West Midlands Police

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend makes that point very powerfully. That is why it is so important that all police forces always do everything they can to ensure that matters of great cultural and sporting significance in this country can go ahead safely, and that people are not prevented from going to and enjoying a game just because of who they are or their faith.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

Among the catalogue of failure here is the news that the decision was partly made on the basis of a hallucinated AI report about an entirely fictitious football match. What assessment has the Home Secretary made on the extent to which AI is being used by police forces across the country? Does she know of any other consequential decisions that may have been made using unverified AI? Finally, last month, after two months my Select Committee, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, finally received a response to our letter on this issue from the assistant chief constable Mike O’Hara, who said that he was

“satisfied that the policing operation conducted with communities and partners was effective, proportionate and maintained the city’s reputation as a safe and welcoming place for everyone.”

What is the Home Secretary’s message to him?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The contents of that letter have now been superseded by Sir Andy Cooke’s august report and findings. I hope that everybody who asserted that there was no problem here, and that everything worked exactly as it should, will now reflect on what they have said and done and give the rest of us confidence that these mistakes will not happen again.

AI is an incredibly powerful tool and has a big role to play in assisting the police, particularly when it comes to sifting through evidence at speed and improving other productivity measures so that they can get on with the job of finding criminals and bringing them to justice. It is important that it is used accurately, does not lead to misleading statements, as we have seen in this case, and protects the validity of evidence, which ultimately has to be strong enough to hold up in a court of law. I will be saying more in just a few weeks’ time in the policing reform White Paper, which will set out the Government’s approach and expectations of the roll-out of AI to policing more broadly.