Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an estimate of potential savings from mergers of police forces.

The Government has not made any estimate as to the potential savings from merging police forces. It is not necessary for forces to merge in order to
become more efficient. Chief constables and police and crime commissioners are demonstrating that they can collaborate in order to make efficiency savings
without sacrificing the local accountability and identity of their forces. A programme of force mergers would also impose significant transition and reorganisation costs on the police.