Labour

Labour survey shows more not fewer officers being used in custody suites as a result of police cuts - Cooper

Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, commenting on the survey, said:

"This evidence shows the Home Secretary's claim to be protecting the frontline with back room cuts instead is rubbish.

"Time and again the Home Secretary has told us that the front line is safe and the loss of 16,000 police officers can be dealt with by re-deploying officers away from the "back and middle office" instead.

"Yet this evidence shows the opposite is happening with the number of police officers in some "back and middle office" areas increasing rather than decreasing following the scale of cuts to police staff.

“This survey found an increase of over 4 per cent in the number of police officers involved in monitoring custody cells in the last year.

“These are difficult jobs that require trained police staff, but the Government have cut the police budgets so far and so fast that more police officers are doing it instead.

“Police officers, who could be on the frontline and in neighbourhoods on the beat, are working inside police stations instead because of the scale and pace of Government cuts.

“Chief Constables have been put in an impossible position by this Government, and they need to manage with the budgets they have been given to get the jobs done. But the result is more police officers across the country working in so called "middle office" jobs like the police cells.”