Police National Computer

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I do not know whether I ought to be taking offence at the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion of my obvious lack of suitability to appear before such an esteemed audience as Her Majesty’s Opposition, given their seeming obsession with the Home Secretary. I would have thought the most important thing was to ensure that the integrity of police data is as good as it can be and that the police are in the best position possible to fight crime. As I outlined in my statement—for the hon. Gentleman’s sake, I will say it once again—we are in the process of making sure that we understand the scale of the problem and then putting in place rectification and retrieving the data that is required. The stage that follows that is learning exactly the lesson that he wants us to learn, which is how we can ensure this it does not happen again.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con) [V]]

I thank my hon. Friend for updating the House; he is more than capable of doing this. A previous shadow Home Secretary stated in the Chamber in 2018:

“The state has no business keeping records on people who are not criminals.”—[Official Report, 11 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 640.]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the outcry from the Opposition Benches is indeed in contrast to that statement?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend, in his usual forthright way, identifies the perhaps interesting relationship that Opposition Members have had with UK policing and, indeed, the data and intelligence tools required by the police to put them in the best position to fight crime. I know that he and I will stand shoulder to shoulder, whatever the Opposition might say, to ensure that British policing gets the best technology and information it needs to ensure that it can fight crime in my constituency and in his, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, as it has been doing over the past 12 months.