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Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 24 February 2025

Debate

County Lines Drug Trafficking

Contribution

I will help the noble Lord, I hope, by saying that the Government announced £1.1 billion more this financial year than the police budget was in the last financial year, and this financial year is under a Labour Government while the last financial year was under a Conservative one. When I was the Police Minister in 2009-10, we had the highest number of police officers ever. We faced 20,000 police officers being cut between 2010 and 2015-16, and only latterly have they been built up again. I hope the noble Lord will work with us to ensure that the £1.1 billion of extra spending is put to good use. He can certainly monitor the delivery of the 13,000 officers, which will be a real improvement on the ground to help tackle county lines and other neighbourhood policing issues. That is a 6.6% cash increase and a 4.1% real-terms increase in funding, and I hope this House welcomes it.

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