Yvette Cooper
Main Page: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)Department Debates - View all Yvette Cooper's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House condemns the Government’s destruction of neighbourhood policing, noting a drop in the number of neighbourhood police officers by 6,000 and of Police Community Support Officers by 8,500; notes with concern the collapse in charges and prosecutions across all types of crime and an overall charge rate of just 5.5 per cent; is extremely concerned by the record levels of recorded rapes and knife-enabled threats to kill and that more than twenty million people witnessed or experienced antisocial behaviour last year; and calls on the Government to protect communities across the UK by increasing neighbourhood policing, including by ringfencing a proportion of the Police Uplift Programme to deliver neighbourhood officers for every local authority in England and Wales.
The motion is to restore and renew neighbourhood policing, which has been decimated by 13 years of Conservative Government. Before I talk about what is happening in our towns on policing and crime, may I first briefly say something about today’s publication of the police response to the Hillsborough inquiry? Ninety seven people lost their lives as a result of what happened at Hillsborough 34 years ago. Families had to fight for decades against smears, lies and obfuscation to get to the truth, but they still do not have justice 34 years on.
The fulsome apology from the police today is welcome, and so too is their acceptance of some of the bishop’s recommendations about a duty of candour—something the Government have previously voted against—as well as support for families at inquests. But this comes five years after the bishop’s report, and 34 years after Hillsborough. Where is the Government’s response? They promised nearly 18 months ago that we would have a response by the end of 2021, but the months and years keep rolling by. We need a commitment to a Hillsborough law to address this.
The Home Secretary’s predecessor but four, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), took this matter seriously and we welcomed that. To have no response right now shows a lack of respect for the families who have endured so much and the communities who have supported and fought for them. I will happily give way to the Home Secretary if she wants to tell us when the Government response to the Hillsborough report will be published.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Suella Braverman)
I will address that in my response to the right hon. Lady.
Yvette Cooper
I thank the Home Secretary and look forward to her response. She will know how important that is.
I turn to neighbourhood policing. The number of people who say that they never see the police on patrol on the streets has almost doubled since the Conservatives took office, from around a quarter of the population to half. Half the country say that they never or hardly ever see a police officer patrolling the streets, according to the national crime survey. That is what 13 years of the Conservatives have done.
At the same time, the number of criminals being caught or punished has plummeted. Since 2010, arrests have halved; prosecutions have almost halved; community penalties have halved; and crimes solved have halved. The proportion of cases that collapse because victims give up and drop out has trebled. More crimes are reported and recorded, but hundreds of thousands fewer crimes are solved, hundreds of thousands fewer victims are getting justice, and more criminals are getting away with it.
Every one of us will have these cases in their surgeries: the residents who have complained about drug dealers on the corner, and nothing is done; the street drinkers who make them feel unsafe, and nothing is done; the broken windows and shop break-ins that go ignored; the antisocial behaviour that escalates; the kids who have been expelled from school who just wander the streets and get drawn into gang violence instead, and nothing is done; the repeat offender back out of prison who nobody is following up on; and the domestic abuse victim who has no one to turn to because the police are overstretched and the court delays are so long. More victims are giving up on the whole thing and walking away.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
I understand that the right hon. Lady’s mission today is to paint a dystopian picture of crime, but before she elaborates, will she take the opportunity to congratulate the police on the significant falls we have seen not just in specific crimes such as burglary, robbery and knife crime, but in overall crime? She will know that the recently published crime survey of England and Wales shows that, in the year to September, overall crime was down 10% on pre-pandemic levels. Surely she wants to congratulate the police on that before enumerating their sometimes obvious but none the less difficult failings.
Yvette Cooper
Let me be very clear. I welcome the huge amount of work that police officers do every single day of the week to keep our communities safe—the police officers and police community support officers who are overstretched; and the detectives juggling huge caseloads, which they struggle to keep up with because of huge shortages of detectives, because there has been no workforce planning by the Government year after year.
