This week NFU Mutual released their Rural Crime Report. It is not good reading. In the midst of the worst crisis our nation has faced since the Second World War, our rural communities are being hammered by organised crime.
£54.3 million stolen in 2019, the highest in eight years and a nearly nine per cent increase on 2018.
Agricultural vehicle and land rover theft up by over a quarter.
No region of the UK reporting a decline in the cost of crime. Scotland’s numbers up nearly 45 per cent.
This is a crisis in our rural communities, and it must end. But we need resources, and rural people need to be heard and supported. It’s time to level up on rural crime.
Too often when policymakers, the public and the press think of rural crime, it’s almost idyllic: the stakes often low, thefts the actions of overly boisterous young men, and the impact minimal. But in fact, much of rural crime involves the theft of heavy equipment, the very tools that farmers and businesses rely upon to make their living, put food on our tables and maintain our beautiful countryside. The stakes are anything but low. According to the latest yearly figures from the National Police and Crime Commission (NPCC), over £39 million of insurance claims were made because of crime in rural areas.
The NPCC has documented the sophisticated cloning, exporting and asset stripping of farms by organised crime groups. In my constituency, I know of one case where a tractor left a farm one evening and arrived on the shores of Poland the next. This isn’t your opportunistic likely lads nicking a quad bike for a couple of hours.
This has a real impact on local communities – not just financially, but also in terms of the mental health of farmers. The NPCC says that “being watched or ‘staked out’ is the biggest concern for people living in the countryside.” A local NFU representative said to me recently, “country people feel that they are under siege”.Farmers have one of the highest rates of suicide in the country.
But what response have constituents received when seeking help from the authorities? When one constituent had his ATV stolen, the first response from 101 was ‘are you sure your kid hasn’t taken it for a spin’? A local farmer, when he told the operator that several of his sheep were missing, was asked ‘are you sure they haven’t just wandered off?’.
When you have spent your hard-earned money, time, and effort on investing in vehicle immobilizers, the latest CCTV technology, remote tracking, five-lever mortice locks, secure compounds for fuel and remote tracking and cyber tech, only be assumed to be careless when you first ring the police, how can you help but feel anything but disenfranchised and defeated. It’s frankly galling.
Our Conservative Government is making record investments in police capacity, but this must be used to tackle rural crime properly too. We can’t afford not to. We are living in a pandemic, where farmers and businesses have already been clobbered by the drop in food prices and in consumer demand. The costs of crime, the burglary of the very tools that farmers and rural businesses need to survive, will hurt our communities harder than ever and hamper our recovery.
We can’t allow the gangs and organised criminals any more leeway. This will take investment, yes, but it also takes planning from every level of Government to fight this issue.
We need to learn from how we tackle serious organised crime, and county lines and adapt it for rural crime. What would this look like?
- We need to incorporate the Plant and Agriculture National Intelligence Unit into our policing efforts so that the latest tracking data can be brought to bear.
- We need to level up and standardise our approaches to rural crime across the UK so that every part of the country gets a comparable level of service.
- We should invest to make sure that the UK Border Agency can play a more active role in rural crime. When the proceeds of crime can end up in mainland Europe, co-ordination is essential. We must ensure that large machinery stolen on a Monday doesn’t end up across the Channel on a Tuesday.
- We need to invest in 111 operator training so that complaints about serious rural crime are taken seriously. This training should also include updated Home Office and police guidance on how to best respond to rural threats. I am strongly encouraging the Government to also consider how the review into Police and Crime Commissioner powers can better serve rural communities.
- We need to invest heavily in mental health in rural areas and think seriously about how we can best support victims. The NHS Long-Term Plan’s £2.3 billion for mental health is an excellent start, and some must go to improving services in rural areas.
The Government has already made landmark commitments to tackle crime, with 20,000 more police officers, a 2.5 per cent pay-rise, and targeted local investments. We have the momentum to truly transform rural policing, and rural lives, for the better. As we level up the nation, we must also level up on our approach to policing and protecting rural communities. I look forward to working with our strong Home Office and Justice Ministerial Teams, as well as our strong contingent of rural MPs to get justice for our communities and stamp out serious organised crime in our countryside.
