Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper today channelled Tony Blair as she jibed the Tories are ‘weak on crime, weak on the causes of crime’.
At a speech in central London, Ms Cooper tore into the ‘chaos’ of ministerial upheaval in Conservative ranks – including the appointment of four home secretaries – last year.
She also claimed there had been ‘a complete collapse in Home Office leadership on crime and policing’ under the Tories.
The Labour frontbencher promised ‘a fundamentally different approach’ if her party were to win power at the next general election.
She repeated her vow that a Labour government would put 13,000 more neighbourhood police officers and Police Community Support Officers – at a cost of £360million – back on Britain’s streets.
Ms Cooper said putting ‘the bobby on the beat’ would mirror the example of Catherine Cawood from TV’s hit series Happy Valley.
She hailed the ‘very real’ police officers who ‘know their communities, who pick up the things that everyone else misses, who solve crimes and keep people safe’.
But the Tories lashed back at Ms Cooper’s attack and pointed to Labour’s recent record of voting against Government legislation to toughen sentences and crackdown on disrutptive protesters.
Yvette Cooper claimed there had been ‘a complete collapse in Home Office leadership on crime and policing’ under the Tories.
The shadow home secretary repeated her vow that Labour would put 13,000 more neighbourhood police officers and Police Community Support Officers on Britain’s streets
Ms Cooper said putting ‘the bobby on the beat’ would mirror the example of Catherine Cawood from TV’s hit series Happy Valley.
Ms Cooper, who served as a minister in Blair’s New Labour government, noted how the ex-prime minister first made his ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ pledge 30 years ago this year.
‘It was right then, it’s right now. It’s what we did then, it’s what we’ll do again,’ she said of Labour’s plans for government.
She also turned the phrase around as she attacked the Tories’ record since replacing her party in power.
‘They’ve totally failed to deliver a policing or justice system fit for the 2020s – there’s no sense of direction or urgency about the challenges policing and communities face,’ she added.
‘Too often all there has been from Conservative home secretaries is rhetoric.
‘The talk is tough but the walk is woefully weak. The Conservatives are weak on crime and on its causes too.’
Ms Cooper reiterated her promise, which she first made at Labour’s party conference in September, to bolster community policing teams.
‘Labour will put 13,000 more neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs back on Britain’s streets – paid for with £360m delivered from our shared procurement plan,’ she said.
‘We will introduce a new Neighbourhood Police Guarantee – restoring patrols back to town centres, making sure communities and residents know who to turn to when things go wrong, with new statutory responsibilities on forces to protect and deliver neighbourhood policing.’
She said this would draw on ‘the traditional core of British policing – the bobby on the beat’ but be ‘modernised for a new age, equipped with new training and technology so they can use data to target hotspots, react quickly, and build partnerships to solve problems’.
She added: Catherine Cawood may be fiction. But the stories of police officers like Catherine who know their communities, who pick up the things that everyone else misses, who solve crimes and keep people safe, are very real. And we need more of them.’
Home Office minister Chris Philp said: ‘Labour’s announcement today is over four months old and further evidence of their soft on crime approach – their proposed investment is a tenth of what we are delivering.
‘Meanwhile this Conservative Government is recruiting the most police officers we have ever had, with 20,000 fully funded extra police officers being recruited by April this year, equipped with full powers of arrest.
‘Labour voted against boosting police funding, voted against tougher sentences, including for violent sexual offenders, and they oppose deporting foreign national offenders – they are weak on crime, weak on criminals, and they cannot be trusted to keep our communities safe.’
