Andrew Dismore

Dear editor,

So Theresa Villiers MP is concerned about the possible closure of Barnet Police Station’s front counter ( Times 27/7/17),  a proposal which is out for public consultation.

She says she is raising the issue with the Mayor. If she is so concerned, the real question is why has Mrs Villiers ( and the other Barnet Conservative MPs) consistently supported and voted for Conservative Government budgets that have created this  Met Police  funding crisis?  And what is she doing to lobby her Government colleagues  to ensure adequate funding for the Met.?

The outcome of her Government’s cuts and chronic underfunding of the police is inevitably proposals such as those she now opposes.   What did she think would happen when she supported cuts that mean the Met will have lost a third of its funding? Would she prefer thousands fewer police officers, for example, with 80% of the Met.’s budget going on pay?

The Met. has already seen its budget slashed by £600 million through  her  Government’s cuts. Under then Mayor Boris Johnson, this  led to the last round of station closures (including Golders Green, Whetstone, and shorter hours at Barnet) and the demise  of the nine  person Safer Neighbourhood Teams  in each ward (which I negotiated with the then Police Commissioner to achieve when I was MP for Hendon). I don’t recall her going particularly heavy on Boris Johnson then!

On top of that £600 million, the Met now faces yet a further Government budget shortfall of £400 million  over the next three years: a cool £1 Billion in total.

And that is not all ! The Met is also  chronically  underfunded for what is  known as the National and International  Capital  City Grant to reflect the extra burden of policing the capital. This costs the Met £344m a year. An  independent panel recommended funding of £281m,  but Mrs Villiers’s  Home Secretary only approved funding of  £174m,  leaving a funding gap of £107m compared to the recommended £281m, and a gap of £170m compared to the Met.’s estimate.

And even worse, if it could be – the Government is planning a major review of the Home Office police funding formula, which if it goes ahead will almost certainly lead to shifting money away from the Met. to the rest of the country.

Mrs Villiers is a bit late to the issue of London’s police funding , too: anyone who has read my e-reports from City Hall will know I have for many months consistently argued the case for the Met.’s budget and warned of risks such as these.

At a time of rising  crime, especially hate crime, the increased terrorist risk, moped crime, knife and acid attacks, and cyber and digital fraud, we cannot afford to underfund the police- however that is  what Mrs Villiers and the other Conservative Barnet MPs have voted to do. They can’t have their cake and eat it. They should be joining  Mayor Sadiq  Khan in his efforts to persuade  the Government to  fund the  Met. properly, not pretending that the problems of the Met can be resolved by smoke and mirrors.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Dismore AM

Labour London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden