Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for her amendments. I start, however, with the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, who prayed in aid the great Conservative, as he said, Robert Peel. From my recollection, Robert Peel was certainly not in charge of the police force during the 14 years of the previous Government, under which the noble Lord served. I was Police Minister in 2009-10 and know that we lost 20,000 police officers—I repeat, 20,000—in the first years of the Conservative Government. I think Sir Robert Peel had gone walkabout during that period and was not serving as a neighbourhood police officer under the Conservative Government’s watch at that particular time.

There was a lamentable decline in neighbourhood policing between 2010 and the last election. This Government have delivered on our commitment in the election to restore neighbourhood policing. We have already announced that police forces will be supported to deliver an increase of 13,000 officers for neighbourhood policing by the end of this Parliament. In the previous six months, we have delivered 80% of our year-one target, with nearly 2,400 additional neighbourhood officers in post. We remain on track to reach a full 3,000 uplift by April this year, which goes to the heart of the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. We backed that with £200 million of additional investment in the current financial year, as part of a total funding settlement to police forces of £17.6 billion. Total funding will again rise next year, 2026-27, by £746 million, taking the total funding for police forces up to £18.3 billion next year. That is a major level of investment in policing that this Government have brought forward, and I argue that it meets the objective of the noble Baroness’s amendment.

It is because of our neighbourhood policing guarantee that every neighbourhood across England and Wales now has named and contactable officers. These neighbourhood teams are dedicated to engaging with communities, gathering intelligence, and preventing crime and anti-social behaviour. Forces are ensuring that regular beat meetings take place, providing local people and businesses with a direct platform to shape policing priorities. We have more visible patrols, and officers and PCSOs have started to complete the new neighbourhood policing programme. There is career pathway training, launched in June 2025. There are designated leads for anti-social behaviour in every police force and a commitment to 72-hour response times to neighbourhood queries. These are all measures that I am sure Robert Peel would have welcomed had he been in charge for the previous 14 years—but he was not, and it did not happen, but it is now.

The new police standards and performance improvement unit will ensure that police performance is consistently and accurately measured. The work of the unit is going to reinforce our commitment to transparency and, for the noble Baroness, I pray in aid the upcoming White Paper on police reform—she will not have too long to wait for it now. It will detail how wider reforms will support the Government’s pledge to rebuild neighbourhood policing.

The amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, are absolutely in the right direction of travel. The question is whether she wants to constrain chief constables with the demands that she seeks to put centrally. I argue that the Government will continue to bolster neighbourhood policing and have reversed the cuts imposed by the previous Government—the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, seems to have had a memory blank around what happened over that time. The Government have set clear standards of local policing, and will work with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the College of Policing and others. We are heading in the direction of the noble Baroness’s amendment, without the need to legislate.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Could the Minister say something about the Police Federation’s attitude to the list of changes to enforcement that he has laid out?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Government work closely with the Police Federation and will always listen and gauge the situation with them. I have met the chair of the Police Federation on a number of occasions, and other Ministers in government do the same. We will engage with that body. Like other federations or any form of trade union—although it is not a trade union—there will on occasion be differences between the organisation, the police chiefs and the Government, as is perfectly natural. I believe that we are investing in supporting police officers on the ground to do a better job in what they are trying to do and ensuring that the Government undertake a focus on neighbourhood policing, as the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, seeks. On that basis, I urge her to withdraw her amendment.

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[Lord Katz (Lab)]

As I said, police deployments must comply with the Equality Act 2010 and data protection law, which, of course, include the latest data protection law under the GDPR. In relation to that specific point on Article 22 of the GDPR, I will have to write to the noble Lord to give him the full details, but, as I say, the general principle of compliance applies.

Just to finish the point I was making in reference to the noble Lord’s point about black box systems, where a system is inherently opaque, forces must have compensating controls such as rigorous testing, performance monitoring and strong human review, or not use that system.

