Police Funding: North-east England
Tuesday, 13 October 2026
Contributions
[Pete Wishart in the Chair ]
Pete Wishart (in the Chair)Scottish National Party
My apologies for my tardiness. I call Luke Akehurst to move the motion.
Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)Labour
I beg to move, That this House has considered police funding in the North East. It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, MrI know that I will not be the only Member in the room who was deeply disturbed to see the scenes emerging out of Cleveland earlier this year. I pay tribute to PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)Labour
I, too, would like to send my thoughts to the families of PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough. Matthew was a coach at my son’s football club. His loss and the loss of Tom have been felt very deeply across our region, but their tragic deaths did not come out of the blue. They were a result of systematic underfunding. Does my hon. Friend agree that the funding formula has become so perverse, so warped, so broken, that funding is now inverse to the levels of crime we are seeing in our communities, and that the north-east and Cleveland are losing out as a result?
My hon. Friend has anticipated the general thrust of my remarks. I join him in paying tribute to PCs Matthew Blades and Tom Clough, who lost their lives trying to protect the public. While the Labour Government were right to provide an additional £2 million for Cleveland police in response, it struck me that the challenges facing Cleveland are not unique in the north-east region. They are faced across the Durham, Cleveland and Northumbria police forces areas. Police numbers were cut in the years after 2010. Public safety has therefore deteriorated, and our constituents are paying the price. It terrifies me to think that communities like those I represent could ever face a breakdown in law and order of the kind that occurred temporarily in Cleveland. It drew me to ask the question: why was our region left so under-resourced that it became vulnerable to such pressures? Sadly, I can only conclude that the answer lies in an ideological choice by the Conservative party during the 14 years in which it was in government that places such as North Durham were not deserving of the necessary police resources, despite the severe social and economic challenges that our communities have faced following decades of deindustrialisation. Frankly, that decision should be regarded as nothing short of a national scandal. As I hope to demonstrate today, it has reduced safety, security and opportunity for the people of our region. The numbers paint a damning picture of how badly the last Conservative Government failed the north-east of England. Our three police forces all sit in the top four across England and Wales in terms of percentage reduction in police numbers between 2010 and 2024.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)Democratic Unionist Party
I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. I wanted to come along to support him in his demands, along with his colleagues from the north-east. Unfortunately, I am sorry to say that police underfunding does not just happen in the north-east; it happens to us in Northern Ireland as well. Our police numbers are down and our funding is scarce. At the same time, in the last year, the Police Service of Northern Ireland has been able to detain and seize £0.5 million-worth of drugs. I am a great believer in community policing, and I know the hon. Gentleman has the same belief. Does he agree that it will suffer? It is the frontline and the face of the police. Does he feel that the Minister’s response must place a real emphasis on community policing as a priority?
Obviously, I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s knowledge and expertise of the unique policing challenges in Northern Ireland, but I appreciate his support for north-east England in this debate and his points about community policing. I do not believe it is a coincidence that, over the same period, Durham, Cleveland and Northumbria recorded the three largest increases in crime, excluding fraud, of any police force areas in England and Wales. Today, County Durham still has 120 fewer police officers than in 2010, equating to 102 full-time roles and a decrease of 6.7%. Across the whole north-east, 578 officers have been lost since 2010, a fall of 7.8%. In stark contrast, the areas that saw the greatest increase in police numbers were Surrey, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Thames Valley. If one were being cynical, one might point out that those are all areas that, on the whole, had Conservative MPs when the Conservative party was in government, and generally greater levels of prosperity and lower levels of policing demand than many of the communities represented in this room. Although officer numbers across the country sit 1.5% higher than in 2010, the regional disparity in which communities benefited from increased police numbers is clear and has grown. That prompts the question: why did successive Tory Governments deem those places to be most deserving of frontline police presence? Why did politicians in Westminster at that time decide that working-class families in North Durham were less deserving of police protection than people living in more prosperous areas with lower crime levels, where police officer numbers were increased? To compare the demand that different police forces face, we can look at the measure of police recorded crime per officer. In County Durham, there were 42 recorded crimes per officer in 2025-26, which is much higher than the national average of 36. If our county received the same funding per recorded crime as the national average, it would be £29 million a year better funded. Not only are policing numbers on the ground lower than 2010, but our area faces more incidents requiring police time. During July 2026, Durham Constabulary received more than 10,000 emergency 999 calls, an increase of 11% compared with the same month the previous year. Demand remained high throughout the summer, with crime-related incidents more than 14% above normal levels in August. Antisocial behaviour related to off-road bikes, e-bikes and scooters poses another challenge in policing in County Durham. My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy), who cannot be here, has been campaigning on this issue over the past year, as have many others in the room. I commend her for highlighting the support that police officers in our area need to tackle this issue blighting our communities. Just last week, she observed 70 illegal bikes and scooters being crushed after being confiscated by Durham Constabulary. Police chiefs in our area tell me that there were more than 1,000 more incidents each month over the summer than for the same period in 2025, representing two full days of additional demand each month. In particular, high levels of deprivation in our county translate into higher police demand related to mental health crises, drug or alcohol abuse and cases of missing children. In the Durham and Northumbria police force areas, officers face the especially challenging combination of high levels of deprivation and extremely rural areas. It takes more money to police rural areas, due to additional travel costs and the need to maintain smaller, less efficient police buildings. I hope the Minister will set out what consideration has been given to the additional needs of police forces in rural areas that also have high levels of deprivation, and how the Government are supporting them with the unique challenges that that combination poses. Although the Durham force has managed to maintain performance in responding to public requests for help, despite severe challenges, in other areas demand is affecting performance. According to the latest inspection, Durham had the highest rate of repeat domestic abuse incidents per thousand of the population of anywhere in England and Wales. Of 188 priority domestic abuse incidents, 118 did not meet the attendance target. That is shocking evidence of the scale of demand facing our police force and why it needs the resources to do more to protect vulnerable people and prevent abuse. Can the Minister please set out what assessment the Government have made of this particular problem and say how they will ensure that those experiencing domestic abuse in my constituency and across the region receive the same level of support as domestic abuse victims anywhere else in the country? My message to my North Durham constituents is this: I will not allow our area to be denied the support that it needs and deserves from the state. A Labour Government will always stand up for our area and I look forward to hearing the Minister set out how we are doing that later on in the debate. Having told Members what the numbers show, let me tell them what the impact is on typical constituents in North Durham. For a family in Stanley, it means worrying about their children being the victims of antisocial behaviour on their walk home from school. For a small business on Chester-le-Street Front Street, it means accepting that shoplifting is an inevitable cost of doing business. For a farmer near Lanchester, it means having no support to fend off perpetrators of agricultural crime who damage or steal their expensive machinery. For residents of Craghead, it means worrying that stretched police resources might prevent the prompt response and support they deserve when a crime occurs. The consequences of stretched policing resources were hammered home to me in Parliament just last month when I hosted a group of women and girls from the Just for Women Centre in Stanley and St Bede’s school in Lanchester. In our discussion, the group highlighted their public safety concerns, recalling that they no longer feel safe walking home at night. They were clear that rather than simply catching perpetrators when awful crimes happen, our priority should be to prevent harm in the first place. I firmly believe that visible neighbourhood policing has an important part to play in preventing violence against women and girls, and in helping women to feel safe in their communities. I would be grateful