Lisa Townsend is the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey.
As we glance to August and the 5 weeks of the Conservative management marketing campaign, the subject of who would be the subsequent Prime Minister dominates. On points such because the economic system and taxation there seems to be some clear blue water between the candidates. In different areas we’re more likely to see Sunak and Truss extra aligned to a continuation of the present Authorities insurance policies, maybe with a promise to do extra, higher, quicker.
One space the place I don’t count on to see a lot of a radical departure from the 2019 manifesto commitments is on crime and policing.
Having set an formidable uplift goal of 20,000 additional officers throughout England and Wales, it’s one space of the manifesto which, regardless of Covid and the interruption to regular enterprise, is quietly being delivered. We all know that Conservative Get together members and the broader citizens need to see extra officers and need to know that when they should name the police, somebody will flip up.
Stopping crime, tackling legal behaviour in our communities and supporting the legal justice course of to convey offenders earlier than the courts must be the main focus of our police forces.
So how can the following chief be sure that the Get together that has all the time been seen as only on legislation and order, stays that means?
· I totally count on to listen to each candidates decide to Boris Johnson’s Police Uplift Programme, which is properly below means and delivering extra officers onto our streets each week. Clearly that is enormously welcome, however we should be sure that the funding to ship on these additional officers can be forthcoming, and this implies a dedication to finishing up the long-awaited assessment into the police funding method. The present method was designed below a Labour authorities and favours city areas – chasing crime moderately than decreasing it. With a fairer method, we can scale back crime extra successfully, notably in our rural areas.
· Information tales concerning the toll on victims of crime and their households by the hands of a sluggish and weak legal justice system are sadly all too widespread. We hear frequent guarantees to deal with the backlog, to take care of courtroom shortages and a scarcity of judges, and to convey those that commit a few of the worst crimes in our communities to justice, and but there’s a sense (and proof) that nothing a lot is altering.
It’s time to get a grip and it wants to begin with the Crown Prosecution Service which has develop into too faraway from delivering within the public curiosity, and too political. The brand new chief must make this a precedence if Conservatives are to be taken significantly on legislation and order.
· Fairly than delivering fixed change, voters need to see our public companies get the fundamentals proper. The following House Secretary should recognise that policing is being overwhelmed by stealth. Each new initiative, each new legislation, the limitless kinds, each new addition in legal justice – from necessities round disclosure to redaction guidelines – must be costed for time and coaching.
If our armed forces declare ‘we merely can’t do Afghanistan’ then we don’t. In policing our theatre is our neighbourhoods and we’re preventing a conflict of attrition with our residents because the victims and their security because the casualty. Each new initiative should be higher costed and assessed for influence on present service provision. We have to get again to policing within the public curiosity.
· Talking of the general public curiosity, it’s time to deal with the politics and coverage creep in policing. I’ve written right here earlier than of the insanity of insisting that each officer both has a level or completes one throughout probation. Let’s get again to the core abilities. It’ll assist range and be sure that the police look extra just like the communities they serve.
The following chief additionally must be clear that there isn’t a position for police in ‘non-crime hate incidents’, and that being offensive isn’t an offence. There have been optimistic phrases in latest days from the brand new head of HMIC (HM Inspectorate of Constabulary), however the brand new Prime Minister should even be clear with the School of Policing that its new steerage should give attention to fixing precise crimes. That should embrace an finish to the fixed advantage signalling and flag waving.
I’m happy to see a way more various workforce in policing than 20 and even 10 years in the past, however to regain the belief of all our communities, we should show that our forces favour none. And that features an finish to the funding of Stonewall, and any organisation over which there’s real political debate.
Not one of the above will price the brand new Chancellor more cash and all are primarily based on robust Conservative ideas. I hope that whoever is handed the keys to Quantity 10 in September places the general public first, and that has to imply retaining our communities protected.
