Rural Crime

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I would of course be very happy to meet the said gentleman. Let me go into the details of the National Rural Crime Unit a little. It was established in January 2023, with a grant of £300,000. It is working and was set up with a significant input from the National Farmers’ Union, as noble Lords will be aware. The unit has made a real difference; Farmers Weekly reported on 25 April:

“They have absolutely changed the playing field in terms of policing”.


So the first port of call should be to superintendent Andrew Huddleston in that unit, which is doing great work.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is participating remotely.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the hugely experienced David Allen on his election as crime commissioner for Cumbria. With 47 million visitors to the Lakes annually and an associated increase in rural crime, will Ministers respond to his early call for resources to fund a major expansion in the automatic number plate recognition programme? We need it to cover our arterial road system, in particular the A66 and A69. As a matter of note, Vauxhall in London has more of these cameras than the entire county of Cumbria.