I agree with my hon. Friend on the question of unfairness, particularly in relation to the precept, but I will come to that issue in a few minutes.
The Home Secretary needs to face up to the fact that there is an issue regarding the poor overall financial management of the police by the Home Office. Let me remind him what the National Audit Office had to say last year about the Home Office’s overall management of police finances:
“We concluded that there were significant gaps in the Department’s understanding of demand and of pressures on the service, and it needed to be better informed to discharge its duties of overseeing the police and distributing funding.”