The UK’s Home Secretary, James Cleverly, visited Corby today to help with Tom Pursglove’s campaign to be the town’s MP.
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00:00Well Tom Purseglove, the Conservative candidate and also a good long-standing friend, a fantastic
00:06hard-working minister but most importantly I think in this context a fantastic champion
00:12for Corbyn and the surrounding villages. He's a good friend, I promised him years ago that when
00:17the general election came I'd help campaign with him and I always make good on my promises.
00:22It's about making sure that Corbyn has a fantastic local champion and from the day he was elected
00:28Tom has always been that. He's fought hard for investment in the local area, which is why we
00:32see police numbers going up, which is why we've seen a commitment to Kettering General Hospital
00:37which I know is not quite here but nearby and services the people here. Community Diagnostic
00:43Centre which is in the pipeline because of the advocacy work that Tom's put in. So of course we
00:48want to protect that, we want to protect people's services and that is best achieved by returning
00:55Tom at this general election and that's why I'm here and as I say because he's a cracking minister
00:59and a good friend. The really important thing now is that we have recruited across the UK 20,000
01:06extra police officers, we're committed to an additional 8,000 and we want to make sure that
01:12through use of better technology, communications technology, facial recognition technology, that we
01:20get those police officers out and about in the streets. Now whether or not that is best served by
01:25having a local police station or the use of other technology that will ultimately be a decision for
01:32the local Police and Crime Commissioner but I know that our commitment, the government's commitment
01:38to getting more police officers on the street is absolutely key. Tom's been instrumental in that
01:42and that's what I'm very focused on as well. We know that retail crime, shoplifting
01:50is a really important issue. Shopkeepers, the people that support local economy, they deserve
01:58to be protected. We are absolutely committed, we have a retail crime action plan that we put in
02:02place, we amplified that in the months ahead of the general election and getting more police officers
02:09on the street as we are committed to do will help. Making sure that we get a grip of prolific
02:14offenders will make a massive difference. We committed to roll out tagging for those people
02:21who are prolific shoplifters. So the combination of technology and more police officers and a
02:25relentless focus to pursue criminals and keep town centres safe is what you'll get with a
02:31Conservative government and as I say the simple truth is that the Labour Party have not been as
02:37committed to policing as they should do. During the Black Lives Matters protest, Keir Starmer and
02:42Angela Rayner took the knee rather than backing our police officers who were doing the right thing
02:48and that's the difference between having a hard-working local Conservative and a Labour
02:52government under Keir Starmer. So county lines just as I found in my part of the UK over in Essex
03:02has been a rising challenge. Young people being tempted into criminality with promises of
03:10mobile phones and trainers and that kind of thing is something we are very very conscious of.
03:14I'm very proud of the fact that we have worked very hard to close down those county lines drugs
03:21gangs and we have broken hundreds of those county lines drug movements and helped to
03:29protect some of the children but of course there is always more to do. We're absolutely determined
03:33to make sure the public services are well funded but also well run. That is what you'll get with
03:38a Conservative government and I'm sure Tom will continue to pursue that. The thing about
03:43migration is it's about balance. It's about balance and in recent years because of a whole load of
03:49circumstances because of our generous offer to Ukrainian families fleeing persecution to
03:58the Afghans that supported us during the military operation there to people from Hong Kong who were
04:03under persecution from the Chinese government and of course because of the ripple effects because
04:09of Covid. The last couple of years we have seen migration levels unprecedented and they are too
04:16high and it's about getting the balance right. I'm the son of a migrant. I know Corby has a good
04:22history as you say of immigration but it's like anything else too little is not good too much is
04:29not good and it's about getting the balance right and at the moment it has been too high and because
04:34of the work that I and Tom have put in we're now getting those figures back down to the most more
04:39natural balance level. Well look I've never been completely won over by opinion polls they've been
04:47wrong in the past and what we see is that people are increasingly making their political judgments
04:54not on long-standing family traditions or tribalism but they're rewarding people who
05:02have worked hard for their local community. I genuinely struggle to think of a parliamentarian
05:07that has worked harder and is more committed to his local community. I have absolutely no doubt
05:13that the final results will reflect that and I'm absolutely confident the people of Corby
05:19and the surrounding areas will recognise that it is in their personal interest to make sure
05:25Tom has returned as an MP because he's just been such a fantastic champion for the town.