Police Leadership Commission Report

Debate between Robert Jenrick and Sarah Jones

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

The national police service will set consistent standards and ensure that we have a national workforce strategy setting out exactly how many different people we need and in what roles. The report shows multiple areas where forces have a compliance culture and risk aversion—people do not want to speak out for fear of consequences, and there is a resistance to new ideas. All those things suggest a culture in which people are not being trained, supported or allowed to do the fundamental job that we ask them to do, which is to cut crime and keep people safe. The national police service will be able to set those standards at a national level and ensure that there is consistency across all the forces, rather than the current inconsistent approach.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)]

A white man on a night out in Birmingham is assaulted by two black men. The police intervene and arrest the white man—the victim—and allow the two black lads to flee the scene. They then call the victim a “dick” and hit his head against a police car while they are sticking him in it. They then misrepresent what happened at the event, saying that it was a fight, when it was actually an assault. They say that absolutely nothing is wrong. The footage then goes viral, as ever, and the police are forced to change their tune—footage that the police actually tried to suppress.

I have three simple questions for the Policing Minister. One, does she consider this to be another appalling incident of two-tier policing? Two, will she haul the acting chief constable of—