Labour MP Chris McDonald has welcomed an additional £2 million of government funding for Cleveland Police, saying the extra resources will help officers take the fight to serious and organised crime across Teesside.
The Stockton North MP highlighted the investment as an important boost for a force dealing with significant pressures from organised criminal networks, drug trafficking and other serious offences.
Announcing the funding on social media, McDonald said:
“Cleveland Police need the resources to take the fight to serious and organised crime and that support is now coming.
“The Government has announced an additional £2 million for Cleveland Police to tackle serious crime and its causes.”
The announcement comes as Cleveland Police continues a series of operations targeting organised crime across the area. Earlier this month, the force secured a 12-year prison sentence for a man who ran a cocaine supply network estimated to have distributed 13.7kg of the drug, with a street value of more than £1 million.
Extra backing for frontline policing
Cleveland Police serves communities across Stockton-on-Tees, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Redcar and Cleveland.
The force’s overall central government funding allocation for 2026-27 is around £129.7 million, according to the Government’s police grant settlement.
The additional £2 million highlighted by McDonald is specifically aimed at strengthening the response to serious crime and addressing some of the underlying factors that allow organised criminal activity to become established in communities.
McDonald said the investment would give Cleveland Police more of the resources it needs to protect residents and pursue those responsible for serious offending.
Tackling organised crime across Teesside
The scale of the challenge has been demonstrated by recent police operations.
Cleveland Police has repeatedly targeted organised drug networks, using specialist teams to seize drugs, recover criminal assets and bring those running supply operations before the courts.
In one recent case, detectives identified a major cocaine network after an investigation beginning in February. Officers subsequently recovered cocaine and £20,000 in cash, while investigators found the individual at the centre of the operation had received more than £1.8 million in third-party payments over six years.
The force has also used proceeds-of-crime legislation to strip offenders of money and assets, including hundreds of thousands of pounds held in bank accounts and high-value goods linked to criminal activity.
Labour investing in safer communities
For McDonald, the latest funding represents practical support from the Labour Government for communities that want to see tougher action against serious crime alongside investment in prevention.
The approach combines enforcement against organised criminal networks with measures intended to tackle the conditions that allow crime to take root.
McDonald’s message is that communities across Stockton and Teesside deserve properly resourced policing — and that the additional £2 million gives Cleveland Police further backing to pursue organised criminals, protect neighbourhoods and make local communities safer.
