Shabana Mahmood MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  The combination of what we already have on the statute book in the National Security Act and this Bill means that all aspects of that activity will be covered. It obviously depends on how the activity presents. The Bill closes the loophole where a designated body is responsible. Where proxy groups are responsible, they will be caught by the measures in the Bill, and that activity will be liable to both prosecution and conviction. Jonathan Hall KC examined whether tools available in our current terrorism legislation might be emulated or adapted to address state threats. He determined that we could not use the existing terror legislation to proscribe a state entity. He memorably described that as “shopping in the wrong department.” He said: “For the Secretary of State to have or purport to have power to prohibit the existence of foreign State entities would be well beyond what Parliament could have intended” when it passed the Terrorism Act. He went on to conclude that applying the power to a state entity would “appear to overstep the boundaries of the principle of non-intervention at international law.” Instead, he proposed a new regime: a power equivalent to proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000, but specifically designed to tackle state and state-linked organisations. Through this legislation, we seek to bring that new power into law. I will now take the House through the Bill in some detail. Clause 1 introduces a power for the Home Secretary to designate a body. It will insert new section 33A into the National Security Act 2023. Such a designation will be possible if the Home Secretary believes that a body is, or has been, involved in foreign power threat activity and that designation is necessary to protect the safety or interests of the United Kingdom. The definition of a body is purposefully wide; it cannot be targeted at individuals, but it can be targeted at a wide range of organisations, including foreign intelligence services, mercenary groups, front companies and criminal networks. The power to designate is of critical importance.

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. The first responsibility of a state is to protect its citizens. The security of our nation is the basis upon which our democracy, our prosperity and our way of life depend. If a state cannot guarantee the safety of its people, every other promise it makes rings hollow. Today we debate a relatively short Bill, but its brevity should not be mistaken for unimportance; it is essential to meeting the sacred responsibility of protecting this country and our fellow citizens. This Bill comes at a time when the need is great. We live in an increasingly dangerous world—one in which many of our old assumptions no longer hold. The boundaries between war and peace have blurred; the tactics employed by hostile actors have become more sophisticated, more deniable and more insidious; and the threat has grown in scale. The director general of MI5 recently revealed that the number of individuals under investigation for state threat activity had grown by more than a third in the space of a year. After many years in which the Security Service was focused overwhelmingly on counter-terror work, it must now also respond to threats from foreign powers that are greater in number than at any time in a generation. The nature of the threats posed by foreign powers will be known by many in this House. We have seen physical threats against individuals and property; we have witnessed attempts to interfere in and influence our democracy; and we have experienced cyber-attacks targeting both the state and the private sector that disrupt critical infrastructure and compromise sensitive data. The source of these state threats has come predominantly, although not exclusively, from three countries: Russia, China and Iran. I should emphasise that the threats from each present differently, both in scope and nature, and I will take each in turn. The Russian state, as we know all too well, is responsible for deaths on British soil. What began with the murder of Alexander Litvinenko was repeated in Salisbury with the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal. The Russian state’s wanton disregard for human life was evident in the risks it was happy to pose to British citizens, which led, tragically, to the death of Dawn Sturgess—an innocent British woman killed by the Russian state. Putin’s Russia has also sought to influence our politics, as demonstrated by the guilty plea by Nathan Gill, Reform UK’s former leader in Wales, who accepted bribes for peddling pro-Kremlin narratives. Russia is also a prolific and malevolent force in cyber-space. A recent targeting of politicians, journalists, universities and civil society organisations was disrupted by our security services in December 2025, resulting in the sanctioning of eight Russian cyber-intelligence officers. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, our approach to China is nuanced: we will co-operate where we can and challenge where we must. There are areas on which we will engage with China, including the economy, the environment and, indeed, on certain shared security challenges. Choosing not to engage with China is no choice at all. However, national security is the first duty of Government, and China does pose real national security threats to the United Kingdom. We have seen cyber-attacks, foreign interference, and espionage targeted at our institutions. Just days ago, MI5 and fellow Five Eyes members issued an alert warning of the threat posed by China’s military intelligence services. The Hong Kong police force has also encouraged transnational repression on our soil against a community to whom we are proud to have given sanctuary.

