Lib Dems call for rural crime teams in police forces

The Liberal Democrats are calling for specialist rural crime teams to be embedded in every police force in England and Wales.

The proposals would see forces appointing a named contact for rural communities and officers given better access to technology, such as drones.

The party said the policy would be funded by scrapping Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), who are elected officials responsible for overseeing police forces.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey told the BBC there were "some serious crimes happening" in rural areas, including livestock theft and threats against farmers.

The BBC has asked Labour, the Conservatives, Reform UK and the Greens to comment.

Policing and crime have been among the issues parties have focused on ahead of May's local elections, many of which are in rural areas.

A report by NFU Mutual estimates the cost of rural crime increased to £52.8m in 2023 - up nearly 22% since 2020.

The Lib Dems say rural crime teams are under-resourced in places like Devon, Cornwall and Hertfordshire, where are there elections to county councils this year.

It made the same call for dedicated rural crime teams ahead of the local elections last year, and has long said PCCs should be abolished.

The party said it submitted freedom of information requests for data on the number of officers working in rural crime teams in England and Wales.

Lib Dems said the data show 619 police officers and staff were assigned to dedicated rural crime teams across 37 police forces in England and Wales last year - 0.4% of their overall workforce.

Sir Ed said: "We're calling for dedicated rural crime fighting forces, with technology like drones, to enable them to cover large rural areas and to catch these awful criminals."

He told BBC Breakfast there was too much cash tied up in PCCs and "surely that money would be better spent making sure we have the officers with the right technology to go after these awful criminals".

It comes after the Labour government announced new measures on neighbourhood policing.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he wanted to end the policing "postcode lottery" by ensuring every community had dedicated teams of officers focused on patrolling town centres at peak times in England and Wales.

The government is aiming to put named local officers into each neighbourhood and boost police ranks by 13,000 by 2029.

But police forces across the country are facing severe financial challenges, with some warning of cuts to existing officers this year.

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Labour must give the police the resources they need and linked potential job cuts to the rise in employer national insurance contributions.

"Thanks to Labour's jobs tax, our police services face a £118m shortfall, putting over 1,800 police jobs at risk," Philp said.

A Reform UK spokesman said the party wanted to see "officers spending their time doing real work".

The spokesman said forces had wasted "millions in employing diversity and inclusion staff instead of focusing on front-line policing".

Green Party MP Sian Berry said community police officers were dealing with a "flood of work" after "cuts to other vital frontline services".