Criminal Justice Reform

Debate between Diane Abbott and Alex Norris

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Opposition Members seem to need reminding that the early release programme was devised by a Conservative Government. We have been debating at great length, in the media and among politicians, keeping people in prison for longer. I support Government policy on this issue, but I remind the House that the only things, ultimately, that make people safer are: giving more support to prison officers, including their salary; putting money into improving the prison estate—some prisons are Victorian buildings; and, finally, putting effort and money into the rehabilitation of prisoners, not just keeping them in prison longer.

[Alex Norris]

I agree wholeheartedly with the value my right hon. Friend places on the important work of our prison officers and our probation officers. She is exactly right that what surely binds all of us is that we want to reduce reoffending. What I have presented to Parliament today is a measure to get us through a crisis, but we know that we have to build a new criminal justice system. That can be done from this Dispatch Box, but it also has to be done much more widely, including through work with our prison officers, our Probation Service, the police and our communities in order to reduce reoffending, which is what we all want.

Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary

Debate between Diane Abbott and Alex Norris

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

That is one of the reasons for the Select Committee’s work on this. We are at the early stages and so have not yet drawn any conclusions, but a real and clear audit against the recommendations for both the Metropolitan police and other organisations would be timely. In starting this debate I intend to run through some of the evidence we have seen so far, on just four or so topics.

The phrase “institutional racism” is synonymous with the Macpherson report, which concluded that institutional racism existed in the Metropolitan Police Service, other police services and other institutions countrywide, citing factors such as the Lawrence family’s treatment by the police, the disparity in stop-and-search figures, the under-reporting of racial incidents nationwide and the failure of the police to provide officers with racism awareness or race relations training.

So how far have we come since then, 20 years on?

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that sometimes people talk about the use of the phrase “institutional racism” as if people are saying every single person in the institution in question is a racist, whereas that phrase refers to the workings of institutions that turn out to the disadvantage of black people and others?

[Alex Norris]

I absolutely agree. I said the phrase was synonymous with the Macpherson report because that report is what made the phrase a part of public life, and people do get very sensitive about it and I think sometimes hide behind those sensitivities as a reason not to act on the things my right hon. Friend talks about.

There is evidence to suggest that we have not made enough progress so far. Police Sergeant Tola Munro, president of the National Black Police Association, told the press that there had been “some progress” but added that

“if I was marking policing I would give us a C at the moment…We within the NBPA would argue that we would consider at least some forces are institutionally racist”.

Baroness Lawrence highlighted the education system as somewhere where black people continually do not have the same outcomes as their white counterparts, and Bevan Powell, one of the founding members of the NBPA, said:

“While I believe a lot has changed, I think, to a certain extent, a lot has gone backwards. I think that is due to leadership; it is because the police and the Government have taken their eye off the ball on race.”

Clearly there is much to do.