Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Roz Savage and Diana Johnson

Monday 24th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Specific resources are available to police forces to be surged into tackling county lines. I know the police force in Dorset, in her area, has applied for that funding in the past, so I encourage her to have a conversation with the police and crime commissioner and chief constable about what more can be done to get that resource into the towns she talks about.

[Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)]

8. If she will increase funding for Gloucestershire constabulary.

[The Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)]

The 2025-26 final police funding settlement provides funding of up to £19.6 billion for the policing system in England and Wales, which is an increase of £1.1 billion when compared to 2024-25. Of that, Gloucestershire will receive up to £168.2 million, an increase of over £10 million, including £1.5 million to kickstart the recruitment of additional neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers in Gloucestershire.

[Dr Savage]

My constituency straddles two large counties, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, which both languish near the bottom of the league table of funding for constabularies. Despite the modest rise in funding, those constabularies will have to cut policing numbers, so can the Minister assure my constituents that crimes will be addressed on a timely basis?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

More money is going into policing, particularly around the neighbourhood policing guarantee that this Government promised in their manifesto. We are providing £200 million to kickstart the recruitment of police officers, PCSOs and specials in all our communities. I take the hon. Lady’s point about the funding formula and how that affects the two forces that straddle her constituency. We are going into a spending review and I know officials have met representatives from Gloucestershire constabulary to talk about the financial situation. We will keep that under review as we work towards the spending review.