Sarah Jones MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to our local police and crime commissioners, including Clive Grunshaw, for their work. He is absolutely right to say that there have been challenges. There has been a reduction in the number of years for which police chiefs serve, from about five to about two and a half—so something is happening there. There are also fewer people applying for such jobs as they become available. We want really healthy competition for these roles, which are very significant and important to us. Where there is a large force and only one applicant for the role, something is not working as it should. My hon. Friend is right to ask questions on the wider question of leadership; we could have a whole debate about that. The former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, is conducting a review for us on how we improve leadership from top to bottom across the entire policing system. Our reform agenda is looking at performance across the board within policing, and at the welfare, training and support that have to go alongside it. We ask a lot of our police, and we do not always give them the support that they need. Those two things, hand in hand, will form a major part of our reform programme.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I can absolutely confirm that the focus will be on providing the best possible service to our communities. That means neighbourhood policing and giving the police the powers they need to fight crime, while also holding them to account for everything they do, because their role is incredibly important.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I join the hon. Gentleman in praising Cambridgeshire constabulary for the way it responded in incredibly difficult circumstances. The quick wit of many—including, of course, the people working on the train such as the train driver and others—saved lives, and we are all very grateful for that. The hon. Gentleman makes a point about funding, and the funding allocation will be made in the usual way before the end of the year. I appreciate the points he made, but there is more money going into policing this year and we will ensure that it is given to where it is needed. As I say, the police reform programme is designed to transform how we do policing so that we can become much more effective and productive in the future.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I obviously talk to my colleagues in MHCLG often, but I will leave to them the decisions they make in the areas they are responsible for. I am, however, happy to pass on the hon. Gentleman’s comments.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on police reform. Let me begin by expressing my sadness at the passing of Baroness Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner. She was a champion for victims and made a huge difference, holding Government and agencies to account. I extend my sympathies to her family and friends, and I know that she will be a huge loss to the other place. Last year, the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), informed the House of her intention to bring forward a White Paper on police reform. The White Paper will outline a programme of wide-ranging reforms that will drive quality, consistency and efficiency in policing to ensure that it is set up to deliver for the public. Ahead of publication, we are today announcing the first of those reforms. In order for any institution or organisation to perform to the highest standards, it must be underpinned by strong, effective governance. That is all the more critical when the service in question is integral to the safe functioning of our society, as policing undoubtedly is. Police and crime commissioners have been in place since November 2012. The model was created to increase accountability and build a greater connection between policing and local communities by having a single public official, directly elected by the public, responsible for holding their chief constable to account, setting the local police budget and agreeing strategic priorities for their force through their local police and crime plan. However, while the role of PCCs has evolved over time to include responsibility for commissioning services for victims, driving local partnerships and—in some areas—responsibility for fire governance, the model has failed to live up to expectations. It has not delivered what it was set up to achieve. Public understanding of, and engagement with, our police and crime commissioners remains low despite efforts to raise their profile; less than a quarter of voters turned out to vote for them in the 2024 elections, and two in five people are unaware that PCCs even exist. Home Office research conducted during the PCC review in 2020 found that 68% of the public in mayoral areas claimed that they could name their mayor, compared with only 16% of people in PCC areas claiming that they could name their PCC. On an individual level, PCCs up and down the country have sought to provide strong oversight and drive crime prevention activity locally. I place on record my thanks to the individuals and staff in all the offices of police and crime commissioners and at the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners who have done, and will continue to do, their best to improve policing for their local communities. However, the reality is that the PCC model has weakened local police accountability and has had perverse impacts on the recruitment of chief constables. It has failed to inspire confidence in local people, in stark contrast to the mayoral model, which clearly has ultimately been more successful. The Theresa May model has not worked. The Government announced in our English devolution White Paper that we will transfer policing functions to elected mayors in England by default wherever geographies allow. Five mayors now hold policing functions, in Greater Manchester, Greater London and across Yorkshire. In those areas, we have seen the benefits of the mayoral model, including greater collaboration, visible leadership and local innovation. We are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to create as many strategic authority mayors with policing functions as possible in