- 11 hours ago
Catch up on all the latest political news from across Kent with Rob Bailey, joined by Liberal Democrat Swale Borough Councillor Ben Martin and Medway Council's, Alex Paterson (Labour).
They discussed police reforms and changes to business rates for pubs and music venues.
They discussed police reforms and changes to business rates for pubs and music venues.
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TVTranscript
00:00Welcome to the Kemp Politics Show on KMTV, I'm Rob Bailey.
00:28Coming up later, will business rape relief keep the taps flowing in Kent's pubs?
00:33But first, could Kent Police be replaced with a regional megaforce?
00:38The government this week released plans for major reform of policing in England.
00:42A three-tier system would include an FBI-style national force,
00:46regional HQs dealing with major crime and neighbourhood officers for the rest.
00:51The current 43 police officers could be reduced to just 12 forces,
00:55including one spanning the south from Sheerness to Southampton.
01:00Here's what Herne Bay and Sandwich MP Roger Gale said in Parliament this week.
01:05Sir Roger Gale.
01:07Thanks, Madam Deputy Speaker.
01:09Kent is one of the largest counties in the country.
01:12It faces very significant geographic challenges with the Channel Tunnel,
01:18the largest port of entry into the United Kingdom, Dover,
01:22a Manston airport that is likely to reopen,
01:23and of course a small matter of illegal migration across the Channel.
01:27I cannot see, Madam Deputy Speaker, how a policing area that I understand will stretch from Banbury in Oxfordshire
01:35to Herne Bay on the North Sea coast and Sandwich on the Channel coast
01:40will be policed effectively and locally, as it currently is.
01:45Madam Deputy Speaker, I am, I think,
01:49certainly one of the only members of this House who has held a warrant as a serving police officer.
01:54I understand very well indeed the needs, I did say one,
02:01I understand the needs only too well for policing to keep pace with the same tools that are used by the criminals.
02:10But could the Home Secretary tell the House whether or not this plan has the confidence of the constabulary?
02:17And here with me in the studio is Labour's Alex Patterson,
02:20Portfolio Holder for Community Safety and Midway Council,
02:23and Liberal Democrat Ben Martin, who sits on Swell Council and Faversham Town Council.
02:28Welcome and thank you for joining me.
02:30Alex, obviously there's been a lot of reaction to this plan.
02:33This is something that would come in in 2034.
02:35Matthew Scott, the current Police and Crime Commissioner, on his way out, obviously, as all of them are,
02:40warned of a separation between police forces and the areas they served
02:43and said it could create a policing which is faceless and soulless.
02:47Do you think that this is the right policy for Kent and Midway?
02:50I think that the model for policing currently isn't so much focused around constabulary areas,
02:57but around divisions anyway.
02:58And I don't think there's any proposal for that to change.
03:01If you look at the level of replication at sort of top brass level in the forces in our region and just outside it,
03:10in Kent you've got a chief constable, a deputy chief constable and four assistant chief constables.
03:16That's replicated in Sussex, exactly the same.
03:20In Surrey I think they've got six assistant chief constables.
03:23I'm not sure that at a day-to-day level neighbourhood policing would change all that much
03:29if we actually had one chief constable and one set of top brass for a larger region.
03:35Ben, one of the things that has been very kind of frequent in the reactions to this
03:41has been thinking about how these new regions would be kind of so diverse
03:45and that that could mean that attention is kind of pulled towards the bigger urban areas
03:50with more complex crime, away from more rural areas.
03:53We've seen various parts of the country, people saying rural crime in particular could be overlooked at all this.
03:58You are in quite a rural area in Favisham.
04:00Is that a concern that you think you would have?
04:02I think there's still a lot of detail that needs to be ironed out.
04:06Certainly I welcome the idea of a more focus on neighbourhood policing.
04:10I've read the Home Secretary's letter that's gone out to the police forces and the unions
04:15and that says very clearly that it's about working with.
04:18That is a key element.
04:19It has to be a case of working with police officers and forces on the ground
04:23to make sure that what develops is right and suitable.
04:26I think when you look at it, policing hasn't really reformed since the 60s.
04:31Crime has changed an awful lot the way crimes occur.
