Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

10. What recent discussions he has had with chief constables on delivering policing at a local level.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

We have very regular discussions with chief constables across the country about local policing—in fact, just this morning I had a discussion with the chief constable of Staffordshire Police about some local policing issues in that county. It is a dialogue that happens on a regular and ongoing basis. Police chief constables are, of course, operationally independent, but we work very closely in partnership with them.

[Andrew Selous]

Leighton Buzzard, Dunstable and Houghton Regis are the third, fourth and fifth largest towns in Bedfordshire, yet they have a fraction of the police officers that are based in Luton and Bedford. Will the Minister speak to the chief constable to ensure that we get a fairer allocation of the record number of police officers we have in Bedfordshire, spread across the county and with a 24/7 first responder presence?

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his part of Bedfordshire. He is quite right to say that Bedfordshire, in common with many other parts of the country—and indeed with England and Wales as a whole —has a record number of police officers. In the case of Bedfordshire, the number is 1,456, and across England and Wales as a whole we now have over 149,000 officers: that is more than we have ever had before, and over 3,000 more than we had under the last Labour Government.

I speak regularly to Chief Constable Trevor Rodenhurst and the excellent police and crime commissioner in Bedfordshire, Festus Akinbusoye. Of course, how they deploy their record headcount is a matter for them, rather than for Government, but I will certainly mention the issues that my hon. Friend has raised when I next speak to them—I think we are having a meeting quite shortly—and I know that my hon. Friend will mention these issues as well.