Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary

Debate between Alex Norris and Gareth Thomas

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I echo others’ praise of my hon. Friend for securing this debate? One of the most senior BME officers to serve in the Metropolitan police was Chief Superintendent Dal Babu, who led the police in the London Borough of Harrow. The Minister will remember his excellent service in our communities. He has said publicly that he launched a mentoring and support programme for other officers from a BME background and had that initiative rubbished by senior officers. Is that attitude not part of the challenge we face, and should we expect not only Ministers but senior figures in the Metropolitan police to continue to challenge it?

[Alex Norris]

We will start to see things genuinely changing when we start to see such initiatives embraced. The idea that doing the same things will get us the same outcomes is hardly a revolutionary concept, but people are too slow to grasp that.

The Macpherson report criticised the disproportionality of stop-and-search, stating that

“we are clear that the perception and experience of the minority communities that discrimination is a major element in the stop and search problem is correct”.

One of the performance indicators recommended for measuring progress against the ministerial priority was

“the policy directives governing stop and search procedures and their outcomes”.

Again, I fear we have gone too quiet on that, not least because recent figures suggest that race disproportionality in stop-and-search is actually worse now than it was 20 years ago, although improved recording practices may well have had an impact on that. Still, the latest figures show that black people are nine and a half times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched.