Debate contribution: Policing Resources

Debate contribution by Mr Doug Beattie MC on 9 September 2024.

MLA

Mr Doug Beattie MC

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

9 September 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Policing Resources

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4511755

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Policing is an increasingly complex issue, and we ask more and more of our police force every year with less and less resource. It has been a good and robust debate, and it is right that we have a robust debate. This has certainly not been theatre. I disagree with the Minister in that I do not think that anybody has been dragged through the mud, but I agree with her that this is a life-and-death issue. It is good to have these debates. I thank the Chief Constable for raising the issue, because that is what brought us here. In winding up on our amendment, I will raise three issues. First, funding and resourcing of the police is not an operational matter but a strategic issue. That is an important point, because failure to understand the difference between strategic and operational matters is where we have a problem. Nobody is arguing that the Minister or other politicians should be involved in the day-to-day running of the police's tasking, routine, logistics or cooperation with other Departments' forces. That is the operational level at which the Policing Board should help the Chief Constable with an oversight and challenge function. However, ensuring that the police have enough funding to resource and plan for long-term outcomes and have the right workforce to achieve those high-level initiatives is the strategic level. The Assembly is right to scrutinise the Minister. It is important that we scrutinise the Minister. I thank the Minister for coming to respond to the debate. It is right for the Minister to stand up in the Chamber to fight for her police force. I would like to see more of that, to be honest. The second issue is this: is the Chief Constable right to reach out to the Prime Minister's office for further funding? Of course he is. If he can add value by reaching out to the Prime Minister's office, he should do that. Chief constables across the United Kingdom have the ability to reach into the Prime Minister's office and to inform policy through the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC). Although the PSNI is not a full member of the National Police Chiefs' Council, it contributes to it, and the NPCC speaks to the Prime Minister's office all the time. Instead of castigating the Chief Constable over a letter that he sent to the Prime Minister to raise the profile of an agenda and try to secure funding, we should welcome his initiative in doing so. He is standing up for his force and his rank-and-file officers; I have not heard one voice today that has not done similar, so I think that he is right to do so. The third issue is the question of where the extra cash will come from. That is an important and a fair question. We voted against the Budget because it is not workable. It is just unworkable: simple as that. I was staggered to find out that the Minister had not engaged with her Chief Constable to say, "This is the likely outcome of a Budget", before agreeing to it. That is the fundamental problem.

Of course.

Well, that is on record: you said that you engaged with the Chief Constable. That is OK. I was told something different.

In saying that, our amendment lays out where that extra cash could come from.

Stop heckling. There is a serious and credible national security threat in the United Kingdom. That is magnified in Northern Ireland, where there are republican terrorists, loyalist paramilitaries, organised crime gangs, the far right and the far left. We have the only open border with the EU, which means that we are at risk of wider, global terrorism.

I am sorry; I have no time. To that end, a case can be made directly to the Prime Minister's office and the Home Office for more funding to help with national security operations.

We simply cannot allow our Police Service to dwindle any more than it has already. We have 4,500 operational officers who we can put on the streets. That is absolutely pitiful. There are 700 or 800, or maybe more, who are on short-term or long-term sick. Policing is a contact sport; that is the reality. They need resilience. Patten talked about 7,500 officers and 2,500 reserves. Technology means that we could reduce that number, but we are not anywhere close. This is a wake-up call for us to understand the nature of what is happening with our Police Service, and we should all, rightly, support it now.

768 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:58 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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