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  Let me first associate myself with the right hon. Gentleman’s tribute to the excellent work and service of all those in our United Kingdom intelligence community, wherever they serve, and indeed all those who serve and put their lives at risk in order to keep the rest of us safe. I also pay tribute to the tremendous work done by the Intelligence and Security Committee—one of Parliament’s most august Committees—to provide vital scrutiny of our legal frameworks in this important area. I must say to the right hon. Gentleman that, personally, as someone who signs warrants every day that are subject to both Secretary of State decision and judicial decision, I think that we have a legal framework that is sufficiently robust to provide oversight, without getting into the operational choices that must be made. Of course, these matters are always kept under review, and I take that review process seriously. If there are proposals that he wishes to make, I would be happy to discuss them with him.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Illegal High Street Trading · Hansard source

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  It is always a pleasure to appear before the Home Affairs Committee, and I thank the right hon. Member and her Committee for their work on this important area. She will know that the money we announced recently will fund work by trading standards, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and immigration enforcement. If we pick up cases of forced labour, that will engage our modern slavery obligations. That money is part of a full-spectrum response to a complex issue. I saw some of the counterfeit goods when I joined the police on a raid at the end of last week. It is a real problem, and the Government are ensuring that we fund every aspect of how we fix it.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Murder of Henry Nowak · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend speaks powerfully from deep personal and professional experience, and I pay tribute to him. As a constituency Member of Parliament, I have had many concerns about the length of time it sometimes takes the IOPC to report—concerns that I have raised with the IOPC directly since I have been Home Secretary. However, given that the investigation started in December, the criminal investigation and case in relation to the murderer have only just concluded, and the IOPC has said that it expects to report within three months, I believe that this investigation is proceeding at the pace that the House would expect. I am sure that the IOPC is reflecting on the tenor of today’s debate, and will understand the need for urgency and to make sure that the family have answers as quickly as is humanly possible.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Murder of Henry Nowak · Hansard source

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  First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her powerful contribution as Henry’s Member of Parliament, and I give her the assurance that she seeks in relation to the IOPC investigation. That investigation is continuing at pace, and I know that the family are being engaged with. If there are any concerns about the process, I invite her to let me know immediately. I will personally ensure that any concerns are dealt with, so that the family can have confidence in the IOPC process. This Government have acknowledged the epidemic of knife crime in our country and our imperative to act on it. That is why we have our landmark commitment to halve knife crime over a decade and have launched the knife crime action plan, which is a resourced package of measures designed to deal with the scourge of knife crime. I give my hon. Friend reassurance, exactly as I said in my statement, that we will leave no stone unturned in dealing with knife crime. We do so in the name of all victims of knife crime, including Henry. Their loss must not be in vain, and we must learn the lessons that will prevent these tragedies from occurring in the future.

• 13 Apr 2026 · Southport Inquiry · Hansard source

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  The Liberal Democrat spokeswoman is absolutely right; the sheer number of missed opportunities in this case is truly horrifying. That is why we must do everything we can to reform all these systems in our public services to make sure that no such incident can happen again. There will be a comprehensive response from the Government on all of the inquiry’s phase 1 recommendations. I intend for that to come before the summer so the House will have an opportunity to debate it. As we move to delivery of the Government’s response to the recommendations, I will keep the House updated on our progress, including on where potential future legislation might be needed. In the Crime and Policing Bill, which is continuing its passage through Parliament, we have introduced new age verification checks both at the point of sale and at the point of delivery of knives. That is a way of directly responding to some of the issues we have seen in this case, whereby the perpetrator was able to slip through the system. That should not be possible in the future once the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament and is implemented. Let me turn to the question of the threat posed by those who are fixated by violence but do not necessarily have an ideology, by those who have a mixed ideology, or by those who flit between having an ideology and not having one; there is a developing, complex picture of the sorts of threats that we face. We have made it very clear that those who have no fixed ideology but are vulnerable to terrorism are still, and should be, referred to the Prevent programme. That remains the lead programme for dealing with the risk posed by those individuals. The inquiry recognises that there is a gap through which those who do not have a fixed ideology and are not vulnerable to terrorism might slip. Phase 2 of the inquiry will consider how best to respond to those sorts of cases, and will make recommendations on who should take the lead on dealing with those individuals, but I want to assure the hon. Lady and all Members of the House that the Government are not simply waiting for phase 2 to report. We are already trialling with a number of local authorities a new approach for those who are below the threshold for Prevent, but who present a risk that we are concerned about and who we believe might pose a risk of harm to others. We are thinking about different ways in which agencies might handle that risk in order to make sure those individuals do not slip through the net. As we learn lessons from those pilots, we will seek to start implementing them, while we wait, of course, for Sir Adrian Fulford and the inquiry team to come forward with fuller recommendations in this area in future.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Protest Policing · Hansard source

