Order Sets 16 November for Abortion Pardons in England and Wales

A commencement instrument made on 15 October 2026 sets 16 November 2026 as the day a statutory pardon takes effect for women in England and Wales convicted of or cautioned for an abortion offence relating to their own pregnancy, together with a duty to delete criminal record details of such a conviction, caution, arrest or investigation.

Information last verified on October 18, 2026. Section 242 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 is not yet in force; the date below is a future commencement date fixed by statutory instrument.

Status: The Crime and Policing Act 2026 (Commencement No. 4) Regulations 2026, S.I. 2026/1090 (C. 89), were made on Thursday 15 October 2026. Regulation 3 appoints 16 November 2026 for section 242. As of 18 October 2026 legislation.gov.uk shows section 242 with the status "Prospective" and the commencement note "S. 242 not in force at Royal Assent, see s. 255(1)".

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses the commencement of section 242 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 in England and Wales and the new section 165B of the Policing and Crime Act 2017 that it inserts. It does not address Scottish or Northern Irish abortion law, and it does not address the Abortion Act 1967 framework under which clinicians provide lawful terminations. For the general rules on when a criminal record stops counting in the UK, see spent convictions in the UK.

What Happened

On 15 October 2026 the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, Alex Davies-Jones, signed the Crime and Policing Act 2026 (Commencement No. 4) Regulations 2026, S.I. 2026/1090 (C. 89). The Regulations are made under the general commencement power in section 255(1) of the Crime and Policing Act 2026, which provides that, subject to exceptions, the Act "comes into force on such day as the Secretary of State may by regulations appoint".

Regulation 3 is the operative provision for this story. It reads: "Section 242 of the Act (provisions for pardons and criminal records of women prosecuted under abortion law) comes into force on 16th November 2026." That is a Monday.

The instrument's explanatory note, which is not part of the Regulations, describes what is being commenced. It says section 242 "makes provision for pardons and the deletion of relevant details in criminal records of women convicted of, cautioned for, arrested for, or investigated on suspicion of, an offence under the law related to abortion, where they were acting in relation to their own pregnancy".

Regulation 2 separately brings five other items into force on Friday 6 November 2026: section 104(1) to (3), described in the instrument as "pornographic images of strangulation or suffocation: England and Wales and Northern Ireland", so far as it extends to England and Wales; section 104(4) and (5); section 106 (pornographic images of sex between relatives); section 107 (pornographic images of sexual activity with child under 16); and section 137 (child abduction).

No impact assessment accompanies the instrument. The explanatory note states that impact assessments were produced for the Act itself and points to the Ministry of Justice publication page for copies.

What the Law Actually Says

The offences in the background are old. Section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 criminalises a woman "being with child, who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage" unlawfully administers a poison or noxious thing or uses any instrument or other means, and also criminalises any other person who does so with intent to procure a woman's miscarriage. Section 59 of the same Act covers unlawfully supplying or procuring a poison, instrument or thing knowing it is intended to be used to procure a miscarriage.

Section 1 of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 creates the offence of child destruction: by any wilful act, and with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive, causing that child to die before it has an existence independent of its mother. A proviso excludes an act proved to have been done in good faith for the purpose only of preserving the life of the mother.

Part 16 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 is titled "Abortion" and contains only two sections. The first, section 241, is already in force. It took effect on the day the Act was passed, 29 April 2026, under section 255(2)(j), and it reads in full: "For the purposes of the law related to abortion, including sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, no offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy." legislation.gov.uk records that sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Act were "excluded" with effect from 29 April 2026 by that section.

The equalities impact assessment published jointly by the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office on 29 September 2026 states that Parliament's aim in enacting section 241 was that those offences "no longer apply to women acting in relation to their own pregnancy at any gestation", and that the provision "does not affect the Abortion Act 1967, which will continue to provide the legal framework for access to abortion services". The same document records that Parliament, not the Government, voted to include sections 241 and 242 in the Act, and that the Government maintained a neutral stance on changes to the criminal law on abortion.

Section 242 is the backward-looking counterpart. Section 241 took women out of these offences going forward. Section 242 addresses the records of women who were already caught by them.

What Section 242 Does, Clause by Clause

Section 242(1) and (2) amend the Policing and Crime Act 2017 by inserting a new section 165B after section 165A, under the heading "Pardon and expungement of records for women under the law related to abortion".

New section 165B(1) sets the gateway. It provides that subsections (2) and (3) "apply in respect of a woman (whether living or deceased) who, when acting in relation to her own pregnancy, was convicted of, cautioned for, arrested for, or investigated on suspicion of, an offence under the law related to abortion, including sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929".

