Interpol’s 89th General Assembly took place in Istanbul, Turkey between 23-25 November, during which elections took place for the role of Interpol president and membership of the executive committee.
The General Assembly voted to elect the UAE candidate, Major General Al-Raisi, as Interpol president for a period of four years, on a majority of 104 to 47. Voting was conducted in secret.
The UK candidate for election to the executive committee, Deputy Chief Constable Will Kerr of Police Scotland, was also elected, and will take a seat alongside Turkey and Spain to represent the European region in Interpol for a period of three years. In addition, a UK lawyer, Ms Susie Alegre, was elected to the Requests Chamber of the Commission for the Control of Files (CCF).
Interpol remains a vital tool for UK law enforcement in tackling international crime worldwide and we will work with the newly elected executive committee to ensure that it continues to operate in accordance with its constitution and with full respect for human rights obligations.
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Provisional Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2022-23
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has today published the provisional police grant report (England and Wales) 2022-23. The report sets out the Home Secretary’s determination for 2022-23 of the aggregate amount of grants that she proposes to pay under section 46(2) of the Police Act 1996. A copy of the report will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Today the Government are setting out the provisional police funding settlement in Parliament for the 2022-23 financial year. Overall funding for policing will rise by up to £1.1 billion compared with the 2021-22 funding settlement, bringing the total up to £16.9 billion. Within this, funding to police and crime commissioners (PCCs) will increase by up to an additional £796 million, assuming full take-up of precept flexibility. This would represent an increase to PCC funding in cash terms of 5.8% on top of the 2021-22 police funding settlement.1
This Government are absolutely committed to keeping the public safe; the police have a critical role to play in this, and in reducing crime. We are determined to strengthen our police service and, by providing a three-year spending review settlement, we are giving the police the financial certainty and stability needed for longer-term, strategic reforms. We have confirmed total grant funding for police forces for the next three years, with increases of £550 million in 2022-23, at least £650 million in 2023-24 and no less than £800 million in 2024-25. In addition, PCCs will have up to £10 of precept flexibility in each of the next three years to use according to their local needs.
With this substantial investment, this settlement supports the police to:
Today I am pleased to be publishing the third annual update to the UK anti-corruption strategy 2017 to 2022 which covers the year 2020. As part of the strategy, the Government are committed to providing an annual written update to parliament on progress.
It is particularly pertinent that we are publishing this update as countries are gathering to assess progress with implementation of the UN convention Against corruption. This serves as a reminder to us all of the need for domestic and international action to address the evolving threat from corruption. This month we also saw the UK join our US partners in their summit for democracy, which similarly focuses on actively tackling the corruption challenges at home and abroad.
This update highlights the progress made against the anti-corruption commitments in 2020 and focuses on a number of key areas:
securing the public commitment with all Crown dependencies and inhabited overseas territories to implement publicly accessible registers of company beneficial ownership information. This will help strengthen the international effort to counter illicit finance;
extending the remit of the national fraud initiative and helping local authorities to undertake bank account and active company checks;
reforming the police complaints and disciplinary systems to make them more transparent, independent and proportionate;
securing endorsement from G20 Ministers of a G20 call to action for countries to combat corruption in the covid-19 response and recovery;
publishing a review of procurement risks in local government that improves understanding and strengthens our response; and
Today I am updating Parliament on Home Office delivery over the last 12 months.
Dealing with the effects of covid-19 has been a challenge for the entire country, but it has also brought out the best of us as communities stepped up to deal with those challenges. Few have played a more important role than our emergency service workers and I put on record my particular thanks to the police officers and firefighters who have continued selflessly to serve the public in sometimes trying circumstances, as well as all Home Office staff and Border Force officers who have played their part in the fight against covid-19.
Despite covid-19, the Home Office has continued to deliver on the people’s priorities and as we recover from the pandemic, we will continue to build back safer in 2022.
