The Crime and Policing Bill would introduce a range of measures aimed at addressing anti-social behaviour, sexual offences, knife crime, radicalisation and much more.
Crime and Policing Bill 2024-25 (2 MB , PDF)
The Crime and Policing Bill 2024-25 was published on 27 February 2025. The bill is listed for second reading on 10 March 2025.
This briefing discusses offences relating to sexual abuse and child sexual abuse, which readers may find distressing.
The bill has a very broad scope. The government says the bill supports the delivery of its ‘safer streets’ mission, which includes targets to halve knife crime and violence against women and girls in a decade, and ‘transform neighbourhood policing’. It also includes many measures beyond these aims.
Across 15 parts, 137 clauses and 17 schedules, the bill includes measures aimed at addressing knife crime, violence against women and girls, anti-social behaviour, retail crime, serious and organised crime, fraud, theft, public order, terrorism, sexual offending and more.
It consists of several general election manifesto commitments, several measures carried over from the previous government’s Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24, and other legislative changes.
The government has committed to tackle anti-social behaviour as part of its safer-street mission.
Part 1 of the bill would introduce of a new ‘respect order’, allowing local authorities and police to impose restrictions on people who commit anti-social behaviour, and which would include a criminal sanction on breach. Other measures will amend existing powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, including removing the need for the police to issue a warning before seizing vehicles associated with anti-social behaviour.
The government has committed to halve knife crime in a decade, through a combination of policy and legislative reforms.
Part 2 of the bill would introduce a new offence of possessing a knife or offensive weapon with intent, increase the maximum penalty for manufacturing, selling, hiring, or lending prohibited weapons, and give the police greater powers to seize knives from properties.
The government has named its package of legislative reforms on knife crime ‘Ronan’s law’, after Ronan Kanda, who was murdered in 2022 by two 16-year-olds using ninja swords bought online and collected from a post office.
Amid reported increases in assaults against shop workers and shoplifting, part 3 of the bill would create a new offence of assaulting a retail worker.
It would also amend legislation so that all shop thefts involving an alleged offence under section 1 of the Theft Act 1968 would be triable either way (in a magistrates’ court or the Crown Court), regardless of the value of the goods stolen. This would aim to “remove any perception that offenders will escape punishment” for low value shoplifting.
Part 4 of the bill would include measures aimed at protecting children and vulnerable people, including creating new offences of child criminal exploitation and ‘cuckooing’, often associated with county lines drug dealing.
It would also establish new offences of spiking and encouraging or assisting serious self-harm.
Part 5 of the bill would introduce several measures aimed at tackling child sexual abuse and other sexual offending.
This includes implementing two recommendations from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. It would make grooming a statutory aggravating factor when sentencing an adult for a child sex offence and create a statutory duty for certain individuals to report child sexual abuse.
It would also introduce measures to tackle the creation and possession of child sexual abuse material and putting the child sex offender disclosure scheme, ‘Sarah’s law’, on a statutory footing.
It would also introduce several new offences relating to the taking of intimate images and voyeurism.
Part 9 of the bill would reintroduce some of the previous government’s proposals to create new offences related to protests, such as banning face coverings, pyrotechnics, and climbing war memorials.
Part 10 of the bill includes measures to allow the police to enter premises without a warrant to search for electronically tracked stolen goods, and conduct drug tests in custody for a wider range of offences and drugs.
Part 13 of the bill would reform certain arrangements for the handling of complaints and conduct matters against the police, in the context of concerns about both complainants and the rights of officers under investigation. These measures were first proposed by the previous government as amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill.
Part 14 of the bill would introduce measures aimed at tackling youth radicalisation, announced as the initial response to the ‘counter-extremism sprint’ established by the government following the general election.
These would take the form of ‘youth diversion orders’, a counter-terrorism risk management tool available to people under 21. The police would be able to apply to the courts for an order, which could require or prohibit certain conduct, if necessary and proportionate to mitigate terrorist risk.
The bill would also implement, or build upon, a number of recommendations of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC.
This bill includes many provisions first proposed by the Conservative government under the Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24, albeit often in amended form.
The Criminal Justice Bill fell at dissolution before the general election 2024. It had not completed its report stage in the House of Commons. The Library briefings Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 (November 2023) and Criminal Justice Bill: Progress of the Bill (May 2024) provide more detail on that bill.
Under the Criminal Justice Bill, the government, opposition and backbenchers tabled many amendments on a range of issues, including on public order, abortion, cuckooing and police accountability. Some of these proposals have re-emerged within this Crime and Policing Bill, and others haven’t.
Given the very wide scope of this bill, MPs will have opportunities to table a wide range of amendments as it progresses through Parliament.
Crime and Policing Bill 2024-25 (2 MB , PDF)
A debate has been scheduled in Westminster Hall at 1.30pm on 27 March on prevention of drugs deaths. The subject for the debate has been chosen by the Backbench Business Committee, and the debate will be opened by Jim Shannon MP.
There will be a Westminster Hall debate on miscarriage of justice compensation on 19 March 2025. The debate will be opened by Ben Lake MP.
There will be a Westminster Hall debate on the use of stop and search on 12 March 2025. The debate will be opened by Saqib Bhatti MP.
