(Streatham) (Lab)
(Urgent Question) To ask the Secretary of State to make a
statement on the recent report concerning the Metropolitan
police’s handling of the strip-search of Child Q.
The Minister for Crime and Policing ()
The City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership report
into the strip-search of a 15-year-old schoolgirl while at school
by police officers in 2020 is both troubling and deeply
concerning. This experience will have been traumatic for the
child involved; the impact on her welfare should not be
underestimated.
The Government and the public rightly expect the highest
standards from our police officers. The ability of the police to
perform their core functions is dependent on their capacity to
secure and maintain public confidence and support for their
actions. While the Metropolitan police have apologised for their
actions and recognised that this incident should never have
happened, the force’s culture has again come under scrutiny.
Members of the public must be treated fairly and without
prejudice, no matter their race, age or background. Strip-search
is one of the most intrusive powers available to the police. The
law is very clear that the use of police powers to search must be
fair, respectful and without unlawful discrimination. Any use of
strip-search should be carried out in accordance with the law and
with full regard to the welfare and dignity of the individual
being searched, particularly if that individual is a child. If
police judge it operationally necessary to strip-search a child,
they must do so in the presence of the child’s appropriate adult.
It is the role of the independent police watchdog, the
Independent Office for Police Conduct, to investigate serious
matters involving the police, and the IOPC says it has been
investigating the actions of the Metropolitan police in this
case. We must let the IOPC conclude its work. We will of course
expect any findings to be acted on swiftly, but it is vital that
we do not prejudge the IOPC’s investigations or prejudice due
process, so it would be wrong of me to make any further comment
on the case in question at this time.
They walked into her place of safety at the request of people who
were meant to keep her safe, stripped her naked while she was on
her period and forced her to remove her sanitary towel, spread
her legs, part her buttock cheeks and cough, to look for drugs
they never found. We should remember that this comes on top of a
string of incidents, from the abuse and strip-search of Dr Duff,
the rapist and murderer Wayne Couzens, the vile racism and
misogyny uncovered in Charing Cross police station, the brutal
handling of the vigil in Clapham Common, and the record low
confidence in policing, particularly by minority communities, who
are evidenced as being over-policed as citizens and under-policed
as victims.
Does the Minister understand that there is no apology that could
atone for the perverse racist degradation of this child? Does the
Minister accept that this is not an isolated incident—that
between 2016 and 2021 the Met carried out over 9,000
strip-searches on children, some younger than 12, and that over
33% of all strip-searches were carried out on black people,
despite only 13% of Londoners being black? Given that this
happened in a school, what discussions has his Department had
with the Department for Education on this serious breach of
safeguarding and the questionable presence of police officers in
our schools? Will he finally accept that the Met police have an
issue with institutional racism and misogyny and take steps to
ensure that any new commissioner is committed to rooting it out?
The Minister may be aware that during the statement on the
commission on race and ethnic disparities last week, the Minister
for Equalities said:
“We have systems in place to ensure that when things go wrong we
can right them. What we cannot do is stop any bad thing happening
to anyone in the country at any time.”—[Official Report, 17 March
2022; Vol. 710, c. 1075.]
I have to ask: what on earth are this Government here for? I
simply do not accept that. Finally, in the words of Child Q
herself:
“I need to know that the people who have done this to me can’t do
it to anyone else ever again”.
Can the Minister assure Child Q and our constituents of that?
As I said earlier, we await the outcome of the investigation, and
we will learn whatever lessons need to be learnt from it. While
my hon. Friend the Minister for Equalities said that we cannot
prevent all bad things from happening, we can try. What is clear
from this case is that the complaint mechanism and the
safeguarding practices involved did surface the issue and bring
it to light, and have allowed us to examine this
appalling—[Interruption.] Hold on. They have allowed us to
examine this appalling incident in more detail and to try to
learn the lessons, so that as—I assume from what she said—Child Q
hopes, we are able to prevent such incidents from occurring in
the future.
(Thurrock) (Con)
I have huge admiration for my right hon. Friend, and I know that
he takes these things very seriously, but can he understand the
revulsion felt by women to hear that a girl has been
strip-searched at her school—and had to remove her sanitary
towel—by the very people whom we trust to look after us? What
action will he take to make it clear that there needs to be
cultural change in the Metropolitan police so that no serving
constable could ever think that that was an appropriate course of
action?