I welcome some the long-term trends in crime that started 25 years ago, but the Government’s amendment eliminates online crime, despite it having soared over the past few years. That is where we have seen some of the big increases in crime. Government Ministers may want to dismiss the huge fraud against pensioners who have lost their savings, the online scams or the grooming of children online, but we should take those sorts of online crimes and fraud immensely seriously, because they devastate and ruin people’s lives.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The right hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, and I wholeheartedly agree with what she says about uninvestigated non-violent crime causing people to lose hope. I keep hearing of people who do not bother reporting crime at all any more. Will she elaborate on Labour’s plans for online crime and, in particular, ID theft? A constituent of mine recently had her ID stolen, and it has cost thousands of pounds and caused consternation for her and her family. The police want to investigate but just do not have the resources.
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member is completely right. We have seen changing patterns of crime as criminals make the most of new technology, and the problem is that the police have not been equipped to keep up. That, ultimately, is the responsibility of the Government, so it is no use Ministers or Conservative Back Benchers blaming the police for the situation that the Home Office has put our police forces in and the fact that they have been unable to keep up with changing crime and the changing pressures on them.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
We know that crime varies across the country. My right hon. Friend will share my horror that knife crime in north-east England has increased by 104%, from 1,077 incidents in 2015 to 2,203 last year. That is hundreds more lives impacted by the Government’s failure to get on top of serious crime in our region. We had some so-called extra money in Cleveland but still have hundreds fewer police officers than we did in 2010. Does she agree that a long-term, sustainable plan—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
Order. A lot of Members want to take part in this debate. Using an intervention to make a speech when you have not indicated your intention to make a speech is, frankly, not in order.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right that what has happened on serious violent crime is among the most troubling. Since 2015 there has been a huge increase in knife crime and serious violence, and we have seen some criminal gangs change their model to be able to groom more children and draw young people into crime and, as a result, into violence. It is our young people who we see paying the price for the way in which criminal gangs have been operating. That is why we put forward proposals to strengthen the law by outlawing child criminal exploitation, to make it easier to crack down on criminal gangs. I urge Ministers who voted against that proposal to accept it and to take a much tougher line on the criminal gangs who are exploiting our children.
The problem is that from policing to courts, our NHS, social care, our trains and our economy, after 13 years of the Tories it just feels like nothing in Britain is working any more—that is the damage they have done.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Welsh Labour Government’s Commission on Justice in Wales recommended that policing and crime policy be devolved to Wales, to be aligned with social and health policy, but some Labour MPs resist that, even though it is Mark Drakeford’s policy. Policing is devolved to Scotland, to Northern Ireland and even to Manchester. Could the right hon. Lady tell me whether it is likely that a Labour Government or Labour in Westminster would ever recommend the devolution of policing to Wales?
Yvette Cooper
The Welsh Government already do take a different approach in a significant way: the Welsh Government have worked with police and crime commissioners in Wales to support and fund additional PCSOs, and that has made a difference in terms of neighbourhood policing on Welsh streets.
The Government have tabled an amendment to our motion so that they can vote against Labour’s plan to increase neighbourhood policing. That is what Government Members are voting for tonight—they are voting against Labour’s plan to increase neighbourhood policing. Instead, they want us to welcome their efforts to increase police numbers, but who cut them in the first place? It was Tory MPs and Tory Ministers who voted to cut 20,000 police officers from forces right across the country—from our neighbourhoods, from detective work and from response teams—and now they expect everyone to be grateful because they are trying to put some of them back. Twenty thousand experienced police officers gone. The Tories claim that they are on track to reverse the cuts. Actually, they are not, because the number of officers leaving policing has been increasing. For example, North Yorkshire police have said today that they are leaving 120 vacancies unfilled so that they can make their budget add up.
The police are not ending up on the streets, either. More of them are now behind desks because police staff have been cut and bureaucracy has gone up. More of them are dealing with mental health crises and missing persons. After 13 years of Tory government, the NHS and social care cannot cope, and the police are having to pick up the pieces, and there is a huge shortage of detectives, because there has been no national workforce plan, and everyone is having to try to plug the gaps.
There are 6,000 fewer neighbourhood officers and 8,000 fewer PCSOs, with the number of PCSOs having halved since 2010. Neighbourhood teams have been decimated. People say they do not see the police on the street any more—that is because, across the country, they are not on the street any more. No wonder it feels like Britain is not working. Communities are being let down.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Ind)
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. There are 3,500 fewer PCSOs now than in 2010, but it is not just the numbers; the estate is vanishing as well. She talked about people behind desks. In Ealing we used to have four police stations: Greenford, Hanwell, Ealing and Acton. Now there is only one. Does she agree that police need places to do their paperwork as well?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Right across the country, over the last 13 years, police forces have closed police stations. Some of them are now houses in multiple occupation with problems with antisocial behaviour—you could not make it up! That is a result of decisions that Conservative Ministers have made.
