Police bill for talks could be tens of millions

The policing bill for a major climate change summit in Glasgow next year could be “many tens of millions of pounds”, Police Scotland warned.

It was announced on Tuesday that the United Nations had chosen Glasgow to host Cop26 in November next year.

The 26th Conference of the Parties (Cop) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will bring about 30,000 delegates to the city’s Scottish Event Campus.

It will be the largest summit the UK has held, with up to 200 world leaders expected for the final weekend of talks.

While planning for the event is only at an “embryonic stage”, David Page, the deputy chief officer for Police Scotland said it would require an “incredibly large and complex policing operation”.

Police Scotland will call on Scottish ministers to seek additional funds from the UK Government to help with the costs, with the force insisting the bill cannot be met from its “core budget”.

The force’s chief financial officer James Gray expected costs of policing the summit to be significantly higher than the total spent when US President Donald Trump visited Scotland in 2018.

He told MSPs on Holyrood’s Justice Sub-Committee on policing: “The conference in November 2020, the planning for that is embryonic so I wouldn’t want to put a figure on it because we haven’t done the detailed work. But I would suspect it will run into very many tens of millions of pounds.”

He added: “Our experience has been when things like that happen and we engage with the Scottish Government they have been responsive to our requests and have worked with the UK Government in order to secure the funding.