16. What assessment she has made of the likely effects of the planned reduction in Government funding for police authorities in (a) England and (b) West Yorkshire. (28283)

The Government will propose individual force allocations to Parliament later this month. By cutting costs and scrapping bureaucracy, we will save both money and man hours, so I am confident that the spending review should not lead to any reduction in police officers visible and available on the streets.

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer and accept the logic of what he says. May I bring it to his attention, however, that the proposed cuts in grant reductions will lead to 7.07% cut to West Yorkshire police, whereas it will lead to a 0.17% increase for Surrey police? By looking at damping the formula grant, could we not find a fairer way and ensure that all forces have approximately the same reductions in their funding?

My hon. Friend raises an important point about both the issue of damping and the contribution to police funding made by the precept. I am afraid that I cannot tell him any more about our plans right now, but we will make an announcement to the House very shortly.

Perhaps I can help the House by quoting what the Minister said on “The World This Weekend” on Sunday 21 November. He said:

“There is no such link”

between police numbers and levels of crime. Let me ask the Minister, however, about a recent quote by the Home Secretary on special constables, as I do not have the opportunity to ask the right hon. Lady. We know that special constables are a valued extra resource for our police service. It has been reported that the Home Secretary said that she is looking to recruit an additional 50,000 specials, but does the Minister seriously believe that part-time volunteers can properly substitute for the core policing work of trained, full-time police officers and police community support officers whose numbers are being so savagely cut?

I repeat to the hon. Lady that I said that there was no simple link. She may have noticed that the former police chief of Los Angeles and New York was in this country last week. He wrote a number of pieces, which I think the hon. Lady should read. One thing he said was:

“It’s not so much the number of police you have… but what you do with them… You cannot spend your way to a safer community… Successful policing is not only about making the right investments: it’s about leadership and focus.”

I would suggest that Bill Bratton knows rather more about policing than the hon. Lady does. As to special constables, of course they are valuable and of course we would like to recruit more of them. They are not a substitute for what police officers do, but an important supplement.