28-05-2025
Police say they need more money to fulfil Labour promises on crime – are they right?
Leaders of six major police forces, including Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, have warned Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, against a repeat of 'the retrenchment we saw under austerity.' They say that without more money, Labour's missions of halving knife crime and halving violence against women and girls will not happen.
An article in The Times warning that 'without investment there will be no restoration of the prevention-focused neighbourhood policing' was signed by Sir Mark, Gavin Stephens, the chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council, and the chief constables of Merseyside, the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire.
At the same time, Sir Mark has joined privately with the heads of MI5 and the National Crime Agency to warn Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, that her plans to release prisoners early could be a 'net detriment to public safety.' They say they would need 'necessary resources' to contain the risks to the public of the early release of dangerous criminals.
Are these just bids in spending negotiations?
The negotiations for the spending review on 11 June are still under way, with the Home Office and Department of Justice two of the departments that have yet to agree their budgets for the next four years with the Treasury.
It is not unusual at this stage of the discussions for interest groups to support their departments' demands for more money with blood-curdling warnings of the terrible consequences of failure to secure the funds they want.
That said, the police have a strong case on both fronts. Labour made manifesto promises on crime that cannot be delivered on the cheap, and the early release scheme is bound to increase the risk to the public, however marginally.
No wonder the negotiations are going badly. It is reported that 'some' secretaries of state are refusing to deal with Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, who is traditionally in charge of spending discussions – they are insisting on taking their case directly to Rachel Reeves, the chancellor.
Will Reeves give them the money?
In the immortal words of Liam Byrne, the last chief secretary to the Treasury in a Labour government, 'there is no money'. The spending 'envelope' – the total – has been set and the announcement on 11 June is only on how it will be divided between departments.
To make matters worse, Reeves already has to find additional money since her last checkpoint, which was the spring statement in March. Then, just to stay within her fiscal rules, she announced savings of £5bn a year from the welfare budget.
Since then, the world economy has been threatened by Donald Trump's trade war, and government borrowing has been higher than expected. On top of which, the prime minister has just announced a U-turn, restoring winter fuel payments to an unspecified number of pensioners, and Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, this week confirmed that the government was considering lifting the two-child limit on universal credit payments.
It is hard to see how Reeves can make her sums add up without more tax rises in the Budget in the autumn.
Will we go back to the 'austerity' era for the police?
The most frightening word in the police chiefs' article was 'austerity'. Labour is well aware that George Osborne's spending cuts to non-protected departments (anything that isn't health, defence or schools) were damaging to the Conservatives in the 2017 election.
Police numbers fell by 8 per cent between the end of the last Labour government in 2010 to 2017. Theresa May responded to that disastrous election by reversing the trend: numbers had recovered by the election last year.
It seems unlikely that police budgets will be squeezed on 11 June by anything like what happened in the Osborne years – and the memory of how Labour used police cuts as a campaign issue against the Tories ought to guarantee that 'austerity' on that scale does not happen again.
