Tory Minister slammed for accusing police of exaggerating pressures
A lot of Tories seem to have taken an approach that when their backs are against the wall say what you need to get away and deal with the consequence later. This is just another example.
Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Ed Davey has today slammed Policing Minister Nick Hurd for accusing police chiefs of routinely exaggerating the pressures they face.
Speaking in Parliament today, Ed Davey warned “Police chiefs say the pension deficit, if it’s filled, could cost up to 10,000 police officers.” He asked the Minister “Does he agree with them?”
Responding to Ed Davey, the Minister said: “No I don’t. I think the number is exaggerated, which is not unusual for the police.”
Following the exchange, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Ed Davey said:
Police chiefs are warning of huge further cuts to police numbers, and the Conservatives’ response is simply to accuse them of exaggerating. It’s deeply alarming.
“Unnecessary Tory cuts have already taken almost 5,000 officers off the streets since 2015. With serious violent crime on the rise, the last thing we need is even more cuts.
“The Liberal Democrats demand better. Instead of cutting police budgets further and disparaging senior officers, we would stop the Tory cuts and give forces an extra £300 million a year to recruit more officers and make communities safer.”
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2 Comments
Errrrrr…………………. when Sir Edward Davey was Mr Ed Davey wasn’t he in the Cabinet ?
And when he was in the Cabinet didn’t he go along with government policy ?
Simple numbers tell the story. In 2010 Theresa May as home secretary made the mistake that Margaret Thatcher never made in the 1980s and agreed to a Treasury demand to cut police budgets by 18% (where were David Laws and Danny Alexander ?)
Over the next five years the number of police officers in England and Wales fell from a peak of 144,353 in 2009 to 122,859 in 2016. At the same time the number of specialist armed police officers fell from a peak of 6,796 in 2010 to 5,639 in 2016.
Did it never occur to the Cabinet (or the Quad) that if there were more retired policemen drawing a pension – and less contributing – then the sums wouldn’t add up ?
“Unnecessary Tory cuts have already taken almost 5,000 officers off the streets since 2015.”
The graph of the numbers of “Frontline police officers” (at 31 March each year) for England and Wales on this page (https://fullfact.org/crime/police-numbers/, based upon Table A5 here http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00634/SN00634.pdf) shows that most of that drop was between 2015 – 2016 (4400 out of 5300 up to 2017, out of 7000 up to 2018).
Presumably this was largely a consequence of decisions about cuts made by both Tories and Lib Dems before then.