Macpherson Report: Twenty-two Years On

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Third Report of the Home Affairs Committee, Session 2021-22, The Macpherson Report: twenty-two years on, HC 139, and the Government Response, HC 274.

It is an enormous pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Ms McDonagh. I am grateful to the Liaison Committee for allocating time for this debate, although I am well aware that events outside this place may be occupying hon. Members’ time this afternoon, so we do not have many Members present.

I am very pleased to see that we have a Home Office Minister with us, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove); I was worried when I heard that the former Policing Minister, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), had been promoted to the position of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I send my congratulations to him. I am very pleased to have the Minister here, and I am sure he is fully apprised of all the issues that I will raise.

I am sorry that the Home Affairs Committee felt the need to hold this debate. When we produce a report, it is normal to get a response from the Government within eight weeks. In this case, it took eight months. The Committee applied to the Liaison Committee for a debate in which to discuss the report, because we were concerned to ensure that the important issues we highlighted were raised in this place, and had not yet had a response from the Government. We subsequently got a response, and we are disappointed, shall we say, that the clear calls that we made on the Government in our very detailed and evidence-based report were not always heeded. We are pleased to have this opportunity to discuss some of the shortcomings of the response with the Minister.

This debate is particularly timely in the light of recent events, including the report on Charing Cross police station by the Independent Office for Police Conduct. I thank the former Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, now the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), for leading the Committee during this inquiry.

I want to set the report and this debate in the proper context. Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager, was murdered on 22 April 1993 in an unprovoked racist knife attack in Eltham, south London. The inquiry into his murder, led by the late Sir William Macpherson, uncovered major failings in the police investigation and in the way Stephen Lawrence’s family and his friend Duwayne Brooks were treated. Many of the findings and the subsequent 70 recommendations made by the Stephen Lawrence inquiry focused on long-standing issues that remain relevant today.

The Committee’s inquiry was prompted by concern that in some areas, in the words of Baroness Lawrence,

“things have become stagnant and nothing seems to have moved.”

Our inquiry sought to assess progress against some of the most important Macpherson report recommendations on: community confidence; tackling racist crimes; recruitment and retention of black and other ethnic minority officers and staff; race disparities in the use of stop and search and other powers; and the late Sir William Macpherson’s overall aim of

“the elimination of racist prejudice and disadvantage and the demonstration of fairness in all aspects of policing.”

The Committee found that policing today is very different from 23 years ago. Since the Macpherson report was published, there have been important improvements in policing, including significant improvements in the policing of racist crimes, commitments made to promoting equality and diversity, and good examples of local community policing.

At this point, I ought to acknowledge the work of our police officers and staff. Across the country, police forces work hard each day to tackle crime and keep all our communities safe. Police officers and staff work immensely hard to deliver fairness in policing, to support black and minority ethnic victims of crime, to tackle racist hate crimes and to support community cohesion. The important role the police play in our communities is the reason the Home Affairs Committee produced the report.

Having said all that, I want to be clear that our inquiry also identified persistent, deep-rooted and unjustified racial disparities in key areas, including a decline in confidence and trust in the police among some BME communities, lack of progress on BME recruitment, problems in misconduct proceedings, and unjustified racial disparities in stop and search. In those areas, we proposed urgent action. We found that there had been an increased focus in policing on race inequality since the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the United States of America in 2020, which again shone a spotlight on race injustice across the world. Reforms announced by individual forces, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services and the IOPC are, of course, welcome. However, it should not have required video footage of the murder of a black man by a police officer and the ensuing Black Lives Matter protests to concentrate the minds of the Government and the police on the imperative of race equality.

We are extremely grateful to everyone who contributed to our inquiry. We recognise that, for some, that involved retelling difficult and painful events. We would particularly like to thank Baroness Lawrence, Dr Neville Lawrence and Duwayne Brooks for their time and contributions. I also particularly thank the young people who shared their experience of the police with the Committee and who, along with the many other contributors to our inquiry, provided invaluable evidence that underpins our recommendations and conclusions. I thank our specialist adviser, Dr Nicola Rollock, and our specialist adviser on policing and the former chief constable of Greater Manchester police, Sir Peter Fahy, for their valuable input.

Although the report was extensive and we covered many issues, I will focus my contribution on four key areas that the Committee considered. First, I want to focus attention on confidence in policing among BME communities. The Macpherson report called for it to be a ministerial priority that all police services should

“increase trust and confidence in policing amongst minority ethnic communities.”

However, all these years on, evidence to our inquiry showed that there is a significant problem in black communities with confidence in the police, particularly among young people. The report noted:

“Adults from Black and mixed ethnic backgrounds are less likely to have confidence in the police than adults from White or Asian backgrounds and the confidence gap has widened over the last few years.”

Our report also noted that 67% of white adults said they believed the police would treat them fairly

“compared to 56% of Black adults. All victims of crime should feel confident in turning to the police for help.”

It is of deep and serious concern that black people have much lower expectations than white people of being treated fairly and with respect by the police.

Data for England and Wales also suggest that the confidence gap between black people and white people in their local police is even greater among young people. In May 2019, we held a private roundtable with a group of young BME people from London aged 17 to 30 on their experiences, their views of their relationship with the police, and the use of stop and search. This was not universal, but the majority of participants told us that their experiences with the police had been negative, and that they did not feel confident in approaching the police for protection. The former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, told us that,

“in London, following police encounters with young people, she often saw officers sending the young person off with a smile on their face.”