Three features of that wording matter. The class is defined by the woman's own pregnancy, so a woman prosecuted over someone else's pregnancy is outside it. The class includes the deceased. And the offence list is introduced by "including", so it is illustrative rather than closed; the controlling phrase is "an offence under the law related to abortion". The text names the whole Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, not only section 1 of it.

New section 165B(2) is the pardon: "Where the woman has been convicted of, or cautioned for, an offence detailed in subsection (1), she is pardoned for the offence." That is a statement of effect, not a power. Nothing in the section requires an application, a petition, a certificate or a ministerial decision, and no body is given a function of deciding entitlement. On 16 November 2026 the pardon operates by force of the section for every woman within subsection (1) who was convicted or cautioned.

Note the asymmetry between subsections (1) and (2). Subsection (1) draws in arrests and investigations as well as convictions and cautions, but the pardon in subsection (2) is confined to a conviction or a caution. There is nothing to pardon in an arrest that produced no outcome; what arrests and investigations attract is the record duty in subsection (3).

New section 165B(3) is that duty: "A relevant data controller must delete from relevant official records, so far as reasonably practicable, any details of which they are aware of a conviction, caution, arrest or investigation detailed in subsection (1)."

Section 165B(4) borrows its definitions. "Relevant data controller" and "relevant official records" take the meaning they have in section 95 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. "Delete", for records prescribed for the purposes of the definition of "delete" in section 95, means recording with the details a statement that they "are to be treated as deleted under this section". Section 165B(5) imports the remaining expressions from Chapter 4 of Part 5 of the 2012 Act. That matters for the word "caution", which section 101(1) of the 2012 Act defines as a caution given in England and Wales for an admitted offence, or a reprimand or warning under section 65 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

Finally, section 242(3) amends section 167 of the Policing and Crime Act 2017, the supplementary provision for the existing pardon sections, by inserting "or 165B" after "165A" in subsections (1) and (2).

A Pardon Is Not a Quashed Conviction

This distinction is the single most important thing for a reader to get right, and the statute is explicit about it.

Section 167(1) of the Policing and Crime Act 2017 provides that a pardon under the sections it covers "does not (a) affect any conviction, caution or sentence, or (b) give rise to any right, entitlement or liability". Section 167(2) adds that nothing in those sections "affects the prerogative of mercy". Section 242(3) brings a section 165B pardon within both, and section 165B(5) refers expressly to section 167(1) "so far as relating to this section".

So the conviction is not quashed, set aside or overturned. It was lawfully entered and, as a matter of law, it remains. A conviction is overturned only by a court, on appeal. What section 165B(2) does is declare the woman pardoned, and paragraph (b) of section 167(1) closes off the obvious follow-on question: the pardon creates no right, entitlement or liability, so the section contains no compensation route, no cause of action and nothing a person can sue on. Section 242 contains no compensation provision of its own.

It is also worth being precise about what section 242 is not. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 contains a separate mechanism, the "disregard", and section 96 of that Act gives it a far stronger effect: a person with a disregarded conviction or caution "is to be treated for all purposes in law" as if they had not committed, been charged with, been prosecuted for, been convicted of, been sentenced for or been cautioned for the offence, with consequences spelled out for evidence, questioning, disclosure obligations and employment. Section 242 of the 2026 Act amends only the Policing and Crime Act 2017. It does not amend the disregard provisions of the 2012 Act, and it does not make an abortion conviction a disregarded conviction.

The Record Deletion Duty and Its Limits

Section 95(5) of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 defines "relevant official records" as the names database plus "such other official records as may be prescribed". The names database is the one "held by the Secretary of State for the use of constables". The further records are prescribed by article 2 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Relevant Official Records) Order 2012, S.I. 2012/2279: records kept locally by a police force for the use of constables, equivalent local records of the British Transport Police, records of the Ministry of Defence Police, records of the Royal Navy Police, the Royal Military Police, the Royal Air Force Police and the tri-service serious crime unit, magistrates' court records dating from 1992 kept by HM Courts and Tribunals Service, and Crown Court records kept by that service.

Article 3 of the same Order names who must act. The chief officer of police of the force in question for that force's local records, the chief constable of the British Transport Police and of the Ministry of Defence Police for theirs, the relevant Provost Marshal for each service police force, the Provost Marshal for serious crime for the tri-service serious crime unit's records, and the Secretary of State for Justice for the magistrates' court and Crown Court records.

