‘Make Britain’s streets safe’ is one of the five ‘missions‘ outlined by the Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer in a speech last week. The ‘mission’, while short on detail, was for ‘reforming the police and justice system, to prevent crime, tackle violence against women, and stop criminals getting away without punishment’.
Rather than detailing how those things would come about, Labour spoke of methods and intentions, and claimed it sought ‘a sharp break from business-as-usual government’, such as by moving decision-making away from Westminster, and a focus on on real-world impact’ rather than input and output; and ‘approaching problems with a long-term, preventative approach’. Labour said: “Long-term challenges require long-term solutions. Moving to a more preventative approach means considering changes over a longer time horizon, and require governments to stay the course, rather than chop and change depending on which way the political headwinds are blowing.”
The ‘Safer Streets’ title may be a nod towards the Home Office’s ‘Safer Streets Fund’ that began while Priti Patel was Home Secretary in the Boris Johnson regime. As mentioned in the March print edition of Professional Security Magazine, an evaluation of round one of the Fund found ‘minimal’ evidence of spending affecting crime figures for the better, but spending did give locals more confidence in policing.
Meanwhile in a one-hour speech to the Institute for Government think-tank, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper spoke of Labour proposing an extra 13,000 neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers on Britain’s streets, costing £360m; reprising her speech to the Labour annual conference last September in Liverpool.
Comment
At the Police Federation, the rank and file police body, National Chair Steve Hartshorn said: “We appreciate Labour’s ambition to put police officers back at the heart of the community, as a visible police presence plays a pivotal role in building public confidence, which has been slowly eroded over the years.
“Neighbourhood policing has been massively under-valued, and subsequently decimated, over the space of more than a decade, with 6,000 fewer officers in these teams. An uplift in police officers is desperately needed, and we support plans to do so, but we need to exercise caution in how this can be achieved when forces are already having to make multi-million-pound budget cuts.
“We agree there is room for greater cooperation among forces and more efficiency savings through shared procurement, but significant, central government funding is needed, and we cannot continue to rely directly on taxpayers.
“We are concerned local taxpayers are effectively paying twice and doing so at a time when very few can afford increases in council tax – once through national taxation, and then again through local taxation and the precept. In fact, almost two thirds of police funding comes from the precept.
“The funding formula is also outdated and unfair, something which was acknowledged by the Government back in 2015, but nothing has been done to find a solution to this despite much talk. The public should not be facing a postcode lottery when it comes to something as important as their police service, with wealthier areas often receiving more funding due to a higher amount of tax paid.
“It is promising to see MPs recognising the importance of restoring such a vital, overlooked, area of policing, and providing solutions to help restore faith in the service, but significant, long-term, central government funding for the police service, which factors in inflation, is the key to achieving this. In addition to carefully considered changes to ensure there is not have a negative impact on our members who are doing the job day in and day out.”
Photo by Mark Rowe; video camera on platform of Erdington rail station, Birmingham
