Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Home Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts
Monday 18th September 2023

(1 year, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Suella Braverman Portrait Suella Braverman
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My hon. Friend has been an indefatigable champion for his community, and I very much enjoyed joining him at his local police station to meet his excellent chief constable, Mark Roberts, with the PCC. Cheshire is an example of common-sense policing and protecting the public. With those arrest rates and a focus on domestic abuse, on which Cheshire constabulary has achieved some excellence, it deserves all the praise that it gets.

When it comes to tackling online scams and online fraud, which are a feature of modern-day crime fighting, earlier this year, with the Prime Minister, I announced our fraud strategy. One hundred million pounds from the 2021 spending review has gone towards tackling fraud. A portion of that will fund a new national fraud squad of 400 specialist fraud officers across policing and the National Crime Agency, who will investigate the most harmful fraudsters targeting the UK public.

Clive Efford Portrait Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
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Since 2015, the proportion of crimes that result in a perpetrator facing a punishment has gone down by two thirds. Is that because the Government had a policy of cutting 21,000 police officers?

Suella Braverman Portrait Suella Braverman
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I am incredibly proud of the increased resources for policing, the increased powers for policing, with the 20,000 new officers on the frontline that the Government have delivered for the British people—a record number; we are at historic levels—and the overall fall in crime since 2010. Yes, there is more to do, but on all those measures, how did Labour vote? It voted against them and against the British public.