Crime and Policing

No, I will not. The shadow Home Secretary said that we should not cut, that we should not make any savings in respect of the police and that we should protect the police, but take no action to protect civil liberties or reform police accountability. That was his contention. Let us deal with those matters in turn. In his winding-up speech, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) said that the Opposition would have maintained resources for policing, while the Opposition motion says that the previous Government would have maintained core funding. Yet, on 20 July, on ““The Daily Politics”” in a debate with me, the shadow Home Secretary said that his Government would have cut by ““£1 billion a year””—a cut of 12%. There was the admission that they would have cut spending. Now, however, they say that they would have maintained resources. They do not know what they would have done, but we know what they would have done.