if the Minister could specifically reflect on the safety of women and girls in the north-east of England and update the House on efforts in our region to tackle the scourge of VAWG and on any assessment that the Government have made of the gendered impact of the previous policing cuts in our area. Of course, policing is not just about officers patrolling the streets in our neighbourhood; when the worst happens, it is also important to have enough officers in the response team to deal with the fallout. Too often, police shortages have meant that when major incidents occur, officers are pulled out of neighbourhood policing to respond, leaving our communities with a reduced police presence. In County Durham, such support for response teams from neighbourhood policing was provided on 129 occasions in August and 233 occasions in September. Will the Minister set out the Government’s thinking on the balance between neighbourhood policing and response teams, in particular explaining how she will ensure that when incidents occur, the towns and villages in my constituency and across our region are not stripped of their neighbourhood policing? I now come to the rallying cry of this debate. As MPs from across the north-east of England, we are here today to call for more resources from central Government to deal with the challenges that our communities face. What we need is recognition that, because of decisions by previous Tory Governments, we are starting from a lower baseline of officer numbers than we should be. That is why I am calling for Ministers to deliver additional police numbers to the north-east on top of what is already promised through the neighbourhood policing guarantee, to reverse the cuts to policing in our area that have compromised our safety since 2010. I welcome the Labour Government allowing Durham exceptional flexibility over our policing precept in order to prevent further avoidable cuts to our policing presence. I commend our police and crime commissioner, Joy Allen, for her consistent advocacy for policing across County Durham and Darlington, and for taking the difficult decision to propose a modest precept increase to ensure that residents are protected from crime and ASB. However, she has rightly pointed out that because our area has a low council tax base, the amount of money that we can raise locally to invest in policing is very limited. About 70% of County Durham properties are in council tax bands A and B, and I note that I am standing next to a proponent of council tax reform for those reasons, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash). Although a 1% council tax increase generates £1.9 million in Surrey, the same change in County Durham would raise only £500,000. The safety of my constituents should not depend on the value of property in their postcode. In fact, it is areas such as ours that need investment most desperately. I know that the Police Federation, which represents 145,000 serving officers, has highlighted that reliance on council tax precepts risks a postcode lottery of funding. The Police Federation has called for a long-term funding settlement that takes that into account. Does the Minister think it is fair that local areas are expected to raise money for policing themselves when the areas that have the least ability to raise money are the same that, because of their levels of deprivation, need a police presence most? In making this case, I am optimistic about our Labour Government, who have already shown that they care about these issues and want to deliver a fairer settlement for the north-east. Nationally, the Labour Government have been robust in making the case for a visible police presence on our streets to improve public safety, backed by a neighbourhood policing guarantee to deliver a named police officer for every community. Police funding is increasing, and after the unrest in Middlesbrough the Government acted swiftly and firmly to deliver more funding for Cleveland’s police force. The Home Secretary is also committed to a wider review of the police funding formula to ensure fairness. Will the Minister confirm when that review will happen, whether it will consider incidents of crime and ASB and whether we will see a real cash increase in funding for our north-east police forces during this Parliament? As the Minister responds, I urge her not to lose sight of the fact that the north-east is still dealing with the consequences of years of disproportionate policing cuts. I hope she can outline what role that context plays in the Government’s thinking on the fairness of the current formulas, and how she is ensuring that this review properly takes into account the policing demand and lack of funding so clearly presented by our region. Our constituents are not asking for special treatment; they demand that they are afforded the same level of protection as people elsewhere in the country. The safety of a family in Stanley, Chester-le-Street, Annfield Plain, Sacriston, Pelton, South Moor or Craghead should matter to politicians just as much as that of a family anywhere else in the country. That is why the Government must ensure a fair funding settlement that accounts for the challenges facing our communities to ensure policing that the public can have confidence in. Today, we are sending a clear message: the Government must do more to ensure that policing in the north-east of England is adequately funded to deliver for our constituents.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)Labour
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this very important debate and setting out so clearly, as he did, the issues that have brought so many north-east colleagues to this debate. I also thank those who serve in our north-east police forces for all they do to keep us safe every day. Everyone has a right to feel safe and secure in their communities, especially in local areas such as our high streets, parks and town centres, as well as in their homes. However, time and again constituents tell me how antisocial behaviour such as theft and off-road bikes have caused chaos in our local communities, leaving my constituents feeling intimidated and unsafe. I know the issue of illegal off-road and e-bikes is of particular concern to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham. I was very glad to attend a roundtable that he organised in his constituency just last month, held in the beautiful Beamish museum with partners from policing, local government and the community, where we discussed these very issues. The previous Government considered many acts of criminality as low-level behaviour and failed to act. However, I know how even small acts of antisocial behaviour can compound to severely damage how a community views itself. Many feel as if respect for law and order has simply disappeared, with bobbies on the beat becoming a rarer sight. I therefore support this Labour Government’s Crime and Policing Act 2026, which is about taking back our streets, restoring respect for law and order, giving police the powers they need to tackle crime and providing support for victims of antisocial behaviour. The Act takes stronger action against antisocial behaviour through the new respect orders, longer dispersal powers and tougher penalties for breaches of public spaces protection orders. The Government have also promised to rebuild neighbourhood policing through additional investment in officers and PCSOs, ensuring that every community has named, contactable officers focused on tackling local crime and antisocial behaviour. That is all good. I pay tribute to the Northumbria police and crime commissioner Susan Dungworth and her predecessor, the now Mayor of the North East, Kim McGuinness, who have been excellent at tackling crime as well as identifying the root causes of crime—notwithstanding, as I said, the legacy of the previous Government. Despite our region including communities with some of the highest levels of deprivation and demand in England and Wales, police numbers in the north-east, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham in his opening speech, have fallen by a shocking 8% since 2010, when the Conservatives and Lib Dems embarked on their damaging programme of austerity. That translates to 578 fewer police officers in the north-east, including a loss of 255 in Northumbria police, who serve my constituency. Forces in wealthier areas can raise substantially more, as we have heard, through the police precept. However, north-east forces cannot, due to lower property values and a far weaker tax base. That creates a greater reliance on central Government. Northumbria police in particular has the lowest police precept in England and Wales. That means that residents already contribute less through local taxation than in any other area, with Government grants making up 79% of the budget. Even where police and crime commissioners increase the precept by the maximum permitted amount, the financial yield generated is significantly lower than in forces with larger and more affluent tax bases. That contributes to Northumbria police force having a budget that spends below average per head in England and Wales. In 2026-27, Northumbria police spent £50 less per head than Merseyside police, and £147 per head less than the Metropolitan police in London. While I do not want to oversimplify the matter, and I understand that both of those other areas face their own unique challenges, how will our region ever gain economic parity without parity of security? Fundamentally, it is an issue of fairness. Communities should not receive less effective policing simply because they live in areas with lower property values. Future funding reforms should explicitly recognise deprivation, demand and limited local revenue raising capacity so as not to risk penalising the very areas with the greatest policing needs. Like many colleagues in this debate, I campaigned heavily at the last election on issues of antisocial behaviour, and I genuinely believe that the Government have shown that they are willing to act. I commend them for that, but we must make sure that no one region of the country is left behind, and I sincerely hope that the Minister will consider the funding issues raised today.
