Tom Rogers, Christian Peoples Alliance

Firstly, the CPA will ensure police priorities are right.

Recent reports have shown how forces are routinely screening out nearly half of all reported crimes, with the number of violent crime cases shut within 24 hours quadrupling from 11,927 to 44,548 between 2015 to 2018.

At the same time, NCPP figures show how officers wasted thousands of hours looking into almost 12,000 non-criminal so-called ‘hate incidents’, with forces being expected to follow up every ‘hate’ complaint.

This is not protecting the public.

We will ensure the Police are focused on tackling genuine crime, not politically correct thought-crime.

Secondly, we need to tackle the root cultural causes of knife crime, particularly of the youth gang culture, the breeding ground for which is the ‘dad desert’ with too many boys growing up without a father or positive male role model.

To overcome this the CPA is committed to promoting marriage and strengthening the family.

Funded by our Turnover Tax we would give a £12,000 grant to first-time married couples and £6,000 upon the birth of their first child, provided they attend the required number of training sessions in marriage preparation and childcare.

We also want young people to have community mentors who can help them make the right decisions, and we’ll provide supervised activity centres for them to go to with properly funded activities.

We would resource more apprentice schemes and voluntary placements which can lead to employment.

This will help bring new hope and purpose to many young people’s lives.