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  I thank the shadow Home Secretary for his comments and his questions. He began by talking about some of the unacceptable acts of violence and incitement to violence that have taken place at various marches, not just marches relating to al-Quds Day. It is not unusual for multiple arrests to be made at all the different types of protest marches that take place. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will join me in supporting the police as they ensure that the full force of the law is applied at all times and in all circumstances. I have, of course, recognised that there are some complexities in the legal framework and an inconsistency of application. I have asked Ken Macdonald to carry out a review to ensure that there is much more consistency of practice across the UK, and that there is clarity for the police about what they can and cannot do when it comes to some of the things that are said when protests take place. I hope that we can continue to work together across the House on those matters. The right hon. Gentleman asked a specific question in relation to Prevent. I do of course keep under review the way in which the Prevent programme is functioning. A large number of recommendations have been made over many years, with many reports on the functioning of Prevent. It is important that Prevent referrals are made in line with the statutory requirements and the guidance, and that they are picking up those whom we want to take away from a mindset and an ideology that could ultimately result in harm. I do not think it appropriate for us to set percentage requirements for what should happen in terms of referrals, but it is important that the right referrals are made. We always work with partners who deliver the Prevent programme, and with local authorities and others, to ensure that that is done properly. On the Islamic Human Rights Commission, the trust that is responsible for that charity is currently subject to a statutory inquiry by the Charity Commission, and it is important that that work is allowed to continue. Once the Charity Commission has reached a determination, I am sure that it will be discussed in the House. On the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the right hon. Gentleman will know—we have had this discussion many times at the Dispatch Box, and the answers are not all that different from when the positions of our parties were reversed—that we do not comment on matters relating to proscription, but this Government have accepted the recommendations made by Jonathan Hall KC. We will take forward that work at the earliest available opportunity. In relation to those who are publicly mourning the death of Khamenei, the deceased supreme leader of Iran, this is where free speech butts up against what most of us would consider to be appropriate conduct. I do not mourn the passing of Ayatollah Khamenei, but it is for others to decide what they do and do not support. I am absolutely clear that, whatever methods people use to express their political views, they must do so in line with the law of this land. That law should always be enforced without fear or favour, and I will always support the police in ensuring that that is the case. The right hon. Gentleman asks about how we work as a society, and I think his questions are about citizens’ responsibilities in this country. I do not think it is for a Government to dictate to their citizens what political views they are allowed to hold or how they should express themselves or their identity, regardless of whether that is religious, ethnic or something else. It is the job of Government to ensure that we have a set of rules and values that are equally applied—our respect for democracy and the rule of law, and all the norms by which our society operates. That means that we accept free speech and people’s ability to have views that might be offensive. Many of us might disagree with those views, but people are still allowed to express them. I would not want to see these very troubling events lead to a clampdown on the freedoms that are so precious to us. There is always a judgment to be made and a balance to be struck, and it is important that the Government always try to strike that balance in the right way. On the right hon. Gentleman’s final point, this Government have already taken action, and I will always use my full powers under the law to ensure that those who would cause harm in our country with their extremist views are not allowed to enter our country. I will not hesitate to use my powers under the immigration legislation to exclude from this country people who have no right to be here.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Asylum Seekers: Hotels · Hansard source

