Labour running scared of voters by postponing mayoral elections, says Matt Vickers

SHADOW Policing Minister Matt Vickers has accused Labour of trying to avoid being held to account by voters by postponing some elections for regional mayors for two years.

He told GB News: “We’ve got to be getting on with them. These elections must go ahead. We’ve been held captive by this government. They do not want to face the electorate at all.

“We’ve got four fantastic candidates. We know the difference they can make in those communities. We’ve seen what Ben Houchen has done up on Teesside, in creating jobs, in driving change and saving our airport, the people across the country want a bit more of that.

“We want to get our candidates elected. We want to see these elections go ahead. Want people to have the chance to have a say on what’s going on. But you know what? If you would make as much of a mess of this country as Keir Starmer is making, you can kind of understand why he’s doing everything possible to avoid people having their say in this situation.

“He is destroying our economy, 19% more people out of work. Last week, he taxed working people to death, record levels of tax, it gives a £16 billion boom in benefits to people who weren’t working. It can’t go on like this.

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“He needs to be held to account. We also need to give those communities across the country the chance to elect a mayor.

“In terms of the mayoral elections, they are delayed, but there’s no reason for them to be delayed. There was a bit of debate last time around council boundaries and what went on there. Perhaps there was an argument, there is no reason for these mayoral elections to be delayed.”

On the greater adoption of facial recognition technology, he said: “When it comes down to facial recognition, what the government have announced today is a consultation on how these things should be managed. The reality is that facial recognition technology has been used.

“The last government…actually put funding in place. We rolled it out. Police forces are already using it to great effect. It’s ridiculously efficient. It allows us to catch people who otherwise wouldn’t be caught.”

He added: “It needs to be rolled out. We need to go further and faster. Instead of discussing just the red tape that this consultation is going to discuss, we need to be giving police forces the proper funding that they were receiving before.

“The reality is that this, this government, has reduced the number of police on our streets. We’ve got the [National] Police Chiefs’ Council complaining about the funding, 1,316 less people. In just a year, 1,316 less people out there in our police forces working to keep our streets safe. We need to go further and faster with facial recognition technology.”