To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will encourage (a) police authorities and (b) police forces to give higher priority to rural policing when allocating resources.

It is a matter for each chief constable and police authority to decide how best to deploy the available resources across the force area, taking into account operational priorities and objectives.

We established the rural policing fund in 2000–01 in recognition of the additional costs incurred in delivering effective policing to the most sparsely populated areas in England and Wales. The fund remains a discrete £30 million pot each year, above main formula grant arrangements, to be spent at local discretion to improve policing in rural areas.