Watford Police do fantastic work to keep our community safe. I had the privilege of joining them on the frontline during two dawn raids and recently met with the new Chief Inspector. I appreciate there is extensive multi-agency work going on behind the scenes to locate, detain and convict these ruthless criminals.
Cruel gangs exploit and abuse vulnerable adults and children to carry out their criminal activities such as moving and storing drugs and cash within our communities.
I therefore asked the Home Secretary what further support is being put in place once the police have successfully carried out this work to ensure another criminal does not take-over the patch and reinstate the lines of supply to their criminality.
I welcome the Government’s County Lines Programme, launched in 2019, and the recently announced ‘Clear, Hold, Build’ programme which will support the police in clearing an area, as I witnessed during my dawn raids, holding the location to prevent another gang from taking control, and then work with communities to maintain security.
I will continue to support the police in their endeavours to stop and prevent crime. Notably, Hertfordshire now has more police officers than ever before.
