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Police

I am glad that we have had this debate. As there are merely two minutes for each Front-Bench spokesman to respond, I will just reiterate the key points that have been made. We are calling for the Government to reopen the Home Office funding settlement for police forces across England and Wales. As has been made clear in the contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd), my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) and my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), we do not believe that this settlement is sufficient to meet the needs of policing in the 21st century. Speaking from the Government Benches, the hon. Members for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley), for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) hold a different view, which I respect but disagree with. The Labour party supports reductions of 12%, which HMIC recognises as deliverable. We are not against collaboration on voluntary mergers, overtime reductions and procurement of cars, uniforms, IT and air support, nor are we against deployment changes or the paperwork challenge. What we are against are the Government's proposed cuts, which will lead to 16,000 police officer posts being lost and take some £700 million out of next year's policing budget for England and Wales—and it has been signalled that there will be still further cuts in future years. The Minister knows that that will have a dramatic impact; no amount of smoke and mirrors will hide the fact that there will be a real and deep cut in the policing grant in England and Wales. The Minister need not listen to me; I am a Labour politician, after all—the former Minister now supporting my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary. However, he should listen to the chief constable of Kent, who says:"““The cuts, if they are 20%, will take us back to 2001 so that's quite a significant drawback into police numbers.””" The Minister should listen to the chief constable of Manchester who said that the current financial year is"““the most difficult financial year for policing in living memory.””" The Minister should listen to the chief constable of Gloucestershire who said:"““Here in Gloucestershire we are potentially in the middle of the perfect storm””," and added that it takes"““us to a metaphorical cliff-edge more quickly than others.””" The Minister should also listen to the chief constable of Dyfed Powys, who says that"““nobody should be under any illusions, we still have to cut costs significantly but at least the 5% increase in the precept would mean our situation won't get any worse.””" When Labour left office, police numbers were at record levels—there were 16,500 more officers than in 1997 and there were also 16,000 new PCSOs—and crime fell by 43% under Labour. The Government settlement takes £700 million out of policing. This House should oppose it. The Opposition will certainly do so.