Police: Armed Officers

Lord Blair of Boughton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

In light of the incident in Paris, the Government have undertaken to provide an additional £143 million over the course of the spending review to provide an uplift in armed policing capability. That will include armed response vehicles and 1,000 additional armed police. To deal with the risk of a marauding firearms terrorist attack, as it is sometimes termed, we have developed a police-led capability that involves the option of large-scale military assistance. Clearly, I will not address details of operational capacity.

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps I should explain to the House that I am not sure how safe it is; I too was a police marksman, and that probably puts me in a firefight position with the noble Lord. The Question is interesting but it is not the real meat of the subject. The meat of the subject is the distribution of armed police across the country. No doubt the Metropolitan Police has a major capacity, as do the West Midlands, Manchester, Liverpool and the great conurbations. Does the Minister agree that services beyond those major cities are inadequate?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The noble Lord is right to observe that there is a concentration of authorised firearms officers in the London metropolitan area; indeed, there are more than 2,000. Beyond those areas, however, more collaborative arrangements have developed, with authorised firearms officers working on a regional basis rather than simply within individual forces.