Police: Station Closures

Baroness Chalker of Wallasey Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord is a member of that police authority and will no doubt put those questions to the mayor in due course. The important point is that those decisions are made by the appropriate authority. It is not for us to micromanage these things; it is for us to make the appropriate resources available to the police. We accept that the cuts that we are having to make, which were forced on us by the previous Government, are difficult. However, they are challenging but manageable, and all police authorities will manage to achieve them.

[Baroness Chalker of Wallasey]

My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister encourage chief constables to use those early-retired persons who are prepared to volunteer their services both to man desks in police stations and to carry out other non-police but essential back-up tasks? This is working extremely well in a number of areas of the Metropolitan force, and I believe that it should be widely extended across the country.

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend makes a very good point indeed and I will certainly take it on board. It is quite right that we should make use of the expertise that we have to make sure that policemen who are still available for front-line duties can do them and are not wasted behind the doors of the police station doing bureaucratic jobs.