Pat McFadden Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East Pat McFadden MP for Wolverhampton South East
Last week, the Government announced the new police funding settlement for the next year. This is an issue that I’ve taken great interest in and a few weeks ago, I had special debate in the House of Commons. I discussed the difficulties that our local police forces are facing and worryingly, a potential further round of cuts if the Government didn’t fund police pensions properly.
The announcement is not a ‘turning the corner moment’ for police funding, we’ve lost 2000 officers in last eight years and now the Government is loading more and more police costs on to the public through the Council tax precept.
What this announcement really means is a continuation of asking the public to pay more for a much smaller force than we’ve had in the past.
It doesn’t meet the challenge of funding the police properly, I hope my debate put pressure on the Government but there is a long way to go before we have a properly funded and resourced police force to tackle rising crime.