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Crime: Barnsley East

I welcome the swift action taken by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners’ to manage the administration of Key Forensic Services (KFS), minimising the impact on the criminal justice system and protecting the evidence for live cases. With Home Office support, they reached an agreement with the Administrators to ensure that the business continues to operate so that evidence KFS holds continues to be properly and professionally managed in accordance with the standards set by the Forensic Science Regulator.There are no plans to reopen the Forensic Science Service.

The Government has not undertaken an assessment of the effect of rural crime on residents and businesses in Barnsley East. The independent Crime Survey for England and Wales continues to show that, for those crimes covered by the Survey, people in rural areas are less likely to be the victims of crime than those in urban areas. The 2015 Commercial Victimisation Survey also showed that 24 per cent of agriculture, forestry and fishing premises in England and Wales, had experienced at least one incident of crime (excluding online crime) which represented a statistically significant fall of six percentage points compared with the 2013 Survey.