this Parliament. However, due to the nature of how public services are organised across different areas, the process of establishing mayors across England is a complex one. I can therefore announce today that we will abolish police and crime commissioners at the end of their current term in 2028 and transfer functions to mayors wherever possible. In areas where plans do not yet allow for a transfer of policing to a mayor this Parliament, we will establish new policing and crime boards to bring council leaders together to oversee the police force in their area until such time as mayors are in place in England. Those boards will replicate the benefits of a mayoralty before the formal transfer can be realised, with in-built, local collaboration, public accountability and a greater ability to join up budgets and local services. They will comprise local authority upper-tier leaders, co-opted members with appropriate skills and experience, and—if they are in the force area—mayors. Preventing crime is everyone’s business, and giving local leaders these responsibilities will help create thriving town centres, help businesses to succeed and help people to walk without fear in their communities. We are absolutely clear that these boards will not be a return to the bureaucratic and invisible committee-based oversight of policing that existed before the establishment of PCCs. We will ensure that council leaders are empowered to exercise police governance functions. Boards will be supported by a policing and crime lead, akin to a deputy mayor for policing and crime, to carry out day-to-day activities on their behalf. This will mean that every area will have a visible, nominated lead who will be dedicated to the oversight of policing in their area. Over the coming months, we will work with local government and policing to design new structures that will provide effective oversight of policing. As part of these reforms, we will also work with those in local government and policing to drive down the support costs of policing governance. We will no longer run separate policing elections, and we will also abolish police and crime panels, the current structure that performs scrutiny functions for PCCs. We estimate that at least £100 million will be saved this Parliament by moving to these new arrangements. Once delivered, these changes are expected to achieve savings to the Home Office of around £20 million a year, enough to fund around 320 extra police constables. Further detail will be set out in the forthcoming White Paper, and we will bring forward the necessary legislation as part of our broader police reform proposals as soon as parliamentary time allows. There are no plans to create mayors in Wales. We wish to harmonise arrangements across England and Wales as far as possible, and we will therefore work with the Welsh Government to ensure new arrangements to replace PCCs provide strong and effective police governance for Wales, recognising the unique nature of Welsh arrangements. I also clarify that these reforms will not affect governance arrangements for the City of London police, which is governed by the City corporation. Before I conclude, I stress that the decision we are announcing today is based on the shortcomings of the PCC model, not the PCCs themselves. PCCs have done and continue to do important work, and I will engage constructively with all of them until the end of their terms. I specifically thank the chairs of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners past and present for their endeavours: Nick Alston, the late Sir Tony Lloyd, Mark Burns-Williamson, Katy Bourne, Paddy Tipping, Marc Jones, Donna Jones, and the current chair Emily Spurrell. We recognise that this is a significant change, especially for the policing and local government sectors, but it is necessary. As a Government, we have a responsibility to do what is right for our communities. If there are steps we can take to improve outcomes for law-abiding citizens, we must act, because in the end, whatever police reform measures we pursue, our primary motivation is, and will always be, to keep the public safe. I commend this statement to the House.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I think that the accountability that comes with the leaders of our councils, who are of course elected, will be powerful, but I am happy to work with the hon. Lady to ensure that she gets what she wants to see locally. I think that the provision of local authority leaders coming together will be powerful. On her wider points about misogyny, behaviours in policing and AI, we are working on reform through our White Paper to tackle some of those significant challenges. On AI, we will shortly be bringing forward consultation on providing a framework within which it is used.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to raise the funding formula. As I said, the allocations will be set in the usual way this year. The White Paper on police reform will introduce some significant changes to how we do policing, making it much more efficient, productive and targeted at the crimes we want our police to be focused on. We will have more on that in due course.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point that a lot of his constituents care very deeply about, and he is right to bring it to this place. The savings we will make from the programme will fund up to 320 police constables, or 430 PCSOs, showing the value for money that they bring. We will ensure that the savings go into policing. The particular crime he talks about is pernicious. and we are talking with police chiefs to ensure we can tackle it. I am very happy to have more conversations with him.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I think the PCSO model is extraordinarily successful, not just because the model is slightly cheaper and therefore we get more bang for our buck, but because they do an incredibly important role. They do not have the same powers as police officers, but they have the ability to go in and build relationships with their community to reduce tensions, and in building those relationships, they can predict, see, understand and give everybody else the intelligence we need about the crime happening in our local communities. I think they are really powerful, and one of the awfully sad things that happened under the last Government is that that model was completely decimated. I want to see more PCSOs on our streets because, as I say, they play a fantastic role.