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Cops admit 'we'll have to ignore some crimes' in bleak future for Brit victimsPolice say spending cuts will mean they'll have to 'choose' which cases to solve as senior officers tell Keir

Starmer they'll have to 'deprioritise' some crimesCommentsNewsEmily Hall16:17, 04 Jun 2025Sir Mark Rowley has written to Keir Starmer(Image: PA Wire) Police say they could be forced to

choose which crimes to investigate if the government pushes ahead with tough spending cuts.

Senior officers have written to PM Sir Keir Starmer to warn him slashing budgets will have “far-reaching consequences.”

‌ Sir Mark Rowley, head of the Met Police, wrote to the PM alongside other police chiefs, saying they will have to take the decision to “deprioritise” some crimes.

‌ The letter said: “A settlement that fails to address our inflation and pay pressures would entail stark choices about which crimes we no longer prioritise.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is due to deliver a spending review next Wednesday. It sets out the Government’s day-to-day departmental budgets for the next three years.

Ms Reeves has been told she faces tough decisions thanks to the demands of the NHS and spiralling defence spending.

Article continues below Rumours have grown of a row between the Treasury and the Home Office over the cash the police will receive.

Even the chancellor has accepted she has had to turn down requests for funding for policies she would have liked to go-ahead.

She said despite a £190 billion increase in funding over the spending review period “not every department will get everything that they want next week and I have had to say no to things that

I want to do too”.

‌ She also blamed Lettuce Liz Truss for some of her problems, saying the former Tory flop had mainly affected “just ordinary working people who had done nothing wrong.”

But she poured scorn on the supposed row over police spending, saying: “We will be increasing spending on police in the spending review next week, so that’s not a decision that or a choice

that I would recognise.”

Meanwhile, in a separate letter, Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales Dame Nicole Jacobs and Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales Baroness Newlove also wrote to Sir Keir

urging him not to slash funding to victim support services.

Article continues below They welcomed his “personal commitment to halving violence against women and girls within a decade” but said they were concerned that “funding cuts and scaled back

ambition are leading to piecemeal policies.”