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Police leaders ramp up pressure on Government ahead of spending review

Police leaders ramp up pressure on Government ahead of spending review

The police and crime commissioners for West Midlands and Hertfordshire joined a growing number of leaders pushing for more funding in the next three years.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is due to set out her spending plans on Wednesday, and is expected to give above-inflation increases in the policing budget.
But Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has yet to reach a settlement with the Treasury as she will reportedly face cuts in other parts of her department.
On Monday, West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Simon Foster called for the reinstatement of 700 officers the force has seen cut since 2010, while Hertfordshire's PCC Jonathan Ash-Edwards warned the force is facing a growing burden.
Their comments followed warnings by the president of the Police Superintendents' Association Nick Smart, and Tiff Lynch, acting national chairman for the Police Federation of England and Wales.
The pair wrote in an article for the Daily Telegraph that policing is in 'crisis', with young officers not paid enough to live on and more senior colleagues leaving because they are burned out.
They said: 'It is not enough to talk about 'tough on crime'. There must be funding to match.
'What the police service needs is sustained investment in structures, people and new technology, so that chiefs can plan long term and deliver a service that is fit for purpose.'
In December, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) warned that forces in England and Wales were facing a £1.3 billion shortfall over the next two years.
And last month, head of the Metropolitan Police Sir Mark Rowley joined with head of the NPCC Gavin Stephens and four other chief constables to call for more investment.
They wrote in an article for the Times: 'A lack of investment will bake in the structural inefficiencies for another three years and will lose a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform the service.'
Mr Foster claimed West Midlands Police, one of the largest police forces in England and Wales, has been 'short-changed'.
'We still have nearly 700 fewer police officers than in 2010, despite rising demand and increasing complexity in the nature of crime,' he said.
'However, many other police force areas now have more police officers than they have ever had in their force histories.
'That is not fair and it is not just. The West Midlands has been short-changed for far too long. It's time for the Government to take this opportunity to put that right.'
He called for changes to the formula used to calculate the funding given to each force, saying that it disadvantages urban forces.
Hertfordshire's PCC Mr Ash-Edwards said: 'Policing faces significant demands and pressures and now needs a sustained funding boost to deliver on local and national crime fighting priorities.
'Hertfordshire is one of the lower funded police forces nationally, with the fifth lowest council tax precept.
'The last year has seen an unfunded pay award, the hike in National Insurance contributions not fully reimbursed as promised and new proposals to weaken sentences for many crimes which is likely to increase the burden on policing.
'It is essential that a different direction is set out in the spending review.'

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Spending review live updates: Rachel Reeves to reveal how Britain will splash the cash with NHS, defence and schools in line for windfalls
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Spending review live updates: Rachel Reeves to reveal how Britain will splash the cash with NHS, defence and schools in line for windfalls

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will today unveil her spending review in Parliament. The review, which will set out day-to-day spending plans for the next three years and capital spending plans for the next four, is expected to see boosts for the NHS, defence and schools. But it is also likely to involve squeezes for other departments as the Chancellor seeks to keep within the fiscal rules she has set for herself. Her room for manoeuvre has also been further constrained by the Government's U-turn on winter fuel payments, which will see the benefit paid to pensioners receiving up to £35,000 per year at a cost of around £1.25 billion to the Treasury.

When is the spending review and what might Rachel Reeves announce?
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Miliband is expected to get the vast majority of this funding in an effort to meet Labour 's pledge to cut household energy bills by 2030. Home Office Yvette Cooper, the home secretary The Home Office was the last government department to settle its spending plan with the Treasury after it was in effect imposed upon Cooper. Reeves has refused to meet her colleague's demands for extra police funding, despite warnings that it means the government could miss its flagship pledges on law and order and a public intervention by police chiefs who said they faced 'stark choices'. It is understood that police spending will increase in real terms each year of this spending review period, which ends in 2028-29. However, it remains unclear whether this boost will match the more than £1 billion that officers say is needed to cover existing gaps. • Early prison releases risk public safety, police warn Cooper is unhappy with the final settlement amid concerns it is not enough to meet the government's pledge to recruit 13,000 neighbourhood officers by 2029. The real-terms rise in police funding will also mean deeper cuts to other areas of her department. The Border Force has warned that any cuts made to its £1.2 billion budget could result in anything from longer queues at airports to threats to 'national security'. Environment Reeves is once again looking to farmers as she seeks to pare back government spending. This time the debate is over Britain's flagship post-Brexit farming subsidies, which appear likely to be slashed for all but a few small farms. Sources at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, led by Steve Reed, said that the subsidies, which financially reward farmers for sustainable practices, will be severely cut in the spending review. Labour will honour its budget promise of £5 billion in farming funding for 2024-26, so cuts would hit many farms from 2026 onwards. The package of subsidies was introduced to replace the European Union's common agricultural policy after Brexit. It is designed to encourage farmers financially to look after nature and the soil instead of rewarding them for growing crops or tending livestock. In future the scheme will be targeted at small farms, meaning larger, wealthier farms will lose access to funding for nature-friendly practices. Coming off the back of the government's decision to reduce inheritance tax relief for farmers, it is likely to go down badly with rural communities. Transport Reeves announced £15 billion worth of funding for local transport infrastructure, predominantly in the north of England and the Midlands. The transport spending will be focused on seats that Labour needs to hold in the face of a growing challenge from Reform. The focus will be on projects that will bring spades in the ground by the time of the next election. Reeves has told colleagues that she wants people to see and feel the outcome of the investment, which includes trams in Manchester and Birmingham, the Tyne and Wear Metro and a mass-transit system around Bristol. There is not expected to be money for big transport projects in London as ministers look to rebalance spending away from the capital. Science and technology The government has said it will spend £86 billion on the science and technology sector by the end of this parliament as it looks to support the tech industries to boost economic growth. The package will help fund research into drug treatments and longer-lasting batteries, and include up to £500 million for regions across the UK. Local leaders will have a say on how it is spent. While this may sound like a lot of money, the £86 billion figure is the sum of all government spending on 'research and innovation' over four years and the annual spend will be £22.5 billion by 2029-30. This represents a 3 per cent real-terms rise in budget in 2029-30 compared with the present financial year. Justice Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary Three prisons will be built, starting this year, after a £4.7 billion funding commitment in the spending review in an attempt to grapple with the prisons crisis. The justice secretary Shabana Mahmood's speedy settlement was crucial as she was forced to announce plans to curb prison overcrowding when government projections showed that jails would fill up in November. The plans for 'record expansion' of the prison estate came alongside measures that meant offenders would spend only 28 days on recall to prison if they breached their licence conditions.

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