Suella Braverman was royally challenged this morning over the government’s recruitment of 20,000 police officers.
Appearing on Sky News to unveil a “huge programme” on police reform, the home secretary was quizzed on whether new officers were simply replacing those lost since the Tories came to power in 2010.
The grilling follows the prime minister’s announcement in April that the government had fulfilled its pledge to recruit the new police officers by its March 2023 deadline.
A “smokescreen”
The PM’s statement has attracted widespread criticism in recent months with the Police Federation of England and Wales warning the figures amount to nothing more than a “smokescreen”.
And viewers were reminded of just that this morning.
Presenter Jayne Secker said: “There are no extra resources, there are no extra staff to do these jobs. The police are not sitting around on their hands, are they? They are all working, aren’t they? So what will go as a result of this, what will they not be investigating?
Braverman replied: “Well I disagree with you there that there are no extra resources, we’ve just recruited 20,000 additional police officers, so we now have a record…”
Secker hit back: “You recruited 3,000 additional police officers, you lost 20,000 didn’t you from 2010 up to the latest date?”
The home secretary continued: “That’s wrong. We have the highest number of police numbers ever, ever in the history of policing far higher than any previous administration, so the police have the greatest number of police officers at their disposal.”
Steady decline
According to Home Office figures, the number of police officers in England and Wales has steadily declined since the Tories entered office, decreasing by 13.9% between 2010 and 2018.
Based on a headcount of all employees, the figures paint a disturbing picture of decline, with the party entering office with 148,725 police officers at the beginning of the decade, before losing more than 20,000 officers.
Steve Hartshorn, national chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “The 20,000 new police officers joining the service in England and Wales has been desperately needed, however, the government’s claim of the recruitment drive resulting in a stronger, healthily staffed service is misleading and misplaced.
“Effectively the government has backfilled the more than 21,000 full time equivalent officers cut by the government in 2010. It must not be overlooked that officers have been trying to cover the workloads associated to those losses and the additional 23,000 police staff roles that were cut at that time.”
Watch the moment Suella Braverman is taken to task over the recruitment of 20,000 additional police officers.
Related: ‘Facts don’t matter’: Suella Braverman refuses to correct the record after citing incorrect figures