Former Chief Constables: Gross Misconduct Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Cormack
Main Page: Lord Cormack (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Cormack's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberI join the noble Lord in praising my noble friend’s commendable tenacity on this subject. Regarding the circumstances the noble Lord describes, I was not aware of them. Of course, he will also be aware that we have launched a review, which concludes this month, into the whole misconduct and dismissals process. With a bit of luck, it will report back in the next month or two, according to the Policing Minister in the other place. It will include a number of these issues, and I hope that will be dealt with then.
My Lords, if there were a gold medal for stonewalling, my noble friend would deserve to win it. The answers that he gives are obfuscatory and reveal nothing. Will he please consider again the questions asked by both my noble friend Lord Lexden and the noble Lord, Lord Bach? Will he also reflect on the point that came up during the debate we had in the Moses Room a week or two ago? I suggested to him, and he completely ignored the suggestion, that we should have a police ombudsman in this country: somebody who can exercise the sort of authority—dispassionate and impartial—exercised by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, in Northern Ireland.
I thank my noble friend for his praise, which is very welcome. I remember that debate in Grand Committee and I am afraid I did not ignore his suggestion; I dismissed it. In fact, a number of bodies oversee policing, including the College of Policing, the IOPC, HMICFRS and a variety of other alphabet-soup organisations.