Theresa May slashes £413million from police budget – after vowing to protect cops
The shocking figures were released on the eve of the Chancellor Philip Hammond's budget
THERESA May has secretly slashed £413million from the police budget - despite vowing to protect cops, it's been revealed.
The shocking figures were released on the eve of the Chancellor Philip Hammond's Budget speech, which he'll deliver at the House of Commons today.
The independent research by the Commons shows that in the year 2015/16 forces received £7,620,644,880 but it was cut to £7,207,494,919 for 2017/18.
Experts are warning the extreme cutbacks are putting the public at risk as police numbers are "at their lowest level for over 30 years".
Shadow Policing Minister Louise Haigh MP told the : “Ministers have been caught red-handed. These reckless cuts are a threat to public safety.”
Ex-Met Police Detective Chief Inspector Peter Kirkham told the newspaper the report had not come as a surprise.
He said: "Response times are longer as fewer officers cover wider areas and so opportunities to catch offenders are lost. Warnings of the consequences were dismissed as scaremongering.
“But we were not crying wolf. We were accurately predicting the consequences of the cuts and everything we said has come true.”
The Government confirmed the figures were accurate but insisted “it has protected overall police spending in real terms”.
The figures come just hours before the Chancellor gives his keynote statement, which he will use to promise to "invest to secure a bright future for Britain".
MOST READ IN NEWS
Mr Hammond is expected to set out a vision for "global Britain" with a ";prosperous and inclusive economy where everybody has the opportunity to shine wherever in the UK they live, whatever their background".
With the clock ticking on Brexit he will also argue that the UK should be "an outward looking, free-trading nation, a force for good in the world, a country fit for the future".
There have been calls for Hammond to increase spending after a year in which the heroism of police and firefighters fuelled calls to end the public sector pay cap, teachers marched to demand increased school funding and the National Health Service struggled to treat rising numbers of patients.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368 . We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.