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  Asylum hotels were a legacy of the last Conservative Government—at their peak, there were 400 open across the country, as asylum case working had ground to a halt. We have already restarted decision making, increased returns and opened new military sites. We are now closing asylum hotels, and by the end of this Parliament, we will have shut every single one.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Asylum Seekers: Hotels · Hansard source

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  There are no easy options having inherited a broken asylum system and in which there are asylum hotels, which were opened by the Conservative party, in operation across the whole of the country. We believe that large military sites are a better way of reducing the burden felt by communities across the country, including in Scotland. I reassure my hon. Friend that, by the end of this Parliament, we will get out of every single asylum hotel, including in his constituency.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  Dealing with everyday crime and antisocial behaviour is the reason for the reforms. The new regional forces will undertake specialist investigations, ensuring that we have the same standards of service all over the country. Within them, from local police areas, right down to policing at the neighbourhood level, we will ensure we can deal with exactly the types of crime that my hon. Friend raised, which we know are rising in number. It is critical that we deal with them, and that is the absolute bedrock of our neighbourhood policing pledge, where we are ensuring that every neighbourhood in every community is policed properly, effectively, and in a way that reassures the public.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  I reassure my hon. Friend that we have already made changes on vetting, learning lessons from some of the cases where things have gone wrong. It is our expectation that the police will provide a very high standard of service, and we will invest in staff to ensure that they deliver the standards expected by all our communities, building public trust not costing public confidence in policing. It is absolutely the intention of the reforms to ensure that we have a police service that we can all be proud of.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  One of the real issues with the Police Scotland reforms was that they were completed within one year. I have made a deliberate decision to phase in these proposals and measures over a number of years—towards the end of this Parliament and into the next. I make no apology for that proposed timeline, because I believe we must go carefully; these are big changes, and it is important that they are rolled out effectively and in a way that maintains the confidence of the public, as well as all those who work in our police services. I think we have already learned the lessons of what has happened in Scotland. Of course, the other big difference between the measures I have introduced today and what happened with Police Scotland is that we have focused from the outset on neighbourhood policing. That has been the absolute bedrock of all the proposals I have made, which is not quite the same as what happened over in Scotland, although specialist capabilities and specialist investigations have certainly improved. Turning to desk jobs, the most important thing is that we have warranted police officers who are policing our streets. Of course there is often a need for some officers not to be out; there is a need for support staff as well, and we have to strike the right balance between those who are in frontline policing and those who are doing back-office roles in our police service. We will have a workforce strategy as part of this White Paper, but we need always to keep in mind that we are talking about a police service that delivers for the public, so what we really care about are outcomes and what those officers are doing—how they are policing our streets and providing much-needed reassurance to all of our communities.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises an important point. Learning the lessons of what happened in 2024 is why we have already decided to bring in a national command role specifically for public order policing. He raises other issues, particularly on funding. All these reforms are fully funded to the end of the Parliament, but the specific funding streams are a matter for future funding settlements. He will know that we are publishing the funding settlement for the coming financial year on Wednesday.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  I reassure my hon. Friend that at the moment we have strong measures in place for how data is used in our police service. In future, all of that capability will sit with the National Police Service, which will set the standards. They will be very high standards with a high degree of transparency, so that we are always stress-testing our use of AI and technology to ensure that it is used effectively for policing, but not in a way that contravenes our collective values.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  Dear me! I will take no lectures on policing from the Conservatives. They had 14 years in government and delivered no meaningful change beyond decimating neighbourhood policing, introducing the failed experiment of police and crime commissioners, and sweeping away meaningful targets to hold our police forces to account. The shadow Home Secretary complains about non-crime hate incidents. Pray tell, who was in government when they were brought in? He talks about the powers of the Home Secretary. Which Government got rid of them? It was the Conservatives—and not once in all their time in opposition since the general election have they had the gumption to apologise from the Dispatch Box for their appalling track record on policing. Conservative policies saw police numbers slashed by 20,000. They very hastily tried to reverse that measure by bringing back another 20,000 officers, but they did so in a distorted way that meant that 12,000 of those warranted police officers were doing desk jobs. I ask him to read the detail of the White Paper and reconsider whether he wants to stand against everything in it. He cannot possibly believe it a good idea for warranted police officers to do desk jobs; he cannot possibly think it fine for 250 of those officers to be in human resources and 200 in admin support. I cannot believe that even he, with all his lack of attention to detail, thinks that that is a good idea. I urge the shadow Home Secretary and his Back Benchers to reconsider whether they will stand against the policies unveiled in the White Paper. I urge him to look again carefully at regional police forces. He will have looked at the White Paper, so he knows full well that the regional forces will have local police areas that can concentrate on policing local communities right down to the neighbourhood level. The only reason I am bringing in this new model of policing is to protect neighbourhood policing, which was decimated on the Conservative party’s watch. If he wants to stand against local police areas focused on local communities, and against regional forces dedicated to specialist investigation to ensure that rape and murder cases benefit from exactly the same high standards of service across the country, more fool him. Those measures will result in a better policing model for everyone across our country. The shadow Home Secretary raises the example of the Met. One thing that Louise Casey found in her 2023 report was that the Met’s national responsibility for counter-terrorism policing—it does counter-terror for everyone across the UK—distracts from its policing of London. These reforms will mean that counter-terror policing, and all other national policing requirements, will sit with the National Police Service, so that the Met and every other force in the country can focus on policing their local areas. I cannot believe that he wants to stand against reforms that deliver better local policing, but that appears to be where the Conservatives are at.