Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Home Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts
Monday 16th November 2015

(9 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mike Penning Portrait Mike Penning
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A lot of new technology is coming into force, along with different crimes—we have a completely different crime pattern these days from what we have inherited over the years. Body-worn video cameras in particular are transforming frontline policing. They are a wonderful asset. If police and crime commissioners and their chief constables are not looking at them now, I fully expect most of them to do so in the very near future.

Lord Walney Portrait John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
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I am confused. If the Minister’s decision to suspend the imposition of unprecedented cuts on Cumbria’s police force because he wants them to be £5 million greater is not interfering with frontline policing, I am not sure what is. Will he at least reassure my worried constituents and those across the county that he will not go ahead with the £31 million of cuts, which he somehow managed to forget to announce when he said the figure would be £26 million?

Mike Penning Portrait Mike Penning
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I stood at this Dispatch Box last week and announced that we would stick with the existing funding formula for 2016-17. I did not forget anything—I announced it and was questioned very fully. Crime has fallen in Cumbria, which the whole House will welcome.