The revulsion is not confined to women. There are many men,
including me, who obviously find it a distressing incident to
contemplate. I very often find it helpful in these circumstances
to put one of my own relatives in a similar situation to bring
home the impact. I am not at all denying the fact that it was
distressing and appalling and that it should not have happened,
as the Metropolitan police have said themselves.
The hon. Member for Streatham () referred to a number of
incidents that have prompted concerns about the culture in the
Met, and she, I hope, will be pleased to know that I had a
meeting last week with Dame who has obviously been
detailed by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to look at the
culture across the whole of the Metropolitan police. Her work
will dovetail neatly with the work of the Angiolini review, which
is looking, in its first stage, at the circumstances surrounding
the employment of Wayne Couzens. Following that, stage 2 will
look more widely at culture and policing. There is no doubt that
there is work to be done here, and we are determined to do that
work.
Mr Speaker
I call the shadow Minister.
(Croydon Central) (Lab)
The Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review published last week,
compiled by the extremely highly regarded Jim Gamble, into the
case of Child Q was deeply disturbing. The details of the
strip-search of a black schoolgirl by the Metropolitan police at
a Hackney secondary school in 2020 have horrified us all in a
society where we police by consent.
The review concluded that the search was unjustified and that
racism was likely to have been a factor. We have heard the
details from my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (), and I think that
everyone will agree that this strip-search should not have
happened, that everyone will want to say sorry to Child Q, and
that something went terribly wrong. What is so shocking is that
the existing guidance and training was so insufficient—so broad,
perhaps—and so vague that it did not prevent the strip-search of
a child who supposedly smelled of cannabis from happening in this
way. I have read the College of Policing guidance and the Police
and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 on strip-searches, and they are
not clear enough. Is the Minister already working on new
guidance?
Given that the Met and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary
and fire and rescue services say that the smell of cannabis is
not good grounds for a normal stop and search of an adult, will
the Minister confirm that the circumstances described in this
review should never have happened and that the new guidance will
be clear on this point?
Given the serious harm that has occurred in this case, does the
Minister agree that we must understand the scale of this issue?
Will he therefore commit to publishing the full data on the use
of strip-searches of children in our police forces across England
and Wales by the end of the week?
The little data that we do have makes very difficult reading. A
freedom of information request on strip-searches in the Met over
the past five years shows that 33% of all strip-searches were of
black people, while black people make up only 11% of the
population of Londoners. There are other issues that we will come
to when the Independent Office for Police Conduct has passed its
report to the Met, the Met has taken any action and the report is
finally published. Those issues include: how this case was first
referred to social services; why Child Q and her family had to
wait so long for answers; and what the role of education policy,
guidance and safeguarding is in this. We know that this could be
months or years away, so the key point is that there are
significant faults that this case has brought to light, in terms
of data, guidance and training, which this Government can choose
to tackle now if they have the political will to do so.
We obviously take this matter extremely seriously. The hon. Lady
is right that the report made recommendations to the Government,
not least on strengthening and revising code C of the Police and
Criminal Evidence Act 1984. We will have to consider our response
to that in the light of this report, taking into account the
outcomes of the IOPC review. We need to understand whether we
have a specific problem or a systemic one. The report indicates
that we may have systemic problems, and if we do then obviously
we will seek to address them. We also need to work out from the
IOPC report whether the same is true; if so, of course we will
act.
(Hackney North and Stoke
Newington) (Lab)
Does the Minister appreciate how angry people up and down the
country are about this incident, particularly people in Hackney?
We had a very big demonstration outside Hackney town hall—it was
a completely peaceful one, but people were just consumed with
unhappiness and anger and fear. It is not just parents of colour;
all parents are thinking, “This could have been my daughter.” Is
the Minister aware of how traumatised that young woman still is
by the incident, and is he aware that it took the police two full
years to apologise? What is he going to do? He is telling us
about inquiries, but what is he going to do so that at the very
least, the instructions and guidelines to the police are much
clearer than they currently appear to be?
Of course I understand the anger and concern across the country,
and I share it. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for
Thurrock (), it could have been any
one of our relatives. As the right hon. Lady knows, I spent a
long time in London government and I understand the impact that
these events can have on trust between the police and London’s
various communities. It is extremely important that people feel
confident that, when such appalling incidents happen, action is
taken to try to prevent them in the future. I am trying to stress
to the House that, while we have the report of the safeguarding
board, we want to ensure that we also have the IOPC report so
that we can see the full picture in the round and act accordingly
to reassure her constituents and many other Londoners.
