Moved by Lord Lexden That the Grand Committee takes note of the
case for restoring public confidence in the police. Lord Lexden
(Con) My Lords, I sought this debate to give your Lordships’ House
an opportunity to consider the need to restore confidence in our
country’s police forces, which has been seriously weakened in the
last few years, and to try to elicit from the Government a clear
indication of what they are doing to ensure that the restoration
of...Request free trial
Moved by
That the Grand Committee takes note of the case for restoring
public confidence in the police.
(Con)
My Lords, I sought this debate to give your Lordships’ House an
opportunity to consider the need to restore confidence in our
country’s police forces, which has been seriously weakened in the
last few years, and to try to elicit from the Government a clear
indication of what they are doing to ensure that the restoration
of confidence is successfully accomplished.
How reassuring it would be to the public if the Government
produced a coherent action plan showing precisely how they intend
to assist the police in regaining public support and meeting new
challenges, of which there will be many. So much good would be
done if the Government set out in clear language, free from
party-political knockabout, their vision of the shape of policing
in the future, at a time when technology is developing at a
prodigious rate with huge implications for the police, like
everyone else. So frequently, any sense of a coherent plan for
the future is lost amid a blizzard of statistics and details
designed to scotch criticism of some current problem.
Policing in Britain has always rested on public consent. That
fundamental principle was laid down by the great Sir Robert Peel
when he created the Metropolitan Police nearly two centuries ago.
Today, consent no longer seems firmly assured; that should be
rectified. Our police forces need to renew their commitment to
Peel’s great founding principle.
I am extremely grateful to all those participating in this
debate, and I look forward to deepening my understanding of the
issues it raises as a result of their contributions. I think it
unlikely that we Back-Bench contributors will disagree about the
gravity of the position in which the police find themselves today
as regards the confidence reposed in them by the public. It is
strongly reflected in surveys of public opinion. In 2020, YouGov
found that 70% of their respondents thought the police were doing
a good job. Last month, 47% held that view—down by nearly a
quarter in just three years. Some 53% said they had little or no
confidence in the police last month, compared with 38% three
years ago—itself an alarmingly high proportion.
Detailed research embodied in a recent publication of the Social
Market Foundation found that
“a substantial proportion of the population across England and
Wales has little confidence in their local constabularies”,
with fewer than six in 10 believing that the police can be relied
on when they are needed. No more than 22%, just over a fifth,
felt that the police would be likely to apprehend a burglar, so
widespread has become the habit of issuing a crime number for
insurance purposes without attempting any serious investigation.
It is hard to overestimate the worry caused to so many people by
the indifference which tends to be shown by the police to what is
termed low-level crime.
Nowhere has confidence in the police fallen more sharply than in
London, and nowhere will the decline be harder to reverse. After
a succession of the most terrible scandals, how could it be
otherwise? The crisis in the capital is bound to occupy a
prominent position in this debate, as it should. It is likely to
affect confidence in the police throughout the country in view of
the widespread coverage of London’s crisis in the national media.
The scandals in London have stunned the nation. Criminals have in
some number been allowed to wear the policeman’s proud uniform. A
few of the policeman criminals have committed the most heinous
offences.
The details have been laid bare in all their horror in court
cases and in a succession of independent reports, none more
shattering than that of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, published
in March. It exposed huge, unforgivable failures in the way that
the Metropolitan Police has been managed and run. Awful
prejudices and attitudes have been allowed to flourish unchecked
for years. The organisation
“has completely lost its way”,
the noble Baroness said in an interview last month, where she
spoke passionately about the revulsion she had felt over what had
emerged during her year-long inquiry. Her anger is palpable and
understandable.
The noble Baroness’s report is packed with horrifying
information. The detection rate for rape cases is so low, one
police officer told her team,
“you may as well say it’s legal in London”.
More than 1,500 officers have been accused of violent offences
against women. Black officers are regularly overlooked for
promotion. I do not need to attempt a full summary of the report.
The main points are well known.
This great police force has for too long had leaders who tended
to look the other way when mistakes were made. Those responsible
for the notorious Operation Midland a few years ago hounded two
great public servants, and , mercilessly. The law was
broken when warrants were sought to search their homes. In his
thorough independent report on Operation Midland, Sir Richard
Henriques listed 43 major police blunders, yet not one police
officer has been held to account. Some have been promoted to high
rank. The Independent Office for Police Conduct failed in its
duty to listen to those who had suffered, like Lord Brittan’s
brave widow, Diana. How could public confidence possibly be
maintained by such an approach?
Midland had a close relation, Operation Conifer. Both of them
were fed by the lies of a fantasist, now serving a long prison
sentence. I take the opportunity afforded by this debate to
return to it because I feel so strongly and deeply about it.
Through Conifer, allegations of child sex abuse against Sir
Edward Heath were investigated in Salisbury some 10 years after
his death in 2005. No other Prime Minister has ever been accused
of grave criminal offences. Clearly, the investigation needed to
be handled with care and strict impartiality. Instead, under Mike
Veale, then chief constable for Wiltshire, it was conducted with
the intention of finding Ted Heath guilty. Not a shred of
evidence was found to substantiate the allegations, yet Veale
contrived to suggest at the end of the investigation that a few
of them might have had some substance, thus overturning the
presumption of innocence in a case where a judicial process was
impossible.
Prime Ministers are prominent in the history books. As a
historian, I find it shocking that no independent inquiry has
been held in order to place the truth firmly on the record for
all time. It is unconscionable that one of the Crown’s First
Ministers should pass into history with even a faint suspicion of
wrongdoing because no one in authority today will do anything to
help wipe it out. I do not understand how the Government should
fail to regard it as an obligation to ensure that posterity has
an absolutely accurate account of what occurred.
For me personally, Operation Conifer showed how hard it had
become in Britain today to feel full confidence in our police. At
least Wiltshire declined to keep Veale after this disgraceful
episode. But he found a new berth as chief constable of
Cleveland, where he lasted a year before allegations of
misconduct forced him to resign. A report by the Independent
Office for Police Conduct, after a two-year investigation—no one
seems to think it important to move swiftly in these matters—led
the police and crime commissioner for Cleveland to announce that
Veale would face a hearing for gross misconduct. The announcement
was made in August 2021. A year and eight months later, it has
yet to start. The Government will not be surprised that I should
return to the issue in this debate. Over and again I have been
told in Answers to Oral Questions that the matter is under the
exclusive control of an independent, legally qualified chair. By
law, hearings have to begin no later than 100 days after their
announcement, but the chair can delay the start when it is in the
interest of justice to do so.
Who is the chair? The person remains anonymous. How are the
interests of justice served by delay? No explanation has been
given. It would be perfectly understandable if the explanation
were couched in general terms so as not to prejudice the case
when it is eventually heard. Total silence is astonishing. As
they say, you could not make it up. Is it not difficult to feel
total confidence in a system which permits a former chief
constable, the most senior of policemen, to evade justice for so
long for reasons cloaked in secrecy and in circumstances where
public accountability is totally lacking?
My noble friend the Minister told the House in March, rather to
my surprise, that we were about to meet to discuss this issue. I
am due to see Mr Philp, the Policing Minister, but unfortunately
dates fixed for this meeting have had to be cancelled because he
had pressing business elsewhere. This is perfectly understandable
and the meeting is now due to take place on 15 May.
We should note with considerable sympathy the conclusion reached
by the highly regarded think tank Policy Exchange, after its
research into the work of legally qualified chairs, that,
“having been introduced with the aim of increasing public
confidence in the police misconduct process, the experiment is
having the opposite effect.”
These chairs play a part in hindering the sweeping changes in the
Met—which, in Sir Mark Rowley, at last has a leader determined to
root out the criminals in the ranks and punish misconduct. Sir
Mark repeatedly makes clear that he needs to get rid of several
hundred officers. Policy Exchange recommends that police
regulations should be urgently amended, so that the decisions to
dismiss officers found guilty of criminality or serious
misconduct lie with police chiefs. That is exactly Sir Mark’s
view. As he said last month:
“If you expect me to sort out cultural issues in the Met and get
rid of the people who should not be employed, give me the power
to do it. Can you imagine sitting with the chief executive of a
big organisation saying they weren’t allowed to sack certain
people”?
