Nick with members of Newcastle's emergency services

The Evening Chronicle has today published details of a report which shows that Northumbria police force is the second worst hit nationally by spending cuts as a percentage of total funding.

Newcastle East MP Nick Brown said: “What the report shows is that the big Labour urban areas are taking a much bigger hit than the ones that are broadly speaking Conservative supporting. Northumbria has always suffered from being a mixed urban and rural force. It affects their grant formula. They will not find it easy to absorb this real-terms cut.

“Policing is a very labour intensive activity. It seems to me inevitable that this will have an impact on jobs. It makes the job of the chief constable a lot harder at a time when we ought to be helping them.”

And Nick denied claims by the Liberal Democrat and Tory coalition that the country was in it together in terms of painful spending cuts to deal with the national debt.

Nick said: “We are clearly not in this together. These cuts are falling disproportionately on urban police authorities in Labour voting areas. On the face of it, it doesn’t seem fair. Northumbria has always been disadvantaged by being treated as a part rural party urban area when in fact the overwhelming bulk of work is in urban areas.”

Nick with members of Newcastle's emergency services

At Nick’s constituency surgeries at the weekends, one issue that is raised over and over again is Anti Social Behaviour. When people are causing trouble in their area it has the potential to make the lives of the majority of law-abiding citizens a misery. People in East Newcastle rightly want to live in neighbourhoods free from unnecessary noise, intimidation and harassment.

It is for this reason that Labour introduced Anti Social Behaviour Orders in 1998. The latest statistics bear out the effects this policy can have. 65% of people issued with an ASBO desisted from further anti-social behaviour after the first intervention, 86% after the second and 93% after the third. It’s clear that ASBOs can make a difference.

The Government has worked hard to tackle wider criminal activity. Since 1997 overall crime has fallen 36%, and domestic burglary is down 54%. Car theft has fallen by over 50%, and household crime is down 36%. Despite the “Broken Britain” rhetoric of some, you are now less likely to be a victim of crime than at any time in the past 25 years.

This is thanks to a police force that is respected and well resourced. Labour has invested more than £3.7bn in policing, putting an extra 16,000 police officers on our streets, alongside 16 000 further Community Support Officers. This is the first Government since the 1940s to see an overall fall in crime. All these measures will contribute to people feeling safer going about their day to day lives in our city.

The way criminals are caught and brought to justice in recent years has changed too. The value of CCTV was demonstrated in central Newcastle: in the area covered by CCTV, burglaries fell by 56 per cent, criminal damage by 34 per cent, and theft by 11 per cent after CCTV was installed. CCTV enjoys strong public support and year on year surveys show that people feel safer where there’s a CCTV presence.

The recording of DNA when people are arrested is seen as controversial by some. But the fact is that DNA matches were used in hundreds of convictions last year, for murder and manslaughter, rape and other violent crimes.

It’s not just violent crime that can be a threat at times like these. The Government is also taking action against those who seek to take advantage of people struggling with money at the moment. Measures have been introduced to stop businesses that make false claims about writing off people’s debts. New guidance has been produced which highlights misleading statements in adverts that breach consumer protection regulations. And a new hotline has been set up to help people who’ve got into trouble with loan sharks.

This Government has a decent record in this area – you are now less likely to be a victim of crime than at any time in the past 25 years, and burglary is down 55% in the past decade. We can all play our part in making sure that the economic downturn does not present a threat to that, and that people can feel safe going about their day to day lives in our cities.