MP urges support for police

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Susan Elan Jones MP argues that police in North Wales do an excellent job, yet find themselves under threat.

The government’s bone-headed determination to push through a 20 per cent budget cut, against the advice of experts in Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of the Constabulary, is causing real damage. Next week, Parliament will be asked to vote through the next slice of that cut.

North Wales Police Force has already lost 85 officers since the last general election, and is expecting to lose up to 179 by 2015. In a huge, rural area, that is especially damaging. North Wales Police used to receive a special grant to help them with the special difficulties of covering a sparse terrain, but that has now been rolled into the headline budget and effectively cut – making it even more difficult for them to maintain an effective presence across the region.

A spate of arsons in a village in my constituency last year was handled very well by the police, but in the future it will become more and more difficult for them to respond to calls from more village communities without enough officers.

North Wales Police has also had to announce the closure of four police stations and the relocation of 16, purely on cost grounds, leaving more communities without a visible police presence.

Tory-led government policy means the police force actually has fewer officers now than a decade ago, although the population is 12,000 higher.

Crime is up too. Vehicle crime in North Wales is up by 84 per cent in the last 12 months and theft and burglary have risen too. Ministers tell us that police numbers have no relation to crime rates, but key figures from the policing world and across the political spectrum disagree. Now there is a real possibility that crime will continue to rise as police numbers fall further in our local area.

In the midst of all this, is the gimmick of the elected police commissioner scheme. Although there is absolutely no evidence that elected commissioners are effective in cutting crime, and zero public appetite for another paid elected official to bring politics into crime-fighting, the government is going ahead and spending £100m on the project.

If there is a spare £100m in the police budget, let’s spend it on keeping police officers on the streets. Let’s spend it on keeping the special payment for rural forces. Let’s spend it on supporting our police as they keep crime rates down.

North Wales Police need our support, and I hope this debate will jolt ministers into providing it.

Susan Elan Jones has been Labour MP for Clwyd South since May 2010.