Press Release

17 July 2006

Paice Challenges Coaker Over Police Merger

South East Cambridgeshire MP Jim Paice has written to Vernon Coaker, the Under-Secretary for police and security, challenging him to come clean over the future of Cambridgeshire Constabulary ahead of his visit to Cambridgeshire on Tuesday 18 July.

At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday 12 July Tony Blair told the House of Commons that mergers, “are not off the agenda.” Yet Home Office Minister Tony McNulty later said: “Are mergers going to go through one way or another? I think the definitive answer at the moment is no.”

Mr Paice said: “The Minister cannot come to Cambridgeshire and talk about neighbourhood policing without clearing up the confusion surrounding the proposed merger of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk police forces, which would completely undermine the local accountability upon which community policing is based.

“It has been widely reported that the mergers have been shelved, yet the Prime Minister recently told David Cameron that they ‘are not off the agenda’. During his visit to Cambridgeshire Mr Coaker should make the position absolutely clear. Is the merger on or off?”