With the cancellation of the Liberal Democrats’ conference, this conference season was all about the two main parties. Labour’s conference began on 25 September in Liverpool. In his speech, shadow justice secretary Steve Reed focused on crime and the delays in the criminal justice system, promising specialist rape courts to ‘tackle the epidemic of violence against women and girls and get the courts backlog down’, as well as the creation of a domestic violence register. However, he also stressed: ‘Prosecute, yes. Punish, yes. But never forget the need to prevent crime in the first place.’

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, also put forward the prevention message, paying particular attention to protecting children from exploitation by gangs. She promised 13,000 additional police and PCSOs as well as improving police standards, ‘[b]ecause lack of proper action to root out racism, serious misconduct or misogyny means that for some communities trust in the police isn’t there’. On immigration, she promised Labour would work with France to prevent dangerous Channel crossings (though there was no mention of providing a safe route) and set up a new cross-border police unit to focus on people traffickers. More welcome was the promise to cancel the Rwanda plan.

The Conservatives’ conference began on 2 October in Birmingham. Brandon Lewis, the justice secretary, spoke of the crumbling criminal justice system. He mentioned the criminal bar strike, stating that ‘the key to unlocking our clogged-up courts will be ending the barristers’ strike over legal aid fees’. The strike is now over for the time being (see opposite), but this alone will not solve the problems caused by years of underfunding and court closures.

As with Labour, violence against women and girls was one area of focus, with Lewis stating that rape and sexual abuse ‘convictions are up by two-thirds on 2020 and a quarter compared to before the pandemic hit’, but accepting that ‘[t]here is more to do’. However, reaffirming the government’s commitment to 20,000 extra prison places suggested a somewhat different tack from Labour’s preventative approach to crime. While Lewis did acknowledge that ‘hardened career criminals are not born, they are made’, the ‘common sense solution’ was (despite the promise of extra prison places) to expand ‘our world-leading GPS tagging project for neighbourhood crime: targeted at burglars, robbers and thieves’. ‘In doing so,’ he said, ‘we will reduce crime and deter reoffending.’ He also promised to make the Parole Board ‘more accountable and transparent’.

The Conservatives’ website stated that home secretary Suella Braverman1As Legal Action went to press, Braverman resigned and was replaced by Grant Shapps.had ‘robustly pledged to restore common sense law and order to the UK’. She seemed to acknowledge that trust in the police is low, noting that ‘[s]ome police officers have fallen devastatingly short of the standards expected’. However, rather than acknowledging recent revelations of officers’ racism and misogyny, she drew on culture war issues: ‘We need to get back to common sense policing, empowering the police to tackle the real issues facing the public – not policing pronouns on Twitter or non-crime hate incidents.’

On dangerous Channel crossings, Braverman said: ‘[O]ur work with the French has prevented about half of all crossings … I will work closely with the French to get more out of our partnership.’ She doubled down on the Rwanda scheme, promising to bring forward legislation so that ‘[i]f you deliberately enter the United Kingdom illegally from a safe country, you [will] be swiftly returned to your home country or relocated to Rwanda … where your asylum claim will be considered’.