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for his support, I believe, for at least some of the reforms, particularly those on neighbourhood policing. He is absolutely right: neighbourhood policing is critical and will be bedrock of the new policing model unveiled in the White Paper. We have already made progress on increasing the number of neighbourhood police officers. There are already 2,400 additional officers, and that number will be 3,000 by the end of March, with at least 1,750 over the next financial year; we will continue to make progress on neighbourhood police officers. The hon. Member also mentioned police numbers. As is clear in the White Paper and from my statement, what matters is what those officers are doing. I hope that he and his Liberal Democrat colleagues will agree that nobody wants warranted police officers to be sat behind desks working in HR and admin support. We want police officers out policing our communities, going after criminals, and providing the reassurance that only visible policing can provide. He will know that decisions on police counters and other measures are for individual forces, but I hope that he will recognise that we have delivered on our commitment to have a named contactable officer in every neighbourhood, which I believe goes some way to reassuring local communities. The hon. Gentleman made a good point about counter-terror policing and the National Crime Agency. I assure him and the whole House that those two organisations will only move into the National Police Service when it is fully ready. We will not compromise on the operational capabilities of either of those organisations. I will work closely with the leadership of both to make sure that the switch into the National Police Service only happens in a way that does not compromise the operational effectiveness of either counter-terror policing or the National Crime Agency. I assure the hon. Gentleman that these reforms are fully funded to the end of the Parliament. He also made a point about regional forces. Again, I urge him to absorb the detail of the White Paper and I look forward to discussing these issues with him in more detail. Within the regional force structures, there will be local policing areas, right down to the neighbourhood level. That will ensure that whether people live in a rural area or in an urban one, like me, they get the local policing that they need and deserve. That is the absolute foundation of all these reforms, so that regional forces can concentrate on the things that can be done at scale, like specialist investigations and public order policing, and local police areas can police right down to the neighbourhood level and deal with the everyday crimes that are blighting communities all over the country, exactly as he says. That will apply equally and just as forcefully for rural communities as it will for those in towns and cities across the country. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that although I believe that live facial recognition is incredibly important technology, we will ensure that its roll-out is in line with the sort of regulations that we would expect to make sure that it does not have a distorted effect. We are consulting on that right now. In the future, the National Police Service will ensure that the adoption of technologies across policing takes place quickly and in line with the standards that we would all expect.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on police reform. A little less than 200 years ago, speaking at this very Dispatch Box, Sir Robert Peel declared that: “the time is come, when…we may fairly pronounce that the country has outgrown her police institutions”. —[ Official Report , 28 February 1828; Vol. 18, c. 795.] Those words could just as well have been spoken today. Policing is not broken, as some might have us believe. Last year, the police made over three quarters of a million arrests—5% more than the year before. Some of the most serious crimes are now falling, with knife crime down and murder in the capital at its lowest recorded level. However, across the country things feel very different. Communities are facing an epidemic of everyday crime that all too often seems to go unpunished—and criminals know it. Shop theft has risen by 72% since 2010, and phone theft is up 58%. At the same time, in a rapidly changing world, the nature of crime is changing. Criminals—be they drug smugglers, people traffickers or child sexual abusers—are operating online and across borders, with greater sophistication than ever before. The world has changed dramatically since policing was last fundamentally reformed over 60 years ago. Policing remains the last great unreformed public service. Today, as this Government publish a new policing White Paper, I set out reforms that are long overdue. They define a new model for policing in this country, with local policing that protects our communities and national policing that protects us all. Since taking office, we have already restored a focus on neighbourhood policing that the last Conservative Government eroded. They pulled bobbies off the beat, and now over half of the public report that they never see police on patrol in their local area. It was a foolish error, because neighbourhood policing works. Across the world, the evidence shows that visible patrols in high-crime areas work. The last Labour Government put more officers on the streets, and confidence in policing hit record levels. The Tories cut them, and confidence fell. This Government are righting that wrong, with a target of 13,000 more neighbourhood officers by the end of the Parliament, and we have already put 2,400 back on to the beat. We have also introduced the neighbourhood guarantee, so that every community has a named, contactable officer. I also intend to end the distortive “officer maintenance grant” that was introduced by the last Conservative Government, who had to replace the 20,000 police officers lost on their watch. The results were perverse: uniformed officers hired but stuck behind desks, with 12,000 men and women in uniform now working in support roles, including—absurdly—some 250 warranted officers working in human resources. I intend to end that by introducing a neighbourhood policing ringfence, which will ensure that forces are putting uniformed officers where the public want and