UK Crime and Policing Bill 2025: key changes explained
You’ve probably seen headlines about the Crime and Policing Bill, but most of the real detail lands in ministerial letters. The Home Office and Ministry of Justice have published updates for MPs and peers on 26 March, 23 April and 10 June 2025, with a fresh Lords Committee letter on 12 November. We’ve read them so you don’t have to.
First, a quick map of the Bill itself. Ministers say it is designed to strengthen neighbourhood policing, tackle anti‑social behaviour, protect victims, and give officers updated tools for digital crime and terrorism. Think Respect Orders for persistent nuisance, a specific offence of assaulting a retail worker, tougher rules on weapons sales, and powers to enter premises to recover stolen goods located via phone‑tracking.
March’s letter handled technical but important changes to modern slavery law. It adds new offences created by the Bill (including child criminal exploitation and AI‑enabled child abuse image generators) to Schedule 4 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, so the statutory defence for trafficking victims does not apply to those serious offences. It also follows Jonathan Hall KC’s advice by extending Schedule 4 to further terrorism offences.
April’s letter introduced Youth Diversion Orders (YDOs) as a new civil order for young people assessed by a court to have committed, or been connected to, terrorism‑related activity. The letter sets out examples of measures a court could impose, such as travel limits or restricted access to certain areas, and confirms electronic monitoring in England and Wales only, with independent oversight by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.
If you’re teaching this, a YDO is not a criminal sentence but breaching it is a crime. Ministers propose making breach “either way” (magistrates’ or Crown Court), with a maximum of two years’ imprisonment on indictment. The court applies a “balance of probabilities” test when deciding whether to make an order, and there is a defined appeals route.
June’s letter arrived ahead of Commons Report stage and focused heavily on digital evidence. It would let police, with senior sign‑off, extract data from online accounts linked to a seized device, clarify use at ports, and allow targeted interception of two‑factor authentication codes solely to access already‑authorised accounts. A statutory code of practice and use of international agreements are flagged as safeguards.
Other June updates worth noting for class discussion: new offences of coerced internal concealment linked to exploitation, extending “barred lists” rules across agencies such as the NCA and BTP, new racially or religiously aggravated offences to protect emergency workers inside homes, steps to repeal the Vagrancy Act while criminalising organised begging for gain, and removing the civil time limit for child sexual abuse claims. The letter also covers memorial protections, a paving power to direct “critical police undertakings” ahead of a proposed National Centre of Policing, and tidy‑ups on knives age‑checks, confiscation and public order.
One high‑profile change came via a backbench amendment at Report: MPs voted 379–137 to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales, removing the risk of women being prosecuted while keeping the medical framework. That vote sits inside this Bill’s passage and still needs to make it through the Lords.
Where are we now? By 28 August the Government’s Keeling Schedules were updated “to reflect the Bill as introduced to the House of Lords”, confirming it moved beyond the Commons. On 12 November, a ministerial letter to peers proposed a defence to allow authorised testing of AI systems for child abuse images, extreme pornography and non‑consensual intimate images-aimed at improving safety tools without criminalising legitimate testing.
What this means for your digital rights: the online‑account powers only bite when a device has already been lawfully seized, require senior officer authorisation, and must follow a statutory code. The 2FA change does not open general message interception; it is narrowly framed for authentication messages to access specified accounts already approved for extraction.
Quick Q&A for classrooms. Why do ministers write these letters? Because at Committee and Report stages the Government tables amendments and explains them in plain language for scrutiny; the Home Office/Ministry of Justice publish those letters openly. What does “triable either way” mean here? A breach of a YDO can be heard in a magistrates’ court or the Crown Court, with higher maximum penalties on indictment. What are Keeling Schedules? They are official mark‑ups showing how clauses would change existing Acts-helpful for close reading.
Key dates to anchor your lesson: the Bill was introduced on 25 February 2025; it had second reading on 10 March; the Public Bill Committee concluded on 13 May; Commons Report was scheduled for 17–18 June; by late August it was in the Lords; and on 12 November ministers tabled further Lords Committee amendments.
If you’re planning a lesson, invite students to annotate one ministerial letter, underlining a proposed power in one colour and its safeguard in another. Ask: who authorises it, who oversees it, what’s the maximum penalty, and does it apply UK‑wide or to England and Wales only? That simple exercise builds legal reading skills without prior legal knowledge.
Glossary you can quote in class: Youth Diversion Order (YDO) is a civil order to manage terrorism‑related risk for young people; “either way” means a case may be heard in either magistrates’ or Crown Court; RSED refers to remotely stored electronic data (such as cloud accounts) linked to a seized device; Schedule 4 (Modern Slavery Act) lists serious offences where the trafficking victim defence does not apply; Keeling Schedules show how existing Acts would be edited by a Bill. These definitions are drawn from the Home Office letters and the Government’s collection page.