Gainsborough: MP raises police funding shortfall issue in the House of Commons

Speaking to the Minister of State for Policing and Criminal Justice, Sir Edward, said: “Lincolnshire police are in crisis for want of a mere £3m to £4m.”

“In my area of 600 square miles, there is barely one police car on duty through the night.”

“This is a crisis, £3m would be a drop in the ocean compared with what we spend on international development, so will my right hon. Friend persuade the Chancellor to transfer just a little money to us? Charity begins at home.”

Sir Edward also made a point of raising his concerns further with the Secretary of State for International Development.

Sir Edward argued that value for money in government spending would come from investing more in the provision of vital services in rural communities.

He said: “I am sure the Secretary of State will want to give an explanation for how she will ensure value for money in her Department.”

“May I give her one project for which I could ensure value for money, where it takes four to five weeks to see a doctor, the roads are filled with potholes and the police are in crisis?”

“I refer, of course, to that tribe inhabiting the frozen plains of the north, the Lincolnshire yellowbellies.”

In December last year Chief Constable Neil Rhodes, the head of Lincolnshire Police, said that under the current funding arrangements, his force would be ‘unsustainable’ by 2018 and will be the ‘first in the country to fall’.

At the time he wrote a letter to Home Secretary Theresa May where he warned that the implications for public safety and security could not be more serious.

He said the proposed budget at that time for the coming years would leave the police with a shortfall of £10.4m, meaning his only option would be to axe a fifth of his front line officers in order to balance the books.