Met 'lures' Thames Valley police

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Thames Valley Police will continue losing officers to the Met Police unless their living allowances are raised, two MPs have warned.

Fiona Mactaggart, MP for Slough, and Reading West MP Martin Salter, said Met officers earn about £4,400 a year more.

They said the Thames Valley Police South East Allowance must be raised, or council tax payers would "go on losing trained officers".

Thames Valley Police Federation said the "lure" of the Met was a problem.

Thames Valley Police have as challenging a job to do as the Met Martin SalterMP Reading West The federation, which represents the interests of constables, sergeants, inspectors and chief inspectors, said keeping staff in the region was "a huge challenge".

It added it "supported Chief Constable Sara Thornton in her efforts to seek a significant increase in the South Eastern allowance".

Thames Valley Police was not available for comment.

Mr Salter said the system was "simply not fair".

"Thames Valley police have as challenging a job to do as the Met.

"I would like to see a policy, over a period of time - perhaps not all in one go - of staircasing, of uplifting that South East Allowance to the same level enjoyed by the Met Police force, so that we have pay parity across the board," he told the BBC.

The MPs expressed their concerns in a joint letter to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

They said a recent national pay deal for officers meant police constables were now able to earn up to £36,500 a year, more than 50% extra than in 1997.

But the living allowance had been frozen at £2,000 a year since 2003.

Met Police officers receive a London Weighting of £2,055 and a London Allowance of £4,338.

In a letter to the regional police authority in January, the Thames Valley Police Federation said: "The lure of the Metropolitan Police is a constant threat that is not going to go away."