It is worth saying, however, that it would be helpful to me if
London Members such as the right hon. Lady recognised that the
Mayor of London has a role to play in this, as the primary
accountability body for the Metropolitan Police, and that the
Government and the Mayor must work together to solve these
problems with the police.
(Eltham) (Lab)
I am sorry, but I feel as if we have woken the Minister from an
afternoon nap to come in and make this statement. There is a
distinct lack of urgency in his approach. It is quite clear that
there are areas where the Government can act now. Why is he not
coming to this House to explain to us exactly what he is going to
do, rather than taking this “wait and see” attitude?
As I have already said, there is a process under way through the
IOPC. That process will, I hope, conclude shortly and the IOPC
will bring us the evidence of the report. It is an independent
organisation—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Islington
South and Finsbury () is barracking me from a
seated position, but I do not think she is participating in the
urgent question. The point is that the IOPC is an independent
organisation, and she will know that it would be completely
incorrect for me to put any kind of pressure on its
investigation. That process must complete. When it does, we will
have the full picture and, if we are required to act, have no
doubt that we will act swiftly.
(Lewisham East) (Lab)
Last week I raised the issue of Child Q with the Minister for
Equalities, the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (). I told her of my disgust
that a child experienced being stripped of her clothes and
searched at school by police officers while she was menstruating.
It is beyond belief that she was pulled out of an exam and then
expected to be fit and well enough to return to that exam. I am
outraged by that, as are other hon. Members of this House. I am
pleased that the Minister has said he is disgusted and appalled,
but does he agree that the officers and teachers involved should
be sacked and charged for their misconduct and that, as a matter
of safeguarding, they should never be allowed to work with
children again?
Those are conclusions, I am afraid, for the IOPC. Much as I know
the House would love me to do so, I cannot circumvent that
quasi-judicial process. The IOPC is independent for a reason; the
office of constable is dealt with in a different way from other
matters of employment. Once it concludes, we will be able to draw
conclusions ourselves.
(Twickenham) (LD)
Like many people across London and this country, I am utterly
appalled and disgusted by this case, not least as the mother of a
young daughter. I cannot begin to conceive of what that young
woman went through and how furious her family must be. I am not
sure I could be held responsible for my actions if I were her
mother, to be honest. The Minister has talked about the IOPC
review and there have been calls for guidance to be reviewed. In
the meantime, has he spoken to every single police chief in the
country and asked for a guarantee that no other child will be
subjected to such mistreatment in future?
Obviously I have not spoken to every other police chief in the
country, since the report came out just a few days ago. As I say,
we will eagerly await the IOPC report to establish whether we
have a specific problem or a systemic problem. The initial
reports of the local child safeguarding practice review are
telling us that we may have a systemic problem. If we do, then we
will act on it accordingly. Please believe me when I say that the
impact of this on any family would be profound. Some of us have
children too. Those children may, in time, be subject to
something like this, and I hope we are able to prevent that from
happening.
(Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I think we all recognise that the Minister is waiting for the
IOPC report. However, he says that this could have happened to
any child and that he thinks of his own relatives. The brutal,
difficult truth that many of my constituents have raised with me
over the weekend is that it is not likely to have happened to any
of his relatives or our relatives—it is young black girls who
have read this story and are horrified by it, and who need us to
recognise explicitly the disproportionality in how the police
work with them.
I hope the Minister can help to answer the question that my
constituents have been asking, because they have looked at the
data, especially on families of colour in my community, and they
can see that strip-searching of children is not a one-off. So
will he, ahead of the IOPC report, publish the data about the
numbers of strip-searches that have taken place, by borough
command unit and by ethnicity, and confirm that if it ever comes
to this exceptional circumstance—I think we would all agree that
it should be exceptional that a child should be strip-searched,
not a matter of course—a parent or carer will always be present?
He could do that today. He could start recovering the trust that
has been so lost. He could start by being honest that communities
of colour in London are looking at and questioning the police.
The data is the first point in getting this right. Will he
publish—yes or no?
