Council Tax

My hon. Friend brings to the debate an understanding and a knowledge that I could not hope to emulate, and he is right to say that the addition of that £3.4 million effectively raised the baseline. It had become the standard, the norm, for the police authority, because it had spent and absorbed it, and the assumptions on which its future plans were predicated were built around that absorption. My hon. Friend has made a useful point. When we debated the matter in previous weeks and months, I wondered whether the Government might not only allow an exceptional rise in the precept but make a similar kind of grant, given the facts that my hon. Friend set out so clearly. That would, in a sense, be a compromise. It would broadcast the message that Government were doing their bit and the council tax payers were doing theirs. However, as I say, perhaps the Minister has something up his sleeve—a rabbit that he will produce from his hat—in the form of extra money, or at least a commitment to a root-and-branch reform of the formula. I also hope that he will give a commitment—I make this request to him quite plainly—to meet representatives of the authority and the force as a matter of urgency to plan what will happen in the immediate future and in the next 12 months, so that we avoid a recurrence of these circumstances. Others want to speak, and I do not want to test their patience, or the patience of the House, too much, but in summary, we remain in our current circumstances. We have been given a very useful briefing by the police authority, to which I will refer. Lincolnshire remains the lowest spending force per head of population, and the force with the fewest officers per head of population. Despite having less resources than any other force in the country, Lincolnshire police are expected to cover the third biggest geographical area. Is it any wonder that the police authority, but more especially the police force, in the form of the former chief constable and our new chief constable—a splendid man, who I know will do his very best with the resources available to him—are so worried about their ability to provide the level and quality of policing that, in their judgment, the communities in Lincolnshire need and deserve? The chief constable has said:"““we cannot make the investment into policing in Lincolnshire which we know is necessary to provide acceptable levels of service.””" When policemen make remarks of that kind, we know that there is a serious problem. We are not talking about providing an exemplary level of service, or about an ambitious—perhaps unreasonably so—plan for how policing might be improved. We are talking about acceptability—a baseline level of service. Surely my constituents in South Holland and The Deepings, and other residents of Lincolnshire, deserve at least that. I am sure that the Minister, who is a good Minister, would not demur. Finally, I hope that the case that has been made is a measured one. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford—I do not want to be unnecessarily unkind to him, but it is necessary to be reasonably unkind to him—claims that the case has been exaggerated, and is extreme in some way. I totally disagree. I think that the case made by Members of Parliament, local authority representatives and the force has been measured. The authority and the force want to be able to respond to changes in population demands, and they want to devise a plan for dealing with serious organised crime, which does exist in Lincolnshire, despite the bucolic image often painted of our county—and indeed, it is a splendid place to live. They want to develop policing to meet current needs and dynamic demands. They deserve the chance to be able to do so. Of course I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) that we must accept the order. I want the police force in Lincolnshire to be able to implement its plans to do its best for Lincolnshire people. Is that unreasonable? I think not.