04:36We're already working quite closely in Kent Police with Essex Police, for example, on forensics.
04:41Certainly following some events over the last few months, I had Kent Police out to my property.
04:49The items they took went off to Essex for processing.
04:52So in terms of that top level, it makes sense to have an element of regionality.
04:57But we have to make sure that there is a focus on neighbourhood policing and that we maintain our rural task force.
05:02It's a tricky balancing act.
05:04Let's see what comes out following the Home Secretary's request to work with the police forces.
05:11This feels like a kind of familiar discussion.
05:13We spent quite a lot of time on the show recently talking about local government reform
05:16and the idea that democracy is something that we're now buying in bulk.
05:19You know, that there are huge kind of areas, Kent now being a single unitary authority,
05:24if Kent County Council gets its way, for example.
05:26Do you worry about the loss of accountability?
05:30I mean, you're saying about the fact that it has to be done in partnership with communities.
05:33But as we scale up, doesn't that get harder, Alex?
05:36I think at the moment it would be wrong to think that we have anything other than an asymmetrical policing system in England anyway.
05:45You look at a force like Kent, which covers a population of nearly two million people.
05:49You also have a force like Cleveland, which covers a geographical area a sixth of the size of Kent.
05:56And a quarter of the population.
05:58And they have their own issues in terms of being able to do things at scale.
06:04I think that, you know, the issues of rural versus urban are, in a way, a red herring.
06:12When you look at the impact of things like county lines crime on the Medway towns,
06:17we are impacted not necessarily by criminals coming in from other parts of Kent,
06:21but from parts of London just up the road.
06:24So I think we need to stop thinking about things in terms of boundaries
06:28and accept that this model has already been adopted in a third of the landmass of Great Britain.
06:34Scotland has one police force now.
06:37And while I think they were initially teething problems,
06:40I think that that certainly has eliminated a lot of duplication.
06:43Yeah, in fact, people polled the Scotland model up as an example of how this can work.
06:47Eight forces into one and it's saving apparently 200 million pounds a year.
06:51But, of course, opportunities, attempts to merge English police forces for some reason haven't been as successful.
06:57They tried it in Merseyside in Cumbria and it didn't work.
07:01Do you think that the Scotland model does translate?
07:03Well, I think that you need to adapt to modern times.
07:08And I think that certainly, as Ben said, the modern challenges of serious organised crime require a different approach.
07:16There's always going to be vested interests, as I've said.
07:18There's quite a lot of top brass officers who perhaps see the writing on the wall for their post if there are forced mergers.
07:26But from a general public perspective, I think we have to look at the benefits rather than the individual people who might miss out on bumper salaries.
07:35Ben, I'll bring you in on the timing of this, coming at the same time as local government reform.
07:40We're getting rid of police and crime commissioners.
07:43People will now be represented by fewer, no matter what model of LGR we get, fewer councillors per capita, effectively.
07:50Do you think that that kind of creates a bit of a democratic gap and people having an opportunity to have their say?
07:57It's certainly one of the questions that needs answering as this progresses.
08:01When you take a look at it, we don't know what LGR model we're going to get.
08:06How does this actually relate to devolution?
08:08Devolution said that we'd have metro mayors, essentially, and county mayors, however you want to word them.
08:12And those mayors would have the powers of a police crime commissioner, but we don't know whether we'll have one here in Kent.
08:17Exactly.
08:17And if that force is being represented, representing an area that is covered by three or four mayors, who's actually in charge?
08:24All of a sudden, you're asking a lot of questions at the same time.
08:28I understand the urgency to try and go for a national force.
08:33We have to learn the lessons from that implementation of Police Scotland.
08:37That proved to an extent that bigger isn't always better.
08:40We have to make sure that there is a concentration on neighbourhood policing.
08:44The real way that you prevent crime and you deal with crime is having bobbies on the beat that know their beat.
08:50It's no good, for example, having an officer, even in Kent, if you have an officer that's based in Sevenoaks and knows Sevenoaks really, really well,
08:58and then they're transferred to Swale or Thanet and they haven't got a clue about some of the street names,
09:04that in itself can cause some issues for the public in trust.
09:08So we have to make sure that that is managed really well, but we need to see the detail and that's the real key.
