Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Ind)]

10. What steps her Department is taking to help tackle antisocial behaviour.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

24. What recent progress her Department has made on improving neighbourhood policing to tackle antisocial behaviour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Diana Johnson]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about how antisocial behaviour has to be tackled, particularly in areas where we have lots of tourists. The neighbourhood policing guarantee is important because it will deliver an additional 13,000 police officers, PCSOs and specials in our town and city centres and in rural areas by the end of this Parliament. In the provisional policing settlement, announced just before Christmas, there is £100 million to start the recruitment of the 13,000 police officers.

[Neil Coyle]

How will the Minister ensure that the safer streets mission is delivered in communities like mine in Southwark, where too often officers are extracted to police protests and the Met is divided between its neighbourhood and national policing roles?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the conflicting and competing interests in the Metropolitan police. We have committed to putting police back on the beat through the neighbourhood policing guarantee. A neighbourhood policing team will be in every area. It will be out policing, with intelligence-led, visible patrols, and will ensure officers are protected from being deployed elsewhere. That is part of the guarantee.