Badenoch targets bureaucracy and lengthy investigations in Conference speech
22 October 2026
The Conservative Party leader warned that lengthy investigations can leave officers facing years of uncertainty and damage their careers even when they have acted lawfully.
Speaking at the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) annual conference, Badenoch said officers needed confidence their decisions would be judged fairly, while stressing that proper accountability must remain in place when wrongdoing occurs.
She described the impact of prolonged investigations as a problem she wanted to stop, arguing that the process itself should not be a punishment for officers and their families.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch
Picture credit: Anderson Photography
“Policing has never been an easy job and I know in recent years your job has been made even harder,” she said.
“In dangerous situations that most of us will never have to experience, we have to be able to trust that those decisions will be judged fairly.”
Badenoch said a better balance needed to be found between protecting the public, holding officers accountable and ensuring fair treatment for those on the frontline.
The Conservative leader also pledged to reduce what she described as unnecessary bureaucracy.
Disclosure requirements
This would include making disclosure requirements more proportionate, automating administrative tasks and ending what she called a waste of officers’ time on paperwork that did not contribute to effective investigations.
Badenoch said she wanted to expand the use of live facial recognition technology to help officers identify suspects more quickly, rather than spending hours reviewing CCTV footage.
She said: “Every hour lost to paperwork is an hour you don’t spend catching criminals.
“Recording evidence is important but spending hours filling in unnecessary forms is not good policing.
Waste of time and money
“It’s a waste of your time and it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money.”
Her proposals included recruiting 10,000 additional officers, with 2,000 of them directed towards crime hotspots.
But she said that ‘recruitment was only part of the answer’ and that retention must also be a priority.
“We need to recruit the right people and prepare them for the realities of the job,” she said. “Recruitment is only part of the answer. We also need to make sure that once we have good officers, we keep them.
“Policing used to be a career that people loved but I know many former police officers who didn't feel that way by the end.
Recruitment and retention
“You cannot just keep recruiting new officers to replace the good ones who have left.
“That is no way to run a police service. This should be a job people love. We want you to love your job, and we are going to make it a job that you love again.”
Badenoch said a Conservative government would create 50,000 additional prison places.
She said expanding prison capacity would ‘mean lasting consequences for people who break the law’.
She said it would also mean less time for officers ‘rearresting the same person over and over again’.
Police pay
Badenoch said she could not promise an immediate pay rise for officers without setting out how it would be funded.
Instead, her aim was to improve the economy to make higher pay increases affordable, she said.
Badenoch said she wanted to develop a constructive relationship with the Federation and recognised the importance of having an effective organisation to represent officers’ interests.
And she criticised the Labour Government for failing to send a representative to the Federation’s conference for the second year running.
Lives on the line
She said that officers deserved to be heard by those responsible for making decisions about policing.
Badenoch concluded: “I will never take what I do for granted. You put your lives on the line to protect this country, and that is why I want you to know that I have your back.”
READ MORE: PFEW Conference day one round up.
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