Police National Computer

James Sunderland Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I can confirm that. The moment we have recovered the data and put things back as they were, and made sure that we have deleted the data that we should have deleted but had not, we will be encouraging police forces across the country to rerun their searches. It is worth reiterating what I said earlier, which is that there are other databases on which these searches can be run, and we are encouraging police officers and, indeed, working with the National Police Chiefs Council, to make sure that those mitigations are used as fully as possible by UK policing.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

Could the Minister please update the House on whether the computer glitches reported today are having any impact upon recruiting? Could he also update us on the observation that police forces across the UK may be rejecting applications from re-joiners?

[Kit Malthouse]

It is very ingenious of my hon. Friend to get the uplift into this particular statement, but I welcome his ingenuity. The uplift is not affected at all. Recruitment is going well and, as he knows, we are ahead of target. He has raised with me the issue of his particular force not necessarily accepting applications from re-joiners. I am in the process of bottoming out that particular issue. As soon as I have an answer for him, I will let him have it.