Police: Expenditure Cuts

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I had better declare that I travelled several miles in the chief constable of West Yorkshire’s car last week from one police building to another. There are of course areas where the police can cut, and a number of rather imaginative schemes are already under way. I was taken on that day to the Yorkshire regional hub, which the four separate Yorkshire police services now share for a number of operations. That is the sort of thing which we need to take further.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, how many front-line police officers will lose their jobs in order to pay for the politicisation of the police force through elected police commissioners?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we will come to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill in good time. We have seen in the past couple of months the normal form of negotiation through the public media. I saw in early February a suggestion that Greater Manchester, for example, would lose nearly a quarter of its strength. We now hear Lancashire Constabulary, I am very happy to say, talking about possibly losing up to 160 policemen in front-line positions. We are beginning to discover that it will be not be as difficult as we feared. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary last week indicated that it expects much fewer police job losses than originally forecast. The Metropolitan Police, accounting for a quarter of all officers in England and Wales, has indicated that it will begin recruiting again shortly.