Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the publication of the report of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services into the Metropolitan police’s counter-corruption arrangements.
In June last year, the Home Secretary came to the House to report on the findings of the Daniel Morgan independent panel. The panel’s report detailed a litany of historical failings by the Metropolitan police in respect of multiple investigations—failings that irreparably damaged the chances of a successful prosecution for Daniel Morgan’s brutal killing. My thoughts, and I am sure all Members’ thoughts, remain with Daniel’s family. I first met them over a decade ago.
As part of the Government’s response to that report, the Home Secretary commissioned the inspectorate to undertake an inspection of the Metropolitan police’s current approach to counter-corruption arrangements. I should note at the outset that the inspectorate did make some positive findings. The Metropolitan police remains an exemplar in investigating serious corruption and has good arrangements in place to support whistleblowers. It has also almost eliminated the backlog of officers awaiting security vetting, which was identified as a problem in a previous report. The inspectorate found no evidence that the force deliberately sought to frustrate the work of the Daniel Morgan independent panel, but the broad thrust and overarching conclusions of the report are troubling.
This inspection was commissioned to provide assurance for Daniel Morgan’s family and the wider public that the force had learned from failings in the past and had robust arrangements in place to prevent, identify and tackle corruption in its ranks. I am afraid that it is deeply disappointing that, in the light of the findings of this report, I cannot provide this assurance to the House. Indeed, the inspectorate felt that the Metropolitan police approach suggested
“a degree of indifference to the risk of corruption”.
This is alarming.
Corruption poses a significant threat wherever it rears its ugly head. If it is allowed to take root and wrap its tentacles around organisations and people, the potential impact is profound. This is especially true for policing—an institution that relies so heavily on public confidence and trust. The inspectorate’s report outlines a range of issues across all the systems that police forces employ to identify and manage corruption risks. This includes a failure to properly monitor recruits who could pose risks and to routinely share routine intelligence on officers.
The report paints a worrying picture of the Metropolitan police’s approach to exhibit and property management, creating opportunities for those tempted to abuse their position, and posing a risk to investigations.
The inspectorate found that there were more than 2,000 warrant cards unaccounted for. This is particularly concerning, coming as it does just over a year after a police officer abused his position to murder a young woman in a heinous crime that shocked our country to its core.
The report concludes that the Metropolitan police is not able to confirm whether officers working in the most sensitive areas of policing have the right levels of vetting. Furthermore, despite repeated recommendations and good progress made in this area in other forces across England and Wales, the force cannot proactively monitor its IT systems—a crucial tool in identifying corruption. In total, the report contains five causes of concern, two areas for improvement and 20 recommendations for change.
Yesterday, the Home Secretary wrote to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Mayor of London to set out her expectation that they respond to her with a clear action plan to remedy these failings. I welcome the deputy commissioner’s statement yesterday, recognising the need for comprehensive action. I put particular emphasis here on the responsibilities of the Mayor of London. Beyond the statutory responsibility on the Mayor to respond to the inspectorate’s report within 56 days, it is incumbent on City Hall to hold the Metropolitan police’s leadership to account for responding to past failings. This clearly has not happened here, and I urge the Mayor to work with the Home Office to ensure that a new commissioner can address these failings.
As she said in her statement to the House last year, the Home Secretary intends to update the House on the progress made in responding to the wide range of issues raised in the Daniel Morgan independent panel report. The Met Police published their response last Friday to the recommendations directed at them and, now that we have the inspectorate’s report, we expect to provide our overarching update soon.
Finally, I remind the House that the Home Secretary has also commissioned HMICFRS to undertake a wider inspection of vetting, counter-corruption and forces’ approach to identifying and tackling misogyny in their ranks. That is looking across England and Wales and will provide a crucial evidence base for part 2 of the Angiolini inquiry and inform any broader policy or legislative changes that might be required.
The report comes at a time when the Metropolitan Police are under intense scrutiny. I have found myself at the Dispatch Box discussing the force’s culture and standards all too frequently in recent months. As someone who over the years has worked alongside the Met and seen at first hand the incredible things that they are capable of achieving, I know there are thousands of officers, staff and volunteers across the organisation who perform their duties with skill, professionalism and pride every day. However, when things go wrong, it is vital to acknowledge that fact and take every necessary step to ensure that the failings of the past are not repeated. I commend this statement to the House.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement—three hours’ advance sight, which is very good.
Yesterday, some of us gathered on Westminster Bridge to remember the Westminster Bridge attack five years ago. We remembered how our police ran into danger to protect us, and we remembered PC Keith Palmer, who lost his life. It is with great sadness that we go from a day commemorating the very best of policing to discussing a report which, I am afraid, contains some very significant criticisms of the Metropolitan Police.
It is now 35 years since Daniel Morgan was murdered in a pub car park in south London—35 years for his family to wait for justice. I pay tribute to them, as the Minister has done. Daniel Morgan’s son lives in my constituency, and I know this report will be deeply upsetting for him and his family. The report lays bare issues of real concern. It is highly critical and tells a damning story of police corruption, of lessons not learned and of flawed procedures. The inspector noted with dismay that no one,
“had adopted the view that this must never happen again”.
The Met must accept all the recommendations included in the report and implement them in full with all possible speed.
As the Minister rightly noted, there was praise too in this report. For example, it was clear that the Met’s homicide investigation arrangements bear little resemblance to those of 35 years ago. The force solves the vast majority of homicides it investigates, as I can testify to in my own patch in Croydon.
Londoners need and deserve a police service they can not only trust, but be proud of. Whether on racism, homophobia, violence against women or corruption, we need to see the urgent reforms that will make that a reality. The outgoing commissioner must begin the process of implementation, but it must be a top priority for the new commissioner, who will carry forward the work.
However, the issues raised have national consequences. The Home Office must not stand back. Real leadership is needed. The Home Secretary and her Department must commit to engaging seriously with the issue of police reform, to avoid repeating such a scandal and to avoid a lifetime of pain and hurt for families like Daniel Morgan’s.
Labour has called for an overhaul of police standards, including reviews of vetting, training, misconduct proceedings and use of social media. It is vital that the Minister takes steps to identify whether the problems highlighted in the report are systemic in other forces across the country. The report shows that 50 people a year who had committed offences were recruited to the Met, including some who had connections to known criminals.
Given the seriousness of that finding, has the Minister asked all forces urgently to inform the Home Office of the number of new recruits every year who have committed offences? If he has, will he publish that data now? If he has not, why on earth has he not? We know that 2,000 warrant cards are unaccounted for. Has he asked all forces to inform the Home Office immediately how many of their warrant cards are unaccounted for? If he has, will he agree to publish that data?
In addition, the report notes that the Met does not know whether all those in sensitive posts have been cleared to the level needed. Is the Minister checking that nationally? The report also notes serious concerns about the storage and security of firearms in the Met. That is very worrying. Will the Minister commit to looking into that nationally?
We have a Home Office inquiry into culture and standards in the Met, which the Home Office has refused to put on a statutory footing. How can the Minister be sure that the Angiolini inquiry will not fall foul of the same stumbling blocks encountered by the Daniel Morgan inquiry and mentioned in this report?
The original Daniel Morgan inquiry recommended a statutory duty of candour for police officers, but the Government opposed Labour’s amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to achieve that. Given the challenges faced to get information during the inquiry that we see in the report, will the Government change their mind and back our proposal?
The Home Secretary has promised a review of vetting standards, but the terms of reference have only recently been published and we do not know when the review will report. What is the Home Office doing in the meantime to ensure that vetting across the country is being carried out to the highest and most rigorous standards?
The Minister highlighted the role of the Mayor of London. The report clearly states that the joint MPS and Crown Prosecution Service review of the Daniel Morgan case in 2011-12 identified opportunities for organisational learning, but it is clear that the MPS paid little, if any, attention to the joint report when it was published. Why did the previous Mayor of London totally fail to ensure that action was taken after that 2012 report?
Finally, the Minister has said he will provide an overarching update in response to both this report and the recommendations in the panel report. That is welcome, but can he give us a concrete timeline for it?
I end by saying that the role of the HMICFRS was not to reinvestigate the murder, but to consider the lessons to be learned from what has happened. The family of Daniel have not seen justice done for his murder, and it is with them that our thoughts must remain.
Kit Malthouse
The various points that the hon. Lady raised in the first half of her remarks will be addressed by Her Majesty’s inspectorate as it looks at vetting procedures across the whole country. The purpose of the investigation commissioned by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was to show the leadership that she is looking for and to expose what we now know to be the systematic failings of the organisation and its failure to address the problems of the report over recent years. We will know more on the questions that the hon. Lady rightly asks about the worrying issues raised by this report when HMI concludes its national inspection, which I hope will be shortly.
On the hon. Lady’s point about the duty of candour, as I explained during the debate on the consideration of Lords amendments to the Policing Bill, we changed the regulations to make it a disciplinary offence, subject to dismissal, not to co-operate with an investigation, which we believe is a stronger sanction. The inspection report said that the Metropolitan Police had co-operated with the independent panel.
I am disappointed at the hon. Lady’s lack of attention to the oversight mechanism of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. Over the past five years, the Mayor of London has been in control of an entire organisation whose job it is to hold the Metropolitan Police to account and to drive standards up. Certainly, in the four years between 2008 and 2012, when I was Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, that was exactly what we tried to do. We initiated a race and faith inquiry that looked more widely at culture across the whole of the Met Police to try to drive improvement.
I would hope that the Mayor—[Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, is there any chance you could ask the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) to stop barracking from a sedentary position? This is a very serious matter that must be addressed and taken seriously by all levels of Government, and that includes the Mayor of London. Given that that is the entire purpose of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, I am afraid I am not willing to ignore the fact that the holding of the organisation to account is primarily the function of City Hall.
We at the Home Office have our part to play in setting national standards, and we will absolutely do that, whether that is reviewing with the College of Policing the professional practice around vetting, as we are doing, or changing the regulations if we need to do so. In the immediate short term, however, the statutory obligation to respond lies with the Mayor of London and I hope he will fulfil his obligations within the 56 days set in law by this House.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
As the son of a retired police officer, I know the incredible work that the majority of police do to fight crime and keep us safe. When officers breach the high standards expected of them, it fundamentally undermines the trust that their work relies on. Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning the behaviour revealed in this report, and send a clear message that this kind of behaviour cannot be tolerated in any police force anywhere in the country?
