News Release

12th December 2007

POLICE PAY - PM QUIZZED

At Prime Minister's Questions today (Wednesday), Michael Fabricant asked Prime Minister Gordon Brown whether it is right that police officers in Scotland received their full pay award while police officers in England did not. Michael Fabricant says now "The Prime Minister gave a long waffling answer, but he did not answer my question about the differential in police pay between England and Scotland and whether it is right. To me, it is clearly wrong that the pay award agreed by the independent Police Arbitration Tribunal has not been honoured. It is made worse by the fact that police officers in Scotland have received the full pay award."

Hansard reports:-

Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con): A police officer in Linlithgow is now paid more than a police officer in Lichfield for doing exactly the same job. Is that fair? Is that right?

The Prime Minister: What is happening in Scotland is this: to pay the police more, the planned increase of 500 policemen has been suspended. I know what my constituents and the hon. Gentleman's constituents would prefer-that there were police on the streets. We have more police in this country on the streets, helping us, than at any time in our history. I more than anybody would like to be able to say to the police that we could pay their wages and their salary rise in full, but I have to say to them that no policeman and no person across the country would thank us if their pay rise was wiped out by inflation-and no party should know that better than the Opposition, given that there was 10 per cent. inflation in the 1990s. That is why the awards are being staged. Over the last 10 years, police pay has risen by 39 per cent., and by 9 per cent. in real terms. We have managed to combine that with having rises in police numbers and the biggest police force in history. That is the policy of the Government.