Safe Streets for All

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab) [V]]

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is a Bill of two halves. Many of my Labour colleagues had a hand in the development of much-needed new laws on the police covenant, assaults on emergency workers, the Lammy review and the extension of whole-life orders, but whole sections of the Bill have been hastily drafted and it will introduce some of the most draconian measures this country has ever seen to impose disproportionate control on free expression and the right to protest. In particular, the Bill targets some of the most vulnerable and marginalised people in this country.

Successive Tory Governments have decimated our public services over the past 11 years. They have totally lost sight of the need to address the causes of crime, with the predictable consequence of the rise in violent crime in every single police-force area of England and Wales. The Government are making a habit of creating legislation for a problem that they have invented or exaggerated while overlooking the real and difficult issues. The problems in my constituency, like many others, are not protest but serious violent crime, knife crime, county lines drug running, gang culture, violence against women and girls and persistent antisocial behaviour. To tackle all that, we need visible community policing.

After a decade of police cuts, Bedfordshire will finally get some more police officers, paid for by council tax increases, but nowhere near as many as we need or were lost because of austerity. For many years I have been telling the Government that the funding formula for Bedfordshire police does not work. The force covers not only rural areas but large and growing urban conurbations and a main airport. Successive chief constables of Bedfordshire police and the former police and crime commissioner have said that the funding formula is not fit for purpose and needs to be urgently reviewed.

The force has made great strides in tackling violent crime and serious organised crimes. Such improvement was possible only because of an urgent funding grant. There is an overflow of intelligence about crimes that is not currently being developed because of the lack of resources. The force has had to find many millions in savings while the demands on it because of violent crime, sexual offences, domestic abuse, burglaries, fraud and cyber-crime are ever rising. Instead of tackling those things, the Government want to crack down on critical dissent—they are not being tough on crime or on the causes of crime.

The Queen’s Speech shows that rather than soundbites, policies are needed to come up with an effective preventive strategy. Bedfordshire police know how to bring crime levels down. They need a sustained level of increased funding. The bottom line is that until the funding formula is fixed, the streets of Bedford and Kempston will not be as safe as they could and should be.