§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Thompson.]
§ 11.5 pm
§ Mr. Jonathan Aitken (Thanet, East)I am grateful for this opportunity to raise on the Adjournment the question of reductions in the Kent police budget for 1981 and 1982. I am especially grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State for being present to reply to the debate. By a fortunate coincidence my hon. and learned Friend is a Member for a Kent constituency and so he, too, will have some local knowledge of the subject in addition to his ministerial wisdom.
In initiating a parliamentary deb te on this subject it is appropriate to begin with a tribute to the Kent police. Under the leadership of an exceptionally able chief constable, Mr.Barry Pain, they serve our large and widely spread community efficiently, effectively, fairly and at times courageously. There is no need for me to expand on the theme except to say that those of us who live and work in Kent are proud of our police and grateful for the difficult and demanding job that they do so well.
It is well known that during the past few months there have been one or two rumbles of discontent in the county about the expenditure cuts in the Kent police budget. There have been moments when the rumbles of discontent have come perilously close to erupting into a storm of protest. However, thanks to a degree of good sense and restraint among the principal protagonists, this has been avoided. Nevertheless, some public anxiety exists. Perhaps it has been generated by newspaper publicity, no 553 doubt always over done. At the end of the day it seems that one or two wires have been getting crossed between Whitehall, county hall, and county police headquarters. I take the view that this short debate may help to uncross some of the wires and clear the air. It is in that spirit that I try to give a factual record of the present situation.
In 1980, at the request of the Kent county council, the Kent police made expenditure cuts of £350,000 a year. They did that by implementing some mileage restrictions, training reductions, cutbacks in police dog provision and other in-house economies. These good housekeeping measures indicated that the Kent police were entering into the spirit of co-operating in the national interest in overall expenditure reductions. Some of these money-saving measures may have contributed to some policing improvements. For example, I think that the mileage restrictions led to more policemen in uniform being put on the beat. I know that that was welcomed in many village communities in the county.
Having made the 1980 cuts, the chief constable expressed the view at that time that those savings had removed all the so-called fat in the police budget and that any further cuts could be cuts into the bone and muscle of police operational efficiency. Despite that warning the police were asked by the Kent county council later in 1980 to prepare to make more cuts in their 1981 budget, and by more cuts it transpired that the county council meant a cut of 3 per cent., or a further £1.2 million per year.
Those cuts, which were finally ratified at a meeting of the county council in Maidstone this morning, are a much more serious matter. As most of them have been implemented since 1 January, it is possible to make a fairly accurate judgment as to their consequences. Among the £1.2 million worth of cuts the following major items stand out. First, there has been a £250,000 cut in the expenditure on police cadets. This effectively means the total abolition of the Kent police cadet intake for the future. Secondly, there has been a £390,000 cut in expenditure on traffic wardens and civilians who work for the police. Thirdly, there has been a £280,000 cut in police overtime.
I regard the abolition of the police cadet scheme as a regrettable and short-sighted economy measure, particulary when it comes at a time of so much unemployment among school leavers. Although I recognise that the Kent police could easily find an adequate number of good quality recruits among adult applicants for the force, there was always an element of community service in the police cadet training scheme. That paid a good dividend for the people of Kent by training school leavers to be the good police officers of the future.
No one wanted to abolish the scheme. I know that there was great regret among the leaders of the Kent county council at having to take that decision. I also know that the leader of the Conservative group on the council—the able and dynamic Sir John Grugeon—immediately after that decision had been taken wrote to the Home Secretary asking whether the scheme could be saved by an allocation of funds from the budget of the youth opportunities programme operated by the Manpower Services Commission. That was an eminently sensible suggestion. Surely at a time when the MSC has about £700 million to £800 million to spend on job-creating schemes for youngsters, the Secretary of State for Employment could instruct it to save the Kent police cadet scheme—which 554 until recently took up to 120 cadets a year—by making a grant from the youth opportunities programme budget of £200,000 to £300,000 a year.
Until his recent and well-deserved promotion, my hon. and learned Friend was a Minister at the Department of Employment. He is the ideal person to bridge the gap between the Home Office and the Department of Employment to determine whether they can look again at the suggestion put forward by Sir John Grugeon to save the Kent police cadet scheme.