Before giving Sir Mark his answer, the Government conducted a
four-month review, which began in January. The timetable for
action after the completion of the review is unclear. What is
clear is that, although Sir Mark has made good progress with the
limited powers that he possesses, impatience is mounting for the
swift ejection of officers who have no business to be in the
police and the restoration of confidence in the Met. It was seen
at a meeting of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee last
week.
We must not let Sir Mark down. As he said last week,
“the vast majority of our people are good people”.
They deserve the full esteem that successful policing brings and
to be freed from the taint that the presence of a bad minority
inevitably inflicts on the entire Met. The bobbies need to be on
the beat again throughout London. Policy Exchange is surely right
to stress the need to return to a borough-based policing model
with chief superintendents leading police teams in every London
borough. It is a point that should be noted in all urban areas
throughout the country.
Four things above all stand out as we reflect on the
strengthening of confidence in our police today. First, there is
the need for first-rate chief constables, fully supported by
elected police and crime commissioners in charge of efficient,
properly accountable offices. Secondly, we need to ensure that
effective use is made of the 20,000 additional police now
available as a result of the completion of the Government’s
recruitment campaign. It is important to remember that we now
have more police officers than ever before. Thirdly, there is the
need to equip chief police officers with disciplinary powers that
are used quickly and effectively but also humanely and wisely.
Fourthly, we need to ensure that police forces throughout our
country properly reflect the diverse society that Britain has
become, with astonishing speed in historical terms, during the
last two generations.
1.14pm
(Lab)
My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to follow the noble
Lord, . I congratulate him on an
excellent opening speech for this debate and agree with almost
every word he said. I pay tribute to him for once again affording
us the opportunity to examine the current state of the
relationship between the police and the public in our country
and, more generally, for his indefatigable work on, and
commitment to, this area of policy.
This relationship is fundamental: a nation state in which trust
between the police and the public has broken down is itself
broken. Max Weber suggested that the defining feature of the
modern state is its possession of the monopoly on the legitimate
use of force, and in that definition “legitimate” does a lot of
heavy lifting. If we are to continue to operate according to the
nine Peelian principles that underlie our model of policing,
power is legitimate only where it is perceived by the public so
to be. Public trust is not merely desirable but an essential
precondition for our policing system to work effectively.
To focus on the Met just for a moment or two, it is evident that
across large swathes of London the Metropolitan Police no longer
enjoys that trust. To supplement the statistics on polling of the
public that the noble Lord, , shared with the Committee, a
recent YouGov survey commissioned by the BBC found that 42% of
those surveyed either somewhat or strongly distrust the Met as an
organisation, that 43% thought more negatively of it compared
with the same time last year—so this is a deteriorating
relationship —and that 73% felt that some groups were treated
differently from others. Perhaps most worrying, however, is the
absence of surprise that has greeted those alarming statistics.
They were a dismal confirmation of what we already knew rather
than an unwelcome surprise.
Some of the reasons for this are obvious and rightly have
received extensive media attention. They are the tragedy of Sarah
Everard’s kidnap, rape and murder by a serving police officer;
the verdict of an inquest that failures by the Met contributed to
three of the four murders by Stephen Port; and the complete
absence of appropriate vetting and oversight that allowed David
Carrick to rape and sexually assault multiple women while
continuing to serve as a police officer. But the Baroness Casey
Review, published six weeks ago, makes it clear that there are
deeply embedded structural issues that compromise both the
ethical standing and the operational effectiveness of the
Metropolitan Police.
Reading through the noble Baroness’s findings, one paragraph
seems to exemplify these failings. It is rather extensive but I
make no apology for reading it:
“There is currently no plan for the workforce beyond bringing
people in, and no sense of how the thousands of new recruits will
breathe fresh life into the force after years of austerity. The
vetting system is broken, there is minimal supervision, training
and development is not taken seriously, there are no training
records and the Met do not know what their workforce needs.
People are doing jobs they are not trained to do. Initiative
after initiative keeps everyone busy, creating … teams and moving
people around but ultimately gets in the way of the core job of
keeping Londoners safe and prevents the development of fully
developed plans for change”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, goes on to conclude that, when we
measure the Met against the Peelian principles that continue to
guide its operation “Public consent is broken”, a finding that
speaks directly to the Motion we are debating in the name of the
noble Lord.
It is important to widen our focus beyond the Met, to the
situation across the country. Police are currently solving the
lowest proportion of crimes on record, with, according to the
latest Home Office figures, only 5.4% of crimes resulting in a
charge. That is equivalent to just over one in 20 offences being
solved. As my right honourable friend pointed out in a recent
debate in the other place, nearly 70% of the public now believe,
as a direct consequence of this parlous record, that the police
have given up on trying to solve crimes such as burglary or
shoplifting altogether. In fact, given that we now know that
fraud accounts for 41% of crime on the person and that only 1% of
police resources are devoted to it, the Government themselves
have even given up on referring to these statistics regarding the
amount of crime in the country.
What of crimes that disproportionately affect women? A recent
report compiled by the charity Victim Support found that over
half of women lack confidence that the police will properly
investigate their reports of domestic abuse. This is not merely a
measure of confidence but of the lived experience of dealing with
the police, with four in 10 women who had reported a crime in the
last two years saying they had felt “let down” by the police
investigation into their case.
I prepared this speech when the time allotted to us was much
shorter than it presently is. I therefore felt forced to adopt a
somewhat pointillist approach, adducing specific statistical
examples rather than going into this issue more comprehensively.
I am even more pleased that I follow the noble Lord, , because he did that for us, so
I will not extemporise on that, but these individual data points,
taken together, create a truly sobering image of a police service
that is losing trust across all sections of the population.
Disappointingly, the Government’s response to this has been to
focus on the recruitment of 20,000 new police officers, to
replace a comparable number of officers that they
themselves—although they were in coalition—previously dismissed
on the grounds of economic necessity. Ironically, quite apart
from the fact that the fiscal situation in which we find
ourselves currently is, to put it mildly, not appreciably better
than that which apparently compelled the Government to institute
these mass dismissals, there are also deeper structural
implications. This extraordinary staff churn has not only
compromised the institutional memory of the police force but
exposed the weaknesses of the vetting process which has
contributed to the stories of misconduct among serving
officers.
Last week, the Policing Minister proudly announced that the
College of Policing had just finished consulting on a new
statutory code of practice for vetting which “will be adopted
shortly”. This should be juxtaposed with the verdict of Matt
Parr, His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary, who said that,
owing to weak vetting procedures, there are police officers
numbered
“in the hundreds, if not low thousands”
who should have been disbarred but are now serving officers.
Instituting a new vetting procedure after one of the most rapid
recruitment drives in police history is patently absurd. It is
rather like watching a gang of thieves load the last of your
possessions into the getaway vehicle and only then deciding to
put a lock on your door and investigate the idea of installing a
burglar alarm.
While I understand the underlying principle of operational
independence, it seems that, in the interests of devolving
accountability, the current structure of policing is deliberately
fragmented. It is this that has led to so many of the challenges
that we are debating. I remind your Lordships that, when first
establishing the Met Police, Robert Peel reflected on this issue,
candidly admitting that his legislation was driven by his
“despair of being able to place our police upon a general footing
of uniformity”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/2/1828; col.
793.]
I support entirely the call for a specific action plan, and
support even more that it be in plain English so that, in terms
of accountability for Parliament, we know exactly what to expect
of it. However, to conclude, I pose three specific short
questions on which it would be helpful to hear from the Minister.
First, what work is his department doing to ensure that the
structural weaknesses identified by the Casey review are not
reflected in other forces across the country that have not have
the same level of scrutiny as the Met? Secondly, does he feel
that the frenetic drive to meet the recruitment target of 20,000
new police officers is a tacit admission that the earlier
austerity-driven wave of dismissals was just a mistake? Lastly,
what reflections does he or, more importantly, his department
have as to the ability of current nationwide policing structures,
including PCCs—I am quite sceptical of them—to ensure uniformity
and coherence in policing across this country?
