Police: Reduction in Numbers Debate

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Department: Home Office

Police: Reduction in Numbers

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts
Wednesday 23rd May 2012

(12 years, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Henley Portrait Lord Henley
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My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for at last saying that she and her colleagues are not arguing against making any cuts. The noble Baroness will accept that we inherited the toughest fiscal challenge in living memory and therefore we had to make cuts—cuts that the noble Baroness’s own party would have made in the unlikely event that it had won the election. We have been clear that it is necessary to make cuts and that there is no simple link between officer numbers and crime levels. We want to make sure that we get the right people in the right place at the right time in the front line, doing the right job.

Baroness Harris of Richmond Portrait Baroness Harris of Richmond
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My Lords, can my noble friend help me to define what the Home Office understands front-line policing to be?