It is good to see the Home Secretary here today, because we do not see her that much. If I am honest, I do not really know what she does. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has been put in charge of dealing with antisocial behaviour. The Prime Minister has taken charge on small boats. The Navy has been in charge of patrolling the channel.
Yvette Cooper
It did not work, did it? No. That much-vaunted policy that they announced a year ago has ended up with record high levels of dangerous boat crossings.
The DLUHC Secretary is also deciding on the Prevent review and running Homes for Ukraine, while the Education Secretary, the Work and Pensions Secretary and the Treasury have taken over deciding legal migration policy and have cancelled the Home Secretary’s plan to bring back the net migration target and cut student numbers. The Immigration Minister has taken over asylum accommodation, because when the Home Secretary was in charge, she broke the law. The Security Minister has taken over security policy because she cannot be trusted not to leak. She is not charging criminals, because that has got worse. In fact, the number of prosecutions fell by 20% when the Home Secretary was the Attorney General. She is not sorting out the Windrush scandal because she has cancelled all that. She is not doing work on police standards or tackling misogyny, racism or violence against women and girls because she thinks all of that is woke.
There was all that fuss about the sacking this week of the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) as the Tory party chair and Minister without Portfolio. The real Minister without Portfolio is still in office! But she does not get let out much. She does not even do TV or radio interviews. I do not think we have heard her in the morning or on a Sunday for months. She is the shadow of a Home Secretary. She is a shadow shadow Home Secretary, so why does she not just get out of the way and let somebody else do the job?
An absentee Tory Home Secretary is not new: successive Tory Home Secretaries have walked away from taking action to get justice for victims, to catch criminals or to keep communities safe. Knife crime is therefore 71% higher than seven years ago, stabbings are up 63%, and knife-enabled rape is at a record high.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
The charge rate for rape is just 1.6%. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is down to the large-scale cuts to policing and the Crown Prosecution Service budget that conviction rates are so low and the overwhelming majority of victims are not getting the justice they deserve? After 13 years of Conservative Governments, they are allowing rapists to get off scot-free while victims suffer.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes an important point because more criminals are getting off under the Tories. As a result of 13 years of Conservative Governments, criminals are not paying the price. About 7,000 people will be the victim of theft today. Of those thefts, just over 4,000 will be reported to the police, but only 180 will face court. For thousands more victims, there will be no justice.
The worst figures of all are on rape. The Conservatives’ amendment to the motion shows how low they have fallen and how out of touch they are. The proportion of rape cases reaching charge is still two thirds lower than six or seven years ago, and it was too low then, but their amendment effectively boasts about an increase of a third in the number of adult rape convictions in the last year. The number of convictions in a year that they are talking about is 532, which is the equivalent of about one and a half convictions a day. That figure may be up from just over one conviction a day during the covid crisis the year before, but let us think about the estimated 300 women who are raped every day. Are we supposed to be grateful and applaud the fact that there might be a conviction in perhaps one and a half rather than one of those cases? What kind of justice does it provide for the other 298 women if just one or two of those rapists are locked up? What kind of shameless, failing Government think that they should boast about that appalling failure in justice for women and girls? I say to Government Members, “That is the motion that you will be voting for this afternoon.” They will vote against an increase in neighbourhood policing and vote to boast about a truly dismal record in tackling violence against women and girls.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
Despite unprecedented levels of recorded rape and sexual offences, local authorities and charities are having to fight to keep open victim support services, such as women’s centres. Meanwhile, the long-promised victims Bill is nowhere to be seen. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, alongside ending violence against women and girls, we must prioritise supporting the victims of crime?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: where is the victims Bill? Where is the opportunity to provide proper support for victims of crime, not just of domestic abuse and sexual violence, but more widely? They need support but, too often, the Government have turned their back on them and they have been badly let down.
