Metropolitan Police Service

Paul Goggins Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Indeed. My hon. Friend makes a very important point. As I said at the police bravery awards a couple of weeks ago, we have the finest police officers in the world—I believe that—but it is our duty to all those honourable, hard-working police officers and staff across the country to ensure that we get to the bottom of these allegations and sort this all out.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The year 2012 was always going to be a very challenging one for the Metropolitan police, with the Olympic games, with convicted terrorists returning home from prison, and with relocated suspects being allowed to go back to their own homes. Given the events of the past 24 hours, will the Home Secretary now give urgent consideration to delaying the implementation of the new, weaker terrorism prevention measures in order to reduce risk and give the new commissioner time to prepare properly?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that the package that was agreed involves not just the TPIMs—terrorism prevention and investigation measures—but extra money, with tens of millions of pounds for the Security Service and the police to put in place extra surveillance so that they are able to mitigate any risk that has come about through the change in those orders. Yes, next year will be a challenging year. The Met police have themselves accepted and said publicly that it will be a very challenging time for them in having to ensure the security and safety of the Olympics. That has been worked on for several years—it is under the very competent leadership of Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison—and extremely good work has been done, but we continue, of course, to ensure that we are putting in place what is necessary to do what we all want to do, which is to ensure that everybody can enjoy a secure and successful games.