Metropolitan Police: Stephen Port Murders Inquest

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

First, it is not the case that this matter is not being investigated further. As I have outlined several times, a number of lines of inquiry are being pursued, both about the Met’s investigation generally and its culture more specifically, and the IOPC may or may not reopen the investigation into the officers. So it is not the case that this has reached some kind of dead end, as some Opposition Members seem to be implying. It is simply not true to say that we are not bending every sinew to try to identify those who are likely to murder, in all different circumstances, whether domestic or through drugs—whatever the circumstances are. As I say, just last week I sat the seven biggest forces down and we had a three-hour session to look at what more work we could do to identify those who are likely to go on to commit such crimes: what their precursor behaviour is; what indications there are in their background; what data pools we could put together, whether that is their background offending or intelligence about them, that would give us clues towards what they were likely to do and allow us to intervene before. That enormous project of work has been under way for two years, and I hope and believe it will drive down murder numbers in the next few years to come. It is very unfair to accuse us of not taking these murders extremely seriously—that is exactly what we are doing and we are determined to make sure that they do not happen again.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

We have seen the Daniel Morgan, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman cases, the Sarah Everard case and then the resulting vigil, the fiasco at Wembley and now this shocking set of gay murders—the Minister has not said that word.

[Kit Malthouse]

I have.

[Dr Huq]

I do not think the Minister has said it. In any case, the list of bunglings under this Metropolitan Police Commissioner this year alone seems endless, and they date back to 2005, with the shoot-to-kill Jean Charles de Menezes operation. May I ask that as well as the inspection that the Minister mentions, he undertakes a full statutory inquiry, with teeth, into the entire Met police and, although it may sound unsisterly to say so, its leadership? That should be a priority for whoever steps into the shoes of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) as Chair of the Committee on Wednesday.