Kieran Mullan
Main Page: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)Department Debates - View all Kieran Mullan's debates with the Home Office
(5 days, 11 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Yvette Cooper
I agree with my hon. Friend. Neighbourhood policing has to be at the heart of restoring or rebuilding the confidence of communities in policing.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I welcome much of what the Home Secretary has said. The police officers we are talking about, including Martyn Blake, are often deployed to protect local communities from violent criminal gang members, as he was doing. Does the Home Secretary agree that for a local MP to describe one such violent gang member as a “well-loved” member of the community, and for the Runnymede Trust to describe as unaccountable a police officer who was subject to a full court hearing and process undermines, rather than builds, community confidence?
Yvette Cooper
It is really important that we have the full confidence of communities in the police and the confidence of police to be able to do their jobs. Decisions on individual cases are rightly for independent organisations, whether that be the courts or the misconduct process, but those have to operate within a framework and it is our responsibility to make sure that the framework is right. It is currently not right and that is why we have set out the reforms within which those organisations need to take decisions.