Order. If we all try to take about six minutes, everybody will get in sufficiently. I will not put a time limit on just now, but we will see how we get on.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)Labour
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this really important debate. First of all, I pay tribute to PC Matthew Blades, PC Tom Clough and PC Jess Turnbull, three police officers who lost their lives in the line of duty. Jess Turnbull, who was killed only two or three miles from where I live, was 18 years of age when she lost her life. She had her life ahead of her. She joined the police force because she wanted to change the world and help people and she died at the age of 18 on 8 June. We should always remember the dangers that individual police officers and members of the police force put themselves in in the normal course of their duty. Previous speakers have set out in detail the scale of the cuts faced by police forces across the north-east, so I do not intend to repeat those precise and excellent facts and figures. But it is fair to say that the years of Conservative austerity had a devastating impact on policing in our region—absolutely devastating. It should not be forgotten that it went far beyond cuts to police budgets. Austerity reached into every corner of public life. The Crown Prosecution Service, prisons, the Probation Service, mental health services, education and countless other services were cut to the very bone. As those services weakened, police officers were increasingly left to pick up the pieces, facing growing demand with ever-dwindling resources. At the same time, crime itself has evolved. The digital revolution has brought enormous opportunities, but the criminals have adapted just as well too. Police forces have been expected to tackle sophisticated online crime, combat the spread of misinformation, and manage an ever-growing burden of statutory checks and administrative tasks, all without the resources required to meet those challenges. It is all about resources and financing. Again, I want to place on record my sincere thanks to the police officers serving my Blyth and Ashington constituency. Just for the record, my constituency is based in Northumberland, which, for those who are not aware, is cradled between the Scottish border and North Tyneside. It is the political no man’s land. I think Ministers generally forget where we are and have not really adapted the financing required for the police service that we desperately need. I feel sorry for some of these police officers, who go to work day in, day out, facing the problems they have in Ashington, Blyth, Bedlington, Newbiggin and Choppington, because of the lack of financial resource, with resources in general facing an uphill battle. I want to mention Inspector Dawn Sykes and Inspector Wayne Daniels, who serve our communities with great professionalism and dedication in the most unbelievable circumstances. I thank Northumbria’s police and crime commissioner, Susan Dungworth, who has worked tirelessly to ensure that the priorities of local people remain at the heart of policing. I want to focus the rest of my remarks on what budget constraints have meant for the communities I represent. South-east Northumberland contains three of the county’s four largest towns, yet two of them have no police station at all, so members of the public cannot simply walk into one and speak to an officer. That is a direct consequence of funding pressures. Two of the largest towns in Northumberland have no manned police stations—the police stations are still there, but there is nobody in them. The situation gets worse. The police station change has an immense impact on the people of south-east Northumberland. I will give a simple example. A constituent noticed that his neighbour’s porch light had been on continuously for several days. Concerned for their welfare, he phoned 101 to request a welfare check. After waiting almost an hour for his call to be answered, he gave up and went to Ashington police station, in the centre of the town, in person. When he arrived, he found a sign stating that the station was closed to the public, with an arrow directing him to a telephone on the wall so he could ring 101 again. That is unreal, but it is something that has happened right throughout the country, by the way: the closure of major police stations in major towns, right across the UK. We rightly pride ourselves on a system of policing by consent, but we also rely on the good will and public spirit of people such as my constituent. After an experience like that, I suspect he might think again about taking similar action. Earlier this year, the custody suite in Bedlington closed, with the police citing funding constraints. That was another blow to local policing. Officers who make arrests in my patch must now transport detainees to Newcastle for processing, taking valuable police time and resources off the streets at critical times. We see that in my patch all too often. An already stretched police force is routinely called upon to respond to threats, the likes of—
Order. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be concluding his remarks so that his regional colleagues get a chance to say a few words.
Thank you very much, Mr Wishart. We see lots of things occurring due to lack of resourcing in my patch. We have masked motorbike riders, shoplifting, antisocial behaviour, county line drug dealing—it goes on and on. The police need the resources required to tackle not just those types of crimes but basic crimes as well.
