Community Policing

11. What steps she is taking to support effective community policing.

21. What recent steps her Department has taken to help increase levels of community policing.

As part of the neighbourhood policing guarantee, every neighbourhood now has a named and contactable officer dedicated to tackling local issues, with forces increasing patrols in town centres and other hotspots based on local demand. We have also made £200 million available to police forces this financial year to kick-start the journey towards delivering 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing personnel by the end of this Parliament, including 3,000 by March 2026.

Happy new year to you, Mr Speaker.

I pay tribute to the work of the police in my constituency of Esher and Walton, who have got the rate of solved burglaries up by 84%. However, while the local police are doing a great job catching burglars, they tell me that the perception that they are unable to bring those burglars to justice is making it more difficult to tackle persistent offenders and is impacting on the confidence of local residents. My constituents were incredulous recently when the borough commander told them that two individuals charged with burglary in December last year had been given a date to appear for trial in September 2027. What conversations is the Minister having with her counterparts in the Ministry of Justice to increase the number of Crown court sitting days so that my constituents can have confidence?

The hon. Lady highlights a problem that we inherited from the previous Government, which is very considerable—we do not deny that. We in the Home Office are talking to our colleagues in the Ministry of Justice every day about how we manage the situation and increase the speed with which people are brought to justice. This Government want to see everyone who commits a crime do the time.

Happy new year to you and your team, Mr Speaker.

I welcome the Government’s neighbourhood policing guarantee, which puts named, contactable officers in every community, and indeed the increased presence of patrols in the Top of the Town in Basingstoke. However, as the Minister knows—we have corresponded on this issue—one of the issues that we in Basingstoke face is the retention of officers, with locally trained officers moving to higher-paid forces such as those in London. What more can the Department do, and what more can I do, to ensure we improve the retention of officers in Basingstoke, including to support community policing?

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It was not just public confidence in policing that fell under the last Government but how the police felt they were treated, which affects retention. One aspect of the White Paper process and police reform is looking at how we train police, how we treat them and how we give them the support they need to do the job they want to do, rather than the bureaucracy that blights a lot of their time. My hon. Friend makes a good point, and we are working closely with the police bodies to ensure that we get this right.

I call the shadow Minister.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that West Midlands police retrospectively created a rationale and, according to remarkable investigative work by The Sunday Times, false evidence to justify their predetermined decision to ban fans from the world’s only Jewish state from going to a football match in Britain’s second city. Does the Minister think that the chief constable of such a force can possibly be overseeing effective community policing? How can he continue in his role?

The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the whole Government have been clear that we believe the wrong decision was made. We have asked the inspector to look at what happened in two parts: first, what happened around the match itself; and secondly, a wider look at the police role in relation to safety advisory groups and how decisions are made. We had been expecting that information before the end of the year, but it will be slightly delayed to take into account the recall of the West Midlands chief constable to appear before the Home Affairs Committee tomorrow. We need to wait and see what the inspector says, and that is what we will do. That is the right thing to do, because these things will be considered in the round.