Northumbria Police has faced significant challenges under austerity. Since 2010, it has lost over 1000 officers and experienced the biggest reduction to funding of all forces in the UK with £136 million cut from its budget. It is not fair that police services in the North East are being hit disproportionately hard by austerity and I believe the Government should be doing more to ensure that our force is appropriately resourced.

Despite these funding challenges, Northumbria Police was recently ranked the highest of 43 forces in the latest Crime Survey for England and Wales which looks at community confidence and satisfaction levels. This is a testament to the character and hard work of Northumbria Police. The last week has illustrated that the Prime Minister is in denial about the causes and extent of violent crime. Theresa May claims that there is “no direct correlation” between violent crime and police numbers. This statement has been strongly refuted by Police and Crime Commissioners, senior officers and youth workers. The Labour Party has been clear that the rise in violent crime is a national tragedy and a Labour Government would recruit 10,000 more police officers to work on community beats.