The father of a murdered teenager has been left unconvinced by any of the promises to tackle knife crime in Slough from people standing to be the town’s next MP.

Umar Ansari asked the candidates for their plans to tackle knife crime in Slough at a hustings debate on Tuesday, June 18. His son Abdul Aziz Ansari was stabbed to death at the age of 18 in Langley in May 2022.

Mr Ansari told the candidates: “Our children are losing their lives on the streets of Slough.”

Slough’s most recent MP, Labour candidate Tan Dhesi, said his party’s pledge for 13,000 more police community support officers and neighbourhood police officers’ would ‘get to grips with what’s happening on our streets'.

READ MORE: Slough general election candidates vie for your vote at debate

He said: “Those neighbourhood policing officers are the eyes and ears but they also provide links because neighbourhood policing officers are like the glue between the wider police force and the communities that they serve.”

Independent Network candidate Azhar Chohan said Slough needed more services for young people. He said: “We need to make sure our youth have somewhere to go – after school clubs, and we have one of the largest trading estates on our doorstep.”

He accused Labour and the Conservatives of cutting funds for those services, and said the two parties ‘have run this town into the ground'.

But Mr Dhesi pinned the blame on the Conservatives’ government, and Thames Valley’s police and crime commissioner Matthew Barber who he said ‘has been helping mete out to these huge cuts to our police force here in Slough'.

He said: “Slough has been overlooked while many of the leafier suburbs have not been.”

Liberal Democrat candidate Chelsea Whyte went further said her party wanted to get rid of police and crime commissioners. She said: “It’s a bureaucratic office that takes money away from the actual service of the police.

“Unfortunately the Thames Valley police and crime commissioner has made budget cuts and put further strain on our police forcing them to work harder with less resources and it’s just meaning that less crimes are getting solved in the Thames Valley area.”

She said the Liberal Democrats also wanted ‘more bobbies on the beat'.

Conservative candidate Moni Nanda defended Mr Barber. She said: “I met him about a week ago and I can tell you that this man cares about these things.” She added: “A lot of crime has come down in this area – there is still a lot to do.”

She said there should also be a focus on what is ‘influencing’ young people to become involved in crime.

Independent candidate Diana Coad said she wanted ‘real police out of their cars, out of the police station'.

But Mr Ansari said all the candidates had only offered abstract promises. He said: “Your responses as a collective have just cemented, reinforced what I already knew. There’s nothing new you’ve told me at all.

“You can’t be making promises and pledges and speaking in abstract generalities.”