Conservatives pledge 10,000 new police officers in nationwide crime crackdown

• 10,000 more police officers
• Stop & search tripled
• Major police presence in 2000 violent crime hotspots
• Non-Crime Hate Incidents scrapped

The Conservatives have today [Tuesday 7th October 2025] announced plans to hire 10,000 new police officers as part of a major crackdown on crime. 

Through a series of sweeping measures, alongside this significant boost in officer numbers, the Conservatives will restore public order. Firstly, a wave of new officers will be hired, delivering the numbers forces need to enforce the law properly. This will build on the record of the last Conservative government and reverse the dangerous trend of falling officer numbers under this Labour government.  

This new plan to crack down on crime will include the introduction of intense hotspot patrolling of the 2,000 neighbourhoods with the most violent crime, ensuring a visible police presence. 

The focus on hotspot patrolling – a proven method to cut crime – will deliver 8.3 million hours of patrolling time per year, which is forecast to prevent 35,000 crimes. 

Under the next Conservative government, police will be ordered to put evidence over ideology – with the rate of stop and search tripled. This will ensure that the knives and guns that are responsible for so much death and hurt will be taken off the streets at record levels. 

The increase in stop and search will be achieved by allowing routine s60 suspicion-less stop and search in hotspot areas, and by lowering the threshold for a suspicion-based stop and search elsewhere. 

The Party will bring forward a major shift in policing, ending the policing of social media through new powers of direction for the Home Secretary.  

Under a Conservative government, the Home Secretary will issue a clear direction that police should prioritise catching actual criminals. Non-Crime Hate Incidents will be abolished, saving 60,000 hours a year of police time and protecting free speech. Communications-based offences will also be reviewed, building on the work Lord (Toby) Young of Acton is undertaking. 

This strong package of measures will tackle the increase in crime seen under Labour. In Labour's first year, there was a seven per cent increase in overall crime and a 20 per cent increase in shoplifting.  

Under Sadiq Khan's leadership, knife crime in London has increased by 86 per cent, while stop and searches have dropped by nearly 60 per cent.  

Nationally, officer numbers are dropping, and fewer people are joining the force. Police chiefs have warned Labour's cuts to their budgets will have “far-reaching consequences” and they will have to make “stark choices” about which crimes to investigate. 

Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, said: 

“Crime is rising under Labour yet hard-working officers are being forced to police social media, rather than catching genuine criminals. This is unacceptable, and it cannot continue. 

“We will deliver 10,000 new officers, move police off Twitter and into the real world, mandate hotspot patrolling of the areas with the most violent crime, and triple stop and search to get weapons off the streets. 

“Only the Conservatives have a genuine plan to restore law and order in our country, and keep people safe.” 

ENDS 

Notes to Editors 

Our plan will restore law and order in our country and keep the British public safe: 

We will hire 10,000 extra police officers, backed by £650 million of funding. To combat Labour's cuts to policing, we would hire 10,000 extra police officers over three years as part of our plan to crack down on crime and support policing. This would cost £650 million per year once fully rolled out.  

We will give the Home Secretary the power to set overall operational priorities. Too often, police force leaders allocate resources and priorities in ways that make no sense to the public or officers. We will remove the need for a force to be ‘failing' or any College of Policing consent before this power can be used through amendments to the 1996 Police Act. This power will be used to deliver the priorities below. 

We will redirect resources to catch real criminals, not police free speech. We already announced that we would ban non-crime hate incidents to save 60,000 hours of police time. We will use the new power to set operations priorities to issue guidance to end policing of offensive but non-criminal social media posts.  

We will introduce proven intense hotspot patrolling in 2,000 areas which covers 25 per cent of all serious violent crime and robbery and should prevent 35,000 offences. We know that a disproportionate amount of crime is committed in a limited number of hotspots. We would therefore mandate routine year-round intensive hotspot patrolling of high-crime areas, including areas of high violent crime, street robbery, shoplifting and anti-social behaviour. We will build on existing hotspot policing with a target of 2,000 hotspots across the country, but on a more intensive basis. This would require an extra 5,550 police officers (Home Office, Research and analysis, 27 March 2025, link). 