1.23pm
(Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on securing this
important debate. He is an indefatigable, dogged campaigner for
justice and we all owe him a great debt. I also congratulate the
noble Lord, . Of course, he
speaks from a legal background as well as a parliamentary one. If
I recall, he started as an apprentice solicitor in 1974. I found
that in his background because I started as an articled clerk to
a solicitor 10 years earlier. It is good to know that he is
sharing with us his reflections on this important subject.
I shall confine my remarks to Operation Conifer. My noble friend
has already referred to it. In my former role as chair of the
trustees of the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation, some
years ago I had the thoroughly unpleasant experience of
encountering policing at its most egregious. On the basis of what
we now understand to have been completely unfounded allegations,
made anonymously at the time but later discovered to have been
almost entirely made by individuals who were themselves known
offenders, the name of a formidable statesman was gleefully
dragged through the dirt. I still have all the cuttings from that
period to remind me of what a difficult time it was.
The conduct of the police was unforgivable. From the very outset,
when it was announced by a subsequently disgraced officer in
front of Sir Edward Heath’s home of Arundells and in front of all
the news media, Operation Conifer was a travesty. Not only did
Mike Veale—now also disgraced but then chief constable—openly and
publicly make an assumption of guilt but he also encouraged his
officers in a blatant fishing exercise, effectively replacing the
presumption of innocence with one of guilt. A supine police and
crime commissioner let the chief constable to evade normal
accountability by allowing him to set up a so-called independent
scrutiny panel—a novel and self-serving innovation—to which he
himself appointed all four members anonymously, until he was
forced to reveal who they were. One of them had previously been
paid by Conifer for professional services and had been personally
implicated in earlier stages of the spurious but lucrative witch
hunt, which was now being further pursued by Wiltshire Police at
considerable cost to the taxpayer.
Almost every aspect of this so-called investigation might be
regarded as comically bad, were the matter not so grievously
serious. Numerous vital witnesses were never interviewed,
including , now retired from this
House, who was running Ted Heath’s office at the time of some of
the alleged offences, or my noble friend Lord Sherbourne. The log
books from the police post of Ted Heath’s former home in
Salisbury, which would have made an immediate nonsense of many of
the spurious allegations, were mysteriously destroyed.
Those of us who were interviewed were almost without exception
shocked by the shoddiness of preparation and the almost complete
lack of knowledge on the part of the investigating police
officers. No good outcome could ever have come from such a shoddy
process. Operation Conifer profoundly undermined confidence in
the police, and no one has ever been held to account. Until
someone is held to account and until the extraordinary ineptitude
and malign intent are independently and comprehensively exposed,
how can confidence ever be restored?
Successive Ministers have of course successively claimed that
Conifer has been reviewed, but it has been reviewed only by
police officers marking their own homework. Even the two
police-led reviews that did take place, in September 2016 and May
2017, made a total of 49 recommendations for improving the
processes of Conifer—hardly a vote of confidence. Just imagine
how many recommendations an independent review might have
made.
Of course I recognise the need for operational independence for
the police and the fact that they must be insulated from
party-political influence as they go about their duties. However,
they must also be ultimately accountable for how they discharge
their duties, or they risk losing the support of the people. We
are told that PCCs provide that vital accountability, but what
happens when they fail in that task, perhaps after becoming too
close to the chief constable, or even falling under their thrall?
What recourse does the citizen have then?
The principle that the police should be operationally independent
of government does not absolve Ministers from an obligation to
commission a review into the way in which that operational
independence has been exercised in a particular case, when
serious concerns arise.
I therefore say to my noble friend the Minister that we need to
close this chapter with a proper, independent review. Until there
is genuine accountability, including an effective backstop at
ministerial level, I fail to see how the police can ever regain
the full trust and affection of the general public. The
experience of Operation Conifer—in particular my own personal
experience—suggests that, sadly, we still have a depressingly
long way to go.
1.32pm
Baroness O’Loan (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, , for securing this debate for
us today. I declare my interest as a member of the independent
steering group of Operation Kenova, which is investigating
referrals from the chief constable of Northern Ireland and the
Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland on murders
and other crimes committed by both republicans and loyalist
paramilitaries.
My experience both here in the UK and overseas tells me that
confidence in policing is the product of trust, and that trust
exists when people know and understand why policing is conducted
in the way it is. Governments and police forces have to be able
to show that whatever is done is done with integrity and fairness
and that it is compliant with the human rights obligations in
domestic and international law. However, that is not enough.
No matter how well individual police officers conduct themselves,
trust in what they do and how they do it will normally exist only
where policing operates as part of a well-resourced, human
rights-compliant justice system. All parts of that system are
vital: the police, the IOPC, the courts and the prosecution
service. If one part fails, the whole system, but particularly
policing, falls into disrepute. Those affected by the failure do
not discriminate between police failures and the consequential
actions of prosecutors and the courts, so trust in the police
will inevitably decline.
In Northern Ireland I have seen totally unacceptable delays in
decision-making and consequential prosecutions by the PPS. I
think of the admission by one UVF brigadier of over 200 criminal
offences, and his conviction for murder, attempted murder, arson,
extortion and kidnapping in 2018. It was anticipated that further
trials would follow. There has been a deafening silence.
I think too of the submission by Operation Kenova of 36 files to
the DPP in a range of cases, including the activities of the IRA
agent “Stakeknife” and the murder of three young police officers,
Sean Quinn, Paul Hamilton and Allan McCloy, who died in October
1982 when the IRA blew up their car near Lurgan. The DPP has yet
to make a decision on these files. Suggestions have been made of
a shortage of legal expertise to deal with them, but legitimate
questions are being asked about why there is no decision. Is the
hope that the legacy Bill will proceed into law and put an end to
embarrassing disclosures in courts? That is what some people
think, and it is axiomatic that the absence of prosecutorial
decisions, et cetera, will contribute to a general distrust in
criminal justice processes and a perception that in these cases
the rule of law, which is fundamental to the operation of a
trusted criminal justice system, is not being observed in
Northern Ireland and throughout the UK.
Confidence in policing is dependent on the proper resourcing and
operation of the wider criminal justice system, but what is it
about the way in which policing is delivered that can generate
trust? The MPS has been the subject of significant reports over
the past few decades. I served in 2002 on an inquiry led by Sir
David Calvert- Smith KC on racism in policing in all 43 forces in
the UK. We found very significant problems and made 125
recommendations. This was 20 years ago; just a few short weeks
ago, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, published her report, in
which she heard evidence very similar to that which we heard in
2002. There are yet more calls for change.
In 2021, the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel, which I led,
published its report on the Metropolitan Police. This was an
inquiry into the handling of matters following the murder of a
private detective in south London in 1987. Over 34 years there
had been multiple investigations, inquiries, et cetera. What we
found was indicative of a culture within the MPS which did not
prevent failure to investigate the original murder or the
protection of those alleged to be involved in it. There were also
many other failings and unlawful and unauthorised disclosure of
investigation material and information—even about forthcoming
arrests—to journalists and others over 30 years, including
failure to deal with known police wrongdoing. We found failures
of management and leadership and, above all, a determination to
protect the Met. Our inevitable conclusion, in the absence of any
reasonable explanation for the multiple terrible failures, was
that ultimately there was a determination within the MPS to
protect its reputation and to ensure that the failings were not
made public.
That is not unique to the Met. If we are to grow confidence in
policing, we must develop a much wider understanding of
corruption than the traditional legislative definitions involving
monetary benefit. The starting point is the identification of
improper behaviour, by action or omission. So much wrongdoing is
enabled by failure to deal with individual or collective wrongful
acts; it creates a corrupt culture in which officers may
calculate their odds of being able to get away with wrongful
behaviour.
Looking at particular incidents can enhance understanding of how
corruption develops and confidence diminishes in policing. When
an officer, often a junior officer, consults police databases for
personal gain or shares police information with an outsider, he
or she will often be dealt with. However, in the Daniel Morgan
case, it emerged that the senior investigating officer in the
final police investigation, DCS , who retired in 2007 but moved
to the NCA and continued to act as the senior investigating
officer, had decided to write a book with journalist Michael
Sullivan about corruption in the Metropolitan Police. He had
removed vast amounts of confidential and secret materials from
investigations in which he had been involved, other
investigations and intelligence operations to, in his words, “set
the record straight”.
Searches of his home uncovered enormous amounts of material
belonging to the police and other criminal justice agencies. He
had disclosed much of this material to journalists and others. He
said that he had done so because, if he could not bring the
murderers of Daniel Morgan to justice, he wanted to write a book
to reveal evidence of corruption within alliances between
elements of policing, private investigation and the media. He
hoped to make money from the publication of the book and other
associated activities. The matter was not effectively dealt with.
Again, the imperative was in part to protect the reputation of
the police, rather than to expend resources on dealing with the
totality of the issues emerging.
Any serving officer with access to sensitive information has the
opportunity to remove it and use it for unlawful purposes,
whether for commercial gain or terrorist activities, for example.
The failure of the Met to prevent DCS removing materials over such a
protracted period continues to cause me concern about the message
that such failure to act sends to other officers and about the
extent to which such behaviour may be continuing within the
police service, unchecked even today.
If the public are to have confidence in policing, they must be
able to believe that internal wrongdoing—whether sexual assaults,
homophobia, racism, theft of materials, interference with a case
or any other form of misconduct or crime—is dealt with. If such
matters are not dealt with, it may be because of laziness, lack
of professionalism, negligence or deliberate decision. At the end
of the day, motive is important in the individual case, but it is
vital to know how it can happen. There is clear evidence of how
senior officers can, by their acts or omissions, fail to identify
and/or confront corruption; fail to manage investigations and
ensure proper oversight; fail to learn from or admit mistakes and
failings promptly and specifically; give unjustified assurances
that all that could have been done has been done; and fail to be
open and transparent.
The Daniel Morgan panel recommended the creation of a statutory
duty of candour, to be owed by all law enforcement agencies to
those whom they serve, subject to the protection of national
security and relevant data protection legislation. That did not
happen. The creation of such a duty could result in much enhanced
confidence in policing, because people would know that, just as
there is a statutory duty of candour in the health service, so
also there would be a similar duty on policing generally. It is
not enough to require individual officers to act with integrity;
a statutory duty of candour is required.
What can generate confidence in policing? When the police
embarked on their investigations of the abuse allegations made by
Carl Beech, alerting the media to those investigations of people
such as our late noble and gallant colleague , whose desk sat opposite mine
for many years when I came into your Lordships’ House, it
transpired that there was no foundation to those allegations.
This matter has been articulated at length by noble Lords. Yet
the investigations continued, leaving those under investigation
to carry the terrible burdens of suspicion and disruption to
their lives—inevitable in such circumstances. When cases such as
the murders of Stephen, son of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence,
and of Daniel Morgan are not investigated properly for decades,
trust in policing is inevitably damaged and diminished, even
destroyed.
The actions of government can have the effect of enhancing
policing, making standards clear and resourcing structures and
processes properly. Proper modern policing costs money, and I
welcome the recent announcement of the recruitment of 20,000
additional police officers in England and Wales. In Northern
Ireland, however, police numbers are now way below what is
required to provide an effective service and continue to
diminish, despite a terrorist threat level recently raised to
severe, meaning that an attack is highly likely. The budget has
been reduced and police numbers will continue to fall. The
circumstances of the very recent attempt to murder DCI John
Caldwell, so terribly injured at a local football training
session for young people, is indicative of the ease with which
terrorists can strike.
We need only to look at the matters currently under investigation
by former Chief Constable Jon Boutcher in Operations Kenova and
Denton, which are dealing with the activities of loyalist and
republican paramilitaries. From the Stalker/Sampson and Stevens
investigations and my own work as police ombudsman, we know that
the police, the Army and MI5 successfully infiltrated terrorist
organisations. However, there grew a time when they allowed
people to continue their terrorism to preserve them as agents.
People died because of that; it should not have happened.
There is ongoing concern about the activities of informants
across the UK today. It took decades to begin to call to account
those whose wrongdoing cost lives. Eventually, we reached the
point at which accepted mechanisms for accountability were
established. That, all the research showed, enhanced confidence
in policing.
Now the legacy Bill will terminate existing criminal
investigations, civil actions from 17 May and Troubles inquests
this month, and will grant immunity to terrorists. It gives
extensive powers to the Secretary of State, who is even
responsible for making decisions about memorialisation. The Bill
has been rejected by everyone. The Government and the Bill have
been seriously criticised by the Council of Europe, the
commissioner for human rights, the Council of Europe’s Committee
of Ministers, the Irish Government, the US State Department, the
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and many others. It
deprives survivors and victims of the Troubles of their
fundamental legal rights. The Government’s legal obligations are
being set aside in the Bill.
If we are to grow confidence in policing, the Government must
withdraw the legacy Bill and revert to a process for dealing with
the past which is legally compliant and can gain the support of
all affected. By continuing to push the Bill, the Government are
demonstrating their contempt for the rule of law. Our country and
our police have operated for centuries in accordance with the
rule of law. Confidence in policing can be promoted, but only if
government itself operates within the rule of law.
1.46pm
(Con)
My Lords, it is a real privilege to follow the noble Baroness’s
thought-provoking speech. I first had the pleasure of knowing her
when, as chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in
the other place, I visited Northern Ireland on a frequent and
regular basis for some five years. I developed admiration for the
way in which she operated with real impartiality. During most of
my time there, she was helped a great deal by the fact that there
was an admirable chief police officer in Northern Ireland, Sir
Hugh Orde, from whom a lot of people could learn a very great
deal.
As the noble Baroness spoke, I felt that we really have a
solution here, because we ought to have a police ombudsman in
England. It is not a difficult thing to do but we need a
respected figure—not, as my noble friend Lord Hunt put it, people
from the police marking their own homework. To have somebody of
real distinction, with a real knowledge of the law and of how
policing works, could be very helpful indeed. I ask my noble
friend the Minister to discuss that with the Home Secretary and
his colleagues. It is an initiative that could come out of this
debate, which was so admirably introduced by my noble friend
, for whom we all have great
admiration because of his tenacity and persistence, particularly
on the area on which my noble friend spoke. If ever there
were something that besmirched—I use the word very
deliberately—the reputation of the police in this country, it was
the way in which the basic presumption that a man or woman is
innocent until proven guilty was completely swept aside.
A number of great public servants—three in particular —were
themselves besmirched. The first was the great , whose memorial service was
held only a few days ago in Winchester Cathedral; I gather that
it was a most moving occasion.
The second was Leon Brittan—Lord Brittan—a colleague of mine and
of my noble friend Lord Hunt in the other place. He was the
personification of integrity. That does not mean that he was
always right, but he was a man of absolute honour. His last days
were made miserable, not just by his grave illness but by the way
his reputation was traduced. What is more, and in a sense even
sadder, was that his wife—now his widow—had to live with it.
The third was, of course, Sir Edward Heath, about whom my noble
friend Lord Hunt spoke movingly. He was an extraordinary man. I
was one of those elected to the 1970 Parliament when he became
Prime Minister. Since then we have had a number of Prime
Ministers, but none more honourable than Edward Heath, or more
determined to serve his country by doing what he thought was the
right thing for it.
I have to say that it is an absolute scandal that this has been
so badly handled by successive Home Secretaries. I make a plea,
endorsing that made by my noble friend : the Government must
now pull their finger out and establish a time-limited inquiry
under a lawyer of real eminence—possibly a former member of the
Supreme Court—given 12 months in which to report back to the
Government and Parliament. I hope that my noble friend will take that
request away from this debate and make a positive report.
We have talked about the Met. I read something in the Times the
other day that encapsulated what we are dealing with. We have
referred to the appalling Wayne Couzens and the ghastly crime
that he committed against an innocent woman, Sarah Everard. We
have talked of other police officers who have transgressed. I pay
tribute to Sir Mark Rowley, who is clearly trying his best to
re-establish the Met, in effect, so that it again becomes a
respected institution. But the other day the Times reported about
a woman, a property owner, who was disturbed about some threats
to the square in which she lived and put up a handful of little
notices. The police told her that she should not have done that,
but they also said:
“Next time it ends in handcuffs”.