If a strip-search is deemed necessary to be undertaken on a
child, then an appropriate adult, whether a parent or otherwise,
has to be present. [Interruption.] Indeed, they were not in this
case, and the question we have to ask ourselves is why—what went
wrong? Why did the officers do what they did? Why did they decide
to have two present? What were they doing? We will know that from
the IOPC report. Once we have that, as I say, we will have the
full picture and we will be able to look at it accordingly.
(Ealing Central and Acton)
(Lab)
In 2019, Cressida Dick said that police officers should be
“embedded in the DNA of schools”,
and we have seen how that massively failed Child Q in this
disgusting case. How far has the search for Cressida Dick’s
replacement gone? We have heard that she is clinging on, haggling
over her settlement. The Minister blamed . Could there be additional
safeguards for Parliament in this process? The Met’s workload is
of national significance; it is not just a normal police force.
Could we have an urgent review of the boundaries of cops in
schools?
I did not blame the Mayor of London—I just pointed out that he
has as much influence, if not more, over the Metropolitan police
than we do. I was the deputy Mayor for policing. If this had
happened under me, I would have taken responsibility for it and
tried to sort it out myself. I am just saying that the Government
and City Hall will have a duty to work together on this issue.
As for police officers’ involvement in schools, it is, I am
afraid, a source of great sadness that it is necessary for police
officers to be involved in and around schools, but we have found
over the years that such is the problem with youth violence and
youth crime, particularly in the capital, that creating a good
relationship with young people through the police’s involvement
in schools is critical to success, and where it works, it can be
of enormous benefit to their safety.
(Battersea) (Lab)
I start by saying that it is incredibly disappointing that the
Home Secretary could not be here to respond to this urgent
question on an urgent matter.
The police tell us that if we have nothing to hide, we have
nothing to fear, but everybody should fear the degrading and
traumatising treatment that Child Q suffered when she was
strip-searched by the Metropolitan police. More than four
children a day are subject to that treatment by the Met, and
black people are strip-searched at six times the rate of white
people. How does the Minister expect to build trust and
confidence in a force that is rife with institutional racism and
misogyny when it victimises black children on a daily basis? If
his Government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities does
not admit the existence of institutional and structural racism,
how on earth can we put any trust in the Government?
I refute the hon. Lady’s claim that the Metropolitan police
victimises young black people on a daily basis. I have spent many
hours with it over the years watching men and women of all types
and races in uniform doing their best to save young people’s
lives. Although I am often challenged about the
disproportionality of things such as stop and search, in two and
a bit years of doing this job, I have never been challenged in
this Chamber on the disproportionality of victimhood and the
sadly far too great number of young black people who die on the
streets of London. As I said, we need to understand from each of
these instances whether we have a systemic or a specific problem.
I understand the House’s impatience, but we will know once the
IOPC concludes.
(Erith and Thamesmead)
(Lab)
We have all been horrified by this case. We need assurances that
it cannot happen again and we need urgent action from the
Minister to address the issue. He says that he is waiting for the
IOPC. As he knows, the national safeguarding panel is a
ministerially appointed body. Will he stop ducking his
responsibilities and urgently publish the data on how many
children have been strip-searched over the years, breaking it
down by gender, race, age and location of the search, including
whether it happened at school? The safeguarding review also
demonstrated that there were elements of racism involved, so can
he urgently look into that issue, because it needs to be taken
seriously?
As I said, we do take the issue extremely seriously. The matter
of strip-search in particular, and the disparity in strip-search,
has been of concern for some time. That is why we have an
initiative on in Norfolk and Suffolk police where we have a
strip-search scrutiny panel to look at the disparity there.
Similarly, in Thames Valley police, we have put agencies together
to examine police custody and strip-search disparities there.
There is work under way—the hon. Lady should be reassured by
that—but we will know more once the reports have concluded.
(Islington North) (Ind)
It is more than two decades since the Macpherson inquiry found
institutional racism in the Metropolitan police. We now look at
the figures on stop and search and we hear the awful story of
this young girl and the way she was treated. Does the Minister
accept that something has to happen now to give any confidence to
the black community in London that its sons and daughters will
not be treated in that way on the streets, and that the police
will not behave with a racist attitude towards them and will not
point to a young black person and see a potential criminal rather
than a young person walking around the streets of our city? The
confidence is not there, and that is made worse by the report, by
the delay in an apology for this poor young woman and by the
abominable way that she was treated.
