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Home Affairs Select Committee report on riots
Posted on 19/12/2011
Colleagues,
Today the Home Affairs Select Committee have published a report entitled ‘Policing Large Scale Disorder: Lessons from the disturbances of August 2011’ , which examines the public disorder witnessed across the UK in August this year.
The following link will take you to the Home Affairs Select Committee press statement and the report itself:
Following a number of radio interviews earlier this morning we have issued the following statement to the media:
Responding to the Home Affairs Select Committee report ‘Policing Large Scale Disorder: Lessons from the disturbances of August 2011’ published today , Simon Reed, Vice-Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, says:
"Today’s report by the Home Affairs Select Committee is very useful as it highlights a number of important issues regarding the riots seen across the UK in August; namely, the need for sufficient numbers of police officers who can be called upon as and when they are needed.
"The very nature of policing is that it is unpredictable and an emergency service. We need to ensure that the police service has the resilience, police officer numbers, training and equipment to deal with whatever is thrown at it; this is the very basis of our concern about the government cuts of 20 percent to the policing budget. We recognise that initially it was difficult to cope with the widespread and unprecedented disorder we witnessed in August this year but, through sufficient police officer numbers, we were able to contain the situation and restore order to the streets across the UK. Our genuine fear is, should a similar situation occur again in future years, that despite our very best efforts, with less police officers and the impact of the budget cuts on training, we would struggle to protect the public and any lessons learned now would be wasted.
"I don’t know how the government decide what price they place on public safety but this report further compounds our view that cutting the police budget is inadvisable and could jeopardise public safety."
