Policing: Somerset

Luke Hall Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I welcome that intervention. This debate is about policing in Somerset, but the issue applies to the whole country. It does not matter whether it is Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland or England: we are all suffering in the same way. There is an epidemic and we are not yet controlling it. I am not blaming the Government, because the issue goes back over the 18 years I have been in Parliament. I think knife crime has gone up, but the rest has not greatly changed. The hon. Gentleman’s point is that this is about frontline services and frontline officers. I have spoken to the Minister, who has championed the issue during his time in office, and I welcome his commitment to continue to fight at every level. This has to be about the community, as the hon. Gentleman has rightly said, but it also has to be led from the centre so that it ripples out, even to bad police and crime commissioners, as in my case. That was a great intervention.

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

South Gloucestershire, of course, falls under the Avon and Somerset constabulary. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we are unable to get a handle on bigger issues such as knife crime and drug-related organised crime, it is much more difficult to tackle low-level antisocial behaviour issues, which are the ones most raised by constituents in South Gloucestershire?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. We cover very similar areas and he makes a valid point. I will come on to that, because the Somerset area has some exciting news and I hope we will be able to reach across the border into South Gloucestershire. I know that his area suffers the same problems as we do: crime takes place up and down the motorway, and he will also find that Bristol sucks in loads of resources.