Independent Police Complaints Commission

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful for any suggestions, and I suspect that the Government will be, too. I know that communities beyond the black community have had concerns about how the police investigate the police, and I am sure that in Northern Ireland there are lessons that need to be carefully reflected on, developed and learned.

The IPCC has to do more to convince a sceptical public that it is truly independent and has learned the lessons of Scarman and Macpherson. I hope that the Duggan inquiry will go some way towards doing that, but the IPCC, given the way in which it handled those initial days, has made things hard and has not lived up to those expectations. What assurances can the Minister give the people of Tottenham that the Duggan inquiry will be thorough and independent? A good start would be to address the shocking statistic that 30% of IPCC investigators are former police officers, and far fewer are from an ethnic minority background. Investigators such as police officers must look like the communities they are working in, and the IPCC must never allow itself to appear simply as a replica of the old Police Complaints Authority. What assurances can the Minister give that those figures will change?

The IPCC can work only under its current powers, and it is time for those powers to change. At the moment the IPCC cannot compel a police officer to speak to it unless that officer is a named suspect in a criminal investigation. The IPCC needs the power to speak to everyone, including the police, right up to the top. Will the Minister assure me that the IPCC will be given the powers to compel police officers to co-operate with its inquiries?

At the moment the IPCC does not have the power to suspend a police officer pending an investigation. The officer involved in the Mark Duggan case has not been suspended and is still working. The Minister will understand that members of the community that I represent find that quite incredible. Will he assure me that the IPCC will be given the power to suspend police officers who have been involved in a death due to police contact?

At the moment the IPCC does not have the power to initiate its own prosecutions following an investigation. In the Roger Sylvester case, as in others, power is often handed to the Crown Prosecution Service, which then does not prosecute. There is an inquest that brings in an unlawful killing verdict, and the families feel very let down indeed. The initial inquiry should have that prosecution power in the first place. Will the Minister explain why the IPCC finds itself caught between the coroner, the CPS and the police in relation to its powers, and say whether he will review what powers are needed following the concerns that have been raised not only in the cases I have mentioned, but in successive cases over many years?

At the moment, the IPCC does not own the scene of an investigation until some time after an incident has taken place. The scene of the Duggan death was not owned by the IPCC until hours after the shooting. That has to change. Will the Minister assure me that the IPCC will own the crime scene right from the beginning in recognition that there can be tremendous concern and anxiety about the fact that the initial officers caught in the incident can effectively own the scene for hours before any degree of independence takes over? The IPCC budget is tiny. It is £35 million a year, which is less than that of every single force in the country.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want to mention something I have learned from recent meetings with the IPCC. Is my right hon. Friend aware that a very limited and relatively small number of cases are managed cases, so the vast bulk of work that the IPCC is dependent on is dealt with by the police themselves?

[Mr Lammy]

With that budget, one can understand that the IPCC simply cannot get through the level of complaints that are being made. In fact, a sub-set of complaints is in effect being handled by the police. Again, we will need reassurances about whether the budget is appropriate for the sort of organisation that has to be armed to do this job independently and effectively. This is why there is a trust deficit in what the organisation does, and I hope that the Minister will respond to it.

The Minister will, of course, need to start by reviewing the many deaths that take place following police actions. Since 1999, according to the Library, 322 people have died in or following police custody, yet not one police officer has been jailed for any of those incidents. These are shocking figures. I ask the Minister to reflect on the sheer extent of those figures, whether he is content, and whether there should not be some independent review into that aspect of its work.

I hope that the Minister will commit to an inquiry into the disgraceful revelations regarding the handing over of the wrong body to the family of Christopher Alder, who died in police custody in April 1998. Mr Alder was a paratrooper who fought for his country, yet he was left to choke to death, handcuffed on the floor of a police station in Hull. The fact that his family found out just two weeks ago that the body they buried was not in fact his, and that he is in a mortuary over a decade later, is a disgrace and of tremendous concern in a civilised country. I hope that the Minister will undertake an inquiry and get involved. I am pleased to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, in his seat; I am sure that he is as concerned as I am.

We need a review of deaths in police custody. We need a review of the IPCC’s powers and resources, and we need to understand that it is truly independent. My community waits to see its conclusions in relation to the death of Mark Duggan, and I hope that the Minister can reassure them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

I will come on to that issue.

