Hate Crime

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, these disgusting letters have, quite righty, caused revulsion in our communities and been condemned. I pay tribute to community and faith leaders, charities and others for what they have done. They and others will not let us be divided. Domestic extremism needs to be dealt with. Can the noble Lord reassure us that the Anderson review recommendations to the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre will start to produce the threat assessments for domestic extremism? Can he reassure the House that the police have the resources they need? He will of course be aware that the police got less than half of what they asked for to deal with terrorism.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

On the first question, of course we want to take those recommendations forward, and perhaps I could write in more detail to the noble Lord on that. On the question of police resources, I am aware of the exchanges that took place in the other place yesterday. After speaking to all forces in England and Wales, the Government have provided a comprehensive funding settlement that will increase total investment in the police system by around £450 million in 2018-19. Overall public investment in policing will grow from £11.9 billion in 2015-16 to around £13 billion in 2018-19. We believe that the settlement enables police and crime commissioners to increase their direct funding by up to £270 million. It is then up to chief constables to decide how best to deploy officers in their force to effectively serve and engage their communities and to build trust and confidence. The Government have made it absolutely clear that this is one of the priorities that police forces must engage in as they deploy those resources.