09:15At the moment, it's a white paper. It hasn't been fleshed out fully.
09:19We need to see that detail and it needs to be evidence-based.
09:22Alex, people are very aware of the bigger narrative here around a Labour government that is somewhat embattled at this point
09:28and under pressure from the Greens on one side and the reform and reform from the other.
09:32No one's quite sure how long a Labour government will survive beyond this parliament.
09:38Is this a case of a Labour government trying to do too much all at once?
09:42We've got local government being reformed, police being reformed in ways that do seem to rub up against each other
09:47and create friction with each other. Is Labour in too much of a rush to do too much?
09:52I think on this one, full disclosure, I used to work for Sarah Jones, now the policing minister,
09:57when she was the shadow policing minister, and I can say that the work on these reforms started a long time ago.
10:04This is not an idea that suddenly cropped up halfway through a parliament.
10:09And I'm really confident. I know the sort of rigour with which she treated the research into what is going on,
10:17best practice around the country.
10:19So, no, I'm pretty clear that this is a consistent approach and this is part of a wider plan to both improve neighbourhood policing
10:29at a local level, but also to deliver those efficiencies both in local government reform and in policing.
10:36And efficiencies is always the key word here, isn't it?
10:39Kent Police's budget is around £540 million a year. About half of that, over half of that, goes on officers.
10:45We're going to assume that that money's not going to be cut because that would be the one thing that would kind of go against the whole point of doing this.
10:52Where do you think the axe could fall? What kind of savings can be made from something like this?
10:58Certainly, I think Alex has pointed out already, we have an awful lot of chief constables,
11:04and that's an area that could potentially face some cuts.
11:08But realistically, efficiency can't be a byword for lack of resource.
11:15Whatever happens, we have to make sure that the police forces, however they are brought forward,
11:21whichever mergers are occurred, however large they are, actually have the resources they need to do the work on the ground.
11:27We need to make sure that officers can be on their beats and not stuck behind desks.
11:31And again, in the letter that I saw from the Home Secretary, that is part of the idea,
11:36is trying to reduce some of that paperwork that keeps officers off the beat.
11:40But we need the detail, and that's going to be key.
11:44It's really difficult to challenge a policy.
11:47OK, thanks very much. That's all we've got time for.
11:49When we come back, will the government's U-turn on business rates be the toast of Kent's leisure industry?
11:54Save with us.
14:41Welcome back to the Kemp Politics Show on KMTV.
15:08Next, Pups and Live music venues will get a 15% discount on business rates from April.
15:14It's a climb down by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, whose business rates reform was greeted with
15:18horror by hospitality firms last year.
15:21But the rebate won't be offered to hotels, restaurants or cafes.
15:25This week we spoke to Lauren Edwards, the Labour MP for Rochester and Strood.
15:29But first, here's the reaction from John Warden at the Compass Alehouse in Gravesend.
15:34Any help's a help. You can't get away from that.
15:39But any help that comes from somebody deciding what's going to help you rather than you telling
15:43them what's going to help you isn't that much of a help.
15:46So, yeah, there are things like reducing alcohol tax support with the business rates.
15:51Those kind of things do help.
15:53But the bigger picture is that the cost of everything has gone up so much that raising the business
15:59rates the way that the government have has just had a huge impact.
16:03We've all been swallowing the cost of energy crisis bills.
16:07And that goes throughout the industry.
16:11I mean, I really welcome the fact that the government has listened to some of the concerns
16:15that I and other MPs have been raising with them around the impact on our local businesses
16:21and our local pubs.
16:23I am a bit disappointed that the government hasn't taken that further step and applied
16:28the full rate of relief that it had legislated for for other hospitality businesses and those
16:33in the retail and leisure space.
16:35So before I became an MP, I was very focused on regeneration in my area.
16:42And, you know, I know that diversity on our high streets is really, really key.
16:48Having different types of establishments on a high street to give different reasons
16:53for people to visit their high street is really, really important.
16:56So for me, although this is a really positive step in the right direction, there is more work
17:02to be done here to support those businesses who are going through that change as we move
17:07out of the COVID levels of support.
17:10And it's certainly something that I'll be working with my local business community to
17:14put additional pressure on the government to make sure that, you know, we're offering
17:18all the support that is available.
