PM ‘gets facts wrong’ over police numbers
Prime Minister David Cameron stands accused of getting his facts wrong in the House of Commons after FactCheck revealed front line police numbers were heading down, not up, as he claimed.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Channel 4 News: “The prime minister and home secretary have repeatedly tried to use smoke and mirrors to hide their cuts to front line policing.
“Yet the evidence is clear – thousands of officers have gone already from front line jobs, with even more to go in future. Already neighbourhood teams, homicide detectives, 999 response units and traffic officers have all been cut back.”
At Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions, Mr Cameron claimed: “The figures from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary show that it believes that there will be more police in visible policing roles this March than there were a year ago.”
However, Home Office figures show that between March 2010 and September 2011 the number of frontline police jobs had dropped by 7,994. Meanwhile, in the last year alone, the frontline has seen 4,000 frontline jobs lost.
Labour MP and shadow policing minister David Hanson told Channel 4 News: “The prime minister has got his facts wrong yet again, according to the HMIC in the last year we have seen 4,000 fewer officers on the streets than previously.
“This is to be expected given the level of cuts imposed on the police forces which will result in 16,000 police officers being lost in the next three years.”
FactCheck: Cameron caught out on frontline police cuts
With almost 8,000 job losses since March 2010, frontline police numbers have now fallen by more than three times the number predicted by the police watchdog, FactCheck found.
Last summer’s Adapting to Austerity report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) predicted the loss of just 2,500 frontline jobs between March 2010 and March 2012.
The HMIC said in the report that it expected to see non-frontline staff bear the brunt of the cuts as forces strive to protect the frontline – and this would push the proportion of frontline staff up from 68 per cent in March 2010 to 70 per cent by March 2012.
FactCheck said Mr Cameron might have done better to explain to the House of Commons that the HMIC predicts the proportion of frontline police to rise, not the number.
A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers said the police service was going through extremely challenging times, with every chief working as hard as possible to protect the frontline.
“But we also need to hang on to a balanced policing model which delivers all the hidden work police officers and staff do to keep people safe; tackling organised crime, monitoring dangerous people and dealing with specialist investigations into difficult crimes like murder or rape,” the spokesman added.
Following PMQs, Mr Hanson raised a point of order in the House. He asked the Speaker of the House to arrange for a copy of Adapting to Austerity to be presented to MPs. “I would not wish the House to be inadvertently misled by the prime minister’s comments today,” he said.
A Downing Street spokesman however told Channel 4 News that the prime minister stands by his comments.