Mel Stride on Crime and Local Policing

Tony Hogg

The other day I met with our Police and Crime Commissioner (‘PCC’) Tony Hogg who was elected over a year ago and also with Shaun Sawyer the Chief Constable for Devon and Cornwall. My main concerns were around achieving value for money (and so keeping our precept charge down) and ensuring that we continue to effectively fight and deter crime.

Nationally crime has been tumbling over the last few years – a fall of no less than 10% since the government came into office. I’d like to say that this is all the result of the Government’s work and indeed some of it will have been, but crime has been on a downward trend across western societies generally and its drivers are many, varied and in some cases not fully understood.

Better car and home security has certainly helped, gone are the days when you could slip a dismembered wire coat hanger through the window of a Capri and flick the lock. And with the reduction in the relative value of TVs, CD players and the like there is far less of a market for offloading the spoils of an unauthorised visit to someone else’s property. iPhones have of course underpinned street crime in certain hotspots but the figures tell us that much theft is on a downward trend. There are other factors in play. An increasing proportion of young people (who are more likely to commit crime as well as to be its victim) stay on in higher education.

An interesting and at first glance bizarre theory is that the removal of lead in petrol may even have had an effect – the idea being that the when we had lead in petrol it a detrimental impact on the development of the brains of those who were growing up at the time and that its removal has coincided with the development of a lower crime generation.

Reductions in the high levels of crack cocaine and heroin use have also helped. But an important aspect has also got to be good policing. And in Devon and Cornwall we have seen many examples of it. The force has been reconfigured over the last few years, with cuts in the numbers of officers being balanced by more flexible working – so that officers who might not previously have responded to a particular type of incident now do so – gone are the days where traffic police just did traffic for example.

I applaud these new approaches and have personally witnessed effective policing on the ground with local officers right across the constituency. Generally the satisfaction levels with our local police are high (go to http://www.devon-cornwall.police to check out the performance figures).

The work of our Police and Crime Commissioner will continue to help to shape the Force’s priorities and to hold the Chief Constable to account. Likewise, I and my fellow Devon MPs will continue to engage with local policing to ensure that we receive the highest possible service and value for money.

Cheers

Recently I was presented with a Beer Champion Award by the Campaign for Real Ale – not for my consumption I hasten to add - although I do enjoy an occasional pint - this award was for standing up for pubs in and outside Parliament and pushing for reductions in beer duty. Last year I promoted a petition across the pubs in Central Devon pressing the Chancellor to reduce the level of duty on beer and I have also done what I can in the constituency to show my personal support for pubs by holding advice surgeries within them. The very first duty I undertook as a newly elected MP was to join locals to celebrate a constituency CAMRA Award. The Chancellor has responded very positively on this issue with the Beer Duty Escalator – a mechanism that saw beer tax increase annually by 2% above inflation being scrapped and duty reduced. All this is essential given that on an average pub pint, duty and VAT account for a third of the price something that is undoubtedly affecting pub trade. 4,800 pubs have closed since 2008 and this is an especially serious situation in rural areas where the pub is often the last community hub in the village or hamlet.

So with the New Year now in full swing please pop in to your local and support them. Pubs have been an important part of our culture for a very long time and they matter.

For more news and comment from Mel Stride MP please visit www.melstridemp.com