Baroness Casey Review

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I say to my noble friend, on the subject of the police officer she mentioned, that it is not for me to tell Sir Mark who he should speak to; I am sure he has a very good idea who he ought to speak to. It sounds to me as though that particular person’s experience is obviously relevant. Maybe it is part of an ongoing plan; I do not know. Obviously if I see him, I will ask him.

It is clear that the Met must have the confidence of all communities, including black and ethnic groups. If it manages to regain that confidence, that should help recruitment and all the other things that were identified by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.

On competence, I think that the Met should be allowed to deal with the cultural side of this report over the coming days. I am sure that, if there were incompetence allegations, they would have been aired in a much more detailed and methodical way, rather than the anecdotal side of things—although I accept that those are very serious. Having said that, I think it is for Sir Mark to come back to us on this. Obviously, there is the crime survey, and the reported statistics will be very revealing.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I was very pleased to hear the Minister agree with my noble friend that sexism, homophobia and racism were institutional in the Metropolitan police force, because that was certainly not what his right honourable friend the Home Secretary said at the other end of the building a few hours ago, and that is a great shame.

Here we are again; I think this is the third time in several months that we have been discussing the terrible conduct of our uniformed forces in this country, on whom we so depend. I just wonder what on earth has been going on that has allowed the same things to be said over and over again. We had the fire brigade a few months ago; now we have the Metropolitan Police.

I would like to ask the Minister about the examples of violence against women from police officers, because, if 43 police forces do what they like on vetting, training and misconduct, can the Government finally accept that we urgently need mandatory national standards on vetting, misconduct and training? That follows on from my noble friend’s statement that we will need primary legislation that deals with those issues.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am going to defend my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, who said the following. I have already read this, but I am going to read it again. She said:

“I would like to turn to two particularly concerning aspects of Baroness Casey’s report. First, it addresses questions of racism, misogyny and homophobia within the Metropolitan Police. Baroness Casey has identified evidence of discriminatory behaviour among officers. I commend those officers who came forward to share their awful experiences with the review team. Discrimination must be tackled in all its forms, and I welcome Sir Mark’s commitment to do so.”


I do not see her avoiding the charges, as was suggested.

As regards vetting, the Government have asked the College of Policing to strengthen the statutory code of practice for police vetting, making the obligations that all forces must legally follow much stricter and clearer. This is currently out for consultation. That consultation process closes on 21 March. The Home Secretary has also asked the policing inspectorate to carry out a rapid review of police forces’ responses to its November 2022 report, which highlighted a number of areas where police vetting can be strengthened. The NPCC has also asked police forces to check their officers and staff against the national police database—I mentioned earlier that the parliamentary unit is having that fast-tracked—to help identify anyone who is unfit to serve. The data-washing exercise is on track to be completed towards the end of this month, following which forces will need to manually analyse the information received and identify leads to follow up. That exercise is expected to be completed by September.