Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Keir Starmer and Dan Tomlinson

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The SNP left for the election campaign with a significant number of Members and have come back with a small handful, so I do not think we need these lectures on what the electorate in Scotland are thinking. I am very proud of our Scottish Labour MPs. I simply repeat the point that I made to the SNP leader, the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), that perhaps the SNP needs to account for the 30,000 extra children in poverty in Scotland.

[Dan Tomlinson (Chipping Barnet) (Lab)]

Q11. The previous Conservative Government cut the funding for the police in London by one third, taking £1 billion out of the budget for London’s policing and forcing the closure of both police stations in the Chipping Barnet constituency. Does the Prime Minister agree with me on the importance of our police stations and on the need to rebuild local policing?

[The Prime Minister]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. He is the first ever Labour MP for Chipping Barnet, and I know that he will serve his constituency with pride.

Our guarantee will put 13,000 extra neighbourhood officers and police community support officers back on Britain’s streets, and that is a fully funded plan. My hon. Friend is right to say that the last Government absolutely hammered police numbers and he will have seen the impact of that in his constituency. It is telling that the former Justice Secretary said at the weekend that that could perhaps have been done differently. I am glad to see that the people of Chipping Barnet agreed with that assessment and returned my hon. Friend for that constituency.