MP: Farmers not reporting crimes because of under-resourced rural police forces

Farmers are not reporting “serious” crimes because they do not believe rural police forces have the resources to respond, an MP has told the Commons.

Liberal Democrat MP Anna Sabine raised concerns that rural crime is being “seriously under-reported” as a result of this belief.

Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson pledged to give those in rural communities the level of support that they need, as part of the Government’s neighbourhood policing guarantee.

This comes after Home Secretary Yvette Cooper set out plans to reform the police, with closer monitoring of how the 43 geographical forces in England and Wales perform.

At a policing conference in Westminster on Monday, Ms Cooper reiterated the Government’s aim to bring in 13,000 more officers “over the next few years” to tackle a surge in neighbourhood crime.

In the Commons on Tuesday, Ms Sabine said: “Farmers in my constituency of Frome and East Somerset tell me that not only are they often the victims of serious rural crime, including threats of physical violence, but that they don’t usually bother to report that crime because they don’t think our rural police forces are well resourced enough to give a full response.

“And if that’s happening across the country, presumably it means rural crime is being seriously under-reported.

“I wonder if the minister could tell me what more she plans to do to resource our rural crime teams but also to give farmers and other people living in rural areas reassurance that they can report crime and in fact they should do so?”

During an urgent question on police reform, Dame Diana replied: “(Ms Sabine) is exactly right. We need to make sure that when crime happens it’s reported, that’s absolutely vital.

“As I said in my opening remarks, I think for too long people feel that it’s not worth reporting, because no-one will come and nothing will be done.

“Our neighbourhood policing guarantee is not just about urban areas, it also covers rural areas, and we want to see those neighbourhoods in communities, rural communities, have the level of support that they need from policing, PCSOs and specials.

“I’m also responsible for rural crime and I know there’s a range of issues that we need to look at again, including theft of agricultural machinery, so that’s one area that I’m particularly focused on at the moment.”

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp asked the Government to commit to maintaining, if not growing, the “record” police head count, which he said is at 149,769 as of March this year.

He also urged the minister to “change the guidelines” so that police “only investigate non-crimes where there is a real and imminent risk of criminality”.

The former minister added: “Does she also agree that it’s important that police spend their time actually investigating crime, not policing thought?”

Dame Diana replied: “I do think he might be forgetting a few facts, because if I recall, during the course of the previous 14 years, the Conservative government slashed policing by over 20,000 police officers and many support staff as well.

“So whilst I acknowledge the uplift programme was brought in at the end of their period in government, they did get rid of a lot of very experienced and good police officers.”

She added: “He refers to the non-crime hate incidents and the guidelines, now, if I recall, he was actually the minister that introduced those guidelines when he was the policing minister.

“So I listened to what he says, but I do think he just needs to remember what he actually did when he was the policing minister.”