Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Amess]

While I recognise that my right hon. Friend has a very tough job as Home Secretary, does she understand my disappointment? When I first became MP for Basildon, we had one police station; by the time I left we had three and Lord Mackay of Clashfern had opened a magnificent courthouse. I then became the Member of Parliament for Southend West, where there are a huge number of elderly people and where I started off with three police stations, and I will shortly have none.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Resign.

[Mrs May]

I feel the need not to let it rest there, Mr Speaker, but to respond to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) asked. I am sure that he will agree that what matters is accessibility to police. That is why one thing the Government are doing is reducing the amount of bureaucracy that the police have to deal with so that they can get out on the streets more. It is also why a number of forces up and down the country are considering accessibility in a different way, rather than simply having fixed police stations. I understand that Essex, for example, has seven mobile police stations that go to areas where people congregate, such as supermarket car parks, to increase accessibility to the police for members of the public.