good afternoon home secretary i'm detective constable vicki knight from the north world police
um i would like to ask you if for whatever reason your husband couldn't work anymore and you will
have to provide for your family could you survive with your family on twelve hundred pounds a month
so what about if i met what about 1400 pounds a month
could you survive on 1400 pounds well look we've been discussing pay and i
i think just on paying conditions you know that is something that i've said that i'm committed to
working with stevonn and how we pursue that and take that forward okay so i have 23 years police
service and to put it into perspective after i've paid my professional subscriptions and my pension
i take home 300 pounds a month i work overtime twice a month to try to make ends meet
i'm a single parent like yourself i've got a young son at home because our wages are
measured before our pensions taken out i get no free seasonable dinners i get no bus pass to
school i got no school uniform tokens the only help that i get is my child family allowance
apart from that i'm on my own now this month was a five-week end month and so we didn't get
paid until 12 o'clock on sunday on saturday i went to my mother's house where she gave me 40 pounds
so that on sunday i could put petrol in the car and buy food for my son's school lunches because
i had no money left at the end of the month now i work in child protection of vulnerable adults with
most vulnerable members of our community and i love my job however if the rate of interest
goes up and i can't pay my mortgage and i can't pay the fuel i'm not going to be able
to continue to come to work i went to see an accountant and the advice was leave the police
work for 22 hours a week and claim benefits and you will be better off how can that be right
i get paid a couple of hundred pounds a month more from the workers in mcdonald's flipping burgers
and i get paid less than my local manager at lidl and i work in the most terrible of
circumstances and my question to you i tell this story not because i'm here for sympathy
i just want to be heard i stand here to represent myself and many people in the
force that are like me we are desperately struggling to do the job that we love and
to make ends meet at home and we need you to be on our team and to help us to represent us at these
but something home secretary has gone very well wrong when an officer who's done over two
decades in this job is in those circumstances something is brilliant no of course and just
actually just thank say thank you and thank you for sharing your story and your circumstances with
me with all of us and actually i think it just it really illustrates so strongly and powerfully you
know why we need to actually find solutions to pay issues and actually give you the support that you
rightly deserve you know two decades in policing your professionalism your dedication to public
service and actually you've just said something else as well working with the type of people young
people vulnerable people the very people that we have a duty and a responsibility to protect
so this is why we have to come together this is actually why i'm here today as well
um this isn't you know a moment of just calm and you know just listen a bit we have to
move this forward you have that commitment from me you absolutely do and as i've said
steve and i have come together today for the first time um we we've got our we've got a job
of work to do i'll be very candid about that it's not straightforward so this is a new chapter well
you feel like today right well i think first of all it should be but i'm i am a call of spade a
spade type person now this is straightforward and none of this will materialize overnight
but you know you absolutely have it from me in terms of my responsibility and duty to you
to ensure that we can drive this forward and that's a commitment i give you