The future of our local police service, not to mention that of the capital, has very much been in the headlines recently.

Despite the initial trials in other parts of London revealing a number of serious problems, Sadiq Khan is wrongly driving through changes that will see the current 32 borough commands merged into 12 large units. This will cover two, three, or as in our case as many as four boroughs. The proposed changes will see Kingston, Merton and Richmond being combined with Wandsworth and run as a single Basic Command Unit.

These changes come on top of changes to the police estate, with many police stations and counters closing - a process that first started when Boris Johnson was Mayor of London.

However, while these changes are significant the real big picture issue is that of crime levels.

Sadly a whole range of crimes are seeing an upward trend in London, including a range of violent offences.

The most startling figure, certainly for the capital, must be the steep growth in fatal stabbings. Last year 86 people in London were fatally stabbed. In 2016 the figure was 61 people, in 2015 it was 60 people, and going back to 2014 it was 55 people.

Now crime figures do vary across London and for many years Richmond has been a 'relatively' low crime area.

However, there are no grounds for complacency.

Just look at the Richmond and Twickenham Times website and you will see a report on a recent police warning about distraction thieves operating in Teddington High Street. A spate of burglaries has also been taking place in the area.

Recently figures were also published showing the level of crimes (often violent) by people using stolen motorbikes. Richmond was revealed to be the 10th highest borough in London for this type of crime - put another way 22 London Boroughs have lower levels of this specific crime. I am also picking up on a growing number of financial scams occurring across my constituency.

And anyone involved in examining crime figures will tell you there are a lot of crimes that even now go unreported, especially domestic violence and sexual assaults.

For many years Richmond borough has had resources devoted to it which broadly mirrored its supposed level of crime. However, with crime rising in the borough, as well as elsewhere, big questions now have to be asked as to whether adequate resources are being devoted to our police service.

I don't think we can expect much more from individual police officers operating in our borough - they are doing a great job. However, if we want better response times, more crimes to be fully investigated, effective crime prevention work and a visible police presence in our communities, then something has to change very soon.

Vince Cable MP