PM: Rioters Face Eviction From Council Homes

David Cameron has warned council tenants they could be evicted if they are found to be involved in rioting in English towns and cities.

The Prime Minister said the trouble after four nights of extensive violence had been "criminality pure and simple" and pledged to do "whatever it takes" to restore order.

He told the Commons that reinforced police numbers would remain on the streets of London this weekend and added that "young people stealing and looting is not about politics, it is about theft".

Mr Cameron revealed that more than 1,200 people have been arrested across the country and added that anyone convicted of rioting should go to jail.

He admitted at the start of the trouble there had been "far too few" police officers deployed and tactics they used had not worked.

Police are to be given new powers to demand suspected criminals remove facemasks while ministers are also looking at whether any wider powers of curfew are necessary, he said.

A £10m recovery scheme to help local councils deal the damage caused by rioting in English towns and cities has also been announced.

The Labour leader Ed Miliband said the riots had "disgusted us all" and added that it "cannot be allowed to stand".

The PM recalled Parliament in order to update members and the public after nights of riots left homes and businesses burnt and looted in towns and cities across England.

MPs will also get the chance to debate the issue and the politicians from affected areas are likely to describe what happened in their constituencies.

The Home Affairs Select Committee has announced it will hold an inquiry into the riots in September.

The response to the disorder has rapidly become political with senior Labour figures calling for a moratorium on police budget cuts.

Mr Cameron said of the police budgets that "at the end of this process of making sure our police budgets are affordable we will still be able to surge as many police officers on to the streets as we have in recent days".

On Wednesday the Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman met Home Office minister James Brokenshire to press the issue, flanked by a handful of MPs from the capital.

"Labour has been strongly opposed to cuts in police numbers in London," she said in a statement.

"We had hoped that in light of the riots they would reconsider their cuts and we are bitterly disappointed that in spite of the evidence of the importance of police numbers in the last week they are refusing to reconsider these cuts.

"This will not be acceptable to communities across London, nor will it be acceptable to businesses across London who know that cuts in police numbers are a false economy."

The Deputy Prime Minister told Sky News the "savings in the police service are entirely manageable".

He added that it was "ridiculous to connect people breaking the law, looting and stealing with having to save money as a country on policing".

Home Secretary Theresa May had earlier acknowledged police forces would not be immune from cuts but the measures were a necessary part of reducing the deficit.

The PM faced calls, including from London mayor Boris Johnson , to halt the coalition's cuts to police budgets.

Meanwhile, The Guardian quoted an anonymous minister saying: "It is manifestly the case that we need police numbers and effective deployment of officers that generates public confidence.

"There are inevitably pressures on spending. But you need to run the numbers through the system to make sure you do not leave an exposed flank."

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper reacted angrily to the report, saying: "For 10 months we have told the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary their 20% frontloaded cuts to the police were unsustainable and were taking huge risks with law and order.

"They have repeatedly refused to reconsider the cuts and have refused to listen to warnings from the police and communities up and down the country.

"It is staggering and utterly shameful if it has taken these appalling events for ministers to start waking up to what everyone else has known all along: more police on the streets makes them safer and not only at times like this."