Home Secretary demands £300m to tackle knife crime epidemic in Britain’s biggest cities
Amid Cabinet's rift on police funding, Sajid Javid has made a formal request to 10 Downing Street for the cash top-up
SAJID JAVID has asked for £300 million to tackle knife crime in Britain’s biggest cities, The Sun can reveal.
Amid a bitter Cabinet rift on police funding, the Home Secretary has demanded the top-up cash in a formal request to No.10.
He also wants police to track knife crime and a Cabinet sub-committee set up to tackle the blood-letting in “hot spots”.
The money would be spread over three years and ring-fenced for knife crime. One insider said: “Extra money is needed and it has to be a serious amount to make a difference.”
Last night Government sources said the Chancellor was “minded” to help in the short-term.
But the size of the demand sets up another bitter Cabinet row. And it jars with police chiefs who on Thursday said they wanted £15 million to fund a knife crime “surge” over the coming weeks.
The move came as Chancellor Philip Hammond sparked uproar by saying the overstretched police re-prioritise their existing resources to “nip” knife crime in the bud.
In an extraordinary radio interview the Chancellor said: “If your house is on fire then you stop painting it, you get a bucket and you put out the fire.”
TACKLE 'HOT SPOTS'
He added that working more efficiently could free up man hours equivalent to hiring an extra 11,000 extra police officers.
He said: “We need police commissioners, chief constables, to look very carefully at what they’re doing across a range of activities and say to themselves: ‘What I need to do now is take people away from lower priority areas of policing activity and surge them into tackling knife crime on the streets.”
Insiders hope the Chancellor will sign off extra money in next week’s Spring Statement – given the huge pressure on No.10 over violent crime.
Police chiefs will have access to an extra £1 billion from next month under funding for the 2019-2020 financial year. But chief constables want an ‘emergency grant’ to fund a short-term offensive in knife crime ‘hotspots’.
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Sources on Thursday said police chiefs were drawing up a bid for at least £15 million. The knife crime crisis has triggered another big fallout between Sajid Javid and the Prime Minister.
The Home Secretary shamed Theresa May in Cabinet on Tuesday by demanding more cash and a radical review of Stop and Search.
The Sun yesterday revealed Downing Street are preparing to put knife thugs on a par with jihadis in a crackdown where public bodies would be urged to “flag up” potential problem kids.
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