{"id":12536,"date":"2017-06-06T14:44:18","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T13:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=12536"},"modified":"2017-06-06T14:44:18","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T13:44:18","slug":"may-has-questions-to-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=12536","title":{"rendered":"May has questions to answer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Trade unions and Labour have said that Theresa May has questions to answer over cuts to emergency and police services while she was home secretary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sadiq Khan also this morning warned that the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 planned cuts to policing would make it harder to prevent future terror attacks from happening in the capital.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI have ensured that our police service has the resources they need to carry out the investigation into this horrific attack \u00e2\u20ac\u201c however, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m deeply concerned about the impact of the further police cuts that the Conservatives have already outlined,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Sadiq.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur city has suffered two awful terrorist attacks since I was elected as Mayor \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and we must do everything possible to stop there being anymore,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Representatives from Unite, PCS, UNISON, the FBU, TSSA and RMT joined shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer in questioning Theresa May\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s record as home secretary, when she presided over the loss of 20,000 police officers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The meeting came after Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn described the cuts as \u00e2\u20ac\u0098appalling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe cuts in police numbers during her time at the Home Office are appalling and that has to be challenged,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The union representatives said cuts to emergency services \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including firefighters, ambulance staff and civilian police staff \u00e2\u20ac\u201c under May have had a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098very real impact\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, but were clear that only the attackers bear responsibility for the atrocities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka highlighted the reduction in the number of Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), who he said were vital to building links with communities and intelligence gathering.<\/p>\n

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He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bPolice Community Support Officers in London have seen the most swingeing cuts, with numbers reduced from 4,607 to just 1,487.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey used to go round in pairs for security reasons and can now only go round on their own.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite national officer Fiona Farmer pointed to cuts in the number of 999 call handlers, dog handlers and forensics officers, saying that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bfrontline police officers are now having to step in to take on some of this work.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She also said low pay has made it difficult to recruit police support staff.<\/p>\n

Farmer said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bPeople can earn more working for Vodafone and other call centres than they can working as police support staff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYou can only imagine the difference between having to deal with a member of the public who can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite get their phone to work or dealing with one of the calls that someone had to pick up over the weekend.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the TSSA, which represents British Transport Police staff, said the Tories had shown a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098callous disregard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 for public safety.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThese cuts are having an effect on all our members\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ability to do their job. Would we be more secure if we had 20,000 more police officers on our streets? I think the simple answer to that is yes.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unison\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ben Priestley said it was right to speak out about the budget cuts.<\/p>\n

He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all sensitive to the victims and their families and friends. But it must be right that we are able to examine what the impact of the cuts has been.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur members have been trying to get that story across for a long, long time. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a real shame it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s taken these events to throw some of these cuts into relief, but I think that debate has got to happen.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In November 2015, when Theresa May was home secretary, Unite issued a public safety warning over \u00e2\u20ac\u0098catastrophic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 cuts to emergency services staff in the West Midlands. A total of 2,500 jobs will be cut in the West Midlands by 2020, including 82 per cent of PCSOs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Speaking on Monday, the Prime Minister refused to say she was wrong to make the cuts and insisted that counter terrorism budgets have been preserved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However The Times newspaper has obtained Home Office documents that show budget cuts to the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trade unions and Labour have said that Theresa May has questions to answer over cuts to emergency and police services while she was home secretary.   Sadiq Khan also this morning warned that the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 planned cuts to policing would make it harder to prevent future terror attacks from happening in the capital.   \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12538,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,17],"tags":[105,243,596,493],"wps_subtitle":"Unions and Labour concerned over impact of emergency services cuts","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12537,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12536\/revisions\/12537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}