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)Labour
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on securing this debate on a critical issue for our region. I join him and colleagues in paying tribute to our two brave police officers in Cleveland, Tom Clough and Matthew Blades, who tragically lost their lives recently. I also pay tribute to their colleagues and friends in our force, particularly Chief Constable Victoria Fuller, who has conducted herself with incredible professionalism in this difficult time. Thank you to all of the police officers who deal with my office every day and who report and tackle crime, including Inspector Neil Deluce and Inspector Ian Mitchell, who are the pinnacle of professionalism, despite these challenging circumstances. I also take a moment to thank everyone, including in the community, who has supported our police force amid everything they have been going through in recent weeks. The chief constable said to me recently that every single police station has been filled with gifts, cakes and cards for our officers—there has been a huge outpouring of support from the public. As she cannot speak in these kinds of debates, I take a moment to recognise my constituency neighbour, the right hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), given that this incident took place in her constituency and she has been engaged in all the same conversations as I have been. Cleveland has a relatively small police force, but it suffers from some of the greatest demands in the country. We have among the highest recorded crime rates in England and Wales, alongside severe deprivation, serious violence, organised crime and immense pressure on public services, yet our funding has failed to keep pace for well over a decade. I heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham how the percentage change since 2010 in full-time equivalent police officer numbers shows that there are serious issues, not only in Cleveland, but across the north-east. We are not allowed to use props in these kinds of debates, but if I were to get out a graph, it would show Cleveland, Durham and Northumbria suffering the worst cuts in the country. The chief constable said that an estimated 500 additional officers would be required in Cleveland to bring workload closer to the national average. That is just to catch up to the average, not to deal with the additional demands in our region. Those pressures are being felt by frontline officers every day and Cleveland Police Federation has warned about unmanageable workloads, with officers responding to traumatic incidents involving domestic abuse, serious violence and vulnerable people. In my constituency, that means officers dealing with antisocial behaviour in places such as Hemlington and Park End, illegal off-road bikes, as has been mentioned, in places such as Easterside, and the very different challenges of policing our rural villages in East Cleveland. In Guisborough, our town has suffered from shoplifting on the high street, and I want to recognise the work that Councillor Bill Suthers has done to convene residents, police and the council to discuss what more can be done, and to get results from that discussion. At the same time, Cleveland has made real progress. The force has come out of special measures and has been recognised for its improvement. Our officers are delivering results, despite the pressures they face. This is nothing short of a miracle. So, too, our councils are delivering programmes to support their work tackling antisocial behaviour and crime. I welcome the decision taken just this week by Mayor Chris Cooke to introduce new public space protection orders in places such as Hemlington Lake to help address some of these issues. However, the reality is stark, and the PCC and chief constable have called for at least £20 million in additional funding each year, to keep pace with demand. It is a clear and practical request, backed by cross-party leaders across Cleveland. When the Government take forward their police funding reform, they must ensure that deprivation, crime rates and demand are properly recognised, so that Cleveland finally receives the funding that reflects the challenges our officers face every day. I also mention the similar challenges facing our fire brigade—the fire service funding formula also needs to change. It has also lost a third of its full-time firefighter posts since 2010 and now faces a £1.2 million funding gap. This is the legacy of austerity writ large in a region that desperately needs an urgent injection of funding for its police and fire brigade. We need a particular focus on our region as police reforms progress, and special consideration must be given to accelerating those reforms in the north-east, perhaps through a pilot programme, given the challenges across the whole region. We also need clarity about what will happen with PCC funding beyond 2028. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham spoke about domestic abuse in our region. We have some fantastic organisations on Teesside, including ARCH Teesside, My Sister’s Place, EVA Women’s Aid, the Halo Project and many others. Many get their funding from police and crime commissioners, and they do not have clarity about what will happen after PCCs are abolished, so I would welcome some clarity on that from the Minister. The message today from me and colleagues is that residents need safer streets and proper neighbourhood community policing again, which means that our Government must back our police force with the resources it desperately needs.
Order. There are four speakers left and we have 20 minutes, so if Members stick to a strict five minutes, we will get everybody in.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)Labour
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this debate. Let me start with a simple proposition. Cleveland police cannot be expected to tackle the highest levels of recorded crime in the country with the lowest levels of police resource. It is not fair on our officers or our communities; it is not good enough. The figures are stark: Cleveland has about 123 recorded crimes per 1,000 people—the highest rate of any police force in England and Wales—and Middlesbrough has the highest recorded crime of any local authority area. What has happened to police numbers? Since 2010, we have suffered the worst percentage reduction in full-time equivalent officers of any force. It is down 15%, from 1,652 to just 1,405, or 247 fewer officers at a time of extraordinary demand. That is the disgraceful legacy of the Conservative party. Yet against that backdrop, Cleveland police is still one of the most improved forces in the land, and I commend Chief Constable Victoria Fuller for that achievement. It is now dealing with significant increases in recalls to prison, which have rocketed in recent times. Our officers are being asked to do more with less. They are confronting serious crime, antisocial behaviour and major incidents with a depleted workforce. The appalling A66 collision in August brought the pressures into sharp focus. Seven lives were lost, including two magnificent and brave Cleveland police officers, PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough. I pay tribute to them and their families, and to their colleagues, who have continued to serve our communities in the most difficult of circumstances. The incident also exposed the demands placed on a small force, which has required mutual aid from other constabularies and continues to be ravaged by the ongoing evil of organised crime. The A66 collision rightly brought Cleveland’s resources and funding under renewed scrutiny. We must learn the lessons, but we must not pretend that this terrible incident created the problems. The underlying pressures have been building for years. I welcome the Government’s £2 million of additional support. It is right that Cleveland receives help, given the exceptional demands, but let us be honest: a one-off £2 million payment is not a permanent solution to a structural funding deficit. The scale of the challenge is substantial. In any event, given that the mutual aid bill is already way north of £4 million, Matt Storey, our wonderful police and crime commissioner, said that the £2 million “won’t touch the sides.” With the mutual aid, Cleveland has delivered 100% of 999 calls answered within the prescribed period and has made massive inroads into clearing arrest warrants, but it will end soon. As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) said, realistic and conservative estimates put the additional annual funding required at north of £24 million per annum recurring. I welcome the Government’s commitment to review the police funding formula, but the published timetable concerns the review of police structures, and we have no firm date for a new funding formula to be implemented. My colleagues, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), and I have said repeatedly that Cleveland cannot be told to wait while Whitehall works through another lengthy process. The Government have acknowledged that interim measures can be considered to better align funding with policing priorities, so I ask the Minister directly: why not start with Cleveland? I urge the Government to consider piloting a revised needs-based allocation for Cleveland for 2027-28, taking proper account of its exceptional crime rate, deprivation and depleted officer numbers, followed by a decision on additional recurring funding. That would not pre-empt national reform; it would demonstrate that the Government understand the difference between a long-term plan and an immediate responsibility to keep people safe. We cannot rebuild policing on the cheap, and we cannot ask our communities to wait indefinitely for change. That funding must deliver something people can see and feel in their daily lives: effective neighbourhood policing and the eradication of organised crime groups. People want to feel safe walking home and raising their children. I beg the Minister to hear the pleas of the bereaved families, who have let it be known that they want the legacy of PCs Tom Clough and Matthew Blades to be fairer funding and an equitable policing settlement for Cleveland. Minister, do not let their deaths be in vain. Their tragic loss has further galvanised and unified our community. That is why restoring police capacity matters. It is not simply about figures on a spreadsheet or allocations made in Whitehall; it is about having enough officers to prevent crime, respond when things go wrong and build lasting relationships with the communities they serve. This Labour Government was elected to change things. In Cleveland that means correcting an indefensible funding imbalance, rebuilding police capacity and putting officers back into our communities. The test is not what we announce in Westminster: it is what people see in the streets. I ask the Minister to come to Cleveland with a clear commitment, an urgent assessment of its needs, serious consideration of additional recurring funding and a needs-based pilot in 2027-28. The people of Cleveland have waited long enough. This Government must deliver visible change on the ground for our communities in Cleveland and across the north-east.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)Labour