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I am very sorry to hear about the incidents of crime that the hon. Lady mentioned, and I am very happy to talk more to her about that. Rural crime is incredibly important, and we are working hard on the rural crime strategy. I join her in praising Clare Moody for the work she has done, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for recognising that the work of our police and crime commissioners has in many ways been excellent.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  To correct the right hon. Gentleman, there are five deputy mayors within the mayoral system that we have already—not just in London, but in Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, and York and North Yorkshire. That model is working really well. I suggest that he talk to someone like Tracy Brabin, who is bringing together all the different agencies under her model, and the system works very well. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has done an excellent job in working with police forces across the capital to keep us safe. I also pay tribute to Kent’s police and crime commissioner, Matthew Scott. The right hon. Gentleman asks what the arrangements will be where there is not a mayor. The higher-tier authority leaders will provide the board, and there will be a paid person who is the police and crime lead. In some cases, it may be that they are the police and crime commissioner if local authorities make that decision, but it will be for local authorities and leaders on the board to make the decision. That is how the funding model will work where there are not mayors.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  That is of course the aim of this Government: we want to put policing in our communities, where people expect it to be, and make sure that the police are not, as they currently are, spending hours and hours of their day on bureaucratic, very outdated, very unproductive tasks. Indeed, in many cases police officers are actually doing the job of police staff, which is ludicrous. We need to work with our police chiefs to change that, ensuring that our police officers are doing the roles that we need officers to be doing, while the very important crime fighters of our police staff are doing what they need to be doing. That is not currently the case, but we are working hard to make sure that it will be.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  As was the hon. Lady. I just wanted to be clear about that.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that thoughtful question, and I join him in paying tribute to Matt Storey. I met him, and a group of young people he brought to see me, who were also incredibly thoughtful, and he is doing some excellent work. He points to the challenges of transitioning all these services. We are already learning lessons because, where the mayoral model is coming in, we are already transitioning from the police and crime commissioner model to the deputy mayor model, and we are learning as we go. There are statutory responsibilities for commissioning, such as victim services, and he mentioned sexual abuse and serious and domestic violence services as well. We will ensure that those statutory functions are maintained, and we are already talking to local authorities, our PCCs and other Departments to ensure we get that exactly right. I welcome any thoughts from hon. Members on that.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I repeat what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy): it is incredibly important that chiefs have a good relationship with their local Member of Parliament. It is a two-way street; Members of Parliament bring a huge amount of insight, from all their conversations with constituents, about what is important to their local community and what its fears are, and about where crime is occurring. It is very important that police chiefs have that relationship with them, so that we can help each other to deliver better services.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I repeat that I am not here today to criticise the PCCs; I think that they have done a really good job. It is the role and the elected function that is not working. The hon. Member is right to ask about accountability. It is incredibly important we have the right accountability for our police, who have very significant powers and do an incredibly important job keeping people safe. Our expectation is that in the mayoral model, accountability will lie with the mayor; in the board model, the leaders of the council will provide the accountability. We are also looking at how accountability is delivered at national level—this will be in a White Paper that will come out—so that we know exactly what our police are doing and how they are doing it, and so that the inspection regime is beefed up.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  Just to be clear, the arrangements we are announcing today are not changing the 43 models at all. We will bring forward reform, which hopefully the hon. Gentleman will support, and he will have the time to consider it when it comes forward.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I join my hon. Friend in his praise for Roger Hirst, and indeed all other PCCs, who have done some really good work. This Government are prioritising neighbourhood policing. We are putting thousands more neighbourhood police officers into our communities. That is what the public want, and it is what we were elected to do. This money will help us do it.