Conservatives announce plan to order police back to basic detective work

• The Conservatives have announced a plan to take back the legal powers so the Home Secretary can set standards and practices in policing and then use them to compel every force in England and Wales to do basic investigative work. 
• A Conservative Home Secretary would immediately order every force to run a suspects' image through the facial recognition database; follow up the geo-location signals coming from stolen goods; and chase up stolen goods advertised for sale online. It is estimated this will solve at least 36,800 more crimes per year
• Only the Conservatives will return power over policing to accountable elected officials all backed by our plan to hire 10,000 extra police officers.

Today [Monday 3rd August 2026], the Conservative Party has set out a plan to plan to take back the legal powers that allow the Home Secretary to set the standards and practices of policing, and to use them to compel every force in England and Wales to carry out basic investigative work.

Three investigative measures would be mandated under a Conservative Home Secretary. Forces would be required to run a suspect's images through the facial recognition database, to follow up geolocation signals coming from stolen goods, and to follow up stolen goods advertised for sale online.

92 per cent of reported crime is unsolved; 65 per cent of the public believe the police will not properly investigate volume crime; and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary found in his September 2025 annual State of Policing Report that Forces must improve how they investigate crime.

The reason a Home Secretary cannot simply order forces to do so is because of a change made in 2014. Until then, the Home Secretary decided codes of practice governing how chief constables discharge their functions, but in 2014, that power was handed to the College of Policing.

The same Act of Parliament went further so that the Home Secretary could not require forces to adopt particular procedures or practices unless approved by the College of Policing. An unelected body was given both a veto over the Home Secretary and a lever upon her. The College used its own guidance to turn the recording of non-crime hate incidents into a national system, applied by every force and extended to every protected characteristic.

Labour are proposing to entrench the College of Policing's powers further as they plan to absorb the College in its entirety' into the proposed National Police Service. The functions the College holds today would sit inside this operational police force, further out the reach of democratic oversight.

The Conservatives propose reversing all of this so that codes of practice are once again issued by the Secretary of State. The Conservative Party will also require forces to adopt specified practices from the Home Secretary and remove the College of Policing's veto.

Using these powers, a Conservative Home Secretary would immediately make 3 important changes and direct police forces to implement the following:

1. Run suspects' face through the national database.

If officers have an image of a suspect, from a CCTV camera, a doorbell camera or a witness's mobile phone, that image will have to be checked against the facial recognition database instead of being filed and forgotten. The database exists as part of the Police National Database and contains images of around 10 million people. The face-matching technology, based on AI, is now incredibly accurate even where the suspects' face is indistinct. But what is missing is a requirement on a force to always use it. A Conservative Home Secretary would direct police forces to always run a suspect's image through the database.

1. Follow the signal coming off the stolen property.

Phones, laptops, tablets, bikes, and cars routinely report their own whereabouts, and a victim can often see on a screen exactly where the thief has taken their stolen belongings. We will ensure that where the signal coming from stolen goods identifies their location that will have to be followed up rather than just noted down or ignored. If a stolen phone is pinging its location, an officer will be required to knock on the door.

1. Chase the goods that thieves are selling in plain sight.

Stolen property is advertised for sale online every day of the week, complete with photographs, a price and a rough location. Under these proposals, forces will be required to follow those listings up where they become aware of them, which is one of the quickest routes there is to recovering belongings and putting a name to whoever took them. It is straightforward police work with a high chance of success.

These proposals are backed by the Conservative Party's plan to Take Back Our Streets, with 10,000 extra police officers, fully funded by £800 million per year.

Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, said:

The public expects clear evidence to always be followed up. When they show the police an image of a suspect or the location of stolen goods they want action, not just a crime number. Conservatives are on the side of the law-abiding majority and we're here to protect them.

We have not seen enough action being taken and so the Conservatives would return to the Home Secretary the power to set operational guidance and codes of practice.  The police's main job is to catch criminals and keep the public safe.

A Conservative Home Secretary would ensure forces always run a suspect's images through the facial recognition database, always follow up on geolocation signals coming from stolen goods, and always follow up stolen goods advertised for sale online. These are the basics the public expect.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Return the power to issue codes of practice to the Home Secretary:

• We will reverse section 124 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. Codes of practice under section 39A of the Police Act 1996 will once again be issued by the Secretary of State, restoring the position that applied from 2002 until 2014. The statutory judgement as to whether a code is necessary will rest with a minister answerable to Parliament, not with a professional body (Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, link; Police Act 1996 , link).

• We will retain the parliamentary safeguard in full. Every code will continue to be laid before Parliament under section 39A(5). The exemptions in section 39A(6) protecting national security, the prevention and detection of crime, and the safety of individuals will be preserved (Police Act 1996, link).

Restore the Home Secretary's power to set police procedures and practices:

• We will repeal subsections 1A and 1B of section 53A of the Police Act 1996. These are the provisions inserted by section 123 of the 204 Act which prevent the Home Secretary making regulations unless the College has prepared or approved the text, and which oblige them to make regulations the College submits. Their repeal restores to the Home Secretary the power to require police forces to adopt particular procedures or practices (Police Act 1996, link).

• This is regarded as a stronger instrument than a code of practice. A chief officer need only have regard to' a code issued under section 39A. Regulations under section 53A require forces to adopt the procedures or practices specified. And section 53A(9) already provides that no such regulations may be made unless a draft has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House. We are not creating a new power or a new procedure, we are removing the College of Policing's veto (Police Act 1996, link).

