Nick Raynsford
Main Page: Nick Raynsford (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)Department Debates - View all Nick Raynsford's debates with the Home Office
(12 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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While recognising both the progress that has been made in the Metropolitan police since the Macpherson inquiry and the determination of the current commissioner to root out corruption and racism in the Met, as a south-east London MP—whose constituency is very close to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), who raised the urgent question, and in whose constituency Stephen Lawrence was murdered—the Minister will, I am sure, recognise that the legacy of this case has had a corrosive effect on the local community’s confidence in the integrity of the police, and that nothing less than a genuinely independent examination of these latest allegations will suffice.
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I am under no illusions as to the impact this appalling case has had within the south-east London community, and more broadly, and the need for proper examination. That is what is happening in the current corruption investigation that the Metropolitan police are undertaking. We judge it to be appropriate for that to be followed through, and for the report on that to go to the Home Secretary and for the Home Secretary to decide what steps might then be appropriate in the light of that report.