Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee on police response times to time-sensitive incidents in rural villages, such as a) Bulphan, b) Orsett and c) Horndon-on-the-Hill in South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency.

The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee set out commitments for police forces to implement, by July 2025, and by the end of Parliament. Forces are now delivering on the Guarantee across England and Wales to ensure consistent and high-quality neighbourhood policing, including in rural areas.

Forces now have named, contactable officers dedicated to tackling issues in their communities. Forces are also providing a guarantee of 72-hour response times to neighbourhood queries from communities.

All reports into the police, either via telephone or online, are triaged by the local force control room and response type and timeliness will be determined by the nature of the report and availability of resources. The Home Office does not hold data on response times to time-sensitive incidents in rural villages, however, should an incident be time critical and requiring rapid response, the public are advised to call 999.

Based on their £4,495,599 allocation from the Neighbourhood Policing Grant, Essex are projected to grow by 74 FTE NHP police officers in 2025-26.