Gordon Marsden
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(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 18 November.
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Mr Marsden
May I associate myself, and I hope the whole House, with what the Prime Minister and others in government have said about the attacks in Paris? No man or woman is an island. People from Blackpool were among those murdered on the Tunisian beach, and, like other places worldwide, our tower was lit in red, white and blue in remembrance of those killed by the terrorists in France. I raised concerns with the Prime Minister here two weeks ago about neighbourhood policing and security being threatened by the scale of the proposed cuts and about the Lancashire funding formula, which has now been admitted to be flawed. Will he reflect on the words: “When facts change, I change my mind”? Given that police local intelligence can be crucial against terrorists, perhaps this is not the time to jeopardise it with arbitrary Treasury targets for cuts.
The Prime Minister
First, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments about Paris and the importance of the whole House coming together. Perhaps the House would like a brief update: as I said yesterday, one British national, Nick Alexander, was killed at the Bataclan theatre; three other British nationals have now been released from hospital and returned to the UK; and the Foreign Office and Red Cross are providing support for trauma to at least another 15 British nationals. We will make sure we provide support to those injured and traumatised by the events that have happened. There has been progress this morning in France with the arrest of terrorists, but perhaps I can say more about that later.
On policing, we rightly protected counter-terrorism policing in the last Parliament, and we will protect it again in this Parliament. Otherwise on policing, we have seen an increase of 3,800 in the number of neighbourhood officers over the Parliament and a 31% cut in crime. I commend the police—not just counter-terrorism police, but all police—for the work they do, and we will announce our proposals on police spending next week.