Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the Metropolitan Police's new frontline policing rotation policy on trends in the levels of early retirement among police officers; and what plans she has to monitor this impact.

Police forces are operationally independent and the deployment of officers remains an operational decision. It is for the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to decide how to allocate the resources available to the force, including the deployment of police officers and staff, to provide an effective service and keep Londoners safe.

Understanding the views and experience of the police workforce will be an important part of successfully delivering police reform.

Retention of experienced officers is important to policing. Expertise and experience built up during a police career can be extremely valuable, which is why forces should also be using effective evidence-based strategies to manage retention and progression of existing officers. Data on the rate of police officer leavers is published as part of the annual Home Office police workforce publication. [note: the latest data as at 31 March 2026 will be published on 22 July].