Article 4 is the provision that decides what "deletion" means in practice. It prescribes, as the records where a notice to delete means a notice to annotate rather than to erase, any part of the names database not held electronically and every record listed in article 2. Read with section 165B(4)(b), the effect is that for police force local records, service police records and court records, compliance consists of recording alongside the entry a statement that the details are to be treated as deleted under section 165B. The entry remains; it is flagged.

One further instrument confirms that none of this depends on the woman applying. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Relevant Official Records) (Amendment) Order 2026, S.I. 2026/977, was made on 4 September 2026 and came into force on 29 September 2026. It removes the words "which are relevant to any application under section 92 of the Act" from article 2 of the 2012 Order. Its explanatory note says the amendment "ensures that the definition of 'relevant official records' operates consistently" across the disregard and pardon schemes, "including provisions to be inserted into those Acts on the commencement of sections 116, 117 and 242 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 which establish disregard and pardon arrangements in relation to certain offences and do not require an application under section 92 of the 2012 Act".

Two qualifiers remain in the duty itself. The controller must delete only details "of which they are aware", and only "so far as reasonably practicable". Neither phrase is defined in section 165B. In practice both limit the duty to what a controller can actually find and act on: a record that cannot be located, a paper file held outside the prescribed categories, or an entry whose connection to the woman's own pregnancy is not apparent on the face of the record, are all situations the qualifiers are built to accommodate. The duty is to make reasonable efforts against known records, not to guarantee an outcome.

The Ministry of Justice and Home Office equalities impact assessment sets out the intended practical effect. It states that Parliament's aim was that the details of a conviction, caution, arrest or investigation "whether the woman was convicted or not" should be deleted so that they "are not revealed on Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks". That is a statement of aim from the departments, not a provision of the section, and it sits alongside the qualifiers in section 165B(3).

Extent: England and Wales Only

Section 254(1) of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 provides that, subject to the exceptions that follow, "this Act extends to England and Wales only". Sections 254(2) to (8) then list the provisions with a wider or different extent. Section 242 appears in none of them, and legislation.gov.uk carries an E+W extent marker on the section. The pardon and the deletion duty therefore reach England and Wales and nowhere else.

Two sourced points about the rest of the United Kingdom, and no more than that. Sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 carry an extent of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and legislation.gov.uk records that both were repealed as regards Northern Ireland on 22 October 2019 by sections 9(2) and 13(4) of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019. Separately, section 7(3) of the Abortion Act 1967 provides that that Act "does not extend to Northern Ireland", and its extent marker is England, Wales and Scotland.

What S.I. 2026/1090 does not do is operate in Scotland or Northern Ireland. A reader in Glasgow or Belfast should not read the 16 November 2026 date as applying to a record held there. We make no statement here about what Scottish or Northern Irish law currently provides or may provide.

How the Act Is Being Commenced in Stages

S.I. 2026/1090 carries a "Note as to Earlier Commencement Regulations", a table of the provisions already appointed by the three earlier instruments. That table is useful context on the pace of the rollout.

Three earlier instruments appear in it. S.I. 2026/689 carried the largest single tranche into force on 29 June 2026, covering more than 30 sections and Schedules 5, 14 and 17 along with parts of Schedules 13, 21 and 25. S.I. 2026/939 appointed one provision, section 139, for 1 September 2026. S.I. 2026/960 set four later dates: 21 September 2026 for sections 205 to 211, 213 and the remainder of Schedule 25 among others, 29 September 2026 for sections 113 to 115, the remainder of section 204 and section 246, 26 October 2026 for sections 1 and 2, section 3(1) to (4) and sections 4 to 6 with Schedules 1 to 3, and 29 October 2026 for sections 151 to 156, 197 and 198 and Schedule 16.

Two sections are worth noting for their absence. Sections 116 and 117 of the Act, which create a disregard scheme and a pardon for convictions and cautions for loitering or soliciting when under 18, appear in none of the four instruments' commencement provisions. Both are still marked "Prospective" on legislation.gov.uk, each carrying a note that it was not in force at Royal Assent and that commencement rests on section 255(1).

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

The substantive change to the criminal law happened almost six months before this instrument. Section 241 removed women acting in relation to their own pregnancies from these offences on 29 April 2026. What regulation 3 of S.I. 2026/1090 does is set the date for the backward-looking half of Part 16, and that half is really two different things stitched into one section: a symbolic act and an administrative duty.

The pardon is the symbolic half, and the statute is unusually candid about how little it does in law. Section 167(1) of the Policing and Crime Act 2017 strips it of legal consequence in two lines. Nothing about the conviction changes, and the section creates no entitlement. Readers familiar with the pardons for abolished same-sex offences in sections 164 and 165 of the 2017 Act will recognise the pattern, because section 242 was deliberately bolted onto that existing machinery rather than built fresh. Those two sections are not identical to each other: section 164 is the posthumous pardon, while section 165 pardons a living person only once the conviction or caution has become a disregarded conviction or caution under Chapter 4 of Part 5 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Section 165B is drafted differently again, as a pardon that depends on neither death nor a disregard.