17:20And still with me is Alex Patterson of Medway Labour and Liberal Democrat Ben Martin from
17:26Fabersham, the home, of course, of Shepard Neame.
17:29And we're talking about a rather embattled part of our economy here, the hospitality sector,
17:35about 40 pubs, according to some data I saw this week in Fabersham alone.
17:39But across the country, one pub a week, one pub every day closed in 2025.
17:46The Times did a very bleak projection based on the data and said if it keeps going at that
17:50rate, the last pub in Britain will close in 2050.
17:55Possibly a bit overstark, but it's a sign that things are not well within that part of the
18:00industry.
18:00Do you think that the U-turn this week will be welcomed by the pubs in your area, Ben?
18:05Certainly.
18:06I spoke to the pub landlord last night, actually.
18:08They welcome the 15%.
18:10However, they've just had a rates valuation.
18:14So even with that 15% rebate, their rates are going up 139%.
18:19That's on top of the 40% increase in ingredients for their food since 2020, 30% increase in the
18:26cost of a barrel of beer.
18:27This is a free house, so they're getting lower rates anyway than a lot of pubs.
18:33In addition to that, you've had the NI increases.
18:35You've had the beer duty increases.
18:38VAT at 20%.
18:39It is putting an awful lot of pressure.
18:41We can't keep seeing hospitality as being this cash cow.
18:44On top of that, we've had the impacts of Brexit.
18:47You know, £3,700 out of the pockets of British people, British families and households.
18:54They can't afford to go to the pub.
18:56You've also got the situation where the old days of your regular being Bob, who comes in
19:02every day, five o'clock on the dot, reads the newspaper, two pints, goes home, and then
19:07the next one's in.
19:08A long gone.
19:09Now you've actually got to spend money to attract people in.
19:11They're in a real dire position.
19:14That particular landlord tells me that they're now working 80 hours a week to reduce what
19:19they're spending on staff because they cannot afford it.
19:22The £6 pint.
19:24£6 for a pint at the moment.
19:27You can buy three pint-sized bottles in a supermarket for £6.
19:30Of that £6 pint, about 10 pence is the profit margin for most landlords.
19:36That particular pub has said they're probably going to have to raise that by 25p, 20p, and
19:41that's them still taking a hit and probably only making five or six pence on a pint.
19:45It is dire straits.
19:47What we really need is an emergency cut to VAT for the hospitality sector.
19:52Our suggestion is that you cut it by 5%, take it down to 15% as an immediate fix.
19:57You investigate whether or not there is opportunities to have a relief for small, medium businesses
20:03on the employer NI, whether you look at having a lower rate for part-time workers on employer
20:09NI to try and help the trade, along with a wider look at business rates and full reform.
20:15That's what we really need.
20:18Also, when you look at the list of areas that are exempt, hotels, cafes, restaurants, most
20:25pubs went to being dry-led a long time ago because wet-led pubs were closing.
20:31It's going to be down to each district to decide what is a pub.
20:36This is one of the areas of difficulty, isn't it?
20:39Pubs get the rebate, but if they're also a hotel and they're classed as a hotel, they
20:44don't. Alex, what Ben is describing is an industry that's under siege, isn't it?
20:49Absolutely, but to suggest that this is something that's happened in the last few months or the
20:55last couple of years is misleading. It's a long-term trend in terms of people changing
21:02their habits, moving away from going out to the pub through the week and, as Ben says,
21:08drinking at home or not drinking at all. So there are those challenges. I think what's
21:13happened here is also the reality has kicked in that the COVID era, the COVID era relief
21:21at some point has to stop. I think, you know, if we can agree on nothing else, we have to agree
21:26that that can't go on forever. And that's coincided with a revaluation and an independent
21:33rates revaluation that has tied the Chancellor's hands, really, in a sense, because she's reduced
21:41the multiplier. It's a very complicated system, but she has reduced the multiplier. And yet,
21:45because of the 40% relief ending, people's bills have gone up. So it's...
21:51It's easy to describe it as a long-term problem, isn't it? But ultimately, Rachel Reeves made
21:56decisions in the budget last year, which the industry would say were kind of a final nail
22:00in the coffin. She didn't have to do that, did she? She could have gone a different way.
