Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

If a strip-search is deemed necessary to be undertaken on a child, then an appropriate adult, whether a parent or otherwise, has to be present. [Interruption.] Indeed, they were not in this case, and the question we have to ask ourselves is why—what went wrong? Why did the officers do what they did? Why did they decide to have two present? What were they doing? We will know that from the IOPC report. Once we have that, as I say, we will have the full picture and we will be able to look at it accordingly.

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

In 2019, Cressida Dick said that police officers should be

“embedded in the DNA of schools”,

and we have seen how that massively failed Child Q in this disgusting case. How far has the search for Cressida Dick’s replacement gone? We have heard that she is clinging on, haggling over her settlement. The Minister blamed Sadiq Khan. Could there be additional safeguards for Parliament in this process? The Met’s workload is of national significance; it is not just a normal police force. Could we have an urgent review of the boundaries of cops in schools?

[Kit Malthouse]

I did not blame the Mayor of London—I just pointed out that he has as much influence, if not more, over the Metropolitan police than we do. I was the deputy Mayor for policing. If this had happened under me, I would have taken responsibility for it and tried to sort it out myself. I am just saying that the Government and City Hall will have a duty to work together on this issue.

As for police officers’ involvement in schools, it is, I am afraid, a source of great sadness that it is necessary for police officers to be involved in and around schools, but we have found over the years that such is the problem with youth violence and youth crime, particularly in the capital, that creating a good relationship with young people through the police’s involvement in schools is critical to success, and where it works, it can be of enormous benefit to their safety.