Kit Malthouse
I applaud my hon. Friend’s sentiment. As someone who, like me, has an intimate knowledge of policing, I am sure he will acknowledge that there will be thousands of police officers up and down the land who are as disappointed and distressed by the revelations today as we are. They want to work in a profession—a vocation—of which they can be proud and which they know is trusted by the public. Making sure that this kind of corruption and behaviour is rooted out will be as much a part of their motivation as it is ours.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
I was six years old when Daniel Morgan was murdered in my constituency just round the corner from where I lived. His brutal murder shocked our community, and it was made worse by the fact that no one was convicted and that last year’s inquiry cited institutional corruption in the Met. Daniel’s family have campaigned for justice for 35 years. No other family should ever have to go through this, yet yesterday’s damning report found that not nearly enough has been done to ensure that it does not happen again. Will the Minister personally ensure that the next Met commissioner cleans up this failing force?
Kit Malthouse
I will certainly do my best to make sure that that is the case. As I say, the Home Secretary has written to the Mayor of London and the current commissioner asking for an assertive action plan to bring about these changes. I am sure the hon. Lady will have noted that HMI has put a limit of 12 months on the 20 improvements and changes that it needs to see, and it will require really assertive action by the Met police to get all that work done within that 12-month period. Many people in this House will have had involvement or contact with the Morgan family. I myself was privileged to meet his mother on a number of occasions when I was deputy Mayor for policing, and indeed, along with other Members across the House, I pressed for the original inquiry. Given our commitment to their campaign and the incredible dedication they have shown, we now have a duty to do exactly as the hon. Lady says and make sure it does not happen again.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
As the Minister himself has said, the regularity with which he has had to come to the Dispatch Box to answer questions about the culture, standards and misjudgments of the Metropolitan police is alarming. Yesterday’s shocking report is just the latest in a long list of recent failings. Thousands of dedicated rank and file police officers work very hard and put themselves at risk every day to protect us. They, and millions of Londoners, deserve leadership in the Met that they can trust and have confidence in, not leaders who have “indifference” to the risks of corruption. Will the Minister confirm today that the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner appointment will not just be made by the Home Office and a Prime Minister who is himself under criminal investigation but will secure the approval of the Mayor of London and be subject to a cross-party vote of the Home Affairs Committee and the London Assembly’s police and crime committee?
Kit Malthouse
The process and appointment of the Met commissioner are established in law, and we cannot obviate that, but we are all, I hope, committed to making sure that the person we appoint will bring about the changes that we are all seeking as well as continue the fight against crime in the capital. In the meantime, as the current commissioner exits, I believe that in the proposed acting commissioner and current deputy commissioner we have an individual of integrity and commitment who has already made very welcome public statements about driving forward change.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing convention to be waived so that I can speak from the Back Benches on this matter. Alastair Morgan, Daniel’s brother, has been campaigning for some justice for his brother for 35 years and I have stood alongside him for the past 17. The Minister referred to the “original report”. It was not the original report. There have been many, many inquiries. There have been inquiries into inquiries. This has been going on for years and years, with corruption layered upon corruption and nobody ever telling the truth. It is no wonder, in those circumstances, that Alastair has said that the Metropolitan police
“cared more about its own tatty reputation than solving my brother’s murder.”
Now what do we see? We see an official report that states that it has
“found no evidence that someone, somewhere, had adopted the view that this must never happen again.”
Nobody even cares if it happens again. What is the Minister going to do about that? What are we going to do about the Met?
Kit Malthouse
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her commitment to the family campaign as well. As I explained, we have written to the Mayor and the commissioner demanding a plan of action and that they respond, as they have to in law, to the inspectorate with exactly that—an assertive, committed plan for change. Certainly the public statements that I have seen from the deputy commissioner indicate his personal commitment. Pleasingly, he made a particular point of saying that the police have not given up on the investigation and their attempt to try to catch Daniel’s killers. I hope that we will see a conclusion to that investigation as soon as possible.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Daniel Morgan case is one of those that I am most familiar with as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on miscarriages of justice. If it were not for a Welsh solicitor called Glyn Maddocks, who has tirelessly followed this and never given up on it, we would not be where we are today. I pay tribute to him, his work, and the support he has given to the miscarriages of justice group. This is a very important occasion. I am a little sad that the Minister has made it a bit party political in blaming the Mayor. The fact is that we are faced with a tremendous crisis in the Met and in any police force where the relationship between the police breaks down and becomes sloppy, and we see—I did the research on this and I was astonished by it—the close links between senior Met police and organised crime. Surely that was wrong and it has to be sorted out.
Kit Malthouse
I also pay tribute, as the hon. Gentleman has, to the entire team that have supported the family. I met them when I was deputy Mayor for policing. I have to confess that when I heard the story I was open-mouthed at what was revealed, hence the strong support I gave to the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), for an inquiry. Admittedly, as the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) said, it is not the first, but hopefully it will bring us to some kind of conclusion on this matter. I was not seeking to make a party political point, merely to point out that there is a direct responsibility at City Hall—one that I took when I was doing the job—to drive forward the conclusion to this matter not only to reach some kind of closure for the family, but to ensure significant change in the organisation that will mean that this can never happen again.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
We are back here again discussing the police. Some of the issues in this report about the vetting of police officers and the fact that some had links to known criminals will be quite shocking for a number of my constituents, who continue to be stopped and searched. Some of those constituents are on the gangs matrix, which had such a massive impact on their life in terms of finding jobs, access to benefits, and ability to rent. The Minister will know that in 2019 a freedom of information request revealed that a person as young as 13 was on the gangs matrix. How will he help to restore confidence in our communities who want to work with the police in addressing some of the issues, when we have known criminals involved, people not being vetted properly and some of my young people continuing to be on the gangs matrix?
Kit Malthouse
The solution to the problem of building trust between London’s various communities and the police is complex, but there are a variety of tools that we can deploy. First, we can make sure that the force better reflects the population of London. I am pleased that we are working closely with City Hall and the Met on their recruitment and diversity agenda, which is an important one that has been ongoing for some time. At the same time, we need to make sure that we are recruiting the right people, and this investigation has unearthed problems in our doing that. We need to make sure that the vetting net is as tight as possible so that we are getting in the right people with the right values who are able to deal with the hon. Lady’s constituents and others with integrity and respect to achieve the end we want to achieve, which is lower crime in the capital. That does require, as she says, that people know that when they meet a police officer in the street, or they are dealt with even under stop and search, they are dealing with somebody who has been through a rigorous process. Over the next 12 months we will monitor this closely and work with City Hall to make sure that that is exactly what it introduces.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
We have to rely on an efficient and effective police service that has the trust of all its communities, and we know from recent reports that the Met in particular has taken an absolute battering. Over the past decade, we lost 20,000 police. In the past couple of years, there has been a rapid ramping up to get back those police numbers and to deal with the issue of natural wastage. This is an incredible pressure on recruitment and vetting. What assessment has the Minister made of the capacity—not only within the Met, but nationwide—to ensure that speed of recruitment is not leading to the inclusion of people who have no right to be on the streets of our capital, policing it?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady is right that the rapid recruitment has put strains on the system, but we have been monitoring it very closely to ensure that the system is able to cope, and I believe that it is. I know she is not suggesting that the vast majority of recruits are not right-thinking and correct in their values, and I hope and believe that is the case. One of the improvements that the inspectorate did note that the Metropolitan police has achieved over the past couple of years is an elimination almost of the vetting backlog, which just three or four years ago stood at something like 37,000, astonishingly. That has now been almost eliminated. That is a silver lining to the cloud of this report. As far as vetting is concerned, we have debated that just recently in the House. There are improvements that need to be made, not least on the monitoring of social media, which has just started in the Metropolitan police. It is an area to which we need to pay constant attention if we are to build that trust with London’s communities.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
This review today is rightly about what the Metropolitan police is doing now, but it has resulted from the Daniel Morgan report, and there are still outstanding issues arising from that report, as referred to by the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who is no longer in her place. Indeed, my constituent, a former serving police officer, approached me for support because he had a complaint in relation to his treatment by the Metropolitan police while he was involved in the Morgan inquiry, and he has had no satisfactory outcome. He has now approached the IOPC. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can get some degree of finding for my constituent?
Kit Malthouse
I am hesitant to intervene in an independent process. Given the hon. Lady’s experience in policing, she will know that. If she thinks a meeting with me and her constituent would be useful once the IOPC has concluded, I would be more than happy to do so.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It has been a torrid time for the Met, but I am not so concerned about the Met; I am concerned about constituents of mine and those of us all who worry about policing. We had the report just last week about child Q. People in my constituency and elsewhere, and particularly black parents, black pupils and parents of black pupils, are worried about what the impact is on them. I know that the response has to be done in 12 months, and I worry that that will divert the Met to dealing with corruption, which obviously has to be dealt with. Can the Minister give some comfort from the Dispatch Box today that the issues of racism and inappropriate action against child Q will be dealt with much quicker than waiting for an IOPC report? Action needs to happen quicker. Tackling corruption has to happen, but not just that.
Kit Malthouse
As I said in the urgent question on child Q, I am hopeful that the IOPC will conclude its investigation on that matter shortly, and then we can quickly learn the lessons from that, exactly as the hon. Lady says, and hopefully ensure that that does not happen again. Just to be clear on the timeline, the Mayor has a statutory duty to respond to this inspection within 56 days with an action plan. The IOPC has put a 12-month time limit on implementing its 20 recommendations for change. Some may be done quicker than that, and some have already started. For example, my understanding is that inexplicably, the Met police is the only force in the country that does not have the software in place to monitor the inappropriate use of its systems. The work to implement that has started already, and I hope that will done before 12 months. Such is the importance of this issue, I am happy to commit to coming back to the House at some future point, when completion is in sight or done on all these 20 matters, and report that to the Members who are concerned.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
A corrupt network of police officers, including senior officers, and journalists, including their senior management, private investigators and senior management at News International were all involved in the cover-up here. It is one of the biggest instances of corruption and one of the most painful ones we have witnessed in many years. Is it not time that we introduced into statute law a new offence of misconduct in public office? It is a common-law offence that is difficult to prosecute and to lay out the parameters of. We should put it in statute so that those who commit it and those who incite others to do it can be sent to prison.
Kit Malthouse
I cannot comment on the hon. Gentleman’s claims, not least because happily, as the deputy Metropolitan Police Commissioner has confirmed, this is an ongoing investigation. They have not given up, and they should not give up. However, I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making in general. While a number of offences could be committed in a similar hypothetical situation, such as conspiracy, it may be the case that he has a point that we need to consider.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
We have yet another report raising serious concerns about the Met, but also a number of questions that are applicable to all police forces in the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) said. One issue that has been raised with me by a senior officer, and that applies nationally, is that officers who are found guilty of gross misconduct are often not only reinstated, but sometimes promoted. What is the Minister doing with the Met, police forces around the country and the complaints system to address this issue?
