The Conservatives would recruit an additional 8,000 neighbourhood police officers over the next three years if they win the general election.
The party said it would recruit the equivalent of one additional frontline police officer for every ward in England and Wales, and they would be pulled off the beat to fill gaps in the workforce only in exceptional circumstances.
The additional recruits would partly be paid for by increasing all visa fees by 25% and removing the student discount to the immigration health surcharge, which allows migrants to access the NHS.
This will raise £600 million of the £818 million the policy is estimated to cost, with the rest of the money coming from a clampdown on tax avoidance.
General election 2024
Conservatives propose annual cap on work visas
Neighbourhood police officers would be given increased powers to seize and destroy knives and recover stolen goods without a warrant.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak said: “More bobbies on the beat and increased powers will give police forces the tools they need to drive down neighbourhood crime even further.
“Our new 20,000 new police officers since 2019 have made a huge difference, with neighbourhood crime down 48% as a result.
“We will now go further by hiring 8,000 more police officers, each one dedicated to their local community.”
However, Labour criticised the plan as an “empty promise”, stating that the Tories had “decimated neighbourhood policing” since coming to power in 2010. An estimated 20,000 officers left policing between 2010 and 2019, although that number has been replaced since the last general election.
Labour has pledged to increase the number of constables and police community support officers (PCSOs) by 13,000, but the Conservatives have said only 3,000 will be full-time police officers, with the rest made up of PCSOs who cannot make arrests.
Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said: “The Tories have repeatedly promised more police on the beat but instead they have cut 10,000 neighbourhood police, 90% of crimes are going unsolved, prisons are in crisis and more than twice as many people now say they never see the police on the beat.”
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said 6,000 crimes were still going unsolved every day.
“The Conservatives have already failed to protect our communities from crime,” he said.
“From slashing community officer numbers into oblivion to funnelling millions into pet projects instead of bobbies on the beat, Conservative ministers have got their priorities all wrong for years.”
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