I would first like to respond to the concerns of the right hon. Member for Tottenham about the proportion of IPCC investigators who come from a police background. He said that about 30% of investigators and about 10% of the IPCC’s staff overall come from a police background. Let us put it the other way around: the vast majority of investigators—70% of them—do not come from a police background. The contribution of those from a law enforcement background is vital in ensuring that the IPCC conducts competent and robust investigations. The idea that the IPCC is an organisation that consists of police officers investigating other police officers is a grotesque caricature, because of its make-up, the way it operates, and the way Parliament established it.

The right hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of the IPCC’s budget. Its budget is some £35 million a year and it employs approximately 400 staff. That does not make it a small organisation by any standards. Shortly before I was elected to the House in March 2005, the IPCC had a total of 72 investigators, deputy senior investigators and senior investigators. In March this year, it had 121 such investigators. Its role has broadened in some respects, but it is not an organisation that has been starved of public funds. Of course the IPCC needs to manage with a diminishing budget during the current period, because all policing organisations have to make savings. Nevertheless, in 2010-11 it started 164 investigations and completed 154, which is more than 50% more than in the previous year. I therefore do not believe that allegations about resourcing can be made about this organisation.

[John McDonnell]

What proportion of complaints lead to managed investigations that are investigated directly by the IPCC?

[Nick Herbert]

I do not have that figure to hand, but I am happy to let the hon. Gentleman have it after the debate. Of course, we have a structured system that ensures that the commission has the overall supervision of complaints, which I will come to, and that it deals directly with the most serious complaints. That is as it should be.

The IPCC will not become complacent, nor will this Government let it. Having made those points to the right hon. Member for Tottenham, I do not want him to think that I am dismissing what he has said. I hope he knows that I am not.

Following four years’ operational experience, the IPCC conducted a review of the police complaints system, the aims of which were to check how well the system was delivering against the original aspirations and to ensure that it continued to improve. The review found that some of the statutory provisions for the handling of complaints were unnecessarily bureaucratic or no longer necessary. Through the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, which we have just passed, the Government are introducing reforms that will put an emphasis on police accountability and make the police complaints system more effective and efficient. That will mean giving police forces additional discretion to deal with low-level complaints, which will free up the IPCC to deal with the most serious and high-profile complaints. It is important to distinguish between matters of public concern about performance issues, in which case what often matters is that there is strong police accountability and responsiveness, and those on which there are serious complaints about a breakdown that needs investigating by the commission.

We are giving the IPCC new powers to recommend and direct that unsatisfactory performance proceedings be brought against an officer when a complaint reveals that their performance is unsatisfactory. We are also giving the commission more flexibility in how it carries out its administrative functions, so that it has the freedom to direct more resources to carrying out its investigations. Those changes and others will improve the handling of police complaints by removing bureaucratic processes from the system, but it is important to realise that we are not stopping there.

In July, on the back of the revelations about phone hacking, we announced to Parliament that we would give further consideration to whether the IPCC needed additional powers, including the power to question civilian witnesses during the course of its investigations, and whether it should be given greater powers to investigate institutional failings in police forces. As the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, the IPCC is also in the early stages of a review of its powers, resources and approach in relation to investigations arising from deaths following police contact. That is obviously a very serious issue, and I know the IPCC has been in touch with him, and will keep in touch, about that piece of work. I will take the closest interest in it as well. In addition, we are setting up police and crime commissioners, to be elected a year from today, to hold the police to account.

I also want to respond to the points made about the IPPC’s chairmanship. I am aware of concerns that we do not have a permanent chairman at the moment. We are taking particular care over the position, precisely because it is crucial to ensure the success of the IPCC. A new chair should be in place early in the new year, but until then Len Jackson, a highly effective individual in whom the Government have complete confidence, has agreed to remain interim chair. We are determined to secure the right appointment to the organisation, because we invest considerable importance in its independence and integrity. It has new challenges to meet and old challenges that still have to be met. I accept the right hon. Gentleman’s concern about it, and I want to assure him and the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee that the Government will continue to ensure that the IPCC does the job that it was set up to do—