Where, too, is the action to get specialist rape investigation units in all our police forces? Again, too often, the Government have turned their back. For all their talk about powers and sentencing, the reality is that they voted against Labour’s policy for new powers to clamp down on the criminal gangs that are exploiting and grooming children; they voted against Labour’s policy to increase sentences for rape and set minimum sentences; and they voted against Labour’s policy for increased monitoring and powers on repeat domestic abuse perpetrators.
Yvette Cooper
I will give way to the Minister, if he can defend his Government’s decision not to make specialist rape investigation units mandatory and not to vote for minimum sentences in rape cases.
Chris Philp
The right hon. Lady asks about sentencing in rape cases. I point out that the average rape sentence is now nearly two years higher than after the last Labour Government. She talks about voting on rape sentencing. Extraordinarily, in Committee of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in 2022, the Opposition voted against a specific clause that saw people convicted of rape spending two thirds of their sentence in prison, rather than one third.
Chris Philp
Yes, they did—I was extremely surprised. Perhaps she can explain to the House why Labour voted against keeping rapists in prison for longer.
Yvette Cooper
The Labour party voted for minimum sentences for rape—to increase sentencing for rape. It does not matter what the sentencing powers are, however, if nobody is being prosecuted and sentenced in the first place; the number of people who are being prosecuted and sentenced has plummeted. Victims are not getting justice and record numbers of victims are giving up on the criminal justice system, because they have been so badly let down after 13 years of Conservative Governments. How can a prosecution rate of 1.6% be anything other than a total shame and dereliction of duty by the Conservative Government, Conservative Home Office and Conservative Ministers?
Let us remember, too, that the Conservatives voted to cut Labour’s counter-terror powers and ended control orders so that the terrorism prevention and investigation measures that replaced them are barely used. They also voted to cut Labour’s antisocial behaviour powers, so what is left is barely used. We hear that they now want to do something more on antisocial behaviour, because they are fed up with nuisance neighbours holding loud parties or with risky behaviour in the streets or in our cars, and they are thinking about bringing in more fixed penalty notices.
Well, the Prime Minister certainly knows all about fixed penalty notices. He is the first ever Prime Minister to ratchet up not just one but two penalties for law breaking in the space of 12 months. He is surrounded at the Cabinet table by multiple rule breakers and other repeat offenders, and he chose to ignore warnings about rule breaking by four of the Cabinet Ministers he appointed. As his Home Secretary and Justice Secretary—the two jobs most responsible for establishing respect for the rules and enforcing the law—he has chosen two people who he was warned in the autumn were under suspicion for breaking Ministers’ rules.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. What has this got to do with the matter that we are debating?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
If I believed that the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) was out of order, I would have said so.
Yvette Cooper
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
If the hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) does not see a connection between establishing respect in our communities for the rule of law and the rules and a sense of enforcement, and the behaviour of Government Ministers, including fixed penalty notices and law breaking by the Prime Minister, then she reflects the same problem. There is a culture across those in the Conservative party that there is one rule for them and another for everyone else. It is no wonder that no one takes them seriously on law and order any more.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. I said that I would decide when the line has been crossed; the right hon. Lady is in grave danger of crossing it.
Yvette Cooper
With respect for the rules and the rule of law, Mr Deputy Speaker, I turn to the need for a new approach, because this situation is not fair for our communities. The collapse in neighbourhood policing and in justice for victims is not just making people feel less safe, but undermining our town centres and local economies, as well as undermining respect for the rule of law and the crucial trust that lies at the heart of the British policing model of policing by consent.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The right hon. Member is talking about respect and we are also talking about trust, and I think we have to acknowledge that trust in the police has been significantly eroded of late. Does she agree with me that neighbourhood policing is actually critical to rebuilding that trust? It is much better to see a police officer on the street who knows their local community and is known by the community, as opposed to one at a distance.
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member is exactly right. It is having police officers and PCSOs rooted in communities, who know their communities and can also respond to communities and community concerns, that helps to gather intelligence about offenders and perpetrators, helps to prevent crime in the first place and helps to build trust so that people feel more confident about reporting to the police. I agree with her that it is crucial, alongside the other reforms I was about to mention.
