Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to include policies on tackling the backlog of (a) maintenance and (b) repairs to policing infrastructure in the forthcoming White Paper on policing.

The Home Office plans to publish a Police Reform White Paper later this year. It will set out a comprehensive package of reforms to policing in England and Wales that will drive quality, consistency and efficiency and ensure that all police forces are equipped to deliver the Government’s Safer Streets Mission and Plan for Change.

We have been working closely with policing in the development of these important reforms. The new Joint Home Office and Policing Reform Team, which includes secondees from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and other policing organisations, have been closely involved in helping to shape the police reform proposals and development of the White Paper.