Meeting of the Parliament 08 October 2014
Crime in England and Wales has not dropped as far or as fast as it has dropped in Scotland, but the decline in police numbers is significant and huge. Numbers are predicted to decrease by 11 per cent, although Mr Pearson’s colleague Yvette Cooper suggested that a 12 per cent cut in police spending would be manageable. The Winsor reforms have been imposed on the service and morale is, unsurprisingly, at rock bottom. Following a record low turnout for a national peacetime election of 14.9 per cent, police and crime commissioners were introduced at an estimated cost of £100 million, which could have paid for 3,000 officers—it has been a disaster.
I appreciate that members had concerns about some officers carrying firearms on routine duties. The overwhelming majority of officers—more than 98 per cent—are unarmed. Only 275 of our 17,318 officers are authorised to carry weapons. As they are divided across five shifts, only a small number will routinely be on duty at any one time.
The chief constable has listened to concerns, and I believe that the proposals that were announced last week address those concerns while ensuring that armed officers can still be deployed quickly whenever required.
The reviews by HMICS and the SPA that are under way are crucial, not simply to this issue but to more fundamental questions about how policing engages with the communities that it serves and how we strengthen policing by consent. I welcome the action that the chief constable has taken on those difficult issues, but some members are still not satisfied.