Cumbria’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Peter McCall, gave evidence to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee on the subject of serious and organised crime.

The commissioner this week articulated the impact of this type of crime on rural communities and how Cumbria Constabulary works with regional and national colleagues to tackle it.

Mr McCall said: “I was pleased to be able to take the opportunity to voice concerns from rural counties like ours.

“Too often these issues are focused on the big metropolitan areas and Cumbria is forgotten.

“I will take any opportunity to get across to MPs the importance of local policing and how it is essential that this is, and must be, the bedrock of policing.

“I was able to raise again the reality that policing has seen a significant reduction in funding and the obvious consequences this is having on policing nationally but also for a small force such as Cumbria.

“Crime is changing and it is essential we give our chief constables the resources to keep our communities safe.

“We are seeing a greater demand of resources in what we call unseen policing - such as child sexual exploitation, modern day slavery, as well as the more traditional drugs issues that bring misery to our communities.

“Serious and organised crime is the responsibility of many agencies, not just the police, and we need to be better coordinated.

"More work needs to be done across partner agencies to ensure that we have a joined up approach to preventing crime.”