Overall crime levels drop during coronavirus lockdown
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Home Secretary Priti Patel said crime levels have dropped over the last few weeks as she also sought to assure people help will be there if they need it.
At this afternoon's Down Street briefing Martin Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs' Association, said that crime had dropped by 21 per cent over the last four weeks compared to the same period last year.
However Home Secretary Priti Patel gave other figures including statistics from the national domestic abuse helpline which recorded a 120 per cent increase in calls received in one 24 hour period.
She announced up to £2 million to enhance online support for domestic abuse support and told victims of this or any other crime that the police would be there for them if they called.
After the British Medical Association (BMA) said doctors were putting their lives at risk by working without adequate protection Ms Patel also insisted the government was doing everything possible to ensure personal protective equipment (PPE) was getting where it needs to be in adequate quantities.
In response to questions she refused to be drawn on giving a date when the right quantities of equipment would reach the right people or to apologise in the face of suggestons that preventable deaths had occurred as a result of PPE not being available as required.
"The focus in government across all departments is to ensure everyone across the NHS has everything they need," she said.
"PPE is at the heart of that and, as we have already heard on a number of occasions, there is a clear plan when it comes to PPE in the NHS.
"There have been distribution issues that are now being addressed by working with the military to get supplies out, and there is a real effort to boost manufacture and procurement. This government and all colleagues are committed to that."
She said, however, that demand for PPE was "exponential"" at the present time.
