Public Order Bill

Debate between David Davis and Kit Malthouse

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I suspect that my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) wants to intervene on that point.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. What he says is incorrect. At the time, we were dealing with a huge spike in knife crime in London, which was disproportionately reflected in the black community. Young black men were dying on an almost daily basis and, sadly, the vast majority of the perpetrators were also young black men. There was definitely a campaign to try to eliminate weapons from within that community, which worked. In 2008, 29 young people were killed in London, and by 2012 that was down to eight, so the campaign was successful. During that period and up to about 2016, confidence in the Metropolitan police rose to an all-time high of 90%, including rising confidence among minority communities in the capital. I am afraid that my right hon. Friend’s basic premise is not correct.

[Mr Davis]

I have allowed my right hon. Friend to make his point, but the simple truth was that the reason for the Home Secretary of the day curbing stop and search was concern about its impact on ethnic minorities. He is also right that the biggest number of victims of knife crime came from ethnic minorities, so I take his point. My answer to him—and the general concern here—is that bad policing is not improved by bad law, which is what I think this is.

That brings me to the Casey report. The hon. Member for Croydon Central was right to cite the criticism of the Metropolitan police. The report said that there were numerous examples of stop and search being carried out badly. There were examples where officers

“justified carrying out a search based on a person’s ethnicity alone”.

That should not apply under any circumstance. There were examples where officers

“Had been rude or uncivil while carrying out a search”

and

“had used excessive force, leaving people (often young people) humiliated, distressed, and this damaged trust in the Met”.

Those are all bad things from our point of view.

We all want—I include the Opposition—the disgraceful trend in modern demonstrations brought to an end. It is designed not to demonstrate but to inconvenience—there is a distinction. But the Bill is a heavy-handed way of doing that. The Minister tried to say that the Lords had accepted the principle. They had not. What they have sought to do with these amendments is leave the tool in the hands of the police but constrain it in such a way that it is used more responsibility.

The Lords amendments will change the level of seniority required to designate an area for suspicionless search from inspector to chief superintendent or above. Whatever Lord Hogan-Howe says, that is not a crippling amendment. Changing the maximum amount of time for which an area can be designated from 24 hours to 12 hours is not crippling but practical. While my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire was doing his job in London, I was on the Opposition Benches as shadow Home Secretary, dealing with a number of Metropolitan Police Commissioners. That is a perfectly practical change. Changing the level of seniority required to extend the authorisation by a further 24 hours to chief superintendent is, again, a practical change.

We talk about suspicionless stop and search. What does that mean? It means the right to stop and search innocent people who have no reason to be stopped and searched whatsoever. We are handing the discretion to a police force that has been called upon to reset its approach to stop and search. The Government are doing almost precisely the opposite of what Casey is calling for. The final amendment states:

“The chief superintendent must take reasonable steps to inform the public when the powers conferred by this section are in active use.”

Those are all practical changes. The smart action of the Government is to accept them, carry on and try to improve on the Metropolitan police that we have today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Davis and Kit Malthouse

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

As I said in a previous answer, I am meeting, certainly, a Conservative MP to talk about what more we can do to support Cleveland, and I think it is very unfair of the hon. Gentleman to reflect on the experience of his force in that way. We have put significant extra funding into Cleveland police to allow it to uplift the number of police officers. It is benefiting from wider money that we are spending across the whole country on things such as county lines—from which Cleveland sadly suffers, along with other parts of the country—to deal with that particular drugs problem. That is against an overall spending commitment for UK policing that is the largest we have seen for a decade and has been for two successive years, so I do not think anybody could accuse this Government of skimping on investment in the police; quite the reverse. I hope and believe that, as Cleveland police emerges from a difficult period in its history, with a strong chief constable, the hon. Gentleman will start to feel the benefit on his streets quite soon.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Davis and Kit Malthouse

Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady raises an extremely important point. While we might see other forms of crime fall because of the lack of activity in the street, we are well aware and sensitive to the fact that fraud might emerge. I have seen over the weekend some reports in the media of unscrupulous individuals exploiting elderly and vulnerable citizens in particular, and certainly when we have been discussing these matters with police leaders on our regular calls, they are aware of that issue and are thinking more about how they could redirect resources towards it, if it becomes systemic.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

We probably have more than half a million undocumented migrants in this country—people who, if they fall ill with coronavirus, might be afraid to declare themselves to the health authorities for fear of deportation. The Irish Government, who have the same issue in Ireland, have firewalled their national health service data from other parts of Government. I do not know whether that is the right answer, but will the Secretary of State look at the issue and find a similar resolution?