need them: out in the community, fighting crime on our streets. However, we must do more. Today, policing happens in the wrong places. We have local forces responsible for national policing, which distracts them from policing their communities. At the same time, we have forces of various shapes and sizes, and quality varies widely force by force. This Government’s reforms will ensure that we have the right policing happening in the right place. That starts with the creation of a new national police service. At first, the force will set standards and lift administrative tasks off local forces. In time, it will draw in all national crime-fighting responsibilities, including counter-terrorism policing, serious organised crime, and fraud. This will ensure that local forces are no longer distracted by national responsibilities, while at the same time creating an elite national force that is expert at fighting the ever-more sophisticated criminals who are operating nationwide, across our borders, and online. Alongside the new national force, we will replace the patchwork of 43 local forces that has remained almost unchanged since the Police Act 1964. That model has been straining for decades, and today it is simply not fit for purpose. Our 43 forces are of varying sizes: some have just 1,000 officers, others over 8,000, and the Metropolitan police is 30 times larger than our smallest forces. As a result, some forces are not equipped to handle complex investigations or respond to major incidents. Meanwhile, the duplication across force headquarters means that money is wasted, drawing resource away from frontline policing. We will introduce a smaller number of regional forces responsible for specialist investigations, including murder, serious sexual offences and public order. Within these forces, we will introduce smaller local policing areas. These will be focused exclusively on local policing, tackling the burglaries, shoplifting and antisocial behaviour that too often go unpunished today. It is vital that we set these new forces up in the right way, so I will soon launch a review to determine the precise number and nature of the new forces. Its work will be completed this summer. Taken together, these reforms will put the right policing in the right place: an elite national force will tackle nationwide crime; regional forces will conduct specialist investigations; and local policing will tackle the epidemic of everyday crime. Our structures are outdated, and so is our adoption of the tools and technology that could make our policing more effective and more efficient. Criminals are operating in increasingly sophisticated ways, but in policing, in all honesty, our response is mixed. While some forces surge ahead, with the results to show for it, others are fighting crime in a digital age with analogue methods. We will ensure that every force is adopting the latest technology, led out of the new national police service. This will include the largest-ever roll-out of live facial recognition technologies, across England and Wales. We know that this approach works. In London, in just two years, the Metropolitan police has made 1,700 arrests, taking robbers, domestic abusers and rapists off our streets. When the future arrives, there are always doubters. A hundred years ago, fingerprinting was decried as curtailing our civil liberties, but today we could not imagine policing without it. I have no doubt that the same will prove true of facial recognition technology in the years to come. At the same time, we will launch police.AI, investing a record £115 million in AI and automation to make policing more effective and efficient, stripping admin away to ensure that officer time can be devoted to the human factor that only a police officer can provide. Common standards apply both to the technology we use and the quality and performance of our officers. We must, and we will, set and maintain the highest standards. We have already introduced new vetting requirements enabling forces to dismiss those who fail vetting checks, alongside a range of measures to lift policing standards. We will introduce a licence to practice for police officers, recognising the professionalism, dedication and duty that comes with the uniform. We must be willing to set clear standards and the performance that we expect within forces, and to hold policing leaders to account for their delivery. Under the last Conservative Government, there was a retreat from the historical role held by Home Secretaries and the Home Office since the days of Peel. That was an error, and this Government will reverse it. As the old Peelian maxim has it, the police are the public and the public are the police. I consider it essential that the people, through Parliament, can determine what they expect from their forces, so this Government will restore targets for police forces and set minimum standards that forces must abide by. Force performance will be transparent and public, and where performance falls, we will take action. We will create new turnaround teams to go into a force where performance has fallen, and in the most extreme examples of a failure of leadership, I will restore the Home Secretary’s power to fire a chief constable. This vital power was relinquished by the last Conservative Government, who handed it to police and crime commissioners—a position that I consider a failed experiment, despite the best efforts of many excellent PCCs across the country. We will now draw that experiment to an end. Local accountability and governance will remain essential, however, and will continue to be provided by mayoralties or local crime and policing boards. Taken together, these are, without question, major reforms: a transformation in the structures of our forces, the standards within them, and the means by which they are held to account by the public. These are the most significant changes to how policing works in this country in around 200 years. The world has changed immeasurably since then, but policing has not. We have excellent and brave police officers across the country, and effective and inspiring leaders across many of our forces, but they are operating within an outdated structure, making the job of policing our streets and protecting our country harder than it should be. I began by quoting Peel’s declaration that “the country has outgrown her police institutions”. He went on to argue that the “safest course will be found to be the introduction of a new mode of protection.” —[ Official Report , 28 February 1828; Vol. 18, c. 795.] Now, as then, it is time we had the bravery to pursue a new mode of protection and a new model of policing, with the right policing in the right place. That means local forces protecting their communities and national policing that protects us all. That is what this Government will deliver, and I commend this statement to the House.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. Responsibility for high standards across the whole service will in future sit with the National Police Service, but in the meantime I am working closely with police leaders everywhere to ensure our standards are as strong as they can be, so that no matter where you are in the country, you get the quality of service that you deserve.

