MPs from across the Thames Valley came together to put pressure on the Home Office to increase the value of the South East pay allowance currently received by police officers in the south of the Thames Valley Force in order to combat the loss of experienced officers to the Metropolitan Police. The MPs had organised a Commons debate on Wednesday morning (28^th) led by Tony Baldry - the MP for Banbury. There were contributions from local MPs Martin Salter, Richard Benyon, and Rob Wilson. The debate highlighted increasing problems with retaining experienced officers in the Thames Valley and other Forces surrounding London due to a £5,000 pay differential and up to seventy miles of free travel that the Met have on offer in order to lure officers from other areas.

Martin Salter has been campaigning since 2002 on this issue and was initially successful in helping to secure a £2,000 South East Weighting Allowance which went some way towards stemming the number of transfers. Unfortunately the Met Police’s London Allowance - initially £6,000 - has been increased with inflation, whereas the South East Allowance has not. In his speech Mr Salter referred to the drop in the number of officers transferring when the allowance was initially introduced from around 90 a year to between 20 and 40. But in 2007/08, 78 officers decided to transfer to the Met and without further action to reduce the pay differential, he was worried that the numbers would increase still further. This approach was supported by all other speakers with the exception of Reading East MP Rob Wilson who said:-

“In the current economic climate I don’t think increasing the South East Allowance is worth pursuing.”

Martin Salter said:-

“I have ploughed this sometimes lonely furrow since 2002 and I’m delighted that by and large we now have strong cross-party support for increasing the South East Allowance to end the ability of the Metropolitan Police to adopt its aggressive campaign of poaching police officers who have been trained at the expense of council taxpayers in my constituency and the constituencies of other Thames Valley MPs. I don’t want in future the streets of my town to be overwhelmingly policed by raw probationers. Everybody knows that experienced cops catch more crooks.”

Responding to Mr Wilson’s comments Mr Salter said:-

“I’m afraid Rob Wilson is fundamentally wrong on this issue. The only thing stopping Thames Valley Police Authority paying a higher South East Allowance to retain its experienced officers is the absurd and Byzantine rules which govern the operation of the Police Negotiating Board (PNB). The Police Authority has money in its budget to reduce this ridiculous pay differential and Rob Wilson should really do his homework before making such absurd and potentially damaging comments on the floor of the House of Commons. This is not a party political issue and we need all MPs to be pulling together if we are going to get a better deal for our police here in the Thames Valley.”

Responding to the debate, Police Minister Vernon Coaker made it clear that he was personally committed to seeing the South East Allowance increased and would be raising the matter at the PNB. Mr Coaker confirmed that across all the south east police forces, which between them have lost over 1,000 officers in the last five years, money could be found to implement the changes and that this was a position endorsed by the Association of Chief Police Officers.