John Baron

Conservative Party | Billericay and District

Points of View

Law and Disorder

We all hope the New Year will be a peaceful one but for many victims of crime this will not be the case. An honest discussion about crime is needed, but the signals do not look good.

For example, Labour repeatedly cite the British Crime Survey as evidence that crime has fallen significantly.

However, this survey excludes certain crimes.

It excludes so-called victimless crimes (such as drug-dealing), violent crimes such as murder, fraud, some sexual offences, retail crime and crimes against younger people.

However, the more reliable ‘Recorded Crime Figures’, which are crimes actually recorded by the police, show that during the last five years crime in Essex has risen 40%, whilst violent crime soared 150%.

These figures are confirmed by the many victims of crime who are increasingly visiting my surgeries or writing to me.

But what is needed is not politicians arguing about which statistics to use, but a much tougher law and order policy to deal with the situation.

This policy should include an additional 40,000 police on the streets, tougher sentencing in courts, reform of our prisons, and a zero-tolerance approach to crime which helped to cut drastically the crime rate in New York during the 1990s.

The strength of feeling about getting more police on our streets was evidenced by the 6,000 constituents who signed my ‘more bobbies on the beat’ petition, which I then presented to the Home Secretary.

Society has become too lenient towards the criminal. The law-abiding majority have rights too. The time has therefore come to stop the talking and get much tougher with the criminal.

Immigration and Asylum

How could the country afford another 40,000 police on our streets?

The answer is to bring our Asylum and Immigration system under control, which would produce significant cost savings.

Under Labour, figures show immigration has doubled, whilst only one in five failed asylum seekers is removed from the UK. Indeed, more than 250,000 failed asylum seekers still live in the UK and the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has said he ‘hadn’t got a clue’ as to how many illegal immigrants there are in Britain.

This is costing the country a small fortune.

In place of this, the Conservatives will bring immigration under control and introduce a completely new approach. Each year, Parliament will set a maximum limit on the number of people coming to Britain – as they do in Australia. Genuine refugees will be welcome, but those who are not will be swiftly and humanely removed.

And the subsequent cost savings will allow us to fund the extra police that Britain so desperately needs.