Political Activities

Mr. Ruffley
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the cost of policing party political conferences in (a) 2007-08 and (b) 2008-09.

Mr. Hanson
We have provided a total of £9.08 million in 2007-08 and £11.2 million in 2008-09 in special grant to police authorities for policing party political conferences.

Special grant is intended to provide financial assistance in exceptional circumstances to help meet costs where additional expenditure, incurred by the force, would otherwise create a serious threat to the authority's financial stability and would threaten seriously to compromise the force's capacity to deliver normal policing.