The Conservative Government of Boris Johnson has now have announced the first stage in its plans to recruit 20,000 new police officers. There will be more officers on our streets so we can keep all of our communities safer.
That first stage means that there will be an additional 6,000 more officers on our streets by end of 2020-21, the first year of our recruitment drive.
The public are clear they want to see more police officers on their streets. This is the people’s priority and it is exactly what Boris Johnson and the Conservatives are delivering.
Our own force, which covers Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, is to get 89 additional offices in year one. That is fantastic news. We need to use this welcome injection of resources to rebalance policing resources so that officers are deployed where crime and the fear of crime are at their worst, not where it suits the political priorities of the Labour Party.
I would hope to see the long-term decline in police visibility in our towns and villages reversed, while keeping the City adequately covered. The message that I am getting loud and clear from chatting to residents in villages and towns across our two counties is that the lack of a clear police visibility is having an obvious effect. Without the deterrence effect of visible police on the streets, opportunistic crime is on the rise, and professional crooks feel emboldened. That is wrong. The increase in police numbers must be used to tackle that.
Boris and Home Secretary Priti Patel have shown, once again, that this Conservative Government is on the side of the law abiding majority.
