Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to support local authorities to improve the safety of streets in their area at night.

This Government is committed to cutting crime and delivering the safer streets that the public deserves, at all times of the day.

The Government is also committed to recruiting 20,000 additional police officers, over 6,000 of whom are already in place. Deployment of the new officers will be a matter for Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables but their presence should contribute to making streets safer.

The Safer Streets Fund was launched on 26 January 2020, providing £25 million in 2020/21 to support 52 areas across England and Wales that are persistently and disproportionately affected by neighbourhood and acquisitive crimes, like burglary, robbery and theft. The fund is being used by Police and Crime Commissioners to invest in well evidenced, physical crime prevention measures, such as improved street lighting and CCTV.

On 28 January 2021, we launched a second £20m round of the Safer Streets Fund, for 2021/22. This second round will give funding to Police and Crime Commissioners and Local Authorities to invest in crime prevention, both in commercial and residential areas.