Frontline Policing: Bureaucracy

The Government are committed to tackling bureaucracy and are investing tens of millions of pounds this year in technology to get officers on to the frontline. That includes working with police to reduce admin, using tools such as automated redaction and artificial intelligence, and deploying cutting-edge technology such as facial recognition and video response to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of policing.

I recently met the chief constable of Leicestershire, and he explained some of the red tape that his force faces. Between April 2024 and March 2025,

it used 14,769 “use of force” forms. These are for when people go into handcuffs. Some 6,500 of those were for people who were complicit and were happy to be handcuffed. Each time that happens, it takes an average of 23 minutes to fill in one of those forms. If that could be taken away, it would save the force about £50,000. Will the Minister look at this, and will she meet me to discuss some of the other red tape that we could remove to make policing much more streamlined?

We need to ensure that the police are doing what we need them to be doing, and that they are out on the streets solving crime and not tied up in red tape. That is absolutely certain. The way to be tough on crime is to be smart on crime, and I am happy to look at the hon. Gentleman’s suggestions.

I recently met a police officer in Cambridgeshire who told me that that force had a policy requiring all footage from stop and searches to be reviewed by a more senior officer. Due to this, they feel discouraged from doing proactive patrols due to the extra work that it adds for already stretched supervisors. Will the Policing Minister write to Cambridgeshire’s Conservative police and crime commissioner and urge him to be more proactive on challenging these issues so that our frontline police can spend as much time as possible out in our communities?

I am sorry that my hon. Friend’s police and crime commissioner is not doing what is needed. We need to empower the police to be out doing what they do best, not creating barriers for them to do so.