Courts
Conservative
- New investigatory model for rape for police forces and prosecutors and pre-recorded cross-examination for victims in all Crown Courts.
- Empower judges to require offenders to attend hearings or face an increased sentence.
- Reduce Covid court backlog by keeping Nightingale courts open, fund sitting days and invest in court maintenance.
- Continue to digitise court processes and expand the use of remote hearings.
- Match fund 100 criminal law pupillages.
- Expand Pathfinder Courts pilot in family court proceedings.
- Continue mediation voucher.
Labour
- Fast-track rape cases, with specialist courts at every Crown Court location in England and Wales.
- To address backlog, allow Associate Prosecutors to work on appropriate cases.
- Provide legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths.
Liberal Democrats
- Tackle backlogs in the criminal courts and family courts.
- Implement a strategy to half the time from offence to sentencing for all criminals.
- Implement a new data strategy to ensure that capacity meets demands and to understand the needs for all users.
- Develop a workforce strategy to ensure there are enough criminal barristers, judges and court staff.
- Enable all victims to request a transcript of court proceedings free of charge.
Prisons
Conservative
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Build four new prisons – completing programme of 20,000 new places by 2030.
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Invest in rehabilitative services such as drug treatment, education and employment to end reoffending cycle – deliver 10-year drugs plan.
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Maintain ban on prisoners voting from jail.
Labour
- Build the prisons which are needed.
- Cut reoffending by working with prisons to improve education and training for offenders and link up with local employers.
- Conduct a strategic review of probation governance, including considering the benefits of devolved models.
Liberal Democrats
- Cut reoffending by ending prison overcrowding through recruiting and retaining prison officers.
- Improve training, education and work opportunities in prisons.
- Establish a Women’s Justice Board.
- Replace Young Offender Institutions with Secure Schools and Secure Children’s Home.
- Ensure prisons have ‘through the gate’ mentorship programme.
- Introduce a National Resettlement Plan to improve rehabilitation.
- Increased funding of supervision of offenders in community – greater coordination between the prison service, probation service providers, voluntary and private sectors and local authorities
Justice
Conservative
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Legislate to create new offences for spiking, the creation of sexualised deepfake images and taking intimate images without consent.
- Continue supporting victims of domestic abuse through Domestic Abuse Act.
- Introduce aggravating factor for murders that happen in the context of ‘rough sex’.
- Consider the recommendations of the Independent Review of Pornography.
- Expand the provision of legal aid at inquests related to major incidents where the Independent Public Advocate is appointed or in the aftermath of terrorist incidents.
- Bring the mandatory reporting provisions of the Criminal Justice Bill into force as soon as possible.
- Design a redress scheme for victims of child sexual abuse.
- Restrict sex offenders from changing their names.
- Support world class legal services by bringing back an Arbitration Bill and support third party funding litigation.
Labour
- Youth Violence/Knife Crime – aim to halve knife crime in a decade
- Ban ninja swords, lethal zombie-style blades and machetes.
- Increase penalties on young people caught in possession of a knife.
- Strengthen rules to prevent online sales.
- Create a new Young Futures programme with a network of hubs reaching every community.
- Place youth workers and mentors in A&E units and Pupil Referral Units, funded by full recovery of the cost of firearm licensing.
- Introduce a new offence of criminal exploitation of children.
- Strengthen the use of Stalking Protection Orders.
- Introduce a new criminal offence for spiking to help police better respond to this crime.
- Strengthen the rights and protections available to women in co-habiting couples, as well as for whistleblowers in the workplace, including on sexual harassment.
- Appoint legal advocates to provide free legal advice and support to rape survivors across England and Wales.
- Introduce a ‘Hillsborough Law’ which will place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities.
- Ensure justice and compensation are delivered swiftly for those sub-postmasters shamefully affected by the Horizon IT scandal.
Liberal Democrats
- Invest in the criminal justice system to tackle the backlog of court cases and ensure swift justice.
- Domestic Abuse
- Introduce mandatory trauma training for police and prosecutors, embed domestic abuse specialists into every police force and 999 operator assistance centre and address delays in domestic abuse referrals.
- Mental Health
- Introduce a one-hour handover target for people suffering from mental health crisis.
- Ensure all forces have a mental health professional in the control room and mental health response training is adequate
- Youth violence
- Adopt public health approach to the epidemic of youth violence.
- Invest in youth services and make youth diversion a statutory duty.
- Establish a new right to affordable, reasonable legal assistance, to make the Legal Aid system simpler, fairer and more generous.
- Provide full and fair compensation to all victims of the Horizon Post Office scandal and the Infected Blood scandal as quickly as possible.
- Pass a comprehensive ‘Anti-SLAPP Law’ to provide robust protection for free speech, whistleblowers and media scrutiny against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.
Police
Conservative
- Recruit 8000 more police officers who will focus on neighbourhood policing.
- New powers and tools to catch criminals i.e. facial recognition and powers to seize knives and track down stolen good.
- License police officers for specialist roles.
- Legislate to ensure police officers are appropriately vetted.
- Fund every police force to roll out Hotspot Policing to reduce anti-social behaviour.
- Strengthen police powers to prevent protests or marches that would cause serious disorder.
Labour
- Introduce a new Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, restoring patrols to town centres by recruiting 13,000 new officers.
