Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

I can assure my hon. Friend that there is no need for a reduction in neighbourhood policing. Many police forces up and down the country are making a commitment to maintain neighbourhood policing by finding savings in the back office and collaborating, and through better procurement and saving money.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

T5. We all want to see our police officers out on the beat more, but how will cutting police staff who often free up police officers from administrative tasks help with that?

[Mrs May]

One of the crucial things that we are doing, as we indicated earlier, is cutting the administrative tasks that need to be done by cutting the extreme levels of bureaucracy that were introduced to policing by the Labour Government.