Police Grant Report (England and Wales)

The hon. Gentleman is making a fair point. It would be churlish not to accept that there was progress around community policing, but that is not the whole story. Does he agree that one legacy of the previous Labour Government was an inordinate amount of bureaucracy and paperwork, which kept many front-line police officers in the station, processing data, rather than out catching criminals? This Government have tackled that, which is why we have seen a reduction in numbers and a significant reduction in recorded crime.