- New recruits will be paid through a new Police Efficiency and Collaboration programme for England and Wales which will set nation-wide standards for procurement and establish shared services and specialist functions to drive down costs.
- Implement specialist rape and sexual offences teams in every police force and introduce domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms.
- New powers to His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire & Rescue Services to intervene with failing forces.
- Introduce mandatory professional standards on vetting, checks and misconduct for individual officers; and stronger training on racism and violence against women and girls.
- Introduce automatic suspensions if officers are investigated for domestic abuse and sexual offences.
- Introduce new legal safeguards around strip-searching children and young people.
Liberal Democrats
- Restore community policing with a new statutory guarantee that all burglaries will be attended and investigated.
- Replace Police and Crime Commissioners with local Police Boards.
- Draw up urgent plan to implement recommendations of the Baroness Casey Review.
- End disproportionate use of Stop and Search.
- Require police forces to set targets on diversity.
- Improve access to restorative justice services.
- Introduce a Hillsborough Law - a statutory duty of candour on police officers and public officials.
- Draw up a national recruitment, training and retention strategy to tackle detective shortages.
- Reform the Police Remuneration Review Body to make it independent of Government.
Sentencing
Conservative
- Increase use of community payback and electronic tagging.
- Introduce a 25-year prison terms for domestic murders.
- Review of homicide sentencing guidelines.
- Make life imprisonment without parole mandatory for more of the most heinous murderers.
- Require rapists and other serious sexual offenders to spend their full sentence.
- Toughen sentence for knife crime, grooming gangs and assaults against retail workers.
Labour
- Carry out a review of sentencing.
Home affairs
Conservative
- Greater collaboration between National Crime Agency and Counter Terrorism Policing.
- Introduce Martyn’s Law as soon as possible – Manchester Arena terrorist attack.
- Ban SIM farms and cold calls.
- Remove more Foreign National Offenders – removals under the Early Removal Scheme and negotiating Prisoner Transfer Agreements.
- Introduce further powers to ban face coverings, pyrotechnics and climbing on war memorials.
- Ban protests outside schools.
- Place a duty on the police and prosecutors to publish regular guidance on the statements / chants /symbols.
Labour
- Bring in ‘Martyn’s Law’ to strengthen the security of public events and venues.
- Antisocial Behaviour
- Introduce new Respect Orders – powers to ban persistent adult offenders from town centres.
- Scrap the effective immunity for some shoplifting and create a new specific offence for assaults on shopworkers.
- Introduce new protections for victims of crime and persistent antisocial behaviour, by increasing the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner.
- Introduce a new expanded fraud strategy to tackle the full range of threats, including online, public sector and serious fraud.
- Roll out a direct entry scheme for detectives to boost investigation skills.
- Seek a new security agreement with the EU to ensure access to real-time intelligence and enable our policing teams to lead joint investigations with their European counterparts.
- Use the UK’s unique position to uphold human rights and international law.
- Britain will unequivocally remain a member of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Liberal Democrats
- Launch a high-profile public awareness campaign on fraud and scams.
- Create a new Online Crime Agency and properly resource the National Crime Agency.
- Work closely with Europol and Eurojust to develop and implement a joint strategy for dealing with cross-border threats.
- Restore direct, real-time access for UK police to EU wide data sharing system.
- Establish a powerful new Worker Protection Enforcement Authority, transfer responsibility for identifying modern slavery victims from the Home Office to local safeguarding agencies and establish a civil remedy for survivors seeking redress.
- Introduce new laws to crack down puppy and kitten smuggling.
- Scrap anti-protest laws and restore pre-existing protections for peaceful assembly and public safety.
- Champion the Human Rights Act and resist any attempts to weaken or repeal it.
- Uphold the UK’s commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights and resist any attempts to withdraw from it.
Immigration
Conservative
- Introduce a binding legal cap on migration to guarantee numbers will fall every year.
- Remove illegal migrants to Rwanda.
- Sign further return deals with other countries.
- Work with other countries to rewrite asylum treaties.
Labour
- Hire additional caseworkers to clear the Conservatives’ immigration backlog.
- Appoint a new Windrush Commissioner.
- Reform the points-based immigration system so that it is fair and properly managed, with appropriate restrictions on visas.
- Create a new Border Security Command, with hundreds of new investigators, intelligence officers, and cross-border police officers.
- End the Migration and Economic Development partnership with Rwanda.
- Set up a new returns and enforcement unit, with an additional 1,000 staff, to fast-track removals to safe countries.
- Negotiate additional returns arrangements to speed up returns and increase the number of safe countries
- Work with international partners to address the humanitarian crises which lead people to flee their homes, and to strengthen support for refugees in their home region.
Liberal Democrats
- Scrap the Illegal Migration Act and the Rwanda Scheme.
- Tackle asylum backlogs by establishing a dedicated unit to improve the speed and quality of asylum decision making.
- Introduce a service standard of 3 months for all but the most complex asylum claims to be processed.
- Lift ban on asylum seekers working if they have been waiting for a decision for more than 3 months.
- Expand access to immigration legal advice by making the legal aid system simpler, fairer and more generous.
You can also read the full manifestos for the Green Party, Plaid Cymru and Reform.