Minister claims policing in the West Midlands has been 'set back' by Labour
The poor decisions of Labour crime commissioners have "set back" policing in the West Midlands, a Cabinet Minister has said.
Kit Malthouse hit out at Labour MPs in the region for repeatedly blaming the Government over cuts to police officer numbers.
He said force budget cuts had been necessary due to previous Labour administrations "crashing the economy" and that decisions over officer numbers had been the responsibility of former West Midlands police and crime commissioner (PCC) David Jamieson.
It came after Labour politicians led by Birmingham MP Preet Gill used a Westminster Hall debate to make a last-ditch plea for more funding to help bolster officer numbers in the region's struggling police force.
They claim neighbourhood policing in the region has been hammered over the past decade due to the loss of 2,200 officers amid cuts of £175m.
Policing Minister Mr Malthouse described the call for more cash as a "naked political manoeuvre", saying MPs were fully aware that annual police budgets – which are due to be announced today – were based on a funding formula set in law.
He told MPs other forces were "doing better" than WMP, with Kent and London set to have more officers than they did in 2010 once the current uplift programme is complete.
Mr Malthouse said Mr Jamieson's decisions had "set the West Midlands back" and urged MPs to "take responsibility for those decisions".
He said: "David Jamieson was not all good and he was not all bad.
"He had difficult things to do and he made a set of choices that produced a particular outcome and a particular baseline in the West Midlands.
"I have no doubt that was what he said in the elections that he won and that the people of the West Midlands took him at his word and believed him.
"They have re-elected a Labour police and crime commissioner, so presumably they are happy with that performance, but complaining that everything that goes wrong is down to the Government seems a little naive to me."
Ms Gill said cuts to neighbourhood policing meant residents were being "let down when they most need help", with prosecution rates down and crime soaring.
"Neighbourhood policing is all about preventing crime and building relationships in the communities where officers serve," she said.
"However, the direct result of these funding cuts means that West Midlands Police are operating on a reactive basis."
Speaking after the debate, Mr Jamieson's Labour successor, Simon Foster, said "reckless" cuts had "dismantled" neighbourhood policing.
"Much more government support is needed to get back to the community policing levels we had a decade ago," he said.
Dudley North MP Marco Longhi said successive Labour PCCs had failed residents through "inaction and incompetence".
He urged Mr Foster to sign off on a deal for a new police station in Dudley, which has been held up for months by red tape.
In recent months Mr Foster has agreed to close down more than 20 police stations and bases. He has also been accused of attempting to scale back stop and search.
