Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that important matter. There is that expectation. She will know that, in particular, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has a programme of work and shares good practice about how these services can be maintained—and physically maintained as well—even if particular branches are closing. I will make sure that that Department knows that the hon. Lady may benefit from some advice in that respect, but I know that colleagues from across the House have had similar situations, but have managed to retain access to banking, which is vital for local businesses in particular, and also those services from the Post Office as well.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I bring good news from Kettering, where Northamptonshire police has been pleased to announce that, after five years of its groundbreaking Operation Crooked, burglaries have now been halved. A key feature of this campaign has been that, since 2019, specialist burglary teams have ensured that every burglary victim gets a visit from the police, while the quality of investigations, forensic analysis and intelligence gathering has been improved. May we have a statement from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to congratulate Northamptonshire police and all its officers on this tremendous work and to encourage other police forces to follow Northamptonshire’s example?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing us more good news from Kettering and congratulate him on the work that he is doing there. I will, of course, join him in praising and congratulating Northamptonshire police on this huge achievement, which I know will have taken a great deal of effort and determination on its part. He will know that, since 2010, our communities are safer, with neighbourhood crime such as burglary and robbery down by 48% on roughly the same resource, and a large part of that in recent years has been the additional recruitment of 20,000 more police officers, which means that we are just shy of 150,000 officers in England and Wales, higher than the previous peak before the police uplift. That is a huge achievement and we should praise his local police force for its part in it.