“I might well be interested in putting my name forward”

What we asked Matthew Scott, Kent Police and Crime Commissioner

Matthew Scott is currently serving his third term as Kent Police and Crime Commissioner. We caught up with him to discuss crime rates across Kent, the recent election results for the Conservatives, and whether he is eyeing the job of Mayor of Kent…

Kent Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Scott.

Politics has become even more confrontational and divisive. Have you had to change anything about your approach to the role to remain apolitical?
No, not personally. I've always said I'll work with anybody who wants to achieve the same goals. My goals are quite clear: to cut crime, support victims and build trust. I'll work with anybody who wants to do that. In the last couple of years, we've got the new Labour council in Medway, got a new Labour government, we've now got a Reform county council. Pretty much all three things which were Conservative before are now different. But that doesn't change the way in which I operate. I've already had an initial engagement with the new leader of Kent County Council, and we're going to get together and have a chat about a few things. It's not going to change very much. The only time that I will push back is when someone is being overtly political and it's unnecessary. In fact, I think we are in a pretty good place in that respect.

For the first time since you've been Police and Crime Commissioner, you have a Labour Home Secretary. Has that changed your relationship with the Home Office at all?
Not especially, no. The government's priorities around its safer streets mission, there's nothing in there you would say, ‘That's not right.’ They're talking about knife crime, domestic abuse, violence against women and girls, anti-social behaviour. They were things that the Home Office were already focused on. I think the only real challenge we've had has been, again, the continuation of funding. The Home Secretary promised to compensate fully for the rises in National Insurance, and they didn't. That was a really early test of the relationship between us, so was disappointing, but we'll carry on making the case in the comprehensive spending review to do that. Over the last nine years, whilst the political leadership of the Home Office has changed, the relationships that my team and I built up with Home Office officials is really positive. I'm still involved at the national level on the Police Efficiencies and Collaboration Programme, which is at our Home Office Board. There hasn't been too much by way of change really, but we'll see where it goes.

You are now one of the more high-profile people in Kent within the Conservative Party. What are your thoughts regarding the recent KCC election and what it means for the party?
It was a big result. It was a surprising one. I don't think anyone was under the illusion that we were necessarily going to win a majority, but I think the scale of the defeat was something of a surprise. As Conservatives, we have to learn the lessons of what happened last year. Not all of them are of Kent Conservatives’ making. A lot of it was we were being punished again for what happened under a Conservative government. We had 14 years in which we got a lot of things right. In the first term, when we increased the tax personal allowance, when we introduced free schools, the educational achievements that we delivered, bringing back the 20,000 police officers. It wasn't all bad, but there were lots of things in which people had lost trust in us, on immigration, on the constant infighting within the parliamentary party, the changes of leaders.
We have to acknowledge that people had had enough, and unfortunately, a lot of county councillors paid the price for that. That, coupled with the rise of Reform, meant that a lot of good people who didn't deserve to lose their seats. Lots of really hardworking county councillors, as is tragically the case at these local elections, lose their seats because of what's happened nationally. We'll wait and see what happens with the actual administration. If they want to work with me to cut crime and support victims, I will work with them. There's no point in being standoffish about it. Also, the experience that I've got will help them as they come to get to grips with something quite significant, where a lot of their new councillors don't have experience of local government.

If there was a future PCC election and Reform stood, do you think that that trend would continue? Could Conservatives win that election?
I think they could. Yes, the General Election was tough. The KCC elections were tougher. We may or may not have district and Medway elections in 2027. A lot depends now on local government reorganisation as to what is going to happen next. There is now a lot of pressure on Reform to show that they can do what they say they're going to do and what they actually are going to deliver for their residents. I don't think it's an open and shut case that that means that we will lose again in 2027 or in 2028 or in 2029. I think they need to be held to account for what it is they're going to deliver. As Conservatives, we're working really hard to understand why it is we did lose in 2024 and in 2025. But we're out there already knocking on doors, talking to residents, understanding what we can do for local communities. That's where I think the party has some work to do and where the rebuild is going to come from. We have to rebuild again as community activists in our local areas, but our policy renewal teams need to understand what it is our country wants and what the country needs. I hope to play a full part in that process.

As you mentioned, there is local government reorganisation and regional mayors, with the role of PCC phased out and replaced by that regional mayor. Is that a good idea?
We should have a look at it. I'm not opposed to it. I think that when it comes to electoral reform and constituency boundaries, people often look at what benefits them rather than the greater good. People tend to pick electoral systems based on what suits them, not the greater good. I think all parties are guilty of that. But I think we should look at it. I think that we need to look at what is actually happening in those areas that have these powers already, the West Midlands and Manchester, and learn from their experiences. I think a lot of people think that this mayoral role that they're creating is some kind of really executive level, like the Mayor of London who could just do what they want to do. It's actually not, you have a Combined Authority that you have to work with to get your policies and your plans through. I think that's going to be a challenge, particularly in the current political climate, for someone to come in and be able to be that person who can work with people of different parties and different authorities to actually deliver for our county. I'm not opposed to the idea of the mayor.
What I will say is that I don't know what the timetable looks like now for Kent, given the government's decision not to proceed with the mayoralties here, whether or not the government will invite a next round of mayoralties to apply in 2026 for a 2027 election. But we also don't know presently what's happening with the six that they are going ahead with. I'm up for a conversation about all of these things. It's got to be a model that the residents support, that gives them proper access to democracy and one that's going to deliver for them.

Did you understand the rationale why Kent wasn't chosen for a regional mayor?
I don't think we really know the true reason why Kent was not picked. They invited a lot more applications than they actually agreed to. I think the thinking was that they were going to approve ten, but instead only went for six. I don't know whether that was because of the capacity of the government to be able to deliver that many at pace, whether they believed that different areas were ready, or if it was too big a change to do all at once. I don't think we really know the true reason for it, but we are where we are. The elections proceeded. We have Kent County Council now for at least another three years. We'll see what happens next. But local government reorganisation is happening anyway. This top-down reorganisation of councils is a positive thing in respect to that you'll have some services which have been done 13 or 14 times will now only be done three, maybe four times. Some of the strategic partnerships will be done in a different way too. That's still happening, and we'll keep an eye on what that means for policing and criminal justice, but there is still more to come for our local authorities.

When Kent was being considered for a mayor, were you considering running for the role?
I was thinking about it. I was interested. Obviously, it never came to materialise. Whilst the White Paper set out some of what the powers of a potential mayoralty could be, at that point there wasn't a decision. Yeah, of course, if it's something that they propose again in the future, I might well be interested in putting my name forward, particularly if it retains the PCC powers. But we'll see what happens next. Obviously, local government reorganisation is the priority now for Kent. We'll see whether that comes with a mayoralty in the future.