We will triple the use of stop and search, taking its usage back to levels in 2008. We would achieve this using the Home Secretary's new power to set operational priorities as set out above and changing PACE Code A 2.8A and College of Policing guidance to make clear that a single suspicion indicator is enough to merit a stop and search. This includes the smell of cannabis. We would mandate the more widespread use of section 60 suspicion-less stop and searches in high crime areas. This would mean amending section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to explicitly allow ‘without suspicion' searches to take place in the most intense violent crime ‘hotspots' at any time. These hotspots should be identified by the police and approved on an annual basis by a Magistrate (Home Office, Accredited Official Statistics, 14 March 2024, link). 

Crime is rising on Labour's watch: 

Crime increased by seven per cent in Labour's first year. In the year ending March 2025, there were 8.787 million incidents of crime including fraud and computer misuse in England and Wales and in year ending March 2024, there were 9.445 million incidents (ONS, Crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2025, 4 July 2025, link). 

Shoplifting rose by 20 per cent in Labour's first year – this is the highest figure since current police recording practices began. Shoplifting offences rose to 530,643 offences in the year ending March 2025, compared with the previous year 444,022 offences. This is the highest figure since police recording practices began in 2003 (ONS, Crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2025, 4 July 2025, link). 

The Met Police Commissioner and the Policing Watchdog have called for non-crime hate incidents to be abolished. Sir Andy Cooke, His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said current legislation places police in an ‘invidious position' with ‘discretion and common sense' not always prevailing. Sir Mark Rowley echoed calls for the government to ‘change or clarify' the law after the arrest of Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan (BBC News, 10 September 2025, link). 

Police numbers and police action is falling under Labour: 

Police numbers are falling under this Labour Government. In headcount terms, there were 148,452 officers by March 2025, a decrease of 1,316 officers (0.9 per cent) compared to March 2024 (Home Office, Accredited Official Statistics, 23 July 2025, link). 

Fewer people are joining the police force on Labour's watch. Excluding transfers, 7,865 police officers joined the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales in the year ending 31 March 2025, a decrease of 1,614 FTE or 17 per cent on the previous year (HO, Police Workforce, England and Wales: 31 March 2025, 23 July 2025, link). 

Some of the most senior police chiefs wrote to Keir Starmer to warn him his cuts to police budgets will have ‘far-reaching consequences'. Sir Mark Rowley and other police chiefs warned the Prime Minister that they will face “stark choices” about which crimes they investigate (The Times, 3 June 2025, link). 

The Metropolitan Police are cutting 1,700 jobs and services, including moving officers out of schools, making our streets and schools less safe. The Met faces a £260 million hole in its budget for the coming year, the force has said. The Met said the cuts placed ‘an extraordinary stretch on our dedicated men and women' (BBC News, 2 April 2025, link). 

Under Sadiq Khan's leadership as Mayor of London, the number of stop and searches fell by nearly 60 per cent. Within London between 2021 and 2024, the number of stop and searches fell from 311,352 to 135,739, a 56 per cent drop (Home Office, Accredited Official Statistics, 14 March 2024, link). 

The number of knife crime offences increased by 86 per cent under Sadiq Khan's leadership as Mayor of London. In 2024, the number of knife crime offences in the capital reached 16,879 offences in 2024 – an 86.2 per cent increase on 2014/15 levels (ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Police Force Area, 24 July 2025, link). 

The Liberal Democrats fought to keep dangerous foreign criminals in the UK, who then went onto reoffend, proving they don't have the country's security at heart: 

Seven Liberal Democrat MPs including the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, signed a letter to stop the deportation of dangerous foreign criminals who went on to reoffend in the UK. Ed Davey, Daisy Cooper, Sarah Olney, Layla Moran, Alistair Carmichael, Munira Wilson and Wendy Chamberlain helped block the deportation of offenders (Anna McMorrin, Facebook, 10 February 2020, link; The Daily Mail, 19 April 2023, link; The Sun, 4 March 2023, link; GB News, 23 March 2023, link; Sutton and Croydon Guardian, 6 July 2019, link). 

Reform's policy fails to address the real concerns the British public have about crime: 

The Former Chief Inspector of Prisons said Reform's prisons policy will not ‘address the real concerns that people have got about crime'. Nick Hardwick told Times Radio, ‘Where I think what he's saying just doesn't add up is that first of all, what he's proposing will cost far, far more than he's suggesting and secondly, I don't actually think it will address the real concerns that people have got about crime' (Times Radio, 21 July 2025, archived)