Oral Answers to Questions Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Home Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Holly Lynch Excerpts
Monday 6th March 2017

(7 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Amber Rudd Portrait Amber Rudd
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I reassure my hon. Friend that we remain committed to those numbers, ensuring that we protect and move people over from the region. We have, in fact, brought over 4,369 in the past 12 months. The last Labour Government capped their figure at 750 per year, and we are pleased to be doing five times that every year.

Holly Lynch Portrait Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
- Hansard - -

Further to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) and others, the report of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary that was published last week found that a third of police forces required improvement or were inadequate, that there was a national shortage of detectives, that neighbourhood policing is being eroded and that there is no coherent strategy for the threat posed to communities by organised criminals. Will the Home Office respond to that damning report and outline what impact the findings will have on the police funding formula review, which we expect to see in the next few weeks?

Brandon Lewis Portrait Brandon Lewis
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The response is for police forces, and I look forward to all police forces responding with the outcomes for their areas. I will write to all those forces that were found to require improvement. Straight after the report came out last week, I met the chief constable of the only one that was found inadequate, and I was impressed with their response to want to deal with the issues. Ultimately, there has also been a big improvement on previous years, which is good news, but the police need to respond and do the work to deliver.