Metropolitan Police: Casey Review

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

The turnaround plan deals specifically with how to institute a better framework so that people who are on the receiving end of unacceptable behaviour can report incidents in the knowledge that they will not be penalised for doing so, and ensuring that those who are perpetrators of, or responsible for, unacceptable behaviour receive meaningful sanction and are no longer permitted to wear the badge.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

While there are many dedicated and decent police officers who serve our capital with integrity and professionalism, Londoners’ confidence in the Met police will be utterly shattered by the horrors and systemic failures revealed in Baroness Casey’s report—and I dare say that the party political point scoring we are hearing from the Dispatch Box will not help. Does the Home Secretary really think that next time I visit a school or college in my constituency, I shall be able to look a young woman or person of colour in the eye and tell them to pick up the phone to the police when they are in danger, or indeed consider a career in the Met?

[Suella Braverman]

The report is scathing in tracking and describing incidents of misogyny and the way in which confidence has been broken among women and girls, and it is therefore vital that we work with the Met police to restore that confidence. The Soteria programme, to which Baroness Casey expressly refers, must be rolled out and implemented meaningfully when it comes to the investigation and prosecution of rape and serious sexual offences. We are already seeing some improvement in police referrals of rape complaints to the Crown Prosecution Service, but it is clear that, although we are on the right track, more must be done.