Indeed, our report added that

“She said that it was the police’s responsibility to ensure that ‘each interaction’ with a young person was as positive as possible”.

By contrast, a young participant at our roundtable told us that the Metropolitan police’s stop and search procedure was

“more hostile than professional”.

He said it was difficult for young people to trust the police due to their stereotyping of BME communities as likely criminals.

Our inquiry also found a lack of data on confidence by ethnicity at a local force level. That makes it much harder to hold local forces to account for concerns about BME communities’ confidence in the police. Concerningly, we found that increasing trust and confidence in policing is not being treated as a policing priority, or a ministerial policing priority.

I am pleased that the Government have agreed on the need to monitor trust and confidence in policing, both nationally and locally, and that they have improved the way in which they collect and use data, including on stop and search and community confidence. However, their response did not say how the Home Office is monitoring confidence among black and minority ethnic communities in policing locally. I hope the Minister can provide us with an update on progress, specifically on how his Department is working with police forces to collect data on confidence in policing.

I turn to the issue of recruitment and progression of BME officers and staff. Throughout our inquiry, we heard concerns about community confidence in the police, the use of certain police powers, and wider racism in policing. Communities’ concerns about the racial disparities that we identified are exacerbated by the lack of BME police officers and staff at all levels of the police force.

The Macpherson report recommended that police forces be representative of the communities that they serve, and that targets be set for recruitment, progression and retention of minority ethnic police officers. However, the 10-year target set by the then-Home Secretary included a target for overall minority ethnic representation of 7% in the service by 2009. That was not met. Our report highlighted that even by 2020, BME officers represented just 7.3% of the police service across England and Wales. That figure is now 7.6%, but that is still far below 14%, which is the percentage of the population in England and Wales who identify as BME. Concerningly, under-representation is most marked in senior ranks. Only 4% of officers at or above the rank of chief inspector were from BME backgrounds; that figure is now 5%. 

We found that police forces across the country have failed to do enough to increase BME recruitment, retention and promotion for decades; there has been a lack of focus, consistency and leadership on driving that recruitment and promotion for far too long. Shockingly, our analysis suggests that, at the current rate of progress, we will not have a properly representative police force in England and Wales for another 20 years. Just think for a moment: that would be four decades after the Macpherson report raised the seriousness of this issue, and nearly half a century after the murder of Stephen Lawrence. 

More positively, we found that some forces—notably Nottinghamshire and Greater Manchester—are making significant progress in increasing BME recruits by taking positive action such as having targeted recruitment campaigns, working on youth engagement and outreach, and working with local community and faith leaders. However, the vast majority of forces are still failing to recruit enough BME officers to ensure that the proportion of BME people in the force is the same as the proportion in the local population. 

I am therefore disappointed that the Government have rejected our recommendation to agree minimum targets for the recruitment of BME officers, so that constabularies reflect the composition of their local populations and we achieve at least 14% BME representation of officers nationally by 2030. Instead the Government response suggests that

“forces should be striving to become more representative of the communities they serve”.

That is not good enough. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister outlined what work the Home Office is doing to monitor how all 43 forces in England and Wales are working to reflect the composition of their local populations. Could he tell us what proportion of police forces are currently representative of the communities they serve? Also, what work has the Home Office planned to improve BME recruitment in policing when the uplift programme ends in 2023?

On police misconduct and discipline, during our assessment of the progress police forces have made on the Macpherson report’s recommendations about diversity in the police workforce, we repeatedly heard concerns about the higher likelihood of BME officers resigning voluntarily or being dismissed from their force. There is a clear racial disparity in the number of officers being dismissed from police forces—BME officers are more than twice as likely as white officers to be dismissed—and in the number of BME officers subjected to internal disciplinary processes. It is extremely troubling that the disparity has been allowed to continue for so long without serious action being taken by police forces to investigate or address the problem, so we welcomed the work by the NPCC to instigate reforms, including improvements to training, misconduct guidance, welfare support and addressing the lack of BME officers in professional standards departments.

We also noted the NPCC’s 2019 report on disproportionality in police complaints and misconduct cases for BME officers and staff, which identified that 63% of Home Office police force professional standards departments had no BME police officers or staff. That is deeply troubling and totally unacceptable. Our recommendation is that forces must address unacceptable racial disproportionality in their PSD composition. More positively, we welcomed the work done by some forces to draw on BME advisers and seek to address the lack of BME representation in PSDs, as reported in the NPCC’s recent review. However, we urged all forces to address the problem and demonstrate progress by the end of 2021. Additionally, we recommended that the NPCC conducts a review on this issue and reports within a year.

I am pleased that, in their response, the Government recognise the risk posed by a lack of appropriate BME representation on a number of PSDs. It is also encouraging that ethnic minority representation on PSDs has risen by 2% since 2020, but clearly there is a lot more to do. The Government response said that the NPCC is working across policing to ensure appropriate representation and involvement of minority ethnic officers in decision-making processes in professional standards departments, so can the Minister update us on the progress, and provide details of both the Government’s work and that of the NPCC to address ethnic diversity in PSDs?

