Responding to the news that West Midlands Police is to receive a one off £7.6m payment to tackle knife crime, Wolverhampton North East MP Emma Reynolds said:

“It is welcome that the Government is giving West Midlands Police an additional £7.6m to help tackle the region’s knife-crime epidemic. But this fund has to be seen in context. West Midlands Police has lost £175m through cuts and, as a result, has lost over 2,000 police officers since 2010.

“Police officers in Wolverhampton tell me that one of the most important ways of preventing crime is through long-term preventative work. This requires consistent funding over a number of years. The £7.6m provided is one-off funding to plug a shot-term gap, and as such it cannot be used to plan for long-term preventative programmes, or even hire a single officer.

“Our own Chief Constable says that “criminals are well aware of how stretched” West Midlands Police are because of the cuts to police numbers and budgets. The government urgently needs to give our police the long-term funding it needs – not a one-off sticking plaster – if we are to tackle rising crime in our region.”