Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Vickers Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

Six of Britain’s most senior police officers have warned that the Government’s actions are making it harder to keep our streets safe. From the damaging jobs tax to releasing criminals early, Labour is pushing forces to the brink. Does the Home Secretary agree with Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley that he will be forced to cut 1,700 police officers, PCSOs and staff this year?

[Yvette Cooper]

I gently remind the hon. Member that thousands of police and PCSOs were taken off our streets under the Conservatives. That is why the number of people who say that they never see the police in their communities doubled under the Conservatives. This Government are turning that around, with 3,000 additional police on our streets this year alone. That includes 470 more neighbourhood police on London’s streets.

[Matt Vickers]

We did not get to whether Mark Rowley was right or wrong, and I notice that the Home Secretary forgot to mention the hundreds of millions being gobbled up by Labour’s jobs tax, or the fact that police numbers reached record levels under the last Government.

That aside, the National Police Chiefs’ Council has published its anti-racism commitment, saying that racial equality does not mean treating everyone the same or being colour blind, and calling for arrest rates to be artificially engineered to be the same across racial groups. Does the Home Secretary agree that the police should respond to people’s actions regardless of race? If so, why did the policing Minister endorse this barmy document?

[Yvette Cooper]

The shadow Minister is, as he knows, talking nonsense. The police have to police without fear or favour; that is the standard that they apply and sign up to. I am really sorry that he wants to undermine the important work of police across the country, just as his party in government undermined the number of police on the streets—took them off the streets—so we ended up with thousands fewer police on our streets. This Government are finally putting them back into communities and back on the beat where they belong.