L

Lord Dobbs (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 11 June 2025

Debate

Police Service

Contribution

My Lords, I come from a family of four generations of police officers. I am proud to refer to that, as a matter of interest. The Labour manifesto promised to lower all sorts of crime, and I wish them well in fulfilling that promise. But the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents’ Association, in their joint letter, say that the police service is in a state of “crisis”, that it is “broken” and that as officers are “battling burnout and crushing stress, it becomes a national emergency”. These are all direct quotes from their letter sent over the weekend. This is really rather terrifying, so my Question is about numbers. The Labour Government inherited a total of nearly 148,000 full-time-equivalent warranted police officers, which was the highest level reached in two decades. But since this Government took office, the numbers have started falling. So can the Minister give a commitment that, after today’s spending review, there will be more warranted police officers in eight years’ time—that is, warranted police officers, not support staff, important though those may be? Will those numbers have gone up in a year’s time, or will they have fallen further still?

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