Police: Additional Officers

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point about the child protection teams and how they should be able to do their jobs to protect children, which we can all agree is very important. I will pass that on to my noble friend the Minister. As the noble Lord will be aware, and as I said earlier, decisions on extra staffing and where the staffing requirements go will be down to the chief constables and police and crime commissioners.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, when the former Mayor of London—our current Prime Minister—oversaw dismissals, sackings and the emptying out of the Met Police, it was obvious that he removed an awful lot of people who did the backroom jobs and people at sergeant level, who are the sort of people who will make these police officers more effective on the streets. Do the Government have a plan that will back-fill all these roles that are so crucial to the police being effective?