Lord Blair of Boughton
Main Page: Lord Blair of Boughton (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Blair of Boughton's debates with the Home Office
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I agree with, and congratulate, the Home Secretary and the Home Office team on a great deal of this Statement. A clear wind of change needs to blow through the police service and it is to be welcomed. A great deal, but not all—I will not tire the House with a view on PCCs; the Minister and I have discussed that enough. My question refers to an odd phrasing in the Statement that I have never come across before. The phrase of “sealed investigations”—I use that term in inverted commas—into police corruption. The police service, especially the Met, has for years carried out secret and successful investigations into police corruption.
I was talking about the Statement to the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller. We agreed that her officers had assisted the Met in some of those inquiries. I carried out an overt inquiry into police corruption which led to prosecution and convictions at the Old Bailey. The idea that I would have withheld the information I was receiving from the man in charge of running the police service from the top, who at the time was the noble Lord, Lord Condon, would be unthinkable. I ask the noble Lord to ensure that those charged with this initiative seek to learn from the previous experience of those who have spent most of their lives investigating police and other corruption, including some of those who sit in your Lordships’ House.
I am very happy to take the noble Lord’s advice on that matter. What he had to say was very interesting.