Finally, I want to discuss the use of stop and search. We heard troubling examples of stop and searches being conducted in a manner that was deeply alienating and uncomfortable. Many of the young BME participants that the Committee heard from in a private roundtable session felt that they were unjustly targeted by the police from a young age, which led to mistrust. One such participant, Witness M, who reported that he was first arrested at the age of 13, told us that he was “nearly stabbed” in 2018 but did not want to speak to the police when they asked if he was involved, due to his negative experiences with the police from such a young age.

At the time the Committee’s report was published, Home Office data showed that black people were over nine and a half times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched. The latest Home Office data—to 31 March 2021—show that black people are seven times more likely than white people to be stopped. Our report acknowledged that stop and search is an important police power, and the Macpherson report’s conclusion that it has a useful role to play in the prevention and detection of crime still applies. However, no evidence to our inquiry has adequately explained or justified the nature and scale of the ethnic disproportionality in the use of stop-and-search powers, particularly in possession of drugs searches.

At the time of our report’s publication, evidence showed that black people were less likely than white people to have used drugs in the past year, but they were 2.4 times more likely to be stopped and searched for drug possession. Indeed, in its February 2021 spotlight report on the disproportionate use of stop and search and the use of force, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services found that

“Drug enforcement, mainly through stop and search, contributes to ethnic disproportionality despite evidence that there is no correlation between ethnicity and rates of drug use.”

Our report also recognises the importance of the police being able to take action against knife crime, including through stop and search, but highlights that only 16% of reasonable grounds searches in 2019-20 were conducted to find offensive weapons. I am encouraged by the fact that the Home Office’s response confirms that the NPCC has undertaken an initial review of forces’ implementation of recommendations made by HMICFRS in its 2021 report on the disproportionate use of police powers, which the Home Office said

“showed that the majority of forces have already implemented the recommendations or have plans in place to do so.”

I hope the Minister can tell us how many of the 43 forces in England and Wales have implemented those recommendations on the disproportionate use of police powers. Can he also confirm whether that review is in the public domain?

Unfortunately, I have only been able to touch on the surface of the myriad issues we raised in our report, but I hope I have been able to give an overview of what is a very comprehensive report and the issues it raises—some of which, sadly, have not been satisfactorily answered in the Government’s response. Our inquiry has found that the Macpherson report’s overall aim of the

“elimination of racist prejudice and disadvantage and the demonstration of fairness in all aspects of policing”

has still not been met. We have identified persistent, deep-rooted problems where too little progress has been made because of a lack of focus and accountability on issues of race. While that is the case, trust between the police service and black and minority ethnic communities will remain low, and the long-standing Peel principles of fairness in policing and policing by consent will continue to be undermined. The commitments made over the past year by the NPCC, individual forces, and senior police officers to a step change in addressing race equality in policing are important and welcome, but commitments have been made in the past that were not then delivered on. This time needs to be different, or confidence may be permanently undermined.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

I call Anne McLaughlin to sum up on behalf of the Scottish National party.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

It is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I will start by congratulating the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), on his appointment. He has moved on from being the Policing Minister, which explains why I am here in Westminster Hall to respond to this debate on behalf of the Government. I will, of course, do my best to engage in the subject and answer the points that have been raised. If there are any gaps in my knowledge, after having had a brief opportunity to familiarise myself with the subject matter, I will be delighted to write to Members to make sure that answers are provided.

I offer my thanks to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for securing this debate and for the work of the Home Affairs Committee on what is clearly an immensely important topic. She raised the delay in the Government’s response to the report. I can only apologise; we took longer than usual to respond. That allowed for the publication of the “Inclusive Britain” report, which is a more detailed account of action taking place across policing in response to the issues that the Committee’s report raised. It was useful for that to be developed in full and for this debate to consider it in that context.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I hear the Minister’s point, but I wonder whether he might be able to help me further. A Home Office response is also outstanding to another of our reports on rape investigations and prosecutions. We had expected a response within eight weeks, but we are now well past that. When he goes back to the Department, will he chivvy it along and see whether we can get a response to that report as well?

[Tom Pursglove]

It is fair to say that I and the Department are always keen to be as helpful as possible to Select Committees. I think that is important, as Select Committees perform an important function in scrutinising the work of the Government. I will very happily take away that request and see what can be done to try to expedite the Government’s response to that report.

Let us go back to the subject of today’s debate. The murder of Stephen Lawrence was a heinous crime that shocked this country to its core. While this is a case that has gone on to assume wider significance for policing and for society more generally, it is important to remember that it all started with the senseless killing of a young man who had his whole life ahead of him. My thoughts remain with his family.

As parliamentarians we are accustomed to discussing reports, but very few, if any, have such a profound, long-lasting impact as the Macpherson report. It has left an indelible mark on policing. It is no exaggeration to say that the findings were seismic. They continue to reverberate today, with the report remaining a marker against which we can track and measure progress. And over the past two decades, there has been progress. The police service is more diverse than ever before, forces have worked hard to improve community engagement, and we have seen major improvements in the way in which the police deal with racially motivated crimes, but there is undoubtedly more to do.

