Prime Minister's question asked in the House of Commons, by Malcolm Wicks (Labour). It was answered on Wednesday, 14 September 2011 on behalf of the Prime Minister.

Engagements

Question: When the Croydon riots hit our borough on that terrible Monday night, there were at most 100 police officers on the streets, including some very young community support officers, facing mobs hundreds and hundreds strong, as a result of which my borough was undefended, burnt and looted. May I put it to the Prime Minister, not as a partisan point but as a sensible point, that when the criminal facts change in England, as they did following the riots, a sensible Government would pause for thought and change their mind—and that the last thing they would do is reduce police numbers?

Answer: I went to visit Croydon and met the right hon. Gentleman and a number of people who had seen some shocking things happen in that borough which must not be allowed to happen again, but let me say to him that, even after the changes that we are making in police funding, the police will be able to surge as they did in Croydon, in Tottenham, in Manchester and in Salford. The problem on the night of the riots was that the surge did not take place soon enough, and he confuses the response to the riots in the immediate circumstances with what is happening to police funding. The police have assured me that they will be able to deliver on to the streets of London as many police as they did when they got control of the riots.

Secondary information