Rishi Sunak has promised to recruit 8,000 new police officers funded by rising visa costs in his latest general election bid.
The Prime Minister said “more police on the beat” with greater powers would help reduce crime.
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The announcement comes as the PM recovers from an ongoing backlash because of his D-Day snubdubbed by one conservative commentator as “the biggest gaffe I can remember in politics”.
While the Labor Party focuses on childcare, with a promise of 100,000 new nurseries, Sunak begins the third week of the election campaign with a promise of law and order as he tries to get back to the front.
The plan for more police officers will be funded in part by removing the student discount on the Immigration Health Surcharge and increasing all visa fees by 25%.
This will raise £600m of the £818m estimated cost, with the rest of the money coming from a crackdown on tax evasion, the party said.
Sunak highlighted the conservative record of recruiting 20,000 officers since 2019, although this figure corresponds to the number of officers lost during the years of austerity after 2010.
He said: “Our 20,000 new police officers since 2019 have made a huge difference, with crime falling by 48% as a result.
“Now we will go further, hiring 8,000 more police officers, each dedicated to their local community.
“People deserve to feel safe in their neighborhood.
“More officers on the beat and greater powers will give police forces the tools they need to further reduce neighborhood crime.”
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The recruitment campaign comes alongside plans to give community police officers extra powers to crack down on so-called zombie knives and use GPS tracking technology to search for phones stolen without a warrant.
These measures were included in the Criminal Justice Act, which was suspended when Mr Sunak called the election.
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The Conservatives have said all extra police officers will be fully authorized officers, claiming this goes beyond the Labor Party’s recruitment plan.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has set a target of having 13,000 more police and community support officers (PCSOs) under her party’s plans to be “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” – a slogan coined by former Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair.
But the Conservatives said this only means 3,000 additional full-time police officers, with the rest made up of PCSOs, who do not have the power to make arrests, as well as officers transferred to neighborhood teams and volunteer special constables.
Sunak said: “The Labor Party has no plan and no idea how to fund more police officers.”
Conservative policy for England and Wales sees the recruitment of 2,000 additional officers per year, reaching a target of 8,000 by 2027-28.
Raising visa fees and removing the student discount will raise £600 million in 2024/25, the Conservatives have said.
The immigration health surcharge is currently £1,035 per year, but students receive a discount and pay £776.
The Conservative plan would change the law so that the extra money raised by reducing the rebate could be spent on wider costs – but it is promised that the funding currently raised by the surcharge will remain earmarked for the NHS.
Ms Cooper dismissed the pledge as “another empty promise from a desperate Conservative party”.
“The Tories have repeatedly promised more police on the beat, but instead they have cut 10,000 neighborhood police, 90% of crimes remain unsolved, prisons are in crisis and more than twice as many people now say they never see the police on the beat,” she said.
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“However, the Tories’ funding sums are a sham that appears to depend on the continuation of the high migration they promised to reduce.
“The Labor Party has a budgeted and funded plan to put an additional 13,000 neighborhood police officers and PCSOs back into action, reducing back-office waste.”
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said 6,000 crimes remained unsolved every day.
“The Conservatives have already failed to protect our communities from crime,” he said.
“From slashing the number of community officers into oblivion to funneling millions into pet projects rather than bobbies on the beat, Tory ministers have gotten their priorities wrong for years.”
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