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Policing in London

The hon. Gentleman will get his chance later. He is aiming to cut the Met's reserve budget for major incidents such as a terrorist attack. His pledge, as we heard earlier, for 440 extra PCSOs is based on numbers that simply do not add up, and on out-of-date budgets. People are also interested in what is happening in their own boroughs. In my borough of Barnet, we now have 532 police officers and 147 PCSOs, which we never used to have. Not only that, but great progress has been made on sickness absence, for example. We now have one of the best records in the Met, which means that we see much more of our police officers than used to be the case. The real success story is that of the safer neighbourhood teams. We have large wards in Barnet, so our teams are six PCSOs, two constables and a sergeant. They are now working from 8am to midnight on rotas and shifts set by the sergeant in accordance with local demand.