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Home Office in the media

https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2017/06/21/home-office-in-the-media-21-june-2017/

Home Office in the media: 21 June 2017

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Metropolitan Police

Today's Home Office media coverage focuses on police resources and an alleged fall in applications for National Insurance numbers from EU migrants.

Police resources

There is widespread broadcast and print coverage on a variety of issues relating to police resources.

Firstly, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, spoke to the BBC about how she is in discussions with the government around additional funding for her force.

The Home Office has set out its position on Metropolitan Police funding here.

Secondly, ITV's Political Editor, Robert Peston, blogged that the Home Office has scrapped the police funding formula review. Our position on this is below.

A Home Office spokesperson said:

No decisions have been taken. The Government is undertaking a period of detailed engagement with policing partners and independent experts on the police funding formula.

 

New proposals will not be implemented without a public consultation.

 

And lastly, the Today programme reported that the BBC was aware of two letters allegedly sent to the Home Secretary last week from law enforcement leads outlining concerns about responding to the ongoing threat of terrorism.

The Home Office's response to these claims is also below.

A Home Office spokesperson said:

Keeping families, communities and our country safe is this Government's priority. After the recent horrific attacks the Government and police are in complete agreement that we must review our counter-terrorism strategy to counter the changing threat.

 

Alongside this we remain committed to increasing cross-government spending on counter-terrorism by 30% from £11.7bn to £15.1bn.

 

This government has also protected overall police funding in real terms - we are providing £144m to increase armed policing capability and funding for an additional 1,900 officers at our security and intelligence agencies.

Migration Observatory report

The Financial Times, among others, has followed up a report released by the Migration Observatory which says that applications for National Insurance numbers from migrants from the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia have fallen to their lowest levels since they joined the EU.

The Observatory has said that this may be down to a lack of clarity about their long-term legal status in the U.K.

The government's response to this is below.

A Government spokesperson said:

We said we would use the opportunity of leaving the European Union to take control of our immigration system and we will do exactly that.

 

But we have also been clear that we will remain an open and tolerant country, and one that recognises the valuable contribution that migrants make to our society. We have been clear that securing the status of EU citizens resident in the U.K. is an early priority for the negotiations.

 

The NINo statistics are not a measure of immigration. They show when a National Insurance number is issued to someone - they don't show when someone has left the country. They are also cumulative.

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