I turn to the £390,000 cut in the civilian staff and traffic wardens who support the Kent police. That will be achieved by natural wastage of five civilians and one and a half traffic wardens each month. That sounds an acceptable level of reduction, until one realises that it means that those civilian jobs will have to be filled by policemen and policewomen at rates of pay that are about double those of civilian clerical staff. I can illustrate that point by taking an example from my constituency. In Broadstairs there is an efficient police process unit that prepares the summonses and paperwork for court cases. As is the normal pattern in each division of the police force in Kent, it is staffed by a chief inspector, one other police officer, and a number of civilian support staff.
Within the next few months that natural wastage will remove at least one, possibly two or three, of the civilian support staff. They will have to be replaced by police officers. If they are not replaced, the backlog, delays and inefficiencies that will affect court hearings will rise to an unacceptable level. The police officers who replace the clerical staff will have to earn their current salaries of about £7,000 a year. They will replace clerical civilians who earn about £3,000 to £3,500 a year. Those figures alone show that it is a false economy. I ask my hon. and learned Friend to look again at the position, not least because the decisions will be in conflict with instructions issued in past Home Office circulars.
I wish to refer briefly to the overtime reduction of £280,000 a year. I only wish to point out that the Kent police are already having their good nature and high sense of responsibility for public service trespassed upon by previous overtime reductions. In the last nine months of 1980 Kent CID officers worked overtime worth £72,000, for which they made no claim. It is a tribute to their morale and dedication to public service that they made no such claims, but it is not right that that situation should continue indefinitely. The year 1981 might put severe strains on police overtime. We have already seen a mercifully shortlived strike at the Kent coal fields which put police on 12-hour a day shifts. Later in the year the Open golf tournament will be held at Sandwich. I see that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees) is here, despite his heavy ministerial responsibilities. He knows, as all Kent Members know—and there is a good representation of them in the Chamber—that such special events put a heavy weight on the police in terms of the extra duties that they have to perform, and it is not reasonable to expect them to perform such duties and not claim overtime.
I hope that the Minister of State will take another look at the matter to see whether the overtime reduction plan can be reconsidered, because it can be achieved only at the expense of policing efficiency elsewhere in the county.
So far, I have concentrated on the financial aspects of the cuts, but I wish to draw the Minister's attention to one or two other slightly unsatisfactory political aspects of 555 issues relating to the cuts. I am unhappy, as are one or two other hon. Members, about the manner in which the Kent police authority's decision-making process on the cuts appears to have been subordinated to the decision-making process of the Kent county council's ruling political caucus.
As the House knows, a police authority is traditionally supposed to be above politics. That independent status is supposed to be guaranteed by the presence on a police authority of a number of magistrates. In Kent the authority comprises one-third magistrates and two-thirds county councillors. On 1 October last year, the Kent police authority had a meeting at which all eight magistrates were present. All of them, together with a majority of the county councillors present, voted against making any of the additional £l.2 million of cuts in the police budget.
But that decision was reversed at a subsequent meeting of the police authority. Prior to that, the chairman of the police authority, the vice-chairman and the chief constable had been summoned to an 8.30 am meeting with certain key county councillors at which it was made clear that an across-the-board 3 per cent. cut was KCC budget policy and had to be complied with, despite all other considerations, even in the case of the police. History shows that it was complied with. I do not wish to make any criticisms of the county council's political leaders who saw it as their duty to make across-the-board economies in the national interest in a difficult year. However, I want the Minister of State to extract an assurance from the KCC that such decision making will not set a precedent for future years. If it becomes accepted that a police authority can lose its independent status, perhaps other political caucuses with an extremist or anti-police outlook or a view that is much less constructive than that of the good men and true of the KCC will begin to tamper with police budgets and even police policy in a way that should not be tolerated.
I should like my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State to reassure the House and the people of Kent that the 3 per cent. cut in the Kent police budget is not contrary to the overall strategy of Government policy and is nothing more or less than a one-off exception, in a difficult year, to the Government's policy of increasing expenditure on, and generally supporting, the police.
The issue was first raised with me by Mr. J. W. Dorrell of Ramsgate who wrote to me saying that the dispute over the Kent police budget was proving difficult for him and many like him to comprehend. In a letter dated 8 December 1980, he said:
In the Conservative Manifesto a great deal was said about supporting and increasing the support for the forces of law and order. A view fully shared by the great majority of people. But here in Kent there appears to be a reversal of Government policy. For cuts are undoubtedly going to be made in the amount of finance available to the Police in Kent and this will impose terrible problems for the Chief Constable.There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Dorrell was making a fair point. He and many other members of the Kent public and, of course, members of the police service themselves need some reassurance from my hon. and learned Friend that Parliament is watching carefully what is happening in Kent and will not allow this disturbance there to continue. I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend will be able to give that reassurance tonight.