In my view, the vast majority of interactions between the
Metropolitan police and members of the black community go well
and are of benefit. There are, however, many—too many—that do
not, and that is an area of work that requires constant
attention. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the
Metropolitan police is subject to the Casey review of its culture
at the moment. It is working hard, again, as part of the police
uplift to change the look and feel of the workforce, with
ambitious targets to recruit people of different genders and
different ethnicities into the force so that it better reflects
the people of London and can better serve them as a result.
On a national level, the National Police Chiefs’ Council is
similarly in the process of developing a race action plan to do
the same and to deal with some of these issues. This area has
been a challenge for policing in London—certainly throughout the
right hon. Gentleman’s political career, as it has throughout
mine—and it is one that requires constant attention from all of
us, driven both by the thematic problems we see, but also by some
of these specific incidents. Where we do have these specific
incidents, it is incumbent on us to make sure we have the
knowledge and the detail, so that we can make the right decisions
to make a big difference for London’s communities.
(Vauxhall)
(Lab/Co-op)
Mr Speaker:
“I can’t go a single day without wanting to scream, shout…or just
give up.”
That is child Q, and I say to child Q and every other little
black girl, “You matter.” In eight years’ time, when my daughter
is 15 years old, I hope this issue is not still happening, but I
am worried that it will be. The local safeguarding practice
review found that child Q’s mother was not contacted, and she
only found out when her child took a taxi home. Once at home,
child Q’s mother had to take her to the GP who made a referral
for psychological help due to her child’s level of distress. The
Minister has outlined that he is waiting for the IOPC report, but
does he agree with me that there are clear safeguarding issues in
the treatment of child Q and the lack of parental engagement, and
that he can take steps today to help address this and give
confidence to little girls not just across London, but up and
down the country?
I completely agree with the hon. Lady that there are implications
for safeguarding, and I know but will reassure myself that my
ministerial colleagues at the Department for Education are taking
it as seriously as we are. As I say, from a policing point of
view we have to wait for the IOPC to come to a conclusion, but on
the overall safeguarding, the panel obviously did its work, the
review has produced a report and I will make sure that Ministers
at the appropriate Department are taking action as well.
(Brent North) (Lab)
The bad apple defence or the isolated incident excuse will no
longer wash. Our constituents are no longer able to trust the
police, including constituents such as Teresa Akpeki, whose
brother was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. The police,
when they attended the body—this was an NHS worker collecting
samples—did not reach into his pocket to find his ID card, but
phoned the Home Office to find out whether he was an illegal
immigrant, because he was black. The Minister now needs to launch
an inquiry into the way in which the Metropolitan police is
dealing with ethnic communities, and if he fails to do that, the
confidence of our communities in the police up and down this
country is going to be rock bottom.
As I outlined earlier, there are already two inquiries into the
culture of the Metropolitan police in all its aspects—by Dame
, who I know will do a
thorough job, and following that, part 2 of the Angiolini
review—but I would ask the hon. Gentleman to take care. There are
30,000-odd police officers in the Metropolitan police, the vast
majority of whom are doing an extraordinary job and doing amazing
things on a daily basis to keep us all safe from harm, and they
deserve our thanks for doing that. They will be as outraged as we
are at this event, and we need to learn the lessons on their
behalf as well as on behalf of the Londoners we serve.
(Dulwich and West Norwood)
(Lab)
The disgraceful, abhorrent, sickening strip-search of child Q
took place two years ago, yet the Minister stands at the Dispatch
Box today and speaks about the processes around the investigation
as if this is a system working as it should. It is not. The
constant delay in the outcomes of such investigations is a part
of the structural denial of justice to complainants against the
Metropolitan police. Can the Minister tell the House when he
first became aware of the case of child Q and what action he took
immediately to safeguard children in London, and does he have no
concern at all about the time it takes complaints such as this to
conclude and be resolved?
Of course we are concerned about the time it takes for complaints
to be dealt with, which is why we changed the IOPC regulations at
the end of 2019 to compel speedy investigations. It is the case
now that if any investigation is going to take longer than 12
months, the IOPC must write to the appropriate authority—me or,
for example, the Mayor of London—to explain why. The director
general of the IOPC has done an outstanding job in driving the
workload down and bringing more investigations in under 12
months, but there is obviously still a lot more work to do.
