Question to the Home Office:

What additional funding her Department plans to provide to ensure that police forces have the capacity to enforce localised covid-19 lockdowns in addition to carrying out their other duties.

The Home Secretary promised to stand behind the men and women of our Police to give them the resources, powers and funding they need to keep the British public safe and we are working with all police forces to capture the additional financial pressures they are experiencing as a result of COVID-19.

We will issue further detail of the support package we are providing as soon as possible.

The police funding settlement for 2020/21 set out that £168m of the additional funding for recruitment this year would be ringfenced and paid to forces. It has been agreed that half of this funding (£84m) will be flexed to allow for expenditure on both COVID-19 related pressures and continued Police Uplift Programme recruitment activity in light of the current circumstances.