What Will the Bill Do?

Spanning 15 parts, 137 clauses, and 17 schedules, the bill seeks to address crime and safety issues across a wide range of categories. This includes knife crime, sexual offences, serious and organised crime, anti-social behaviour, and child exploitation. Some provisions are carried over from previous government proposals, while others address new concerns.

The government has outlined its goal to halve knife crime over the next decade and transform neighbourhood policing, with the bill containing several key measures to achieve these targets.

Key Areas of the Bill:

• Anti-Social Behaviour: Part 1 introduces a new ‘respect order’ that gives local authorities and police the power to impose restrictions on individuals committing anti-social behaviour, with criminal sanctions for breaches.
• Knife Crime: The bill includes ‘Ronan’s Law,’ named after Ronan Kanda, who was tragically murdered in 2022. New provisions include harsher penalties for weapons possession and increased police powers to seize knives.
• Shoplifting and Assaults on Retail Workers: Part 3 introduces a new offence for assaulting a retail worker, alongside amendments to the Theft Act 1968, enabling all shop thefts to be heard in either the magistrates’ court or the Crown Court, regardless of the value of the goods stolen.
• Safeguarding Vulnerable Individuals: New offences will target child criminal exploitation and ‘cuckooing’ in county lines drug operations, alongside measures to address spiking and encouraging self-harm.
• Sexual Offences: Part 5 includes measures to combat child sexual abuse, including making grooming a statutory aggravating factor and establishing a statutory duty for specific individuals to report abuse. Other provisions target the creation of child sexual abuse material and include reforms to the ‘Sarah’s Law’ disclosure scheme.
• Police Powers: Parts 9 and 10 introduce new police powers, including the ability to enter premises without a warrant to search for stolen goods and conduct drug tests on a wider range of offences.
• Youth Radicalisation: Part 14 outlines measures to address youth radicalisation, introducing ‘youth diversion orders’ aimed at preventing terrorism among individuals under 21.

The Crime and Policing Bill 2024-25 revisits many provisions initially proposed under the Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24, which fell due to the 2024 election. Several amendments from the previous bill are now included in the new legislation, while others have been omitted.

Given its broad scope, MPs will have the opportunity to table a range of amendments as the bill progresses through Parliament.

For more detailed information on the Crime and Policing Bill, read the full report here: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10213/