Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the College of Policing's August 2025 guidance that police forces should publish the ethnicity and nationality of suspects in high profile crimes on (a) media coverage of crimes and (b) social media responses to crimes.

The College of Policing published interim guidance on the disclosure of suspects ethnicity and/or nationality on 23 February 2026. The guidance aims to support transparent and consistent recording practices across policing, helping to improve the quality of data available and public understanding of how such information is collected and used. You can find a link to the guidance here: Arrests, charges and judicial outcomes | College of Policing.

The College of Policing advises that forces should monitor implementation of decisions to disclose ethnicity and nationality information, including assessing community impacts and public confidence.

Decisions on the application of the guidance are an operational matter for policing.