Cutting crime and law enforcement
We are delivering our manifesto commitment for new police officer recruitment, having recruited more than 11,000 of the 20,000 new police officers we have pledged for England and Wales to help cut crime and protect our communities. Every region in the country has more police officers keeping our streets and communities safer day and night—both beating crime and preventing crime.
The College of Policing has continued to connect all those working in the police and law enforcement, with the chair of its board, Lord Herbert of South Downs, launching a fundamental review of the College’s work. This is important if we are to ensure that it continues to meet its potential and that its work and role within policing is valued across the service.
We have published several landmark strategies on the safety and security of our nation.
1. Successfully complete the 20,000 officer police uplift programme by March 2023, building on the outstanding progress to date.
2. Accelerate progress on the Government’s key policing priorities: reducing crime, ensuring the criminal justice system works for all, driving forward improvements in the service the public receive, and transforming critical capabilities and infrastructure.
3. Ensure an increase in productivity using enhanced technology and investigative tools. In return for this significant investment, we expect police leaders to become more efficient and effective with officers’ time, and in the fight against national threats.
Recruitment
This Government are delivering on their commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers, and the three-year spending review settlement gives the police the investment and financial certainty they need for this. We have already invested significantly in increasing the number of police officers, providing £700 million in 2020-21 and a further £425 million in 2021-22. Forces have leaned in to this commitment, and as at the end of September, over 11,000 officers have been recruited, 55% of our 20,000 target. As a result of this policing is more diverse than ever. Since April 2020, more than four in 10 new recruits were female and 11.4% identified as belonging to a black, Asian, mixed or other minority ethnic groups. Good progress is also being made on deployments into regional organised crime units. Forces are recruiting officers to support deployments across the policing system, and we expect this growth to be seen over the spending review period. Forces must not be complacent in their efforts to ensure policing is open to all in modern Britain and to bring in the best talent from across their local communities.
For 2022-23, PCCs will receive an additional £550 million of Government grants which include funding for the recruitment of the final 8,000 additional officers, and continued growth in police staff to support officers, by the end of March 2023. To ensure recruitment is maintained, £135 million of the grant increase will be ringfenced and allocated in line with funding formula shares. As in previous years, PCCs will be able to access this as they progress towards their recruitment target.
Building on the commitments in the beating crime plan, we are continuing to strengthen capability to confront serious and organised crime. Therefore, 425 officers will be deployed into regional organised crime units and equivalent capability in London. Recruitment allocations for year three of the programme are set out in the tables attached to this statement.
Precept
Spending review 2021 confirmed that PCCs will be empowered to raise additional funding through precept flexibility. We propose to enable PCCs to increase their band D precept by up to £10 in each of the next three years without the need to call for a local referendum, the equivalent of less than £1 per month. If all PCCs decide to maximise their flexibility, this would result in up to £246 million additional funding for local policing next year. It is for locally accountable PCCs to take decisions on local precept.
Counter-terrorism policing
The Government will continue to provide vital support for counter-terrorism (CT) policing, ensuring they have the resources they need to meet and deal with the threats we face. For the first time, CT police funding will total over £1 billion in 2022-23. This significant investment will aid in supporting the ongoing CT policing investigations to keep the country safe, and includes continued funding for both armed policing and the CT operations centre. The funding includes the transfer of £44 million for special branch from core PCC budgets to the CT policing grant, protecting local CT assets while providing forces with greater access to specialist expertise and resources to keep our citizens safe from harm.
PCCs will be notified separately of force-level funding allocations for CT policing, which will not be made public for security reasons.
National priorities
This Government will continue to support PCCs and forces through increased investment in national policing priorities. This settlement provides £1.4 billion for the following national priorities in 2022-23 (as set out at tables 1 and 5):
Maintaining our focus on cutting crime to make communities safer, we are continuing to invest in critical priority areas. This includes drugs and county lines activity, violent crime reduction, child sexual abuse and exploitation, fraud, and modern slavery. Next year we will see:
Further investment in law enforcement intelligence and investigation capacity, taking these capabilities one step closer to intercepting the rise of economic crime.
