Margaret Greenwood
Main Page: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)Department Debates - View all Margaret Greenwood's debates with the Home Office
(9 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend is spot on. Our two areas are affected by a wide range of issues, from gun crime to organised crime, from day-to-day crime to fraud. A diverse community needs a diverse response.
By 2019, the workforce will be down by 40%. Specialist support teams dealing with such matters as sexual violence, hate crime, gun crime and organised crime will go, and that will have a significant effect on community reassurance. The police service is not just there to react. It is a bit like an insurance service: people like it to be there. All the partnership working is under a huge amount of stress.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
My constituency is also in the Merseyside area. Does my hon. Friend agree that the threatened cut in the provision of PCSOs will have a devastating impact not only on community reassurance, but on the intelligence-gathering that is so crucial to police work?
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. I have talked about that issue recently, and, indeed, have given a presentation on it. PCSOs are the feet on the ground. They come into contact with members of the community day in, day out: in the shops, for instance. People approach those officers for information and intelligence. Losing them will have a deleterious, detrimental and significant effect on intelligence and the ability of the police to deal, on the ground, with issues such as gun crime, drug crime and organised crime. Whether the Conservatives accept it or not, that will happen as a direct result of the cuts. Indeed, it is already happening, and has been happening for a considerable time. The country, and my constituency, needs a Home Secretary who will stand up for safer communities and not put them at risk.