AS THE Government's commitment to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers was being set out in the House of Lords, one Wiltshire politician was asking questions.

Jonathon Seed is the Conservative's candidate in next year's Police and Crime Commissioner elections. He hopes to replace incumbent Angus Macpherson, who is stepping down.

The Tory welcomed the extra officers, which in Wiltshire will mean an extra 49 cops this year.

But he added: "I can’t hide my disappointment that less than 1% of the first year’s allocation of new police officers has been given to Wiltshire Police.

"We currently have almost the worst funding in the country and amongst the lowest numbers of police officers per head of population in the country. Failure to address this over the last seven years has kept Wiltshire at the very bottom of the funding league table."

A crime crackdown dominated the first Queen's Speech of Boris Johnson's premiership.The package of 26 Bills include seven relating to crime and justice.

These include laws to keep serious criminals in prison for longer and tougher sentences for foreign offenders who return to the UK.