Kit Malthouse
I am sure the hon. Lady understands that where the office of constable is concerned, matters of discipline, dismissal or other punishments are effectively an independent process. The punishment is decided by panels that have independent legally qualified chairs. It would be inappropriate for me to comment on the various decisions she has talked about. Having said that, we constantly pay attention to how the disciplinary process is impacting on the integrity of UK policing. If adjustments are required, as they were two years ago, we make them.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Daniel Morgan was murdered 35 years ago, and this whole inquiry has been consistently bedevilled by police corruption. I do not think this report gets us to the bottom of the issue. We have to go much, much further. The report tells us that there has been a loose association with confidentiality and security for evidence, and that has been consistent over all these years that we have been trying to get to the bottom of this case. The Minister now has to accept that we have to have a root and branch inquiry. He has admitted himself that he has had to come to this Dispatch Box too many times to apologise for the Metropolitan police. This single investigation will not get to the bottom of it; we need something much more fundamental, such as an independent inquiry.
Kit Malthouse
As I say, HMI is looking at these issues more widely across the whole of UK policing, and we will learn some lessons from that report. But we should not forget that the Commissioner of the Met herself has commissioned Dame Louise Casey to look at the internal culture of the Met, and that will give us some indications of where we should go next, if at all. Beyond that, similarly, stage 2 of the Angiolini review, which will look at this issue more widely, will be able to give us some information as to where we should go next, if at all.
This is a building picture. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that this is a very distressing, alarming and scandalous story that has run for far too many years. We have a duty in this House to try to get to the bottom of what happened and to make changes to ensure that it does not happen again, but that will not be a silver-bullet revelation; it will be a building picture, and this report is part of that. The report informs our work for now, and we will look to the future to see where we go next.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his statement. While an apology is, I am sure, welcomed by the family, perhaps what would be more welcome is steps being taken to prevent this from happening again. Does he accept that there is a duty of care, and will he undertake to implement the necessary changes, which the report highlights in great detail, to ensure that the Met police continues to be a premium police service that is respected globally, as it has been for many years?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Gentleman asks his question very eloquently, and I completely agree with him. My primary concern in this affair is to get justice for the family of Daniel Morgan, who have campaigned for many years on this issue—a truly scandalous story that has involved many of us on both sides of the House. My second concern is to ensure that the Metropolitan police is fit to serve Londoners and that they can have trust in it. As somebody who, I must confess, has great affection for the Met, having worked for it in the past and seen the incredible things of which it is capable, I say to the officers of the Metropolitan police who want to know that they are working for exactly the organisation that the hon. Gentleman describes—one that is deeply respected across the world, not just for its ability to catch every murderer or to stop knife crime in London or to put more rapists behind bars, but for its internal conduct and culture of ethics and integrity—that that is what we have to be about.
Platinum Jubilee: Licensing Hours Extension
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
The Government have consulted on and will be proceeding with the proposal to make a Licensing Hours Order under Section 172 of the Licensing Act 2003 to relax licensing hours in England and Wales to mark the Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and to celebrate the longest reigning Monarch in the United Kingdom.
The Order being laid before the House today will apply to premises already licensed until 11pm for the sale of alcohol for consumption on the premises, for the provision of late-night refreshment (only where there is also the sale of alcohol for consumption on the premises), and for the provision of regulated entertainment in England and Wales. The Order will extend the licensing hours for such premises from 11pm to 1am the following day, on Thursday 2 June, Friday 3 June, and Saturday 4 June.
An Impact Assessment is being prepared and will be published alongside the Order on legislation.gov.uk.
[HCWS701]
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
(Urgent Question) To ask the Secretary of State to make a statement on the recent report concerning the Metropolitan police’s handling of the strip-search of Child Q.
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
The City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership report into the strip-search of a 15-year-old schoolgirl while at school by police officers in 2020 is both troubling and deeply concerning. This experience will have been traumatic for the child involved; the impact on her welfare should not be underestimated.
The Government and the public rightly expect the highest standards from our police officers. The ability of the police to perform their core functions is dependent on their capacity to secure and maintain public confidence and support for their actions. While the Metropolitan police have apologised for their actions and recognised that this incident should never have happened, the force’s culture has again come under scrutiny.
Members of the public must be treated fairly and without prejudice, no matter their race, age or background. Strip-search is one of the most intrusive powers available to the police. The law is very clear that the use of police powers to search must be fair, respectful and without unlawful discrimination. Any use of strip-search should be carried out in accordance with the law and with full regard to the welfare and dignity of the individual being searched, particularly if that individual is a child. If police judge it operationally necessary to strip-search a child, they must do so in the presence of the child’s appropriate adult.
It is the role of the independent police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, to investigate serious matters involving the police, and the IOPC says it has been investigating the actions of the Metropolitan police in this case. We must let the IOPC conclude its work. We will of course expect any findings to be acted on swiftly, but it is vital that we do not prejudge the IOPC’s investigations or prejudice due process, so it would be wrong of me to make any further comment on the case in question at this time.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
They walked into her place of safety at the request of people who were meant to keep her safe, stripped her naked while she was on her period and forced her to remove her sanitary towel, spread her legs, part her buttock cheeks and cough, to look for drugs they never found. We should remember that this comes on top of a string of incidents, from the abuse and strip-search of Dr Duff, the rapist and murderer Wayne Couzens, the vile racism and misogyny uncovered in Charing Cross police station, the brutal handling of the vigil in Clapham Common, and the record low confidence in policing, particularly by minority communities, who are evidenced as being over-policed as citizens and under-policed as victims.
Does the Minister understand that there is no apology that could atone for the perverse racist degradation of this child? Does the Minister accept that this is not an isolated incident—that between 2016 and 2021 the Met carried out over 9,000 strip-searches on children, some younger than 12, and that over 33% of all strip-searches were carried out on black people, despite only 13% of Londoners being black? Given that this happened in a school, what discussions has his Department had with the Department for Education on this serious breach of safeguarding and the questionable presence of police officers in our schools? Will he finally accept that the Met police have an issue with institutional racism and misogyny and take steps to ensure that any new commissioner is committed to rooting it out?
The Minister may be aware that during the statement on the commission on race and ethnic disparities last week, the Minister for Equalities said:
“We have systems in place to ensure that when things go wrong we can right them. What we cannot do is stop any bad thing happening to anyone in the country at any time.”—[Official Report, 17 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 1075.]
I have to ask: what on earth are this Government here for? I simply do not accept that. Finally, in the words of Child Q herself:
“I need to know that the people who have done this to me can’t do it to anyone else ever again”.
Can the Minister assure Child Q and our constituents of that?
Kit Malthouse
As I said earlier, we await the outcome of the investigation, and we will learn whatever lessons need to be learnt from it. While my hon. Friend the Minister for Equalities said that we cannot prevent all bad things from happening, we can try. What is clear from this case is that the complaint mechanism and the safeguarding practices involved did surface the issue and bring it to light, and have allowed us to examine this appalling—[Interruption.] Hold on. They have allowed us to examine this appalling incident in more detail and to try to learn the lessons, so that as—I assume from what she said—Child Q hopes, we are able to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
I have huge admiration for my right hon. Friend, and I know that he takes these things very seriously, but can he understand the revulsion felt by women to hear that a girl has been strip-searched at her school—and had to remove her sanitary towel—by the very people whom we trust to look after us? What action will he take to make it clear that there needs to be cultural change in the Metropolitan police so that no serving constable could ever think that that was an appropriate course of action?
Kit Malthouse
The revulsion is not confined to women. There are many men, including me, who obviously find it a distressing incident to contemplate. I very often find it helpful in these circumstances to put one of my own relatives in a similar situation to bring home the impact. I am not at all denying the fact that it was distressing and appalling and that it should not have happened, as the Metropolitan police have said themselves.
The hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) referred to a number of incidents that have prompted concerns about the culture in the Met, and she, I hope, will be pleased to know that I had a meeting last week with Dame Louise Casey who has obviously been detailed by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to look at the culture across the whole of the Metropolitan police. Her work will dovetail neatly with the work of the Angiolini review, which is looking, in its first stage, at the circumstances surrounding the employment of Wayne Couzens. Following that, stage 2 will look more widely at culture and policing. There is no doubt that there is work to be done here, and we are determined to do that work.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
The Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review published last week, compiled by the extremely highly regarded Jim Gamble, into the case of Child Q was deeply disturbing. The details of the strip-search of a black schoolgirl by the Metropolitan police at a Hackney secondary school in 2020 have horrified us all in a society where we police by consent.
The review concluded that the search was unjustified and that racism was likely to have been a factor. We have heard the details from my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), and I think that everyone will agree that this strip-search should not have happened, that everyone will want to say sorry to Child Q, and that something went terribly wrong. What is so shocking is that the existing guidance and training was so insufficient—so broad, perhaps—and so vague that it did not prevent the strip-search of a child who supposedly smelled of cannabis from happening in this way. I have read the College of Policing guidance and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 on strip-searches, and they are not clear enough. Is the Minister already working on new guidance?
Given that the Met and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services say that the smell of cannabis is not good grounds for a normal stop and search of an adult, will the Minister confirm that the circumstances described in this review should never have happened and that the new guidance will be clear on this point?
Given the serious harm that has occurred in this case, does the Minister agree that we must understand the scale of this issue? Will he therefore commit to publishing the full data on the use of strip-searches of children in our police forces across England and Wales by the end of the week?
The little data that we do have makes very difficult reading. A freedom of information request on strip-searches in the Met over the past five years shows that 33% of all strip-searches were of black people, while black people make up only 11% of the population of Londoners. There are other issues that we will come to when the Independent Office for Police Conduct has passed its report to the Met, the Met has taken any action and the report is finally published. Those issues include: how this case was first referred to social services; why Child Q and her family had to wait so long for answers; and what the role of education policy, guidance and safeguarding is in this. We know that this could be months or years away, so the key point is that there are significant faults that this case has brought to light, in terms of data, guidance and training, which this Government can choose to tackle now if they have the political will to do so.
Kit Malthouse
We obviously take this matter extremely seriously. The hon. Lady is right that the report made recommendations to the Government, not least on strengthening and revising code C of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. We will have to consider our response to that in the light of this report, taking into account the outcomes of the IOPC review. We need to understand whether we have a specific problem or a systemic one. The report indicates that we may have systemic problems, and if we do then obviously we will seek to address them. We also need to work out from the IOPC report whether the same is true; if so, of course we will act.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Does the Minister appreciate how angry people up and down the country are about this incident, particularly people in Hackney? We had a very big demonstration outside Hackney town hall—it was a completely peaceful one, but people were just consumed with unhappiness and anger and fear. It is not just parents of colour; all parents are thinking, “This could have been my daughter.” Is the Minister aware of how traumatised that young woman still is by the incident, and is he aware that it took the police two full years to apologise? What is he going to do? He is telling us about inquiries, but what is he going to do so that at the very least, the instructions and guidelines to the police are much clearer than they currently appear to be?
