Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what capabilities are exempt from his Department’s target for efficiency savings by the British Transport Police.

In agreeing the British Transport Police Authority’s proposals for efficiency savings as part of the Spending Review, it was made clear that any savings should ensure that any material impact on the operational capability of the British Transport Police (BTP) is minimised; counter terrorist activity was exempt from the Spending Review process. The efficiency savings target includes the BTP’s core policing activities only; enhanced policing services, which are provided to operators on request on a commercial basis, are excluded from the target.