Police chiefs should order officers out on the beat if they are not actively "catching criminals", a Westcountry MP has said.

Neil Parish, MP for Tiverton and Honiton, argued that there were better ways of getting "value for money" from the force as cuts began to bite.

The Conservative politician said Devon and Cornwall did a "very good job with excellent officers", but funding had to be scaled back because of the deficit.

In a Commons debate on police funding, he said that as many community police officers should be out on the beat as possible.

He told MPs: "Every time the chief constable walked into a police station and found a lot of police officers there, would it not be a good idea – I know that some chief constables are doing this – if he asked why they were there and not out on the beat, policing and catching criminals, which is what we put them there for?

"There is a great deal more that can be done.

"There are many great police officers and very good police constables in this country, but we have to find the very best practices to get value for money."

His comments come as police chiefs in the region meet this week to decide whether to accept Government funding to freeze council tax for one year.

While a welcome cash boost, it would leave the force with a financial black hole to fill in the years ahead.

The force had already planned to lose one in five of its officers – 700 from a compliment of 3,500 – to meet cuts of almost £50 million imposed by the Government's 2010 comprehensive spending review.

Any freeze in council tax would see another 56 officers having to go, papers seen by the Western Morning News suggest.

Mr Parish added: "We have to grow up and say what the coalition Government are saying: yes, police forces do a great job, but we can afford only a certain amount of money."

Mr Parish said that chief constables had to ensure that front-line policing was maintained.

"I went out with my local police officers before the General Election, and they said that if they make an arrest, they then have to do seven hours of paperwork.

"I hope that we are tackling that, because there is no doubt that we can reduce bureaucracy and make much better use of police time."