Oral Answers to Questions

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important point about Afghan interpreters, who served bravely alongside our armed forces, as he says. The Home Secretary has been looking at this issue, particularly in relation to the fees for those individuals. Some have wished and been able to return to Afghanistan and have been given opportunities by the Government to retrain and re-establish their lives there, but it is important that we recognise the debt that we owe them.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Q15. Crime in north-east Lincolnshire is up more than 20%. Recently, we have had a single-punch death, a serious blade attack and an incident involving 200 hooligans that forced Grimsby families to flee our local seaside resort of Cleethorpes. Humberside police have 310 fewer frontline officers and 550 fewer support officers than in 2010. Will the Prime Minister accept that her cuts mean that residents of Grimsby and Cleethorpes no longer have the fully funded and properly staffed police force they deserve?

[The Prime Minister]

Since 2015, we have been protecting police funding. This year, we have made available £460 million extra to policing across the country, which is more than the Labour party was committed to in its election manifesto last year. As I have always said—and indeed as the shadow policing Minister has said—there is no direct link between the number of police officers, crime and funding.