Regional organised crime units equipped with the capabilities they need to tackle serious and organised crime and protect the most vulnerable citizens from abuse, building on the provision of more officers through the uplift programme.
A national crime laboratory to drive the use of innovative data science techniques to prevent and reduce crime.
This Government recognise that transparency, governance and accountability have a key role to play in building public confidence in the criminal justice system. This settlement will enable us to:
Fulfil key commitments from the rape review, including the expansion of Operation Soteria to additional pilot areas to test innovative ways for the police and CPS to investigate rape cases.
Deliver on our commitment to ensure that no victim of rape and serious sexual assault is left without a mobile phone for more than 24 hours and explore how we can further exploit technological advancements and new ways of working to improve investigation outcomes.
Drive improvements in local police performance, including measuring responsiveness to 101 and 999 calls and providing a peer support function through the College of Policing for poor performing forces.
We must ensure that there is no place left for criminals to hide that carry out serious and organised crime and rely on sophisticated digital communications to evade detection. That is why this Government will be:
Investing in a set of critical investigative tools to help deliver the drugs supply attack plan and support a range of other national priority threats. These tools will provide better-quality intelligence, expand law enforcement’s ability to tackle international crime networks, homicide and neighbourhood crime, and boost prosecution rates against high-harm offenders.
Providing greater investment in tackling fraud and improving the way in which intelligence on firearms is collected and managed.
This settlement also includes continued investment in major law enforcement programmes, and other critical national police and law enforcement IT capabilities. This Government will invest in:
Strengthening the ability to share, analyse and act on all available intelligence data to counter drugs, county lines and other high harm offences.
Collaborating with industry to leverage technology in support of safeguarding the vulnerable.
Simplifying the technological capabilities that are delivered so that they can be easily adopted and exploited by operational users.
The Government expect PCCs to continue to take responsibility for crime outcomes both locally and nationally, and we will support PCCs and forces to deliver well-evidenced crime interventions as part of their core business. The spending review has provided £150 million of Government funding for crime reduction in each of the next three years, which will allow the continuation of existing programmes as well as some new investments to prevent crime and keep our communities safe.
We will confirm funding arrangements for specific crime reduction programmes in due course. These will follow a match-funding principle where funding for local intervention is supported via funding allocated to or raised by local leaders. This approach will maximise PCC investment in crime reduction and increase the total funding spent on crime priorities, making our communities safer.
Outcomes and efficiency
While we continue to invest in policing, it is only right that the Government hold the policing sector, as with other public services, to account on delivering for the public. The police must demonstrate to taxpayers that they are using this funding effectively, meeting the needs of their community and ensuring the public receive the highest possible quality of service.
As part of the spending review settlement, the Government will expect to see over £100 million of cashable efficiency savings delivered from force budgets by 2024-25. For 2022-23, we expect to see £80 million of efficiency savings—which have been reflected in the funding set out as part of the settlement.
Ensuring the value of the Government’s investment in policing goes beyond efficiencies. Following greater investment in modern technology infrastructure and interoperable systems, we expect to see an increase in productivity. This will enable more efficient data sharing and analysis, reduce the risk of service disruptions, and provide a foundation for future enhancements and innovations. We will continue to work with and support the policing sector through the Efficiency in Policing Board with a renewed focus on improving the measurement and delivery of productivity gains.
This Government have once again set out their commitment to giving the police the resources they need to cut crime and keep the public safe—setting out today how up to an additional £1.1 billion will be invested in the policing system in 2022-23. We will continue to work with policing to achieve the outcomes set out here. I would like to pay tribute and express my sincere gratitude to our police officers and police staff for the extraordinary bravery and dedication they display each day, to keep us all safe from harm.
I have set out in a separate document, attached, the tables illustrating how we propose to allocate the police funding settlement between the different funding streams and between police and crime commissioners for 2022-23. These documents are intended to be read together.
1 Funding for special branch has been transferred from existing PCC baselines and now will go to PCCs through the CT policing grant.
publishing the Green Paper on procurement reform with specific proposals to further strengthen transparency and integrity across Government.