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst), on securing this debate. The consequences that we see today in our areas in the north-east, which we have heard about already, come as no surprise. Generational de-industrialisation causing regional economic disparity combined with austerity, deep cuts to public services and growing pressure on councils and community services have all taken their toll. We are now seeing those consequences—higher levels of social need, antisocial behaviour, neighbourhood insecurity and addiction. Our officers can often be left dealing with the symptoms of the challenges that begin long before criminality occurs. The reality is that Durham constabulary has had to manage a rising and increasingly complex demand while operating with over 100 fewer police officers than it had in 2010, despite officer numbers increasing nationally overall. It has had a real impact on our communities. Only last week, I received an anonymous letter from a serving police officer outlining their concerns about neighbourhood policing. They told me that despite neighbourhood teams seeming to be adequately staffed on paper, the reality on the ground is that these officers are routinely assigned to cover other duties, leaving PCSOs to cover the majority of neighbourhood work. Alongside that, the nature of policing has changed dramatically. Officers today are not only dealing with traditional crime, they are responding to incidents involving online offending, child exploitation, safeguarding concerns, domestic abuse and mental health crises. Those issues require significant time and resources, but are now a routine part of modern policing. The result is that officers are dealing with huge workloads. In Durham, recorded crime per officer remains above the national average. This has implications not only for the service provided to the public, but also for the wellbeing of officers and staff who continue to serve our communities with professionalism and dedication. Durham Police Federation has highlighted the pressures experienced by frontline officers. It has spoken of officers working hard to meet demand, often at the expense of their own wellbeing and family life, while dealing with uncertainty created by short-term funding settlements. We have already heard about the unfairness of forces with lower council tax bases, so I will not repeat those facts. However, as discussions continue about the future structure and funding of policing, it is important that the experiences of north-east police forces are fully understood. Any assessment of need must reflect not only population but deprivation, rurality and vulnerability. County Durham contains both urban and rural communities, each with their own challenges, and those realities should be reflected in future considerations. We must listen to the views of our constituents, whose concerns often go unanswered for lengthy periods because there are not enough officers to respond to incidents. I met Belmont Guides recently, and heard how deeply antisocial behaviour and low-level crime impacts their local community. Whether that is balaclava-clad youths riding e-bikes, vandals damaging park equipment and green spaces, acts of animal cruelty or intimidating behaviour as the evenings draw in, many of our communities are increasingly having to contend with these issues. These young girls deserve to feel safe in their communities, but they see a distinct lack of police officers on the streets. They want to know why that is. Minister, how do I reassure these young people in Durham that our county will receive the additional police officers we so desperately need and deserve, so that children feel safe enough to enjoy being out in the fresh air with their friends, instead of being attached to electronic devices? It is not just young people. I regularly hear from elderly residents who are afraid to go out alone after dark, from women who have escaped abusive relationships only to find themselves being pursued again, from public transport users dealing with antisocial behaviour and violence at bus stations, and from shop workers and market traders who have repeatedly suffered thefts while seeing little police presence on our streets. This is a real picture that I am painting, and we ignore it at our peril. Recent tragic events in the wider north-east region have served as a reminder of the risks that officers face in protecting the public, and our thoughts remain with those families. My constituents in Durham rightly expect an effective, visible and responsive police service. As future decisions are made about police structure and funding, I sincerely hope that the experiences of forces and residents across the north-east will be at the forefront of discussions, because it is time that the Government listened to them. I hope that it will be this Labour Government.
Alan Strickland (Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor) (Lab)Labour
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this crucial debate. Building on the powerful speeches by other hon. Members, I want to set out three reasons as a County Durham MP why this review of police funding is so important. First, we must recognise the additional costs of policing areas that are both semi-rural and post-industrial, such as my constituency. Communities like the ones I am proud to represent have a strong industrial heritage of coal mining and other industry, but it is often forgotten across the public sector that they are, at the same time, largely rural. Of the population in County Durham, 43% lives in rural areas, and my constituency is entirely villages and small towns. They are often not farming communities, but former pit villages that still experience the serious, scarring effects of major losses in employment and social infrastructure in the ‘70s and ‘80s, while at the same time experiencing significant geographical isolation. Those issues have caused a growth in county lines, organised crime and other very serious issues. Durham constabulary is dealing with complex problems across a sprawling county, which creates obvious policing challenges. Will the Minister consider how police funding can better take into account the challenge of increasingly serious criminal issues that one might expect in an urban area, but in rural settings that are much more expensive to police, and where effective neighbourhood policing, which can be important in preventing crime, is more difficult? Secondly, there are ongoing challenges of deprivation in County Durham, without enough wider public sector support. We need to see it better reflected in funding. Durham constabulary works in communities with families affected by higher levels of complex need, intergenerational unemployment and poverty. For example, parts of Ferryhill, in my constituency, are in the top 1% of the most deprived communities in the country. Half of children are on free school meals. That brings significant challenges—social challenges and lack of opportunity—and with that comes greater crime, criminal justice issues and other problems. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham rightly pointed out, that creates a dual challenge for the police in my area, with more difficult issues to tackle while a higher number of households in the very lowest council tax bands reduce the funding available. The complexity of some of the families that Durham officers are working with can mean that officers are not just dealing with criminal justice matters but have increasingly had to step in to fill gaps left by cuts to social services, mental health support and addiction and homelessness services caused by the deep austerity cuts of the last Conservative Government. Our police officers in Durham are to be congratulated for the myriad ways that they step up every day to support residents. But the message should be clear: the police cannot be expected to do everything. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out how the Home Office can work with other Departments across Government to support more investment in family intervention projects, schemes to reduce youth reoffending and other measures outside of policing that could reduce and prevent crime. My final point is about the growth in poorly regulated private landlords who too often allow crime and antisocial behaviour by their tenants to go unchecked. This is again creating more complex policing problems. I particularly urge Ministers across Government to put more pressure on authorities such as Reform-led Durham county council that are simply failing to act in many cases where irresponsible landlords are allowing their properties to become magnets for crime and disorder, often in previously quiet streets that had very low levels of crime. This is coming up again and again in my constituency. We know that council enforcement teams have got powers to tackle landlords who are refusing to take ASB seriously, but too often this simply is not happening. I am pleased to report to the Minister that residents facing these serious incidents who I have met recently have been incredibly complimentary about the police force for responding quickly, but it is clear that the force is bearing significant costs, which the wider public sector could be helping with more effectively. To finish, I support the calls for a review of funding. I would also like to echo the thanks given by colleagues to all serving police officers, but let us see what more we can do to make sure that our brave men and women in uniform have the proper resources they need.
Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)Labour
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on securing this important debate. We have heard from colleagues representing constituencies covered by the Northumbria, Durham and Cleveland forces about what a huge issue this is for the north-east. That is because our forces, collectively and individually, have been asked to do more with less for longer than anywhere else in the country. There is a clear case for the north-east to be prioritised in responding to this challenge, for example, in the same way that Mission North East has prioritised schools in the north-east. For my own force, Northumbria, between 2010 and 2019, central Government funding fell by more than 31% in real terms. No force was hit harder. It lost a quarter of its officers and we know that when budgets are cut, it is unfortunately the neighbourhood teams that often go first. Today, Northumbria has 255 fewer officers than in 2010. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham said, that was a political choice by the previous Government which skewed funding formulas and completely ignored deprivation and the need for places like the north-east to be policed appropriately. We know that demand is higher than elsewhere. In the Office for National Statistics’ figures, the north-east records 98 crimes per 1,000 against 85 per 1,000 nationally—the highest of any region. In Sunderland we saw 27,000 recorded crimes last year, which is down 3%, but still above the national rate. However, recorded crime only tells us a small amount. Recorded crime is not all crime; it only shows what is reported. The ONS survey suggests that about a third of crimes people experience are reported to the police. The gap between what people live with and what they report itself tells us about the confidence in policing. Of course, police deal with much more than crime. Mental health incidents in Northumbria have risen by 152% since 2017—demand that never shows up in any crime figures. As other hon. Members have already done, I want to also express my thanks to our officers. The range of what we ask them to do is extraordinary. I was three weeks into being elected when officers placed themselves in harm’s way in Sunderland city centre as thugs threw bricks and stones at them. They stood protecting our community and places of worship. Just two weeks ago, we had a terrible tragedy on the River Wear in Sunderland. Again it was police officers along with other emergency services responding and not just doing the search and rescue and the investigation of the incident, but liaising in the most difficult circumstances with the bereaved families. Every day, officers are on our streets, with people in crisis, tackling crime. Our constituents tell us that police visibility is crucial, and it is probably what constituents raise with me more than anything else. When I am out on walkabouts with officers in Hendon, Pallion and the city centre, I see the response of the public to visible policing. I can sense that residents and shop workers feel safer, and that potential troublemakers are thinking twice. People stop to talk and share intelligence with the police about what is going on. Too often, of course, residents do not see the police. When they do not see an officer and when they wait too long for a response to a call or an online report, they stop reporting and their trust and sense of security reduce. We need to boost visibility as a way of boosting confidence and reporting. Nowhere is that clearer than with antisocial behaviour, which is absolutely not low level. It is drunken, intoxicated behaviour; e-bikes and off-road bikes around estates or parks; yobbish behaviour. It wears down our communities night after night, and it is not good enough. Visible policing matters. That is why I welcome the Government’s decision to replace the previous headcount target with a neighbourhood policing target, because Northumbria could hit the previous Government’s headcount target and still not have on-the-ground policing in Fulwell in my constituency. Northumbria is adding 54 neighbourhood posts by next March, which is a good first step, but those posts must be protected. We must have more and they must reach the estates and villages, not just city centres. The Government have talked about structural reform of the police alongside funding formula reform. I will not speak for colleagues, but I am open to regional reorganisation. We already have a north-east regional organised crime unit, which does effective work across our forces. Where there are capabilities such as firearms, or potentially drones, we have seen a significant amount of mutual aid, particularly in recent months following events in Cleveland. There is a reasonable case that moving to a north-east-wide regional force, if that is what the Hogan-Howe review recommends, would strengthen resilience and potentially produce some efficiencies in those areas, but people will only accept a bigger force with two guarantees. The first is to ensure that local policing areas are strong and protected, and that local officers still know Sunderland and have a local commander who we can hold to account. The second, crucially, is funding reform. Merging three underfunded forces would give us one large, underfunded force. We have to move on both together. I will finish by asking the Minister a couple of questions. As she considers police force reorganisation, and if a north-east force is proposed, can we move faster than others? Others have also mentioned the funding formula, and there could be transformation funding as part of a move to a regional force, if that is helpful to the Home Office and considered necessary. There is clearly a case for the north-east to be treated differently—
Order. We have to move on to the Front-Bench spokespeople. I call the Lib Dem spokesperson, Max Wilkinson.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)Liberal Democrat
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I commend the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this debate. I begin by putting on the record my party’s thanks and admiration for our police services up and down the country, and for the vital role that officers play in keeping our communities safe. The tragic A66 collision that claimed the lives of two police officers, Matthew Blades and Tom Clough, horrified us all. The disorder that followed in the days after that tragedy disturbed people far beyond the north-east, and we must hope it has brought renewed focus on the area’s safety. I commend all the MPs from the region who have spoken so powerfully with one voice in this debate today. This summer’s disorder underlines the importance of having a police service that is properly resourced, that is visible and that is trusted by the communities it serves. We have long called for a return to genuine community policing, focused on preventing crime through policing that builds relationships with local communities. Just a few days ago, I was in the north-east, in Peterlee, to appear on a televised political panel debate. It was clear that crime is a real concern for residents in that area. Indeed, it was raised by the audience member who asked the first question. The audience spoke about the impact on their communities and the underlying causes, including the fact that many communities have been hollowed out economically over the last few decades. What came across was a deep frustration and, very sadly, a sense of helplessness from those in the room. Police presence must be part of the focus to address the concerns of residents across the north-east. Under the Conservatives, Cleveland police lost hundreds of officers—I think around 400—and after the disorder this summer, 200 officers had to be drafted in to deal with what unfolded. This is not an acceptable state of affairs. The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s pledge to recruit 13,000 additional police officers, but police numbers have sadly not matched the Government’s ambition. If the Government are serious about restoring neighbourhood policing, they must get more officers back on to our streets, and they will need to recruit many more. We cannot expect overstretched officers to do more with less, as other Members have said, and too many crimes go unsolved. We hear about these issues regularly in relation to the north-east and elsewhere; they are common to so many places across the country. The Government will tell us that they have increased national police funding, but with reference to the north-east, Cleveland’s funding increase is the lowest in the country, worth £1.65 million a year less than if it had received the 4.5% average increase. On top of that, Cleveland police is being asked to find £3.88 million of savings to balance its budget. Regardless of the regional issue, it is clear that policing must refocus on finding more resources and making the best of the resources it has. There is also the issue that a huge amount of police time is taken up by online crime, principally fraud but also including child sexual exploitation and violence against women and girls. Unfortunately, the companies that facilitate this behaviour have not acted strongly enough to prevent it from happening. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a new police agency to tackle serious online crime, funded by a levy on big tech and AI companies. Will the Minister commit to taking steps to ensure that the companies that facilitate online crime are called to account and asked to pay for some of the problems that they create, on a “polluter pays” basis? That would help to redirect police resourcing to the frontline, to build and maintain the physical policing presence that our communities rightly expect. It would help to restore a police counter in every community, giving people accessible, convenient places to share information and engage with the police within their communities. The Government talk about their neighbourhood policing guarantee, but we now need to see change in our communities. We believe that our proposals can help. One other concern lies in police force reorganisation. If merging forces means that officers become more distant from the communities they serve or are less able to respond to local crime—or, indeed, if three underfunded forces become one massive underfunded force—the reforms will have failed. Will the Minister ensure that police reform does not lead to resources being directed away from smaller communities, which are often in rural areas, to larger urban centres? That is particularly important for the rural communities we have heard about today, where crime has become increasingly organised, serious and persistent. We are calling for a countryside copper guarantee, with properly resourced, dedicated rural crime teams or specialists in every police force. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that forces serving rural areas have the resources they need? Finally, transferring police and crime commissioners’ powers to mayors without sufficient democratic scrutiny risks replacing one flawed model with another. Local crime and police boards made up of local residents and representatives of the community can provide meaningful local accountability and oversight of policing. Is that being considered by Ministers in their police reforms? That is vital, because only by empowering communities to work with local police will we reduce crime across the country, including in the north-east.
Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)Conservative
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on securing this important debate. I reiterate my condolences to the family and friends of PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough. Their deaths have been a tragedy for the local force, and their loss serves as a constant reminder of the risks our police officers face every day. Alongside other Members, I was privileged to attend their funerals. It was clear from everyone there how deeply they were loved by their families, respected by their colleagues and valued by the communities they served. The incidents that occurred after their deaths were a sad reflection of the problems that we face in the north-east. Funding for our police forces is not an issue that should be taken lightly, as it clearly has a huge impact on their ability to operate effectively. As an MP from the region, representing an area served by a local force facing acute funding challenges, I share the concerns raised passionately by so many Members today. As the Minister will be aware, following the incident in Middlesbrough, I raised the issue of police funding in the north-east, particularly in my own area of Cleveland. I have raised the issue on many occasions, under this Government and the last. While I appreciate the targeted funding announced in September, it is nowhere near enough to make a difference or solve the underlying problem. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) rightly points out that the funding has been more than consumed by the costs following the incident. To give one example from the north-east, Cleveland serves some of the most deprived communities in the country and faces exceptional levels of demand. In the year ending March 2025, Cleveland had the highest recorded crime rate per head of population of any police force in England and Wales—122.1 crimes per 1,000 people compared with the national average of 87.2. While anecdotes can tell only part of the story, we unfortunately see brazen criminal activity—from off-road bikes to knife crime—taking place without effective intervention.
I am listening intently to what the shadow Minister has to say. Does the picture he is painting cause him to reflect on the savage cuts to Cleveland police under his party’s stewardship, which saw the force lose 500 officers? Will he apologise for that error?
I always think these things are better done—and have been better done—when there is one voice fighting for more resources for our areas. I was elected in 2019. In Home Office workforce data shared in September 2019, there were 1,226 police officers in Cleveland. In March 2024, there were 1,514. That is an increase of 288. In the year to March 2026, the number of full-time equivalent police officers in Cleveland fell by 17.
rose—
I am going to carry on; Stockton is going to have its say, as well as Middlesbrough. This week, police have had to impose section 60 and dispersal orders in Thornaby, in my constituency and the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, after a series of targeted incidents in which vehicles were driven into houses and two men were seriously assaulted with a knife. Yet the funding formula does not adequately recognise those pressures. To be clear, although I speak as a shadow Minister, this is simply not a party political point. The Labour police and crime commissioner, Matt Storey, has warned of a £2.4 million funding shortfall—the equivalent of about 40 police officers. His argument, which the Minister has heard many times, is that a system based too heavily on population fails to take sufficient account of deprivation, crime and demand. The situation has been made worse by the Government’s decision to inflict the cost of national insurance increases on police forces while providing a woefully inadequate funding settlement. The consequences of that decision are clear. While I recognise that areas such as Northumbria have seen an increase in officer numbers, the number of full-time equivalent officers in Cleveland fell by 17 between March 2025 and March 2026. The latest Home Office data shows that there are now fewer officers in place than in March 2024, under the previous Government. Ministers will point to the neighbourhood policing guarantee and, of course, we all want more visible local policing. However, if overall officer numbers are falling while more are badged as neighbourhood officers, they are being moved from somewhere else, often from response teams. That means fewer officers available when someone dials 999, longer waits for victims and less capacity to deal with the exact kind of serious incidents that we have seen in Thornaby this week. Given the scale of the challenges that the force is facing, which have been so clearly demonstrated, it seems preposterous that it is losing officers rather than gaining them. I appreciate that the funding formula is not easily resolved. Hard-working MPs from across the House who represent areas disadvantaged under the existing rules have long pushed for change, including under the previous Government. However, I hope the Minister will accept that this issue requires action now. The most recent arrests under Operation Artemis, which include individuals connected to the events following the tragic incident on the A66, demonstrate the deep-rooted challenges the area faces. What could we do immediately? The Minister will reject this proposal, but the Conservative party’s costed £800 million plan to recruit 10,000 additional officers across the country would at least go some way in tackling the issue. Although recruiting more officers is not a complete solution, our proposal would help Cleveland police by providing nearly 100 additional officers. The need is clear. Despite all that, the message from people living in our area is that they want to see this as a turning point. Their resilience shows that change is possible, but only if we give our communities the support they need alongside robust enforcement. That means increasing police numbers, as I have said, but also ensuring that repeat offenders face consequences for their crimes, including prison where appropriate. The early release scheme, which is proving to be an unmitigated failure, undermines that. Offences that should see people behind bars are simply not. Because of the pressures on the criminal justice system, those offenders are not spending the time in prison that they should be. Although that may not fall directly within the Minister’s portfolio, I hope she is pressing her colleagues every day for an end to the early release scheme and for more police capacity. Without effective enforcement, the funding allocated to police forces will not be used as effectively as it should be. Hon. Members in this debate know how easily the north-east’s problems can be overlooked. As we approach the forthcoming police funding announcements, I hope that the Government will reflect on the events of a few months ago, the words of north-east MPs and the need for meaningful improvement to police forces in our region. Our brave frontline police officers deserve the resources they need to do their job, and our law-abiding residents deserve safe streets to go about their lives without fear.
