Ministers consider police funds U-turn
MINISTERS were last night said to be considering a U-turn on police funding after the head of Scotland Yard warned the force was ‘stretched’ by terror attacks and a rise in violent crime.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd was under pressure to boost cash for the Metropolitan Police after Commissioner Cressida Dick said she was facing a shortfall of £400million over the next few years. She is also being pressed to scrap a controversial shake-up of the police funding formula following stark warnings that budget cuts in Britain’s biggest force would put London’s security at risk from a terror atrocity.
Met chiefs were braced to lose millions from their annual budget when the Home Office changes the method which allocates resources to forces across the country later this year. Before a previous shake-up was axed in 2015, Scotland Yard said it stood to lose £184million.
London mayor Sadiq Khan has warned the city has lost ‘thousands of police staff’ since 2010, while Ms Dick has said she would ‘obviously’ be seeking extra resources.
Ms Dick told BBC London: ‘We’re not having any fewer calls for from the public, so we’re stretched. We do undoubtedly need a very capable police service in the future for all the reasons people can see. I’m sure we can become more efficient, however, we need the resources to do the job and I am talking to the Government and to the mayor about that.’
Mr Khan said: ‘I’m pleased that the Government look likely to drop their plans to change the police funding formula. However, this alone is not enough to protect police numbers in London or to ensure we are able to deal with major counter-terrorism incidents and the rise in violent crime.
‘The Home Office has already made the Met find £600million of savings following cuts since 2010. Their plans to make the Met find a further £400million of savings on top of this over the next few years will have a big impact on policing in London.’
The Government faced criticism during the general election over the scale of police cuts since 2010, which led to 20,000 fewer bobbies on the streets, following the terror attacks in Manchester and London Bridge.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘The Government is undertaking a period of engagement with policing partners and independent experts on the police funding formula. The arrangements are outdated and do not reflect the demands of modern policing.’
Nearly 2,000 extra Met police officers will be armed with 50,000-volt Tasers to tackle the threat of terrorism and knife crime.
Britain’s largest force will hand more frontline bobbies the stun guns following a surge in violence – bringing the number carrying the controversial weapons to more than 6,400.