Police Leadership Commission Report

Janet Daby Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I thank those in the police service for their work; their job is not easy and indeed can be very challenging. I also welcome the Minister’s response to the report published by the police leadership commission. However, it grieves me to say that it remains a shocking and disturbing fact that many children of my ethnic descent experience being over-policed and under-protected. A report released earlier this year by the Children’s Commissioner showed that black children are more likely than white children to be strip-searched. I do not want any child in my constituency or this country to experience unnecessary strip-searches, and I do not want black children to experience strip-searches disproportionately. We need only mention Child Q to be reminded of that awful situation. I recognise that the police data on that, and on those issues, is poor and that improved police leadership is very much needed, so how will the Government strategy address that?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and her constant championing of this issue. She is right. We said in our manifesto that we would look at the powers on children and strip-searching. We have that job still to do, and we will do it in this Parliament; I would be very happy to work with her on it. She is also right that in some areas we have seen some improvements; on stop and search, for example, we have seen significant improvements, but there is a lack of data and an inconsistency in some of the data; we are looking at whether we can improve that so that we have the right picture before us.

The work the police leadership commission undertook involved a substantial amount of evidence from women and people from different ethnic minorities, who talked about their struggles within policing. We know that more people from different ethnic minority backgrounds leave at different stages, so there is a job to be done there, and that is highlighted in this report.