Policing: Priorities

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, safer neighbourhood teams certainly provide reassurance to local people, and if local forces feel there should be more numbers in the safer neighbourhood teams, then that is what they should invest in. I certainly recognise that safer neighbourhood teams provide reassurance at a local level.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, as the Minister knows, I think there are two axes that the Government might follow for the future. One is that the police genuinely need at times to be more effective—just having fewer resources is not a good reason to say that they always need more resources; they have to be more effective at times with the resources they have. I have always felt that, both in the job as well as outside now. However, there is clearly a resourcing issue, and I repeat a constructive suggestion that I ask the Minister to consider. With the transformation fund for the police rising to £350 million over the next two years, which by my estimation would provide 7,000 police officers, it is a foolish endeavour when all it is for is to cover for the fact that there will not be regional police forces. It is not transforming anything; it is taking money from the police at the very time when I would argue that those 7,000 would help to fill the 20,000 gap that has developed over the last seven years.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I start by thanking the noble Lord for what I found to be an extremely helpful discussion yesterday, particularly around knife crime, and for all the incredible work he did as commissioner. He is absolutely right, and I have alluded to it in my answers, that there needs to be more effectiveness within police forces. I take his point about fewer police forces larger in number, but I think that the transformation fund is doing some very good work and is actually incentivising police forces to be more efficient.