Police Leadership Commission Report

Debate between Oliver Dowden and Sarah Jones

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head, because no police officer should fear that. The reforms suggested in the report are there to support officers and staff to move through the force in a way that gives them the skills and training that they need to do the job that we have asked them to do. That is at the core of what we are trying to do. In relation to his remarks about his Conservative police and crime commissioner, we made the difficult decision to remove police and crime commissioners—that was a hard thing for them to hear, for obvious reasons. They have consistently continued to work with me and the Home Office, to help with the reforms and to keep giving their ideas and time, and I am very grateful to them for that.

[Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that a big part of the leadership malaise outlined in this report can be attributed to the lack of clarity from this place and the Government about what we expect of the police? While this report is welcome, the definition of police leadership in paragraph 90 runs to almost two pages.

Does the Minister agree that, in essence, this is about two things? First, this is about cutting crime. Too often, the leadership of the police is focused on being all-purpose social workers trying to solve every problem in society, leading to the extraordinary situation in which social media is policed more aggressively than shoplifting or burglary. Secondly, this is about having officers’ backs. Too often, police officers fear acting, because they will be hung out to dry if they make the wrong call. I am afraid we saw exactly that this weekend in the extraordinary scenes at the Pride march, where there was explicit antisemitism and people directly attacking Jews while the police stood back and watched. We have to achieve a cultural change. Does the Minister agree with those objectives?

[Sarah Jones]

I agree. The police have a duty to police without fear or favour, and that needs to be absolute. Everybody is equal under the law. I suspect that over the years, political decisions might have been made that may have made that job harder for the police. However, I do not agree with the right hon. Member’s analysis of what good leadership is. There are many different ways to cut crime and have officers’ backs, so I would not say that he has hit the nail on the head.

We expect our officers to cut crime and to keep people safe. We can all agree on that, because that is what we need people to do, but the question is about how we do that. How has leadership been so poor over the years that we are not achieving that outcome? It may be that decisions made in this place are partially to blame, but it cannot be right that, for example, out of 140,000 officers and many thousands more staff, only about 500 officers and staff will start a centrally delivered national leadership programme this year. We cannot be designing good leadership when we are not training people how to do it.