Angiolini Inquiry Report

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the fact that London’s police and crime commissioner is the Mayor of London. He therefore has a duty to ensure that the police force over which he has political control changes, and changes in the way that has been highlighted through the inquiry and in the part 1 findings of the inquiry.

My hon. Friend is also absolutely right that even though many of the forces across the country are at the largest they have ever been in terms of numbers, that is sadly not true of the Metropolitan police, but there absolutely must be no sacrifice of quality of vetting in order to hit the recruitment targets that we have made it clear we expect the Metropolitan police to hit. We want the Metropolitan police to be a well recruited force, and the funding has been put on the table—it has not been fully utilised by the Mayor, but the funding has been put on the table—to enable the Met to be that. The force needs to be populated with good, professional officers. That is the bar, the minimum standard we expect. We expect all leadership, uniformed and political, to abide by that philosophy.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I put it on the record that my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), in whose constituency Sarah Everard lived and from where she was abducted, then murdered, is on an overseas visit with the Joint Committee on Human Rights and is very sorry not to be in the Chamber for this important statement.

Sarah Everard’s abduction and murder had a profound impact on women across south London. Like so many young people, she had moved to London for work and made her home in our diverse community in Lambeth. She was one of us. But both before this appalling murder and afterwards, residents in south London and further afield who expressed concerns about police behaviour that was misogynistic, racist or homophobic were told repeatedly that this was just “a few bad apples”, an offensive phrase that diminishes and denies people’s experience and belies what have been shown to be structural, cultural and widespread problems in policing.

Will the Secretary of State, in the light of the report’s findings, apologise to everyone whose experiences of unacceptable behaviour by police officers has been diminished and denied in that way? Had they been listened to when they reported their experiences, action could have been taken that might have prevented Sarah’s appalling and tragic murder from taking place.

[James Cleverly]

As I said, from my first day in elected office, I have tried to drive cultural change and an increase in professionalism, first in the Metropolitan police and, in this job, in policing more widely. I will continue to do that for all the time that I have the power and authority to do so. There needs to be—there must be—fundamental change. We must create an environment where women and girls feel confident in, not fearful of policing. That will remain my focus. I assure the hon. Lady and the House that I remain committed to that.