• 14 Jan 2026 · West Midlands Police · Hansard source

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  I thank my fellow Birmingham Member of Parliament for his comments and questions. There is no broader finding of systemic failure in Sir Andy’s report. The failures that have been highlighted in the approach to evidence and the way in which the risk assessment was carried out relate to this specific event. He gave us no cause for concern about broader West Midlands police practice. However, I am sure that the police and crime commissioner and others, myself included, and all Birmingham MPs will want to assure themselves of the robustness of the procedures that the West Midlands police have in place. I am sure that we will return to these matters as this case develops further.

• 14 Jan 2026 · West Midlands Police · Hansard source

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  Let me first say to the shadow Home Secretary that I have long and very personal experience of standing up to extremists in Birmingham, not least in the last general election campaign. I think my track record speaks for itself, and I am a woman who knows of what she speaks—clearly unlike him. He appears to be unfamiliar with the law, and indeed with Sir Andy’s findings in his report. Let me remind him of a few things. First, it was the Conservative Government who removed the Home Secretary’s direct power to remove a chief constable. That power used to be in section 42 of the Police Act 1996, but it was repealed by the Conservatives; the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 explicitly removed the power. I will quote from the explanatory notes to that Act. I suspect that the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) drafted and approved them when he advised the former Home Secretary, Baroness May, so he will be aware of what is in them. They say: “The Secretary of State does not have power to direct a police and crime commissioner to suspend or remove a chief constable.” That is the law passed by the previous Conservative Government.

