Caerphilly MP Wayne David has questioned Prime Minister Theresa May over police funding in Gwent.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, April 10, Labour MP Mr David said: “Before the Prime Minister’s visit to Brussels, I have a little light reading for her.”
He pulled out a piece of paper, with a graph showing police funding figures.
Mr David continued: “It is a graph of police funding from the Government, in Gwent. It shows clearly that police funding is going down, not up.”
He then asked the Prime Minister if she would “study this carefully, and come back to the House with an accurate statement about what is really happening to police funding in this country?”
In response, Mrs May said: “We have been protecting police funding since 2015. This financial year, nearly £1 billion extra is available to police, and we have indeed put extra money into police.
“My Right Honourable Friend the Home Secretary announced the £100 million extra that is going into key areas in relation to dealing with knife crime, and we have been protecting police funding since 2015.”
The Home Office has recently stated that an extra £970 million will be going into policing in 2019/20, but £510 million of that could come from councils across Britain, rather than central government.
Local police forces have been allowed to raise their portion of council tax by up to 22% in some areas.