Rebuke for Government over claims to protect police funding

CHANCELLOR George Osborne and Home Secretary Theresa May have come under fire for claiming that police funding would be protected, when tens of millions of pounds were being cut from forces across England and Wales.

In the Autumn Statement, Mr Osborne said there would be “no cuts in the police budgets at all” and there would be “real-terms protection for police funding”.

However, the UK Statistics Authority has ruled that budgets for police forces in England and Wales are being cut by £160m in real-terms between 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Mrs May dismissed the figure when it was quoted in House of Commons Library research, but Sir Andrew Dilnot, chairman of the statistics watchdog, has written to Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham to say he backed the analysis.

“Having reviewed the Written Ministerial Statement, more could have been done to provide greater clarity about the data in the Statement and the Police Grant Report and how they relate,” he said.

Mr Burnham has called on the Chancellor to apologise for misleading MPs, describing the letter as a “very embarrassing rebuke”.

Mr Osborne “personally promised police forces that their budgets would be protected”, said Mr Burnham. “We now know that that is not the case. Government funding is being cut in real-terms and the local precepts won’t make up the shortfall.”

The Chancellor should “apologise to the House, correct the record and find extra money to honour his promise”, he added.

Mark Smith, Chairman of Essex Police Federation, said: “We knew. We said that what they’ve said on there being no more cuts wasn’t true. We all knew that. We said it. And I think people need to start realising, they need to start listening to us.

“The cuts do continue because they’re cuts by the back door. For instance, they wanted more money put into counter-terrorism. There wasn’t any new money, we had to top slice the budgets to put that money. They want more firearms officers. There’s no new money for the firearms officers, it has to come out of the existing budgets again. So really that’s cuts to policing for these specialist roles without any new money. But they don’t say that do they?”

Police minister Mike Penning has said: “As the Chancellor set out in the Autumn Statement, overall police spending will be protected in real terms. Police spending will increase from nearly £11.4 billion this year to £12.3 billion at the end of the Spending Review period.

“This is an increase of just under eight per cent, or £900 million in cash terms, and a protection in real terms over the course of this Parliament – if Police and Crime Commissioners maximise their precept.”