Police cuts are not to blame for rising crime, the Home Secretary has warned, because forces have the officers and funding to tackle the violence on Britain’s streets.

Writing in The Telegraph, Amber Rudd unveils a Serious Violence Task Force to face the problem and says the “time for warm words and political quarrels is over”.

In the article, which echoes Theresa May’s speech to the Police Federation in 2014 when she was home secretary, Ms Rudd says: “As we confront this issue, I know that the same arguments and criticisms will emerge.

“One is the contention that there are not enough officers on the streets. The evidence, however, does not support this. In the early 2000s, when serious violent crimes were at their highest, police numbers were rising.

“In 2008, when knife crime was far greater than the lows we saw in 2013-14, police numbers were close to the highest we’d seen in decades.”