Police Mergers Update From Nadine Dorries MP
Posted by Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid Bedfordshire, at 15:55, Wed 12 July 2006:
Nadine Dorries MP: ‘Government U-Turn On Police Mergers Welcome’
Many constituents have contacted me concerned about the government proposals to merge police forces, a consequence of which Beds Police would be abolished.
I welcome reports in yesterday's national press that the Home Secretary is expected to announce a U-turn on plans for a £1 billion merger of police forces in England and Wales.
I believe the proposed abolition of the Bedfordshire Constabulary with the creation of a new force for Beds, Herts and Essex would undermine local and community policing and create a remote body to which local people would find it difficult to identify.
I hope reports in the national press that the government is expecting to do a U-turn on police mergers turn out to be true. The double whammy of the proposed mergers is that we get a police structure we don’t want, but have to foot the bill to make it happen, taking resources away from frontline services such as police on the beat.
For months now, Bedfordshire MPs such as myself, Alistair Burt, Andrew Selous and Patrick Hall have been working with the local Police Authority in opposing the merger of Beds Police. We shall continue to put on the pressure and hope that common sense has won the day.
The people of Bedfordshire deserve a locally responsive and a locally accountable police force, if these mergers go ahead then it is local people that will suffer.
If you have any comments on the proposed police mergers that you would like to bring to my attention, then please get in contact with me in the usual way.
Write to me at:
Nadine Dorries MP House of Commons London SW1A 0AA
Telephone me on: 020 7219 4239
Fax me on: 020 7219 6428
Email me at: dorriesn@parliament.uk
Regards
Nadine
Nadine Dorries MP Member of Parliament for Mid-Bedfordshire.
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