Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Main Page: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - North Cotswolds)Department Debates - View all Geoffrey Clifton-Brown's debates with the Home Office
(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Kit Malthouse
I have had a number of telephone conversations with the chief constable of Merseyside police over the last few weeks and months, as has my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and I am pleased to say that that force is in good heart, as far as we could tell. Happily, it is running well in advance of its recruitment allocation. I am told that, at the end of March, it had recruited 220 police officers, against an allocation of 200, which does give it extra capacity to deal with the problems that the hon. Member has outlined. Notwithstanding that fact, there are obviously extra costs for policing with covid-19, and we are in conversation with the Treasury about how we might address them.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Following the excellent announcement that my hon. Friend has given the House this afternoon, which goes a long way towards meeting our Conservative party pledge to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers, would he agree that the real importance of those police officers is that every criminal will know that it is much more likely their crime is going to be investigated and, if it is proved, will result in a prosecution?
Kit Malthouse
With his usual perspicacity, my hon. Friend puts his finger on the button. We know that the greatest deterrent of crime is the perception of the likelihood of being caught, and the fact that Gloucestershire police has now more than recruited its annual allocation of police officers—he will be pleased to hear—at 48, over 46, already so far this year, means that that is much more likely to be the case in his county.