We would also introduce a new law on police standards, making vetting compulsory and being clear on mandatory standards on training and misconduct, with the very basic idea that, if a police officer faces allegations of rape or domestic abuse, they should be suspended, not just put behind a desk. Raising standards and increasing the community connections of the police is a really important way to support policing as well as to support communities.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the shadow Home Secretary for her discussion of what she is proposing. I very much support community policing. Just Monday—yesterday—we had a meeting with the chief inspector back in Northern Ireland on the cutbacks in the police, and one thing he told us was that community policing will be central to any policing going forward. That is what we are doing in Northern Ireland. Does the right hon. Lady agree that that is what should happen here?
Yvette Cooper
I do agree that that is what should happen here, and at the moment it is not happening. At the moment, we still have 6,000 fewer police officers and 8,000 fewer PCSOs, with rumours that PCSOs may face further cuts over the next 12 months, just at a time when we should be supporting and working with communities, instead of fearing that things may actually be going further backwards.
That is why Labour has set out plans for 13,000 additional police officers and PCSOs, funded by requiring forces to sign up for joint procurement and ringfencing some of the new recruits, to go alongside the new law on police standards. Police officers across the country are doing some phenomenal work, such as those remaining police officers who are based in our communities, the PCSOs who work very hard every single day of the week, and the officers who are attempting to solve crimes with huge case loads and facing real pressure and trouble. However, those officers need our support, and they need the additional neighbourhood policing teams in place to rebuild such connections.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Clearly, increasing numbers is very important, but does the right hon. Lady agree that, in addition, we need to give police officers the power they need to take a zero-tolerance approach where they need to, in being robust in tackling people who blight our town centres and make life a misery for so many?
Yvette Cooper
I do agree that the police need to have the powers to tackle serious abuse, antisocial behaviour and problems in our town centres. At the moment, there are not police officers there; too often, they are not on patrol and they are not there. I would just gently remind the hon. Member that it was his Government and Conservative MPs who all voted to cut antisocial behaviour powers, leaving powers that just are not being used at all. Nobody is using even the antisocial behaviour powers they have, and it was Ministers and Tory MPs who voted to cut those powers in the first place.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. I just want to refer to hate crime. We have seen a massive increase in hate crime over the last 10 years from about 40,000 cases up to about 155,000 cases last year. Although we are seeing improvements in prosecutions, the figure is still less than 10% of cases. This makes a huge difference to our communities and to making sure that everybody feels safe. What are her comments on that?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right, and these are also the kinds of crimes—for example, homophobic assaults or racist threats—that can be hugely damaging, and these serious crimes also undermine community cohesion. It is really important that the police are able to respond and have the neighbourhood officers to do so, and also that they do the work on prevention—including, frankly, in our national health service and in our social services—to ease the pressures that the police currently face in dealing with missing persons or mental health crises.
We are calling on the Government to make a proper commitment to neighbourhood policing. What Labour would do and what a Labour Government will do is to have additional police officers and PCSOs back in our neighbourhood teams, supported to work with the communities. That goes back to the core Peel principle that the police are the public and the public are the police. The police are part of our communities in standing up for communities, but also in getting justice for them—getting the prosecutions and the justice that victims need and that they have been denied for too long. That is what Labour believes in. The Tories have shown that they are weak on crime, weak on justice and weak on law and order, and that is why we need a Labour Government now.
Suella Braverman
The hon. Gentleman is just not right. As of 31 December, our police uplift programme has recruited an additional 16,000 new officers, bringing us to a total of over 145,000 nationwide, with more—in a welcome sense—female and ethnic minority officers than ever before. That is no accident. That all took planning and funding by this Government. What did Labour Members do? They voted against it.
Yvette Cooper
The Home Secretary is just sort of inventing things there. The police workforce statistics—her own workforce statistics—show that there are 6,000 fewer neighbourhood police officers, and 8,000 fewer PCSOs. Half the country say that they do not see police officers on patrol. How does she explain that shocking decimation of neighbourhood police?
Suella Braverman
I disagree with the right hon. Lady’s characterisation, but it is obviously helpful for her to play with the figures. If we look at how we are classifying roles in policing, we see that when it comes to incident and response management, numbers are up. On local policing, the 2022 figures were greater than those from 2015. She can move around the deckchairs and play with the figures all she likes, but the reality is that we are on track to have a record number of police officers.
