Undercover Policing

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My right hon. Friend is right that it is important that the investigation into the special demonstration squad covers other cases. That is exactly what Chief Constable Creedon is determined to do. Although there is a specific allegation about the work of the SDS in respect of the Stephen Lawrence murder, it is important that the investigation covers a wider range of activities. Its remit will allow it to do just that.

If I may correct myself, I said that the SDS was disbanded more than a decade ago. In fact, it was disbanded in the late 2000s, which is not quite a decade ago.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I welcome the prompt and positive action the Home Secretary has taken this morning in light of these revelations. I am sure they will be welcomed by the Lawrence family, who may be forgiven for believing that they have been punished twice over for the fact that they inconveniently allowed their son to be murdered while he stood innocently at a bus stop in south London in 1993. Does the Home Secretary accept that I, as Home Secretary, and the Metropolitan Police Authority knew absolutely nothing about the allegations, notwithstanding that it was well known that I established the Macpherson inquiry and wanted to know everything there was to know about the Metropolitan police’s conduct of that investigation? That conduct alone is reprehensible, as is the fact that we now understand that such information was kept from Lord Condon, the then commissioner of the Metropolitan police. Does she agree that finding out why we were kept in the dark, and, more importantly, why the Macpherson inquiry was kept in the dark, should be a focus of the investigation?

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks. As he says, he established the Macpherson inquiry and was in office when it published its report. At the time, there were some very concerning issues regarding the way the murder was investigated, both originally and later on, and the attitude, which the Macpherson inquiry looked into, of the Metropolitan police. He is right that we should be very concerned if information was deliberately withheld from those who should have been given it, which is why I asked Mark Ellison to look specifically at the issue of the information that was given to the Macpherson inquiry. The remit of Operation Herne, now under Chief Constable Creedon, includes looking at reporting mechanisms within the SDS, and at how information was disseminated.