Sunak says Government must ‘go further’ in tackling crime
Progress on reducing crime was discussed at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting – but widespread industrial action was not.
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Your support makes all the difference.Rishi Sunak told his Cabinet the Government must “go further” in tackling crime.
The growing wave of public sector strikes did not come up at the meeting on Tuesday morning, Downing Street said.
According to a Cabinet readout, the Prime Minister “highlighted the powers given to the police to tackle disruptive protests” during a discussion on “recent progress” in battling crime.
The government must maintain momentum and go further to ensure we achieve our aims of tackling crime and creating even safer streets
Home Secretary Suella Braverman told her Cabinet colleagues overall crime is down 10% since 2019, including fraud, with a 20% reduction in neighbourhood crime and 30% fall in domestic burglaries.”She said going further on fraud would be an area of focus,” the readout said.
Ms Braverman referred to a recent fraud operation to close down the website iSpoof, which was responsible for 3.5 million fraudulent calls in a year, leading to 100 arrests.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman described the operation as a “major breakthrough” as he said the Government wants to encourage more people to report such crimes.
“We know that fraud now makes up a substantial part of overall crime and it’s an area where the Home Office are focused working with police forces,” he said.
At the Cabinet table, Mr Sunak “highlighted the powers given to the police to tackle disruptive protests and referenced his recent meeting with police chiefs where he made clear they would continue to have the powers and resources necessary to take decisive action,” the readout said.
We know that fraud now makes up a substantial part of overall crime and it’s an area where the Home Office are focused working with police forces
“The Prime Minister concluded Cabinet by saying that while we have made good progress, the Government must maintain momentum and go further to ensure we achieve our aims of tackling crime and creating even safer streets.”
At the meeting, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab also said the rate of reoffending has fallen over the past decade from 30.9% in 2009/10 to 25.6% in 2019/20.
He said significant work has been done to improve the approach to tackling rape and serious sexual offences.