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Community Policing

If I was not aware of that before, I certainly am now. My hon. Friend is always full of imaginative ways of intervening and promoting his constituency, as he has just done. I have set out the excellent work that has been done, but my concern is about the future. The extension of community policing has taken place against a backcloth of increased investment in our police service, including an increase in the number of police officers, the introduction of community support officers, and Home Office support for the street pastors scheme. Unfortunately, under the Tory-Lib Dem Government, that support has already been reduced. Today the newspapers in north Wales carry details of an interview with the local chief constable, who talked of the £1.4 million reduction in this year's budget, which has already happened for north Wales. He says that""the suggestion from David Cameron is that this could be increased to 40 per cent over the next four years. This would mean cuts of £30 million coming out of our budget."" He goes on:""Eighty-two per cent of our money is spent on staff so even if we stopped using computers and walked everywhere we would have to cut staff numbers."" Those staff are the community beat managers and community support officers that I mentioned. Those individuals have achieved the progress in policing and in making safe the communities that I represent over the past decade. I am, therefore, extremely concerned to hear my chief constable saying that he cannot deal with the proposed reductions in expenditure without getting rid of some of that staffing. That is a major concern, but not just from me—I am already receiving representations from councillors in my constituency. My good colleague Councillor Michael Williams of Gwersyllt has told me that good work in combating antisocial behaviour in his ward is under threat. He tells me that already community beat managers are not being replaced. He represents a community of up to 10,500 people who now have only one community beat manager, whereas previously they had two.