22:04This was a mistake, wasn't it?
22:06I think that the sort of, you know, there's a lot of talk about fiscal headroom, but actually just
22:12very basic wiggle room in the economy. It's pretty limited, actually. And you make adjustments
22:18here and there. And, you know, as I say, it's not a blunt instrument, business rates. It's
22:23a really complicated system. The valuations are independent, so the government has no control
22:29over that. The way pubs are valued is different from other businesses, which is why they have
22:34been hit particularly hard by this particular increase. So I'm glad that that 15% relief is
22:41being targeted. There is not an infinite pot of cash. Again, I think we'd have to agree
22:46that. And so we have to target that help in areas such as pubs, live music venues, who've
22:53also been really hit hard by sort of recent changes, not least Brexit. Touring musicians
23:00have been impacted by the complications and the ridiculous red tape and bureaucracy, which
23:07Nigel Farage's Brexit has introduced for that industry. So I think there's a real need for
23:12targeted help in those areas. And I'm really pleased that that has been forthcoming.
23:17Ben, this government has another sort of three and a bit years to run. I mean, obviously,
23:22we're in this path. We can see where this policy is heading. What are your fears about
23:25what Faversham's pub industry, for example, might look like at the end of that period?
23:31I fear that we're going to lose an awful lot more landlords and an awful lot more pubs.
23:35As you say, one a week closing in England and Wales alone. Many being lost to development.
23:42I think in Kent last year, we lost 20-odd by June. That's not sustainable. Those are the
23:48jobs that people start out in. They become careers for people. Those are skills that we're
23:53currently lacking.
23:54I think when you look at it, yeah, we've mentioned the Brexit word. Brexit's costing
23:59us £250 million a day on our economy. That is what the OEC say. You then have a look at
24:06what it's costing in tax revenue. £90 billion of tax revenue a year lost because we're not
24:12part of the EU and we're not part of the customs union. Perhaps it's time for the government
24:16to take a look. We saw it when the Lib Dem MPs put forward the motion to rejoin, that
24:24that actually had some support. Let's start off with going back for a customs union with
24:29Europe. We've seen on the international stage what's happening. We need close relationships
24:34with our biggest trading partner. That is part of the solution.
24:37Ben, one of the things we've learnt from the rise of reform over the last year or so is that
24:41there are a lot of people out there who would very strongly disagree with that as a solution,
24:44aren't there? That may be, but you've got to look at the facts as they are. We've seen
24:50it in many aspects. Some people don't like facts. They like to look at what they see or
24:56what they perceive, but you have to take the facts as they are. We are poorer being outside
25:01of Europe. We are paying the price for being outside Europe, both in terms of our international
25:06prestige to an extent, our diplomatic position. We're in a weak position when it comes to dealing
25:11with the likes of Trump on the international stage. We're weak on trade and it's affecting
25:17our businesses and our households now. We need to put that money back in people's pockets.
25:21If I can bring it back to the hospitality sector, I wanted to ask you specifically about theatres
25:25because they're also excluded from this. Chatham has two, one of them under redevelopment at
25:30the moment. There are organisations like the Society of London Theatre saying that they are
25:34also a part of our economy under siege, warning of closures and job losses. Do you worry about
25:40the future of Chatham's theatres and the money that the Council is spending to restore the
25:44Brook, which will emerge into a very changed environment, won't it?
25:49Specifically, the redevelopment of the Brook Theatre, I think, is a massive boon for Chatham
25:54and the whole of Medway. I think that despite the fact that the environment for the entertainment
26:01and hospitality industry is challenging, I think that is a good thing for the area. Look,
26:07you know, you can look at these things through a sort of telescope, whatever way around you
26:13want to look at it, and as narrowly as you like, there will always be winners and losers
26:18in any budget because, as I say, there's not an infinite pot of cash. But what I think the
26:25government is trying to do is tread that middle ground. You know, it's being pragmatic and
26:31the things that Ben's saying about trying to work back from the disastrous Brexit that
26:38was delivered by... We have to end there. I'm very sorry. That's all we've got time for.
26:42Thank you to both of my guests for joining me. Stay tuned for Kent tonight for all the latest
26:46news and we'll see you next week.
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