Yvette Cooper criticises impact of cuts
The Shadow Home Secretary said neighbourhood policing was under threat from the cuts to the police service, which she claims means a service doing less for less.
The Shadow Home Secretary said neighbourhood policing was under threat from the cuts to the police service, which she claims means a service doing less for less.
Yvette Cooper told the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales (PSAEW) annual conference that Labour would have supported 12 per cent cuts to the police service, rather than the 20 per cent brought about by the Coalition, which she said are being felt by frontline services.
The service is being seriously stretched in many ways and [Home Secretary] Theresa May said there would be no impact on frontline policing from these cuts; we just know that is not true, she said.
As your president has warned, this means that neighbourhood policing is increasingly being seen as nice to have rather than a core part of policing.
While crime continues to fall and must be welcomed, Ms Cooper claimed the Home Secretary and Damian Green, the Policing and Criminal Justice Minister, were being complacent, citing cases of shopkeepers and womens refuge workers which she reported were losing confidence in the polices ability to respond to incidents.
She added that the growth of online crime was not being dealt with properly and called for more support to help officers deal with child sexual exploitation, mental health issues and other emerging trends.
The police cant solve these problems alone and you need government leadership to bring in other agencies, she said.
Ms Cooper referred to findings from the Stevens Review, the Labour-commissioned inquiry into the police service conducted by the former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, with 90 per cent of respondents saying they did not feel valued by the Government and half of officers considering leaving, as adding to the cuts in affecting frontline services.