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I am not sure whether or not the shadow Home Secretary is in favour of this announcement—it is not entirely clear. Perhaps he can come back when he has made up his mind. The right hon. Gentleman asked several questions that I am happy to reply to. He asked when the White Paper on police reform will come out. It will be this year, I can assure him. We have been working with local police chiefs, police and crime commissioners and the staff associations on what the reform will look like, and we are making the final changes to our reform agenda. As a former Home Office Minister, he will know that we need to make many improvements in respect of performance, accountability, technology, and the structure wherein we have 86 decision makers across the country who, basically, ensure that there are huge inefficiencies in the system while performance and productivity do not rise as fast as they should. Again, I assure him that there will be a significant White Paper that we bring out before the end of the year. We made the announcement about police and crime commissioners today so that we can continue to work in good faith with the commissioners as we finalise our reform programme. It was right to tell them as soon as we could. I spoke to them at some length this morning, and will speak to them again, not least at their conference next week. The shadow Home Secretary talks about crime rates. I do not have to remind the House of his and the former Government’s record in office. They cut 20,000 police and recruited 20,000 police, so we now have a police workforce that is very new, large numbers of whom have been in post for only a couple of years. Despite the recruitment done at the end of the Conservatives’ period in government, prosecution rates did not improve. The system is so unproductive, so inefficient and so badly managed that we need to make huge reforms. We have been making progress since we came to power—for example, just a couple of weeks ago, we announced an 18% fall in knife murders, 60,000 knives have been taken off the street, and knife crime has fallen by 5%. We are surging neighbourhood policing capacity, which was decimated under the previous Government, and we will have 3,000 extra police in our neighbourhoods by next April. The shadow Home Secretary asked about the evidence of mayoral success. I encourage him to talk to the mayors and deputy mayors responsible for police and crime. The ability of a mayoral system, with all the public services beneath it working together more collaboratively and more effectively, is clear to see, so I suggest he has a look for himself. The right hon. Gentleman asked whether powers will be transferred to the new models. They were. The new model will not be a faceless committee of local bureaucrats. Its members will be the leaders of the councils and a senior police and crime lead, who will drive the day-to-day work. Accountability will remain, as will the statutory responsibilities. This is an opportunity for us to work across local government and with other partners to make sure that we drive the best possible system. A saving of £100 million is, I think, quite substantial, not “tinkering around the edges” as the shadow Home Secretary suggests. If he waits a few more weeks, he will see the reform agenda that the Home Secretary is designing in its totality. It will put policing on a much better footing than he left it.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  In 2017, new powers were introduced to enable police and crime commissioners to have a fire-related role. We have the Minister responsible for fire, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), on the Front Bench right now. The transition to the new structures will relate to fire as well as policing; the role will move to the new police boards.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and talk about the services that she needs in her local community. We will of course ensure that the money we save is directed to frontline policing, because that is where it needs to be. I join her in praising her local police force for everything it does.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I am always happy to meet and talk about these issues. The transition will happen in 2027, and we need to ensure that we learn from previous transitions and that we do not drop any balls with regard to the services we are providing to local people.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  London is different in many ways due to its size and scale, and policing is therefore structured differently. I expect all local leaders to meet their Members of Parliament regularly, because that is how we can hold them to account and work together. Members of Parliament attend surgeries, have public meetings and talk to our communities, so we understand a lot of the issues that police chiefs face, and it is helpful for them to have those conversations and to learn from one another. I encourage all our police chiefs to make sure that they have good relationships with their local Members of Parliament, because those relationships make up a very important part of our structures.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend and join her in paying tribute to the Dorset PCC. There are PCCs who have worked really well across the party political divide, and we should pay tribute to them for their work and for how professional they have been. She raises a point about the police funding formula, which I know many Members are concerned about. As I said, the funding formula allocations will be announced before the end of the year, and we will also be announcing a major programme of reform.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Knife Crime · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I echo the comments that Members made about David Amess; we are all remembering him today. He was very kind to me, and he was a very good man, and we miss him very much in this place. It has been a really good debate, and I thank Members for their contributions. I will pick out three that were particularly powerful. My hon. Friend the Member for Swindon North (Will Stone) brought his personal experience and history to the debate, which was very powerful. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) talked about working-class boys being written off, and whole communities not being given the intervention and support they need. The hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) talked about families and the need for our young people to understand what it is to be a man; that is so important and powerful, and I was pleased to hear it. