The Tories cut 1,100 officers from Northumbria Police - it's time we got them all back.
Since austerity started in 2010, Northumbria Police have lost more than 1,100 officers as a result of budget cuts worth around £148m.
In 2019 the Government said it would hire 20,000 new police officers - but in the Northumbria force area we got just 615.
With more than 500 officers still to be replaced, it's time the Government acted before rising demand places impossible pressure on our police.
Already, 999 calls to Northumbria’s police control rooms are rising at very high levels. December 2022 saw 13% more grade 1 calls made across Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, compared to 2021, and 52% more compared to the pre-pandemic December in 2019. Figures also show that 999 calls last year rose by 9% in contrast to the previous year.
As soon as a 999 call comes in we need to be getting officers out there responding to the needs of the public. And we need a well-resourced force to deliver this. It really is vital that our officer recruitment matches this growing demand. Quite frankly the targets set by Government show how out of touch they are with our needs. What they have set out to achieve is not uplift, it’s not how we fight crime and it’s not how we look after the North East
Thankfully, Labour has a plan. When our shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper joined me at a Labour Party members dinner this month, she set out how the next Labour Government will make our communities safer.
Labour will hire 13,000 new neighbourhood police officers, putting dedicated local officers back in to the areas most in need.