West Yorkshire Police call for investment in service
Police in West Yorkshire have told Radio Aire the government needs to do more to protect the service.
George Osborne failed to make any of the expected police cuts in yesterday's spending review.
Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, Mr Osborne said: “Now is the time to back our police and give them the tools to do the job. I am today announcing that there will be no cuts in the police budget at all.”
But Chairman of the West Yorkshire Police Federation, Nick Smart, says the cuts that have already been imposed have caused enough damage – and he’s yet to see any protection from the government:
“The last government and the current government have just undermined the police service. By doing that they’ve reduced our ability to keep the public safe.
“What we’ve got here is maintenance of the status quo, and that status quo is 20 per cent cuts. So in essence they’ve not protected the police and they’ve put the public at risk by doing so. So I think it’s a little misleading to claim that statement.
“Locally we have had our ‘Cuts Have Consequences’ campaign throughout West Yorkshire prior to the election, but we’ve been largely ignored by politicians until now.
"What Paris has done is refocused what a police service needs to deliver and what the priority is. The priority is preventive policing. Once you have a reactive force, the issue is in the title.
“Reactive is not what we should be doing. What Paris has done is shown other European states don’t have that style of engagement. It’s brought into sharp focus just how good we are in Britain. We’re constantly told we’re the best policing model in the world. Now is the time to invest in that. What we need to see if officers brought back to maintain the levels prior to the cuts.”