Oral Answers to Questions

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

1. What steps she is taking to ensure that the police have adequate resources to help tackle neighbourhood crime.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

2. What steps she is taking to improve the effectiveness of community policing.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

11. What discussions she has had with the Metropolitan police on the effectiveness of community policing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

Under the previous Conservative Government, neighbourhood policing was decimated. The proportion of people who said that they never saw the police on the beat doubled. They took police off the beat and did not put them back, which is why we are setting out a neighbourhood policing guarantee. We have increased funding for police forces by £1 billion next year, including £100 million specifically to kickstart recruitment for neighbourhood policing.

[Bobby Dean]

A Carshalton resident had her car stolen from her driveway. There is video footage of it, but the police just gave her a crime reference number and closed the case. Local businesses on Wallington high street tell me that organised shoplifters are acting with impunity. The Home Secretary touched on recruitment being part of the solution, but what else can the Government do now to help my constituents feel safe?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is right to talk about the deep frustration felt in communities, including local businesses and town centres, about not just the absence of neighbourhood policing, which we need to turn around, but the weakening of powers over the past 14 years on things such as shoplifting. That is why we are introducing new respect orders and strengthening powers on shoplifting and assaults on shop workers.