‘We must see a re-investment in policing’

8 July 2024

Nottinghamshire Police Federation chair Simon Riley has urged the new Prime Minister to show that he is committed not just to tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, but also to improving the relationship between the Government and the police service.

And, he said, that will involve significant and sustainable investment in policing.

Simon, who was reacting to Labour’s landslide victory in Thursday’s General Election, explained: “We have to see a re-investment in policing, both to give forces the funding they need to deliver effective policing services but also to fund police pay awards that will help restore officer pay which has fallen by 20 per cent in real terms since the start of the austerity years.

“The cuts to police budgets saw officer numbers slashed but there was no corresponding decrease in demand, and, in fact, the opposite was true – crime rates rose, the nature of crime changed and we were called upon to step in for organisations who due to their own funding issues could not fulfil their obligations.

New Prime Minister Kier Starmer.

“Officers were put under huge pressure and there is no doubt that neighbourhood policing suffered which clearly had an impact on the communities we serve.

“The Police Uplift Programme allowed the recruitment of 20,000 more officers nationwide, but officer morale is low and our members were not happy about how they were treated by the previous Government. The new Government must act to address these issues.

“A really good starting point might be for it to do away with the Police Remuneration Review Body, the supposedly independent organisation which determines our pay. It is far from independent and needs to be replaced with a better, fairer mechanism.”

Manifesto

In its election manifesto, Labour set out plans to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour and said its mission was to ‘take back our streets’, reducing serious violence and rebuilding public confidence in policing by getting officers back on the streets.

The party said it would introduce a new Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, restoring patrols to town centres by recruiting thousands of new police officers, police and community support officers (PCSOs) and Special Constables and putting 13,000 extra neighbourhood police and PCSOs on the beat. 

It pledged to introduce new penalties for offenders, get knives off the streets, set up a specialist rape unit in every police force and launch a new network of Young Futures hubs.

Funding for its manifesto pledges would come from ending private schools’ tax breaks and a Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme.

Read the Labour manifesto.

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