Kit Malthouse
Of course I understand the anger and concern across the country, and I share it. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), it could have been any one of our relatives. As the right hon. Lady knows, I spent a long time in London government and I understand the impact that these events can have on trust between the police and London’s various communities. It is extremely important that people feel confident that, when such appalling incidents happen, action is taken to try to prevent them in the future. I am trying to stress to the House that, while we have the report of the safeguarding board, we want to ensure that we also have the IOPC report so that we can see the full picture in the round and act accordingly to reassure her constituents and many other Londoners.
It is worth saying, however, that it would be helpful to me if London Members such as the right hon. Lady recognised that the Mayor of London has a role to play in this, as the primary accountability body for the Metropolitan Police, and that the Government and the Mayor must work together to solve these problems with the police.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I am sorry, but I feel as if we have woken the Minister from an afternoon nap to come in and make this statement. There is a distinct lack of urgency in his approach. It is quite clear that there are areas where the Government can act now. Why is he not coming to this House to explain to us exactly what he is going to do, rather than taking this “wait and see” attitude?
Kit Malthouse
As I have already said, there is a process under way through the IOPC. That process will, I hope, conclude shortly and the IOPC will bring us the evidence of the report. It is an independent organisation—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) is barracking me from a seated position, but I do not think she is participating in the urgent question. The point is that the IOPC is an independent organisation, and she will know that it would be completely incorrect for me to put any kind of pressure on its investigation. That process must complete. When it does, we will have the full picture and, if we are required to act, have no doubt that we will act swiftly.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Last week I raised the issue of Child Q with the Minister for Equalities, the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch). I told her of my disgust that a child experienced being stripped of her clothes and searched at school by police officers while she was menstruating. It is beyond belief that she was pulled out of an exam and then expected to be fit and well enough to return to that exam. I am outraged by that, as are other hon. Members of this House. I am pleased that the Minister has said he is disgusted and appalled, but does he agree that the officers and teachers involved should be sacked and charged for their misconduct and that, as a matter of safeguarding, they should never be allowed to work with children again?
Kit Malthouse
Those are conclusions, I am afraid, for the IOPC. Much as I know the House would love me to do so, I cannot circumvent that quasi-judicial process. The IOPC is independent for a reason; the office of constable is dealt with in a different way from other matters of employment. Once it concludes, we will be able to draw conclusions ourselves.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Like many people across London and this country, I am utterly appalled and disgusted by this case, not least as the mother of a young daughter. I cannot begin to conceive of what that young woman went through and how furious her family must be. I am not sure I could be held responsible for my actions if I were her mother, to be honest. The Minister has talked about the IOPC review and there have been calls for guidance to be reviewed. In the meantime, has he spoken to every single police chief in the country and asked for a guarantee that no other child will be subjected to such mistreatment in future?
Kit Malthouse
Obviously I have not spoken to every other police chief in the country, since the report came out just a few days ago. As I say, we will eagerly await the IOPC report to establish whether we have a specific problem or a systemic problem. The initial reports of the local child safeguarding practice review are telling us that we may have a systemic problem. If we do, then we will act on it accordingly. Please believe me when I say that the impact of this on any family would be profound. Some of us have children too. Those children may, in time, be subject to something like this, and I hope we are able to prevent that from happening.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I think we all recognise that the Minister is waiting for the IOPC report. However, he says that this could have happened to any child and that he thinks of his own relatives. The brutal, difficult truth that many of my constituents have raised with me over the weekend is that it is not likely to have happened to any of his relatives or our relatives—it is young black girls who have read this story and are horrified by it, and who need us to recognise explicitly the disproportionality in how the police work with them.
I hope the Minister can help to answer the question that my constituents have been asking, because they have looked at the data, especially on families of colour in my community, and they can see that strip-searching of children is not a one-off. So will he, ahead of the IOPC report, publish the data about the numbers of strip-searches that have taken place, by borough command unit and by ethnicity, and confirm that if it ever comes to this exceptional circumstance—I think we would all agree that it should be exceptional that a child should be strip-searched, not a matter of course—a parent or carer will always be present? He could do that today. He could start recovering the trust that has been so lost. He could start by being honest that communities of colour in London are looking at and questioning the police. The data is the first point in getting this right. Will he publish—yes or no?
Kit Malthouse
If a strip-search is deemed necessary to be undertaken on a child, then an appropriate adult, whether a parent or otherwise, has to be present. [Interruption.] Indeed, they were not in this case, and the question we have to ask ourselves is why—what went wrong? Why did the officers do what they did? Why did they decide to have two present? What were they doing? We will know that from the IOPC report. Once we have that, as I say, we will have the full picture and we will be able to look at it accordingly.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
In 2019, Cressida Dick said that police officers should be
“embedded in the DNA of schools”,
and we have seen how that massively failed Child Q in this disgusting case. How far has the search for Cressida Dick’s replacement gone? We have heard that she is clinging on, haggling over her settlement. The Minister blamed Sadiq Khan. Could there be additional safeguards for Parliament in this process? The Met’s workload is of national significance; it is not just a normal police force. Could we have an urgent review of the boundaries of cops in schools?
Kit Malthouse
I did not blame the Mayor of London—I just pointed out that he has as much influence, if not more, over the Metropolitan police than we do. I was the deputy Mayor for policing. If this had happened under me, I would have taken responsibility for it and tried to sort it out myself. I am just saying that the Government and City Hall will have a duty to work together on this issue.
As for police officers’ involvement in schools, it is, I am afraid, a source of great sadness that it is necessary for police officers to be involved in and around schools, but we have found over the years that such is the problem with youth violence and youth crime, particularly in the capital, that creating a good relationship with young people through the police’s involvement in schools is critical to success, and where it works, it can be of enormous benefit to their safety.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I start by saying that it is incredibly disappointing that the Home Secretary could not be here to respond to this urgent question on an urgent matter.
The police tell us that if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear, but everybody should fear the degrading and traumatising treatment that Child Q suffered when she was strip-searched by the Metropolitan police. More than four children a day are subject to that treatment by the Met, and black people are strip-searched at six times the rate of white people. How does the Minister expect to build trust and confidence in a force that is rife with institutional racism and misogyny when it victimises black children on a daily basis? If his Government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities does not admit the existence of institutional and structural racism, how on earth can we put any trust in the Government?
Kit Malthouse
I refute the hon. Lady’s claim that the Metropolitan police victimises young black people on a daily basis. I have spent many hours with it over the years watching men and women of all types and races in uniform doing their best to save young people’s lives. Although I am often challenged about the disproportionality of things such as stop and search, in two and a bit years of doing this job, I have never been challenged in this Chamber on the disproportionality of victimhood and the sadly far too great number of young black people who die on the streets of London. As I said, we need to understand from each of these instances whether we have a systemic or a specific problem. I understand the House’s impatience, but we will know once the IOPC concludes.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
We have all been horrified by this case. We need assurances that it cannot happen again and we need urgent action from the Minister to address the issue. He says that he is waiting for the IOPC. As he knows, the national safeguarding panel is a ministerially appointed body. Will he stop ducking his responsibilities and urgently publish the data on how many children have been strip-searched over the years, breaking it down by gender, race, age and location of the search, including whether it happened at school? The safeguarding review also demonstrated that there were elements of racism involved, so can he urgently look into that issue, because it needs to be taken seriously?
Kit Malthouse
As I said, we do take the issue extremely seriously. The matter of strip-search in particular, and the disparity in strip-search, has been of concern for some time. That is why we have an initiative on in Norfolk and Suffolk police where we have a strip-search scrutiny panel to look at the disparity there. Similarly, in Thames Valley police, we have put agencies together to examine police custody and strip-search disparities there. There is work under way—the hon. Lady should be reassured by that—but we will know more once the reports have concluded.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
It is more than two decades since the Macpherson inquiry found institutional racism in the Metropolitan police. We now look at the figures on stop and search and we hear the awful story of this young girl and the way she was treated. Does the Minister accept that something has to happen now to give any confidence to the black community in London that its sons and daughters will not be treated in that way on the streets, and that the police will not behave with a racist attitude towards them and will not point to a young black person and see a potential criminal rather than a young person walking around the streets of our city? The confidence is not there, and that is made worse by the report, by the delay in an apology for this poor young woman and by the abominable way that she was treated.
Kit Malthouse
In my view, the vast majority of interactions between the Metropolitan police and members of the black community go well and are of benefit. There are, however, many—too many—that do not, and that is an area of work that requires constant attention. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the Metropolitan police is subject to the Casey review of its culture at the moment. It is working hard, again, as part of the police uplift to change the look and feel of the workforce, with ambitious targets to recruit people of different genders and different ethnicities into the force so that it better reflects the people of London and can better serve them as a result.
On a national level, the National Police Chiefs’ Council is similarly in the process of developing a race action plan to do the same and to deal with some of these issues. This area has been a challenge for policing in London—certainly throughout the right hon. Gentleman’s political career, as it has throughout mine—and it is one that requires constant attention from all of us, driven both by the thematic problems we see, but also by some of these specific incidents. Where we do have these specific incidents, it is incumbent on us to make sure we have the knowledge and the detail, so that we can make the right decisions to make a big difference for London’s communities.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Speaker:
“I can’t go a single day without wanting to scream, shout…or just give up.”
That is child Q, and I say to child Q and every other little black girl, “You matter.” In eight years’ time, when my daughter is 15 years old, I hope this issue is not still happening, but I am worried that it will be. The local safeguarding practice review found that child Q’s mother was not contacted, and she only found out when her child took a taxi home. Once at home, child Q’s mother had to take her to the GP who made a referral for psychological help due to her child’s level of distress. The Minister has outlined that he is waiting for the IOPC report, but does he agree with me that there are clear safeguarding issues in the treatment of child Q and the lack of parental engagement, and that he can take steps today to help address this and give confidence to little girls not just across London, but up and down the country?