As Ministers have said on many previous occasions, public confidence and trust is integral to the long-standing model of policing by consent, and that confidence and trust must never be taken for granted. Recent events have provided a reminder of that, not that anyone should need one. The police have a unique role in our society, and they are invested with immense powers to enable them to perform that role, so when things go wrong or when those powers are abused, the repercussions are far-reaching and significant.

The Government have consistently challenged the police to improve. We will continue doing that, because that is what the law-abiding majority expect and deserve. All communities should have confidence in the police. The police’s ability to fulfil their duties is dependent on their capacity to secure and maintain public trust and support for their actions, as part of our long-standing and cherished model of policing by consent.

The Home Office has fundamentally reformed its governance and oversight of policing. In 2019, the Home Secretary established the National Policing Board to bring together key partners, providing strategic direction and strong cohesion across the law enforcement system. Through the board, we are providing strong leadership on key issues, including violence against women and girls, diversity and trust in policing.

Police leaders also have a vital role to play and the National Police Chiefs’ Council is central to the effort to drive improvements and embed reforms. Local accountability is another important feature of our policing model. Different forces have different challenges, and elected police and crime commissioners are there to hold chief constables to account.

We must remember that confidence and trust in the police are impacted by many factors. Many people have very little engagement with policing, and so their perceptions are much shaped by other sources, including social media. That is why communicating to the public the action that policing is taking is so important. There is more to do, and together we must press on with urgency and energy, chasing improvements that benefit both policing and the public.

Given my brief within both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, and as the victims Minister, I am acutely conscious of this issue. It is one of the reasons why the Government are bringing forward the victims Bill to enshrine the rights of victims in law, to ensure that there are more expeditious complaints processes in place, to remove barriers to victims coming forward, and to ensure that complaints are properly heard. Accountability must be better structured at both the local and national levels, with a focus on being able to get to grips with systemic issues and challenges where we find them. That is also, of course, about public confidence.

We also need to make sure that data can be used to help boost confidence, which is something that has been touched on, particularly by the Chair of the Select Committee, who asked about data collection. The Home Office will continue to work with bodies such as the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners to consider how best to support forces in collating data on confidence and making it publicly available. As part of the “Police Race Action Plan”, the NPCC and the College of Policing expect to work across policing to improve the consistency of capture, application and use of data and information relating to race and inclusion. We also support the use of data in better informing leaders, such as PCCs, about the information needed to hold forces to account.

The Home Affairs Committee’s report highlighted the importance of a diverse police force, and I could not agree more. I am pleased to say that our police forces across England and Wales are more diverse than they have ever been. The 20,000-officer uplift is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to support all forces to become more representative of the communities they serve. The latest uplift data—to 31 March 2022—shows that there are now 11,172 officers from ethnic minority backgrounds, which is the highest number on record. The figure represents 8.1% of all officers, which is the highest proportion ever and an increase from only 4.7% in 2010. 

It might be helpful for the context of the debate if I add that 49,000 female officers are now in place, which equates to 34% of the total—the highest number and proportion on record—and that 18 forces are at representative level compared with force area population. Undoubtedly there is still more work to do, which is precisely what we will continue to focus on. To provide a little more detail, the police workforce are more diverse than ever when it comes to recruiting officers from minority ethnic groups, but we know, as I have said, that there is much more to do. We are supporting efforts to achieve the diverse police workforce that our communities need, by co-ordinating efforts between the Government and policing not only to attract more diverse candidates into policing, but to ensure that it is a career in which all recruits can thrive.

Sharing best practice, engagement with associations, upskilling recruitment teams and enhanced data capture are just some of the efforts being made to improve police diversity. We are supporting forces with a variety of attraction and recruitment strategies, while delivering a campaign that has been designed to reach the widest and most diverse audience possible. We use real police officers with real experiences in our campaign, which seeks to speak to our diverse communities and reinforce the message that policing is a career choice for all. I think that is a message that all Members of this House would want to take out in encouraging people of all backgrounds to come forward and serve in our communities across the country.

On the issue of black, Asian and minority ethnic representation in professional standards departments, the police uplift programme gives us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to support all forces to become more representative of the communities they serve in the way that I have described. As of March 2022, there are more than 11,000 officers from ethnic minority backgrounds. In March 2021, 9.8% of officers working in professional standards departments were of a BAME background—up from 7.9% in 2020. Although positive, that alone does not lead to improvements on disproportionality, so we must not be complacent about this issue.

The Government published “Inclusive Britain” this year. It presents a clear strategy to tackle entrenched disparities, promote unity and build a more meritocratic, cohesive society. It sets out over 70 actions to level up the country and close the gap between different groups across education, health, employment, policing and the wider criminal justice system.

The Government have made a series of commitments, including driving forward local community scrutiny of police use of powers, helping police forces to become more representative of their communities, and bringing into force the serious violence duty. We will also support the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to review and deliver any necessary improvements to police officer training in de-escalation skills and conflict management in everyday police-citizen encounters.

There is no place for racism in the police. The public rightly expect every police officer to act with the highest levels of honesty and integrity. This includes an effective and transparent police culture. That is why policing must take action now. The National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing will deliver a new race action plan that gives officers the tools they need to build trust and confidence with black communities, so that they are better equipped to challenge racism and identify and address racial disparities across policing.

