Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)

There is a lot in there. The main thing I can say to the right reverend Prelate is that the purpose of our policing is to have the police working with the community at a local level. That is why we have to focus on neighbourhood policing, why we have put in an additional 13,000 officers over this Parliament, and why we are on 2,500 to 3,000 currently in terms of increasing neighbourhood policing, taking people away from warranted officers doing back-room jobs into warranted officers doing front-line policing and community reassurance. That is why the basic issues, as I have said before, of shop theft, anti-social behaviour—things that happen in the high street or on the estate—should be the focus of the local police force. How do we better deliver that? Do we look at that in a regional context? Whoever takes over this examination of regional force levels might look at a region and say, “We need to have this as a force size for this region because there’s a synergy between this city and that city and this regional area”, but underneath there is still that local neighbourhood police model. We are trying to ensure that we have local governance that is better than the patchwork we have and, at the same time, we will look at the national challenges and ensure that the Police Minister and/or the Home Secretary sets some realistic targets but does that in conjunction with the police. Ultimately, we get asked all the time in this House what we are doing about shop theft and anti-social behaviour. Some level of co-operation and ambition has to be set between the Home Office centrally and the local police forces, but they still have to operate independently and manage their resources in a way that gives them local community confidence.