As a local councillor, one of the most common concerns I hear from residents is about feeling safe and when I chat to local business owners they are particularly concerned about crime, especially shoplifting. I share that concern.
I regularly work with our Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner, Matthew Barber, to ensure residents’ priorities are top of the agenda when it comes to tackling crime.
Unfortunately, the Labour Government doesn’t share this concern. Last week, a shopkeeper put up a sign referring to the people who had been stealing from him as “scumbags”. Instead of backing the shop’s owner, the Prime Minister’s team in No. 10 distanced him from this language.
We know that Sir Keir Starmer has a record of failing to take the public’s side on a range of issues. Take for example his statement that he will back the “builders not the blockers” – i.e. backing developers over local residents. But surely we can all agree that we should support the small shop owners who are the victims of crime over the people who are stealing? In Labour’s case, apparently not.
The Government has turned its back on law and order. While they have been in power, Labour has cut more than 1,300 police officers nationally, recruitment is down 17 per cent, and a further 5,400 police jobs are at risk. This is despite standing on a manifesto at the election in which they pledged to recruit “thousands of new police officers”.
Here in the Thames Valley, 50 police officers have been cut. That’s not just a number – it’s fewer officers available to patrol our town centres, fewer responding to incidents, and fewer working with our communities to prevent crime.
Let’s not forget the £230 million ‘Jobs Tax’ Labour has imposed – money that could have funded 3,600 officers across the UK, now instead being swallowed by tax hikes and bureaucracy.
This is a betrayal of a basic promise: to keep people safe.
In contrast, the previous Conservative Government delivered the highest number of police officers in British history – recruiting 20,000 officers nationally, including an extra 784 police for Thames Valley, and increasing police budgets to £18.4 billion, a 30 per cent cash increase since 2019.
Results from the Office of National Statistics also show satisfaction in policing is low under Labour. Only half of people in the Thames Valley area believe police do a good or excellent job. Nationally, of people who have been the victims of some types of theft including pickpocketing only 26 per cent were satisfied with the police.
It is clear that the Government has got its priorities wrong….again.
Nationally, the Conservatives will continue to hold the Labour Government to account for its cuts to our police forces. Your local Conservatives, meanwhile, will work with our Police and Crime Commissioner on initiatives we can take locally to tackle crime and ensure the focus remains on getting the police officers our residents want and need.
By Cllr Pauline Jorgensen
