HC Deb 17 January 2000 vol 342 cc539-41
2. Mr. Crispin Blunt (Reigate)

What estimate he has made of the impact on police budgets of the Public Safety Radio Communications Project. [103962]

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw)

Some £5 million has been provided from the police grant for the next financial year. Once the service is fully operational, the cost is estimated to be around £150 million per year at today's prices, which will be equivalent to some 2 per cent. of police authority budgets. The cost will be reduced by the £50 million subsidy that I announced last September, and will also be taken into account in the overall level of resources provided for the police service in future years. The new digital radio and data system is of great importance to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of front-line police officers.

Mr. Blunt

While one accepts that the new system will improve the police's communication capacity, does not part of the need for it derive from the fact that the Government have sold off part of the radio spectrum? The Home Secretary mentioned costs of £150 million a year, but the total cost will be some £1.5 billion, of which the Government will produce the generous amount of £50 million from the central budget. When will Surrey have the benefit of the new radio system, and what will be the consequences for Surrey's budget of having to pay for that Government-imposed requirement? Over the next few years, Surrey will move from having the best crime prevention rates in the country and a good funding settlement to having the worst funding settlement—the Home Secretary has offered to meet me to discuss that.

Mr. Straw

The hon. Gentleman is misinformed about the background to the project. It has arisen not because we have sold off the radio spectrum but because the Government whom he supported agreed, in the mid-1990s, that the spectrum for the police service should change under the terms of an EU directive. A digital radio and data system that will cover the whole country is a vital need for the police service. It will become operational in all police services by 2004, although I cannot give him a precise date for Surrey. The cost will be £150 million a year, which adds up to £1.5 billion over the life of the project. We have already found £50 million from the capital modernisation fund for the immediate costs and, of course, as we agree funding for the police service—including for Surrey—for subsequent years, we will take fully into account the costs of the capital radio project.

Dr. George Turner (North-West Norfolk)

In my experience, the only people who will not welcome this investment in proper technological support for the police are the criminals. If we ensure that the police have such support, they will do their job much more effectively. Does my right hon. Friend accept that, in the past 20 years, the pattern of investment in all technology has been patchy and that this Government need to address those areas in which money was not invested in the past to try to bring the police force up to a reasonable standard within a reasonable time?

Mr. Straw

I entirely accept my hon. Friend's comments. Investment in technology for the police service has been made in the past. Some of that investment has been successful, but some has not, not least because the decisions have been left to individual police services, which has sometimes led to incompatible radio and IT systems. That is why it is essential for the future that, as far as possible, large IT projects such as the police radio project are co-ordinated on a national basis.

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey)

It is true that the radio communications project is welcomed by the police and that a contribution will be made to it from central funds. However, can the Home Secretary yet tell us whether he has made a decision about future general funding to pay for the project and for the police recruitment that he plans? He has announced £35 million from the crime-fighting fund for next year; it will cost at least £150 million to recruit 5,000 police officers, let alone to keep them on after that. When will both the Met—whose outgoing Commissioner has warned of the problem—and the rest of the police forces know that they have the money guaranteed to ensure that they have a real-terms increase in funds, not a real-terms cut?

Mr. Straw

The only period in the past 10 years when there was a real-terms cut in police service funding occurred in, I think, 1995–96, under the previous Administration. We have set out firm spending plans for the year 2000–01. Additionally, for that year, we have allocated this extra £35 million as the first slice to pay for the 5,000 additional officers. The money for the following years will be announced as part of the spending review 2000, which will be announced later this year.

Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale)

Will not 80 per cent. of the £1.4 billion that this important radio project costs be paid by police authorities, through the common police services budget? That decision has already been taken, but the costs come on top of the shortfall of £1.2 billion in police funding over the next three years predicted by the police service forecasting group, working on behalf of the police authorities. I think that the right hon. Gentleman will receive the group's findings any day now. They show that the police service cannot afford to meet the radio project costs without further cuts in the number of police officers.

When will the Home Secretary face up to the reality of the worst funding crisis for our police service in living memory? The issue may not have prompted the press mauling that the right hon. Gentleman has suffered recently in connection with other matters, but if he does not punch his weight more effectively with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he will be on the canvas and counted out.

Mr. Straw

That was a rather ropy question.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that that 80 per cent. of the costs will be paid from the central police grant and that deductions will be made in the grant. That is the only rational way to fund the project. However, I have already made clear what funding will be announced for 2001 and thereafter.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the most difficult time that police forces face. In response, I can do no better than to quote Mr. Paul Scott-Lee, the chief constable of Suffolk. Speaking about our crime-fighting fund and the 5,000 extra officers, he said that his force had had its most difficult time about five years ago. That was when real-terms spending on the police went down, not up.