Conservatives set out their Policing Plan as part of our plans for Stronger Borders and Public Order

• Refocus policing priorities: The Home Secretary will gain new powers to set binding operational priorities for all forces, ensuring police focus on real crime.
• Restore order and capacity: The Conservatives will recruit 10,000 new officers, backed by £800 million a year
• Targeted action to fight crime: Introduce year-round surge hotspot policing in 2,000 high crime hotspots, which represent 25 per cent of all crime, and triple stop and search to get weapons off the streets.

The Conservatives have today [Sunday 26^th October 2025] set out the details of their new Policing Plan – clear action to return law and order to our streets.

Under Labour, the clear-up rate for all crime is just 9 per cent, meaning 91 per cent of crimes are going unsolved. Victims are being failed, criminals are walking free, and confidence in policing has collapsed.

New statistics this week also showed the shocking rise in crimes over the past year – with shoplifting up by 13 per cent, robberies targeting business up by 55 per cent and sexual offences up by 9 per cent. This cannot continue.  

The next Conservative Government will put that right. We will recruit 10,000 new police officers as part of a major crackdown on crime. This fully-funded new plan, backed by £800 million a year, will include the introduction of intense hotspot patrolling of the 2,000 neighbourhoods with the most violent crime. The focus on hotspot patrolling, a proven method to cut crime, will deliver 8.3 million extra patrol hours each year and prevent around 35,000 offences.  These hotspots represent 5 per cent of neighbourhoods but 25 per cent of all crime.

To ensure that these officers focus on what matters most the next Conservative Government will strengthen the Home Secretary's powers.

Right now, the Home Secretary can only intervene when a force is deemed to be “failing”, long after problems have taken root. That's just not good enough. The next Conservative Government will change the law to give the Home Secretary the power to set binding operational priorities across all forces, ensuring the police are focused on protecting communities and catching criminals.

These powers will be underpinned by amendments to s40 of the Police Act 1996. We will remove also unnecessary restrictions and outdated requirements for outside approval. A Conservative Home Secretary will use this power to restore common sense, get policing focused on real crime, and rebuild public confidence in law and order.

This includes ending the scandal of policing thoughts rather than the street. Too often, police time is wasted on social-media spats and so-called Non-Crime Hate Incidents. The Conservatives will scrap Non-Crime Hate Incidents, saving over 60,000 police hours a year and refocusing resources on serious and acquisitive crime.

Under the next Conservative government, the rate of stop and search will also triple. The increase in stop and search will be achieved by allowing routine S60 suspicion-less stop and search in the crime hotspot areas, and by lowering the threshold for a suspicion-based stop and search elsewhere.

We will also protect businesses on high streets by ensuring that police forces run images of offenders through the Police National Computer and relevant databases – cracking down on repeat offenders

Taken together, these reforms mark a new era of accountability and action. The Conservatives will end political policing, refocus every officer on fighting crime, and rebuild trust between the police and the public.

It is also a fully funded plan, thanks to the Conservatives £47 billion Savings Plan.

Only the Conservatives have a plan to restore law and order to Britain.

Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, said:

“Every day, victims are told there's nothing police can do while criminals walk free. That failure corrodes public trust and weakens the rule of law. Keir Starmer does not have the backbone to take the difficult decisions Britain needs. That has to change.

“Our plan will end the culture of excuses. 10,000 new police officers. New powers for the Home Secretary to ensure the police focus on catching real criminals. Tripling stop and search. This is real action that only we have the backbone to deliver.

“Only the Conservative Party has a common sense, hard-edged policing plan to restore common sense and rebuild confidence with Stronger Public Order.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Labour's year of lawlessness

• Shoplifting offences have increased by 13 per cent on Labour's watch. There were 529,994 shoplifting offences in the year ending June 2025 (ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending June 2025, 23 October 2025, link).

• Theft from the person offences have increased by 5 per cent on Labour's watch. There were 145,860 theft from the person offences in the year ending June 2025 (ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending June 2025, 23 October 2025, link).

• Sexual offences have increased by 9 per cent on Labour's watch. There were 211,225 police recorded sexual offences in the year ending June 2025 (ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending June 2025, 23 October 2025, link).

• Rape offences have increased by 6 per cent on Labour's watch. There were 72,804 rape offences in the year ending June 2025 (ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending June 2025, 23 October 2025, link).

• Stalking increased by 5 per cent on Labour's watch. There were 137,859 police recorded stalking offences in the year ending June 2025 (ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending June 2025, 23 October 2025, link).

• Harassment increased by 6 per cent on Labour's watch. There were 310,173 police recorded harassment offences in the year ending June 2025 (ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending June 2025, 23 October 2025, link).

• Robbery of business property offences have increased by 55 per cent on Labour's watch. There were 18,534 robbery of business property offences in the year ending June 2025 (ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending June 2025, 23 October 2025, link).

Data shows the impact of Labour's catastrophic choices on our police forces:

• 147,746 full-time equivalent (FTE) officers were in post as of 31 March 2024 in the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales. This is the highest number of police officers since comparable records began (in the year ending March 2003), higher than the previous peak of 147,434 FTE police officers in March 2023 (Home Office, Accredited Official Statistics, 19 March 2025, link).

• As at 31 March 2025 there were 146,442 FTE officers in post in the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales, a decrease of 0.9 per cent on the March 2024 peak of 147,745 officers (down 1,303 FTE) (Home Office, Accredited Official Statistics, 23 July 2025, link).

• In headcount terms, there were 148,452 officers (headcount), 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).

Labour's Sentencing Bill changes the rules on early release for serious criminals:

• The Justice Secretary is releasing murderers, rapists, and violent criminals after serving just half of their sentence. The Justice Secretary will change the law so that most criminals, including sex offenders and robbers, will be released after serving just a third of their sentence with the exception of such as killers and rapists, who will have to serve at least half of their sentence. (UK Parliament, Sentencing Bill, 2 September 2025, link).

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 £800 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 £800 million per year once fully rolled out.  

• 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). 

In government, the Conservatives supported our police to cut down on crime and protect the public:

• Delivered on our manifesto commitment to recruit over 20,000 extra police officers, helping to keep our streets safe. We delivered on our manifesto commitment of delivering 20,000 additional police officers – higher than 2010 levels (Home Office, National Statistics, 24 January 2024, link).

• Boosted police funding to over £18 billion, with an extra £922 million for 2024-2025, giving them the resources they need to make the streets safer. Police funding is £18.4 billion for 2024-25, representing 30.7 per cent cash terms increase compared to 2019-20, keeping communities safe (Home Office, Press Release, 14 December 2023, link).

• Launched the Grooming Gangs Taskforce, which helped police forces arrest over 550 suspects and identify and protect over 4,000 victims in its first year. The Grooming Gangs Taskforce of specialist officers has worked with all 43 police forces in England and Wales to support child sexual exploitation and grooming investigations (Home Office, News Story, 21 May 2024, link).