Issue 291  29th April 2023

The government has hit its manifesto pledge to recruit 20,000 police officers, official figures show. Home Office statistics published this morning show the total number of police officers recruited since the last election is 20,951 - bringing the total number to 149,572 in England and Wales. The pledge was made in 2019 ahead of the 2010 general election, but critics have pointed to cuts to police numbers since then and said the government in fact missed the deadline to hit the target, which was set for March this year.

Around 20,000 officers were lost as a result of budget cuts during the period of austerity that started in 2010. However, the government claims there are now "record numbers" of officers with an extra 3,500 than existed then, when there were 146,030 officers in post as at 31 March 2010. Ministers also say there are now 53,000 female officers (35.5%) and more than 12,000 (8.3%) from an ethnic minority background - also a record high...

Every prison officer in England and Wales now has access to a body-worn video camera while on shift to help keep them safe and cut prison violence, the new Lord Chancellor has announced today (28 April 2023). Alex Chalk KC confirmed 13,000 new and improved cameras are now available across public sector prisons, as he met staff at HMP Isis in London to mark his first week in post. It doubles the total available to be used every time an officer is on duty, capturing challenging prisoner behaviour and how staff have dealt with it, helping to stop false accusations from prisoners. It means staff can be more confident in the actions they take to de-escalate tricky situations and a pilot study published in 2020 found they can improve trust between staff and prisoners...

Thousands of social media posts, pages and accounts advertising the services of people smugglers have been removed thanks to a landmark agreement between the National Crime Agency and five major social media companies. The agreement, which was implemented just over a year ago and is supported by the Home Office, has seen an increase in the number of takedowns, as the NCA worked with Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube to increase their understanding of how organised crime used their platforms to advertise illegal services.

It comes as representatives from the social media companies met with senior NCA officers and Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick at the Home Office today (24 April) to discuss the progress being made, and look at new ways forward. The meeting heard how the since the action plan was agreed there has been positive engagement with social media channels, who have acted quickly on intelligence supplied by the NCA and removed content. More than 3,300 posts, pages or accounts have been removed or suspended as a result, increasing disruption of organised crime groups’ activity...

Suella Braverman is to give police the power to ban slow walking in traffic by protesters, as Just Stop Oil enters the fifth consecutive day of using the tactic in the latest phase of its climate protest campaign. The home secretary said a statutory instrument to the public order bill, which passed its final stages in parliament on Wednesday, would stop what she described as the “selfish disruptive protesters [who] are wreaking havoc in people’s everyday lives across the country”...

Just Stop Oil’s supporters have carried out slow marches on busy roads in the capital every day this week, as it renews its campaign after climate rallies in Westminster by Extinction Rebellion last weekend. The group, which calls on the government to stop licensing new oil and gas projects, adopted the tactic at the end of last year, after supporters racked up long lists of arrests and charges for a series of dramatic and disruptive protests. Police were forced to weigh the disruption of the marches against the protesters’ rights to political speech. A change to the definition of “serious disruption” would empower police to intervene when protesters used the tactic, the Home Office said. “This will give police the clarity they have asked for on when to use their existing powers to break up the slow marching tactics protesters have used to halt traffic across the UK,” it said...