Police Funding Settlement

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I speak not just as the Minister for Policing, but as the Minister for London and a London MP. Certainly, a large part of my ongoing conversations with the Mayor will be on the question, “What are you doing with the money?” The taxpayer has put in an additional £100 million this year. As I have said, there is the potential from this settlement for an additional £172 million of public investment in the Met. It is already a force that has over one and a half times the national average in terms of police officers per head, so the voice from Londoners will get increasingly loud in asking, “What are we getting for the money?”

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Yet another tragic case of knife crime in my constituency led to a death within the last 48 hours. Ten years ago, there were 31,000 police officers in London, and the Mayor of London is now warning that that is going to drop to below 27,000. Back then, I had six police officers per ward in my constituency, and I am now struggling to get two. The Government were warned about the dangers of cutting the police so severely and now we are suffering the consequences. What will this announcement do to address the severe cuts that we have seen over the last eight years?

[Mr Hurd]

As a fellow Londoner, I say to the hon. Gentleman that there is absolutely cross-party consensus on the absolute determination that we need to bear down on this horrific spike in serious violence and knife crime. I am sure that the whole House will want to pass on through him their condolences to the family and friends of the victim of that tragedy. Through the serious violence strategy and the serious violence taskforce, on which the Mayor sits, as do other London Labour MPs, there is an absolute determination to combine robust policing with a big investment in prevention and early intervention to do just that. The Met needs more resources, as I said. An additional £100 million of taxpayers’ money is going into that system this year. This settlement enables additional investment of £172 million, if Sadiq Khan increases precept flexibility. The hon. Gentleman talks about police officer numbers. I am sure that he is aware—and will welcome the fact—that the commissioner is actively recruiting an additional 1,000 officers. We all wait to see what the result of this settlement will be in terms of updating those plans.