Police: Vetting, Misconduct and Misogyny

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

It is, and I agree with the noble Lord entirely that it is completely unacceptable to have those people in our police forces. The fact is that the chiefs need to take immediate action to ensure that vetting is prioritised in their forces and the public can therefore have confidence in them. It is the responsibility of the individual police forces; they are responsible for their own vetting decisions, which they should take in accordance with guidance from the College of Policing. Frankly, I agree with the noble Lord: it is incredibly disappointing—worse than disappointing —that, despite some progress, previous warnings about vetting have not been acted upon. Chiefs must make clear to the vetting units the high standards they expect from them. There is no excuse for poorly recording the rationale in the vetting decisions.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, this is yet another devastating report on the police service—devastating particularly for female victims, who will be wondering whether they can trust the officer who arrives when they call the police, and devastating for the majority of decent hard-working police officers, who have again been let down by successive Conservative Governments and their own senior officers. Every single time there is mass recruitment in the police service, more of the wrong people slip through the vetting net, and police misconduct, corruption and criminality increase. It happened in the mid-1970s and in the mid-2000s, and it is happening again now. Will the Government tell the police that quality is more important than quantity, and will they give police chiefs the legislation they need to enable them to deal effectively with corrupt officers?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am not entirely sure I share the noble Lord’s analysis of the quality problem. The fact is that a new online application process has been introduced, replacing an old assessment centre system called SEARCH. The new process operates according to national guidelines and it has been reasonably successful so far. Some 83,500 candidates were invited to complete the assessment; 58,000 have had their results marked and 42,500 have been successful—that is 73.55%. It is not just online; all the candidates have to pass each stage of the recruitment process, which includes assessment centres, vetting, medical assessments and fitness tests—there are lots of face-to-face aspects of the process. I am not convinced that an uplift in numbers affects quality.