Police Reform White Paper

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

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.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am really pleased that the Home Secretary is retaining the role of democratically elected metro mayors in the oversight of police forces. My specific question is about police AI. We know that AI training models have bias, particularly around race, so how are we going to ensure that these AI models will not contain that bias? Also, all of the major AI companies are foreign-owned. How are we going to ensure that our national security is protected, and that this data is not taken and used against the United Kingdom by foreign Governments?

[Shabana Mahmood]

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.