§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Patrick Mayhew)I very much welcome the opportunity that my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken) has given us this evening to consider the police service in Kent and the provision that is being made for it by the Kent county council. As a Member for a Kent constituency with a great admiration for the Kent county constabulary, I have, as my hon. Friend acknowledged, a double interest in this debate. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the support that he expressed for the Kent constabulary in particular, and I think that all in the House will wish to extend that support to the police service as a whole.
Before dealing with the points raised by my hon. Friend, I think that it would be helpful to take this opportunity to put on record the effects, since this Government took office, of the priority that we have given to the law and order services. As my hon. Friend rightly reminded us, the Government set great store by the maintenance of law and order, with the intention—which has been achieved—of strengthening the forces that secure the maintenance of law and order.
In May 1979 the total strength of the police service in England and Wales stood at 111,493, and many forces had substantial deficiencies. At the end of 1980, the total strength was 117,423—its highest ever—an increase of nearly 6,000. There are now no provincial police forces with seious deficiencies, and most are at full strength.
Over the same period the Kent constabulary increased from 2,730 to 2,871—an increase of 141 officers. It is now at full strength, and I understand that there is a satisfactory waiting list of people who want to join. I understand from the chief constable that he is now able to choose from adult candidates in recruiting to an extent that has not been the case for a long time.
Our determination to ensure a strong police service is combined with our commitment to ensure that the most effective use is made of public sector resources. In these days of resource restraint, chief constables and their police authorities are well aware of this, I know. The Government want to continue to provide as far as practicable for the strengthening of the law and order services. I am sure that this reflects the wishes of the community. I know I am sure that this reflects the wishes of the community. I know that it is so in Kent.
But we are aware of the problems faced by local authorities at a time when, in order to combat inflation, we as a Government have had to seek reductions in both Government and local authority expenditure. I know that my hon. Friend shares the Government's commitment to that overriding objective—which leads to the defeat of inflation—as well as any other supporter of the Government.
In these circumstances, we recognise that the local authorities and the law and order services cannot be regarded as wholly exempt from the general search for economies. The use of resources everywhere must be subjected to scrutiny to ensure the maximum cost-effectiveness and efficiency.
In all questions of the use of resources a key role, of course, is played by Her Majesty's inspectors of constabulary. They have the duty of advising the Home Secretary on police efficiency. Their regular contact with chief constables, together with their annual inspections, enable them to provide professional advice about police 557 organisation and methods. This is of direct value to the chief constables and the force, as well as to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in fulfilling his statutory duties.
I understand from Her Majesty's chief inspector that the effective use of resources will be a major theme of all inspections this year. This concern is reflected in a wide range of research led by the Home Office on police effectiveness, which is now in progress. It includes projects in patrolling, community policing and preventive policing, crime detection methods and their effectiveness, and the work of traffic divisions.
We must be particularly concerned to ensure that the best use is made of manpower, including civilian staff. Thus it is that before establishment increases are approved my right hon. Friend seeks assurances from police authorities that funds will be available to recruit to the new posts, and that strength will be maintained at a level designed to ensure that police officers are used on duties requiring their skills and training and will not be diverted to duties that could be undertaken at less cost by civilians. Although in some cases this may result in the need to employ additional civilians, the alternative of deploying police officers on clerical duties is clearly undesirable, except as a short-term expedient.
Suitable assurances were sought when my right hon. Friend authorised an increase of 51 posts in the Kent force establishment in the financial year 1979–80, primarily to enable additional officers to be deployed on the beat, where they are most needed. I understand that about 200 police officers have been allocated to the beat as a result of the additional manpower resources that have recently become available. My right hon. Friend received assurances from the police authority that it would maintain the strength of its civilian staff at an appropriate level.
The responsibility for the use of police resources is shared between the police authority, the chief constable and the Home Secretary, and their respective powers and duties are set out in the Police Act 1964. The police authority has the primary responsibility for maintaining an adequate and efficient police force for its area. It is the police authority's rsponsibility to administer the force budget, which it naturally does in liaison with the chief constable.
