Metropolitan Police: Misconduct

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I could not agree more with my noble friend and I am grateful for the opportunity to pay tribute to the vast majority of our police men and women in the Met and indeed across the whole country. They do a very difficult and often thankless job in often very difficult conditions, and they do it to a very high standard. I thank my noble friend for the opportunity to say that, and I thank those officers. I am sure that they are equally upset by this report’s findings.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, it may well be that the problems identified in the Casey report go beyond the Metropolitan Police. On this side of the House, we believe that the Home Secretary needs to personally take action. Will she now require all police forces to produce data and analysis of their misconduct systems in the same level of detail as in the Casey report, so that we can know what is happening in every police force in England and Wales?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord makes some sensible suggestions and I refer back to the review that I referenced in my Answer to the original Question. I will quote the Statement made by the Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire:

“The Government will work closely with key policing stakeholders to examine evidence of the effectiveness of the system to remove those who are not fit to serve the public. As well as examining the overall effectiveness of dismissal arrangements”,


he expects the review to consider

“the impact of the introduction of Legally Qualified Chairs to decide misconduct cases; whether decisions made by Misconduct Panels are consistent across all 43 forces in England and Wales; and whether forces are making effective use of their powers to dismiss officers on probation. This focused review will be launched shortly and will be conducted swiftly.”—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/22; col. 22WS.]