Oral Answers to Questions

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is well aware of my views, so I do not need to add much more on that. This absolutely is a priority, on the basis of the new plan for immigration and making sure that is delivered, along with the legislation on reforming the national referral mechanism and the many other approaches we have spoken about.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

T7. Can the Minister confirm how many fewer police officers there are in England and Wales today compared with 2010, and how long it will take for those police officer numbers to be restored, given that we lost over 20,000 officers under the Tories after 2010?

[Tom Pursglove]

The bottom line—I know the hon. Gentleman does not like it very much—is that we have recruited over 13,500 new police officers as part of the uplift, and the fact is that his party has not been supportive of those efforts. We are putting more police officers out on the beat, catching criminals and deterring crime.