Let me get back to the facts. Achievement No. 2: crime is down. Despite the naysayers on the Opposition Benches, since 2010, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales—the most authoritative evidence about crime complied by the Office for National Statistics—burglary is down by 50%, robbery is down by 45%, and violence is down by 46%. That is 500,000 fewer burglaries, 180,000 fewer robberies, and 700,000 fewer victims of violence than in 2010. Crucially, overall crime, excluding fraud and online crime, is down by 48% compared with 2010. I hope that Labour Members take this chance to reflect and apologise to the British people for the disgraceful state in which they left this country, and for objecting to our measures to fix the mess that they left.
Suella Braverman
When we speak to frontline police officers and those who are affected because family members have been victims of knife crime or violent crime, we understand that stop and search is a vital tool not only in reducing violent crime, but in saving lives. The proportionate and targeted use of stop and search is an essential tool that I support the police using.
Let us not forget London. Knife crime is a problem in London and, under Labour’s Sadiq Khan, rates are up by 11%. So, instead of carping from the sidelines, Labour MPs would be far better off using their time by encouraging their Labour man in London to demand that the police get back to getting weapons off our streets. On serious violence, the Government have backed the police with investment and support to reduce violence.
Yvette Cooper
On that point, in London, knife crime is down by 16% over the last four years, whereas on average over the rest of the country it has gone up. Will the Home Secretary withdraw the point she just made?
Suella Braverman
The data I have is that knife crime has gone up in London, and there are really serious challenges when it comes to Labour’s management of policing in London.
Suella Braverman
I will just get back to the point I was making: the shadow Home Secretary does not have any legitimacy on fighting for the safety of women when she cannot even define one.
Rape and sexual violence are devastating crimes that can have a long-lasting impact on victims.
Yvette Cooper
I thank the Home Secretary for giving way, but she has not answered the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) asked. We have been very clear: women are adult females, and when they are abused, and when they are raped, they are not getting justice. Hundreds of women every day are being denied justice and denied the protection of the courts because no rapists are being prosecuted. The Home Secretary is refusing to commit to having police officers go to the homes of those adult females, those women, who are being abused every single day. Will she now commit to saying that the police will go to every single domestic abuse case—yes or no?
Suella Braverman
Let me get on to what we are doing on rape and serious sexual offences, and on domestic abuse. I am very glad that more victims and survivors are coming forward and reporting these crimes to the police. More needs to be done by the whole of the criminal justice system. Through the rape review, the Government took a hard and honest look at how the entire criminal justice system dealt with rape. In too many instances, it simply had not been good enough. In December we published a rape review progress report, setting out the progress made in the 18 months since the publication of the action plan. The number of cases referred by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service was up by 95, the volume of cases charged was up by two thirds, and the number of cases reaching the Crown court was up 91% compared to 2019 averages.
Chris Philp
Of course I will. My right hon. Friend, as always, speaks with great authority and wisdom. I can tell the House that we will shortly be consulting on a new police funding formula.
I welcome the debate that the Opposition have chosen today, which has highlighted the fact that we will very shortly have a record number of police officers. In fact, in 19 of our 43 forces, we already do. I was particularly surprised that two Cheshire Opposition Members chose to mention police officer numbers, because in Cheshire we already have record numbers of officers, as we do in 19 forces.
Yvette Cooper
Can the Minister explain why there are 6,000 fewer neighbourhood police on our streets and 8,000 fewer PCSOs in neighbourhood teams? That is what communities can see, right across the country. That is why, compared with 13 years ago, twice as many people now say that they never see the police on patrol.
Chris Philp
I do not recognise that calculation around neighbourhood numbers. What I do recognise is the police statistics published last week, which show that we are on the cusp of setting a record number of police officers in this country’s history. I expect that to be confirmed in April, so I look forward to the shadow Home Secretary congratulating the Home Secretary on her accomplishments. By the way, I was rather struck by the amount of time the shadow Home Secretary spent personally and unjustifiably attacking a Home Secretary who has been working so hard to deliver these numbers.
Time is short, but I will respond to one or two points that have been raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) made some very good points about knives, such as zombie knives and machetes, which are extremely dangerous. We will shortly to be consulting on banning more of those dangerous weapons to keep our constituents safe.