Jeff Smith
Main Page: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester, Withington)Department Debates - View all Jeff Smith's debates with the Home Office
Police: Financial Sustainability
Jeff Smith Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hurd
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about Cardiff, because he has made it to me before, and I certainly do undertake to speak directly to the police and crime commissioner about it. I ask him to recognise that something has changed in the Government’s approach to police funding, which is reflected in the fact that we recognise the increasing demands on the system and the pressures on places such as Cardiff. I hope that he will welcome South Wales police receiving an additional £8.2 million of taxpayers’ money this year.
Jeff Smith
Greater Manchester police has lost 2,000 officers—a quarter of its strength—in the past eight years. The Minister is right to refer to the increasing demands, and particularly to the huge and increasing amount of time that the police have to spend dealing with people in mental health crisis, which is a massive problem in south Manchester. If the Government are going to make massive cuts to council services, mental health services, substance abuse services, homelessness support, domestic violence services and youth services, are they not going to have to increase funding to the police disproportionately because it is the police who have to pick up the pieces from all those other cuts?
Mr Hurd
I challenge the hon. Gentleman’s premise. I want to see police officers focused on core policing and demand better managed in Greater Manchester and other areas between local partners. He talks about cuts. Actually, the Government are, rightly, investing an additional £1 billion a year in mental health. I am determined, as police Minister, to ensure that that money is felt on the ground and that agencies on the ground are supported to take some pressure off our police system.
Bill Presented
Agriculture Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Secretary Michael Gove, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary David Mundell, Secretary Alun Cairns, Secretary Karen Bradley, Dr Secretary Fox, Secretary Dominic Raab, Elizabeth Truss and George Eustice, presented a Bill to authorise new expenditure for certain agricultural and other purposes; to make provision about direct payments during an agricultural transition period following the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union; to make provision about the acquisition and use of information connected with food supply chains; to confer power to respond to exceptional market conditions affecting agricultural markets; to confer power to modify retained direct EU legislation relating to agricultural and rural development payments and public market intervention and private storage aid; to make provision about marketing standards and the classification of carcasses; to make provision for the recognition of associations of agricultural producers which may benefit from certain exemptions from competition law; to confer power to make regulations about contracts for the purchase of agricultural products from agricultural producers and securing compliance with the WTO Agreement on Agriculture; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 266) with explanatory notes (Bill 266-EN).