Police Reform

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I join my hon. Friend in praising John Tizard for the work that he is doing and will continue to do. As I set out, and subject to legislation, the police and crime commissioner model will be abolished at the end of the existing term of office, in May 2028. The transition to the new governance arrangements will be overseen by a small programme team in the Home Office and me, and the legal framework to bring about those changes is expected to be included in a second-Session police reform Bill, subject to parliamentary time. Primary legislation will be needed to make those changes, and we will introduce that as soon as we can. We will be working very closely with existing police and crime commissioners, local authorities and the Ministry of Justice.

One function that our police and crime commissioners fulfil is commissioning victim services, which is incredibly important. When we transition those functions, we need to ensure that we do not drop any balls and that we keep on doing the important work that we need to do, so I am very happy to have more conversations with colleagues about how the model will develop over time. We will ensure not just that we save money and introduce a better system, but that we make people safer in our communities.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

In my constituency of Richmond Park, our policing force has been decimated. We used to have three police stations, and now we have none. The next nearest police station is facing the closure of its front counter, and the Royal Parks police force has been scrapped. People in my constituency have no faith that common crimes such as shoplifting, burglaries or antisocial behaviour will be resolved or that offenders will be apprehended. With this in mind, does the Minister agree that the greatest reform needed to improve policing efficiency is sufficient funding, and what conversations has she had with the Mayor of London about bolstering the resources available to the Metropolitan police?

[Sarah Jones]

Funding is enormously important, and we are providing our police with a real-terms funding uplift this year. We are going through the allocation process at the moment, and we will make announcements in the usual way before the end of the year. I do stress that money is incredibly important, and we are providing more of it, but if we look at the day-to-day activities of many of our police officers, they are not productive, and they cannot be because of the ancient systems that are in place. As an example, if officers download data from a mobile phone, which they need as part of the evidence for a crime, they will be given it in an Excel spreadsheet and they have to ctrl+F to find the things they need. It is extraordinarily unreformed as a system. There are pockets of great innovation, but it is not the same across the whole system. We have to drive efficiencies, and officers are crying out for us to do that to enable them to do the jobs we expect them to do. Yes, money is important, and the Mayor of London has put more funding—much more money—from his own budget into policing, but we need to ensure the police are doing what we want them to be doing.