The majority of police officers act with the highest standards of professionalism, serving our communities and keeping us safe. Those who breach professional standards by discriminating against others should be held to account through robust and effective systems for dealing with allegations of misconduct. This Government have introduced a number of reforms to strengthen the police complaints and disciplinary systems, including creating the IOPC, the successor body to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which was established following Macpherson’s report.

As recognised in the Home Affairs Committee’s report, much progress has been made on hate crime. The Government have created a comprehensive system of reporting and recording of all crimes targeting race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity. It is now mandatory for police forces to record the ethnicity of victims of racially or religiously aggravated offences. To tackle online hate crime, we are taking forward the Online Safety Bill, through which companies will be held to account for tackling illegal activity and content, such as hate crimes, harassment and abuse.

On stop and search, the police engage daily with communities who are worried about the safety of their neighbourhoods and want to see more done to protect them from knife crime. Around 45% of stop and searches take place in London, where data shows that young black men are disproportionately the victims of knife crime. Police chiefs are clear: stop and search is a vital tool to reduce serious violence and keep people safe. For the purposes of the debate, it is worth adding that in 2020-21, stop and search removed almost 16,000 weapons and firearms from our streets and resulted in nearly 81,000 arrests.

We could not be clearer that every weapon taken off our streets is a potential life saved. The consequences of those weapons being on our streets can be catastrophic, as we know. Nobody should be stopped and searched because of their race or ethnicity, and safeguards exist to ensure that does not happen. We recognise and agree that more can be done to improve accountability and transparency about the use of these powers. That is why we have committed to look carefully at strengthening the system of local community scrutiny of police decision making, to give greater clarity and context to stop-and-search data and reassure the public about its use.

We will also seek to remove unnecessary barriers to the use of body-worn video, which can be a vital tool for transparency and safety. This is about building trust. With that in mind, the Government have already improved our data collection on stop and search, and now collect more data than ever before, but we will not stop there. We have committed to work with policing partners and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners to consider a range of metrics for stop-and-search rates in order to identify and, where necessary, challenge disparities at police force area level.

A question was raised about what would happen after the uplift of officer recruitment. Recruitment will continue. Forces have to maintain numbers and replace officers who retire or leave. The Department are putting building blocks in place, through much better data and greater understanding, and would expect forces to continue to attract and recruit diverse candidates where possible.

In closing, I again thank the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North for securing this debate, and for her work as Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. I am also grateful to all other hon. Members who have contributed today. As I have set out, progress has been made over the last 23 years. The police service today is not the same service that it was when the Macpherson report was published. It is important to acknowledge that, and to remember that thousands of men and women go out every day to keep the rest of us safe, performing their duties with pride and professionalism. However, much more needs to be done. The Government do not shy away from that fact, and neither must the police.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I thank everybody who has contributed to what has been a well-informed debate. We do not often spend enough time looking back and taking stock of what has changed and what perhaps has not changed. When Select Committees produce reports that are able to do that—take evidence, look across the piece and come up with recommendations—it is important that we are able to debate them, and that the Government take them seriously and consider them fully.

Today’s debate has highlighted where we may be storing up future problems for ourselves, such as the reference in the Public Order Bill to the right to stop and search. I was pleased to hear what the Minister said about improvements in data collection—particularly, again, on stop and search—and the progress made on recruitment from BME communities. I think he said that the figure is now 8.1%, so progress is being made, but it is still not fast enough. It is also pleasing to hear that 18 forces are at representative level for their communities, but that is out of 43, so again, it is not good enough. We will continue to monitor the progress of police forces and the Home Office in the months to come, and I am sure the Home Affairs Committee will return to the issue of policing in future months.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Third Report of the Home Affairs Committee, Session 2021-22, The Macpherson Report: twenty-two years on, HC 139, and the Government Response, HC 274.

Police Conduct and Complaints

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you this afternoon, Ms Ghani. I think it is an excellent idea to recognise the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and his long-standing membership of the Home Affairs Committee. His institutional memory of what has happened on that Committee has certainly been important not only in putting together this report, but in our work on policing.

The hon. Member has set out clearly and effectively the findings and recommendations of our report. It is quite clear that the Home Affairs Committee inquiry looked at the role and remit of the IOPC in relation to the police complaints and discipline system, and explored the continuing disquiet at the way in which police forces in England and Wales investigate and deal with complaints about the conduct of forces and individual officers. Importantly, we sought to consider what changes might be required to improve public confidence in the police complaints and discipline system.

We thought it was important to undertake parliamentary scrutiny of that important role, given, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said, the establishment of the newly created IOPC in January 2018, and because the Committee had not looked at the topic for nine years, since the publication of its last report on the matter—I do not think the hon. Gentleman was a member of the Committee at that point. Our report has covered several different areas, which were set out effectively. I will focus my contribution on a couple of areas that we looked at in the Committee that will hopefully complement what the hon. Gentleman said in his opening remarks. First, I will focus on the treatment of vulnerable adults, specifically people with autism, and how they interact in the police complaints process.

