Jack Dromey MP, Labour’s Shadow Policing Minister, commenting on reports of the impact of further budget cuts to the Police service, said:

“Tory cuts to the Police on this scale pose a risk to public safety. They could see the Police becoming ever more remote from the communities they serve and vital Police Community Support Officers becoming a thing of the past in forces all over the country. This threatens to end a generation of progress in crime reduction as neighbourhood policing is hollowed out.

“David Cameron and Theresa May need to think long and hard about the impact that the Tory plan for slashing of the Police budget will have on the safety of communities. The Government should come clean about the numbers of frontline Police that we are going to lose over the next five years.”