Kit Malthouse
I completely agree with the hon. Lady that there are implications for safeguarding, and I know but will reassure myself that my ministerial colleagues at the Department for Education are taking it as seriously as we are. As I say, from a policing point of view we have to wait for the IOPC to come to a conclusion, but on the overall safeguarding, the panel obviously did its work, the review has produced a report and I will make sure that Ministers at the appropriate Department are taking action as well.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The bad apple defence or the isolated incident excuse will no longer wash. Our constituents are no longer able to trust the police, including constituents such as Teresa Akpeki, whose brother was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. The police, when they attended the body—this was an NHS worker collecting samples—did not reach into his pocket to find his ID card, but phoned the Home Office to find out whether he was an illegal immigrant, because he was black. The Minister now needs to launch an inquiry into the way in which the Metropolitan police is dealing with ethnic communities, and if he fails to do that, the confidence of our communities in the police up and down this country is going to be rock bottom.
Kit Malthouse
As I outlined earlier, there are already two inquiries into the culture of the Metropolitan police in all its aspects—by Dame Louise Casey, who I know will do a thorough job, and following that, part 2 of the Angiolini review—but I would ask the hon. Gentleman to take care. There are 30,000-odd police officers in the Metropolitan police, the vast majority of whom are doing an extraordinary job and doing amazing things on a daily basis to keep us all safe from harm, and they deserve our thanks for doing that. They will be as outraged as we are at this event, and we need to learn the lessons on their behalf as well as on behalf of the Londoners we serve.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The disgraceful, abhorrent, sickening strip-search of child Q took place two years ago, yet the Minister stands at the Dispatch Box today and speaks about the processes around the investigation as if this is a system working as it should. It is not. The constant delay in the outcomes of such investigations is a part of the structural denial of justice to complainants against the Metropolitan police. Can the Minister tell the House when he first became aware of the case of child Q and what action he took immediately to safeguard children in London, and does he have no concern at all about the time it takes complaints such as this to conclude and be resolved?
Kit Malthouse
Of course we are concerned about the time it takes for complaints to be dealt with, which is why we changed the IOPC regulations at the end of 2019 to compel speedy investigations. It is the case now that if any investigation is going to take longer than 12 months, the IOPC must write to the appropriate authority—me or, for example, the Mayor of London—to explain why. The director general of the IOPC has done an outstanding job in driving the workload down and bringing more investigations in under 12 months, but there is obviously still a lot more work to do.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
This is a deeply disturbing case both in terms of what happened and the fact that racism was clearly a factor, but may I ask the Minister how it came to light? According to the independent safeguarding report, Hackney Council only became aware of the incident when the family approached a GP; given that this happened two years ago, why is it not automatically the case that when a child is strip-searched social services are notified and a safeguarding review is triggered?
Kit Malthouse
That is one of the questions the investigations will answer. It is my understanding that this issue was referred to the IOPC by the Metropolitan police from a policing point of view, but I agree that it would be of interest to know why it took so long to appear through the local safeguarding structure and I undertake to find out for the hon. Gentleman.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
This appalling act of institutionalised degradation was committed against a black child and the report highlights the racism inherent in the adultification of black children. Does the Minister understand that seeing black children as adults is, just like seeing black men as more likely to be criminal or seeing black women as more likely to be troublesome, part of institutionalised, systemic anti-black racism and his inability to say what he is going to do about it says that he is prepared to continue to tolerate it. Does he also understand that we can never have trust in our policing services with a Minister who is unable to say anything?
Kit Malthouse
I think that is grossly unfair when the hon. Lady knows that I am bound by due process not to comment on an ongoing investigation by the IOPC. When that investigation is concluded we will have plenty to say, fear not. I have spent lots of time dealing with crime and social policy issues in the capital so I am sensitised to the issues the hon. Lady raises; I do recognise them and have done, I like to think, quite a lot of work on them in the past.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
The shocking, scandalous strip-search of child Q is so demeaning; how could those Met police officers and the school have thought that such a horrible action could be even remotely acceptable? This could have happened to any one of our children—or could it? I ask that because the statistics tell a very different story, and indeed the safeguarding review revealed that racism could well have been an influencing factor in the decisions taken. Given that, what is the Minister doing to urgently take action on this?
Kit Malthouse
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answers I gave earlier, and we will know these things when the IOPC concludes, which I hope it will shortly.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
In the past three years Metropolitan police officers have been jailed for posing for selfies next to the bodies of black murdered sisters, a serving officer has been found guilty of Sarah Everard’s horrific murder, racist, sexist and homophobic messages between officers have been dismissed as “banter” internally only to have been described as “shocking” by the independent watchdog, and now we learn that Met officers strip-searched a 15-year-old black child at her school, inflicting trauma that will last for years to come. This is obviously not about blaming every single officer, but will the Minister accept that this is not just a few bad apples but reveals a deeper problem of institutional racism and misogyny at the Me? Will the Minister finally answer, rather than just leave, a question that has been asked three times: when did he find out about the case of child Q?
Kit Malthouse
We obviously accept that there is an issue to be addressed, which is why we commissioned the Angiolini review and why we are supporting Dame Louise Casey.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
The Minister started by saying this incident was very troubling and concerning, but I would have to say it goes well beyond troubling and concerning: it was dehumanising a young black girl, who was strip-searched by Met police officers. What is the Minister going to do about the state sanctioning abuse of black children, who are treated like adults in our schools?
Kit Malthouse
I understand the hon. Lady’s anger at this incident; I really do. It is a dreadful incident, and I would much rather not be standing here having to answer these kinds of questions, because I would rather these incidents did not occur in the first place. I will say to her what I have said to everybody else: we will know more when the IOPC concludes. While I understand the House’s impatience and anger, the police officers concerned have a right to due process and we have a duty to wait for the report so that we can see properly the evidence of what happened and then take action accordingly.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) for bringing the urgent question forward. This serious incident has undoubtedly sent shockwaves to every parent and grandparent in this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Does the Minister not agree that there must be safeguarding in place to protect the child as well as the police officers? If we do not robustly enforce protections to the very highest standards, the hardest questions must be answered by those in the highest positions within the police as, ultimately, the buck stops with them.
Kit Malthouse
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is quite right that we should expect and work for the highest possible standards. This young person, Child Q, has been through a dreadful, traumatic episode, which I am sure will live with her, sadly, for many years. We need to do our best to make sure that these kinds of incidents do not reoccur, and that is the best we can do. The hon. Gentleman has my undertaking that as soon as we have the full picture, that is exactly what we will do.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
It is important that the services that the police provide, whether digitally or face to face, are all accessible, so that everyone can come forward to report crime and interact with police officers in any way that suits their requirements. We are committed to giving the police the resources they need to fight crime and keep the public safe. That is why policing will receive up to £16,900 million in the coming financial year.
Justin Madders
Does the Minister agree that the police and crime commissioner for Cheshire needs to reconsider his priorities when he is talking about closing down Ellesmere Port police station to the public and getting rid of 40 police community support officers while, at the same time, giving his deputy a 33% pay rise despite their having been in the post for five months?
Kit Malthouse
As I understand it, there is a consultation ongoing about how the Cheshire police should interact with the public they serve. I would hate to jump to any conclusion about what may or may not be decided, but, Mr Speaker, you will be aware that all police and crime commissioners should be reviewing their property strategy in the light of the massive expansion in police officer numbers that they are seeing at the moment, to the extent that, in the next 12 months or so, we expect to see the highest number of police officers that the country has ever seen.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
We are working with police and manufacturers through the national vehicle crime working group to tackle the theft of catalytic converters.
Sir Robert Neill
In many areas of the country, crime is going down. It is going down in many areas in Bromley and Chislehurst, but one area where it is not is the explosion in catalytic converter thefts in my constituency. Ours has been identified by the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead as one of the highest areas for this crime. These are not opportunistic thefts. Does my right hon. Friend agree that these are thefts by organised crime gangs seeking valuable metals that are sold for considerable amounts of money—platinum and palladium—carried out by men armed with baseball bats, threatening violence? Will he ensure that much greater priority is given to this crime and that we clamp down on the handlers of these stolen goods by greater enforcement of the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend, with his usual acuity, has put his finger on the button of this issue. It is cause for significant concern in parts of the country, and he is right that it is a product of prices in the metal market. He will be pleased to hear that just this month the British Transport Police co-ordinated a national week of intensification on acquisitive crime, looking particularly at catalytic converters, and that the work we have done on scrap metal dealers will go some way to dealing with the problem. However, we need to work much more closely with manufacturers to ensure that they do as much as they can to design out the theft of converters. Let us hope that in the years to come, as we all convert to electric vehicles, it will become a problem of the past.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I am more than happy to lavish praise on North Wales police, which does a fantastic job along the coast there, as do all our police officers up and down the country. I am pleased to say that we are making enormous progress on our recruitment programme. As I hope my hon. Friend knows, we are well over 11,000 now, and I expect to hit the 20,000 target shortly.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
Jo, a constituent, came to Britain in 2001 and served for five years in the Army, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he developed post-traumatic stress disorder. He served time for drink-driving offences, but he sought help for PTSD, stopped drinking and rebuilt his life. He now has two children in Coventry and no connections in Zimbabwe, his birthplace, where he was tortured the last time he was there. However, on Wednesday Jo is set to be deported to Zimbabwe, and I have had no reply from the Minister to my urgent correspondence on this case. So will the Home Secretary step in and stop Jo being deported from the country he has served and where his family lives to a place where he will be at risk of torture?
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
Kit Malthouse
I have committed before, and I am happy to do so again, that before the end of the Parliament we will produce a new funding formula to ensure that my hon. Friend’s constituency gets exactly what he deserves, as indeed he should.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Does the Home Secretary accept that many Members of this House are dismayed that she did not make a statement in the normal way, so that she could have been questioned in the normal way? Does she further accept that that is not just disrespectful to the House of Commons, but it shows a lack of real concern for those desperate people escaping Ukraine?
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
Another young life has been tragically lost to a knife in Milton Keynes. Does the Minister agree that as well as record numbers of police on the streets, the courts and the Crown Prosecution Service need to work with the police to ensure that there are real deterrents to carrying a knife on our streets?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is right, and I am very sorry to hear of the crime that took place in his constituency. As he will know, the fight against knife crime is at the forefront of the Government’s priorities, and as he said, alongside deterrent sentencing and assertive and extensive policing, we need to work on long-term solutions to turn young people’s lives away from crime. I am pleased that I was able to visit the Thames Valley violence reduction unit last year to look at the extensive work it is doing to put in place exactly those kind of programmes.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
The Government are proposing a total police funding settlement approaching £17,000 million in 2022-23, an increase of up to £1,100 million compared with this year. Assuming full take-up of precept flexibility, overall police funding available to police and crime commissioners will increase by a whopping £796 million next year.
