Cuts in funding to police will jeopardise safety in the lead up to the London 2012 Olympic Games, says West Ham MP Lyn Brown.

Lyn has spoken out about cuts planned by the Coalition Government to Metropolitan Police..

Lyn said a new analysis of the Coalition’s cuts by the House of Commons’ Library has confirmed that the Government, which has already announced massive cuts to the budget of Newham Council, will severely decrease the London Metropolitan Police budget, further disadvantaging Newham.

Despite protecting some of the highest crime regions in the UK, the Met faces one of the largest budgets cuts of all constabularies.

Lyn said: “In the very short period of time since the Coalition have been in Government, their record on crime is appalling. They are guilty of breaking their promises of providing more police on the beat, they are guilty of cutting the police budget and they are guilty of gambling with public safety.”

The cuts to the Police’s budget follow those cuts that have already been announced to Housing Benefit, education and other local services. As one of then most vulnerable boroughs in the UK, many residents are angry that they face more stringent cuts than more affluent areas.

Both parties on the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government ran an election campaign promising more police patrolling the streets. This will be seen as another election promise broken by a government which not only did not win a proper mandate, but whose draconian policies have only been revealed post-election, said the MP.

There can be no doubt that Newham, which has higher rates of crime in almost every single category than the national average, will be much more adversely affected than other areas.

This cut to the Police Service will be compounded by a 20 per cent cut to the national security budget, which may jeopardize effective protection given that this is taking place in the lead up to the Olympic Games. The budget for the security of the Olympics Games protection is also under threat.

In spite of Teresa May’s reassurances that the Olympic security budget would be safeguarded, the Government has recently announced that they want to cut the budget by 20 per cent to £475m.