Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper are locked in a funding battle ahead of the Spending Review on Wednesday. The Home Secretary’s allies warn that Labour’s crime targets, and its pledge to hire 13,000 new neighborhood police officers, are at risk without a serious cash injection.
Housing Secretary Angela Rayner reached a settlement on Sunday evening after “progress” in negotiations but Ms Cooper is holding out in talks also involving No 10.
Police budgets are expected to get a real-terms increase in each of the next three years, but negotiations are ongoing about the wider Home Office budget.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle on Sunday said police needed to “do their bit” towards reforming public services.
Kyle told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that “every part of society was struggling” and that the chancellor was facing pressure from all departments for additional funding.
He said the review would boost spending for schools and scientific research but declined to rule out a squeeze on policing.
Reports have suggested that Ms Reeves has promsed a real-terms increase in police funding but the increased police funding will only be achieved through cuts to other areas of the Home Office’s day-to-day budget, it is understood.
Unprotected departments, for which the Government has made no specific spending promises, including the Home Office and the Communities, are facing real-terms cuts in their spending in the latter years of this decade.
Overall day-to-day departmental spending will grow by 1.2% annually in real terms in the financial years ahead but much of the increase will be taken up by the NHS, defence and schools budgets.
