Copped Enough: now is the time for change

23 May 2025

Dyfed Powys Police Federation chair Delme Rees is urging the Government to ‘learn the lessons’ of the past decade and work with frontline officers to improve policing.

His comments come 10 years after Theresa May, the then-Home Secretary, accused the Federation of ‘crying wolf’ in a keynote speech at the organisation’s annual conference.

Ms May said the Federation was ‘scaremongering’ with its warnings over the impact that budget cuts were having on policing.

Delme said: “It only seems like yesterday that Ms May accused the Federation of crying wolf, but we’ve been proved correct.

Morale

“We warned about the damage that cuts were doing to policing and to the morale of officers.

“Her speech was the perfect opportunity, as Home Secretary, to demonstrate support for hard-working police officers.

“Instead, she made a personal attack on them, their pay was cut, funding continued to be slashed, and the heart was ripped out of policing.

“I’d urge the current government to learn the lessons of the past 10 years and to work with the Federation and our members for the good of policing and the communities we serve.”

PFEW has today released a video to mark the tenth anniversary of Ms May’s speech as part of its new campaign Copped Enough – What Police Take Home is Criminal.

The video includes excerpts from Ms May’s speech, along with statistics that illustrate how wide of the mark she was.

The figures show that since 2010 police officer pay has reduced by 21 per cent in real terms, while the number of officers has decreased by six per cent.

The figures highlighted in the video also include a rise of 44 per cent since 2015 in police recorded crime rates per 1,000 population.

Police resignations have risen by 142 per cent since 2018, with more than 9,000 leaving the service last year.

Food banks

The video highlights that in 2024 there were 45,000 assaults on officers recorded in England and Wales – more than 123 each day – and more than 18 police officers die by suicide every year.

Delme said: “In the decade since Ms May’s speech, we’ve seen a huge rise in mental and physical ill-health among officers, who are buckling under the weight of their workload.

“Members don’t feel supported by the Government, public, and the media, and they’re increasingly being attacked for doing their job.

"We've even seen officers having to use food banks just to put a meal on their table.

“Now is the time for the Government to put policing at the heart of its policy and to support our members, because for too long they’ve 'Copped Enough'.”

READ MORE: Fed rep reacts to new national VAWG centre.