Jo White

The commitment is to deliver 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing personnel by the end of this Parliament, which will give us the capacity to ensure that they can be focused on the role they are employed to do. Since the election, the Government have increased funding to forces by close to £2 billion. This year funding to police forces has increased to its highest cash level of up to £18.5 billion—a 4.5% cash increase compared with the previous year. That means that all forces will receive a real-terms uplift in their funding. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), since March 2025 the Met has grown by 607 neighbourhood officers. We recognise the unique challenges faced by the Met. In 2026-27 the Met will receive up to £4 billion in funding, which is an increase of £175 million. In addition, we are supporting policing to deliver £354 million of efficiency savings by the end of this Parliament through the police efficiency and collaboration programme, but we cannot stop there. The police funding system we inherited was complex, outdated and the product of legacy decisions rather than strategic design. Many PCCs, MPs and policing partners have complained that the police funding formula is out of date and not fit for purpose. Changes to police governance, force mergers and the creation of the national police service require a new way of allocating funding between forces aligned with those new structures.