Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)

The policing of rural communities is extremely important. I live in north Wales and I represented a semi-rural community in the House of Commons for 28 years. It is extremely important. I will give the noble Baroness three points, if I may, as a starter. First, there are going to be 13,000 additional neighbourhood police officers who can be deployed, in her case, by Devon and Cornwall Police to look at, with their proportion, how they develop them to build community resilience at a local level. Secondly, on off-road biking and 4x4 biking, there will be measures—yet to be implemented but subject to scrutiny by this House and, if passed, implemented—to put in place the ability to seize those vehicles and to take action. Protections will also be put in on the important issue she raised about machinery theft. Thirdly, the whole government approach to shop theft says that it is not an acceptable crime; it has consequences. Individuals in this House all pay more for their shopping because of shop theft. There are shop workers who are attacked because of shop theft and there are organised criminal gangs which need to be broken to stop shop theft. What we trying to do, which I hope will reassure the noble Baroness, is tackle those three issues, and many more, in the forthcoming police Bill.