Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by Bob Blizzard (Labour). It was answered on Monday, 11 June 2007 on behalf of the Home Office.

Police

Question: With reference to burglary, the Crimestoppers page in last week’s Lowestoft Journal showed that there were no burglaries at all in Lowestoft the previous week, in line with the trend. We still have a problem with criminal damage, but recently one of our safer neighbourhood teams, with the local council, blitzed an area of town, clearing away piles of fly-tipped rubbish, returning 16 children to school and seizing or reporting 20 cars. Will my hon. Friend congratulate all the people involved in that and encourage other safer neighbourhood teams throughout the country to get stuck in and deal with criminal damage?

Answer: I congratulate my hon. Friend on drawing to the attention of the House the excellent work of the Lowestoft Journal and its Crimestoppers page, which seems to be having a dramatic impact on Lowestoft, especially the report of no burglaries that he highlighted. The important point made my hon. Friend—we should draw attention to it because of its relevance to the rest of the country—is the fact that successful neighbourhood policing, as he mentioned, involves not only the police but the council, schools and health services. Effective neighbourhood management, alongside effective neighbourhood policing, means that we get not only the sort of results in Lowestoft that my hon. Friend described, but similar results across the country.

Secondary information