Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of
the extent of criminality within the Metropolitan Police.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office () (Con)
My Lords, the Home Office publishes regular statistics on
criminal proceedings against police officers and has commissioned
HMICFRS to review countercorruption arrangements, including those
of the Metropolitan Police. Part 2 of the Angiolini inquiry will
look at tackling the causes of police criminality and misconduct
and, more broadly, police culture. The Home Secretary is clear
that the Metropolitan Police must redouble its efforts to root
out corrupt officers to prevent the kinds of shocking cases we
have seen recently.
(Con)
My Lords, are we not agreed across the House that urgent action
is needed to enable Sir Mark Rowley, the courageous Metropolitan
Police Commissioner, to boot out the many criminals and
incompetents in the Met, while acknowledging, of course, the
dedicated service provided by the majority of officers? How can
this urgent action be reconciled with a leisurely four-month Home
Office review, whose terms of reference took several weeks to be
agreed? The department says it needs evidence; is not the
evidence provided by the continuing supply of shocking cases that
emerge? Sir Mark has said that
“we have hundreds in policing who shouldn’t be here”.
Give him the means to clean up the Met, and give it to him now.
(Con)
My Lords, my noble friend refers to the review of police officer
dismissals that was announced by the Home Secretary on 17
January, when she published the terms of reference. That will
include a consideration of the merits of a presumption for
disciplinary action against officers found to have committed a
criminal offence while serving in the police. Of course, the
review was set up partly in response to the comments that Sir
Mark has previously made, and partly in response to the interim
review of the Casey report. It would be irresponsible not to
collect the appropriate evidence before making these very
important decisions.
(CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, , is quite right to raise the
urgency of these terrible cases. Will the Minister reassure us
that the review being carried out will consider the most radical
measures? One thing that I have become convinced of over the past
15 years is that the office of constable is more a bar to
excluding the bad than it is about protecting the good. A
constable’s employment rights are protected by secondary
legislation, which includes the ability of lawyers in the
employment tribunal process within the police. Home Office
guidance establishes that when dismissing an officer the standard
of proof should not be just the balance of probabilities but
should travel towards beyond reasonable doubt. Both those
measures do not help to get rid of the difficult officers that
the noble Lord and Sir Mark have mentioned. Both those things
should change. By all means, give officers access to employment
tribunals, which, frankly, they can get through other means
anyway.
(Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that and defer to his extensive
experience. One of the things that the review is doing is looking
at whether the current three-stage performance system is
effective, which will obviously have to take into account some of
the things that the noble Lord has just raised. I should have
said in my earlier answer that the review has a time limit of
four months on it. Obviously, that time is ticking, and the terms
of reference were announced a couple of weeks ago.
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, your Lordships’ House will share the views of most
right-thinking members of the public in condemning the crimes
committed by the officers who were mentioned in the debate—the
abhorrent crimes of David Carrick. There are clearly faults in
the vetting system and in the complaints investigation system.
Will the Minister say whether in the case of an officer in force
X who is found to have had an allegation made against him in
force Y, where he lives, there is a duty on force Y to inform his
employer—that is, force X— of the complaint?
(Con)
I am afraid I do not have the answer to that question and will
have to find out and come back to the noble Lord. I would say
that the IOPC is capable of investigating these allegations
without having been notified by the officer’s force.
The Lord
My Lords, this is more than a series of bad apples; I am sure
that there is something rotten in the culture and structures in
policing that comprehensively and immediately needs to be
addressed. We have the nine turnaround priorities that the new
police commissioner has set out. Can the Minister set out how the
Government will assist with and ensure those priorities are
realised as a matter of urgency?
(Con)
In my original Answer, I referred to part 2 of the Angiolini
inquiry. I met Lady Angiolini last week and she made it clear
that police culture will form a critical part of her
investigations in part 2. The formal consultation on the terms of
reference for part 2 opened earlier this month and will conclude,
I think, on 24 February. Noble Lords are welcome to contribute to
that consultation process. I am sorry for the long answer, but I
shall go on a little. The inquiry will consider whether vetting
and recruitment processes do enough to identify those in policing
who are not fit to serve. It will investigate the extent to which
misogynistic and predatory behaviour exists in police culture and
look at whether current measures do enough to keep women safe,
particularly in public spaces.
(LD)
My Lords, will the Minister give us a firm undertaking that any
investigation will not be hampered by a lack of resources? If we
do not have that, it does not really matter what we do.
(Con)
I am happy to give that undertaking.
(Lab)
My Lords, given the important Question asked by the noble Lord,
, which concerns us all, and the
concerns that have been raised in this Chamber, how on earth is
it possible to read in the papers this morning the headline:
“Retired rogue police invited to come back and fill vacancies”?
Reported figures show that 99 recently retired officers who had
retired under investigation for misconduct had been invited back;
and 253 officers who had received warnings at misconduct hearings
were invited to return. How on earth does that restore public
confidence in the police?
(Con)
I have not read the story to which the noble Lord refers, so I
cannot comment specifically, but certainly superficially, I agree
it does not restore confidence.
(Con)
My Lords, at a time when public confidence in policing is at this
low level, will the Minister examine the role of the 200 or so
staff networks, many of which are blurring the line between
policing and politics? I refer not to the Police Federation but
to organisations such as the Green Police Network, the police
vegan network and the National Association of Muslim Police,
which has been known to criticise the Government’s Prevent
programme. Is it not critical that police officers stick to
operational duties rather than interfering in politics, and leave
the latter to politicians?
(Con)
My Lords, policemen should be able to express their opinions on
these matters, as we all do, but I will certainly take my noble
friend’s points away, do some more investigating and reflect on
them back at the department.
(CB)
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that there is a significant
cultural dimension to this issue? Understandably, as a body, the
police have a deeply defensive and internally focused culture.
Simply picking malefactors out of that body will not solve the
fact that there is a deep-rooted cultural issue. In my view,
deep-rooted cultural change is needed to change the culture
of the police force so that it is not as defensively minded as it
appears to be at the moment.
(Con)
The noble Lord makes a good point. I have already expressed that
the Angiolini inquiry will look into all aspects of that culture.
This is also a useful time to remind all of us that the vast
majority of serving policemen do an exceptional job and deserve
our thanks and praise.
(GP)
My Lords, the “spy cops” undercover policing inquiry that is
going on at the moment has taken years. It is a classic case of
police forces covering up former crimes. What makes the Minister
think the inquiry he mentioned will be any different?
(Con)
There are very specific circumstances surrounding the undercover
inquiry to which the noble Baroness refers. She is right that it
has gone on for too long; unfortunately, it looks like it is
going to continue to go on for quite a long time. As regards this
inquiry, I have every confidence that Lady Angiolini—as I say, I
met her last week—will be rigorous; she has been up to now.
(Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister tell us how many more criminal
prosecutions are pending against serving Metropolitan Police
officers?
(Con)
I am afraid that I do not have that statistic to hand, but I do
have some others.
Noble Lords
Oh!
(Con)
I promise noble Lords that this is a better answer than it
sounds. The latest data shows that 83 criminal proceedings
relating to police officer misconduct were finalised in 2021-22,
but of misconduct cases commenced after 1 February 2020, when new
regulations came into effect, 68 resulted in the officer being
found guilty; there was a change to the way in which the
statistics are collected.
