Shabana Mahmood
MP for Birmingham Ladywood · Labour · United Kingdom
“I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. I know how deeply affected he and other parliamentarians who represent the local area have been by what has happened, and I pay tribute to their ability to give voice to what their communities are experiencing.”
“That will build on existing operations, including the “clear, hold, build” approach, which is tough both on serious crime and on the causes of serious crime, and has been shown to work across the country.”
“It is a reactive process, in the sense that they are responding to content being flagged—it has then, for the most part, been removed from their platforms—but from the middle of next year there will be a duty on those platforms to act proactively, not just reactively. However, as I have said to the hon.”
“People should be in no doubt that any attempt to instigate public disorder or to break our laws will be met with the full force of the law, and the Government will support the police as they carry out that incredibly important work.”
“We have increased funding for policing by £2 billion since being elected, and all forces will receive a real-terms uplift in their funding this year as part of an overall £18.5 billion package. Funding to Cleveland has increased by £18.3 million since 2024, and that is a real-terms increase of 4.4% over two years.”
“That is being provided, but the Policing Minister will continue to talk to the chief constable and others to ensure that our officers are being supported and looked after. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on the need for fundamental change in the way that we do the funding formula for policing.”
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“What the shadow Minister should have done first is apologise for being part of an Administration who opened the social care route, which was open to such horrifying levels of abuse. That route was closed by this Government, which was the right action to take. Since we have been in government, 1,000 sponsor licences have been revoked, and we will continue to take action. We are already following up on the newspaper investigation that the hon. Lady refers to, and we will keep revoking licences, so that only legitimate businesses with proper jobs are able to sponsor workers to come to our country.”
“Unlike most of Westminster, I am not plagued with “America brain”, and I do not spend any of my time worrying about what is happening over in the States. As the Home Secretary, I focus on my day job, which is protecting people in our country. The hon. Gentleman will know full well that we do not have anything like the sorts of arrangements that we have seen over in America, but we already have record removals without having armed immigration enforcement—just under 60,000 since we have been in government. We will go further, but we will do so in line with the arrangements that we already have in place and our British values.”
“We are investing a record £140 million in state-of-the-art technology to make our communities safer, including the roll-out of the live facial recognition technology that is already transforming policing. Investing in technology means more time for the police to be where we want them, which is out on the streets fighting and deterring crime in our communities.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for raising the scourge of synthetic cathinones. Let me assure her that the work of the National Crime Agency, Royal Mail and others continues apace. The use of synthetic drugs is a concerning development in the global drugs market, but this Government and law enforcement are taking action. We continue to innovate and seek new methods for screening and identifying drugs using emerging technologies, including AI, to tackle this challenge.”
“I am very pleased that the hon. Member raises that issue, and I am happy to look at the detail of what he has seen in his constituency. Let me assure him that there is a lot of work happening with retailers, and I know that different platforms are being adopted. The pace of technological innovation in this area is very quick indeed, and we will do everything we can to make sure all these systems are joined up and that the police are in the best possible position to go after the criminals as quickly as possible.”
“The previous Conservative Government lost control, and it is this Labour Government who are restoring order to our border.”
“This Government pledged to restore order and control to our borders, and our work is taking effect. Since we took office, removals of illegal migrants are up 31%, to nearly 60,000, forced returns are up 45%, and deportations of foreign criminals are up by a third. In December we imposed visa sanctions on three countries—Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—and those sanctions have worked, with each of those countries now accepting its citizens back. I know that the public want us to do more, and we will: we will reform human rights law and our appeals processes to swiftly remove those with no right to be here. This country will always offer sanctuary to genuine refugees, but with those who do not play by the rules, we must be firm.”
“The testimony of the victims that the hon. Gentleman has heard from is absolutely horrifying, and the grooming gangs scandal was one of the darkest moments in this country’s history. Victims and survivors of these hideous crimes deserve justice, and we will make sure that they get it. Our inquiry is a full, statutory independent inquiry, with all the powers under the Inquiries Act 2005 to deliver justice. I urge the hon. Gentleman and anybody else who has heard any allegations or evidence of criminality to share it with the police immediately.”
“Let me say first and foremost that the murder of Rhiannon Whyte was an abhorrent crime and our thoughts are with her loved ones. I would caution all Members against using individual cases to make a bigger political point, as the shadow Home Secretary has just sought to do. He knows full well that his Government’s Rwanda plan was nothing more than a gimmick—£700 million was spent on four volunteers going to Rwanda. There is no silver bullet in dealing with the mess of the migration system left to us by the previous Conservative Administration, but we are taking action across every front to get illegal migration under control and to secure our border.”
