Rachael Maskell

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work she is doing in Darlington. Clearly, PSPOs can be used in a really powerful way to create safer spaces in our town and city centres. I called two meetings in York, one for the night-time economy in the city and one for the daytime economy, because they operate in very different ways. I called together all the agencies involved to examine, first, where the strategies for the two economies can be co-ordinated and come together, and, secondly, the specific issues for each economy. The issue that came to the fore was CCTV and ensuring that there is a proper strategy for it, including making sure that cameras are switched on, are in the right places and are of the right resolution, so that we can identify crime. I am working with agencies across our city to ensure that we have proper CCTV protection. I am also looking at how we can ensure there is co-ordination across the different agencies that work in our city, which is really important. However, the words that come to the fore so often are that we need more bobbies on the beat. We need more police on our streets, and there is also an issue with the funding formula for policing. When I spoke to our deputy mayor for police and crime, they highlighted the real challenges in areas such as North Yorkshire, which is a huge rural area with crime hotspots in our urban spaces. I ask the Minister to look at that funding formula again. Let me briefly mention Unite’s important campaign, Get Me Home Safely—I declare my interest as regards Unite. We need to ensure that our taxis are safer. I want to ask the Minister what has happened since Casey’s recommendation on changing taxi licensing regimes. We operate a safe taxi licensing process in York. We want to ensure that there is such a process in the city, and that we have the resources to control and monitor it. Will she also consider how we can protect our transport staff? I know that the RMT has campaigned hard for that, because it is so important. In closing, I thank all the agencies that keep our city safe.