Peter Gibson
Although Darlington has received almost £1 million in safer streets funding, off-road biking continues to be an antisocial behaviour problem causing crime in my constituency. Will the Minister meet me to discuss what more can be done to tackle this?
Kit Malthouse
I am pleased to hear that that substantial award from the safer streets fund is making a difference in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and of course I would be more than happy to meet him to talk about how we can better fight crime in his patch.
Alun Cairns
Vale of Glamorgan, like many rural areas, experiences horrendous animal welfare incidents, from illegal dog breeding and hare coursing to fly-grazing and horse neglect. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Chief Inspector Rees and her team of officers on how they have used the additional resources that have been made available to combat some of the worst crimes we could possibly imagine?
Kit Malthouse
I am more than happy to join my right hon. Friend in congratulating his local police force on their work in this area, and I am pleased to hear that his non-human constituents are as important to him as the human ones. He will be aware that some of these truly appalling crimes need to be addressed much more assertively, and I hope he has noticed that, in the Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Bill, we are tabling amendments specifically on hare coursing, which will help to fight that awful crime.
Andy Carter
Bearing in mind the security statement coming after this question session, will my right hon. Friend assure me that he is working with both law enforcement and security services to understand what more can be done to increase capacity to counter hostile activity that has the potential to damage democracy but operates below the legal threshold?
Kit Malthouse
I know this is a matter of concern to the whole House, which I know is to be addressed by the Home Secretary shortly. As I hope my hon. Friend knows, police capacity—that relates specifically to the question—has been increased not just in territorial policing but in other arms of policing, recognising as we do that, while it is important to fight crime on the ground in all our constituencies, it is also important to fight it there as well.
Saqib Bhatti
I am pleased that the Government are well on their way to delivering on their pledge to deliver 20,000 police officers, 867 of whom are in the west midlands, but does my right hon. Friend agree that the decision by the Labour police and crime commissioner to close Solihull police station goes a long way to undermining safety and security for my constituents in the north and the south of my constituency?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend will know that there was a passionate Adjournment debate just the other night to discuss issues in west midlands policing. As I said during that debate, it is strange that at a time of unprecedented expansion in UK policing, the impression is being given, in his constituency and elsewhere, of a retreat. I was in the west midlands on Thursday and I know that the chief constable and others are working hard to get on top, but I would hope that in the light of the expansion of policing in my hon. Friend’s part of the world, their property strategy would be reviewed again.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Workers in local food shops in Cambridge have had a tough time in recent years, facing organised shoplifting and threats of violence. It took the intervention of E. J. Matthews, a notable PC, to help to sort that out, but they are now facing organised ramraids. What resources can be made available to Cambridgeshire police to tackle this awful crime?
Kit Malthouse
As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, Cambridgeshire police has expanded quite significantly, in terms of pure police numbers, over the past couple of years, but I hope he will also have noticed the work that is being done by the national retail crime steering group, which I chair, to look specifically at crime in this area. Given what he has mentioned about ramraiding in his constituency, I will go away and look at whether a pattern is emerging across the east of England and hope that I can encourage the police to address it.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Minister has just said that there is an unprecedented expansion, but back in the real world, antisocial behaviour increased by 7% last year: it is a growing problem across so many communities in my constituency and around the country. Although the new officers are beginning to come on-stream, does he even begin to understand the damage that the cuts not only to police numbers but to services such as youth services have done to communities like the ones I represent?
Kit Malthouse
Year on year, last year and the year before, we actually saw a fall in police-recorded incidents of antisocial behaviour, but we have seen fluctuations in that crime type over the past few months as the variations in covid lockdown regulations have changed. We are keeping a close eye on it. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that in our “Beating crime plan”, published in July last year, we encouraged police and crime commissioners—I hope he will encourage his to do this as well—to form their own antisocial behaviour taskforces so that they can really pinpoint and address this most local of crime problems very effectively.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The Minister will be aware that proper community policing is vital for preventing crime and saving lives, yet across London, since the Prime Minister was Mayor, we have seen community policing slashed, and in Richmond borough, in particular, we see our officers routinely extracted to other events. Yet in the same period knife crime has doubled. He will be aware that in September there was the fatal and brutal stabbing of an 18-year-old Afghan refugee and college student in Twickenham. So when will we see a boost to community policing in the Twickenham constituency and across Richmond borough, as this Government have promised us so many extra police officer numbers since 2019?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady is stretching it a bit to say that crime over the past three or four years was the fault of the previous Mayor, who has not been in office for some time; she may not have noticed. It is hard to notice who is in office in London at the moment. Nevertheless, I hope she will welcome the recent decision by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to reinstitute neighbourhood policing, and that she will see the extra numbers of police officers—many hundreds—that have now been recruited in London appearing in her constituency soon.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Current recruitment is welcome, of course, but will the Minister at least acknowledge and be honest with the House that there are 24,000 fewer police officers, police community support officers and staff in the police workforce since 2010 because of this Government’s cuts, and that has a real impact?
Kit Malthouse
I will certainly acknowledge that police numbers fell post the 2010 election, but only as long as the hon. Lady acknowledges that her party crashed the economy, causing us to make much-needed and very vital economies in our national spending. If we had not undertaken those economies, God knows what financial state we would have been in now, following what we have had to do during the pandemic.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
The great town of Tunstall sadly missed out on its recent safer streets fund bid. Analysis from Staffordshire police and Stoke-on-Trent City Council shows that we suffer disproportionately from more burglary, aggressive begging and feral youths committing antisocial behaviour, so we want to see improved lighting, CCTV extended and gates for alleyways. Will my hon. Friend agree to meet me so that he can hear about this bid and why the great town of Tunstall deserves this investment?
Kit Malthouse
I am certainly happy to meet my hon. Friend. We will see future rounds of the safer streets fund, and I hope his police and crime commissioner and his local authority will make a bid. I will be more than happy to meet him, not least because the commitment and conviction he shows should be at the forefront of their bid to convince us all to fund this.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
The decisions on how to use funding and resources are operational matters for chief constables, working with their democratically elected police and crime commissioners. They are best placed to make these decisions within their communities, based on their knowledge and experience, including decisions about the right balance of their workforce.
Mohammad Yasin
Our Conservative police and crime commissioner was elected on a platform to fix the unfair funding formula for Bedfordshire police, but his solution to raise much-needed funding to put more police on our streets is to raise local council tax. With two large towns and an international airport, Bedfordshire police should not be funded as a rural force. Will the Minister give our force the resources it needs before expecting my constituents to pay more?
Kit Malthouse
Obviously the Bedfordshire police and crime commissioner is doing a fantastic job. He won a resounding victory in the recent election, and I know he continues to enjoy significant support in that county. As I hope the hon. Gentleman has heard me say in the past, we are committed to coming up with a new funding formula for policing. The formula we use at the moment is a little bit elderly and creaky. He will be pleased to hear that I had a meeting just this morning with the chair of the new technical body that is putting that work together. We hope to be able to run the formula before the next election.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
The Minister has brushed off criticisms from the Labour Benches, but is he aware of the disquiet on his own Benches? Only last week, Conservative MPs lined up in Westminster Hall to describe a broken system that is
“stacked in favour of the perpetrators rather than the victims.”—[Official Report, 12 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 258WH.]
One said:
“Across the UK there are people afraid to leave their homes after dark, scared to go to the shops…That cannot go on…The police quite simply do not have the powers or resources.”—[Official Report, 12 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 257-8WH.]
We agree. That is why neighbourhood policing is at the heart of our new proposals. We will put a police hub in every new community, create neighbourhood prevention teams and fund a next generation of neighbourhood watch. I wonder whether the Minister has anything new to say to his own disaffected Back Benchers, or is crime simply not “red meat” enough for the “big dog”?
Kit Malthouse
Hilarious. I understand the hon. Lady is playing catch-up on policing, and she may have missed the 11,000 police officers we have recruited so far. She may have missed the significant falls in knife crime, acquisitive crime and all neighbourhood-type crimes, as we have seen recently. Policing and fighting crime are a challenge, as I know more than most. It is always two steps forward, one step back. It is right that hon. Members on all sides should be anxious and concerned about crime in their constituencies, but that is why we are recruiting 20,000 police officers, why the Prime Minister has made crime a priority and why he wants to roll up county lines and deal with youth violence. This is a fight that we can win, but over time. While we are having some success as it stands, there is always much more to do.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
Like my hon. Friend, I have seen a rise in that kind of offence in my constituency. As the crops are cut and those animals become more apparent, it obviously becomes more of a problem. As I said earlier, I hope that he will see that in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which I hope the whole House will support, we are introducing a range of offences to deal with that crime which, for the first time, will attract a prison sentence of up to six months.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)
Kit Malthouse
It must be hard for everybody to imagine what kind of twisted mind would think it was a good thing to do to break or steal a defibrillator, and I would be more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to examine the problem in his constituency and, indeed, to see if it is a problem elsewhere.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I am sure you agree with me, Mr Speaker, that special constables are among the most remarkable citizens in the land. We are bringing forward legislation to enable them to become members of the Police Federation, so that they can access the same support and protection as regular officers. We will also be introducing the police covenant in legislation shortly to ensure further support and protection for the police workforce, including special constables.
Siobhan Baillie
I thank the Minister for his answer. Special constables are often on shift during the busiest periods, as they tend to volunteer at weekends and in the evenings, and as a result are exposed to quite high levels of trauma. I give credit to the Stroud special constables, and ask what my right hon. Friend is doing specifically and actively to support their training for and meet the mental health needs of their unique roles?
Kit Malthouse
I am grateful for the fact that the welfare of this special—in every sense of the word—group of people is at the forefront of my hon. Friend’s mind. She will be pleased to know that the Government continue to fund the national police wellbeing service, which provides support and particularly post-traumatic incident services to all police officers, including special constables. As I said in the earlier part of my answer, there is more that can be done, and by making sure that all special constables are full members of the Police Federation, they will be able to access the significant support that that organisation can provide.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
The Prime Minister issued an instruction that we should roll up county lines, and that is exactly what we have been doing for the last two years. Since 2019, we have invested over £65 million, including over £40 million committed this year. This has already resulted in the closure of more than 1,500 lines, over 7,400 arrests and the safeguarding of more than 4,000 vulnerable adults and children.
Cherilyn Mackrory
I thank the Minister for his answer. I was very pleased, recently, that a county lines dealer who had been flooding towns across Cornwall, including Truro, with drugs was jailed for five and a half years. There is a lot more to do in Cornwall, because we are seeing an increase in the impact of county lines drugs activity and all the crimes that go with it. Can the Minister confirm that the Government are aware of the issues in Cornwall and assure me that they are committed to working with our brilliant police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez, and the six Cornish MPs to address the continued problems, in particular how the Government can support the wider roll-out of Project ADDER?
