Police Federation Reform (Normington Report)

Michael Ellis Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) and the excellent speeches of hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is clear that something is very wrong in the national Police Federation, and has been for some time. The continual drip-drip effect is reaching its zenith—or, should I say, its nadir—and is causing considerable embarrassment and distress to the rank and file officers of a noble and honourable profession that has brought, and continues to bring, great honour to this country.

Our police service is genuinely the best in the world. It deals with extremely severe threats and incidents. It deals daily with historic episodes and threats to the state and security of this nation, and it does so without being armed and by consent. I am very proud of the profession, and we all can be very proud of it, which is why the Police Federation’s dysfunction is a humiliation to rank and file officers throughout the country. Many officers have told me that if they did not feel that they needed the protection of an organisation such as the federation in case they should get into trouble, they would not choose to be members of it and to pay the exorbitant dues that have caused it to become bloated.

The Police Federation may have started nobly in 1919, but owing to several recent scandals and cover-ups, it has lost that nobility. An opinion poll released only today, which has been the subject of media attention, indicates that a third of people have lost confidence in the police. The lowest level of trust in the police ever now subsists in this country. In large measure, that is due to the disgraceful misconduct of previous leaderships of the federation.

I have had dealings with police officers and my local Northamptonshire federation. They do a good job, but we have to address the egregious examples about which we have heard in the debate before they cause even greater damage to this country and its reputation.

As for the incident at the gates of Downing street, if my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), then a Cabinet Minister, can be traduced in such a way, in such a location and in such circumstances, what hope is there for any of our constituents, without that authority and without the resources to defend themselves?

The review, chaired by Sir David Normington, has done a good job. It was set up to examine signal failures within the federation. Its report, which was delivered a couple of months ago, found fault with almost every aspect of the federation’s operations. I cannot recall a report that was quite so damning. Federation tactics have been a particular source of shame, and I am appalled that, despite the publication of the report in January, they are still going on.

The report states that

“many from outside have criticised its tactics particularly in responding to the Winsor review.”

That was about police pay. The federation

“has too often fallen back on its traditional tendency to attack and try to undermine those who are proposing the changes, rather than take on the issues…This constitutes a strategic failure; the politics of personal attack and shouting has proved to be a wrong-headed response.”

It goes on to say:

“The Federation should be a powerful voice for standards in British policing but at present it is badly placed to be that voice. Throughout our inquiry we have heard allegations that some Federation representatives who have personally targeted successive Home Secretaries, Andrew Mitchell, Tom Winsor and others, bringing the Federation into disrepute and risking the police reputation for impartiality and integrity. We have also been given evidence of bad behaviour within, including poor treatment of staff at HQ and the targeting of representatives in social media, at Conference and elsewhere simply because they hold a different point of view. If the Federation wants to be respected and listened to in the future, this has to stop.”

These are nothing more than bully-boy tactics from those who are in a position to be bullies, and who are hiding behind their position to intimidate others, including democratically elected representatives. It is intolerable that successive Home Secretaries should be subject to this level of personal attack and abuse. The federation is incapable of making the arguments. That is the only explanation for such personal attacks.

I agree with the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield has been entirely vindicated. I was a barrister in criminal practice for more than 15 years, but the police case was so undermined that no case could rest on it. I understand that my right hon. Friend has already received an apology, and rightly so, from several chief constables, and several police officers now face internal misconduct or gross misconduct charges and one has gone to prison. However, I am appalled, as I know the House will be, that the federation is even now funding litigation that seeks to keep this matter alive.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman will remember the evidence given to the Committee by the officers from West Mercia, Warwickshire and West Midlands police, whom he cross-examined extremely effectively. He will recall that they had the opportunity to draw a line. Does he not agree that that could be done, even at this late stage, to bring the whole sorry episode to a conclusion?

[Michael Ellis]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who leads the way in putting Select Committees at the forefront of getting to the issues in this Parliament. An apology is still due, and he is right that those officers’ conduct and appearance before the Committee, on which we both have the honour to sit, was an embarrassment to the Police Federation. I have asked for an inquiry in the Home Affairs Committee, to which the right hon. Gentleman has already alluded, partly because of that, and partly because of the repeated episodes that we still hear and read about in the media. For example, the chairman of the Police Federation told the Committee that he did not know the exact figure, but he agreed with my suggestion that there were tens of millions of pounds in the No. 2 accounts. We do not have the answers. These are enormous sums, some of which have been funded by a huge 20% uplift in constables’ dues to the Police Federation. It is a shocking indictment. Meanwhile, £26 million has been spent on a luxurious headquarters that looks like something out of science fiction. Apparently, senior federation officials travelled to Italy to source the right slate for part of the edifice of that structure. Expense accounts have not been published and salaries are not fully disclosed. According to media reports that appear almost daily, Police Federation officials are misconducting themselves, embarrassing themselves, and behaving extremely improperly in regard to their conduct and expenses.

But it is the bully-boy tactics that most concern me, as they will concern hon. Members on both sides of the House. Ninety-one per cent. of members of the Police Federation—an extremely high figure; it is almost unprecedented in opinion polls to get 91% of people to agree with anything—of tens of thousands who apparently answered the questions, want change in their own federation. This change is not being driven by the House or by one political party; this is a cross-party issue and it is being driven by the members of the Police Federation, who want and need change. I do not think that I have ever agreed with the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) quite as much as I did when he spoke today.

Policing is an honourable and great profession. We owe the police a great deal, and that is why we want to see their leadership within the Police Federation changed, changed soon, and changed for the better.