Louise Haigh
Main Page: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)Department Debates - View all Louise Haigh's debates with the Leader of the House
(6 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Lady raises an important constituency issue and I encourage her to seek an Adjournment debate so that she can raise it directly with Ministers.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
The Leader of the House’s response on police funding was disappointing. The Prime Minister and the Home Office have repeatedly made it clear that £450 million will be made available from the Government, which is why the UK Statistics Authority ruled that they would lead the public to believe that. Not a single penny is being made available from central Government. The Leader of the House went further than that in a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), stating that more money would be available, on top of the £450 million. Will she therefore take this opportunity to apologise to the House and make it clear that not one penny is going from central Government on our much-stretched, overworked local police forces?
Andrea Leadsom
Whether the source of taxpayer funding is central Government or local government, it is still taxpayer funding. We have been clear that £270 million of the up to £450 million increase would result from increased council tax precept income—something that police and crime commissioners have, for the most part, decided to take advantage of. [Interruption.] It is really important: this is all taxpayer funding, whether it comes from central or local government.