Police: Vetting, Training and Discipline

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Bird

Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.

Probation Services: Prisoner Early Release Scheme

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Bird

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for her work as the prison lead in the Church of England and for her comments and support for the Probation Service. The 1,000 probation officers who are going to be recruited as trainees will receive top-quality training, but we also need to look at how we retain the expertise of probation officers, value their experience and ensure that they are part of the Government’s mission to reduce reoffending. Once the sentencing review is complete, we must look to put in place effective sentences that reduce reoffending as well as punishing individuals.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, a third of all people who leave prison have nowhere to go. Are the Government taking that into account and ensuring that the people they are letting out are not going to fall homeless in the period immediately after?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Bird, makes a valuable point. As part of the planning for the early release SDS scheme that is in place now, the Government are ensuring that there are prison leads, employment leads and housing leads, working eight weeks before release to ensure that individuals have support in order to—as far as possible, though there will always be areas where this does not happen—put in place a proper release plan, to ensure that people go into the community and do not face the pressures that lead to reoffending.