Sir Keir Starmer: 'I want to tackle the root causes of crime in Lancashire, not offer quick fixes'

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) about one of his party’s five “missions” that would underpin any future Labour government - to “make Britain’s streets safe” - he said that residents were likely to have first-hand experience of the “familiar story” of crime, and how it is dealt with it, after 13 years of Conservative rule.

“There will be many people across Lancashire who feel that there’s much too much antisocial behaviour, crime is on the up, the high street isn't what it was and if anything does go wrong and you call the police, you’re not getting the response that you used to get - if you're getting any response at all.

“That is having a real impact on confidence in policing - [and] we need to turn that around. [It] is why we’ve said we want the highest ever confidence in policing - and that includes in Lancashire.

“We want to halve the incidents of knife crime [which is] really important in Lancashire, because the evidence seems to be that knife crime is moving from city centres to more rural areas. [We also want to halve] the incidence of violence against women and girls, which is a blight on so many of our communities.

“These are hard [goals] to achieve, so our missions are different to the government’s because they tackle the root causes [and] they deal with fundamentals - whereas the government is doing sticking plaster, quick fix stuff.

“Thirteen years now the government's been in power, [with] five prime ministers - but at the end of the day, I think your readers are entitled to ask the question: ‘What have we got to show for it?’

“And I think the answer to that is: 'Very little,'” Sir Keir said.

He was speaking on Monday as the government launched its Antisocial Behaviour Action Plan, under which Lancashire will get £2m to trial an initiative to target “hotspot” areas for antisocial activity.

The cash will be used to boost police patrols - and those of other "uniformed authority figures", such as wardens - in known problem locations like high streets, parks and on public transport.

Last year, Labour pledged a £360m programme to put 13,000 additional police and police community support officers into community teams “so people can be confident someone will be there to help keep them safe”.

Last week, at the launch of his crime-fighting mission, the Labour leader claimed that “inequalities” blighted the criminal justice system - a fact which he said had been brought home to him by the murder of Jane Clough, a nurse who was stabbed to death in 2010 in the car park of Blackpool Victoria Hospital, where she worked.

Sir Keir - who was director of public prosecutions at the time of Ms. Clough’s murder - reflected on the fact that she had been killed “by the man awaiting trial on multiple charges of raping her, on the one morning she went to work unaccompanied”.

“I will never forget the day her parents, John and Penny, came to my office and talked me through the awful treatment they’d received from our criminal justice system. It’s a moment that has shaped everything I’ve done since, everything I think about justice.”

WHAT’S LABOUR’S BIG IDEA?

***Restoring confidence in every police force to its highest ever level.

***Halving incidents of knife crime.

***Reversing the collapse in the proportion of crime solved.

***By solving more crime [and] by reducing the number of victims who drop out of the system, halving the levels of violence against women and girls.

***Putting specialist domestic abuse workers in the control rooms of every police force responding to 999 calls, supporting victims of abuse.

Source: Sir Keir Starmer speech, 23rd March