DAVEY BLASTS TORY PROPOSALS TO CUT POLICE

• MP "shocked" at Tory hypocrisy on police, as Tory MPs fail to vote against Labour’s police budget in Parliament & Tories propose police cuts at the GLA
• Davey raises cuts in police in Parliament & receives indication of 18 extra officers for Kingston next year
• Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, concerned at ideas for larger-than planned "efficiency savings", as proposed by Tory GLA members

Liberal Democrats re-doubled their campaign for extra police for Kingston both on the Greater London Authority and in Parliament, but were amazed to find the Conservatives were proposing large cuts to London’s police budget.

Liberal Democrats on the Greater London Authority, which now controls the police budget in London, have backed a major increase in spending on London’s police. According to estimates supplied by Sir John Stevens to the Metropolitan Police Authority, this could mean an extra 18 police officers for Kingston next year. After ten years of cuts to the numbers of Metropolitan Police officers, this would mark a major turn round.

However, Conservatives on the GLA have proposed cuts to London’s police budget of £47 million, which they have tried to disguise with the label of "efficiency savings". However, in a letter to the Metropolitan Police Authority, Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner says "you will appreciate my concerns at how difficult any further reductions beyond the full 1% of efficiency savings now required by the GLA would be."

Speaking in Parliament last week, Kingston and Surbiton’s MP, Edward Davey, backed the Lib Dem call for extra officers and, in a debate on the Police Grant, told the Home Office Minister, Charles Clarke, that people "do not believe that the money that the Government gave to the Greater London Authority was sufficient to increase police numbers to the level that we need." (see attached)

In the debate, Mr. Davey also asked the Conservative spokesman, Oliver Heald, to justify the Conservative proposals to cut London’s police, but no answer was given. Mr. Davey was also horrified when the Conservative front bench MPs failed to vote against Labour’s proposed police grant. Mr. Davey said:

"I continue to press Kingston’s case for more police, but I am astonished by what the Tories are doing. They tell people they want more police, then when they think no-one is looking propose cuts. This is Tory hypocrisy at its very worse."

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