Council Tax

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). We served together on the Select Committee on Justice. He did not blame the Government quite as much in that Committee as he did tonight. I have to differ from him; it is not the Government's fault that they have to cap Lincolnshire. As we heard from the Minister, the Government have been generous to the extent that they allowed an increase well above that they allowed other authorities. I do not claim to know everything about the way in which policing operates in Lincolnshire, but as the House knows, Leicestershire was one of the police authorities originally proposed for capping, and following representations made to the Minister and my right hon. Friend, the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing, who is on the Front Bench today, the Government decided not to cap it, but may do so next year. Hence my intervention on the Minister to ensure that there will be an opportunity before that process begins for authorities that were not capped this year to make representations. Members representing constituencies in Lincolnshire, on both sides of the House, will want to make specific points about what the Opposition spokesperson described as structural problems affecting policing in that area, which they feel justify—or not—the proposed increase put to the Government. I shall confine my remarks to concern about the number of police authorities that were originally proposed for capping, which will also be of interest to those in Lincolnshire. It is a worry because a problem that is developing may develop further in future. It means that the Government and police authorities will have to take a closer look at a situation where for the first time—perhaps the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—seven of the eight authorities that would have been affected were police authorities. Next week, the Government will publish their response to Sir Ronnie Flanagan's report, which looks at the issue of a more efficient, more effective police force. I do not expect either of the Ministers here today to tell us what is in that response, but during the past six months, as we conducted our review into policing, I and my colleagues in the Select Committee found that the issue of police funding came up in all our discussions. It was raised by almost all the chief constables we spoke to—I think that we took evidence from 15 of the 42 chief constables in England and Wales, but unfortunately not the chief constable of Lincolnshire. Each one of them raised the issue of funding. I shall raise three issues that I hope will be of benefit not just to the Lincolnshire police authority, but to other police authorities which may face such action next year. The first concerns new technology. It is a mystery to me why each different police authority is able to purchase its own equipment separately at whatever cost it negotiates. Surely procurement for all our police forces, including Lincolnshire, would ensure that the cost to all of them would be less. That may have meant that Lincolnshire would not have had to ask for such a rise. In Leicestershire, new technology—hand-held computers —was purchased from a different company to the one that I discovered was used by Staffordshire when I visited Staffordshire constabulary last Friday. It purchases from a different company from Greater Manchester police authority, which the Select Committee visited on Monday. More central guidance, with all police forces procuring equipment from the same company, would save a great deal of money and make it relatively easy for police authorities to communicate with each other. That applies to other computers and technology as well as hand-held computers. Different authorities may buy different computer systems from different companies, thus making it difficult in some cases to transfer data from one to another. We already know that there is a problem with, for example, Lincolnshire's ability to provide information through Europol to police authorities in Europe, because it operates a different computer system. I am sure that the Government have made the right decision, because I know that both Ministers will have examined the representations carefully. However, we should consider such matters, because police authorities generally could benefit.