Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Government plans to increase the role of volunteer policing within neighbourhood policing strategies; and what role she envisages for special constables and any future reserve model.

The number of special constables has declined year on year, falling from a peak of 20,343 in March 2012 to just 5,304 as of September 2025. As part of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, the Government is committed to increasing the number of volunteers in neighbourhood policing, including special constables, and building a resilient, community focused policing model.

The Police Reform White Paper set out our ambition to work with policing partners to identify and remove barriers to recruitment, streamline processes, and better integrate special constables into wider policing. We also set out that we will be working with organisations such as the Fire Service and the Armed Forces to assess alternative and innovative volunteering models, learning lessons to inform the continued development of police volunteering.

The Government, in collaboration with policing, has established a Special Constables Taskforce to deliver on our ambitions, bringing together senior policing leaders to develop and implement innovative solutions to grow special constable numbers.