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The Labour party is setting up an independent review on the future of policing, it has been announced.
In a speech to the party's conference in Liverpool shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the government has rejected calls for a Royal commission on policing.
"We are setting up an independent review to look at the crime challenges of the 21st century and how policing needs to adapt and respond," she said.
"Building on the best of British and international policing. Vigorous and challenging on the changes needed.
"Working with the police not trying to undermine them.
"It will be led by someone who started as a beat officer in London and rose to be the commissioner of the Metropolitan police.
"I am grateful to the much respected Lord John Stevens for agreeing to chair this important independent review."
Cooper admitted that Labour had made mistakes while it was in office.
"We didn't need 90-day detention," she told conference.
"Or 42-day detention. They were never justified by the evidence.
"On immigration, we should have had transitional controls for Eastern Europe.
"And we should have brought in a points-based system earlier."
Cooper said the coalition government is cutting police numbers and budgets too fast.
"We said 12 per cent budget cuts – based on independent advice on what the police need to protect the front line," she said.
"That's £1bn over the parliament.
"But the government's gone for £2bn in cuts. With the steepest cuts in the first two years. We've said it before; It's too far too fast and it's communities that will pay the price.
"And here's the reality of what those cuts mean. You may have seen his story in all the papers.
"Sergeant Kevin Brooks has worked for South Wales police for many years.
"This summer he won a police bravery award after tackling a criminal who deliberately rammed a patrol car with his 4x4, at risk of crushing an officer to death.
"The prime minster invited him to Downing Street. Posed for a photo with him.
"Only days later, back in South Wales, PC Brooks lost his job because of the cuts.
"Now we see a British prime minister, a Tory prime minister, handing P45s to crime fighting heroes.
"He shouldn't be sacking the police, he should be backing the police."
Earlier Paul McKeever, chair of the police federation, became the first representative from that body to address the Labour party conference.
He accused the government of "playing fast and loose with the safety of the communities we represent".
"It is also worth reflecting as well on the way the government talks about us that change, reform, cuts have to be forced through quickly, even more quickly, even more radically.
"But when I heard them speaking about the Vickers report on banking we were told that they had to be introduced slowly, over a number of years, so as to avoid unintended consequences and failure.
"So we have to force through police cuts to have what: unintended consequences and failure."
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