Bring standards and doctrine into the Home Office:

• We will establish a standards and doctrine function within the Home Office, led by a named minister. It will own the codes of practice, Authorised Professional Practice, the professional standards framework, and vetting and integrity standards.

• Vetting and integrity standards will sit with this function and not with the police force they regulate. Following the Angiolini Inquiry and the Casey Review, the standards governing who is fit to hold the office of constable are among the most consequential in policing. They should be owned by a minister accountable to Parliament, not set within the operational body whose officers they apply to.

Leave operational delivery with the National Police Service:

• We will not seek to unpick the consolidation of operational functions. National training delivery, the police examinations, recruitment assessment, the National Police Wellbeing Service, forensics and the national enabling services are operational functions. Their consolidation is a matter for the structure of policing, not for the Home Office.

This will be used to get the police back to solving crimes: 

• We will use new legal powers to compel the police to conduct basic investigative work. With the proposed changes, this can be done either through Section 39 Codes of Practice or Section 53 regulations to chief officers.

• We will solve at least an extra 36,800 more crimes each year a 10 per cent increase. At present, 92 per cent of reported crime is not solved. By ensuring that police forces solve the current average of offences across forces that lead to charges or summons through focusing on failing forces, this will lead to at least 36,800 more crimes being solved each year around a 10 per cent increase (Home Office, Crime outcomes year ending March 2026, 23 July 2026, link).

• We will use these powers to mandate basic investigative measures. These powers will allow us to mandate the police to follow basic investigative measures. These will include always running a suspect's images through the facial recognition database; always following up geolocation signals for stolen goods; and always follow up stolen goods advertised for sale online.

• This is enabled by our plan to hire and extra 10,000 police officers. The Conservatives plan to Take Back Our Streets includes a fully funded proposal to hire an extra 10,000 police officers that can drive forward this increased emphasis on investigative work that will come from the new powers given to a Conservative Home Secretary.

The police are currently failing to solve crime: 

• 92 per cent of crime currently goes unsolved. According to the latest Home Office figures, only 8.5 per cent of recorded crime leads to charges or summons, leaving 92 per cent unsolved. Forces like the Metropolitan police solve only 6 per cent of reported crimes. If all forces solved the current average proportion of crimes, that would mean 36,800 more crimes being solved each year (Home Office, Crime outcomes year ending March 2026, 23 July 2026, link). 

Control over police standards has moved steadily away from ministers and towards unaccountable bodies:

• Until 2014, the Home Secretary issued the codes of practice that govern how chief constables discharge their functions. Section 39A of the Police Act 1996, inserted by the Police Reform Act 2002, gave the Secretary of State the power to issue codes of practice relating to the discharge of their functions by chief officers of police. It was a ministerial power, exercised by a Home Secretary answerable to Parliament (Police Act 1996, link).

• Section 124 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 took that power away from the Home Secretary and gave it to the College of Policing. Under the section as it now stands, codes are issued by the College, and the statutory test of whether a code is needed at all turns on what the College considers necessary to promote efficiency and effectiveness, to facilitate joint operations, or otherwise in the national interest. The Home Secretary retains only the power to approve what the College puts in front of her, and the duty to lay it before Parliament. She cannot write a code, cannot settle its terms, and cannot issue one the College declines to bring forward (Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, link; Police Act 1996, link).

• The same Act went further and barred the Home Secretary from setting police procedures and practices without the College's consent. Section 53A of the Police Act 1996 allows the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring police forces to adopt particular procedures or practices. Since section 123 of the 2014 Act, she may not make regulations under this section unless the text of the regulations has been prepared or approved by the College of Policing. And where the College submits a draft, she shall make regulations in terms of the draft unless she considers that doing so would impair the efficiency or effectiveness of the police, would be unlawful, or would for some other reason be wrong. An unelected body holds both a veto over the Home Secretary and a lever upon her (Police Act 1996,link; Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, link).

Standards are determined by the unaccountable College of Policing:

• The College of Policing codified and expanded the national recording of non-crime hate incidents through operational guidance. The College of Policing built non-crime hate incidents into a national system applied across all forces and extended it to every protected characteristic. This was done through the College's Hate Crime Operational Guidance published in 2014. It required no ministerial approval or parliamentary process (Home Office, Non-Crime Hate Incidents: Code of Practice on the Recording and Retention of Personal Data, link).

• Ministers were unable to provide the necessary oversight, and it was the courts that eventually found against the guidance.  In R (Miller) v The College of Policing, the Court of Appeal held in 2021 that parts of the College's 2014 guidance interfered with the right to freedom of expression in a real and significant' manner, and that the guidance's overall impact on that right was disproportionate (R (Miller) v The College of Policing [2021] EWCA Civ 1926, 20 December 2021).

The Government is moving this guidance further away from democratic accountability:

• Under current proposals the College of Policing is being absorbed into the National Police Service, a police force.The white paper states that the College in its entirety will be brought into the NPS', and that the National Police Service will be established as a police force', led by a National Police Commissioner who will direct and have control of their officers and other staff, in the same way as a Chief Constable'. This will further reduce the Home Secretary's ability to oversee and direct the functions that the College of Policing currently holds (Home Office, From local to national: a new model for policing, 27 January 2026, link).