Today I joined Simon Hughes, Tessa Jowell and London Assembly Member Val Shawcross in a meeting with the Minister for Policing, Nick Herbert MP to urge him to ensure the number of police in Southwark is protected.

The "Southwark Police 1,000 Campaign" has run since 2002 to campaign to increase the numbers of police in Southwark. When it started there were 775 police officers in Southwark and 176 civilian staff to back them up. Since then the numbers have been steadily increasing and we now have 950 police officers, 148 police community support officers and 156 civilian staff.

There has been close work between Southwark Council and the police and crime has come down, but the situation is fragile. We do not want to take the risk in seeing police numbers come down.