'I'm a stickler for accuracy,' says PM, as Hull MP disputes Home Secretary's claim over police officer recruitment

Hull East Labour MP Karl Turner told the Prime Minister in the Commons today that incumbent PCC Keith Hunter had taken Humberside Police “from the worst performing force to one of the best”.

He said Labour’s Mr Hunter had put “well over 500 additional officers on our streets since 2016, the largest proportional increase in the country”, despite the Home Secretary claiming in the party political broadcast that only Tory PCCs had increased officer numbers.

But Boris Johnson said the exact number was 434 officers and that 129 were recruited as part of the Government’s drive to increase police on the streets, and he told MPs it was his “normal position” to be a “stickler for accuracy”.

He said although Mr Hunter’s efforts were “laudable” that they “would have been impossible without the determination of this Government to recruit more police officers or put them out on the street”.