Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of public confidence in police handling of complaints; and whether she plans to strengthen accountability mechanisms to improve that trust.

The Government is committed to strengthening the public’s confidence in the police. This includes ensuring that when officers fall seriously short of the high standards expected of them, they are swiftly identified and robustly dealt with.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has a statutory duty to secure and maintain public confidence in the police complaints system, and as part of this role carries out regular surveys on public confidence. This data is published on the IOPC’s website: www.policeconduct.gov.uk/our-work/research-and-statistics/public-confidence. The most recent survey (2024/25) showed that the majority of the public say that they would complain if unhappy about an officer’s behaviour towards them. The percentage of respondents reporting they feel confident that police deal fairly with complaints is increasing; from 36% last year to 41% this year.

The Government is taking action to improve public confidence. This includes introducing measures via the Crime and Policing Bill to put the victims’ right to review on a statutory footing for complainants who want to challenge a decision by the IOPC not to refer a case to the Crown Prosecution Service, and committing to an independent review into timeliness in the police misconduct system looking at what changes can be made to improve timeliness and effectiveness.