Policing in Cleveland

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. I know that the whole House will join the Home Secretary and me in paying tribute to those brave officers tragically killed in the crash on the A66 in the early hours of 22 August. Our thoughts are with the families of PCs Matthew Blades and Tom Clough, whose lives were cut short by a car recklessly driven on the wrong side of the road by criminals. Those brave officers made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. They will never be forgotten.

Every day, police officers up and down the country risk their lives to keep us safe. We owe them all a deep debt of gratitude. This tragedy has sent shockwaves through Cleveland police and the public more widely. The Home Secretary has set out some of the steps being taken to support local police, but will she confirm that every request for extra assistance made by Cleveland police has been met?

In the aftermath of 22 August, I was shocked to see so-called tributes staged for some of the men directly responsible for PCs Blades and Clough’s deaths that included cars being driven dangerously and set on fire. Criminal activity of that kind is wrong in principle and deeply offensive in these circumstances. Will the Home Secretary join me in condemning that activity and calling on the police to ensure it does not happen again?

Organised crime was allowed to take hold in whole parts of Middlesbrough. Criminal gangs ran rampant and engaged in retaliatory attacks on one another. Homes and properties were attacked with no consequence, and that escalated even further in the days after 22 August. Although it is welcome that 27 people have finally been arrested, such lawless gang chaos should never have been allowed to take root in the first place. The police need proper resources to stop that. Many campaigners, including my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers), the shadow police Minister, who I see in his place, have raised concerns for some time that there is a multi-million pound shortfall in funding for Cleveland police in the current financial year. Even the local Labour police and crime commissioner, Matt Storey, said this Government’s financial settlement this year

“completely fails to deliver the resources required to meet the demand faced by Cleveland Police and falls far short of what is needed.”

Does the Home Secretary accept her own police and crime commissioner’s assessment that the funding she put in place for Cleveland police this year is inadequate? Lawless chaos followed that underfunding, and I think the Home Secretary should apologise for that. The £2 million just referred to is only 0.5% of Cleveland’s budget and is clearly wholly inadequate in the circumstances.

I am afraid that that reflects a wider national trend that goes beyond Cleveland. The last Government left behind record ever police numbers, but there are now 1,800 fewer police officers under this Government. As a result, crime has increased by 10% and antisocial behaviour has gone up by 15% in just the last year. The Home Secretary must accept that cutting overall police numbers was a mistake. Will she take steps to reverse that decline? The truth is that only zero tolerance of crime and disorder will ensure that criminals are the ones who are afraid, and not the law-abiding public. We have seen the consequences, with the rampant gangs going unchallenged in Middlesbrough, and it is clear now that a zero-tolerance approach is required to keep the public safe.

[Shabana Mahmood]

Let me start by saying that I appreciate that, at the beginning of his statement, the shadow Home Secretary paid tribute and gave his condolences to the families of PC Blades and PC Clough. There is, at least, agreement across this House on their enormous sacrifice, and the need to support their family and friends as they face that loss. On the wider matters that he raises, he has absolutely no credibility when it comes to police numbers. It was his Government who cut police numbers, not by a few thousand here and there, or a few hundred, but by 20,000 police officers. They then decided to replace the 20,000 that they cut, but did so in a distorted way that meant that we have warranted police officers working in admin jobs and behind desks across police forces in this country.

The truth is that the Tory Government made an absolute mess of policing over their time in government. I have said this many times to the shadow Home Secretary, and though it falls on deaf ears, it remains true and I will keep saying it: he would have more credibility entering this debate if he fronted up on what went wrong under the Tory Government and apologised for it. I notice that he has the shadow Justice Secretary sitting next to him; he was a special adviser to a former Tory Home Secretary. Until there is humility about the mess that the Tories made of our public services and our policing in particular, they have no credibility, and I will take no lessons from them, especially given that his party oversaw the loss of over 200 officers in Cleveland.

This Government are righting those wrongs. We have increased funding for policing by £2 billion since being elected, and all forces will receive a real-terms uplift in their funding this year as part of an overall £18.5 billion package. Funding to Cleveland has increased by £18.3 million since 2024, and that is a real-terms increase of 4.4% over two years. That is the truth of what we have had to deal with as an incoming Labour Government, and we will not stop until we have our police service functioning exactly as the public would expect.

Let me also say to the right hon. Gentleman that, on the issue of criminal gangs and the efforts made by Cleveland police, I do not think it is a fair characterisation of that police force to suggest that they have done nothing for all this time and have only sprung into action since this horrifying incident took place. They are responding to the incident, arrests have been made and they will continue, and this Government will stand shoulder to shoulder with them as they get control of the matter and of the streets in Cleveland. That is why we have announced the additional funding today and that is why there are mutual aid arrangements in place to assist them.

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman on the unlawful activity that has been taking place in relation to tributes and memorials for some of those who lost their lives in the crash. I of course condemn all unlawful activity and all attempts to breed public disorder as a result of what has happened. Again, we stand four-square behind the police as they respond to those incidents. People should be in no doubt that any attempt to instigate public disorder or to break our laws will be met with the full force of the law, and the Government will support the police as they carry out that incredibly important work.

There will be questions about the ability of the police to respond effectively and to ensure that we are able to give confidence to all the public about the standard of service that they can expect from their policing. Members of this House should have absolutely no doubt that this is a Government who have increased funding for policing and who are going to make sure that we reform policing so that the police are capable of dealing with every type of challenge that a modern force faces and we have a police service that we can all be absolutely proud of and can rely on in our time of need. I hope that all Members across this House, acting reasonably, can unite around that.