Queen’s Speech

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. It will not surprise your Lordships that my speech will focus on matters of policing.

I declare an interest as the former national president of the Police Superintendents’ Association. It is a public service of which I am still very proud and in which I spent 35 years of my life serving the public. It was an exciting time. I am saddened, to say the least, that the police service has had such a torrid time with reputational damage over the last few years, with a worrying fall in prosecutions of and convictions for rape and, in my judgment, an all-round generally poor performance in service to the public, culminating in the tragic murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police constable.

That left me wondering what the causes were. It is well known that the financial crash of 2008 led to austerity measures resulting in a reduction of police nationally from a high of 172,000 officers in 2010 to just 150,000 by 2017, a reduction of 22,000. It is not rocket science to understand that higher workloads due to increased road traffic, computer fraud, online grooming, organised crime, drug trafficking and modern slavery, together with the slashing of police budgets, could lead to only one thing: a drastic reduction in ordinary community policing, which, as we in this House all know, is the backbone of policing by consent.

As a result, local police stations were closed, police visibility was reduced, response times have become a scandal and the investigation of burglary quite often amounts to the issuing of a crime number for insurance purposes. I have even seen a recent example of a valuable motor car being stolen from a gated property in Bury, with images of the theft taking place provided on CCTV by the victim, where the police could not even be bothered to examine it because of a lack of manpower. That is a disgrace.

To be fair, the Home Office is a large, diverse department of state and the Home Secretary is responsible to Parliament for the provision of police services. The task should have been made easier by the election of police and crime commissioners, but I will leave that issue to one side as I believe that, with many PCCs representing political parties, there is a risk of drawing police into party politics. It is manifestly clear that the Home Secretary should fight the police’s corner, but unfortunately many officers feel that she has let them down. The Police Federation recently wrote an open letter expressing a lack of confidence in the Home Secretary, which shows how strained relations have become.

There is an understandable and strong belief that the police are not valued by this Government. That is perfectly clear when we see that, since 2010, workloads have increased dramatically while the police have seen a staggering real-terms pay cut of 20%. There is an independent pay review mechanism for the police, just as for Members of Parliament, yet when that review body recently announced a modest pay rise for police officers the Government announced a public sector pay freeze. It did not go unnoticed that the freeze did not apply to honourable Members in another place. Where is the fairness in that?

I will say no more about pay as the police service has closed ranks and is seeking a judicial review of the so-called independent pay machinery. This of course is a Government who illegally prorogued Parliament and openly admitted to being prepared to break international law. When Owen Paterson was found to have breached lobbying rules, the Prime Minister tried to change those rules—not to mention all the dissembling that has taken place by the PM on the protocol, which has already been mentioned. Of course, this Government do not like judicial review, as we have seen. I am tempted to join the revolutionary movement of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, because clearly the changing balance is all in the Government’s favour.

Moving on, you cannot make a silk purse from a pig’s ear, and this applies to the recruitment of police officers. I am not talking about academic qualifications but about moral fibre, good judgment and probity. There has been quite a bit of publicity recently about a number of serving officers with criminal convictions. A serving officer was known to be committing indecent exposure, yet no action was taken. Serving officers have taken photographs of murder victims and there was a WhatsApp group in which Metropolitan Police officers expressed misogyny and homophobia. Wayne Couzens, the convicted killer of Sarah Everard, was nicknamed “the rapist” by colleagues while serving as a police officer.

There appears to have been an appalling fall in standards of recruitment. What has happened to the recruitment of mature ex-servicemen who already come packaged with maturity and discipline? I believe the necessity of probation training leading up to a degree qualification discourages many excellent people who simply want to be a police officer on the streets; they do not want to be an academic or in senior management.

Finally, we have seen a shocking pattern of conduct by the present Government, who should be setting standards of behaviour: breaches of the Ministerial Code, misleading the House of Commons and I dare not even mention partygate. I have concluded that it does not help to set standards when those expected to enforce the law see a Government whose conduct suggests that they clearly think they are above the law.

Does the Minister, a canny lad from the north-east, agree—I think he probably will—that the police should do better than this, and that the British people deserve a police service that is properly funded, remunerated fairly and one that they can trust, believe in and be proud of? In essence, a service that this country can—

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, it might be worth noting the advisory time limit. We are only half way through the debate.

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)]

May I just finish with one final question to the Minister? The gracious Speech stated that the Government will “support the police”. In the noble Lord’s reply to the debate, will he indicate when and in what way?