(Greenwich and Woolwich)
(Lab)
This is a deeply disturbing case both in terms of what happened
and the fact that racism was clearly a factor, but may I ask the
Minister how it came to light? According to the independent
safeguarding report, Hackney Council only became aware of the
incident when the family approached a GP; given that this
happened two years ago, why is it not automatically the case that
when a child is strip-searched social services are notified and a
safeguarding review is triggered?
That is one of the questions the investigations will answer. It
is my understanding that this issue was referred to the IOPC by
the Metropolitan police from a policing point of view, but I
agree that it would be of interest to know why it took so long to
appear through the local safeguarding structure and I undertake
to find out for the hon. Gentleman.
(Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
This appalling act of institutionalised degradation was committed
against a black child and the report highlights the racism
inherent in the adultification of black children. Does the
Minister understand that seeing black children as adults is, just
like seeing black men as more likely to be criminal or seeing
black women as more likely to be troublesome, part of
institutionalised, systemic anti-black racism and his inability
to say what he is going to do about it says that he is prepared
to continue to tolerate it. Does he also understand that we can
never have trust in our policing services with a Minister who is
unable to say anything?
I think that is grossly unfair when the hon. Lady knows that I am
bound by due process not to comment on an ongoing investigation
by the IOPC. When that investigation is concluded we will have
plenty to say, fear not. I have spent lots of time dealing with
crime and social policy issues in the capital so I am sensitised
to the issues the hon. Lady raises; I do recognise them and have
done, I like to think, quite a lot of work on them in the past.
(Slough) (Lab)
The shocking, scandalous strip-search of child Q is so demeaning;
how could those Met police officers and the school have thought
that such a horrible action could be even remotely acceptable?
This could have happened to any one of our children—or could it?
I ask that because the statistics tell a very different story,
and indeed the safeguarding review revealed that racism could
well have been an influencing factor in the decisions taken.
Given that, what is the Minister doing to urgently take action on
this?
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answers I gave earlier, and we
will know these things when the IOPC concludes, which I hope it
will shortly.
(Coventry South) (Lab)
In the past three years Metropolitan police officers have been
jailed for posing for selfies next to the bodies of black
murdered sisters, a serving officer has been found guilty of
Sarah Everard’s horrific murder, racist, sexist and homophobic
messages between officers have been dismissed as “banter”
internally only to have been described as “shocking” by the
independent watchdog, and now we learn that Met officers
strip-searched a 15-year-old black child at her school,
inflicting trauma that will last for years to come. This is
obviously not about blaming every single officer, but will the
Minister accept that this is not just a few bad apples but
reveals a deeper problem of institutional racism and misogyny at
the Me? Will the Minister finally answer, rather than just leave,
a question that has been asked three times: when did he find out
about the case of child Q?
We obviously accept that there is an issue to be addressed, which
is why we commissioned the Angiolini review and why we are
supporting Dame .
(Liverpool, Riverside)
(Lab)
The Minister started by saying this incident was very troubling
and concerning, but I would have to say it goes well beyond
troubling and concerning: it was dehumanising a young black girl,
who was strip-searched by Met police officers. What is the
Minister going to do about the state sanctioning abuse of black
children, who are treated like adults in our schools?
I understand the hon. Lady’s anger at this incident; I really do.
It is a dreadful incident, and I would much rather not be
standing here having to answer these kinds of questions, because
I would rather these incidents did not occur in the first place.
I will say to her what I have said to everybody else: we will
know more when the IOPC concludes. While I understand the House’s
impatience and anger, the police officers concerned have a right
to due process and we have a duty to wait for the report so that
we can see properly the evidence of what happened and then take
action accordingly.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for Streatham () for bringing the urgent
question forward. This serious incident has undoubtedly sent
shockwaves to every parent and grandparent in this United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Does the Minister not
agree that there must be safeguarding in place to protect the
child as well as the police officers? If we do not robustly
enforce protections to the very highest standards, the hardest
questions must be answered by those in the highest positions
within the police as, ultimately, the buck stops with them.
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is quite right
that we should expect and work for the highest possible
standards. This young person, Child Q, has been through a
dreadful, traumatic episode, which I am sure will live with her,
sadly, for many years. We need to do our best to make sure that
these kinds of incidents do not reoccur, and that is the best we
can do. The hon. Gentleman has my undertaking that as soon as we
have the full picture, that is exactly what we will do.
