Oral Answers to Questions

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I assure my hon. Friend that partnership working is absolutely at the heart of this Government’s approach to tackling serious violent crime and the running of drugs outside our major cities. Everything we have learnt from the examples elsewhere shows that effective multi-agency partnership works, and the Government are actively supporting that through funds such as the early intervention fund.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Minister deliberately and consistently confuses money raised locally by the precept with money from central Government, but he will be aware that the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have all sounded the alarm about inadequate central Government funding. Most recently, the Mayor of London has said that London police numbers will plummet without increased funding. When will the Minister stop blurring the facts and make sure our police get the money they need?

[Mr Hurd]

I am not blurring any facts. What I am doing is challenging a deception carried out by the Labour party on the British public: that somehow someone else will always pay. The Government have no money: every pound that we spend is raised in tax or borrowed, meaning that the taxpayer pays interest on it. That is the fact. If we want more investment in policing—and we do—we have to pay.