The Home Office regulations signed by Sarah Jones, Minister of State, on 2 September 2026 are the third commencement regulations under the Crime and Policing Act 2026. They bring further parts of the Act into force on 21 September, 29 September, 26 October and 29 October 2026, continuing the staged approach that has applied since the Act received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026. The legislation.gov.uk commencement notes record that the remaining provisions of the Act are to be brought into force by regulations made by the Secretary of State. (gov.uk)
The first date in this instrument, 21 September 2026, is largely about legal machinery rather than full operational roll-out. Regulation 2 commences limited child criminal exploitation prevention order provisions so that terms can be defined, rules of court can be made and related court procedure can function before the wider regime is used more fully. The Home Office explanatory notes describe sections 50 to 63 as creating civil orders that can impose prohibitions or requirements on adults involved in child criminal exploitation, with supplementary provisions on applications, evidence and appeals. (legislation.gov.uk) The same date also activates sections 205 to 213 and Schedule 25 on barred and advisory lists. According to the Act notes, those provisions require law enforcement employers to check barred lists before appointing people to relevant policing roles, prohibit the employment or appointment of barred persons in those roles, and require advisory list checks where the information is not an automatic bar but is still relevant to suitability and risk. (legislation.gov.uk)
On 29 September 2026, the regulations commence sections 113 to 115 on other sexual offences, section 204 on appeals to police appeals tribunals, and section 246 on extradition where a person has already been convicted. The explanatory notes state that section 113 widens the exposure offence so it can cover conduct intended to cause humiliation, and conduct done for sexual gratification where the offender is reckless as to whether alarm, distress or humiliation is caused. Sections 114 and 115 replace narrower offences with broader offences of sexual activity with an animal and sexual activity with a corpse. (legislation.gov.uk) For police discipline, the Act notes say section 204 lets the Secretary of State make rules giving chief officers, local policing bodies and, in relevant cases, the Independent Office for Police Conduct a statutory appeal route to the police appeals tribunal. For extradition, section 246 changes the questions a judge may consider in conviction cases, including cases where the requested person was convicted in absence and would be entitled to a retrial or a review amounting to a retrial on return. (legislation.gov.uk)
The saving provisions attached to the 29 September commencement date are likely to be the most legally important part of the instrument for live extradition cases. Regulation 6 provides that the amendments to sections 20 and 85 of the Extradition Act 2003 do not apply where the extradition hearing arises from an arrest made before 29 September 2026. In practical terms, that preserves the previous legal position for older arrests while the new test applies only to arrests made on or after that date. The Act notes describe section 246 as changing how courts approach conviction cases, including conditional retrial rights in the requesting territory. (legislation.gov.uk)
The largest operational change arrives on 26 October 2026, when the anti-social behaviour package in Part 1 begins. That includes respect orders, youth injunctions and housing injunctions, revised maximum periods for dispersal directions and closure notices, higher fixed penalty notice ceilings, new closure powers for registered social housing providers, and a new route for reviewing responses to anti-social behaviour complaints. The explanatory notes describe this part of the Act as updating the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 and introducing new tools for persistent anti-social behaviour. (legislation.gov.uk) For practitioners, the effects are concrete. The Act notes say respect orders can be sought in the county court or High Court against adults aged 18 or over and can combine prohibitions with positive requirements; youth injunctions continue the current injunction model for 10 to 17-year-olds; housing injunctions preserve the housing-specific route for nuisance or annoyance; fixed penalty notice maxima for PSPO and CPN breaches rise from £100 to £500; registered social housing providers gain power to issue closure notices and seek closure orders; and local policing bodies must provide a review route when victims dispute how anti-social behaviour complaints have been handled. (legislation.gov.uk)
On 29 October 2026, the regulations commence sections 151 to 156, sections 197 and 198, and Schedule 16. In policy terms, that date brings in the SIM farm offences, associated offences for specified articles used in electronic communications fraud, police powers of entry and search linked to those offences, and two policing conduct provisions on accelerated investigations and notifications to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The territorial extent notes also confirm that sections 151 to 156 and Schedule 16, together with sections 197 to 198, extend more widely than many of the Act's anti-social behaviour measures. (legislation.gov.uk) The Home Office explanatory notes define SIM farms as devices capable of using five or more SIM cards to send texts or make calls at scale. Sections 151 and 152 create summary-only offences of possession and supply, subject to statutory defences; sections 154 to 156 mirror that structure for other specified articles; and Schedule 16 gives constables powers to stop and search vehicles, obtain warrants for premises and require documents or electronic records to be produced where there are reasonable grounds to suspect an offence. The same commencement date also switches on section 197, which allows certain criminal proceedings linked to police misconduct investigations to begin before a final report is completed where statutory conditions are met, and section 198, which changes the conditions for notifying the DPP. (legislation.gov.uk)
The sequencing in this instrument matters because several September commencements are preparatory rather than full substantive activation. The legislation.gov.uk commencement notes record that some Crime and Policing Act provisions were in force on Royal Assent or two months later, while the remaining provisions are being brought in by later regulations. Commencement No. 3 therefore performs two functions: it starts substantive duties and offences, and it also activates narrow rule-making or interpretive provisions needed before courts and agencies can use the wider regimes smoothly. (legislation.gov.uk) Police forces, chief officers, local policing bodies, housing providers, court administrators and law enforcement HR teams now have a short implementation window between 21 September and 29 October 2026. The immediate tasks are likely to include updating recruitment and vetting processes for barred and advisory list checks, reviewing tribunal appeal procedures, preparing anti-social behaviour workflows ahead of 26 October, and aligning fraud investigation practice with the SIM farm and specified article offences before 29 October. Those operational consequences follow directly from the commencement sequencing in the regulations and the functions set out in the Act notes. (legislation.gov.uk)
The instrument does not carry a fresh impact assessment. The official note states that none has been produced for this statutory instrument because impact assessments were prepared for the Crime and Policing Act itself, and the GOV.UK collection page records that those assessments were first published on 25 February 2025 and updated after Royal Assent on 29 April 2026. That is a standard indicator that this instrument is concerned with commencement timing and saving arrangements rather than reopening the policy case for the underlying measures. (gov.uk)