My Ham & High column: Catherine West on improving faith in police
My latest column for the Ham & High to highlight what the Labour Government is doing to tackle crime and improve trust in the police (May 2025):
This month, I organised a walkabout in Hornsey and Friern Barnet with local councillors and Haringey Police to hear how the police and council are working together to tackle local crime. This is a topic that constituents care about deeply – 90% of crimes have been left unsolved and there were one million incidents of antisocial behaviour last year alone.
For 14 years, Conservative governments repeatedly promised tough action on crime. But they only delivered catastrophic cuts to policing, the dismantling of neighbourhood police teams and the destruction of the criminal justice system.
This month, the Prime Minister pledged that, by July, every community will have dedicated and specialist neighbourhood policing teams, guarantee response times of 72 hours, and every force will have an antisocial behaviour lead.
What’s more, thanks to a record-breaking £1.16 billion investment from the London Mayor, 935 neighbourhood police officer posts have been saved. This investment will protect neighbourhood policing and significantly reduce the planned cuts to specialist police teams.
In 2021, the brutal murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan Police officer was a watershed moment for women’s safety, misogyny and police reform. I’m proud that this month, the Home Secretary announced a range of measures to restore public confidence in policing. This includes making passing background checks a legal requirement for all serving officers and the ability to remove officers who cannot meet vetting requirements. Alongside the pilot scheme for Raneem’s Law, the policy of embedding domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms after Raneem Oudeh and her mother Khaola Saleem were murdered by Raneem’s ex-husband in Solihull in 2018, Labour is delivering on its commitment to reforming policing so that it works for the people it serves. Our new measures are the first step to restoring order on the streets and confidence in the police.
My Labour colleagues and I are clear: when you call the police, they should come. When you report a crime, it should be properly investigated. And with Labour, victims will have faith that justice can be delivered.