Is that really the way you treat people for a minor
transgression?
In recent years, the police have gone right over the top when
pursuing so-called hate crimes—not just in London; we had a
notorious case in Lincolnshire just a couple of years ago. What
people want from a police force is the knowledge that they are a
body people they can respect who will help to ensure that their
property is safe and, if it is broken into, the crime will be
thoroughly investigated. That is what people want. They also want
to know that their women can walk safely on the streets. For
example, just a few weeks ago a London taxi driver told me he was
upset because various road closures and diversions at the end of
a street in one of the London boroughs—I think it was
Hackney—meant that he had to drop people off at a corner to walk
100 yards or so. He told me, “That’s inconvenient enough in the
rain, but the other night I had a young lady, and I stayed in my
cab and watched that she got to her door”.
That is not the atmosphere in which we wish to see the police
operating. We wish to see them bringing structure by their
presence; my noble friend referred to the bobby on the
beat. He, like me, probably remembers “Dixon of Dock Green”—as
surely we all do—and the local police station, which gave real
comfort and encouragement to people.
Of course, one of the problems that we in this place have to face
up to is that there has been a very real sea- change in society.
When I was brought up, we accepted that certain things were right
and certain things were wrong, and they were really moulded on
Judeo-Christian civilisation. We all committed sins. We all did
wrong, but at least we knew we had done it. It is not like that
today. “You have your truth, I have my truth”; what nonsense.
There ought to be certain accepted standards within which society
can operate because, if there are not, society cannot properly
operate. That is one of the problems that face the police,
because people do not automatically accept that a certain thing
is wrong. It is also one of the reasons why we have had all these
problems within the police. We have clearly had within the
police—especially within the Met, as so graphically illustrated
recently in the report by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey—officers
who have conceded to your right and my right, your truth and my
truth and your wrong and my wrong, and they have not been
operating within a consensual society.
What is the answer? Of course there are many but, in the context
of today’s debates, one answer is “Dixon of Dock Green”—having
units within the Met and in our other towns and cities where it
is accepted that there are people there who will bring a sense of
cohesion. Remember the cry some years ago in the NHS, “Bring back
matron”? We want to bring back the superintendent in the regional
or borough office. We want to bring back people who have a degree
of real authority, answerable to somebody with supreme
authority.
I come back to where I began. I am sorry for speaking my mind in
this way. I have thought a lot about this, but I did not prepare
a speech for this debate because I wanted to reflect on what
others have said. I come back to where I began: I believe that
one of the answers could lie, in England—it is for the other
nations of the UK to determine how they go forward—with a police
ombudsman who would be able to give a degree of confidence to the
general public that, where there were real complaints against the
police, those would be thoroughly, impartially and scrupulously
investigated and fearlessly reported on. I commend that
suggestion especially to your Lordships this afternoon.
1.59pm
(LD) [V]
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, , for bringing forward this
important debate and all participants for their thoughtful
contributions.
Some 20 years ago, when I was chair of my police authority, I
made it a rule to take us around north Yorkshire in order to let
its residents have the opportunity to see us in action, so to
speak, and let them ask whatever questions they wanted during the
meeting. I do not recall at any time, over all the years I
chaired it, anyone saying to us that they had lost confidence in
the police.
Contrast that with today’s findings. In the past five years, 4.3
million anti-social behaviour reports have gone unattended. More
than 2,000 such incidents went unattended by police each day last
year, and some forces attended fewer than one in five incidents.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales found that from 2017-18 to
2021-22 the number of people who thought the police were doing a
good job fell from 62% to 52% and that overall confidence in
local police fell from 78% to 69%. I am indebted to Richard Brown
and Abbi Hobbs for these statistics in their excellent POSTnote
693. For clarity, POST is the Parliamentary Office of Science and
Technology.
Analysing Home Office statistics released just this week, we find
that, on average, 574 burglaries went unsolved every day in 2022,
making a total of 209,424 unsolved burglaries across England and
Wales—a 10% rise compared with 2021. So great is the fear of
local crime that a poll commissioned by my party found that 40%
of UK adults had installed new home security systems in the past
year, 1.5 million crimes went unsolved across England and Wales
in the first three quarters of 2022 and 25% of adults do not go
out after dark because of the fear of crime. Is it any wonder
that trust in the police has fallen so much?
In November 2022, a YouGov poll of more than 5,000 UK adults
found that 49% of them had confidence in the police, compared
with 58% in January 2019. That was referred to by the noble Lord,
, and the noble Lord, , who mentioned other
examples, notably the BBC poll. There was also a 10% drop in
trust in a survey from More in Common—probably not surprisingly,
as it was conducted shortly after the sentencing of the former
MPS officer, Wayne Couzens, after he abducted, raped and murdered
Sarah Everard. The End Violence Against Women Coalition found
that 47% of women reported that they now have less trust in the
police following that and other high-profile assault cases.
Cases of police misconduct and evidence of a culture of misogyny
have demonstrated why women and girls’ confidence in policing is
at an all-time low. The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s first
violence against women and girls benchmark found that between 1
October 2021 and 31 March 2022 there were 1,177 recorded cases of
police-perpetrated VAWG allegations. These included domestic as
well as sexual abuse, and Refuge, which works on behalf of women
and girls who are victims of such violence, reports that those
victims are finding it difficult to trust the police when they
are constantly hearing about police-perpetrated VAWG.
The excoriating review into Sarah Everard’s murder undertaken by
the noble Baroness, Lady Casey of Blackstock, which we have heard
referred to a number of times this afternoon, highlighted a large
number of areas where the police had failed to deal with the
criminals in their midst and her report makes very difficult
reading. She reported on how the Metropolitan Police Service had
to change and gave her advice on how to achieve that. It should
be the blueprint for all forces to look internally and make those
cultural changes that are now so necessary.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue
Services has called for all forces to prioritise reports of
violence against women and girls. Operation Soteria Bluestone,
the Government’s own rape review, is aimed at developing a new
national model for investigating rape and serious sexual assault.
Was this intended simply as an annual report, or is it ongoing?
Can the Minister give the House an update on its findings?
We must now address why all this has happened. Your Lordships
will not be surprised that I believe there to be a direct
correlation between loss of trust in the police and the numbers
of officers, including community support officers, whose numbers
have dropped by an average of 33% in England and Wales since
2015. We will be told, I am sure, that the Government have
provided, or are about to provide, an extra 20,000 police
officers, but can the Minister tell us how many police officers
have been lost or have retired from the service in that time? I
do not expect him to answer that today but if he could write to
me, I would be grateful. Losing experienced officers and
recruiting new ones might go a long way towards explaining loss
of trust in the service.
Police managers have a huge responsibility here. Where is their
continuing professional training and what is being done to
support them? Sergeants, inspectors, superintendents and chief
constables are all responsible for ensuring good conduct and
rooting out the so-called bad apples. Basically, it is the
overall culture and behaviour of police officers that needs
addressing. A number of noble Lords have mentioned this, notably
the noble Lord, , who gave us vivid examples of
police overreaction. I will not go into past painful
recollections of my own dealings with badly behaving officers,
but suffice it to say that I do not believe that much has changed
within police culture. That is a shame, because it takes only a
handful of rogue officers in each force to shape the public’s
image of policing as a whole.
Police managers must grapple with ridding themselves of these
abhorrent officers, who should never have been recruited in the
first place. The vetting procedures need urgent attention. When
an officer is found to have behaved badly, the chief constable
must be able to dismiss that officer quickly and easily. This was
always a huge bone of contention when I was chair. The frankly
ridiculous amount of time that it took to get to the point of
dismissal was utterly depressing. It seems that nothing much has
changed, so can the Minister update us on any proposals that the
Government may have about that?
How do we restore that lost trust? The noble Lord, , mentioned a number of things
that might be done. I too suggest a number of measures. It starts
as soon as we appraise new recruits. Vetting them is crucial, as
the noble Lord, Lord Browne, referred to. We must find a process
that will weed out those unsuitable for the office of police
constable. We must ensure that training is carried out properly
and is continuous. Forces now do their own training, mainly. In
my day, recruits went to training schools. At least then they
were all learning the same basics.
