Prime Minister urged to tell the truth about policing cuts

Greater Manchester’s Deputy Mayor has called on Theresa May to finally come clean about cuts to police funding after the Prime Minister was called out by the statistics watchdog earlier this week.

The UK Statistic Authority has officially rebuked the Prime Minister for misleading the public over repeated claims the Government was investing an additional £450m in local policing in 2018/19.

Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime Bev Hughes said: “The public has been repeatedly misled on the issue of police funding and it’s time the Prime Minister comes clean and apologise. Whilst she has stood in Parliament and declared that the Government has provided an extra £450m of funding to local police services, the stark reality is that Greater Manchester Police is facing an eighth year of real term cuts.”

In December, the Government confirmed that the police grant for 2018/19 – the money police forces receive from central government – remains the same as 2017/18. This actually means a real term cut to the pay award due to inflation and other additional financial pressures.

The Government’s claim of additional funding in fact referring to local areas increasing the policing element of council tax, plus money for national police priorities which would not be available to local policing and ring-fenced funding for national counter-terrorism.

“To be clear, the Government are yet again failing to support local policing and protect communities, by passing the financial burden onto hard-pressed council tax payers. It is simply untrue that they have provided additional funding to local police forces,” adds Bev Hughes.

“In Greater Manchester, this means we have been left with no real choice but to ask local people to fill the gap. The Prime Minister should be ashamed that we have been put in this positon at a time when threat levels are high and the demand on our police is ever increasing and complex. The Government is gambling with public safety and our communities need and deserve an explanation and an apology.”