A well-functioning conduct and complaints system is essential to maintaining the trust in the balance created by the founding Peel principles between the police and public. Despite the welcome reforms and improvements, some submissions to our inquiry demonstrate that there is continuing dissatisfaction with the handling of police complaints, and that much more work is needed to address both complainants’ and officers’ concerns. In our report, we noted that the IOPC impact report 2020-21 stated that 43% of people surveyed were confident that the IOPC did a good job, compared with 44% in 2019-20. Obviously, there is still a lot of work to do.

In the evidence heard and received during the course of our inquiry, individuals with autism and parents of children with autism outlined systemic issues in their treatment in the police complaints and criminal justice process. Many felt they had been badly let down by the IOPC and the police, and that that had caused distress to families and friends.

Fiona Laskaris, whose autistic son Christopher was unlawfully killed by a drug addict in 2016, told us:

“the IOPC urgently needs to start engaging in a meaningful way in cases involving people with disabilities, and particularly… with autism”.

Fiona argued that cases involving people with autism

“warrant an enhanced level of independent scrutiny”

and suggested the existing statutory safeguarding duties to protect vulnerable adults who come into contact with the police were not working.

We received anonymous evidence that one autistic person, who had experienced frequent contact with the police, including being arrested for alleged attacks, was not treated as a vulnerable adult, even though they informed the police they were autistic and had requested an appropriate adult for assistance. The anonymous submission claimed that the police “never acknowledge or check” their autism awareness card, even when their wallet is being searched, which always happens when the police seize personal items.

The Home Secretary wrote to the Committee on 9 December 2021 and said,

“Many police forces have developed additional training programmes”

and

“various autism alert card schemes, apps, and the creation of easy-read ‘widget-based’ sheets (using icons or pictographs) to aid communication in custody suites.”

She highlighted the IOPC statutory guidance for forces on complaint handling, which outlines the

“importance of accessibility as well as the duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that a disabled person does not suffer any substantial disadvantage when accessing a service.”

The Home Secretary said it was

“important that those dealing with complaints recognise the particular vulnerabilities of individuals with autism”.

In spite of these welcome statements by the Home Secretary, some evidence to our Committee suggests that autistic people are still not always been treated fairly by the police.

I want to say a little more about super-complaints, which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham commented on. In her evidence to the Committee, Fiona Laskaris, who I mentioned earlier, proposed that the super-complaints process could be used to investigate system failures in the treatment of vulnerable adults, specifically people with autism. Since November 2018, the super-complaints process has enabled designated public and charitable organisations to ask HMICFRS, the IOPC and the College of Policing to consider investigating what they think are systemic issues affecting policing in England and Wales.

Our report expressed concern that of the 16 organisations designated by the Home Office that can raise such issues or concerns on behalf of the public, no specialist organisation represents complainants with disabilities, including autism. The Home Secretary wrote to the Committee in December 2021 and pledged to review the designated bodies that can submit super-complaints on systemic issues in policing to include a broader range of organisations, including disability organisations. We welcome that commitment, but nearly two years on, I hope the Minister can confirm when the Government will review the super-complaints system. As we have heard, the Home Secretary confirmed to the Committee that a designated body should collaborate with non-designated organisations and, where appropriate, make a complaint on the basis of the matters raised.

Our recommendation was that the Home Office should highlight on its super-complaints website that the 16 designated bodies should collaborate with non-designated bodies as appropriate to make a complaint on matters raised by those non-designated bodies. We are pleased that the Government have made that change on their super-complaints website, but we urge them, the IOPC and other relevant policing bodies to make the public aware that the super-complaints process is accessible to all groups and interests.

I thank everybody who assisted the Home Affairs Committee in our inquiry. We will be watching what happens on our recommendations in this area, and following progress over the months and years to come on this important issue, as we know police misconduct and complaints have been in the news a lot in recent times, and it is very much an issue that the public care about.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Before I call the shadow Minister, I can see that Sir Peter Bottomley has joined us—do you wish to contribute, Sir Peter?

Metropolitan Police Service

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Diana Johnson.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The catalogue of failings at the Met is rightly a serious concern for the Home Secretary and the Mayor of London. The Home Secretary has said that the Met is just not getting the basics right, but sadly the Home Office is not getting the basics right either. When acting commissioner Sir Stephen House gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee in April, he said it was not just a case of “a few bad apples”, but a systemic problem that the Met needed to deal with. As the Met accounts for 25% of policing and has not only responsibility for London, our capital city, but national responsibilities and even international responsibilities, for example around the investigation of war crimes, what consideration has the Minister given not only to issues of performance, leadership and culture, but to whether there should be a review of the responsibilities of the Metropolitan Police?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for her question. As she will know, we are in the middle of an inquiry by Dame Elish Angiolini into the first stage of the employment of Wayne Couzens and then more widely into the culture of the Met. Once we have seen that and digested the urgent work required to correct the situations we see presented in this report, we will have to consider what if any further measures may need to be taken to ensure that, as the right hon. Lady says, not only national but international confidence in the Metropolitan Police as our lead force is maintained.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Last week the Home Affairs Committee met Ukrainian MPs who told us that they had had to travel 11 hours to get their visa from the visa application centre in Poland, then 11 hours back, and then again to have the visa stamped. They wanted me to ask the Home Secretary about young people and children travelling with grandparents and elder siblings, who are not eligible for visas under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Will the Home Office look at that again, because all the necessary paperwork is there to ensure that those children are travelling with their parents’ consent?