This update covers activity made against the Government’s commitments in the Strategy during 2020. Activity in 2021 will be reported on in the Year 4 Update due to be presented next year.
The year 2020 has been dominated in so many ways by the covid-19 pandemic.
The challenging global environment has required the whole of Government to respond to the pandemic focused on public health. Whilst recognising 2020 was a challenging year, this update provides more details and highlights achievements which have gone beyond the original strategy commitments as well as an explanation for those off-track commitments.
The Government will continue to implement their strategy commitments to combat corruption and to promote integrity and transparency at home and overseas. There is still much work to do and it is important to recognise that a number of broader issues are considered as we look ahead. The Government will update Parliament on progress made in 2021 in the fourth annual update due next year and I am pleased also to announce that Government have started to develop the successor to the strategy which expires at the end of 2022. In addition, a policy statement in response to the “Upholding Standards in Public Life” report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the review into the development and use of supply chain finance in Government by Nigel Boardman will be published in due course, in the new year. Alongside this the Government will be providing an update to its work to reform the business appointment rules.
I have written to the devolved Administrations as the update is of direct interest to them.
Finally, I would also like to thank the ongoing work of the Prime Minister’s anti-corruption champion, my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), throughout this period.
A copy of the update will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and also published on gov.uk.
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Our beating crime plan establishes how the Government will ensure the public is better protected across all parts of the country, with each neighbourhood having contactable, named police officers who know their area and are best placed to ensure that persistent crime and antisocial behaviour is tackled.
Our tackling violence against women and girls strategy set out plans to increase support for victims and survivors, increase the number of perpetrators brought to justice and reduce the prevalence of violence against women and girls in the long term. The need for the strategy became all the more stark following the tragic murder of Sarah Everard and immediate measures taken included the creation of the new online tool “StreetSafe”. This provides women and girls with a way to anonymously and quickly pinpoint areas where they have felt unsafe and say why—an innovative crime prevention tool. The appointment in September of Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth as the national police lead for violence against women and girls means that police action in this vital area is now being co-ordinated across England and Wales.
In June we published the end-to-end rape review report on findings and actions, in which we committed to deliver lasting improvements to the way we investigate and prosecute rape so that victims are properly supported and they—and the public—can have confidence that perpetrators of this sickening crime will feel the full force of the law.
The Domestic Abuse Act, which gained Royal Assent this year, provides for the first time in history a wide-ranging legal definition of domestic abuse and delivers important new protections and support for victims, such as ensuring that abusers can no longer directly cross-examine their victims in the family and civil courts. It also gives police new powers, including domestic abuse protection notices which provide victims with immediate protection from abusers.
We also published our tackling child sexual abuse strategy—a first-of-its-kind national strategy to protect children from all forms of child sexual abuse in which we set out how the Government will use new legislation and enhanced technology to stop offenders in their tracks and bring the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to justice.
We have also enhanced our work tackling the scourge of drugs with a new cross-Government 10-year strategy which includes pursuing and closing down the ruthless gangs who exploit and threaten the most vulnerable in society for financial gain through the illegal drugs trade. We have already closed down 1,500 county lines and this new crackdown aims to dismantle a further 2,000, as we seek to continue driving down crime and delivering safer streets for all.
During the course of this year, we have also expanded Project ADDER, the programme which seeks to ensure that more drug users get effective treatment, with enhanced treatment and recovery provision. Its overarching aim is to reduce drug-related deaths, reduce drug-related offending and reduce the prevalence of drug use while disrupting high-harm criminals and networks involved in the supply and importation of drugs. Having launched the programme in January 2021 in Blackpool, Hastings, Middlesbrough, Norwich and Swansea Bay, in July 2021 it expanded to take in Bristol, Newcastle, Wakefield, the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Hackney, and three local authorities in Liverpool city region.
