Not good news for those of us who live in Hull, East Yorkshire, North and North East Lincolnshire. There may be many factors that explain this, and Humberside Police have promised to give those explanations, but the story has provided some politicians a platform to blame government cuts.
Karl Turner, MP for Hull East has this to say:
"These figures are worrying but not surprising. I have regular contact with Tim Hollis and I believe he is doing the best job he can with drastically reduced budgets. It is disingenuous of the Government to state that the quality of policing will be not affected when savage cuts to police officer levels are taking place. It is simply not possible. I am deeply concerned that as the cuts take further hold crime will continue to increase in Humberside and the public will ultimately end up paying the price."
Diana Johnson, the MP for Hull North and Shadow Home Office Minister, also waded into the debate, once again blaming government cuts
I have a lot of time for Karl, but he knows he is being disingenuous. The budget has been reduced, but that has not had a massive impact on police numbers in June, July, and August this year. Figures given to me by Humberside Police state that from 1 April - 31 August, 27 police officers have left the force due to funded reductions. It is also worth noting that not all of them were front-line officers. A reduction of around 1% can hardly be described as savage.
The country is suffering from a debt crisis. People are losing their jobs and their homes. This doesn't mean we are more likely to go out and commit a violent assault, or cause criminal damage.
Those politicians who are eager to blame the cuts should read what Mark Littlewood, Director General of the Institute for Economic Affairs, has to say in his Daily Mail blog. In it, Mark says:
"The government plans to reduce state expenditure by about 3% before the next election. In real terms, for every pound being spent by government by Gordon Brown when he left office, David Cameron intends to spend about 97p by May 2015. He may not even succeed in this modest objective."
If every time some statistics are quoted, politicians are going to jump on the bandwagon of blaming the cuts, we will never have a serious debate about the problems facing this country.A report in the Yorkshire Post says Humberside Police has recorded one if the worst crime rates in the country. Between June and August this year the force ranked in the bottom three for violent assaults causing injury and incidents of criminal damage, and is among the worst 10 for serious acquisitive crime and domestic burglaries.
Not good news for those of us who live in Hull, East Yorkshire, North and North East Lincolnshire. There may be many factors that explain this, and Humberside Police have promised to give those explanations, but the story has provided some politicians a platform to blame government cuts.
Karl Turner, MP for Hull East has this to say:
"These figures are worrying but not surprising. I have regular contact with Tim Hollis and I believe he is doing the best job he can with drastically reduced budgets. It is disingenuous of the Government to state that the quality of policing will be not affected when savage cuts to police officer levels are taking place. It is simply not possible. I am deeply concerned that as the cuts take further hold crime will continue to increase in Humberside and the public will ultimately end up paying the price."
Diana Johnson, the MP for Hull North and Shadow Home Office Minister, also waded into the debate, once again blaming government cuts
I have a lot of time for Karl, but he knows he is being disingenuous. The budget has been reduced, but that has not had a massive impact on police numbers in June, July, and August this year. Figures given to me by Humberside Police state that from 1 April - 31 August, 27 police officers have left the force due to funded reductions. It is also worth noting that not all of them were front-line officers. A reduction of around 1% can hardly be described as savage.
The country is suffering from a debt crisis. People are losing their jobs and their homes. This doesn't mean we are more likely to go out and commit a violent assault, or cause criminal damage.
Those politicians who are eager to blame the cuts should read what Mark Littlewood, Director General of the Institute for Economic Affairs, has to say in his Daily Mail blog. In it, Mark says:
"The government plans to reduce state expenditure by about 3% before the next election. In real terms, for every pound being spent by government by Gordon Brown when he left office, David Cameron intends to spend about 97p by May 2015. He may not even succeed in this modest objective."
If every time some statistics are quoted, politicians are going to jump on the bandwagon of blaming the cuts, we will never have a serious debate about the problems facing this country.