Law Enforcement Agencies: Duty of Candour

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I did not hear all of my noble friend’s question, but I think he was talking about police officers being prosecuted, suspended, forced to resign or sacked. Between December 2017, when the police barred list was established, and 2020, a total of 117 officers and 18 special constables from the Metropolitan Police service were dismissed and added to the police barred list. The College of Policing breaks this down by category, but there is no single category for corruption. We do not intend to collect data on police suspensions, as that is obviously a matter for individual chief officers, but I can tell my noble friend that the Home Office is currently amending its data collection on police misconduct and we intend to publish data in greater detail from this autumn.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, although the duty of candour has to be organised in ways that do not compromise either national security or police intelligence gathering against serious crime, is it not very important to move in this direction? We have had police officers making a small industry out of selling information to the media, while other police officers were withholding information essential to discovering what had happened in this dreadful murder case.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

What is also important to recognise, as I said to the noble Baroness, is how things have changed. It is 34 years ago; that is an awfully long time for the family to have had to wait, but there has been the introduction of a code of ethics for the police, and Section 35 of the Inquiries Act 2005 makes it an offence to commit acts that have the effect of distorting, altering or preventing evidence being given. I understand that this is obviously not a statutory inquiry, but clear standards of professional conduct for the police have been introduced in relatively recent years.