It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond, and a pleasure to talk about policing, which is one of the most important aspects of any Government's function. When we came to power in 2024, we committed to reform policing because at the moment it is not fit for purpose. Our constituents feel rightly that they need a proper response to the epidemic of everyday crime in our communities. The technology police have is creaking at the seams and they cannot work as effectively as they want due to outdated databases. We are bringing in legislation soon to change this structure, establishing local policing areas enabled to drive down crime and a regional structure for sophisticated criminal investigations with manpower, along with a national police service that sets standards for policing. We will make policing more accountable through a new inspection and performance assessment structure. West Midlands Police has received £883 million in funding this year, an increase of £36.9 million on last year. There are 309 more full-time officers in west midlands neighbourhoods than there were before, with our ambition to have 13,000 extra police in our neighbourhoods by the end of this Parliament. We fund serious violence programmes amounting to £5 million for West Midlands Police and provide £2.8 million from the knife crime concentrations fund aimed at tackling the epidemic of knife crime in targeted areas. Additionally, there is £5.4 million from the county lines programme enabling us to join up across forces to understand patterns and stop criminals while safeguarding kids coerced into carrying drugs across county lines.