Safe Streets for All

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

The Queen’s Speech was another opportunity for the Government to provide proper funding for our public services and make our streets safer, after a decade of cuts which has led to rising crime across the nation. Once again, this Government have failed to grasp that opportunity.

The Secretary of State opened this debate by stating that

“no one… should be made to feel unsafe when walking our streets.”

Well, the fact is that the Home Secretary talks a good game, but her rhetoric does not match up with the reality. Indeed, last year, research by her own Department named the falling number of police officers since 2010 as a “contributory factor” to the rising number of murders in Britain, alongside drugs and terror attacks. In 2019, the current Metropolitan Police Commissioner was forced to admit that there was a link between violent crime on the streets and police numbers, particularly in relation to rising knife crime.

The Government have said they will provide 20,000 new officers by 2022. However, that will only serve to plug some of the hole left by the 21,000 police that were cut between 2010 and 2019. Furthermore, it will mean thousands of new and inexperienced officers being out on duty, which is far from a like-for-like replacement. It is little more than taking with one hand and giving with the other. We can only assume that the decision to return the police force to numbers similar to those of more than a decade ago is an acknowledgement by this Government that police austerity has failed. Indeed, there is a direct parallel between the fall in police numbers and violent crime rising in every police force over the past 11 years, with violent crime up by 116% and the number of violent crime suspects down by 26%.

This Government’s failed approach has had a direct impact on police and crime figures in my own constituency of Stockport and right across Greater Manchester. Recently I met representatives from Stockport Council, Greater Manchester police and Stockport Homes to discuss incidents in the local community. My special thanks go to the brilliant antisocial behaviour team at Stockport Homes led by Sinead and Clare. At the time I was reassured by the measures that had been put in place at a local level. I pay tribute to the hard work of Superintendent Marcus Noden and Inspector Ian Ashenden of Greater Manchester police’s Stockport division, as well as the entire team at Stockport police, for supporting our community. I am also grateful to the teams at Stockport Homes and Stockport Council for working alongside my office in supporting victims of antisocial behaviour.

But the brutal truth is that many of these organisations are facing an uphill battle, with many budgets having been pared down to the bone, and these shoestring budgets are being stretched even further in the face of rising crime. To take just one example, research by Greater Manchester police revealed that Stockport ranks second in the region in vehicle nuisance incident logs relating to off-road bikes. Despite this, since 2010 the Government have cut the grant they provide to Greater Manchester by £215 million, and as a result we now have 2,000 fewer bobbies on the beat on our streets and 1,000 fewer support staff. This is nothing short of scandalous and is compounded by the fact that the Government support to Stockport Council has been slashed, further harming community drives to cut crime.

We cannot overlook the impact that Government cuts have had on community groups and organisations across the country, including youth services, mental health services, our probation service, and other preventive services. Cutting these services has clearly had a significant effect on crime. Our communities should no longer be blighted by this Government’s chronic underfunding of police and community programmes: they deserve far, far better.