Police: Reduction in Numbers Debate

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Department: Home Office

Police: Reduction in Numbers

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts
Thursday 26th March 2015

(9 years, 8 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Phillips of Sudbury Portrait Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)
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My Lords, I saw out of my window a car being broken into. I dialled 999 and was answered by a lady from Bombay. Those doing the break-in took their time but the police arrived two days later. What does this incident say about the Question asked?

Lord Bates Portrait Lord Bates
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I am happy to meet the noble Lord later to find out where he was living and the particulars of the incident. One of the measures that we have introduced, of course, is to differentiate—it does not apply in this case—between non-emergency calls and real emergency calls. The ability to triage calls is an important way of ensuring that the police respond to incidents where they are desperately needed as fast as possible.