Given these assurances—and I am grateful to the noble Lord for saying that he was encouraged, and we will wait to hear from his colleague as to whether she is encouraged by these responses—I hope the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I am very interested in this area and supportive of the right use of AI in policing, because it can be enormously helpful to the police in terms of resources. I remember when I was at the Cabinet Office, they were doing a trial where they were using AI instead of officers to look through CCTV of abuse and child abuse, and that was saving a lot of resource and a lot of difficulty for police officers. The Minister did not mention what kind of use the police were making of AI. Does he have any information on that, or can I be referred elsewhere?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

A range of use is made by police forces at individual force level. Each force makes operationally independent decisions as to what tools they test or deploy. Sometimes it is around administrative tasks that we see across lots of public services and sometimes it is specifically around operational issues and investigation. It is probably best that I do not go into too much detail, but I can certainly go back and talk to officials to see what we might be able to follow up on in writing with the noble Baroness, if there is more detail we can provide.

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Amendment 432 proposes that the Government embark on a five-year strategic overhaul to deliver modern, interoperable systems across policing and the wider criminal justice system. It does not dictate the detailed infrastructure, but it does require a national plan, proper co-ordination and oversight. Without that, the risk is that valuable initiatives, however well intentioned, remain piecemeal and fail to deliver the transformation that officers, victims and the public deserve. I beg to move.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I support much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, said about the problems we face. This links in well with my amendments, which will be taken next week: Amendment 436 on enforcement data and Amendment 437 on police paperwork.

The fact of the matter is that a lot of officer time is wasted. There is too much paper and too much copy and paste, and, as the noble Baroness said, opportunities are missed. I know this because my son works in the Met and often complains when he comes to see me about the poor IT integration, particularly between the police, the CPS and the courts, where cases are being progressed.

I am sure that the Minister is well aware of all this and that steps are being taken to improve things, and I know, having worked in government on IT systems-related work, that it is very difficult. However, there is an enormous advantage to be gained from making progress in this area and spending police time on chasing and catching criminals, not on so much bureaucracy.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I want to make a very brief contribution—cheekily, because I have not taken any role in this Bill. My noble friend’s amendment, what she said in support of it and the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, are highly pertinent to the debate on the Government’s proposal to restrict jury trials. On the Tube in, I read an account of the report from the Institute for Government, which has looked at the Government’s proposals and concluded that the time savings from judge-only trials would be marginal at best, amounting to less than 2% of Crown Court time. It suggests, pertinently, that the Government

“should instead focus on how to drive up productivity across the criminal courts, investing in the workforce and technology required for the courts to operate more efficiently”.

As others who know the situation much better than I do have said, it sounds dire. One is used to all these problems of legacy systems—lack of interoperability and so on. I remember all that being debated at EU level. It is difficult and probably capital-intensive work—at least, initially—but instead of promoting these headline-grabbing gestures about abolishing jury trials, the Government need to fix the terrible lack of efficiency in the criminal justice system. I am not sure that the civil justice system is any better. Having, unfortunately, had a modest involvement in a case in the county court, I found that it was impossible to phone any staff. You might be lucky to get a response to an email after a week.

Making the system work efficiently, with all bits interacting with each other, would do a great deal more to increase productivity and save the time of all those people who are running around. One hears accounts from people who work in the criminal courts of reports not being available, files being lost and staff being absent, let alone the decrepit state of court buildings. All this investment needs to go in before the Government resort to gesture politics and things such as abolishing jury trials.

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I hope I have been able to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, that we are sympathetic to what her amendment seeks to achieve. We, of course, share her desire for a concrete change in policing IT systems. The Government are already working with police partners to deliver these improvements through established programmes. I hope that, in light of this, she will be content to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Before the Minister sits down, I am obviously delighted to hear about the White Paper. We are really looking forward to it being published. He helpfully mentioned a contract that has been let to look at this whole area—a police technology strategy and road map for intelligence and the technical use of it. I wondered who that contract had been let to and what the timeframe was for delivering conclusions. The other point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, was the question of having enough capital for the IT. Being a businesswoman, I know very well how expensive that can be. If the Minister could say a little bit more about that, that might help us before Report.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I do not have details of the contract in front of me. I am, of course, aware that there could be commercially confidential issues at play which might prevent the level of disclosure that she wants, but, in the spirit of trying to be helpful, I will certainly go away, take it back and write to the noble Baroness if I can.