Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 435 and, of course, I support Amendment 438A from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, in this group. I remind the Committee that I served as the elected Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicestershire and Rutland for five years between 2016 and 2021. I welcome this initiative by the Police Federation of England and Wales. I am proud to say that its present chair, Tiff Lynch, is a Leicestershire police officer, whom I can call a friend.

As Police and Crime Commissioner, I was responsible for the well-being—this is true of all Police and Crime Commissioners but perhaps not widely known—of only one person: the chief constable. However, as any Police and Crime Commissioner would be, I was concerned in a broader sense with the well-being of all those who worked for Leicestershire Police, whether officers or staff. During my time, one senior officer took his own life in obviously tragic circumstances and, since I left office, there has been another suicide, this time of a very recently retired senior officer.

I am afraid to say that over the last 30 years there have been four senior officer suicides in that force. I do not have any information concerning police staff, but I remember clearly, and will not easily forget, the deep and lasting distress caused to all at police headquarters and in the community beyond by the death of the officer who took his own life in my time.

I must confess to not knowing at the time that all police forces were not compelled by law to pass on information about suicide or attempted suicide. I imagine I presumed that they were compelled to do so. It is surely obvious—it certainly is to me—that there should be mandatory reporting. I cannot for the life of me understand why that has not been the position until now. That is why I support these amendments and urge the Minister, with his great knowledge of policing matters, to express the Government’s acceptance of the principle behind these amendments.

It almost goes without saying that police staff who perform such a vital and necessary role can be subject to enormous pressures that we sometimes do not even know about and are rightly included in the mandatory reporting. This is a reform that should not be delayed. The Bill is a useful vehicle for bringing in what should have been there a long time ago.