and Wales and, crucially, giving them new and immediate funding to keep our streets safe.

Nothing is more important than protecting the British people, and the settlement will do just that. Our generous offer also recognises the immense challenges that policing faces today. Crime is becoming increasingly complex, serious violence is threatening ever more people, and ruthless thugs are finding new ways to exploit the vulnerable. The scale, range and brutality of the new criminality we face is daunting, but we are rising to the challenge by empowering our police to fight back. This deal will give them the power to take down the criminals and bring those threatening our people and communities to justice.

Cleveland currently receives no serious violence funding, despite having the third highest level of violent crime in the country. The hon. Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) appealed to the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions last week for more resources, but he was fobbed off. Will the Home Secretary now review it and give Cleveland the funding it needs to tackle serious violence in our area?

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise the issue of serious violence, which is blighting not only Cleveland but other parts of the country, too. It is obviously a huge focus of my work.

We are giving Cleveland police an extra £10 million this year, which I hope it will use to tackle some of the serious problems there. I have met the chief constable of Cleveland police, who is doing sterling work to move the force from one that has sadly been underperforming to one that can hopefully satisfy the needs and desires of the people of Cleveland.

Has the Minister had discussions with chief constables, and has it emerged from those discussions what priorities they have for the new police officers? I can think of plenty in the Thames valley, but has he had the experience of the chief constables on how they can make things much better with these extra police?

I am pleased that my right hon. Friend’s police force, in particular, will receive a very large settlement of just under £32 million. We are having an ongoing conversation with the wider policing family about how and where our priority activity should take place. That discussion is being held under the auspices of the new National Policing Board, on which all arms of policing are represented. The board will settle the priority action that will be taken forward.

We have had discussions, particularly at the board’s last meeting, on prioritising violence. At the top of the list, murder is the tip of the iceberg of violence, which features many types of crime. I hope we will move to a 360° approach to fighting crime over the next few months and years, and I hope that chief constables will support us in doing so.

The Minister mentions the priorities set by the National Policing Board. One thing that I and chief constables across Wales and England have been raising for a number of years is economic crime and scamming. There is a constant pressure from new scams, so will he talk to chief constables on the National Policing Board about setting economic crime as a priority so that increasing numbers of vulnerable people are not attacked by scammers, who are becoming increasingly clever in taking people’s money?

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. As I have said, the technical complexity of crime has changed significantly over the past few years. One question we have to ask ourselves, both in the Home Office and in the UK policing family, is whether we have the skills and capability to deal with some of those issues.

I will come on to the settlement later, but it is partly about investing in some of those capabilities, not least in tackling online economic crime, which we are sadly seeing become increasingly prevalent as the internet penetrates even more of our lives.

Does not the very generosity of this settlement remove from some forces the excuse that they do not investigate fraud but, rather, palm it off on Action Fraud, which has proved to be totally useless?

I would expect a no less challenging question from my county colleague, and he is right that the fight against fraud has perhaps not been as effective as it could have been over the past few months and years.

We are giving a lot of thought in the Home Office to how policing should structure itself for a crime type that has become increasingly complex. A fraud might be perpetrated in one geography—perhaps in the New Forest, sadly—by a perpetrator in another geography who transits money through another country and draws that money in a fourth place. These are complex and technical difficulties that we will have to address in the years to come.

Due to the huge cuts in policing budgets and youth services, knife crime is now at epidemic proportions. We have had another fatality in Slough in recent weeks. The Minister has mentioned the extra resources for the Thames valley but, given that Slough is affected by a disproportionately large amount of knife crime and violent crime, will he ensure that the lion’s share of that funding is catered towards Slough, rather than areas that are not as affected by crime?

I think I am right in saying that recorded crime in the Thames valley is lower than in 2010, but that is not a cause for complacency. I recognise some of the problems that towns around London like Slough and, indeed, Andover in my constituency have experienced, much of it driven by the drugs trade. The hon. Gentleman will know that we have done a huge amount of work, and will be doing more, on the county lines problem that drives a significant amount of violence in towns like his. He will be hearing more from me on that in the future.

Gloucestershire constabulary has one of the lowest settlements of all police forces. Will my hon. Friend explain to my constituents how these figures are made up so they can see why they have such a low increase?

As I am sure my hon. Friend knows, money for policing is shared out on the basis of a funding formula. I have studied the formula in some depth, and it is incredibly complicated and hard to understand. He is therefore right to raise the issue of confusion in the public’s mind about how money is allocated.

We have already said publicly that we believe the funding formula is outdated, and I hope and believe that, in the years to come, we can work to find a more equitable division of the spoils for policing and, critically, one that the people we serve understand.

This settlement sets out the biggest increase in police funding in a decade. This £700 million will pay for the recruitment of the first 6,000 of the 20,000 additional police officers, an increase of almost 10% of the core grant funding provided last year. Overall funding for police and crime commissioners will increase by £915 million to £13.1 billion if they make full use of the council tax flexibility available to them. Total police funding will increase by £1.1 billion to £15.2 billion.

Every single force in England and Wales will see a substantial increase next year. If their police and crime commissioner decides to maximise precept flexibility, Durham will receive an extra £9.7 million, Lancashire will receive an extra £22.6 million and West Midlands will receive almost £50 million more. These are serious increases, representing, on average, a 7.5% rise.

Will my hon. Friend come to visit Derbyshire and meet Angelique Foster, our PCC candidate, who is putting together a superb plan for what Derbyshire policing ought to look like with this extra new money?

I would, of course, be delighted to visit Derbyshire once again. I was there only a few months ago to visit the chief constable and the current police and crime commissioner.

I have already agreed to attend a crime summit in Derby, and hopefully other Derbyshire MPs will be involved. In fact, I was there to see the striking “knife angel” sculpture, which was standing outside the city’s cathedral. I am more than happy to visit once again.