Mia Terra St. Hill, Political Consultant for Justice and Home Affairs at Dods, explores the key announcements, what remains unaddressed, and the wider implications for the sector.
What are the key takeaways for your sector?
Mia Terra St. Hill: The Chancellor made several Budget announcements related to justice and home affairs. These included funded commitments such as £150m towards the 2026 police pay award costs, and £150m in capital investment in 2027-28 to fund additional large sites to house asylum seekers.
These were accompanied by a number of announcements which did not include tangible funding commitments, like implementing Migration Advisory Committee recommendations on visa salary requirements from spring 2027, extending the visa curtailment period for the highest-skilled workers to up to six months, and expanding the High Potential Individual visa route to the top 150 global institutions.
The Government is trying to make progress towards delivering on some of its wider commitments, such as ending the use of asylum hotels and restoring order in the immigration system.
However, while the sector did get some attention from Healey, it received significantly less investment than other high-profile policy areas like defence, despite the traction issues around immigration, asylum, and public safety have with the public.
What has the Government not sufficiently addressed in the Budget for your sector?
Mia Terra St. Hill: While the Budget included a funding announcement for the 2026 police pay award, wider questions remain about how forces will fund officer numbers going forward.
Likewise, the extensive overhaul of national policing structures remains a priority for the Home Secretary. Lord Hogan-Howe’s independent review of police force structures is expected to be published shortly and should provide more detail on how to restructure policing across England and Wales into fewer, larger forces.
While this wasn’t mentioned during the Budget, Mahmood confirmed in a Home Affairs Committee Session in September 2026 that the bulk of the £340m funding to set up the national police service has been committed through the current spending review allocation, with the latter third coming from the next spending review.
Commitments have also been made to increase funding for law enforcement activity and victim support services to aid in the delivery of the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy. This indicates that the Government is attempting to be proactive in furthering its commitment to halve violence against women and girls. However, the vagueness of this announcement, with no monetary value outlined, makes it challenging to hold the Government to account.
The Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy sets out an innovative, cross-departmental vision which has institutional backing. But, the strategy’s ultimate success will rely on substantial, ongoing investment – requiring concrete commitments rather than vague promises.
Have the Government’s priorities changed in your sector? Why?
Mia Terra St. Hill: Healey made no reference to justice or home affairs during his speech, and the Budget document did not reveal much additional funding for the departments, suggesting no imminent change in priorities.
Andy Burnham has been steadfast on some of the policy positions he inherited from Keir Starmer, seeming to align with the Home Secretary’s direction on asylum and immigration.
However, there has been a change in the Burnham Government’s approach towards the criminal justice system, particularly for prisons.
The new Prime Minister has made a number of notable announcements since taking office, including changing the eligibility for the early prison release scheme to exclude offenders with rape, serious child sex and other grooming offences, and scrapping plans in the Courts and Tribunals Bill for some criminal trials to be heard by a judge alone.
While these policies were not the best received when the previous administration announced them, they were tangible efforts to tackle multiple crises facing the system: a lack of prison capacity and massive backlogs in the criminal courts.
Burnham’s choice to amend or scrap these elements will have consequences for the operating capacity in the criminal justice system, potentially increasing the risk of the system returning to emergency measures.
With the limited number of spaces in the penal estate and a growing backlog in the courts, the Justice Secretary, Alex Norris, and the Prime Minister may need to consider an alternative approach to safeguard what progress the last Government was able to make in shoring up the criminal justice system.
Any additional reflections?
Mia Terra St. Hill: Justice and home affairs remain of intense public interest and are policy areas on which the future success of Burnham’s Government could hinge.
Labour’s 2024 manifesto included several significant commitments like increasing police numbers, halving serious violent crime, increasing confidence in the criminal justice system, and reducing net migration.
These will be challenging for the Government to deliver, especially in an increasingly unstable fiscal context.
If the Government does not allocate sufficient funding to meet these commitments, it could undermine its standing with the electorate, especially as departments like the Home Office and MoJ will face tighter budgets in later years of the Spending Review period (2028/29), by which point a general election could be looming.