Police: Employment and Discipline

Lord German Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I have said, we will be publishing the terms of reference in that review very shortly. The current system provides routes for chief constables to dismiss officers through accelerated hearings, as I have just outlined.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary’s report, published last November, said that

“it is too easy for the wrong people both to join and to stay in the police.”

One of the recommendations was that any candidate for the police should have a face-to-face interview with existing police officers. When that was put to the Minister in the other House, it was said that there was an expectation that that would happen. Does the Minister agree that the inspectorate has put forward a requirement, not a recommendation, for some action to take place?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

From memory, there is a face-to-face aspect to the vetting and interviewing process—if I am wrong on that, I will come back and correct myself. On the report to which the noble Lord referred, he will be aware that there is a requirement for policing bodies to provide a response to the recommendations in that report within 56 days of its publication. Those responses will be imminent, in that case.