Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of provision of frontline police officers to ensure public safety; what steps she is taking to monitor that provision; and if she will make a statement.

Decisions on the size, composition and deployment of a police force’s workforce are operational matters for individual chief constables, taking account of local needs and circumstances.

Overall, the Government delivered a good settlement for policing through last year’s Spending Review, protecting overall police spending in real terms over the course of the Spending Review period, when local income is taken into account – an increase of up to £900 million in cash terms by 2019/20.

The public should therefore be in no doubt that the police will have the resources they need to keep the public safe and to respond to new threats rapidly and effectively.