The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, rightly highlighted the
importance of human rights obligations for the police. I agree
with her. They should quickly weed out unsuitable people,
urgently revise the misconduct procedures and make accountability
more transparent. At the moment, this is vested in police and
crime commissioners—your Lordships know my antipathy towards
them. I will not dwell on it, but six police forces are now in
special measures; just one was when I was vice-chair of the
Association of Police Authorities. PCC costs have rocketed to
over £100 million as officer numbers have fallen. Those
outrageous costs could have funded an additional 3,830 community
officers on an average salary of £26,634.
We must ensure procedural justice, to make people feel that they
are treated in a fair and just way. Perhaps treating people with
fairness, respect, trustworthiness and neutrality would also
help. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, helpfully mentioned a
statutory duty of candour, and the noble Lord, , suggested that we consider
having a police ombudsman—a very interesting thought. Most
importantly, however, we must get back to community policing,
with a police officer who knows their beat and their locals and
is visible to them. Community engagement is the golden thread
that brings the police and public together to deal with crime. It
is the way we do policing in this country.
We were once proud to say that we had the best police service in
the world, but we have lost our way. I hope that we can say again
that we are proud of that service as soon as possible, but I fear
that it will take rather a long time.
2.11pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I, too, open by thanking the noble Lord, , for securing this debate on
the state of public confidence in the police. Of course, I agree
with pretty much every word that he said. A number of noble Lords
have spoken about his indefatigability, and of course I agree
with that as well.
We are all familiar with high-profile cases of the Met’s failure
to prevent murder and violent crimes being done, not just by the
general public but from within their own ranks. This has been the
most prominent and worrying time for the Metropolitan Police in
recent times. Just last week, we heard that the Met Police may
also be failing to identify serial killers, in the wake of the
appalling case of Stephen Port. In an HMICFRS report, five key
failings were identified: a lack of training, poor supervision,
unacceptable record-keeping, confusing policies and inadequate
intelligence procedures. How are the Government urgently
supporting the Met to fix that in relation not only to the most
serious crimes but more widely?
Numerous media reports have also appeared about the recruitment
of unsuitable candidates who have been given jobs as police
officers in the lead-up to the deadline that the Government set
themselves to meet their recruitment target. The report from the
noble Baroness, Lady Casey, into the Met highlighted the lack of
experience left in the police service, saying:
“On paper, we have the highest number of police officers”,
but that they have lost experienced police officers in recent
years so that
“while on paper there are officers on seats, the lack of
experience is noticeable”.
The Government need to provide a clear timeline for a legislative
framework of standards to ensure that, even at times of high
recruitment, we are hiring not rotten apples but only the best
candidates—and, of course, there should be clear guidelines and
standards from the start of their career. Why is it that in
England and Wales we still have no mandatory national standards
on police vetting, misconduct and training? Do the Government
have a timeline for producing mandatory national standards? This
goes to the same point that the noble Baroness, Lady Harris,
talked about—the lamentable time that it can take to dismiss a
police officer.
Delays in dealing with serious crime have also eroded public
confidence; 90% of crimes are unsolved, victims are dropping out
of the reporting process in their millions, and sexual offences
are at record highs. How concerned is the Minister about this,
and does he accept that this is an unsustainable situation which
demands urgent action?
We also know the problems with police visibility and community
engagement. I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Harris,
about the golden thread, as she termed it, of public consent in
supporting our police forces so that they can solve crimes. On
this side of the Committee, we believe that neighbourhood
policing has been hollowed out, leaving people feeling unsafe in
their own neighbourhoods. Restoring public confidence in this
area will certainly mean increasing the number of bobbies on the
beat, being a visible and reassuring presence in communities.
Those bobbies would have genuine local knowledge and
relationships to deal with lower-level crime effectively. Have
the Government considered the merits of committing to a target
for putting more PCSOs and police officers on the streets?
In commenting on some noble Lords’ speeches, which have all given
great expertise to this short debate, I want to pick out two
particular points. First, I agreed with much of what the noble
Lord, , said, but he spoke about
“Dixon of Dock Green” and how it was when that TV programme was
on. I watched that programme when I was a boy, but I was a boy in
London. I was stopped more times than I can remember by the
police force in Notting Hill. I suspect my experience of the
police force 50 years ago was very different from the one
displayed in “Dixon of Dock Green”, so we should not be too
sentimental about the past.
Secondly, I want to pick up the point from the noble Baroness,
Lady O’Loan, about confidence in the police. Yesterday, I sat as
a magistrate in the City of London Magistrates’ Court, dealing
with the usual range of cases; there was nothing special
yesterday. At lunchtime, I had a sandwich with a district judge
friend of mine. He knew that I was going to take part in this
debate. I asked him the one change he would make which would have
the greatest benefit in building confidence in the police—one
thing. He did not hesitate in his answer. He said, “Bring
domestic abuse allegations to court the next day. Do it
immediately. If you did that, you would get a far lower drop-out
rate”. He is a travelling district judge and does DA work across
the whole country. He has been absolutely appalled by the
prevalence of this. Different parts of the country deal with it
in different ways, but when I put that question to him he did not
hesitate in his answer. He said he understood that it would be
difficult, but that it would be the single thing that any
Government could do to have the greatest impact.
I will tell the Minister, for nothing, that I will feed that idea
into the Labour Party as a proposal for the manifesto and the
like, but he is very welcome to take it forward himself. Other
than that, I welcome this debate. It has shown great insight into
the problems ahead of us. I thank the noble Lord, , for moving the debate.
2.18pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office () (Con)
My Lords, I too am grateful to my noble friend for securing this debate. I
salute his tenacity—an easier word to pronounce. I also thank all
those who have contributed. I apologise to my noble friend that
our meeting has unfortunately been postponed more than once, but
I promise we will get there in the end.
I agree with my noble friend that the noble Baroness, Lady
O’Loan, delivered a thought-provoking speech about Northern
Ireland. She will not be surprised that I am singularly
unqualified to discuss the legacy Bill, but I will make sure that
her remarks are passed on to my colleague, my noble friend .
Today’s discussion is another reminder of the importance of this
topic and I am pleased to have the opportunity to outline the
Government’s work in this space. I found the debate
extraordinarily interesting, as have all other noble Lords, and
of course I agree with many of the remarks that have been made. I
have also found some of the personal reflections rather moving; I
will come back to those.
All noble Lords are right: public confidence is absolutely
essential to policing. Without it, the ability of the police to
carry out their core functions is undermined, as per our model of
policing by consent. My noble friend rightly mentioned the
foundational Peel principles and he had the two ex-policemen on
the Government Front Bench today nodding in agreement.
As we are all well aware, recent high-profile cases and reports
have underlined the need to root out unacceptable behaviour and
to reset cultures. Officers must be held to the highest
standards. Before I talk about the Government, I pay tribute to
the vast majority of police officers in this country, who serve
with considerable fortitude, tenacity—to use that word again—and
diligence. They deserve our support and we should not forget that
they are the vast majority. I am sure that noble Lords also speak
on a regular basis to those who protect us in this place. I would
like to say—I place this on record—that they have made it very
clear to me that they are also extremely keen to see the sorts of
reforms that we are discussing pushed through.
Before I respond to some of the points that have come up during
the debate, I will set out briefly some of the steps that the
Government are taking to drive change. I will try to avoid the
blizzard of statistics that my noble friend referenced but I feel
that I need to point out the latest Crime Survey for England and
Wales statistics. Other noble Lords, including the noble
Baroness, Lady Harris, have put it on the record today—and it
would be remiss of me not to point out—that we are making
progress in some areas. For example, the figures for hospital
admissions for assault by a sharp object for people under 25 are
25% lower in the year ending December 2022 than they were in the
year ending December 2019. I deliberately omit the pandemic
years. Neighbourhood crime as measured by the crime survey is
down 28% in the year ending December 2022 compared with the year
ending December 2019. Obviously, we need police to work with
partners to make sure that those numbers are maintained. On
homicide, levels have been falling since the end of 2021 and are
now lower than they were before the pandemic in March 2020. The
current level is 11% below the pre-pandemic level in March 2020.
