Police: Reduction in Numbers

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I am happy to meet the noble Lord later to find out where he was living and the particulars of the incident. One of the measures that we have introduced, of course, is to differentiate—it does not apply in this case—between non-emergency calls and real emergency calls. The ability to triage calls is an important way of ensuring that the police respond to incidents where they are desperately needed as fast as possible.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, have police and crime commissioners been effective in driving through efficiencies in police forces, particularly with respect to adjacent forces?

[Lord Bates]

I can think of some very good examples. In fact, some former colleagues of the noble Baroness have been instrumental in driving forward this type of co-operation. I am thinking particularly of West Mercia and Warwickshire where there is a much closer relationship because of the public visibility of a police and crime commissioner providing that connection with the community that we talked about earlier.