Louie French MP's latest column in the News Shopper.
"Together, and with a Labour government, there's no limit to what we can achieve," Sadiq Khan promised Londoners in his election manifesto. How wrong he was.
Under Mayor Khan, the Labour Party has been responsible for policing in London for nearly a decade. In that time, knife crime has soared, car theft and burglary have blighted the suburbs, and the city has become lawless with phone theft, pickpocketing, and fare dodging. But it was always the Conservative government's fault, never the man in charge, Sadiq Khan. It would be different with a Labour government, he repeatedly promised.
His manifesto pledged to "work with a Labour government to put an extra 1,300 neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs on the streets". But together one year in, the Labour government and the mayor are overseeing more than a quarter of a billion pounds of cuts to the Metropolitan Police. With 1,700 officers and staff to be cut, police counters are being shut, and schools are losing their dedicated police officers.
Labour's cuts will have serious consequences for policing in Bexley. We'll see fewer officers on the beat, reversing the progress made before the election when the previous Government funded a record number of new officers in London despite Khan missing his recruitment target and returning £30 million. This will inevitably weaken neighbourhood policing and leave Bexley's suburbs underserved as officers are sent to central London, Greenwich and Lewisham.
We will also lose our only 24/7 police front counter service in Bexleyheath. The public will no longer be able to report crimes at the station overnight. While this accounts for fewer crime reports, it is a blow to policing across the borough. The front counter can be a refuge for vulnerable people fleeing abuse, violence or unsafe situations at night. If this cut goes ahead, the closest counter at night will be far away in Lewisham.
We are fortunate to live in one of the safest corners of London. Our crime rates are far lower, and we have escaped the severity of some inner London problems. But Bexley still has its policing challenges, especially the anti-social behaviour that leaves people feeling unsafe in their community, car and tool theft that costs victims thousands, and other crimes like shoplifting and burglary. Tackling these challenges is no less important, but they are too often neglected by a stretched police service under Sadiq Khan.
Our local police teams work hard, but they need our support. We need to say no to Labour's police cuts and stand up for more policing resources for Bexley to ensure we get our fair share — holding Labour to its promises, rather than letting them betray voters once again.
