G20 and Paris Attacks

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and puts it in the right way. We must not confuse migration and terrorism, but we need to be clear that proper border controls and checks are necessary to make sure that the people who come to our country do not threaten us. That is one reason why we have never joined Schengen: we want to keep our own border controls. Taking Syrian refugees from the camps enables us to carry out the checks before they take off.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister is right that greater powers are necessary to thwart terrorist plots on the internet. He is also right to make available additional resources for our security services and special forces. However, does he not agree that this would be the worst possible time to proceed with the biggest cuts to a police service anywhere in Europe, which would have a serious impact on the neighbourhood policing that is vital to intelligence gathering, as it is the eyes and ears of counter-terrorism in local communities?

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, we protected counter-terrorism policing budgets in the last Parliament and will do the same in this Parliament. The police have shown in the past five years how well they can find efficiencies and increase the number of neighbourhood police officers on our streets.