Extract from PMQ: Police and Crime Commissioners - Apr 21
Thursday, 22 April 2021 08:00
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab) [V]: In a recent
Conservative party political broadcast, the Home Secretary claimed
that only Conservative Police and Crime Commissioners are
responsible for increasing police officer numbers, yet Humberside’s
police and crime commissioner, Keith Hunter, has put well over 500
additional officers on our streets since 2016—the largest
proportional increase in the country—and was doing so well before
the Government pledged to reverse their own...Request free trial
(Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab) [V]: In a
recent Conservative party political broadcast, the Home Secretary
claimed that only Conservative Police and Crime Commissioners
are responsible for increasing police officer numbers, yet
Humberside’s police and crime commissioner,
, has put well over 500 additional officers on our
streets since 2016—the largest proportional increase in the
country—and was doing so well before the Government pledged to
reverse their own cuts. Will the Prime Minister take this
opportunity to do the decent thing: correct the record and
congratulate on taking Humberside police from the worst-performing
force to one of the best in his time as police and crime
commissioner?
The Prime Minister: I do not wish to sound like
a stickler for accuracy—[Laughter]—which is my normal position, Mr
Speaker, as you know, but since becoming Humberside’s PCC in 2016,
the force has recruited 434 officers. Of those, 129 have been
recruited as part of the Government’s 20,000 drive, and Mr Hunter
himself praised the Government’s police recruitment strategy,
saying that the Government’s target had lifted officer numbers in
Humberside above 2,000. So I think it would be fair to say that Mr
Hunter’s efforts, however laudable they may be, would have been
impossible without the determination of this Government to recruit
more police officers and put them out on the street.
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