Peter Aldous welcomes Suffolk’s police funding increase of 6.7%, with hotspot response finance of £1 million, but calls on the Government to speed up the long-promised funding review to address the fact that Suffolk is the fourth lowest funded force in the UK, overturn the funding cut for the safer streets initiative and amend the Data Protection Act 2018 to reduce the bureaucratic burden of pre-charge evidence redaction.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am most grateful for that clarification.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire for setting out the Government’s proposals for the police funding settlement for 2024-25. Suffolk is due to receive an increase in core funding of 6.7%, and hotspot response finance of £1 million. Those settlements are welcome, but I will briefly raise three issues, two of which have already been addressed in some detail.
The first of those issues is the funding review. At present, Suffolk constabulary is the fourth lowest funded force in the UK, and as such, we are looking for the long-promised funding review to be carried out as soon as possible. Many of the challenges that we face are similar to what we have heard is happening in Cornwall. At Home Office questions on 27 November, I asked my right hon. Friend for an update on the progress of the review. He responded by stating:
“I completely accept the need for a new police funding formula”
and said that his team had been
“working on it extremely hard, with colleagues across government”
and that he hoped
“to have something…to say on the topic shortly”.—[Official Report, 27 November 2023; Vol. 741, c. 545.]
It is in that context that I would be most grateful for a further update on the progress of the review and on when we can expect the draft proposals for the new formula. There is a worry, as we have heard, that the review is being kicked into the long grass. I hope that the Minister can allay that concern in summing up.
Let me come to my second point. For police and crime commissioners such as Tim Passmore in Suffolk, budgeting presents considerable challenges. He and other PCCs are entitled to expect consistency in Government commitments. In that respect, the changes in funding for the safer streets initiative are disappointing. Initially, the Home Office offered Suffolk £1.4 million. It then reduced that by £400,000, and it is now taking away a further £180,000. That approach is, I suggest, unfair, and it penalises smaller forces such as Suffolk constabulary, which, through no fault of its own, now faces a funding gap without any explanation or justification being given. I therefore ask my right hon. Friend to review that decision, which affects not just Suffolk, but forces all across the country.
Finally, as we have heard, this is not just about money. A policeman’s lot can be made considerably easier and, I hope, happier, if red tape is reduced. In that regard, I applaud the work of Ben Hudson, the secretary and treasurer of the Suffolk Police Federation, who is ably supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) in their campaign to amend the Data Protection Act 2018 so as to mitigate the impact of the bureaucratic burden of evidence redaction that is imposed on police officers when they seek charging decisions from the Crown Prosecution Service. A further amendment to the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill is being tabled in the other place by the noble Baroness Morgan. I urge the Government to consider this matter closely and do all they can to accept those measures. Doing so would free up thousands of policing hours every year, as pre-charge redactions would not be required, and would enable chief constables to better utilise allocated budgets, which, as we have heard today, are restricted and not quite as bountiful as we would all hope.
I hope that, in winding up, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), can allay the concerns that I have expressed: we need that long-overdue funding review; we need funding commitments to be adhered to and kept; and finally, as I have said, please, let there be less red tape.