£54m funding hole makes tackling terrorism harder

Cressida Dick has said that the UK’s fight against terrorism will be more difficult as a result of a potential £54 million gap in funding. Counter terrorism police bosses applied for a rise of £104 million in 2018/19, but reports suggest that they will receive an increase of £50 million. Although she would not directly discuss the leaked reports, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police told LBC Radio that the ‘threat has gone up’ and that there is ‘an enormous amount of work to do’. She said: “If we got very, very, very much less than we asked for it makes it harder, of course it makes it harder. But the government have their job to do and I respect that, and my colleagues respect it as well. There may well be room for us in the coming months to put in a further bid and that is absolutely what we will be doing if there is that room to do so. Meanwhile we have got some extra resources and we are building up the capability of the [counter] terrorist teams.”