To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of neighbourhood policing levels in (a) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire.

Decisions about how neighbourhood policing is delivered, including the size, composition and prioritisation of neighbourhood policing teams are for operationally independent Chief Constables. They are best placed to use their local knowledge and experience to serve local communities. Democratically elected PCCs, or mayors with these functions, are responsible for holding Chief Constables to account for their running of the force. As set out at the National Policing Board on 31 January, we do however, expect Chief Constables and PCCs to put neighbourhoods at the heart of local policing plans, and to ensure abstractions of officers from core policing roles are minimised.

This government is giving policing the resources it needs to police local communities and fight crime. We have delivered on our commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers and there are now over 149,000 officers in England and Wales, higher than the previous peak before the Police Uplift Programme, in March 2010.

As a result of our investment, as at 31 March 2023, Lincolnshire Constabulary recruited 189 additional officers against a total three-year allocation of 166 officers. As at 31 March 2023, in Lincolnshire, there were 652 full time equivalent police officers employed in local policing roles, an increase of 7.7% (46 FTE) on the previous year when there were 605 FTE police officers in local policing roles. Those working within local policing roles in Lincolnshire accounted for 56.9% of all officers as at 31 March 2023.