Labour today (Tuesday 31 January) have warned that the failure to invest in neighbourhood policing teams has left communities to fight crime and anti-social behaviour on their own.
In an opposition day debate, Labour has urged the government to increase neighbourhood policing capacity, including by ringfencing a proportion of the Police Uplift Programme for neighbourhood teams.
According to the crime figures, the overall charge rate for crime stands at just 5.5%. The rate is even lower for certain crime types – 4.1% for theft offences, 3.9% for criminal damage and arson, 3.2% for sexual offences and just 1.6% for rape.
Those figures have plummeted since 2015, when the overall charge rate stood at 15.5%.
Labour has pledged to rebuild neighbourhood policing with a £360m package of 13,000 additional neighbourhood officers and PCSOs.
It will be paid for through a police efficiency programme, working with police forces and PCCs to deliver procurement and shared services savings, comfortably covering the recruitment of 10,000 new neighbourhood police, with a further 3,000 ringfenced from the existing uplift.
Stephen Morgan MP, Member of Parliament for Portsmouth South, said:
“The latest crime figures show 1.1 million incidents of anti-social behaviour were reported to the police in the year to September 2022. That means more than 21,000 incidents a week and more than 3,000 incidents every day.
“Under the Conservatives, 6,000 neighbourhood police officers have been axed since 2015, and the number of Police Community Support Officers has fallen by more than 8,500 since 2010.
“Labour in government will rebuild neighbourhood policing, investing in our communities and keeping our city safe”.
Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, added:
“This Conservative government has decimated neighbourhood policing. Across the country, people just don’t see police on their streets anymore, and feel less and less safe as a result.
“Meanwhile, for millions of people anti-social behaviour has become part of day-to-day life, ruining lives without consequence.
“Labour is the party of law and order. The next Labour Government will put policing back where it belongs, at the heart of communities. We will deliver 13,000 extra neighbourhood officers and PCSOs to stop criminals and keep communities safe.”
Labour’s opposition day motion:
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 percent; 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.
