Part 1 — Context: the Inquiry and the consultation

1.1 The Inquiry

The Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) was announced in March 2014 by then Home Secretary Theresa May and formally established on 12 March 2015 under the Inquiries Act 2005. The Inquiry was set up following a series of devastating public revelations concerning covert political policing, including the exposure of National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) officer Mark Kennedy in 2010, revelations of police surveillance targeting the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, police involvement in the illegal blacklisting of workers on political grounds, dozens of civilian women deceived into intimate sexual relationships by undercover officers using fake identities, and the theft of the identities of deceased children by police.

The Inquiry's Terms of Reference mandate it to investigate undercover police operations conducted by English and Welsh police forces since 1968. ¹ The matters for investigation were divided into Modules and Modules 1 & 2 were divided into Tranches (see Appendix 7.4).

The original Chair, Sir Christopher Pitchford, stepped down due to illness, in October 2017. Sir John Mitting was appointed Chair in his place. The first five years of the Inquiry were entirely procedural, dealing with applications for anonymity and restrictions and redaction protocols for processing the evidence. Substantive evidential hearings did not begin until November 2020. Processing of evidence and the hearings themselves were significantly complicated by COVID restrictions.

Responding to requests by the Home Office, the chair published an Interim Report in June 2023, based solely on Tranche 1 evidence. Evidential hearings for Tranche 2 took place in 2024, and live evidential hearings for Tranche 3 commenced in 2024 and extended through July 2026. In July 2025, Sir John Mitting announced his intention to retire after Tranche 3. He will publish another interim report (due in 2027). He has said he will not include recommendations.

This leaves Tranches 4 and 5 and all of Module 3 outstanding. Tranche 4 covers the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) deployments, management, and oversight (1999–2011). Tranche 5 deals with all other undercover policing activity, including by regional English and Welsh police forces (1968–present). This includes undercover deployments linked to criminal investigations rather than political intelligence gathering. Module 3 will be an examination of current undercover policing practices and recommendations for future legislation, policy, and operational governance.

Significant work has already been done on obtaining and processing evidence for the remaining Tranches but, for the most part, the process of disclosing relevant documents to victims and obtaining evidence from civilian witnesses is yet to begin.

1.2 The July 2026 consultation

On 16 July 2026 — the exact day Parliament rose for summer recess, and in the middle of live Inquiry hearings — Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood issued a Written Ministerial Statement launching a public consultation titled "Consultation on the Future of the Undercover Policing Inquiry". The consultation document noted that as of March 2026, the Inquiry had been in operation for eleven years and had incurred total expenditure of £137 million. Citing the anticipated retirement of Chair Sir John Mitting at the end of 2027 upon the completion of Tranches 1 to 3, the Home Office invited public and stakeholder views on options for addressing the Inquiry's remaining work beyond 2027.

The Home Office published an online survey questionnaire (see Appendix 7.6) hosted on a government portal. The consultation was initially scheduled to run for five weeks, closing on 20 August 2026.

1.3 History of prior interference

The context surrounding the consultation and how it was perceived by Core Participants was informed by official documents released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, containing internal correspondence between the Home Office Sponsorship Unit and UCPI Chair Sir John Mitting (FOI 2024/04432 — see Appendix 7.5).

Those letters established that proposals to limit the Inquiry's work, hold a public consultation and bring the Inquiry to an end at the end of 2026 had been raised by the Home Office as early as 13 October 2023, when former Home Secretary Suella Braverman wrote to Sir John Mitting proposing formal changes to the Inquiry's Terms of Reference. Correspondence continued for a number of months (October 2023–January 2024) between Mitting and Braverman (and subsequently with her replacement, Home Secretary James Cleverly). The Home Office proposed introducing a "sampling approach" to the evidence, deleting the requirement in the Terms of Reference that the Inquiry examine the impact of operations upon individuals, imposing a budget cap, and setting a hard deadline for a final report no later than the end of 2026. The letters also refer to a meeting between Braverman and Mitting on 16 October 2023 at which "a potential public consultation" was discussed. The launching of a public consultation at the end of 2026 proposing to curtail the Inquiry therefore appears to be something the Home Office have been intending to do for some time.

Meanwhile, in an email dated December 2024, the Home Office told non-state Core Participants it would be "inappropriate" to meet with them to discuss the progress of the Inquiry because the Inquiry was supposed to be independent and the Home Office could not intervene.

"It appears the Home Office is now using Mitting's retirement to bring about the de facto implementation of all the changes it previously sought, by simply failing to appoint a new Chair. Even this 'public consultation' was part of that plan as it was mooted in those letters back in 2023."

— Kate Wilson (Core Participant, 9 September 2026)

1.4 How the consultation was received

The launch of the consultation in the middle of important, live evidential hearings in the Inquiry and the imposition of a very limited 5-week deadline was extremely disruptive for Core Participants. Solicitors representing the non-State Core Participant coordinating group wrote to the Home Office on 22 July 2026 raising a number of issues with the questionnaire and the consultation process and asking that the consultation be withdrawn.

Following widespread protest from Core Participants and legal teams regarding the inadequately short timeframe over the summer holidays, the Home Office extended the closing deadline to 23:59 on 20 September 2026. They also responded to criticism of the multiple-choice survey, with the addition of an option to respond "prefer not to say" to a number of questions. However, the structure of the survey questions and options for substantive answers remained the same. Civilian Core Participants in the Inquiry and others affected by the abuses the Inquiry is investigating therefore made the decision to boycott the online survey and to respond to the consultation in writing instead, setting out both their concerns about the structure of the consultation and their views about the future of the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

On October 14th and October 16th, the Home Office held four round-table meetings with non-state core participants. These meetings were called in response to the letters received by the consultation team and analysed in this report. The sessions were attended by approximately 45 non-state core participants as well as some of their recognised legal representatives (RLRs). The overwhelming consensus displayed in the consultation responses studied for this report was reaffirmed in those meetings, and participants have reported there was no divergence from the key message that the current Inquiry must continue in full.