The Weekly Round Up: Police Reform, Prison Education Cuts, Unproven Allegations in Met Police Vetting, and Summary Judgment against Saudi Arabia in the High Court
2 February 2026
In the News
Police Reform Plans announced by Home Secretary
On Monday, the Home Secretary published a white paper outlining her proposals for reforming the police. The proposed changes include the establishment of a National Police Service to oversee policing of organised crime, counter-terrorism and trafficking across England and Wales. This body will also appoint a Senior National Coordinator for public order policing, who will manage police responses to large scale national protests, such as the riots following the Southport stabbings in July 2024.
The Home Secretary also seeks to invest in new policing technologies, establishing a National Centre for AI policing and expanding the use of Live Facial Recognition vans to locate offenders. Meanwhile, on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the High Court heard a judicial review challenge to the Met Police’s September 2024 Live Facial Recognition policy, on the basis that it violated Articles 8, 10 and 11 ECHR (R (Thompson and Carlo) v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis).
Finally, the white paper also suggests that the policing of non crime hate incidents is to be overhauled, with the aim of ‘reducing unnecessary recording burdens’.
Government confirms 20-25% cuts to prison education delivery hours
In November 2025, the Justice Committee released a report expressing its alarm regarding reports of cuts of up to 50% to prison education budgets. It recommended that the Government clarify the scale of, and rationale for, planned cuts to prison education budgets, and set out how it plans to ensure core education provision continues.
The government’s response was published this week, stating that whilst the budget had increased in recent years, these increases had been outpaced by rising delivery costs. As such, the government has implemented a national reduction of prison education delivery hours of around 20-25%, with some prisons experiencing more significant reductions.
Continue reading →
Recent comments