Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Trudy Harrison and Robert Courts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

3. What estimate the Government have made of the number of jobs created in the UK since 2010.

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

20. What estimate the Government have made of the number of jobs created in the UK since 2010.

Rural Crime and Public Services

Debate between Trudy Harrison and Robert Courts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

I would like to start by commending my police and crime commissioner, Peter McCall, and the Cumbria constabulary, which has recently been graded as “good” by Her Majesty’s inspectorate. My very rural constituency covers an area of around 500 square miles and has a population of 80,000 people. This brings two challenges. The huge geographical area of Cumbria, with the Lake District mountain range in the middle, means that it takes far longer than one might expect to travel the length and breadth of the county. It also means that we are less able than more densely populated rural areas to generate funds by increasing the precept.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

My hon. Friend describes her rural area, and of course, west Oxfordshire is also rural. We too are afflicted by the horrors of hare coursing, as well as by rural thefts and, more recently, by some well-publicised violent ATM thefts. It occurs to me that, although this is rural crime, it may be committed by people who are coming from elsewhere and that there could therefore be an element of urban crime exporting itself to rural areas. Does she agree that we need not only to encourage police forces to work together, which they will do, but to consider these issues holistically?