Kit Malthouse
I am focused on the impact of drugs across the whole country, and particularly in areas such as Devon and Cornwall, where I know the chief constable, and Alison Hernandez, the police and crime commissioner, have been doing an enormous amount of work. This problem is so prevalent across the United Kingdom that every part has to work together, and I am pleased that Devon and Cornwall Police have been working closely, particularly with the Metropolitan Police and Merseyside Police, which are the two key exporting forces for drugs into my hon. Friend’s area. She might be interested to know that recently the British Transport Police, which plays a critical part in gripping the network that distributes the drugs, conducted a fixed-point pilot at Basingstoke Station. It intercepted drugs that were heading towards her constituency, and I hope she will soon feel the effects of that.
Danny Kruger
May I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory)? There have been very successful disruptions to county lines in my Wiltshire constituency, and I pay tribute to Philip Wilkinson, the police and crime commissioner, and to Wiltshire Police. It is great that they can work in partnership with all the Conservative PCCs across our region, and with the Government. The challenge now is to move one level down, below the cities to the market towns and rural areas, which is where the problem with drugs really manifests itself in my area. Will the Minister continue the efforts on county lines, and ensure real support for local efforts at disruption, not just at regional level?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is exactly right, and as my constituency neighbour he feels the same impact on our rural towns and villages as I do. He is right: as I said earlier, this is such a comprehensive problem that market towns and villages must work with large urban areas, and we have to grip the transport network in between. Particularly key is that we aim to take out those who perpetrate this “business” while sitting in the comfort of their homes in a city. The great development in our effort against county lines has been the ability of the police in Liverpool, west midlands and London—the three big exporting areas—to find those guys and take them out.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There should be no room for confusion in people’s minds: drugs are bad in all their forms, and this Government will do everything we can to restrict supply and deal with demand.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thames-mead) (Lab)
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is right, and he will know that through the Uplift programme we are pushing hard to increase the diversity of UK policing so that the police force looks like the population whom it seeks to protect and represent. We have instituted a review of vetting across policing and, indeed, wider work on police integrity generally, but we are also talking to police leaders about the signal that they send internally within the force to create a culture that inspires trust and a sense of integrity in the British people. I should add that it is important that the police fulfil the basic expectations of every single subject in this land, and in doing so inspire the trust that my hon. Friend seeks.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I start by associating myself with the remarks of the Home Secretary on James Brokenshire, who I worked with over the last 15 years on all manner of subjects. He was a lovely man and a pleasure to know.
It is poignant to realise that Sir David would have spotted the subject of these two questions and, given his long interest in animal welfare, should in any just world be bobbing behind me now to ask a question.
Stealing a pet from its loving owner is a particularly cruel crime, causing heartbreak for the family and great distress to the pet. The Home Office is working with the police to ensure that pet thefts are recorded in a consistent manner and are readily identifiable within the information management systems of forces across England and Wales. The pet theft taskforce has recently made a series of recommendations, which we are considering, and we will introduce a new criminal offence of pet abduction.
Julian Sturdy
I add my tribute to Sir David. As the Minister said, he dedicated his career to better animal welfare. This topic was very close to Sir David’s heart, and I know he had been lobbying the Minister very hard on it.
As we continue to see a rise in pet thefts by criminal gangs who use the proceeds to fund further criminal activity, does the Minister agree that we have to bring forward legislation on this as quickly as possible? We cannot delay any further. Can he give a clear timescale for when we can vote on that important legislation in this House?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is right that, unfortunately, one of the effects of the pandemic, and particularly of the rise in the value of pets, particularly dogs and cats that are happily in demand by many families who look to them for companionship, has been a criminal phenomenon that we need to address. The taskforce has made a number of recommendations and, although I cannot give him an absolute timetable today, he has our undertaking that we are keen to move as swiftly as possible to give him the opportunity to put this offence on the statute book.
Simon Baynes
Like other hon. Members here, I am honoured to ask this question in memory of Sir David. I met local residents concerned about pet theft recently, in Hanmer, in my constituency. What message would the Minister give to those constituents, who have been worried about this issue locally?
Kit Malthouse
It is typical of my hon. Friend that he would gather his constituents together to give voice to their concern in this area. The message I would give them is that we recognise their distress and concern. As dog and cat owners ourselves, it is inconceivable to us that our pets might be stolen; the damage and trauma that would be caused to my family if that awful event were to happen is keenly in our minds. The policy development work on this offence has begun. As I said earlier, we hope to bring legislation forward as quickly as possible, so that he and the many other Members who are very interested in this subject and recognise the distress that has been caused in communities up and down the land by this crime can exercise their free democratic will and put the offence on the statute book.
Mr Speaker
I call Ian Paisley. He is not here. I call Crispin Blunt.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
We currently have no plans to reschedule psilocybin to schedule 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has recently published stage 1 of its advice on reducing barriers to research on controlled drugs. We will consider the advice, including its implications for psilocybin, carefully before responding.
Crispin Blunt
Does my right hon. Friend understand the emerging potential of the psychedelic class of drugs, with psilocybin to the fore, to treat depression, trauma and addiction? Some of this science was emerging in the 1960s, before our current drugs laws closed it down. In 2019, 90,503 of our fellow citizens were driven to suicide by their depression or trauma, or their rock-bottom in addiction has been death. If there is any scale of potential for these drugs, and it appears that there is, any further delay in getting the science and research going is not defensible—in fact, it is a morally disgraceful abrogation of our duty to the public good.
Kit Malthouse
As a founder of the all-party group on life sciences, I am well aware of the potential of any number of compounds to assist us in the constant battle against mental and physical illness, and of the need for this country to lead in research that might alleviate the problem, not just here, but in the rest of the world. My hon. Friend will know that we reschedule particular compounds where medicines are approved on the advice of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and of the ACMD. He will know that, for example, in June last year we placed Epidyolex, a cannabis-based medicine used to treat certain forms of epilepsy, in schedule 5 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations, following exactly that sort of advice. There are ongoing trials and research studies into psilocybin taking place in the UK; a medicine has yet to be licensed by the MHRA, but if and when one is, we will consider rescheduling.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
To catch up on what was said there, can the Minister tell me on what research the UK Government are basing this current policy on psilocybin? Can that research be made available?
Kit Malthouse
The research is being undertaken in a number of academic institutions, as far as I am aware. I am happy to dig out the detail of where specifically this is being researched—I do not have it to hand. It is worth reinforcing the point that the process for the rescheduling of compounds is that approval is given for a medicine by the MHRA, and advice is then taken from the ACMD as to the rescheduling, as we did with Epidyolex. As soon as those medicines are approved by the MHRA for use, I would be happy to consider rescheduling.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
No illicit drug can be assumed to be safe.
Kerry McCarthy
I echo the tributes to Sir Davis Amess and James Brokenshire, and send my commiserations to their friends and families.
Over a single weekend in Bristol this summer, one young person died and 20 others were hospitalised, leading to police warnings about a lethal batch of pills circulating in the city. It just is not enough for the Government to say, “Don’t do drugs”; that clearly does not work. Will the Government work with organisations such as The Loop, which provides testing, or provide their own drugs testing service as the Welsh Government have been doing since 2014? That is the only way that they are going to save lives.
Kit Malthouse
We are obviously all distressed to hear the news from Bristol. Any life lost to drugs is obviously to be mourned. Anyone interested in lawfully undertaking activities that include the possession, supply or production of controlled drugs, including through the course of drug testing services, can already apply to the Home Office for a domestic licence, and they will be subject to the usual visits and considerations about the activities that they undertake. I understand the hon. Lady’s implication that we should look at this subject in the round. It is our hope that we will publish later this year a comprehensive, cross-Government strategy on drugs in the round, including on their impact and what we can do about them.
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I commend my hon. Friend for engaging with his constituents on what, very often, is easily the closest subject to all of our constituents’ hearts. He will be pleased to hear that we are now approaching the halfway mark on our 20,000 extra police officers, which obviously represents a gross recruitment of something over 20,000. I hope that he will feel the effect of the now well over 100 police officers recruited by Derbyshire constabulary on the streets of his constituency in the weeks to come.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
I first met Sir David Amess when I entered this House in 2015 and he approached me, as a new Member, to ask how I was and how I was settling in. That conversation captured the essence of Sir David, who was a kind, thoughtful and generous man, always cheerful and smiling. He was dedicated to the service of his constituents, he had passionate beliefs and he worked across party lines on causes that mattered to him and those he served. He was respected and held in affection across the House, and we on the Opposition Benches send our condolences to his wife Julia, and to all his loved ones and parliamentary colleagues.
Sadly, another Member of this House, James Brokenshire, was taken from us too young. I worked with James on a number of security issues, and he was a man of firm beliefs, staunch integrity and unfailing good humour. He pursued causes with passion and respect, and represented politics at its best. We on these Benches send our sympathies to his wife Cathy, and to all his loved ones and parliamentary colleagues.
I would also like to send my best wishes to Lynne Owens, thank her for her work as director general of the National Crime Agency and wish her a swift recovery from her recent surgery.
Mr Speaker, I am grateful to your office and to the Home Secretary for the work on MPs’ security since the heinous crime that was committed on Friday, but I wonder whether she Secretary could offer some more details on the review. Can she confirm when the review she has announced will be completed, and what she will do to ensure that any recommendations are applied consistently by police forces up and down the country?
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Kit Malthouse
I have made a commitment in this House before that we will introduce a new funding formula for police forces across the land before the next election. That is the objective we are currently working towards, although I would warn everybody that all cannot have prizes.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Draft Alcohol Licensing (Coronavirus) (Regulatory Easements) (Amendment) Regulations 2021
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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The Chair
Before we begin, may I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking, which is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission? Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated, as you all have done, and, of course, when entering and leaving. Members should send their speaking notes by email to hansardnotes@parliament.uk, and officials in the Gallery should communicate electronically with Ministers.
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Alcohol Licensing (Coronavirus) (Regulators Easements) (Amendment) Regulations 2021.
I know that every Member of this House will be aware of a hospitality business in their constituency that has closed for good due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Research by Curren Goodden Associates suggests that around 6,000 licensed premises closed in 2020 across Britain, and Members will have heard of many others that are struggling to stay afloat.
This Government have taken a number of measures to support the hospitality industry and other businesses during the pandemic, including the coronavirus job retention scheme, which has paid a proportion of the wages of workers since the first lockdown, a business rates holiday for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses in the 2020-21 tax year, and a recovery loan scheme that supports access to finance for UK businesses as they grow and recover from the disruption of the pandemic.
