Andrew Gwynne
Main Page: Andrew Gwynne (Labour (Co-op) - Gorton and Denton)Department Debates - View all Andrew Gwynne's debates with the Home Office
(9 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberNo. My right hon. Friend is right, and in Hampshire since 2010, recorded crime has fallen by 26%—one of the highest falls across the country. I have no plans to reintroduce the previous Government’s targets, which meant that central Government were trying to tell the police what to do at local level, rather than allowing them to determine what suited their local areas and respond to the needs of local people.
The Home Secretary talks about freeing up police time, but is she aware of the barmy decision by Greater Manchester police to close Reddish police station and ensure that neighbourhood policing teams for Reddish have to parade on at the central Stockport police station? Far from freeing up police time to go on the beat in north and south Reddish, having to travel from the centre of Stockport to their beats is tying up the police. Is that not barmy and what will she do about it?
T4. I suspected earlier that the Home Secretary would seek to blame somebody else for her cuts, but she is responsible for a reduction in Greater Manchester police’s budget of £134 million with a further £157 million to come out in the next three years. Will she acknowledge that it does not free up police time for officers to parade in one part of the division only to have to travel to another part of the division for their beat? Or is it that her mantra of freeing up police time is precisely what I suspect it is—bluster?
If anybody is blustering, I just heard it. At the end of the day, there is a Labour police and crime commissioner and a chief constable who decide where operational police are. There are more police on operations in Manchester today—