The Home Office is continually choking support to our local police by cutting their funding year-on-year. Funding has reduced from £2.5 billion to £1.8 billion and austerity clearly is not working. I will support the Mayor of London to cut crime not police in Brent and Harrow and campaign with local residents for increased investment in police.
Further local cuts to services are making it harder for local bodies to invest in services that can help prevent crime. However, in spite of cuts, the will is there and local bodies have a moral duty to come together to tackle this issue. I will bring all partners together to develop a public health approach to crime to help prevent the causes of crime so that we can focus on the root problem to important issues such as knife crime.
I know from my time as a local ward Councillor how crucial neighbourhood policing is to building relationships with the community. I pledge to reach out and work with neighbourhood police teams across Brent and Harrow and help connect them with local communities.
The Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted the systemic issues in the USA and throughout the world on groups such as the black community who are disproportionately impacted by policies such as 'stop and search'. In addition, the murder of Sarah Everard as well as the unravelling of the actions of Metropolitan Police officers in the aftermath of the murders of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry have further eroded trust and confidence in the Metropolitan Police.
Part of the issue lies with the lack of BAME representation in the Police as well as female representation. I will work with the MET Police to reach out to BAME communities so that we have a Police force that is better reflective of our community.