Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I hope the right hon. Gentleman would welcome the additional public investment in North Wales police, as seems to be the case. That is part of a trend, which I hope he would welcome, of increased public investment in policing. If we want more to go into policing, we have to pay as taxpayers. Whether it comes from central Government or local government is not the point. He will know that most funding for local policing comes from the taxpayer through the centre. I will take no lectures on precepts from the Labour party, which doubled council tax when it was in power.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

9. What recent assessment he has made of the capacity of police forces to investigate serious violent crime.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

13. What recent assessment he has made of the capacity of police forces to investigate serious violent crime.

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)]

As the House has heard, the Government attach high priority to bearing down on the cycle of serious violence and have recently committed an additional £100 million to support police services in that effort.

[Helen Hayes]

Last Wednesday another life was tragically lost to serious violence in my constituency when a young man was shot at close range in West Norwood in the middle of the afternoon, leaving another family devastated and another community traumatised. The Government committed last October to a public health approach to serious violence, but they have taken until today to hold a meeting about it. When will the public health approach be implemented in full, and when will the killings stop?

[Mr Hurd]

I have a great deal of sympathy for the hon. Lady and the situation in her constituency—I, too, have suffered a recent murder in my constituency—but it is a misrepresentation of the Government’s position to say that we have just embarked on a journey of underpinning our strategy through a public health approach. What we have announced today is the launch of a consultation on a statutory duty to co-operate.