Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 10:01 pm on 6 July 2020.
Absolutely. Those improvements are very welcome. They represent, I believe, some of the investment that is going into the area, but, as I will go on to say, it cannot end there. We do need continued investment.
Another factor that is often overlooked when we consider all our public services, but particularly with regard to policing, is the fact that we are a peninsula and therefore not able to share resources with nearby forces or other county areas. That often means that our police are isolated from other assets. I believe that one statistic is that only 10% are within seven miles of another police asset, which in itself presents a number of very great challenges to the way the police operate.