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)Labour
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on securing this debate. I will start as he did by paying tribute to our police officers and police staff, who work tirelessly in what can be incredibly difficult circumstances, and who sometimes have to pay the ultimate price. I think all hon. Members have paid tribute to PC Blades, PC Clough and PC Turnbull, all of whom died this year. Their deaths have all been an incredible loss to their families, but also to the policing community and their wider communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) talked about Jess and how young she was. I have met her father a couple of times now. He was a police officer and had just retired when Jess became one. That whole community has been devastated. At all three of those funerals I saw an entire community coming out to support policing, which was incredibly powerful to see. I know that there has been a struggle in terms of people’s confidence in policing. There are challenges that we are dealing with, but in those communities I saw a community supporting their police officers and giving them the respect they deserve. I probably have the best job in Government. Working with policing is an unbelievable privilege and a joy, but standing here and listening to hon. Members talk about the struggles they are facing in their communities is very humbling and difficult. I hear the message they are telling me loud and clear. Since the A66 crash and the awful incidents that followed, I have met the police and crime commissioner or the chief constable five or six times, and hon. Members as well. I have heard loud and clear, not least from my colleague in the Home Office, the Minister for Border Security and Asylum, my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), about the challenges that are being faced in people’s communities. I want hon. Members to know that I hear those challenges; that is important to say. I will touch on a couple of topics. The first one is the funding formula, which everybody has leant into in this debate. The funding formula used to be based on many of the measures that Members have mentioned: deprivation rates, crime rates, rurality and ethnicity. A whole raft of indicators went into the police funding formula and previous calculations. When the Conservatives began austerity, they took the decision to cut all forces by the same proportion. That was the point at which the relationship between funding and all the different factors that go into the funding formula was cut. It was still there, in that the proportions were increased—or decreased, in that case—equally, but over time, what was originally the funding formula has lost its meaning, and it has lost its connection to the factors that need to go into determining funding. We are reviewing that. I am spending a lot of time thinking about that process. It is complicated, and we have to get it right. There are lots of different parts to it. I ask Members to imagine a graph of a certain crime type—let us say violence against women and girls—plotted against an indicator of crime. We map all parts of the country and see what the line tells us. For example, it is clear from the graphs that there is a link between violent crime and educational attainment, so educational attainment has to be an indicator that is part of how funding formulas are worked out. A lot of work has to go into that. The police put a lot of work into solving crime, as well as their other work. Police spend more than 50% of their time dealing with things other than crime, such as missing people and people with mental health problems. They are working on things that are not what people might perceive as crime. We have to think about that work. Hon. Members mentioned fairness in relation to council tax and the precept. We have seen our colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government go through that process, to the advantage of some and to the disadvantage of others. There are always winners and losers in a funding formula review. It is a complicated process.
The Minister says that it is a complicated process, but the graph that I am sure she has seen showing the changes in full-time equivalents between 2010 and 2025 is stark, and there is political bias built into that. We on the Labour Benches are saying that that urgently needs to be corrected. It is an inequitable, unfair formula that visits badly on the constituencies in the north-east of England, and it is that that needs attention. We cannot wait months for the formula to be recalibrated to come up with a better answer. The need is now. There is one point on which I agree with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers): if we carry on as we are, we will be losing more officers in Cleveland, so the need is urgent. It is not a matter for months; we have to do this in days. If the Minister needs any further information from Victoria Fuller, the chief constable of Cleveland police, I am sure it can be provided, but we need that progress immediately.
My hon. Friend and I have had several conversations on this matter in recent times. Of course, I have talked to Victoria, I am well aware of all the statistics and I understand what my hon. Friend is saying. What I am saying is that we are reviewing the funding formula, and it will be fair. The funding for the year ahead will be allocated and it will not be under the new funding formula. At the moment, we are going through a process to which the chief constable, Matt Storey and all the police chiefs and PCCs from across England and Wales are party. They can come to us while we allocate funding for next year and tell us their exceptional financial situation or exceptional circumstances. Of course, we are having those conversations with colleagues across the north-east, as all Members present would expect. Although the funding formula will come with the reforms, we are looking right now at what we will do about the exceptional funding requests that people are making across the country. That is the second thing I wanted to say: there is a process, and we are looking at the funding for the next funding year, as well as reforming the funding formula, which will come later.
I welcome the commitment to changing the funding formula. That is genuinely a seismic change. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) is making is that we cannot wait. This Government have already been in for two years, and it will be another two years until PCCs are abolished. We are encountering these incidents every single day. Last year, Norfolk had 20,000 fewer crimes than Cleveland but received £50 million more in funding. That cannot be justified. It is unfair and it is un-Labour. I urge the Minister to look at what can be done in-year and to look at the proposal to accelerate reforms in the north-east in particular.
That is exactly the point about looking at the funding for the coming year. We are doing that. We are looking at the exceptional circumstances for police forces across the country right now, and what we need to do about that. I want to touch briefly on police reform, which some people have mentioned. The point of police reform is to do two things. The first is to make sure our police are equipped to tackle the epidemic of everyday crime that we see in our communities, and the second is to make sure we are equipped to tackle the changing nature of crime. Most crimes have a digital footprint. Serious organised crime does not pay any attention to boundaries and is much more complex than it used to be. Members have mentioned online sexual abuse, for example. We need to be able to tackle complex crimes. That is the point of police reform. We do not have the time now for me to set out how we will achieve the changes that we will achieve, but we will legislate on the police reform programme in this Session. We will introduce changes to the structure of police forces, and the way in which the funding formula works will have to fit with those structural changes. Importantly, we are also putting more police in our neighbourhoods. I want to make one final point, which is hard to make in a short space of time. We have had lots of conversations on police numbers, which I understand and appreciate and do not disagree with, but we cannot judge a police force on just numbers. It does not work. When the Tories were in, they cut police numbers by 20,000. They then rushed to recruit another 20,000, and arrest rates have actually gone down because we have 12,000 officers sat behind desks, not out in our communities fighting crime. We have had no investment in technology over the Tory years, which means that everybody has to spend hours filling in forms and doing the bureaucracy—I am sure that hon. Members find the same whenever they go out with the police. If we can cut that, people will have more time to be more productive. If we can get police out from behind desks and into our communities, they can be more productive. I am not denying the point that hon. Members make about police numbers, but if we measure just police numbers, that does not actually reflect what the police do and how they do it.
Will the Minister give way?
I will not, because I have only a couple of moments left. We are tilting our resources into neighbourhood policing. We have got just shy of 4,000 extra police into our communities. I will end by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham. He asked me a series of questions and I have a list of answers. He asked how we are tackling violence against women and girls in the north-east. Other hon. Members asked questions about antisocial behaviour, online harms and the early release scheme. I am happy to meet and talk to other Members because we do not have the time here. I assure hon. Members that the Government and I hear their case on the north-east. We are with them in their desire to reform policing and to make sure we have the people we need to fight crime so that their communities can feel safe, which is the very least that a Labour Government ought to be able to deliver.
I am grateful to the Minister for her remarks and for getting to the crux of the matter, which is that the funding formula was ripped up under previous Governments. I am grateful to the shadow Ministers, the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) and the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), for at least understanding that the problem is low levels of funding in the north-east, but I regret that they were not able to bring themselves to explain that Conservative Governments, and a coalition Government including the Lib Dems, ripped up the funding formula. I am grateful to my hon. Friends on the Government Benches for the eloquent way in which they have expressed the extreme pressures that policing is under in the communities that they represent, and some of the tragic events that have happened partly due to that pressure. With that, I am conscious of the need to sit down before the turn of the hour. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered police funding in the North East.
Source: UK Parliament Hansard API. Debate ID: 5415322.