[Priti Patel]

The right hon. Lady and many other colleagues have raised this point over recent weeks and months. We are looking at this issue, and a lot of work is taking place across the Home Office with the Minister for Refugees and DLUHC, regarding the safeguarding aspects. We are going to make changes and, without pre-empting any of those now, a lot of work is taking place, primarily because the focus has to be on the safety and wellbeing of those children. We must ensure that they get here in the right way and are supported. We will report back on that issue, because a lot of work is taking place on it right now.

Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Diana Johnson.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The permanent secretary refused to sign off the Rwanda policy on the basis of a lack of evidence of value for money for the taxpayer. That is only the second time in 30 years that the most senior civil servant in the Home Office has had to be ordered by the Home Secretary to implement a policy.

In light of those concerns about wasting public money, will the Home Secretary confirm that on top of the payment of £120 million to Rwanda, the taxpayer will also now be picking up the £0.5 million cost of the flight last night, and all subsequent charter planes, whether they take off or not? Will there be additional payments to Rwanda for people whom Rwanda is expecting, whether or not those people actually arrive?

[Priti Patel]

First, on our accounting officer advice, we should always put this in the context of asylum costs that are soaring across the United Kingdom—and have been for many years because of the number of people coming here illegally—and the costs and strain that that puts on the system, particularly during the pandemic. As Chair of the Home Affairs Committee—this issue has been discussed in the Committee many times, including when it was chaired by the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)—the right hon. Lady will know about the impact of covid on asylum claims. She also asked about payments, but we do not speak about operational costs right now—[Interruption.] Yes, it is taxpayers’ money. That is for a range of reasons, but primarily because of commercial sensitivities in terms of how we run our operations.

The House should recognise that when we have mob rule turning up to thwart our charter flights—some of them have ended up in courts—it is right that we keep our commercial operators, and the way they work with the Home Office, confidential. The right hon. Lady asked about payment mechanisms to Rwanda as part of the partnership deal, and we would be happy to drop her a line and share that information with her.

Asylum Seekers: Removal to Rwanda

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

It has been difficult to get clear information and evidence about the implementation of the Rwanda scheme. As the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, the Home Affairs Committee visited Dover last week to look at the process of what happens to people who come across in small boats, and we were aware that some of those individuals were immediately earmarked for the Rwanda scheme and detained. So that we can all understand, will the Minister confirm whether it is just adult males who are being processed for the Rwanda scheme? Will he guarantee to the House that no child will be sent to Rwanda when there is a dispute over their age?

[Tom Pursglove]

Again, I will not comment on operational matters or matters that are also before the courts at the moment, because, as the House knows, that would be improper. I refer colleagues to previous comments that I have made in the House, including that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children will not be transferred under the partnership.

Public Order Bill

Diana Johnson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am sure we can all agree that we need to protect our freedoms of speech, of protest and of assembly as a vital part of our democracy. We already have many laws to deal with protest and to protect the public and our major infrastructure. Any extension of those laws needs to be very carefully considered by this place. I am a little surprised, therefore, that the Government have decided to bring forward this legislation from the Home Office first in this new parliamentary Session, when we are still waiting for the regulations from the protest offences in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which was the major Home Office Bill in the previous Session.

I was also hoping, as the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, that the specific recommendations in our recently published report, “Investigation and prosecution of rape”, to improve the experience of victims would be brought forward in legislation through a victims Bill. I was also hoping that our recent report on spiking, which recommended a new offence of spiking, would be in prime place for legislation to be brought forward, but we are where we are today, and this is the Bill before us.

I have several concerns about the Public Order Bill, which I hope Ministers may be able to address. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services considered many of the proposals in the Bill in its report of March 2021, “Getting the balance right? An inspection of how effectively the police deal with protests”. Clearly, looking at the reports of the inspectorate is incredibly helpful in developing evidence-based policy that can stand up to effective scrutiny, and the report has already been quoted widely in the Chamber this afternoon.

The report found that

“most interviewees did not wish to criminalise protest actions through the creation of a specific offence concerning locking-on.”

The report also concluded that it did not support the introduction of protest banning orders. I noted what the Home Secretary said in her opening remarks about wanting to back the police. That is very important, so will the Policing Minister be able to explain when winding up the evidential basis for bringing forward these particular proposals and the basis on which the Home Office has come to a different conclusion from the inspectorate?

I also want to raise issues about the actual terms in the Bill. The term “protest” appears 21 times, the term “protest-related disruption” appears 31 times and the term “serious disruption” appears 118 times. However, none of those terms is defined on the face of the Bill. To ensure that the powers conferred in this Bill are used proportionately, and only when absolutely necessary—and to prevent legal uncertainty—I hope that the Minister will commit to ensuring that the Bill will include definitions of those terms.

On the proposed extension of stop and search powers, in July 2021, the Home Affairs Committee published “The Macpherson Report: Twenty-two years on”, which found that there are still deep-rooted and persistent racial disparities in policing, particularly in the use of stop and search. Our report found that statistics covering the year to 31 March 2020 showed ethnic disproportionality in stop and search is worse now than it was 22 years ago. Black people in 2020-21 were seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people, and that was up from five times more likely in 1998. The disproportionality in “no suspicion” searches is even more stark. In 2019-20, black people were 18 times more likely than white people to be stopped under section 60. With such clear ethnic disproportionality occurring, can the Minister explain how the Home Office will tackle those existing disparities with this plan to extend stop and search?

