Tories blasted for 50-year-old tech 'holding police back' from catching criminals

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper says she is 'shocked' however small transgression prevention enactment was being done astatine the Home Office arsenic she lashed retired astatine ageing exertion holding forces back

Yvette Cooper said she was "shocked" however small was being done to forestall weapon transgression earlier Labour came to power.

The Home Secretary besides told constabulary chiefs that outdated technology means officers are utilizing 50-year-old machine systems to drawback criminals. In a scathing verdict on- Tory failure, she said excessively galore politicians had been lasting "on the sidelines shouting astatine constabulary erstwhile things spell wrong" - but not giving them the enactment they need.

Ms Cooper announced the Government volition beryllium ploughing an other £500million successful a sweeping question of reform. She said ageing tech and the interaction of austerity is "holding policing back", telling constabulary chiefs: "I mean the Police National Computer is present 50 years old. It was cutting borderline erstwhile I was five." The Labour frontbencher said the Tories had failed to perceive to warnings astir the interaction cuts had connected instrumentality and order.

The caller backing bundle volition assistance acceptable up a caller nationalist centre of policing, which the Home Office says volition "harness caller exertion and forensics". A caller show portion volition besides beryllium acceptable up to "end the postcode lottery" connected instrumentality and order.

Ms Cooper told the conference, hosted by the National Police Chiefs' Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners: "Too often the Government conscionable walked distant oregon made the occupation harder.

"Too galore politicians – including predecessors successful my section – person stood connected the sidelines shouting astatine the constabulary erstwhile things person gone incorrect alternatively of rolling up their sleeves and moving successful concern withthe constabulary to tackle these challenges caput on.

"The effect is that astatine present, our constabulary officers cannot bash the occupation they signed up for successful the mode they privation to, and cannot present for the nationalist arsenic they should."

She said that galore main constables had tried to pass the erstwhile Government astir the interaction of cuts, but been ignored. She said: "Many of you warned implicit a decennary agone of the harm that austerity was doing to neighbourhood policing.

"Ministers said you were ‘crying wolf’. Now we cognize who was right. Even aft the erstwhile authorities reversed the simplification successful the wide fig of officers, policing has not returned to our streets."

She said the Government would usage immoderate of the further backing to present its committedness to enactment 13,000 much neighbourhood officers and PCSOs backmost connected the UK's streets. And Ms Cooper vowed to measurement up enactment to forestall crime, saying: "I was shocked to observe connected accomplishment astatine the Home Office however small the section itself had been doing connected prevention.

"That has to change. Already we are driving caller enactment from curbing weapon income to tackling mobile telephone theft, but we request to spell overmuch further some locally andnationally, for the ngo to beryllium met."

Gavin Stephens, president of the National Police Chiefs' Council, said determination are excessively galore determination makers successful the existent operation of 43 forces successful England and Wales - making it harder to get things done. He told delegates astatine the policing summit: "The world astir america has changed beyond designation yet we stay rooted successful a strategy designed successful the aboriginal 1960s, earlier mobile phones, the internet, adjacent the M25 which came on 2 decades later."