There were 708 homicides then. The picture is not an unqualified
dystopia, as perhaps some would have us believe.
I will now try to respond to some of the points that have been
made—obviously, if I fail in responding to any of the specific
ones, I will catch up in writing. We have done a number of
things, starting with establishing the independent Angiolini
inquiry, which is currently examining the appalling cases of two
former Metropolitan Police officers that have been widely
referenced. Part 2 of the inquiry will investigate issues in
policing such as vetting, recruitment and poor culture, as well
as the safety of women in public spaces, a subject to which I
will return. In January, we launched a review into the process
for police officer dismissals, to ensure that the system is fair
and effective at removing those not fit to serve—I will also come
back to that—and the Home Secretary has asked the College of
Policing to strengthen the statutory code of practice for
vetting.
Most speakers have referenced the Casey review and holding the
Metropolitan Police to account, specifically my noble friends
and Lord Hunt, the noble
Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Lords, Lord Browne and Lord
Ponsonby. The Casey review made for very sobering reading. It is
paramount that public trust in the Metropolitan Police is
restored. Although primary accountability lies with the Mayor of
London, I know that the Home Secretary will continue to hold the
commissioner and mayor to account to deliver the necessary
improvements. I very much welcome the scrutiny and transparency
that HMICFRS brings to police performance and fully support its
decision to escalate the Met to its enhanced monitoring phase of
“engage”. I am reassured that both the commissioner and mayor are
engaging constructively with HMICFRS’s police performance
oversight group process. It is imperative that it begins the
process to restore the public’s confidence that they are getting
the high quality of service that they deserve and have every
right to expect. We have confidence in the commissioner’s
leadership and his plans to turn around the Met and ensure that
the force is delivering for all communities. It is also worth
noting that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, observed that Sir
Mark and the deputy commissioner, Lynne Owens, deserve a chance
to succeed and she believes that they will do so, as do I.
I move on to the subject of institutional racism, misogyny and
other forms of unacceptable discrimination. Without question,
discriminatory attitudes and behaviours have no place at all in
policing and allegations of racism, misogyny and homophobia are
deeply disturbing. We expect police leaders to take urgent action
to root out discrimination. Allegations of wrongdoing are dealt
with under a comprehensive framework, either by police forces or
the Independent Office for Police Conduct. By law, forces must
refer certain allegations to the IOPC, including criminal
offences or behaviour liable to disciplinary proceedings that is
aggravated by discrimination on the grounds of race, sex,
religion or other protected characteristics.
The Home Secretary has been consistently clear that culture and
standards in policing need to improve, as a matter of urgency.
Examining the root causes of poor and toxic cultures will be a
key focus of part 2 of the Angiolini inquiry when it begins later
this spring. The College of Policing is also currently updating
the Code of Ethics, which plays a key role in instilling the
right principles and standards from the start of an officer’s
career.
All speakers, I think, have referred to the dismissals process.
There is no disputing that officers have to be held to the
highest standards; that is obviously vital to public trust and
confidence in policing. To ensure that the system is fair and
effective at removing those not fit to serve, the Government are,
as noble Lords will be aware, carrying out a review of the
dismissals process. Among other areas, the review will consider
the composition of misconduct panels, the role of legally
qualified chairs and the consistency of decision-making in cases
of sexual misconduct and offences related to violence against
women and girls. The process of a review is correct. In another
context, my noble friend Lord Hunt pointed out that the police
should not mark their own homework. Although I understand the
superficial desirability of allowing chief constables the right
to make the sackings, this subject still deserves to be
considered in the round to ensure that all the possible
consequences of those powers are thought through. That is what
the review is doing and we will report back when it concludes,
which I think will be at the end of this month.
On the subject of vetting, the public deserve to have confidence
that the right people are recruited into policing. In order to
strengthen the vetting regime, the Government have asked the
College of Policing to strengthen the statutory code of practice
for police vetting, making the obligations that all forces must
have due regard to stricter and clearer. The public consultation
for the updated Vetting Code of Practice closed on 21 March and
the college is now considering the responses, before providing it
to the Home Secretary to arrange for it to be laid in Parliament.
The Home Secretary has also asked the policing inspectorate to
carry out a rapid review of police forces’ responses to its
November 2022 report, which highlighted a number of areas where
police vetting can be strengthened. Separately, the National
Police Chiefs’ Council—the NPCC—has asked police forces to check
their officers and staff against the police national database to
help to identify anyone who is unfit to serve. The data-washing
exercise is now complete and forces are manually analysing the
information received to identify leads for follow-up. This
exercise is expected to be completed by September.
A number of noble Lords referred to violence against women and
girls, in particular the very worrying statistics around the
appalling offence of rape. With the Committee’s indulgence, I
will go into what we are doing on this in a little more detail.
The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, referred to Operation Soteria,
which is the programme being rolled out to improve responses in
this area. I can give her the statistics that she was seeking. In
the year since the Metropolitan Police has been involved in
Operation Soteria—the year ending September 2022—the number of
adult rape offences recorded increased by 15%. The number of
charges for adult rape offences increased by 79%. That number is
still not high enough, certainly not relative to the number of
offences, but the trend is in the right direction. The number of
investigations closed because the victim did not support further
action fell by 8%. Those numbers should give some reassurance
that this is working as intended. It is intended to drive
long-lasting, sustainable change.
The national operating model, which is being developed through
the programme, will be available to all forces in England and
Wales from June 2023. However, that is not the only action that
we are taking. We are also bringing in new powers to stop
unnecessary and intrusive requests for victims’ phones—a vital
change in the law that puts an end to the practice of digital
strip-searches, as they are known. We are supporting police
forces to ensure that no victim of rape is left without a phone
for more than 24 hours and we are committed to legislating to
ensure that police requests for third-party material are
necessary and proportionate. It is early stages, of course, but
the trends are heading in the right direction, albeit that I
would certainly like to see them speeded up, as I am sure all
noble Lords and all police officers would, too.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, made a very good suggestion about
domestic abuse victims, which I will definitely take back. It
falls within the MoJ’s remit, so with his permission I will make
sure that my colleagues there are well aware of his
suggestion.
The noble Lord, Lord Browne, and my noble friend referenced violence against
women and girls, which I will go into in some more detail. We are
doing a lot to improve the policing response to crimes of VAWG,
as it is known. We recently published a revised strategic
policing requirement which includes VAWG as a national threat for
policing to respond to. We supported the appointment of DCC
Maggie Blyth as the first full-time National Police Chiefs’
Council VAWG lead to co-ordinate and improve the police response
to it. The NPCC published its first performance report in March
2023 using data obtained from forces and will publish a strategic
risk assessment shortly to outline where forces should prioritise
their resources going forward.
We have also committed up to £3.3 million to fund the rollout of
domestic abuse matters training to police forces that are yet to
deliver it or do not have their own specific domestic abuse
training. This also includes funding the development of a new
training module targeted at officers investigating domestic
offences to improve charge rates. That is very good progress. As
always, there is more to do, but the Government are not idle in
this area.
The noble Lord, Lord Browne, made some extremely good points
about police leadership. The Government are clear that strong
leadership at every level is essential. Cultures must be reset
and standards raised, and the Government will continue pushing
for the necessary improvements to be made. However, the drive for
change also needs to come from within, and strong leadership at
all ranks is essential. We have invested in a new national centre
for police leadership, which is being developed by the College of
Policing. For the first time, from June 2023 there will be
national leadership standards and a professional development
framework linked to these standards at every level in policing.
This means that every police officer will have a clear set of
consistent leadership standards expected of them at every rank,
and will know what training is available to help them achieve
those standards. That goes some way to answering the questions of
the noble Baroness, Lady Harris. In addition, the College of
Policing’s reformed processes for progression to chief officer
will increase transparency and open up access to senior-level
development. The first cohort to undertake the new executive
leaders programme, which is mandatory for those who want to reach
chief officer level, will begin in June 2023.
The Government believe in local policing accountable to local
communities. That is why we introduced police and crime
commissioners in 2012. PCCs and mayors with PCC functions have
been elected by the public to hold chief constables and the force
to account, ensuring that the public have a stronger voice in
policing. PCCs are central to the work to restore trust and
confidence in the police. To do so, they must continue to be
strong and visible leaders in the fight against crime.
