Chris Philp

I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. I know that the whole House will join the Home Secretary and me in paying tribute to those brave officers tragically killed in the crash on the A66 in the early hours of 22 August. Our thoughts are with the families of PCs Matthew Blades and Tom Clough, whose lives were cut short by a car recklessly driven on the wrong side of the road by criminals. Those brave officers made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. They will never be forgotten. Every day, police officers up and down the country risk their lives to keep us safe. We owe them all a deep debt of gratitude. This tragedy has sent shockwaves through Cleveland police and the public more widely. The Home Secretary has set out some of the steps being taken to support local police, but will she confirm that every request for extra assistance made by Cleveland police has been met? In the aftermath of 22 August, I was shocked to see so-called tributes staged for some of the men directly responsible for PCs Blades and Clough’s deaths that included cars being driven dangerously and set on fire. Criminal activity of that kind is wrong in principle and deeply offensive in these circumstances. Will the Home Secretary join me in condemning that activity and calling on the police to ensure it does not happen again? Organised crime was allowed to take hold in whole parts of Middlesbrough. Criminal gangs ran rampant and engaged in retaliatory attacks on one another. Homes and properties were attacked with no consequence, and that escalated even further in the days after 22 August. Although it is welcome that 27 people have finally been arrested, such lawless gang chaos should never have been allowed to take root in the first place. The police need proper resources to stop that. Many campaigners, including my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers), the shadow police Minister, who I see in his place, have raised concerns for some time that there is a multi-million pound shortfall in funding for Cleveland police in the current financial year. Even the local Labour police and crime commissioner, Matt Storey, said this Government’s financial settlement this year “completely fails to deliver the resources required to meet the demand faced by Cleveland Police and falls far short of what is needed.” Does the Home Secretary accept her own police and crime commissioner’s assessment that the funding she put in place for Cleveland police this year is inadequate? Lawless chaos followed that underfunding, and I think the Home Secretary should apologise for that. The £2 million just referred to is only 0.5% of Cleveland’s budget and is clearly wholly inadequate in the circumstances. I am afraid that that reflects a wider national trend that goes beyond Cleveland. The last Government left behind record ever police numbers, but there are now 1,800 fewer police officers under this Government. As a result, crime has increased by 10% and antisocial behaviour has gone up by 15% in just the last year. The Home Secretary must accept that cutting overall police numbers was a mistake. Will she take steps to reverse that decline? The truth is that only zero tolerance of crime and disorder will ensure that criminals are the ones who are afraid, and not the law-abiding public. We have seen the consequences, with the rampant gangs going unchallenged in Middlesbrough, and it is clear now that a zero-tolerance approach is required to keep the public safe.