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing the debate. There is much that I agree with him on. He made the point that if we cannot reduce knife crime and save lives, what are we doing in this place? I 100% agree. As the new Minister for Policing and Crime, tackling knife crime is an absolute priority for me. Last week I met Pooja Kanda, the mother of Ronan Kanda, who in 2022 was fatally stabbed with a ninja sword. He had no involvement of any kind in crime. He was stabbed and ran to try to get home but collapsed a few doors away from his house. His mother has been campaigning ever since. She asked the Prime Minister to change the law on knife crime to stop a situation like this happening again. The Prime Minister listened to Pooja, and we are changing the law, because this Government believe in action, not words. We are introducing tougher rules for online retailers selling knives, with a penalty of two years’ imprisonment if they sell to a minor, and we are changing the age verification system, which is incredibly important, so that under-18s cannot get access to a knife. It is our great mission in this Government to halve knife crime, and we will use action, not just words. Since taking office, we have reversed the trend on knife crime, and we will continue to work to do so. Where overall knife crime was rising, it is now falling. There has been clear, measurable progress: knife-enabled homicides fell by 23% in the year ending March 2025; hospital admissions for sharp object assaults dropped by 10% and are now 26% lower than pre-pandemic levels; and police-recorded knife-enabled assault dropped by 4% in the year ending March 2025. Knife crime affects the whole country, but if we look at the statistics, we see that knife crime is most acute in certain areas, and that is where we are putting our resources. In the top seven police force areas, we have established a taskforce to attack knife-enabled robbery in particular. We have released new statistics today which show that those seven police force areas have turned a 14% increase in offence levels at the outset of the taskforce into a 10% reduction, which is an incredible achievement. In London, which has been much discussed today, violent crime leading to injury has fallen in all 23 boroughs. We can all produce statistics—the hon. Member for East Wiltshire is right that there are statistics that show progress, and there are statistics that do not. I gently ask that we all interrogate those statistics. I want to highlight one particular statistic: although it is correct that the number of stop and searches has fallen in London, the number of stop and searches for offensive weapons has increased. There has been a 27% increase in the number of searches for offensive weapons, as opposed to other stop and searches, which tend to be drug-related. We need to investigate statistics and use them wisely, to make sure we are reaching the right conclusions. I want to highlight a couple of policies that we are introducing that I have been particularly impacted by. I have had the honour in the last four weeks of being Policing Minister of attending two police raids where we arrested some nasty criminals. I am very proud of our police for what they did. The first involved a huge gang network in London that was taking stolen phones and selling them to China and Hong Kong. This huge operation undertaken by the Met has taken out a gang that is responsible for up to half of all the phone thefts in London, which is quite extraordinary. The second involved county lines, which the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) talked about. We took off the streets a nasty, violent criminal who has been running a county line. We are investing significantly in police resources for county lines because the connection between knife crime and drugs is clear. In the areas where we have invested and supported the police in tackling county lines, there has been a 23% reduction in stabbings. Focused policing works, and it is absolutely the right way to go. We are also changing the law to help the police to tackle county lines. We have three new offences: child criminal exploitation, cuckooing, and plugging, which is—I do not really like to speak of it—when people are forced to put drugs inside themselves to hide them from the police. It is increasingly used with children and we need to stop that. There is some evidence of our intervention in county lines having an effect: the age of those exploited is rising because the criminals have realised that we will come for them if they exploit children. That is a good thing, but the criminals will try to find other vulnerable people to exploit, so we need to keep on top of that. I am aware of the time, but there was a lot of talk about sentencing. I agree that we need to make sure that sentencing acts as a deterrent and that it needs to be swift, clear and consistent. We inherited a situation where around 1,000 young people a year caught in possession of a knife received no meaningful intervention. That cannot be right. We are changing that rule and introducing sentences around knife crime that will ensure that people are given the right punishment. We are not abolishing short sentences—I need to be really clear about that. Judges will always have that power. I am paying close attention to a new policy in Thames Valley, where if a person under 18 is caught in possession of a knife, they are referred to a youth offending team for interventions, and over-18s are remanded straight away, before they are charged. There is evidence that that is starting to have an effect. We need to watch that and make sure that we are following the evidence in terms of sentencing, but it is a reasonable point to make. I am aware that I need to give the hon. Member for Ashfield time to respond. There are many more things I could say. I have not responded to his points on migration, but I can talk to him afterwards. I have some things to say, but I know that he needs a couple of minutes to respond. I would like to finish by saying that this Government’s mantra is “Action, not words”. I absolutely support the police in what they are trying to do. I will ensure that we reduce knife crime. It is the mission of this Government to do so.