In doing this, police authorities are obviously in close contact with their county councils, which themselves must decide on the deployment of the resources available to them among the various services within their sphere of responsibility. In each area, the county council's allocation of resources to the police has to take account of both national priorities and local needs, while fulfilling the obligation to maintain an efficient force. Once the county council has concluded, with the police authority, how much can be made available for the police force, it is the responsibility of the police authority and the chief constable to consider how best to allocate the resources and make any savings which may be necessary.
My hon. Friend referred to the reductions that are to be made in the next financial year in the police budget. They include no further intake of cadets; a reduction by natural wastage in civilian and traffic warden strength; reduced spending on goods and services, including a further reduction in petrol consumption; and a reduction in the amount of overtime worked. The financial and other consequences of these reductions will clearly vary.
558 There is no reason to think that the Kent force has not been faithfully supported by the county council. I am advised that the police authority's share of the county council's total budget increased from 8.8 per cent. in 1975–76 to 11 per cent. in 1979–80. I am also advised that police expenditure between 1975–76 and 1979–80 shows a growth, in real terms, of 8.4 per cent., which compares favourably with 5.3 per cent. for the average of other Kent committees. Where uncovenanted expenditure has arisen from events such as the mass picket—if that is the right word; I am not sure that it is—at Sheerness last year, the cost has been found from the county contingency fund.
My hon. Friend is particularly concerned about the effect of the budget reductions on the police cadets. He has spoken warmly of the police cadets. I endorse what he said about their value. In the past, when recruitment into the police service was not as high as it has been in the past 18 months, the cadet corps provided a useful source of manpower for police forces. Many who entered as cadets have gone on to achieve the highest ranks within the service. But there have been changes in the recruitment situation, in the attitudes of young people of an age to join the cadet corps, and in the greater opportunities they now have for further education. Many forces are finding, without pressure from police authorities, that in present recruiting circumstances they can take advantage of the waiting lists of well-qualified candidates from outside the service and reduce the size of their cadet force.
Without reflecting in any way on the quality of the young people who join the cadets, I am advised that opinion is divided on whether it is possible to generalise as to whether cadets or outside candidates go on to make the best police officers. A police advisory board working party is now studying the whole question—the need for cadets, their value to the service, their recruitment and training—and I hope that its report will provide a sound basis on which informed decisions can be taken on all aspects of the cadet system including, perhaps, any additional way in which it might be financed. I note what my hon. Friend said about the youth opportunities programme.
While the cuts proposed involve a reduction in the amount of overtime worked, I should like to make it clear to the House that in the event of unforeseen commitments, such as a large scale murder inquiry, additional funds would be made available from the county council contingency fund.
As for cuts in civilian staff, we appreciate the need in any large organisation, whether it be local authority or Civil Service, to scrutinise the deployment of manpower carefully to ensure that valuable staff are not being used to fill inessential posts. I should emphasise that the proposed cuts do not involve redundancies but are designed to achieve reduced numbers by natural wastage, that is by not replacing civilian staff who resign or retire. But I should emphasise that we are well aware of the undertaking which the police authority gave, before my right hon. Friend agreed to increase the police officer establishment, to maintain civilian strength at an appropriate level.
I can assure my hon. Friend that the forthcoming annual inspection of the force will provide Her Majesty's inspector of constabulary with the opportunity of assessing the effect of the cuts at first hand, before reporting on the efficiency of the force to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. That is the way in which my right hon. Friend 559 is able to exercise his part in this shared responsibility for the maintenance of proper police efficiency throughout the country.
The arrangements under the Police Act provide for a working partnership in responsibility for the police between the Home Secretary, the police authority and the chief constable. Some of the Home Secretary's responsibility is discharged by himself, some by officials of his Department, and some—a good deal—by Her Majesty's inspector.
My hon. Friend had observations to make about the Kent county council. He varied between describing it as a caucus and as good men and true. From my experience 560 and from what I have gleaned in my short tenure of the office I hold in the Home Office, I believe that the county council has faithfully supported the Kent constabulary. I have every reason to believe that it will continue to do so. It shares the objectives of my hon. Friend, myself and the Government. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is anxious that no falling off shall occur in the efficiency of the police service in Kent. I do not believe that any substantial falling off is to be anticipated.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for having drawn attention to these matters, and I hope that I have been able to give him some reassurance in my reply.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-six minutes to Twelve o'clock.