New Spycops Inquiry Timetable

The Undercover Policing Inquiry has changed the dates for its hearings. It’s now going to take longer than previously planned.

In many ways, this is to be welcomed. There is a huge amount of evidence to gather and examine, if it is to be done properly it can’t be rushed.

Many public inquiries on for years, even though they’re examining one event. The spycops scandal has half a dozen elements which would be worthy of a full inquiry on their own:

• deceiving women into long-term relationships
• spying on Black and other justice campaigns
• criminally supplying people’s details to illegal employment blacklisting organisations
• stealing dead children’s identities
• taking positions of major influence in organisations
• acting as agents provacateur, committing and encouraging crime
• lying to courts and fitting up countless activists with wrongful convictions

Announced in March 2014, the Inquiry was originally expected to end in mid 2018. Colossal, deliberate delays by police forced that timescale to be drastically revised.

In May 2018, the Inquiry announced an ‘ambitious’ timeline that planned to deliver the final report to the Home Secretary in late 2023. A redacted version would have been expected to be published some time in 2024.

The Inquiry had already fallen a year behind this schedule before the Covid pandemic added further delays. A new timetable was drawn up in 2021. It was then intended to publish the final report in December 2026. This week’s announcement confirms what’s been clear for some time, that the end will actually be somewhat later.

What Happens Next

Much of the Inquiry’s work is broken into ‘tranches’. It has already had tranches 1 and 2, examining the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) 1968-82, and 1983-92 respectively.

Tranche 3 will examine the final years of the SDS, 1993-2008. Tranche 4 will look at the parallel unit, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), which ran from 1999-2011. Tranche 5 will examine undercover policing beyond the main two spycops units.

Tranche 3 was due to run in an epic shift of six months, starting in October this year. Instead, this has been broken into three more manageable chunks. They taking a break for January, and will deal with managers in summer 2027.

When this is done, the Inquiry will go over what it’s learned about the SDS and see what can be said with regard to one of its main tasks, recommending how undercover policing should be conducted in future. Hearings for that are planned for December 2026, with closing statements from the various parties involved in early 2027.

After this, the Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, will write a report on the SDS. This is expected to be published in the second half of 2027. Once that’s done, he is stepping down from his role and a new Chair, the Inquiry’s third, will take over. It is not yet known who that will be.

As for the hearings of tranches 4 and 5, there are no dates proposed yet. However, the Inquiry has said this week that it will be asking the people involved in tranche 4 – the officers of the NPOIU and those they spied on – to submit their written statements in early 2027. This suggests that the hearings will be later that year, possibly around the time that the report on the SDS is published.

What Mustn’t Happen Next

Those of us who were spied on are concerned that the publishing of the SDS report and changing the Chair will be used to imply there was some break in continuity between the two units, that the outrages committed by the SDS were somehow unrelated to the NPOIU.

The police may take criticism of deeds 50 years ago if forced to because they can say it’s all different now. They will be much more keen to resist condemnation of the actions of officers who are still serving, ordered by senior officers still in post, and all after legal changes were made that should have prevented such abuses (Human Rights Act 1998, Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, etc).

But the two units were intertwined. We know that the NPOIU’s officers were trained by old hands from the SDS. Andy Coles has been named already, and there is a notable mysterious gap in Bob Lambert’s CV for the crucial years when the NPOIU was established.

The units ran in parallel, with numerous campaigns and actions spied on by officers from both. Every one of the SDS’s abuses was also committed by the NPOIU. There can be no pretending otherwise.

Undercover Policing Inquiry new timetable

13 October 2025–approx 18 December 2025: Tranche 3 Phase 1 hearings – SDS officers and relevant civilians 1993-2008.

2 February 2026-approx 26 March 2026: Tranche 3 Phase 2 hearings – SDS officers and relevant civilians 1993-2008 continued.

15 June 2026-approx 30 July 2026: Tranche 3, Phase 3 – Managers.

December 2026: ‘Module 3 Part 1’ (lessons from SDS for future policing) hearings.

February 2027: Special Demonstration Squad 1968-2008, closing statements from all parties.

Second half of 2027: SDS Interim Report published, Tranche 4 hearings (NPOIU 1999-2011) probably begin.

We’ve updated our Undercover Policing Inquiry FAQ, and will continue to do so as more announcements are made.