Meanwhile, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill—legislation to restore confidence in the criminal justice system—is approaching its concluding stages in the House of Lords. Once enacted, this will give our police officers more of the powers and tools they need to keep themselves and all of us safe, while introducing tougher sentencing for the worst offenders and ending automatic halfway release from prison for serious crimes. Following recent antisocial protests which have caused misery and disruption for countless road users and citizens going about their lawful business, the legislation will give the police the power to stop and search people in order to seize items such as glue and chains intended to cause serious disruption by “locking-on”. It will also introduce mandatory life sentences for those who kill an emergency worker in the course of their duty.
Following the mass shooting in Plymouth in August, a review of police firearms licensing procedures was completed, including a review of licences which had been surrendered, seized, revoked or refused, only then to be returned following further checks or appeals. Following this review, eight of these returned licences were either re-surrendered or revoked, providing further reassurance to the public that their safety remains our priority.
We have also continued to establish what needs to be done to protect people from being exposed to harmful content online, whether that be publishing incitement to terrorism or images of the sexual abuse of children. I will continue to hold technology companies to account for the harmful content they host on their platforms and if they neglect public safety when designing products; and in due course our Online Safety Bill will place on those technology companies a binding duty of care to their users—and end-to-end encryption will not release them from that duty. This is fundamental to ensuring public safety and keeping people safe from evil.
Figures published last month show a 14% decrease in total crime (excluding fraud and computer misuse) across England and Wales for the year ending June 2021, compared with the year ending June 2019. This includes an 11% decrease in the number of homicides, a 6% decrease in the number of police recorded offences involving firearms and an 8% decrease in offences involving knives or sharp instruments.
Controlling our borders
Following the UK’s exit from the European Union we have been able to take back control of our borders by ending free movement and introducing our new points-based immigration system, which has now been in operation for over a year. We have also created new routes to attract the most talented and highly-skilled workers and global leaders in their fields to the UK.
These include the graduate route, which will allow talented international graduates who have been awarded their degree from a UK university to stay in the UK and work, or look for work, at any skill level for at least two years, and the new fast-track international sportsperson route, which will make it easier for professional athletes across sports to work in the country.
Additionally, we have improved the employer sponsorship system to enable UK businesses and educational institutions to become sponsors and attract global talent faster, while adding more illustrious prizes to the global talent visa, making it simpler for more of the world’s most gifted minds to come to the country.
We have also created an immigration route for British nationals overseas status holders in Hong Kong, reflecting our historic and moral commitment to the people of Hong Kong who have had their rights and freedoms restricted. As of 30 September, since the route launched on 31 January 2021 there had been 67,300 applications with 57,300 successful grants.
Recognising the considerable public concerns about illegal migration, the Nationality and Borders Bill is a critical piece of legislation whose aim is to deter illegal entry into the UK and reduce the pull factors. It was given its Third Reading in the House of Commons by a majority of 67 earlier this month.
This legislation will deliver long-overdue reform to our broken asylum and immigration system and will be critical in making unviable the business model of the people smugglers who threaten the lives of every person from whom they take money to then place in unseaworthy vessels to cross the English channel.
Once enacted, this legislation will: make the system fairer and more effective so that we can better protect and support those in genuine need of asylum; deter illegal entry into the UK and save lives by breaking the business model of those criminal trafficking networks; and remove from the UK those with no right to be here.
We have also continued to work closely with our international partners on tackling this shared problem emanating from the global migration crisis and specifically signed a new agreement with the French Government to strengthen UK-France co-operation on tackling illegal immigration across the channel.
The tireless work of the National Crime Agency tackling organised immigration crime has also played an important role in helping bring to justice people smugglers, having been involved in more than 140 arrests in the first 11 months of this year and with around 50 ongoing investigations linked to organised immigration crime. (The NCA has also played a critical role in other areas, such as keeping children safe online throughout the pandemic and disrupting high-risk offenders.)
We have also signed a new agreement with the Albanian Government to remove Albanian nationals who have no right to be in the UK, and established a new migration and mobility partnership with the Indian Government, supporting people coming to the UK through legal routes, while stopping the abuse of the system and speeding up the removal of those who have no right to be in the UK.
