Westminster Diary - 6th October 2005

Thursday, 6th October 2005

Issues surrounding crime and the fear of crime dominate my surgeries and my postbag and cases where lives are ruined by persistent intimidation or by a casual act of violence are among the most serious I deal with.

Effective, visible policing is a vital part of the solution to these problems and we rely on our local police force to supply it. As you will have heard, our local police in Warwickshire face the prospect of substantial change in the way they are organised and this prospective change is causing some concern among many of us who worry about the police becoming more remote from those they serve. The government has decided that the Warwickshire Police Force, at around 1000 officers, is not big enough to meet the challenges of modern policing. To be fair, senior Warwickshire police officers say the same – confronting the developing challenges of terrorism and cross-border crime requires a critical mass of several thousand officers with the technical backup and equipment only a larger force can muster.

However, mergers with the other police forces in the area present potential threats. Anyone familiar with the policing of a town like Rugby, for example, knows that the need for officers in the town centre often means resources are diverted from rural areas. If Warwickshire’s police force were to be merged with the West Midlands force, would that diverting happen more often to the more extensive urban areas of Birmingham and Coventry?

My primary concern is for the quality and coverage of policing in Rugby and Kenilworth. Once again we see moves to organise our public services on a regional basis. My support for any new arrangements in the operational management of our local police officers is conditional on improved performance in rural and community policing, not that they fit more neatly into this Government’s view of how Britain should be governed.

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Updated on Thursday, 6th October 2005