• 14 Jan 2026 · West Midlands Police · Hansard source

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  I know Villa Park well because, until the general election, it fell within my constituency boundary. After the decision was made, the Government and I—through my officials—asked West Midlands police whether the match could be policed in other ways to enable it to go ahead. We were clear that banning fans is an extreme action and that, in the general run of things, we should want cultural events in our country to take place. I recognise the picture that the hon. Gentleman paints. The findings are damning, as many hon. Members have said. On the wider issue of other officers, I made the remarks today about the chief constable because he is the individual who leads the force. These events have happened on his watch. It was for him to set a culture in which all the risk assessments were done properly and where confirmation bias could not have taken hold, and it is he, of course, who made assertions and gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee in the way that he did. It is now for him to reflect on that; he may have things to say in the coming days. It is now for the police and crime commissioner to consider what further actions he might wish to take, including under his broader responsibilities to make sure that the force is functioning as it should.

• 14 Jan 2026 · West Midlands Police · Hansard source

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  I thank the Lib Dem spokesperson for his remarks. I have, as a matter of courtesy, informed the police and crime commissioner in advance of making this statement that I would be saying that I do not have confidence in the chief constable of West Midlands police. I have also reiterated and made it clear that any statutory process, and any decision under the statutory process on further action against the chief constable, would be a matter for the police and crime commissioner himself. He must consider that on his own terms, and I am sure that he will be making his own statement once he has had a chance to absorb the findings of Sir Andy’s report. Given that there could be a statutory process, I will not be commenting on what may or may not be happening, in order to respect the independence and integrity of any future decisions. On the IOPC, I expect that the police and crime commissioner will consider his position on this matter and approach the IOPC if he deems it necessary, but that is a judgment for him. I also expect the IOPC to consider whether these findings mean that it should use its own power of initiative to conduct an investigation. The hon. Member will know that it is independent, and it would be improper for me to seek to direct it in any way, but it does have those powers and I believe it has already indicated that it will consider the position again, once it has had a chance to absorb the findings of Sir Andy’s report. I agree with the hon. Member that this case proves why we need a duty of candour on all public officials, and I look forward to the Hillsborough law becoming an Act of Parliament at the earliest opportunity. On the use of artificial intelligence by police forces, I will be returning to these matters when I publish—I will come to the House to make a statement—the policing reform White Paper. This is important because AI is an incredibly powerful tool that can and should be used by our police forces, but regulating it to make sure it is always accurate is a matter of legitimate concern to us all, and I will be saying more about that in due course.

• 14 Jan 2026 · West Midlands Police · Hansard source

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  The incident of banning a Jewish Member of Parliament from the school is obviously disgraceful, and the right hon. Member will know that other senior members of the Government have already spoken out about this case. It is unacceptable. I hope he will see that the approach I have taken since I have been Home Secretary is to ensure that the law of our land is applied equally without fear or favour and in a consistent manner that gives every community across the country a sense of what they can expect from their local police, without feeling that they are in a postcode lottery and that it very much depends on the nature of the particular chief constable and the approach they take locally. That is exactly what I am trying to achieve with protest powers and with wider thresholds in relation to the Public Order Act where I have asked for an independent review by Lord Ken Macdonald KC, which will report soon. My intention is to ensure that every citizen of our country knows when it comes to all matters of law and order that we are all on exactly the same footing, and that is right for all our citizens.

• 5 Jan 2026 · Police Efficiency · Hansard source

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  It would be a bit easier to take the hon. Gentleman more seriously if it were not true that 94% of the reduction in police officers he refers to occurred when his Government were in office. From March 2024 to June 2024—before the general election— there was a reduction of 1,232 officers, so I will not take any lessons from him. The details of the police funding settlement will be clarified by the end of this month.