A report by Policy Exchange estimates that police forces in England and Wales have spent at least £631 million on diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) activities over the past six years. That sum could have funded 8.3 million hours of frontline policing or paid for 2,000 additional police officers each year.
DEI Spending Compared to Frontline Policing
The report found that 87 per cent of forces have signed up to “anti-racist” commitments, while 58 per cent focus primarily on one community rather than serving everyone equally. Policy Exchange warns this risks creating an implicit hierarchy of ethnicities.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said the spending was a shocking waste of taxpayers' money and the wrong priority when the public wants more police on the streets tackling knife crime, burglary and shoplifting. The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s own Race Equity commitment calls for people to be treated differently based on skin colour, which Philp said should end.
Criticism of Anti-Racist Commitments
Kemi Badenoch has announced an Integration Commission to end what she described as wokery and identity politics in the state, including policing. The report also referenced the murder of Henry Nowak, where attending officers were reportedly more interested in taking an accusation of racism seriously than caring for the victim as he lay dying.
Philp argued that British justice does not ask what colour you are, but what you have done, and that chief constables who lose sight of that are failing communities. He added that most police officers on the beat agree, but a handful of activist leaders appear more interested in identity politics than policing.
Conservative Proposals
The Conservatives have put forward hotspot policing, live facial recognition, and a pledge to recruit 10,000 more police officers as part of a serious plan to tackle crime, Philp said.
