Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary

Debate between Alex Norris and Yvette Cooper

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

I absolutely agree. I dare say I may have taken part in this at some point, but as a body politic we have a dishonest conversation about stop-and-search. When we are in a community hall faced by parents or individuals who are angry about disproportionality we wring our hands and say it must change, but the moment something happens—somebody is stabbed, for example— we run to this place or the nearest camera and say, “Oh goodness, this can’t happen this way; we have to do more stopping and searching.” We must have an honest conversation in this country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) has been steadfast in this regard for many decades; we could all learn something from that. We ought to have a much more mature conversation with people in our community.

I can offer some hope from my own police force of Nottinghamshire. Our stop-and-search rates are among the lowest in the country, but due to intelligence-led use of stop-and-search powers our current 41% arrest and positive outcome rate is one of the highest in the country. We should reflect on that: one of the lowest stop-and-search rates produces one of the highest success rates. It is probably not a major surprise that our excellent police and crime commissioner, Paddy Tipping, who is behind this, was also involved in setting up the Macpherson inquiry. He gets it, and we now need more people to join him.

Finally, before I sit down and give others a chance to speak, I want to turn to governance and oversight. Earlier, I referred to Baroness Lawrence’s frustration at the difficulty in finding out what progress has been made against the Macpherson report’s recommendations. We as a Committee intend to address that by writing to the Home Office and other bodies to ask for updates against all 70 recommendations. Frankly, though, the Government should not be leaving this to us. They have been criticised for a lack of governance and oversight. The Stephen Lawrence steering group was disbanded many years ago, and in 2012, Bevan Powell called for the re-establishment of a pan- Whitehall group to restore trust between the police and communities.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and setting out very powerfully the key issues in the Macpherson report that are still being raised 20 years on. As he says, the Home Affairs Committee is looking again at all the issues around diversity and policing, and around institutional racism, that were raised at the time. When we heard evidence from Baroness Lawrence, we asked her what she wanted Stephen Lawrence’s legacy to be. She mentioned Stephen Lawrence Day, the first of which will be in April. We also asked her what she most wanted to change, and she answered that we should change how we treat our young people, because they are our future. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important for us to look forward at the positive legacy of Stephen’s life and, on Stephen Lawrence Day, for us to celebrate what more we can do in the future as well as bringing about the changes that we still need to make after 20 years?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee for that intervention. She and I and many others were keen for this debate to take place now, around the anniversary of the inquiry, rather than around Stephen Lawrence Day, because the family are very clear about what they want the day to be, and about the positives to be gained from it. I am glad that we are able to honour it in that way, and I will certainly be participating fully and supporting the family in their really important goal.

I shall quote something that Bevan Powell said to us, and this is certainly something for the Chair of the Committee to consider. He stated:

“The only time the police seem to respond to the recommendations and the associated issues that came out of Macpherson is when there is a Home Affairs Committee or a public inquiry of some sort. That cannot be the case.”

Our Committee’s recent report, “Policing for the Future”, criticised the extent to which the Home Office had stepped away from policing policy, with the Department being widely criticised by policing stakeholders and the National Audit Office for its lack of leadership. I am glad to see the Policing Minister in his place. I know that he is a man motivated by a strong sense of duty and decency and a believer in the importance of public service. In that spirit, I say to him that we are crying out for someone on the Government Front Bench to grab hold of the lessons learned from the Macpherson inquiry and to finish the job, audit progress, reconvene a steering group and drive this forward. I really would not worry about the partisan risk in doing that. Frankly, there will be enough blame to go around: we will all have our share.