The administrative half is where the practical effect sits, and it is narrower than the word "expungement" in the new section's heading suggests. For every prescribed record other than the electronically held names database, article 4 of the 2012 Order means compliance is an annotation, not an erasure. The entry survives with a flag on it. That design is not an oversight; it is how the whole disregard architecture has worked since 2012, and it reflects the reality that court and police records are not built to have rows removed.

That leaves a visible gap between the section's reach and the departments' stated aim. The equalities impact assessment says the point is that the details should not surface on a DBS check. The section pursues that outcome through the deletion duty rather than through the disregard route in section 96 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, which is the provision that would otherwise make a conviction legally invisible for disclosure and employment purposes. Whether the deletion duty, qualified as it is by awareness and reasonable practicability, produces that result consistently is an operational question about how police forces and HM Courts and Tribunals Service implement it, and the answer will not be visible on 16 November.

One drafting point is worth flagging as our own observation rather than anyone's statement. Section 242(3)(a) directs that in section 167(1) of the Policing and Crime Act 2017, the words "or 165B" be inserted after "165A". The reference to section 165A gets into section 167(1) only through section 117(3)(a) of the 2026 Act, which substitutes ", 165, 165A" for "or 165". Section 117 is not in force and no commencement regulations made so far appoint a day for it. The same dependency sits in section 242(2) itself, which directs that the new section be inserted after section 165A, a section that does not yet exist in the 2017 Act. The sequencing is therefore untidy on 16 November 2026, although the drafter's intention is not in doubt: section 165B(5) refers expressly to section 167(1) as applying to the new section.

Scale is modest and the Government says it cannot be measured. The equalities impact assessment records 26 prosecutions under sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Act and the 1929 Act between 2017 and 2024, producing 10 convictions, and of the 24 cases where the defendant's sex was recorded, 17 involved male defendants and 7 female. It states that it is not possible to identify how many of those women were pregnant and acting in relation to their own pregnancy, that offence-specific data on arrests and investigations is not published, and that the extent of the pardons and deletions therefore "cannot be accurately quantified at this time". The arrest and investigation limb is almost certainly the larger one, and it is the one nobody has counted.

How This Affects You

If you are in England or Wales and hold a conviction or caution for an abortion offence arising from your own pregnancy, the pardon in section 165B(2) operates on and from 16 November 2026 without any step on your part. Before that date the section is not in force. There is no application process in the section, so there is no form to find and no deadline to meet, and anyone offering a paid service to secure this pardon is selling something the statute does not require.

If your record concerns an arrest or an investigation that never resulted in a conviction or a caution, the pardon does not apply to you, because section 165B(2) is limited to a conviction or a caution. The deletion duty in section 165B(3) does cover arrests and investigations within subsection (1).

If you are concerned about what a background check will show, the deletion duty is the operative provision and it is qualified. It binds the controllers named in article 3 of the 2012 Order in respect of the records listed in article 2, and, for the names database, the chief officers of police whom section 95(5) of the 2012 Act identifies as the data controller for the details concerned. It reaches only details those controllers are aware of, and it applies only so far as reasonably practicable. Separately from section 242, the general UK rules on disclosure still apply, and our pages on how the DBS system grades and filters a check and on police cautions set those out.

If your record relates to an arrest that went nowhere, the general position on pre-charge outcomes in England and Wales, which we cover in our explainer on released under investigation and pre-charge bail, is unchanged by this instrument.

Nothing here tells you what to do about your own record. Section 242 does not create a right, so questions about a specific record are questions for a solicitor and, where disclosure is the issue, for the body that holds the record.

What Happens Next

Three dated events follow from this instrument. On 6 November 2026 the provisions in regulation 2 come into force. On 16 November 2026 section 242 comes into force, inserting section 165B into the Policing and Crime Act 2017 and making the amendments to section 167 of that Act. After that date legislation.gov.uk should carry section 165B as operative text rather than as a prospective insertion, and the "Prospective" marker on section 242 should come off.

Two things would convert the open questions above into news. The first is a further commencement instrument appointing a day for sections 116 and 117, which would complete the loitering and soliciting disregard and pardon scheme and tidy the section 167 amendment chain. The second is any published guidance from the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office or policing bodies on how controllers are to identify records within section 165B(1), since the "of which they are aware" qualifier makes identification the practical bottleneck. Neither has appeared as of 18 October 2026.

