‘Policing crisis should not be simply shrugged off as operational matter’ – Robin Swann MP
Ulster Unionist MP Robin Swann has raised the continual underfunding of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in a Westminster debate on police presence. The debate covered a recent letter from Police Chiefs and officials from government watchdogs across Great Britain who had written to the Prime Minister warning of the impact of funding cuts to police forces.
Mr Swann took the opportunity to raise the letter sent to Sir Keir Starmer from PSNI Chief John Boucher back in August 2024, saying:
“The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland wrote to the Prime Minister last August asking for more funding; and how His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and had recognised that in a recent report found that in their view the PSNI was 400 neighbourhood police officers short.”
Mr Swann went on to say that the underfunding problem has a political root and “that such issues should not be shrugged off as operational matters but are the result of political decisions over the years that have resulted in less funding for our police service.”
Following the debate, the South Antrim MP said:
“The steps that Chief Constable Boucher has had to go to in an effort to keep the Police Service afloat should alarm us all. The lack of political advocacy and cover afforded to him and the PSNI by the Justice Minister has demonstrated how badly our police service has been let down.
“In April the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland made it clear that PSNI funding is the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Executive. Too many pressures on our Police Service, and across the justice system are being shrugged off as ‘operational matters’ and this is simply not sustainable.”
These concerns follow comments by the Chair of the Police Federation of Northern Ireland, Liam Kelly, in a recent speech in which he said, “nobody in Government seems to care or give a damn” about police funding, and that the PSNI Recovery Plan “has been effectively shredded.”
