§ Mr. Wareingasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the cost to his Department of (a) free transport, (b) free prescriptions and (c) free dental treatment for police in the Metropolitan area for each of the last five years.
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§ Mr. Giles ShawMetropolitan police officers are allowed free travel on London Regional Transport Underground trains and red buses for crime prevention purposes. This arrangement, introduced in 1975, involves no cost to the Metropolitan police fund or the Home Office. Under the Police Regulations 1979, police forces in England and Wales, including the Metropolitan Police, reimburse the cost to their officers of NHS prescriptions and (within NHS maximum rates) dental treatment. The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis tells me that records of payments for the last three years in the Metropolitan police are not kept in a form which enables the amounts involved to be separately identified and such information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Records for earlier years have been destroyed.