Contribution
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this crucial debate. Building on the powerful speeches by other hon. Members, I want to set out three reasons as a County Durham MP why this review of police funding is so important.
First, we must recognise the additional costs of policing areas that are both semi-rural and post-industrial, such as my constituency. Communities like the ones I am proud to represent have a strong industrial heritage of coal mining and other industry, but it is often forgotten across the public sector that they are, at the same time, largely rural. Of the population in County Durham, 43% lives in rural areas, and my constituency is entirely villages and small towns. They are often not farming communities, but former pit villages that still experience the serious, scarring effects of major losses in employment and social infrastructure in the ‘70s and ‘80s, while at the same time experiencing significant geographical isolation.
Those issues have caused a growth in county lines, organised crime and other very serious issues. Durham constabulary is dealing with complex problems across a sprawling county, which creates obvious policing challenges. Will the Minister consider how police funding can better take into account the challenge of increasingly serious criminal issues that one might expect in an urban area, but in rural settings that are much more expensive to police, and where effective neighbourhood policing, which can be important in preventing crime, is more difficult?
Secondly, there are ongoing challenges of deprivation in County Durham, without enough wider public sector support. We need to see it better reflected in funding. Durham constabulary works in communities with families affected by higher levels of complex need, intergenerational unemployment and poverty. For example, parts of Ferryhill, in my constituency, are in the top 1% of the most deprived communities in the country. Half of children are on free school meals. That brings significant challenges—social challenges and lack of opportunity—and with that comes greater crime, criminal justice issues and other problems.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham rightly pointed out, that creates a dual challenge for the police in my area, with more difficult issues to tackle while a higher number of households in the very lowest council tax bands reduce the funding available. The complexity of some of the families that Durham officers are working with can mean that officers are not just dealing with criminal justice matters but have increasingly had to step in to fill gaps left by cuts to social services, mental health support and addiction and homelessness services caused by the deep austerity cuts of the last Conservative Government. Our police officers in Durham are to be congratulated for the myriad ways that they step up every day to support residents. But the message should be clear: the police cannot be expected to do everything.
I would be grateful if the Minister could set out how the Home Office can work with other Departments across Government to support more investment in family intervention projects, schemes to reduce youth reoffending and other measures outside of policing that could reduce and prevent crime.
My final point is about the growth in poorly regulated private landlords who too often allow crime and antisocial behaviour by their tenants to go unchecked. This is again creating more complex policing problems. I particularly urge Ministers across Government to put more pressure on authorities such as Reform-led Durham county council that are simply failing to act in many cases where irresponsible landlords are allowing their properties to become magnets for crime and disorder, often in previously quiet streets that had very low levels of crime. This is coming up again and again in my constituency. We know that council enforcement teams have got powers to tackle landlords who are refusing to take ASB seriously, but too often this simply is not happening.
I am pleased to report to the Minister that residents facing these serious incidents who I have met recently have been incredibly complimentary about the police force for responding quickly, but it is clear that the force is bearing significant costs, which the wider public sector could be helping with more effectively.
To finish, I support the calls for a review of funding. I would also like to echo the thanks given by colleagues to all serving police officers, but let us see what more we can do to make sure that our brave men and women in uniform have the proper resources they need.