Reeves dismisses Khan in row over police funding
Rachel Reeves has rejected claims made by Sir Sadiq Khan that her spending review will result in the number of police officers being cut.
In her spending review on Wednesday the Chancellor announced a 2.3 per cent real-terms increase in police spending power.
But the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) said the funding settlement 'falls far short of what is required to fund the Government's ambitions and maintain our existing workforce'.
Sir Sadiq, the Mayor of London, said he was concerned the spending review 'could result in insufficient funding for the [Metropolitan Police] and fewer police officers'.
Asked if Sir Sadiq was wrong, the Chancellor told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: 'I really don't accept that there needs to be cuts when we are actually increasing the money that the police force gets.'
Told about the NPCC's warning, Ms Reeves said: 'The police have been allocated a budget which has a real-terms increase of 2.3 per cent a year and they now need to live within those budgets.'
Making 'sums add up'
Ms Reeves said the police were getting a 'substantial' increase in spending power.
She told BBC Breakfast: 'That [2.3 per cent] is a substantial increase and that is for every year of this spending review period, so for the next three years.
'So there is no reason for those numbers to decline. The spending power of police is going up substantially and the spending that we set out yesterday was an average across all parts of government of 2.3 per cent a year, and so policing are in line with that average across other government departments.
'But look, I wasn't able to say yes to everything that people asked for in the spending review. People always are going to want more whether it is in health, education, defence or indeed for policing.
'But my job as Chancellor is to make sure that the sums add up and we can't spend more than we have coming in.'
Senior officers have warned that a lack of funds will put at risk Labour's promises to deploy an extra 13,000 neighbourhood police officers, as well as their pledge to halve violence against women and girls and reduce knife crime.
The extra funding for the police is expected to amount to just £200 million in real-terms by the end of the decade.
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