HC Deb 23 February 2004 vol 418 cc7-9
5. Mr. Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)

What discussions he has had with the Gloucestershire police authority about its budget for the forthcoming year. [155748]

The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety(Ms Hazel Blears)

I have not had any formal discussions with Gloucestershire police authority about its final budget for next year. I understand that it has now set a final budget of £92 million for 2004–05, an increase of 6 per cent. over this year.

Mr. Robertson

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but my office spoke to the chief constable this morning and he told us that the increase in the precept of four times the rate of inflation that the authority is having to introduce will not prevent him from having to transfer serving police officers into civilian work, in order to cover tasks relating to the new police complaints procedure, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and so forth. The Government might increase the grant to the Gloucestershire constabulary, but the amount of extra work that they are asking it to do means that the chief constable has to take serving police officers off the streets and keep them in offices.

Ms Blears

The hon. Gentleman will know that there has been a significant increase in support for the police over the past three years—in fact, a 30 per cent. increase for policing in this country, and a 17 per cent. increase in real terms. If the formula had been applied this year in regard to the hon. Gentleman's own authority, it would have received only £56.9 million, but because there is a flat-rate allocation, it has actually received £58.9 million, which is an extra £2 million. It has also been allocated a range of specific grants, and has done particularly well out of the Airwave grant that has been made available. I am also pleased to be able to tell him that I have written today to his colleague, the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), to outline a further payment of special grant in relation to the policing of RAF Fairford, which I am sure will be gratefully received.

Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire) (Con)

Now that Gloucestershire has set its budget, which comes on top of an increase in precept of more than 90 per cent. in the past three years, when will the Government sort themselves out and stop giving conflicting messages over the capping criteria? Should Gloucestershire and the other 42 police authorities listen to the Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire, who has threatened to cap rises of more than 5 per cent., or to the Home Secretary, who has apparently said that he will be concerned only about rises of more than 15 per cent? Now that we are in the last week of February and police authorities up and down the country are setting their budgets for next year, is it not time that they knew what the capping criteria were? Is it not time that we had joined-up government?

Ms Blears

That is exactly what we have. The hon. Gentleman will know that we have been working extremely closely with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and that we have been speaking with one voice in saying to local government and police authorities that we expect them to make reasonable, justified and prudent decisions in consultation with their local communities. In the case of Gloucestershire, we are looking at an increase of 27p a week on a band D property in relation to policing in that area. The hon. Gentleman will also know that we are trying to ensure that local police authorities take into account the views of their local community, and that we have asked them to set proper prudent budgets that they can justify to the community.