(1 day, 13 hours ago)
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Baroness Chakrabarti
To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the BBC Panorama documentary Undercover in the Police, what plans they have to change law or practice regarding police vetting, training or discipline.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
The scenes in the documentary were simply unacceptable and deeply concerning. The Home Office supports the commissioner’s drive to root out those unfit to serve the public. The Government must improve standards nationally. That is why, earlier this year, the Government made changes to discipline and vetting, and we are intending to introduce further measures later this year to strengthen suspension arrangements and to put police vetting standards on a more robust legislative footing.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful, as always, to my noble friend the Minister. I gave him advance notice of a case of a 68 year-old man convicted in Guildford Crown Court just last week of a string of pretty horrific paedophile offences. During the trial, it emerged that he had served as a police CHIS spy for many years in the environmental movement. Of course, we subsequently legislated under the last Government to give advance criminal immunities to such people. Is it time to look again at whether the system is robust enough to protect in that necessarily shadowy area of police practice?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for drawing attention to the conviction last week. Quite simply, it is unacceptable that individuals are involved in that type of behaviour while serving as police officers, undercover or not. She will be aware that there is a long-standing undercover policing inquiry, which is examining issues and will report to the Government as soon as practicable. I am expecting to be able to respond to those recommendations once they are produced.
In the meantime, and this is the important point for the House as a whole, the Government have improved vetting and are committed to strengthening police vetting. The measures that we have brought forward this year and also in the Crime and Policing Bill, which coincidentally is before the House today, are ones which will strengthen to ensure that we root out individuals who are not suitable to hold the badge of honour of a police officer in the United Kingdom.
Lord Bird (CB)
My Lords, is it not possible to accept that what we have got is a situation, which nobody seems to want to address, where we have a class divide in the police force? We have a situation where people from the working classes join the police force and, unless we move around and start bringing in more middle-class people, we are always going to be running into problems caused by the class division of the police force. I have noticed this over many years.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
As somebody from proud working-class stock, I do not accept that individuals who are from working-class stock are more substantially susceptible to committing offences and not being good police officers. I do not know whether that was what the noble Lord intended in his comments, but I will robustly defend police recruiting from all sides of the community, and social mobility, so that people who join the force as working-class officers can one day end up as chief constable. We will ensure that we have proper vetting in place to ensure that people are tested and supported. Ultimately, we have to have a police force that reflects the whole community. That means one that holds proper standards and I commit that to the House.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, while vetting and training are clearly important, perhaps more important is the authority and supervision of those who are in control and authority over a station, unit or wider area.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Viscount is absolutely right. It is very important that we have training and professionalism of those who are in a position of influence and power in smaller units within the police force. Obviously, the particular case in front of us related to one particular police station in central London, and the undercover reporter revisited that police station to find that there was not an improvement in behaviour. Ten officers have been referred to the IOPC. Their behaviour is on camera but, self-evidently, local leadership should have spotted those issues in the first instance. That is something that the Metropolitan Police itself will be reviewing in its review once the IOPC has determined what action should be taken against the officers in question.
Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)
My Lords, what we saw on our TV some weeks ago just goes to show that, since the Macpherson report came out, talking about institutional racism, nothing much has changed. We have talked about it over the past 30 years, but we are still talking about the same thing now. When are we going to find that police officers begin to respect the community that they are policing, and the community has respect for them? Unless we do something within government, nothing is going to change. What has the Minister to say about that?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend, and she knows more than anybody else in this House how important it is that the police have the confidence of the community and that the community has confidence in policing. It is essential for public confidence that strict standards are upheld. I reassure my noble friend that we have taken action in the past 12 months to include new vetting standards, but, if she looks at the proposals for legislation in the next 12 months, she will see that that will put in place a range of measures to ensure that incidents to do with misogyny, racial hatred, sexual orientation and other transgressions by officers are dealt with speedily and effectively by the police. It goes back to a range of issues, but I hope that, this time next year, I will be able to give my noble friend greater confidence that the police have competence to deal with these issues.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
My Lords, the “Panorama” exposé and the 17 deaths in or following police custody last year cast serious doubt on the independent custody visitor scheme. Evidence shows that it neither influences police nor ensures robust oversight. Does the Minister agree that the scheme requires urgent reform, needs to be totally independent and should not remain the responsibility of police and crime commissioners?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
If the noble Baroness will allow me, I will look at the points that she has raised. It is an important issue. I happen to think that it is important that there is an inspection regime of police custody. She has raised some particular concerns today. I will reflect on those and discuss them with my colleague the police Minister and respond to her in due course.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I was about to say that I share the sentiments being expressed here today. The issue, I feel, is one not of legal adequacy but of management oversight, training methods, accountability and, indeed, discipline. Speaking as somebody who spent over 30 years in a once very disciplined organisation, I ask the Minister whether he shares my disappointment that there is little evidence of progress being made in recent years in these areas, particularly within the Metropolitan Police? What further action is the Home Office taking to ensure that senior officers, from the very top down, are effectively holding their officers to account, and to improve public confidence in the police?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Lord raises a very important point. Going back to the question from the noble Viscount, leadership—understanding performance and showing leadership—is extremely critical. The Home Office is this year funding the College of Policing to look at ongoing support for police leadership, and we have given £2.6 million this year to do that. We have also set, and are examining still with the College of Policing and with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, national leadership standards. We will continue to work with the college to ensure that we improve standards of police training. That goes from chief constables down and I certainly endorse the comments that the noble Lord made.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, first, the noble Lord, Lord Bird, made an interesting point and, although I support the Minister’s response about class, to get more people from different classes to aspire to be police leaders would be helpful, because that is not often the answer we receive from children and other people in the working-class group. Some appalling behaviour was seen. In the review that has been suggested, one of the important things is, obviously, to get rid of these people as quickly as possible, which the commissioner has said that he wants to do. Would the review please take seriously the option of changing from a constable status to that of an employee? Police employment regulations, which are secondary legislation, frankly delay everything and put lawyers into the system, which slows it down, and then they still have an opportunity to access an employment tribunal, should they be able to allege improper prejudice. Will the Minister please take seriously the option of having employee status, as they do in New Zealand?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
That is an interesting suggestion from the noble Lord, who has great experience in this field, given his previous role as Metropolitan Police Commissioner. I can assure him that the 10 officers involved in this incident are having an expedited hearing. I think the evidence is very strong. I cannot determine the outcome: that is for the IOPC. Ultimately, I will examine his suggestion again. I think the key thing is that, if incidents such as this occur, they are expedited as quickly as possible and lessons are learned, but also that strong messages are sent that the type of behaviour in the “Panorama” exposé is simply not acceptable in the 21st century from any police officer.