I note that, in the Bill’s equality impact assessment, the Government state that safeguards exist to mitigate the disproportionate use of stop and search, such as the use of body-worn cameras and extensive data collection on the use of these powers. However, in 2021, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said:

“Too few forces regularly review body-worn video footage”,

and

“too many forces still do not analyse and monitor enough information and data on stop and search to understand”

how to apply stop and search fairly.

Furthermore, the amendment under clause 7 to the police power to stop and search under section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 will allow the police to take pre-emptive action against those suspected of being about to engage in protest-related offences. What specific safeguards will the Government put in place to ensure that such pre-emptive action will not breach a person’s rights under articles 10 and 11 of the European convention on human rights?

Finally, I want to speak briefly about buffer zones for abortion clinics. The Bill does not legislate for that, but it should. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) has led efforts in this House for some time for change on that matter, and I will continue to support her, including any amendments to this Bill that she tables. In the light of recent events, the Government should also consider buffer zones outside schools and vaccine clinics. But to return to the issue of buffer zones for abortion clinics, for too long, women in England have faced real intimidation and real harassment outside clinics providing abortion care. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales has confirmed that protesters can cause

“significant emotional and psychological damage”.

One woman described her experience visiting an abortion clinic in April this year:

“They came over twice and we said, ‘No thank you.’ She was very pushy, in your face…it has left me anxious as I suffer from poor mental health. When we walked past, she said, ‘Your baby wants to live.’ We had driven for 7 1/2 hours and did not expect this at all.”

Women accessing a legal and essential form of healthcare should not be subject to harassment. Both Scotland and Northern Ireland have begun to take steps to implement buffer zones and it is time that England did. I hope that the House will have an opportunity to vote on that in due course.

Foreign National Offender Removal Flights

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Diana Johnson.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

We all appreciate the need to remove dangerous foreign criminals who present a genuine crime or security risk to our country and should not be here. However, the Government’s record on removing foreign criminals has not been good, and to the year ending September 2021 it was at an all-time low. Many have absconded before they could be removed. With the current pressure on the Home Office—including 100,000 asylum claims outstanding, delays in processing Ukraine visas, delays in visas for marriage and work, and problems with processing passport applications—can the Minister confirm that the announced cut of 91,000 civil servants will not apply to the Home Office and that it will have the resources it needs to carry out the work it has to do?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am confident that we will have the resources that we need to deal with these issues, but I can absolutely say to the Chairman of the Select Committee that it does not help our day-to-day immigration work in other parts of the business to have to deal with these constant cycles of claims, appeals and deliberate attempts to frustrate removal. I would be absolutely delighted if we could free up resource in the Home Office to focus on processing other, related claims—in the asylum space, for example, or Ukrainian claims or whatever they are. We would be better placed if we could do that. As I have consistently said, the abuses of our immigration system that we have seen and continue to see make it much harder to get on with the day-to-day business and be as generous as we can be. We are generous, but we could be doing more if the system were in a better place.

Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

No, I will not give way. The right hon. Lady will have the chance to speak shortly and there are, I think, 32 Members wishing to speak in this debate.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Priti Patel]

Yes, I will give way to the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am very grateful to the Home Secretary. On the issue of convictions for rape and serious sexual assault, one of the recommendations from the Home Affairs Committee was to have RASSO—rape and serious sexual offences—units in all police forces. Will the Home Secretary ensure that all police forces now have those specialist units, because we know if that is the case, it is more likely that investigations will be more thorough, victims will be treated better and convictions will follow?

[Priti Patel]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right, and she will be aware of Operation Soteria, which does that. I will come on to wider support through the courts system and independent gender violence advocates, but the system is working now in a much more joined-up way, which I am sure the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford will also welcome. These measures have to be integrated not only with policing, but with the CPS, so that we have an end-to-end approach on prosecution.

HM Passport Office Backlogs

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

We know that the Home Office is under enormous pressure given the Ukraine visas, the Afghanistan scheme and the asylum claims backlog. It was pleasing to hear the Minister say that plans were put in place well in advance because everyone expected a surge in passport applications once people were able to travel. I have heard what the Minister has had to say. On reflection, why does he think he has been brought to the House today to answer an urgent question? MPs’ inboxes are full of casework in respect of passport delays. What has gone wrong with the plans that the Minister put in place to deal with the surge?

[Kevin Foster]

As we have touched on, we are seeing an unprecedented level of demand: we would normally process 7 million applications in an entire year and did 1 million last month alone. That is a record number. In January, we were seeing around 60,000 a week; by the middle of March we were dealing with more than 200,000 a week—that is output, not just applications. The service has rapidly expanded to meet the demand that has returned.

To be clear, we changed the service standard last year because we expected a surge and there would inevitably be a limit on how many passports could physically be produced in a week. That is why we advised people of the 10-week standard. As I said, though, in recent months 90% of people have still been getting their passport within six weeks and we retain the ability to expedite if people have particularly compelling reasons for travel.