Police Forces: Financial Stability

My Lords, it is good to hear about the 5,000 extra police, but I wonder whether the Government have a particular dimension of policing in mind when they arrive at the figures they think are appropriate. When one asks Government whether what we have is appropriate, since the number is smaller than we used to have, the answer is that equipment and deployment will solve the problems. It does not solve the problem of public disorder, where we need boots on the ground—and we need them in quantity. Will the Minister ask her colleagues to ask the police forces of this country to cast their minds back over the last 20 years and consider whether they could contain the public disorder that occurred over those 20 years with the equipment they have now, bearing in mind that communications have changed and they are faced with disorder that is co-ordinated by means of WhatsApp, which cannot be penetrated by the police?