The announcement came buried in the government's policing white paper earlier this year, but it deserves far more scrutiny than it has received. The Labour government intends to create a new National Police Service — bringing together the National Crime Agency, Counter Terrorism Policing, regional organised crime units, police helicopters, and national roads policing under a single organisation headed by a newly created national commissioner. This would represent the most significant restructuring of British policing in decades. And the public deserves an honest debate about what it actually means.
What the Government Is Proposing
On paper, the logic is straightforward. Serious and organised crime is increasingly cross-border and cross-force. Drug trafficking, county lines gangs, people smuggling, cyber fraud — none of these operate within neat police force boundaries. Having the NCA, regional organised crime units, and counter-terrorism police operating as separate organisations with overlapping jurisdictions has created coordination problems and accountability gaps. A unified structure, the argument goes, would be more coherent and more effective.
These are legitimate points. The case for better coordination of serious crime policing is genuine. Nobody disputes that the current patchwork of agencies sometimes allows organised criminals to exploit the gaps between jurisdictions. The question is whether creating a national force under a political appointee — the national commissioner — is the right answer, or whether it introduces as many problems as it solves.
The Accountability Question
Here is my concern. British policing has historically been built on local accountability. Police and Crime Commissioners, elected locally, hold chief constables to account in their areas. Local communities have a direct stake in how they are policed. The policing model that emerged from Peel's original vision was one of officers drawn from and accountable to the communities they serve.
A National Police Service, headed by a nationally appointed commissioner, is a fundamentally different model. Who does the national commissioner answer to? The Home Secretary. That means the most powerful police official in Britain would be directly in the orbit of a government minister. In countries with strong democratic traditions and robust judicial oversight, centralised policing can work. But in Britain, where political pressure on police operations is already a concern — from how counter-extremism policy is applied, to who gets investigated for what — centralising command creates risks.
I am not saying the Government intends to use this new structure for political purposes. I am saying that the structure, once created, is available to be used that way by future governments. Institutions are only as trustworthy as the people running them. Good institutions are designed assuming future leaders may not share the values of those who built them.
What About Local Policing?
The white paper is focused on serious and organised crime. But there is a danger that this restructuring absorbs attention and resources at the national level while local policing — the bobbies on the beat, the response to burglary, the presence in communities — continues to deteriorate. Neighbourhood policing numbers have fallen substantially over the past decade. People in Preston East, as across Lancashire, want to see police officers in their streets. They want to feel safe walking home at night. They want burglary taken seriously rather than recorded and closed without investigation.
None of that is addressed by creating a new national tier. It requires investment in local forces, restoration of officer numbers, and a commitment to prioritising visible crime prevention alongside the more glamorous work of taking down organised crime networks. The government can do both — but only if it is deliberate about it. History suggests that new national structures have a tendency to consume resources that would otherwise flow to the local level.
What Reform UK Would Do
Reform UK's approach to policing starts with a different question: what do the public actually want from their police? The consistent answer is protection from crime, visible presence in communities, and swift action when they are victimised. Build from that, rather than from an organisational design exercise in Whitehall.
We support better coordination on serious and organised crime — that is common sense. But we would insist on robust democratic accountability for any national policing body, including parliamentary oversight and clear limits on ministerial direction of operational decisions. And we would make the restoration of neighbourhood policing a national priority, measured by officer numbers on the street and response times — if not by press releases about national structures.
Restructuring policing is not the same as improving policing. Britain needs both. Right now, the government is delivering one while the other goes unaddressed.