Protecting the homeland
Most of the work of our counter-terrorism police and security agencies is done out of public sight for good reasons, but they play an essential role in keeping the public safe.
They constantly review where threats exist and take the necessary action to clamp down on those with malign intent. To that end, this year Parliament has proscribed the entirety of Hamas, the militant Islamist terrorist movement, as a terrorist organisation, as well as Atomwaffen Division and The Base, predominantly US-based white supremacist groups.
During the year, the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act received Royal Assent, further protecting the public by completely ending the prospect of early release for anyone convicted of a serious terror offence and forcing them to spend their whole term in jail. It also enhances the tools available to counter-terrorism police and the security services to manage the risk posed by terrorist offenders and individuals of concern outside of custody.
The Covert Human Intelligence Sources Act was also given Royal Assent, providing a clear and consistent statutory basis so that our intelligence and enforcement agencies and public bodies have the right tools to keep us safe. This longstanding critical capability supports the work of undercover agents in preventing and safeguarding victims from serious crimes, including terrorism, by ensuring they can gain the trust of those under investigation.
This year also saw the unveiling of the first elements of the new counter-terrorism operations centre in London, including a cutting-edge counter-terrorism operations suite which is now fully operational and helping to keep the public safe.
During the summer, the Home Office stepped up to help in the evacuation of people from Kabul airport—the largest evacuation mission undertaken since the second world war, which involved getting more than 16,000 people out of the Afghan capital. The Home Office’s dual priorities during this evacuation were to save as many lives as possible while keeping the British public safe and I am very proud of all who worked on that immense response.
Likewise, I was proud of all the Home Office teams, police and our partner agencies who were involved in safely delivering the COP26 conference in Glasgow in November—the largest international event the UK has hosted since the 2012 Olympics—as well as the G7 summit earlier this year. UKVI staff and Border Force officers efficiently processed and welcomed tens of thousands of visiting delegates from around the world; meanwhile, police officers from across the UK and our security agencies kept attendees and the public safe throughout—as they do without fanfare across the UK every day of the year. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.
International engagement
In September I chaired the G7 Interior Ministers in London, showing how the UK is taking a lead on the international stage in the spheres of counter-terrorism and illegal migration, as well as tackling child sexual abuse and exploitation online. We agreed to work together to take action to prevent and combat violent extremism and terrorism; to protect people against harms enabled or exacerbated by the internet; to ensure security is not undermined by the threat of serious and organised crime; to support global action to confront emerging issues for national and border security; and to strengthen international action against corruption and kleptocracies.
Throughout the year I and ministerial colleagues have engaged with numerous counterparts from around the world. In November I visited Washington, where I met with senior members of the US administration, and it was agreed that the UK and US security services will undertake joint work to further strengthen the vital counter-terrorism relationship between our two nations.
EU settlement scheme
Following the UK’s departure from the European Union, a considerable number of our EU friends and neighbours decided to make the UK their home and secure the status to which they are entitled through the hugely successful EU settlement scheme. By the end of November 2021, more than 6.3 million applications had been received, with over 5.9 million (94%) applications concluded. We have continued to work as quickly as possible to conclude applications, as well as supporting people with late applications, and the scheme remains opens indefinitely for late applications.
Windrush
Finally, this year, we have continued to put right the wrongs suffered by the Windrush generation under successive Governments. Following the overhaul of the compensation scheme I announced in December 2020, it is now easier for people to get higher payments more quickly, and as a result of my changes, more than £38 million has been paid or offered in compensation.
We simplified the application process, including changes to the primary claim form, designed in consultation with stakeholders, to make it easier to complete and easier for caseworkers to process; and for those who need support, we have funded an organisation to provide free, independent claimant assistance to individuals for the duration of the scheme.
We have also worked at pace to implement the recommendations of the Windrush lessons learned review, with Wendy Williams having recently returned to the Home Office to undertake a progress review on delivery of her recommendations.