Clive Jones

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton) on securing this debate. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their own home, walking down their own streets, on public transport and in their town centres, but for far too many people in the UK today, that is simply not reality. The previous Conservative Government failed to keep our community safe from crime; their unnecessary cuts left our police forces overstretched, under-resourced and unable to focus on the crimes that affect our communities the most. Every day, 6,000 cases are closed by the police across England and Wales without a suspect ever having been identified. Meanwhile, just 6% of crimes reported to the police result in a suspect being charged, and three in four burglaries and car thefts go unsolved. From 2015, the Conservative Government slashed the number of police community support officers by more than 4,500. My constituency of Wokingham is served by Thames Valley police force—the largest non-Metropolitan force in England and Wales—which does incredible work and is led selflessly by officers and civilian staff.