Implementing the Government’s two-part review into PCCs will
strengthen their role, ensuring that they are accountable to the
public and have the tools and levers they need to carry out their
role effectively. It will sharpen local accountability, making it
easier for the public to hold their PCC to account for their
record on reducing crime, and will turn the dial on their
involvement in the criminal justice system, giving them a more
defined role. Ultimately, PCCs and mayors with PCC functions are
directly elected by the communities they serve and are held to
account at the ballot box. I am afraid I do not recognise the
cost figures that the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, advanced.
The Government and the public rightly expect the highest
standards from our police officers. The ability of the police to
perform their core functions—tackling crime and keeping the
public safe—is dependent on their capacity to maintain the
confidence of the public. As part of the “Inclusive Britain”
strategy, the Government are committed to developing a new
national framework with policing partners, including PCCs, for
how the use of police powers, such as stop and search and use of
force, can be scrutinised at a local level. This will help create
tangible improvements in trust and confidence between the police
and the communities they serve by improving public understanding
of how and why police use their powers and to help account for
any disparities. Alongside this, the Home Office has committed to
seek to remove unnecessary barriers that prevent the use of
body-worn video, which will be implemented in the framework. Work
is well under way on the community scrutiny framework, which we
aim to publish later this year.
Last week, we announced that our unprecedented officer
recruitment campaign has met its target. We said that we would
recruit an additional 20,000 officers and we have. This means
that we now have 149,572 officers across England and Wales. We
recruited an additional 20,951 during the three-year campaign,
which is testament to the hard work of forces and the brave men
and women who have signed up join police forces. We know that
there is work to do to improve trust and confidence in policing,
but it is worth noting that, during this recruitment campaign,
almost 275,000 people applied to join the police, showing that it
really is a job like no other. However, let me be clear: there
was never a question that this uplift should come at the expense
of public safety. We have provided more than £3 billion to police
forces to support the recruitment process, including enhancing
vetting capabilities. Recruitment standards have been maintained,
and this rigour is demonstrated by the fact that, for every 10
applicants, only one officer is hired. That ratio has been
consistent throughout the campaign. I say to the noble Lord, Lord
Browne, that this is not a tacit admission of anything. It is a
reflection, as I said yesterday, that demand in policing has
changed.
The Government have been clear about the need to return to
common-sense policing, where the focus is on getting the basics
right. This means making our neighbourhoods safer, supporting
victims and taking tougher action. That is what the public
expect, and what the public deserve. It is about attending every
residential burglary. It is about targeting crime hotspots,
whether that be to tackle anti-social behaviour or serious
violence, and it is about bringing to justice those who break our
laws.
On the subject of anti-social behaviour, which the noble
Baroness, Lady Harris, asked me about, I will not go into too
much detail, but the Government are committed to tackling and
preventing ASB. Since taking up office, the Prime Minister has
made it very clear that the people’s priorities are his
priorities—and this is one of them. He was behind the publication
on 27 March of an ASB action plan, which sets out the
Government’s commitment to tackling ASB across six key areas—I
will not go into them now. There is also a task force that is
chaired, I think, by my right honourable friends the Home
Secretary and the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, whose
department is also looking at this particular subject.
On Operation Conifer, I really have heard what my noble friends
in particular have said on this matter. One thing that I feel I
must say is that, even though the accusations laid against some
of the people who were investigated turned out to be those of a
fantasist, that fantasist was given political cover and there was
political pressure involved here; we should not forget that fact.
We should also defend the police’s right to investigate
accusations of this type. There has been a seriously large number
of historical allegations that have been proved, including some
into some very public personalities. I will not name names, but
we should remember that. In saying that, I am not in any way
justifying how that operation was done, some of the things that
were said or any other subjects that my noble friends have
rightly brought back into the public domain yet again. I
completely understand why they are asking for that independent
inquiry. However, the Government’s position is that there have
effectively been four independent scrutiny panels and so on,
which have checked and tested the decision-making and approach of
the investigation. Two reviews by Operation Hydrant in September
2016 and May 2017, to which my noble friend Lord Hunt referred,
concluded that the investigation was proportionate, legitimate
and in accordance with national guidance. There was a review in
January 2017 by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, as it
then was, of whether the resources assigned to the investigation
by the Home Office were being deployed in accordance with
value-for-money principles. The IOPC has also considered specific
allegations related to a former chief constable.
On the subject of the former chief constable, arrangements
concerning the establishment of a misconduct hearing are a matter
for PCCs, as I have said from the Dispatch Box before. The
management of the hearing itself is the responsibility of the
independent legally qualified chair. As I have also said, legally
qualified chairs must commence a hearing within 100 days of an
officer being provided a notice referring them to proceedings,
but may extend this period where they consider it is in the
interests of justice to do so. That is obviously the case in this
particular instance. It is regrettable, but that is the case.
Decisions made within a hearing are done so independently of PCCs
and the Government. The Government take accountability of the
police very seriously and have delivered a number of reforms to
strengthen the police disciplinary system. This included
additional independence through the introduction of independent
LQCs in 2016. The Government are also undertaking an internal
review of the process of police officer dismissals, which is
looking at the existing model and composition of panels,
including the impact of the role of LQCs.
In answer to the specific comments and questions about anonymity
from my noble friend , I say that there is no
specific legislative provision for the anonymity of legally
qualified chairs. Decisions concerning the publication of an
LQC’s name are a matter for the relevant PCC. Those decisions are
made independently of government. I do not know why his or her
identity is not public in this case, and I am not going to
speculate on that subject.
In closing, I thank my noble friend for securing this debate and
thank all those who have participated. Just to conclude with a
couple of other remarks, I thank my noble friend for his nostalgia trip to Dock
Green, but I think that there are enough national bodies with
responsibilities in the oversight area, including, of course, the
College of Policing, the HMICFRS, the IOPC and the NPCC. I note
the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, about him being
stopped and searched when he was younger, and I wonder who he was
hanging around with in those days.
The noble Lord, Lord Browne, raised an interesting subject about
the practical and philosophical arrangement of policing in this
country, which I think might be a debate that he should impress
on the Government to come back to in future days. It would be fun
to conduct that debate, although I am probably going well beyond
my brief here.
As I have made clear, if the police are to perform their critical
functions with maximum effectiveness, they must have the trust
and confidence of the people they serve. That is why the
Government are taking the action that I have highlighted to drive
change and why we will continue challenging forces to raise
standards across the board—and, rest assured, the Government will
not rest.
2.41pm
(Con)
My Lords, this has been first and foremost a moving debate, not
least because of the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady
O’Loan, on suffering in Northern Ireland, with which, as she
knows, I have the deepest personal sympathy. Secondly, it has
been a debate in which we have reminded ourselves of past wrongs,
particularly those relating to the reputation of Sir Edward
Heath—wrongs that await redress and cry out for justice. We do
not accept the Government’s view that an independent inquiry is
not needed. In this matter, perhaps the case for a police
ombudsman, put forward by my noble friend , is particularly strong.
Thirdly, it has been a debate in which we have noted the malign
consequences that have arisen because certain police officers
have been determined to protect their own reputations at the
expense of justice and the needs of the public. Fourthly, it has
been a debate in which we have reminded ourselves of the need to
be clear where operational independence of the police begins and
ends and where political responsibility starts. Fifthly, it has
been a debate in which we have shown overwhelmingly that
far-reaching changes are needed, especially in London, where we
begin to see the results of the superb leadership of Sir Mark
Rowley. He must be given the disciplinary powers that he
requires.
Finally, and sixthly, it is a debate in which we have urged the
Government to respond with vigour and effectiveness to the crisis
of confidence in the police. My noble friend the Minister has
told us what the Government are doing. I shall leave noble Lords
to form their own judgments about his comments. He can be sure
that he remains on probation, as I am sure he would expect. We
shall look carefully at his future homework. If change and
rigorous policy is pursued before us, it will bring a great
prize, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond,
referred: the restoration of full pride in police forces in our
country.
Motion agreed.
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