Operation Midland Independent Report

Debate between David Davis and Kit Malthouse

Monday 7th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): May I add my commendation to the Trade Minister who responded to the previous urgent question, who did so as to the manner born?

To ask the Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service if he will make a statement on the Home Office’s response to Sir Richard Henriques’s independent report on the Metropolitan police’s Operation Midland.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service (Kit Malthouse)]

This is a deeply concerning case. Operation Midland was the Metropolitan Police Service’s investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse made by Carl Beech against a range of public figures. Beech is now serving an 18-year prison sentence for perverting the course of justice. He has appealed his conviction and sentence, as you mentioned, Mr Speaker, and they are a matter for the courts to consider. This case has had a devastating impact on those he accused and their families. Sir Richard Henriques’s report on how the Met handled the investigation raises many concerns. The Met has already apologised for failings in the investigation and acted on many of Sir Richard’s recommendations, and we very much welcome the publication by the Met on Friday of the fuller detail of what Sir Richard found. I note that the commissioner of the metropolis has issued a further statement and apology today.

It is now vital that the public receive independent assurance that the Met has learned from the lessons identified in Sir Richard’s report and has made the necessary improvements. That is crucial to restoring public confidence that police handling of an investigation of such sensitive matters is both fair and impartial. That is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary wrote last week to Her Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary and fire and rescue services to ask him to undertake an inspection at the earliest opportunity to follow up on Sir Richard’s review. It must be right that a body independent of Government take this work forward. She also asked that the inspection take account of the findings of the report of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which was published this morning, and which we will be considering carefully.

The public must have faith in the impartiality of their police service, and no one should have to suffer the ignominy of public false accusations of the most heinous kind. The Government are determined to ensure that the lessons are learned by the police and that the failings of this investigation are never repeated.

[Mr Davis]

The fundamental principle of our justice system is innocent until proven guilty—a principle undermined over the past decade when the rules of police forces were amended, particularly after the Jimmy Savile scandal. The entirely understandable aim of those changes was to increase the conviction rate for sexual offences, but that has been a complete failure, with conviction rates for sex crimes having dropped dramatically in the last five years.

The price that has been paid in terms of reputational damage and ruined lives has been enormous. High-profile figures investigated under Operation Midland have had their reputations disgracefully and unjustly tarnished. The IOPC, whose report was published this morning, has failed miserably to identify the Met’s failures, identify the culpable people or resolve the issues.

However, it is not just the Met. Other police forces across the country follow policy guidelines, automatically believing all allegations brought by complainants, and therefore disbelieving the defendants. This has damaged the reputations of Cliff Richard, Paul Gambaccini, Jim Davidson, my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) and many other, less well-known defendants. Will HMIC therefore review not just Operation Midland, but the judicial and policing rules and procedures covering all such cases, so that we get justice for victims and protection for the innocent?

[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. Friend raises issues that are, of course, important. He rightly points out the devastating impact, as I mentioned earlier, that this episode has had on many significant public figures, one of whom was a much decorated war hero. I hope he will recognise that, in many circumstances, the police face a difficult task in trying to balance the need to give victims of crime the confidence to come forward, engage with them and report crimes, against the requirement to have justice or impartiality in an investigation at the same time.

The College of Policing, which looked at the guidelines, considered, for example, the tendency or policy that had been adopted for victims always to be believed. We have clarified the guidance that is available to police officers in those circumstances, such that, while a victim’s allegations must be heard with integrity and properly recorded once an investigation has begun, that must be done with impartiality. We hope and believe that the audit or inspection by Her Majesty’s inspector will look specifically at whether the Met has learned the lessons of this particular episode.