Jack Abbott
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Town and City Centre Safety
Jack Abbott Excerpts(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) for securing this important debate.
This issue comes up repeatedly with my local residents, who want to feel safe in our town—whether that is walking, shopping, eating or enjoying public spaces. Women and girls should feel safe at night. Families should be able to enjoy our town centre free from the fear of antisocial behaviour. As has already been mentioned, shop workers should not have the threat of retail crime hanging over them. I am really pleased that, after years of campaigning by the Co-operative party, that was included as a standalone offence in the Crime and Policing Bill.
We have made real progress in Ipswich over the past couple of years through a combination of Government initiatives in partnership with our hard-working police force. For example, the Clear, Hold, Build initiative has removed weapons and drugs from our streets, led to over 100 arrests, and resulted in charges and convictions totalling nearly 43 years. Other initiatives, such as Operation Spotlight over the summer, meant that police spent more than 1,700 extra hours patrolling the town centre in July and August, so there is real progress. We have seen crime fall in the last few years by 13%. I look forward to further legislation, which will make it much easier for councils to bring empty shops back into use and protect our high streets from unwanted businesses. There has been real progress in tackling some of those problems.
Although tackling crime is absolutely a priority, we cannot arrest our way out of the problems that we see on our high streets. That is why we are working hard in Ipswich to bring good, well-paid and secure jobs to the town. Whether it is at Sizewell C or Halo, hundreds of jobs will be created, and we are increasing footfall in our town centre—it has increased by 15%—by attracting people in. We are making progress, but there is much more to do. I thank the Government, and look forward to the Minister’s comments.