We also introduced a number of regulatory easements through the Business and Planning Act 2020, among which were temporary measures to make obtaining a pavement licence quicker and easier for those who wish to set up chairs and tables outdoors. A complementary measure on alcohol licensing gave a temporary off-sales permission to 38,000 licensed premises that did not have one.
The draft statutory instrument is relatively modest and contains three measures. The first is an extension for a further year, until 30 September 2022, of the provisions of the Business and Planning Act to allow sales of alcohol for consumption off the premises of licensed premises that did not previously have that permission. The second measure amends the limits prescribed in section 107 of the Licensing Act 2003, increasing from 15 to 20 days the allowance that a premises user can give in respect of a premises for a temporary event notice, and increasing from 21 to 26 days the maximum number of days on which temporary events may be held at such premises in each of the calendar years 2022 and 2023. The increase in premises’ allowance of temporary event notices will allow unlicensed premises to host more revenue-generating events such as wedding receptions and markets where alcohol is sold, as well as enable licensed premises to extend hours to accommodate celebratory occasions. Finally, the draft statutory instrument amends existing the Licensing Act 2003 (Permitted Temporary Activities) (Notices) Regulations 2005, to prescribe revised versions of the relevant forms for temporary event notice and counter-notice.
In the light of Public Health England’s monitoring of trends and consumption during 2020, I would expect our measures to result in a change in where alcohol is consumed, rather than in more people drinking at harmful levels. As we have seen, hospitality businesses across the country are struggling because of the pandemic. Therefore, I hope that the measures to support the industry’s recovery will receive broad support, and I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Kit Malthouse
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Halifax for her support, not least because I am not often called sensible by Members of other parties. She is right that we need to keep the measures under review. Of course, the people who most closely keep them under review are those who live proximate to premises that make use of them. It is worth pointing out that, notwithstanding these easements, the police and, indeed, councils retain their powers under section 76 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 to issue closure notices on premises that are causing a nuisance because of their licence status. There is also, of course, particularly under TENs, an accelerated review process in the event of one being granted and then subsequently resulting in nuisance, but we will of course keep this under review. On that note, I commend the measure to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Local Policing
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
I heartily endorse my hon. Friend’s closing remarks. We offer our eternal thanks to those who keep us safe on a daily basis. I am privileged to see them in operation at close hand, and have done so for more or less the past decade. My admiration for them grows every day. As he said, they have our thanks both individually and collectively, as a United Kingdom body of men and women to be admired and protected.
I commend my hon. Friend for bringing his constituents’ concerns to the Floor of the House. One of the great characteristics of our democracy, which I have outlined to my constituents again and again—not least during the Brexit debates that raged in this country—is that somebody can get hold of us by the lapels in the high street in Andover or in Portlethen, and give us a good shake; then, on a Tuesday evening, we can show up in the House of Commons and grab the Minister responsible by the lapels, and give him or her a good shake; and the Minister in turn can grab the Home Secretary or, indeed, the Prime Minister, and give them a good poke about something that matters to people in a relatively small community. I am hesitant to raise the spectre of Brexit in this debate, but as I said to my constituents at the time of the referendum, “What would the Interior Minister of a new United States of Europe care about the police station in Portlethen or the number of police officers in Andover?” It is marvellous that we are able to bring these issues to the Floor of this House and to debate them with the people who are responsible.
Sadly, though, as my hon. Friend pointed out, in this case I am not my proxy, for policing runs only in England and Wales. I am therefore obviously twice removed in the situation. First, it is obviously a devolved matter. Secondly, it is a matter that falls under operational independence. It is effectively for the chief constable in each area to decide on strategy, workforce planning, and the buildings and vehicles deployed in aid of the protection of the communities they serve. Although they will obviously listen closely to local communities, it is fundamentally their decision. Having said that, I do understand the strong concern that my hon. Friend has raised about the notion of presence. One of the key concerns that we all hear as constituency Members of Parliament is this concern about police presence: the idea that there should be governed, guarded space in the public realm; that every street in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland should be safe for public use so that people can go about their business unmolested; and that the guardians of that should be the police.
This was illustrated to me very strongly back in 2011, when I was deputy Mayor for policing in London and Assembly Member for West Central. There was a horrible murder in Shepherd’s Bush, and the then borough commander in Hammersmith and Fulham—a chap called Kevin Hurley, who went on to be the police and crime commissioner in Surrey—called a public meeting that I attended. There was a row of people at the front of this very large public meeting, with 300 people there, and one of the issues that came up was the fact that Shepherd’s Bush Green police station was not open 24 hours a day; it was closed at night and people were concerned about it. Kevin said, “That’s great: I will reopen the police station if you want me to. Now tell me, which police officers would you like me to bring in off patrol to man the desk?” Of course the audience said, “No, no—we don’t want you to do that.” He then said, rather smartly, “Well, why don’t we leave the lights on so it looks like it’s open?” They thought that was a jolly good idea because the police station was a proxy for presence. It was as important to them as I know the police station in Portlethen is to my hon. Friend’s constituents.
By the way, while that might not be a suitable building, it is a small, handsome stone building with a great history to it, as my hon. Friend said, as part of the former Grampian police, so I can see why there is disappointment locally that it may be closing. I know that he is engaging very closely with Police Scotland and has been quite innovative in his suggestions of a replacement—not least, I understand, some presence in the local Asda, which might also be a useful proxy for a police station and somewhere that police officers could operate from. However, as I say, I am twice removed from that decision. I urge him and his constituents to keep up that engagement with Police Scotland, not least because, if the police station does go, that underlines the need for, exactly as he said, a strong presence on the streets of Portlethen, as he wants across the whole of his very beautiful constituency.
I urge my hon. Friend to keep pushing on this, not least because in England and Wales there is a desire, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) mentioned, that we are trying to fulfil with the recruitment of 20,000 extra police officers. Of course, that is 20,000 gross. The overall recruitment over three years will in the end, to backfill retirements, need to be about 45,000. That will push many police forces up to levels of policing that they have not seen for some time. On top of that, a lot of police and crime commissioners are recruiting beyond their allocation from the police uplift so that some parts of the country will have more police officers than ever before. The Kent constabulary, for example, can already boast that it has the highest number of police officers that it has ever had in its history.
In response to the hon. Gentleman’s challenge, which is a fair one, I urge him to look to his police and crime commissioner to do the same as a number of other commissioners and put their money behind their own part of the recruitment campaign. West Midlands is doing well. There is a large allocation of new police officers coming, but there is always more that can be done. I urge him to support us in trying to get the maximum number of police officers we can for the money that is allowed to us.
I am very pleased that my hon. Friend underlined the integral nature of Police Scotland—the vital part that it plays in the architecture of UK policing. It is absolutely the case that, while the governance and accountability framework for Police Scotland is devolved, its role in the safety of the whole United Kingdom is absolutely critical. UK policing can only succeed or fail as a whole. This was neatly outlined to us—I was pleased that he mentioned it—with the advent of Operation Venetic. This extraordinary operation—a magnificent achievement by the National Crime Agency, which of course works across the whole of the UK—cracked open the bespoke criminal communications system known as Encrochat. It revealed some awful horrors across the whole of the United Kingdom that we were able to get ahead of. Chief among them was the targeting of Scotland by organised crime specifically for the trafficking of drugs. My hon. Friend mentioned some of the remarkable results that continue to come from the intelligence gathered as part of that operation.
The most impactful result for me was that, as part of Operation Venetic, Kent constabulary was able to bust open a factory in its county that was manufacturing street benzos—benzodiazepines—specifically for use in Scotland, where they are a plague in places such as Glasgow, causing so many drug deaths, which are a terrible tragedy in Scotland. They were being manufactured for export to Scotland. As part of that raid, the police recovered 27 million tablets, which for a country of 6.5 million people is quite a few tablets each and a hell of a lot of money that would have been drained out of Glasgow, all of it leading to degradation and misery north of the border. The role that UK policing can play together, particularly to suppress drug supply and take on organised crime, and the critical nature of Police Scotland in that, has never been more important.
I was very pleased just a few weeks ago to pay a very interesting visit to Police Scotland to see the work that it is doing, not least at Gartcosh, its crime campus. I am very impressed by the work it does and by the leadership of Police Scotland at the moment, but I am convinced that there is always more we can do together, not least because the drugs problem in Scotland—the solving of which is as dear to my heart as solving it in Andover or anywhere else in England and Wales—is one we will only crack together. Scotland has some advantages, in that the ability of gangs to get drugs into Scotland is restricted. There are basically two roads in and two rail lines in, give or take, which gives us enormous opportunities for interception, but the greater sharing of technology, the putting together of our heads and the binding of our efforts as one United Kingdom to confront this plague and crime will be successful. That is a key part of our “Beating crime plan”, which we published just before the recess, making sure that we work together as a whole country in fighting crime, at the same time as getting the basics right.
One of the chapters in our “Beating crime plan” is about excellence in the basics, and it speaks to the desire of local policing. You, Mr Deputy Speaker, I and every Member in this House want to ensure that our constituents know they are safe, feel safe and see that they are safe on a daily basis, because the brave men and women of Police Scotland, Hampshire police, West Midlands police, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and all those police forces are able to be out there, visible, doing their job and protecting us all for the good of the whole.
I do not think that my hon. Friend should in the slightest apologise for bringing this matter before the House. This is what we are here for. If we are not here to talk about the problems, worries and concerns of our individual constituents, what on earth is the point?
Question put and agreed to.
Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group: Annual Report
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
My noble Friend the Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) has today made the following written statement:
I am pleased to announce the publication of the 4th annual report of the Biometrics and Forensic Ethics Group on 20 July 2021. The group provides Ministers with independent advice on matters relating to ethical issues in forensic science and biometrics and considers issues in data ethics.
I would like to thank the group for their advice concerning the use and retention of biometric identifiers and for their advice on the development and testing of biometric technologies.
The BFEG has published two reports this year; on the feasibility of using genetic genealogy techniques to assist with criminal investigations by UK law enforcement; and on the ethical issues arising from public-private collaborative use of live facial recognition technology. The group has also updated its ethical principles for the development and use of biometric and forensic technologies and the use of large datasets.
The group continues to provide valuable advice and guidance: on policy changes relating to the use of the National DNA Database; in support of the Home Office Biometrics programme; and for projects involving large data sets or machine learning applications. The group also provided advice on a leaflet for arrestees explaining their rights regarding deletion of custody images.
The Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group annual report can be viewed on the website of the group at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/biometrics-and-forensics-ethics-group
and a copy will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
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