MP: Police cannot afford more cuts

EAST Runcorn MP Mike Amesbury has accused the Government of ‘failing to protect the public’ after latest figures revealed Cheshire police’s funding is to be slashed for the eighth consecutive year and officer numbers nationwide slumped to their lowest level in three decades.

His call came amid concerns over statistics published in January showing the highest annual rise in police recorded crime since comparable records began in 2002.

In Halton, offending increased by 24% year on year from the first quarter of 2016 to 2017.

And even though Cheshire police has attributed much of that to an increase in recording practices and increased public order recording, when public order practices are left out the figures, the number of crimes increased by 11% in Halton.

There was a huge surge violence in Runcorn and Widnes, with offences with injury jump- ing 11% and without injury up a staggering 55%.

Across Cheshire, recorded crime excluding fraud increased between June 2016 and 2017 by 34%, with a 41% hike in violent crime, 27% in sexual offences, 18% in burglary and public order crime rocketed 231%.

Theft from the person was down 26% and drug offences dropped by 10%.

Home Office data published in January showed there were 167 fewer Cheshire police officers in September 2017 than in March 2010 and 49 fewer PCSOs.

A spokesman for Mr Amesbury’s office said the force’s funding was cut last year by £1,380,000 in real terms, despite it needing more than £771,000 just to ‘hold the line’ against rising inflation.

He added that police numbers are now at their lowest level for three decades, having plunged by more than 21,000 officers, 17,000 staff and 6,000 community support officers since 2010 in the UK, with budgets cut by £2.3bn in real terms between 2010 and 2015 and the Government.

In December, a leaked document revealed that police chiefs had said that austerity had forced them to abandon proactive crime prevention and that ‘the legitimacy of policing is at risk and the relationship with communities is fading to the point where prevention is at risk of becoming ineffective’.

And in March last year, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate Of Constabulary warned that cuts had left the police in a ‘perilous state’.

Mr Amesbury, Labour, Weaver Vale, said: “Our police are at breaking point and the Tories prescription is yet more reckless funding cuts for our local force.

“The Government are failing in their duty to protect the public.

“With crime soaring and officer numbers dwindling, Cheshire police simply cannot afford more cuts.”