Crime and Policing Bill 2024-26: Progress of the bill

Warning: This briefing discusses offences relating to sexual abuse and child sexual abuse, which readers may find distressing.

The Crime and Policing Bill 2024-26 was published on 27 February 2025. The bill received its second reading on 10 March and concluded public bill committee on 13 May 2025. It is scheduled for its remaining stages in the House of Commons on 17 and 18 June 2025.

This briefing provides an update on the bill following committee stage, including an overview of key debates relating to provisions in the bill and details of all amendments made. It does not cover the numerous amendments tabled for report stage.

This should be read with reference to the Library briefing Crime and Policing Bill 2024-26, which provides detailed analysis of the bill as introduced to Parliament.

The bill has a very broad scope.

The government says that the bill will support its ‘safer streets’ mission, which includes targets to halve knife crime and violence against women and girls in a decade, and to “transform neighbourhood policing”. It also includes many measures beyond these aims, including on serious and organised crime, fraud, theft, public order, terrorism, sexual offending and more.

As originally introduced, the bill consisted of 137 clauses and 17 schedules. Following committee stage, the bill has expanded to 172 clauses and 18 schedules.

Second reading of the bill took place on Monday 10 March 2025.

The opposition largely supported the bill and noted that many of the provisions had originally been proposed in the previous government’s Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24, which fell before the 2024 general election.

Most MPs spoke in support of the bill, largely praising how measures in the bill could help to address challenges of anti-social behaviour, retail crime and knife crime in their constituencies.

General concerns with the bill mainly focused on whether the police were properly resourced to enforce the new criminal offences and make use of the new police powers in the bill.

The public bill committee met in 15 sessions between 27 March and 13 May 2025.

The government added several new clauses to the bill, including to:

• require retailers and delivery companies to establish more robust age verification checks when selling or delivering knives and crossbows
• force online platforms to remove illegal content related to knives
• allow the police to impose conditions on a protest if it is in the vicinity of a place of worship
• create a new criminal offence of causing death or serious injury by dangerous cycling
• establish a presumption of anonymity for police officers charged with an offence related to discharging their weapons on-duty

It also made several amendments to the bill, particuarly in relation to youth diversion orders, a new order intended to manage counter-terrorism risk for individuals under the age of 21.

All government new clauses and amendments were agreed by the committee.

Consistent with second reading, the opposition broadly supported the bill at public bill committee. It tabled various amendments intended to strenghten aspects of the bill, and new clauses on a range of issues. No opposition or backbench amendments were agreed to by the committee.