Police Grant

Steve Rotheram Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Of course, in Dorset and in her constituency, the deprivation is spread over a vast area. With all due respect to the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), I suspect that the deprivation in his constituency is spread over a far more compact area and is, therefore, far easier to police. Dorset is a massive area that is not easy to police, and deprivation is spread right across it.

I will end—I said I would speak briefly—by raising with the Minister a few points that Mr Underhill made in a recent letter to me. First, rural communities already struggle to access services such as public transport, affordable housing and the like on a par with urban communities. Fear of crime is higher than in urban areas, and confidence in policing is lower in rural areas. That is not a criticism of Dorset police, which does the best job it can, but the fact is that people in rural areas do not often see a police officer. Rural communities do not feel that the police understand their concerns about hare coursing—my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) made a point about that—as well as about trespassing and poaching.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about confidence in the police. Just last night in my constituency, a convicted murderer, who was taken to the local hospital in a taxi, absconded because a taxi was called to return him back to prison. Is not the fact that police numbers are a factor in how prisoners are taken to and from appointments outside prison part of the problem of confidence that the hon. Gentleman is talking about, and do we not need a review of police numbers?

[Richard Drax]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says with his example. Now he mentions it, I think I have read about it, but I am not aware of all the details, so I am afraid I am not in a position to comment. However, I hear the concern that he has clearly expressed.

Finally, all the factors I have mentioned will only get worse if the funding for rural policing is reduced any further. I therefore beg the Minister, on behalf of Dorset police—as I say, they do a wonderful job for us—to take into account all those factors when the review is done, so that Dorset can at last get not more of the cake, but a fairer share of it.