Chairman: "We don’t want MPs standing with us… we want other police officers standing with us"

24 May 2018

The Home Secretary needs to put his money where his mouth is if he wants to rebuild the relationship between Police and the Government.

That's the view of Greater Manchester Police Federation Chairman, Ian Hanson reacting to the speech of Sajid Javid, at the PFEW Annual Conference.

Ian said that despite feeling heartened by Mr Javid's tone and supportive nature, he has his reservations.

He said: “I’m heartened by the tone of the Home Secretary’s speech because, as a veteran of these conferences, we have tended to come here and be kicked around by successive Home Secretaries. The tone was appropriate, and it was supportive.

“I’ve some reservations as to how much the Home Secretary will be able to deliver when he fully understands the mess that the relationship has been left in by his predecessors and the multitude of bureaucracy that’s been created.

“It appears Mr Javid means well. I hope he’s the sort of personality that can cut through all that nonsense and deliver, because the police service will give him a chance.

“The safety of the public is in his hands. Let’s just see whether or not he’s able to rebuild the relationship between policing and the Government, and on the back of that, restore communities to what they really need, and that’s a sense of safety, allowing police officers to do what they’re best at, and that’s look after people.

In his speech, Mr Javid referred to a lot to resourcing, stating he would give Police Officers the resources that they need to do their job. However, Ian quite openly said unless this was an injection of finance it wasn’t going to solve anything.

He continues: “Let’s be realistic about this - resources means one thing and that’s cold, hard cash.

“Words are cheap. Mr Javid has come here today, and he’s said the right thing.

“At the end of his speech he said, ‘When you’re out there on the frontline, I’ll be standing there with you’. Well we don’t really want him standing with us, we want other police officers standing with us.

“You can give them the best equipment available, but there’s one thing which gives police officers safety and confidence, which enables them to do the best job they can, and that’s another police officer standing next to them.

“I call on the Home Secretary to live up to the expectations that he’s set out today. He’s made commitments, and he’s set out a very clear agenda of how he’s going to support the police and work with the police federation.

“If he’s going to do that he’s got to put his money where his mouth is. Yesterday we heard the Police Minister say that we have won the argument in terms of resourcing. So, now we need those two people to sit down, get on the same page, and take the case to the wider Government.

“Once that’s done, that needs to then translate into money for policing. We need a massive injection into public safety.”