Police and Crime Commissioners will be abolished saving taxpayers £100 million

The elected officials were first introduced in 2012 and their responsibilities include setting budgets for their police forces and appointing the most senior officer – the chief constable – for their area.

Police forces will instead be accountable to local mayors or local authorities under the new plans.

Policing minister Sarah Jones announced the move in the Commons today.

In a statement, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: "The introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) by the last government was a failed experiment.

"I will introduce new reforms so police are accountable to their local mayoralties or local councils.

"The savings will fund more neighbourhood police on the beat across the country, fighting crime and protecting our communities."

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The Home Office said removing PCCs will "cut the cost of unnecessary bureaucracy".

It added that at least £20million saved from scrapping the roles will be reinvested each year.

Chris Philp accused the Government of "tinkering around the edges" following Labour's announcement, comparing it to "rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic".

The shadow home secretary told the Commons: "The minister mentioned at the beginning the Government’s plans to bring forward a police reform white paper, announced, from memory, about a year ago.

"But there hasn’t been a single sniff of that white paper since then. Perhaps she can tell us when we can expect it and why the Government is so bereft of ideas, it has taken a year or more to publish that white paper.

"Now, today’s statement about police and crime commissioners represents, in my view, a tinkering around the edges from a Government which is failing on crime and policing.

"If you like, it is simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, because this Government is failing, police numbers are falling – they fell by 1,300 during Labour’s first year in office on a like-for-like March-to-March comparison – and not only are police numbers falling, they are continuing to fall and will drop even more this year.”

In response, Ms Jones said: "Saving £100million, I think, is quite substantial and not ‘tinkering around the edges’ as he suggests.

"But what I would say to him is, if he waits a few more weeks, he will see the reform agenda that the Home Secretary is designing in its totality.

"And it will put policing on a much better footing than he left it."

Mr Philp went on to brand Sir Sadiq Khan "the worst PCC in the country" as he called for "evidence" that transferring PCC powers to mayors was "superior" to the status quo.

The Croydon South MP told the Commons: "They say that they want to transfer PCC powers to mayors, where they exist and where the territories are co-terminus, and, broadly speaking, that is the approach the previous government took."

Mr Philp alleged Ms Jones said "the mayoral model is superior to regular PCCs" and continued: "I wonder what evidence she can produce to support that, because the biggest PCC in the country, of course, is the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who is also the worst PCC in the country, in my view.

"Knife crime, up 86 per cent under Sadiq Khan. The lowest clear-up rate of any force in the country, a lamentable 4.7 per cent. He has closed down half the front counters in London and police numbers are plummeting."

Rupert Matthews, Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicestershire, said the axing of the directly-elected role is "a retrograde step that will see policing becoming increasingly detached from the public it is there to serve".

Mr Matthews, who was first elected to the role as a Conservative in 2021 and has since defected to Reform, said: "This is a dark day for the concept of policing by consent.

"We are seeing yet another proposal from a Government in freefall. There has been no consultation, there is no clarity in today’s announcement, just a last minute dot com idea produced on the back of the proverbial cigarette packet.

"It is a retrograde step that will see policing becoming increasingly detached from the public it is there to serve and will merely encourage the two-tier policing that is so destructive to cohesive communities.

"However, I’m sure that it will be a very popular move with chief constables who have never liked the level of public scrutiny provided by Police and Crime Commissioners."