The evidence shows that Britain is safer with Labour. By increasing investment, by keeping our promise to ensure neighbourhood policing, and by creating thousands of Police Community Support Officers, Labour has shown that the years of rising crime we experienced under the Tories was not something inevitable. I am particularly pleased that there has been a focus on tackling domestic violence, and welcome the new Sexual Assault Referral Centre recently opened in Peterborough. Labour recognises that for too many people, local anti-social behaviour can blight lives – which is why we have introduced legislation to give local councils and police the tools they need. I am dismayed that on a number of occasions in recent years, the Liberal Democrat Council has turned down requests from the police to use powers offered by the Labour Government to help with issues raised by local residents.

Since 1997, overall crime including violent crime has fallen by almost 40 per cent and Britons are now less likely to be a victim of crime than at any time in the last 25 years. Even in these tough economic times, Labour has still delivered falling crime rates. In the last quarter of 2009, for example, recorded crime fell by 2% in Cambridgeshire with significant falls in motor related crime and drug offences. Currently Cambridgeshire police have 2,300 officers and have pledged to increase front line staff over the next two years. Commitments have also been made to equipping front-line police officers and PCSOs with hand-held electronic devices to assist in keeping them out on the street, not sitting in offices dealing with paperwork.

I know that some people in Cambridge are concerned about ID Cards. I have long argued against compulsion and the Home Secretary has confirmed that this is the Government’s position. Some argue that large savings could be made, but the main cost comes with the bio-metric passports that will be essential for travel to most countries. We need to get a balance between individual liberty and information held about us, but in an age of cheap and easier travel, I think it is inevitable that we will need to use new technologies to reassure people that people in this country are genuinely entitled to be here. The big threat to liberty comes from the far right, and they will continue to play on fears about immigration unless we have a robust and convincing system in place.