Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government is taking to protect vulnerable and elderly people from violent street crime.

The central aim of our police reform agenda is to protect and revitalise neighbourhood policing. We are lifting national responsibilities off local forces, so they focus on tackling local issues.

The Government has already taken steps to boost the neighbourhood policing response, ensuring that every neighbourhood has named, contactable officers dedicated to tackling crime and anti-social behaviour locally, and forces have increased patrols in town centres and other key locations based on local demand and intelligence.

By the end of February 2026, forces had delivered more than 3,100 additional police officers and PCSOs into neighbourhood roles since March 2025, strengthening neighbourhood teams as part of our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee to deliver 13,000 more by the end of this Parliament.

In order to drive reductions in violent crime and protect communities across the country, on April 7th the Government launched its plan to halve knife crime within a decade. Titled “Protecting Lives, Building Hope: A Plan to Halve Knife Crime’, it will save lives, transform the futures of young people, stop those at risk from turning to knife crime and police our streets to catch and punish perpetrators.