Farron praises police as knife crime falls but warns about effects of budget cuts

South Lakeland MP Tim Farron has praised Cumbria Police as figures released today show a fall in knife crime in the county, bucking the national trend. However, he has warned about the effect of further budget cuts to the county's police force and the impact this could have.

Official data published today shows that there were 139 knife possession offences resulting in a caution or sentence in Cumbria in 2016, representing a fall of almost 5% compared to the year before. This comes at a time when nationally the equivalent figure has increased by more than 9%.

Tim has praised Cumbria Police for their work, but has warned that it could be put at risk if huge cuts continue to reduce the number of officers. Last year, Cumbria Police was forced to cut 69 police officers and staff. Planned changes to the police funding formula, which would have seen Cumbria Police lose around £15million, were scrapped in 2015 but there are plans to bring back the changes.

Tim said: "Cumbria Police have done a great job working to make our county safer, and these figures show their work is paying dividends. Just five years ago, the rate of knife crime in Cumbria was higher than the national average. Now, it is almost 20% lower.

"However, every one of these offences is a potential disaster which makes residents less safe. What is particularly concerning is that nationally more than one in five of these offences are by under-18s.

"The government must not be complacent. It cannot expect knife crime to continue to fall if it presses ahead with plans to cut millions of pounds from Cumbria Police. This would be a disaster for our communities by taking more bobbies off the beat and have a massive impact on the force's ability to keep local people safe."