England and Wales to hand counterterror policing to new national force

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Crucial policing responsibilities including countering terrorism and organized crime will be handed over to a new national police force in England and Wales under measures set to be announced by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood on Monday.

The new National Police Service will combine responsibilities currently exercised by counter-terrorism police units, regional organized crime units and others with the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the College of Policing.

Mahmoud will present the planned change as ensuring that the most difficult policing challenges are not dealt with by local forces who are in many cases ill-equipped to deal with them. It will also say the changes will ease the forces of national responsibilities that can drain resources from tackling local problems such as anti-social behaviour.

“We will establish a new national police force… deploying world-class talent and the latest technologies to track down and arrest dangerous criminals,” Mahmoud said on Saturday. “In doing so, local forces will be able to spend more time fighting crime in their communities.”

Mahmoud will describe it as “the British FBI,” a term often applied to the national crime agency.

The establishment of the National Police Service reflects a broad consensus among police experts that more specialist officers are needed to combat threats such as online fraud and international organized crime and that only larger forces can support the level of expertise required.

Alongside the establishment of the new body, the white paper published on Monday will set out plans to reduce the number of police forces in England and Wales from the current 43.

Chief Constable Gavin Stevens, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said police chiefs were united in calling for “bold and ambitious reform”.

“Crime is changing, technology is evolving, and we need to prepare in the best possible way to tackle crime in the modern world,” he said.

The force most affected by the establishment of the National Police Agency will be the Metropolitan Police, which will lose its leading counter-terrorism roles and some elements of combating organized crime. The NPS will also inherit responsibility for the National Police Air Service from West Yorkshire Police and Road Policing from Sussex Police.

The NPS will also take over responsibility for setting policing standards in England and Wales from the existing National College of Policing.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has been a strong advocate of the shift towards handing over some of the force’s national responsibilities to a new body. He argued that the change would ensure that wider responsibilities no longer distracted the force from its core role of policing London.