Today the Government have published the UK anti-corruption strategy 2025, setting out the Government’s response to tackle the harm that corruption causes to our growth, security and democracy over the next five years.
Corruption harms the UK and its citizens directly. Corruption makes people in the UK poorer and less safe. It undermines confidence in public institutions, damages the UK’s reputation as a trusted place to do business, distorts markets and deters investment. It threatens our national security: corrupt insiders can facilitate organised crime at our borders and in our prisons, and kleptocratic elites overseas seek to exploit our open economy and institutions. In this context of geopolitical instability and accelerating technological change, a clear and concerted strategy is necessary to protect the UK, support long-term economic growth and uphold the integrity of public life. Corruption is a transnational threat that harms our international partners and international interests while fuelling instability overseas: increasing crime, illegal migration and other threats back in the UK.
The strategy is organised around three pillars:
First, it combats corrupt actors and their funds in the UK and overseas. We will strengthen enforcement by expanding the City of London police’s domestic corruption unit and continuing to support the international corruption unit and the international anti-corruption co-ordination centre housed at the National Crime Agency. We will expand the use of sanctions against corrupt actors and their enablers, improve the system-wide response to professional enablers, and pilot the use of artificial intelligence to speed up complex investigations, including within the Serious Fraud Office. We will explore opportunities to reform the UK whistleblowing framework, including through potential financial incentives. We will champion beneficial ownership transparency, including in the UK’s overseas territories and Crown dependencies, to support asset recovery and target corrupt funds.
The strategy also includes reform of the UK’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing supervisory system, consolidating the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing supervisory functions of 22 professional services supervisory bodies. The Financial Conduct Authority will assume responsibility for the supervision of professional services firms, strengthening the UK’s defences against illicit finance and corruption, supporting sustainable growth and simplifying a complex regulatory system.
The second pillar of the strategy tackles vulnerabilities to corruption within UK institutions and systems. We will raise standards in public life by establishing a new ethics and integrity commission, strengthening the business appointments regime and improving the transparency of political donations, including enhanced due diligence requirements. We will bolster integrity in local government through a new statutory local audit office in England and, subject to collective agreement, introduce a mandatory code of conduct for elected local government officials with meaningful sanctions. Across the public sector we will improve vetting, information sharing and insider risk controls in high-risk areas such as policing, borders and prisons, and enhance training and guidance on corruption and procurement.
Thirdly, the strategy sets out plans to deepen our international partnerships aimed at building global resilience to corruption and broader illicit finance. We will host a UK countering illicit finance summit to galvanise collective action against this shared threat; expand our overseas illicit finance network; provide support to partner countries to prevent corruption and implement international standards; and protect and empower civil society and investigative journalism to expose corruption and hold the corrupt to account. We will work multilaterally to protect and enhance implementation of international standards designed to combat corruption and illicit finance.
Delivering these measures will make the UK a harder target for corrupt actors and their funds, improve trust in public life, support investment, and strengthen our national security. These actions will reinforce the UK’s position as a partner of choice for international counterparts sharing our commitment to tackle corruption and illicit finance. The strategy commits the Government to publishing a new anti-money laundering and asset recovery strategy in 2026, alongside the countering illicit finance summit, to complement and extend this work.
Implementation of the strategy will be overseen by Ministers across the Home Office, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and HM Treasury, supported by the Prime Minister’s anti-corruption champion. We are committed to transparent updates and scrutiny of delivery:
We will publish annual progress updates on gov.uk and provide a written ministerial statement to Parliament each year;
We will undertake and publish two in-depth progress assessments at years 3 and 5 of the strategy; and
We will provide updates on progress to an external engagement group, chaired by the anti-corruption champion, and including civil society, academia, business and parliamentarians.
The UK anti-corruption strategy 2025 has been laid before Parliament as a Command Paper (CP 1454) and is available in the Vote Office and on gov.uk.
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