This is general legal information, not legal advice. This article covers England and Wales. It does not state the law of Scotland or Northern Ireland. Sources were verified on October 18, 2026. Laws change; consult a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction about your specific situation.

Related articles

• Spent convictions in the UK, and when a record stops counting
• What the levels of DBS check actually disclose
• Simple and conditional police cautions explained
• Released under investigation compared with pre-charge bail
• Our guide to criminal law and your rights across the UK

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Last updated: 2026-10-18. Section 242 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 comes into force on 16 November 2026; we will update this page when it does.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does the abortion pardon take effect in England and Wales?

On 16 November 2026. Regulation 3 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 (Commencement No. 4) Regulations 2026, S.I. 2026/1090, made on 15 October 2026, appoints that date for section 242 of the Act. Before 16 November 2026 section 242 is not in force and is marked 'Prospective' on legislation.gov.uk.

Do I have to apply for the pardon?

No. Section 165B(2) of the Policing and Crime Act 2017, inserted by section 242, states that the woman 'is pardoned for the offence'. It creates no application process, no form and no decision maker, and the record deletion duty in section 165B(3) also operates without an application. S.I. 2026/977 removed application-linked wording from the Relevant Official Records Order 2012 specifically because the new schemes 'do not require an application under section 92 of the 2012 Act'.

Does the pardon quash or overturn the conviction?

No, and the statute says so directly. Section 167(1) of the Policing and Crime Act 2017, which section 242(3) extends to section 165B pardons, provides that such a pardon does not affect any conviction, caution or sentence and does not give rise to any right, entitlement or liability. The conviction stands as a matter of law. Only a court, on appeal, can quash a conviction. The section also contains no compensation provision.

Which offences does section 242 cover?

Section 165B(1) covers an offence 'under the law related to abortion', and names sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 as included examples. Because the list is introduced by the word 'including' it is illustrative rather than exhaustive. The statutory text refers to the whole 1929 Act, not only section 1 of it. In every case the woman must have been acting in relation to her own pregnancy.

Does it apply to women who have died?

Yes. Section 165B(1) applies in respect of a woman 'whether living or deceased', so a conviction or caution recorded against a woman who has since died falls within the pardon on 16 November 2026, and the deletion duty applies to the associated records in the same way.

Will the conviction still show up on a DBS check?

The equalities impact assessment published by the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office on 29 September 2026 states that Parliament's aim is that the details, whether or not the woman was convicted, should be deleted so that they are not revealed on Disclosure and Barring Service checks. The mechanism is the deletion duty in section 165B(3), which is limited to details the controller is aware of and applies only so far as reasonably practicable. Section 242 amends the Policing and Crime Act 2017 only, so it does not make the conviction a disregarded conviction under section 96 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.

Does deletion mean the record is erased?

Not for most records. Section 165B(4)(b) provides that for prescribed records 'delete' means recording alongside the details a statement that they are to be treated as deleted under the section. Article 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Relevant Official Records) Order 2012 prescribes every record listed in article 2 of that Order, plus any part of the names database not held electronically, so for police force local records, service police records and magistrates' court and Crown Court records held by HM Courts and Tribunals Service compliance is an annotation rather than an erasure.

Does the pardon apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland?

No. Section 254(1) of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 provides that the Act extends to England and Wales only except where it says otherwise, section 242 is in none of the wider extent lists, and legislation.gov.uk carries an England and Wales extent marker on the section. S.I. 2026/1090 does not operate in Scotland or Northern Ireland. For context, legislation.gov.uk records that sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Act were repealed as regards Northern Ireland on 22 October 2019 by the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, and section 7(3) of the Abortion Act 1967 states that that Act does not extend to Northern Ireland.

Is it still a criminal offence for a woman in England and Wales to end her own pregnancy?

Section 241 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026, in force since the Act was passed on 29 April 2026, provides that for the purposes of the law related to abortion, including sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Act and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, no offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy. The departmental equalities impact assessment states that this applies at any gestation and that section 241 does not affect the Abortion Act 1967, which continues to govern access to abortion services. The offences continue to apply to anyone who is not a pregnant woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy.

What else comes into force on 6 November 2026?

Regulation 2 of S.I. 2026/1090 appoints 6 November 2026 for section 104(1) to (3) of the Act (pornographic images of strangulation or suffocation) so far as it extends to England and Wales, section 104(4) and (5), section 106 (pornographic images of sex between relatives), section 107 (pornographic images of sexual activity with child under 16) and section 137 (child abduction).