“The shadow Home Secretary has only picked up this new policy of leaving the ECHR in opposition; it is not one that the Conservatives took up when they were in government. [ Interruption. ] I am afraid he is now just carping from the sidelines, to which he has been condemned by the British people for failing to control our borders. It is this Government who are sorting out the abject mess in our migration system left by the Conservatives— [ Interruption. ]”
“Yes, I am, because having an ordered migration system both for legal migration and to sort out the problems of illegal migration is absolutely critical to maintaining public confidence across the country and making sure that we can hold our country together. I back all of these reforms, and I know they will have nothing but a positive impact.”
“Let me condemn in the strongest possible terms all the antisemitic incidents that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted in his question. This Government will not stand for any antisemitism in our country, and we will take every step we can across Government to wipe out this evil from our society. He will know that I am reviewing police protest powers, and I have already made some announcements on changes that we will make. Lord Ken Macdonald is conducting a review, and I will not hesitate to take further legal steps in order to protect our Jewish community.”
“These are the right reforms. We have set out our proposals for an earned settlement scheme, and they are being consulted on. That consultation closes in a matter of days, and the Government will consider all responses. If there are any changes that we wish to make, we will make them in the usual way.”
“I am delighted that town centre crime has fallen by 15% in my hon. Friend’s constituency. It has fallen in many towns across the land since this Government came to power—not just because we are introducing new technology, including live facial recognition, where we need to; not just because we are introducing more neighbourhood policing; and not just because we are changing the law to ensure that all crimes are investigated; but because we are all working together to get this done.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“My hon. Friend is right to say that too many of our police forces are distracted from being able to police their local communities because they are dealing with national level issues, including national issues relating to public order. All those functions will ultimately sit within the new National Police Service, but in the interim I will appoint a special command to deal with public order policing in particular, to ensure consistency of approach across the country.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Let me reassure my hon. Friend that we will ensure that the roll-out of all policing powers, including the use of technology, is in line with the race action plan, which we support, and that any measures are stress-tested to ensure that they serve all communities equally. It is our position that the police must always police without fear or favour, so that every community can be confident that they are getting the right quality of policing and nobody is being unfairly targeted.”
“Gentleman will be able to support the proposals, given that they will focus carefully on local policing areas specifically in order to deal with some of the issues he has raised. The exact number of regional forces and the geography that they will span will be a matter for the reviewer—I hope to announce who that will be very soon—with a view to reporting in the summer so that we can crack on with rolling out these reforms. I have been delighted and a little surprised by the sheer number of policing leaders who have come out in support of these proposals, including those who represent organisations that will see change as a result of the reforms. The sheer range of people who have supported the White Paper shows that these reforms are the right ones for policing in our country.”
“I thank the right hon. Member for his contribution and for his service, as well as that of other hon. Members who have served in our police service. I reassure him that, as will be clear when I introduce legislation later in the year, the plan for regional forces will include an absolute focus on local police areas. Local policing for local communities will be tailored to many of the needs that he has pointed out, but at a regional level we will have the necessary economies of scale and the capacity to deal with specialist investigations, while ensuring that the quality of those investigations does not depend on which part of the country they happen to be in. When the detail is out, I hope that the right hon.”
“International criminals often cross boundaries and indulge in all sorts of different types of work, including terrorism financing and serious organised crime. The reforms will lead to a very effective service and build on the excellent work already done by officers in counter-terror policing and the NCA.”
“My hon. Friend is right. The National Police Service will draw in the national responsibilities of both counter-terror policing and the National Crime Agency. Those two organisations collaborate very effectively, and I pay tribute to their leadership and the way in which they operate alongside one another, but they duplicate and build similar capabilities. Instead of having those capabilities built alongside and within two organisations, it makes sense to bring them into one organisation and to prevent that duplication of capabilities and functions. That is one of the main benefits of the reform. On the sorts of people whom these organisations go after, we know that we are one of the few major countries in the world that does not combine counter-terror policing and serious organised crime.”
“I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s greater knowledge of House of Commons trivia; I am sure that he has been an excellent member of every pub quiz team that he has ever been a part of. The review will look at how we deliver regional forces, so it will mean a significant reduction in the number of forces. However, it will advise on the correct number of regional forces and how we should go about implementing that policy.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think we could make a lot of progress if we could ensure that the victims’ code was implemented consistently across the country, and I know the Justice Secretary also wishes to make sure there is greater adherence to all the requirements of the code. In the end, policing is a public service; it is there for members of the public, and to give victims of crime confidence that their case will be dealt with fairly and as quickly as possible and that criminals are brought to justice. That is exactly why we are making these reforms.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I think that is me being told to go faster. Let me assure the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) that we are consulting on the safeguards for the use of AI in technology and live facial recognition. I assure him that I will always make sure that robust safeguards are in place, and I am sure that we will debate these issues in the House many times over the months to come.”
“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.”