Police Leadership Commission Report

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The report is really strong on the importance of good ethical policing so that we can reset our police leadership culture around high performance, cutting crime, keeping people safe and, on top of that, preparing for the challenges that lie ahead. As we know, the force has not been forward-looking enough in the equipment and training provided to tackle new forms of crime. In addition, we have a very young force: as of March last year, a third of our whole police cohort had been in the police for less than five years, so building experience through an ethical framework is important.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

The report finds structural issues within police forces, with fragmented and inconsistent systems that do not make the most of our police talent. If an officer sees cronyism, nepotism and abuse of power around them, they will not have their future career at the top of their mind or trying to break through that system. Given the impending Government reorganisation, how will whichever Home Officer Ministers are in place under the new Prime Minister ensure that the proposed police reorganisation puts strong systems in place, so that there is effective police leadership and development and we break out of the situation that has developed?

[Sarah Jones]

The reform that we have set out more broadly, not just in today’s report, is uncontested in many ways—some aspects are contested, but others are not. There is cross-party and cross-policing agreement about setting up a national police service and on having a more hyper-local focus, ensuring that the public can expect that acquisitive crimes that go unsolved are responded to in the way that they expect. Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe’s current work—as the hon. Gentleman says, it will straddle the periods of two Prime Ministers—is looking at the layers between police forces. There are different ways to approach that issue and we are working through all of them, but I do not think that anyone would disagree with the fundamental premise that, if we do not reform policing, we will not end up with a force that can face the future in the way that we need it to.