Crime and Policing

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) who spoke with his customary expertise and erudition. This afternoon I feel as if I have stumbled upon the Alan Johnson shadow cabinet hustings speech. It is a shame that the shadow Home Secretary is no longer in his place, but he was performing for a very small audience—the parliamentary Labour party—which will vote in the forthcoming shadow cabinet elections. As the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) said, the right hon. Gentleman demonstrated a degree of selective amnesia. On this side of the House, we will continue to make the point that the reason we have to make any fiscal reductions is the calamitous fiscal situation bequeathed to us by the Labour Government—£157,000 million of public sector debt. What marks out the contributions from Opposition Members is an opportunistic and, frankly, intellectually dishonest approach. I specifically challenged the right hon. Gentleman about his comments on 20 April, during the election, when—as Home Secretary—he committed to a 20% reduction in the policing budget and refused to specifically rule out reductions in front-line police numbers. It ill behoves him to attack the Home Secretary for having to do what he himself would already have done.